Takin’ My Time on My Ride

There’s truly nothing more attractive than an on-ride photo, is there?  Those are the pictures theme parks snap of you at the minute and a half mark of a two minute ride when your hair is either all up in your face or swept back like you’ve been electrocuted, or maybe you nearly tossed your cookies three loops back and now you’re hanging on for nauseatingly dear life.  I have a particular knack for emerging from all rides looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger on Mars in Total Recall.  As a society, we should really begin using these photos for our government-issued ID; it would certainly beat the “Hello, I’m a blank psychopath!” pics currently in circulation, would it not?

But back to life on Mars.  The other day I discussed the Memory Maker photography package my husband and I purchased during our Christmastime trip to Disney World.  This package afforded us unlimited digital access to the hundreds upon hundreds of photos we had taken of us by Disney’s official in-park photographers, as well as the character meet-and-greets and, of course, these laugh-inducing on-ride pics.  Next year’s Christmas card is legitimately a toss-up between the one where I’m pretending to Force-lift Mr. Finger Candy into the air (or am I pretending…?) and this one on Space Mountain where he looks like he’s about to hurl into his tri-cornered pirate hat.

To be fair to my husband, who looks to be in far worse shape than I in that picture, Space Mountain, an indoor roller coaster at the Magic Kingdom that takes place in hugely disorienting near-darkness, is a rough, rough ride.  “Um, Sandra,” you may be saying to yourself, “didn’t you say at Halloween that Space Mountain kicked your ass so hard, you’d never ride it again?”  Hey, you sound just like my mom, who rightfully questioned whether her daughter and son-in-law had terrifically short memories, or were just a couple of idiot masochists.  Little from column A, little from column B, I think!

We did it all over again the following day at Hollywood Studios with a first-thing-in-the-morning ride of Aerosmith’s Rock’n’ Roller Coaster, presented by Hanes.  Mr. Finger Candy and I have concluded that they are the Rock’n’ Roller Coaster’s sponsor primarily because if you aren’t ready for that 0-60 MPH in 2.8-second launch, you’re probably going to shit yourself and will absolutely need an additional pair of Hanes.  And here’s where we get into that Arnold Schwarzenegger thing.  Like, where even ARE my eyes?!

I redeemed my cool outside somewhat by paying homage to Steven Tyler’s formerly missing fingers.  Bit of an inside Disney joke here – in a little pre-ride show segment, the band addresses you, the audience, noting that they’d like to bring all 50 or so of you along to their upcoming show, but there’s just not enough room in the limo.  That’s when Steven Tyler, struck with inspiration, throws up an enthusiastic Sign of the Devil (you know them better as metal devil hands; see above) and declares that they’re gonna need a super-super-super stretch limo, and extra quick.  I’ve never paid a bit of attention to the gesture beyond “Oh, that kooky Steven Tyler” and I never really thought anyone else did either, but apparently Disney thought enough about it that after something like 15 years of Steven Tyler rawkin’ out, they digitally added in two new middle fingers three or four years ago.  Lame.  Unclench just a smidge, Disney, it would do you some good.

As always, Splash Mountain at the Magic Kingdom was good for a hosing.  There are these adorable warnings posted all throughout the line suggesting that you MAY get wet, like it’s not some sort of foregone conclusion when your boat arrives and you sit down straight into the two inches of water the previous occupants left behind.  Also when you’ve been condemned to the front row of a flume ride that concludes with a 52-foot nosedive into a brier patch.  We got soaked!

Here I am on Expedition Everest at the Animal Kingdom practicing a wise friend’s advice that if you’re screaming, you can’t throw up.

I came perilously close to disproving that theory, however.  Turns out this pretty hardcore coaster, a first-time ride for both of us (which concludes with a huge Yeti animatronic swooping down from the cavern ceilings) GOES BACKWARDS for what is probably only 10 seconds, but really feels more like two hours.  I don’t backwards bueno AT ALL, and neither does my husband, who later told me that he thought we were going to go upside down whilst still hurtling backwards.  Just typing that is making me feel ill. 😦 Here we are beforehand posing by Fauxverest in a cute enhanced photo.  Look how confident and oblivious and not vomiting we look!  We just have no idea what we’re walking into.

