On July 14, 1991, my wife and I arrived for our first day at Disney World celebrating the honeymoon of our new marriage. I'd been to Disney World once before, but quite honestly, I was too young to remember it.
On September 13, 2021, my wife and I arrived for our first day at Disney World to celebrate our 30th Wedding Anniversary. I've been to Disney World once since our honeymoon -- in 2003 with our two then-young boys. But that's almost 20 years ago now. I've slept a lot since then.
So, with the background laid out, I simply want to chronicle our 30th Anniversary celebration, and keep a little diary of sorts of our trip.
(As an aside, we did actually go out to dinner and a night out in Savannah on our actual 30th Anniversary date back in July. But this was our planned anniversary celebration, and chose September because that's the slow season for Disney. This trip involves a little more than just Disney, as well, so stay tuned.)
DAY 1: Hollywood Studios
1) I remember very little of this park. Virtually nothing is familiar to me from my two previous trips here in the last 30 years. The Muppet 3D Movie attraction is about the only thing I remember (apart from Indiana Jones -- more on that later.) I'm not sure what that says about me.
2) Crowds aren't bad at all, but I'll say this: If this is Disney's slow season, I don't want to be here when they're busy.
2a) Supposedly, Disney is restricting the number of guests in the parks, presumably because of COVID, requiring "reservations" at the park. NO ONE checked our reservation, although I'll admit it could be programmed into our admission card. But who knows. While masks are required indoors at all times, there is no social-distancing to speak of, so the guest restriction seems pretty pointless.
3) The general populace has become VERY accustomed to wearing masks, even when they are absolutely not necessary or beneficial, which is most of the time.
4) The ratio of shops, retail, and food establishments vs. attractions is way out of proportion.
5) The Star Wars area of the park is very cool. A couple cool virtual-reality rides, for which the wait wasn't too bad. Lots of other cool stuff to see. However...
6) The Rise of the Resistance attraction is everything it is cracked up to be! Outstanding. Because of its popularity, one has to log in to a virtual queue in order to garner a place in line for the attraction, and the queue for the day fills up within seconds -- literally. If you are one of the lucky ones to get in, you know what I'm talking about. We did, on the second opening of the queue for the day. If you haven't yet, and you're a Star Wars fan, a trip to Orlando and a ticket to Hollywood Studios is worth it. We might go again later this week just to do it again -- IF we can get in.
7) Buy the photo package. It's worth it and can literally save you hundreds of dollars if you get sucked in to buying all the pictures they offer of your time in the park.
8) Lot more children this time of the year than I thought there'd be. Apparently, parents have no problem yanking their kids out of school for some time at Disney. Given the state of public education these days, can't say that I blame them.
9) The Indiana Jones Spectacular is not running these days. Bummer that.
Tomorrow... Magic Kingdom!
No comments:
Post a Comment