Here we are riding Frozen Ever After at Epcot, which also goes backwards, although I submit it’s far more pleasant toodling backwards along a gentle boat ride based off a beloved animated movie than it is hurtling (or is that hurling?) through the semi-darkness in reverse at 45 MPH.  Just one nauseated person’s opinion (I regrettably had a lot of trouble this trip with motion sickness, a surprisingly unwelcome new addition to my aging constitution.)  Frozen Ever After was great (the Elsa and Anna projection animatronics were jaw-droppingly next level) but short, short, short!  Maybe a minute and 45 seconds from start to finish?  That’s perhaps a tad too short to justify this ride’s perpetual two-hour wait times.  I’d say outside of Flight of Passage at the Animal Kingdom, Frozen Ever After is Disney’s second most popular attraction.  I managed to make 9:40 pm FastPasses for this one, and I was glad to have them.

And now how about a little Terror time?  The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is an old favourite, more so now that you receive these cool after-ride videos!  We had an awesome elevator full of fellow doomed souls on our way to the Twilight Zone – everybody was having a goofy good time (look at the guy on the left who’s thrown himself up against the back wall!) and nobody’s shrieking or flipping off the camera (that’s the number one way to get kicked out of the parks, by the way.  I thought it would have been having sex behind the little Dutch kids on It’s a Small World, although neither seems advisable.)

It’s also one of the most gorgeous buildings on property.  On Christmas Eve when we visited, the early morning mist was just beginning to clear around the top of the building; it was breathtakingly gloomy.

I’ve no idea why this picture from Pirates of the Caribbean is surrounded by this ornate frame, but it really adds to my laid back swagger and my husband’s enthusiastic “Yaaaarrrr!” (which yes, is coming across here sort of like he maybe recently ate too much cheese.)  The frame also takes away from the fact that that cool skeleton captain in the background is a real animatronic, and a badass one at that.  I was sort of afraid of that thing when I was a kid; way more scared of it than anything I encountered on the Haunted Mansion.

Getting cocky on dual rides of Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin.

And finally, here I am getting flashy with my hands on Dinosaur at the Animal Kingdom.  I know exactly where the camera is on this ride, and I wanted to do my very best impression of a terrified movie heroine, but my timing was off by a fraction of a second.  Too much windup!

I hope you enjoyed this peek at some of the on-ride fun we had on our Disney vacation.  That is if you’ve stopped laughing at the myriad of elongated insanity faces I can apparently make over the course of five-plus days.  Thanks for sharing in the magic. 🙂

What a Character!

On our Christmas trip to Disney we met an absolute ton of characters.  This was partly a function of the crowd levels – the lineups for the meet-and-greets were usually half that of the rides – but also because we just wanted to meet a bunch of our favourite Disney characters; nothing more complicated than that!  Pretty radical departure from when I was a kid, when I had absolutely no patience for the plushies.  Mind you, I was never one of those kids running in terror from Tigger, but I also never felt the need to meet any of the characters either – might have cut into precious Haunted Mansion time, that.

We enjoyed some amazing character interactions, and I’m so glad we decided to take the time to try something a little less ride-oriented and a little more fun-oriented this trip.  I’ve already shared a number of these meet-and-greets, if not all the photos, but what I haven’t already driven you crazy with can’t make you any crazier, can it? 😉 I mean, maybe you were ready two weeks ago for me to shut my yap about Disney already, but that doesn’t seem likely, now does it?!

Meeting Buzz Lightyear at the Magic Kingdom was a total trip.  We had just stepped off his popular namesake ride, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, each of us bearing Galactic Hero certificates on account of our maxed-out scores, and there he was!  Just waiting to pose with a couple of overgrown dorks.  To infinity and beyond!

Stitch!  Of Lilo & Stitch.  Or as I like to call him, Mr. Luvah Luvah. 😉

Us and Chews.  He was our first Star Wars meet-and-greet at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and I thought my husband’s head was going to explode from childlike delirium.  He’s also got mad envy that I received a hug from Chewbacca and he did not.  Apparently righting this transgression warrants an immediate repeat visit (man’s got worse Disney stoke than I do, if that’s even possible.)  But you know, he’s kind of got a point – he’s the lifelong Star Wars fan, not me.  He really should have been the one on the receiving end of a Wookie embrace.

Bahahahaha!  I love this picture – we look like we’re being reprimanded.  Which we kind of were?  Emo Kylo Ren here had no effs to give about either of us, stalking around for a bit before declaring us Resistance sympathizers.  Then we took some pictures and then he kicked us off Star Killer Base!  It was the weirdest meet-and-greet, truly.  I just found him wicked intimidating, and the second we walked into his area and he strode over to us, all black cape and inexplicably hot respirator helmet, I forgot all about my plans to pinch his burlap dress-covered butt and just stood there like a goof (just kidding; always keep your hearts and your parts to yourself, kids, unless someone explicitly says, “Lay ’em on me.”  Bloggers and fictional space fascists would do well to heed this advice, too.)

Alright, now this is more my speed of meet-and-greet (wah-waaaaaahhhhh)!  Although this was less a meet-and-greet than a meet-and-pose, on account of the fact that Cruz Ramirez up there, badass girl racer star of Cars 3, was really more of a prop than an interactive character.  All the same, I love Cruz’s gym trainer-on-uppers routine, and anything to get into a shot with THE one and only Piston Cup (he done what in his cup?)

Over in the Guardians of the Galaxy meet-and-greet, we met and greeted Star-Lord and wee little Baby Groot.  I know Baby Groot, who messes about adorably with that pile of spaceship parts laid out in front of him there, is the main draw of this meet-and-greet, but I loved the guy playing Star-Lord – he was such a delightfully amiable dude bro, all affable exasperation and cocky banter.  The actor playing him, while looking less like Chris Pratt than some of the others, had his voice and mannerisms down PAT.  Totally delightful!  And yes, yes, you. are. Groot.  We know, buddy, we know.  You literally speak of nothing else.  Just like me and Disney!

Not a meet-and-greet, but this entire photo op was such a hoot – just us, another totally game family with some thoroughly mortified/delighted teenagers and a PhotoPass cast member having a whole lot of fun messing around with a bunch of Star Wars props.

Speaking of, huge props to the PhotoPass photographers who took all of these awesome shots.  We have so very few photos that feature the two of us in one shot, and so we tacked the Memory Maker add-on onto our vacation package.  That allowed us unlimited access to any on-ride photos (always so attractive, those) as well as any photos taken by Disney photographers, including these cool meet-and-greets.  It should be noted that Memory Maker is not the most inexpensive of add-ons.  However, knowing we had a bit of money on the line really encouraged us to utilize the crap out of Disney’s photography services, leading to all sorts of fun, once-in-a-lifetime moments like this one.

BB-8!  Quite the chirpy little devil.  Mr. Finger Candy looks pleased as punch to be standing beside such an adorable little droid.  He was rather cute, and according to the attendant who was working his meet-and-greet and speaks Droid far better than I, he liked my Sally mouse ears. 🙂

Olaf the snowman, straight chillin’ in the Floridian sum-MMMMMERRRRRRRR!  Or actually, no, the Floridian winter, but to a Canadian, it might as well be summer.  And just for the record, Olaf gave, and received, some very nice warm hugs.

And the Beast, of course, was an unbelievably gracious host, receiving us in his study following our Christmas evening dinner at Be Our Guest.  I’ve outed us before on this one, but it’s worth being not-at-all embarrassed anew – I curtsied and my husband bowed, and we are gigantic goobers.  Wouldn’t want it any other way. 🙂