USA Part Six - Final days in Arizona and California, and arriving at Walt Disney World!

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Our last couple of days in the West of the USA were spent in Phoenix and Palm Springs, and quite honestly, we didn’t really do much in either of these places! Knowing that we would be on our feet quite a lot over the next month in Florida, we had a pretty relaxed few days in each place (to be honest, it was so hot out that we didn’t feel like doing much anyway), hence the lack of photos in these places! We did notice on the way to Phoenix how lush and green the landscape seemed to be – a bit of a contrast to the dry desert that we were expecting in Arizona! We were also sure to snap some pictures of the cacti that we passed, after waiting so long to spot them over here.

After Palm Springs, we drove back to LA to spend a final night in a motel by the airport, ready for our flight to Orlando with Virgin America the following morning. We dropped off our hire car once we had checked in and left our bags at the hotel, which was a very quick and easy process - literally just drove up to the lot, had the car checked over and scanned, before being given a receipt and being told that we were good to go! We would definitely recommend Alamo to anyone thinking of getting a hire car from LAX, the whole process was just flawless! We returned to the hotel, which was just around the corner, and got an early night. We hopped onto the free airport shuttle at 6:30am the next morning, knowing that we wouldn’t need to be too early for our 8:30am flight – domestic flights are pretty much like catching trains over here so it doesn’t take quite as long to get through security, plus we were able to check in online the night before.

We were soon in the departure lounge and waiting by our gate. We picked up some crisps and a bag of ‘Twizzlers’ (which we instantly regretted as soon as we tried one – they are disgusting and nothing like the strawberry liquorice that we were used to!), as we would not be getting a meal on the plane as we had booked this separate to our round the world ticket. We soon boarded the plane and set off from the runway right on time. The flight was around 5 hours and it soon flew by (excuse the pun) as we were able to watch satellite TV and listen to music on our seat-back TV’s, though you had to pay for the on demand movies and TV shows so we skipped these. We were also surprised to get free drinks throughout the flight, which was a nice touch!

Before we knew it, we were eagerly looking out of the window to try to spot any signs of Disney, and we did actually see the ‘Spaceship Earth’ (big golf-ball looking thing) ride at Epcot in the distance. We landed and grabbed our bags before getting off the plane and heading towards the baggage claim area. Ours were one of the first on the conveyor belt, so we then had to go over to the other side of the terminal to catch the ‘Magical Express’ bus that would take us straight to our Disney hotel – the All-Star Music Resort.

We found the desk and confirmed our reservation for the bus (which is complimentary for Disney guests), and hopped straight onto one that was going to our resort. The drive from the airport was about 30 minutes and soon enough we passed under the large ‘Welcome Home’ sign, greeting us into the “Happiest Place on Earth”! We were very excited at this point (Emma in particular), and even more so once we pulled up to the front of our hotel.

We made our way to the check-in area, and were eventually called forward to one of the desks. We were greeted by two smiling women and it was clear that one of them was training and had only recently started, so we waited patiently as she was shown what to do as she went through the check-in process. We were not in any rush so we were not too bothered that it took a little longer than usual. We were asked if we had been before and if we were celebrating anything special, so we replied that it was our first time here and that we would be celebrating our anniversary near the end of our stay on the 7^th October. As we were handed our room key card, we were also handed ‘First Time’ badges, ‘Happy Anniversary’ badges and a rose – great start!

We thanked the women and then headed over to our room in the ‘Jazz’ section of the hotel. We walked past the large pool and looked around at the various oversized musical instruments that are dotted around the resort, before eventually reaching our door. Unfortunately, as we held the card to the sensor, it flashed red and would not open the door. Craig stayed with the bags whilst Emma headed back to reception to let them know, finding the same two women at the desk. They checked the card on their system and couldn’t find a problem, so walked back with Emma to the room just to check. Once again, it was flashing red, so they apologised profusely before letting us into the room with their master key and informing us that they would deliver our key to our room shortly.

After around 20 minutes of just relaxing and watching TV, there was a knock on the door. We opened the door and found the two women once again, with big smiles, more apologies, a key that was now working, a Mickey soft toy, two ‘Happy Anniversary’ balloons, an autograph book and an autograph pen – all gifts for us for the ‘inconvenience’! We couldn’t believe it, and were pretty pleased with our first bits of Disney magic – we later had a look in the shops and found that all of this was worth around $40!

It was now approaching 7pm, and we wanted to head to Magic Kingdom to catch the 9pm showing of the ‘Wishes’ firework show. We walked over to the bus stop area (once again, all transportation around Disney World is complimentary) and saw that there was a Magic Kingdom bus already at the stop. It took about 20 minutes to get to the park, where we handed over our tickets to be scanned before entering the park and walking down Main Street towards the castle – we were here!

It was quite busy around the area as people had started hanging around for the ‘Electrical Parade’ that would be starting at 8pm, so we walked straight through to a slightly quieter area of the park to grab something to eat. We bought some chilli cheese fries and found a spot to eat them as the parade went past, though we couldn’t really get any decent pictures from there – we’ll be sure to get more on another day!

We then walked back around to the front of the castle to get a spot for Wishes. There was actually a bit of a pre-show, which was unexpected, where projections of various Disney characters were shone onto the castle, transforming it into different scenes along with the music. We then had to wait for about 5 minutes until the ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ music began and the first few fireworks shot up into the sky, and Tinkerbell flew over everyone’s head on a zipline! What a show! The fireworks were incredible, and of course went up in time with the familiar Disney songs that were playing, giving everyone that wonderful feeling of nostalgia. The bright fireworks for the finale lit up the sky and the crowd erupted in applause before gradually heading towards the exit.

Once back at the bus stop there was a bit of a queue, but we managed to squeeze onto the second bus to take us back to our hotel, where we collapsed into bed ready for a full day at the park the next day. We returned to Magic Kingdom bright and early at 9am, and just caught the end of the opening show, with various characters dancing around and riding the train above the gates. They then opened the park and we headed first to ‘Space Mountain’ – an indoor rollercoaster ride. We grabbed a Fastpass each for ‘Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin’ - a laser shooting ride – on the way past. For those of you that don’t know, Disney offers a free Fastpass system for all guests, meaning that you get given a time slot to return to a ride of your choice to ride straight away without waiting – brilliant!

We had to wait about ten minutes to ride Space Mountain, but were soon climbing into the individual seats behind each other. It was very disorienting but very fun, and we came off ready for more! We still had a bit of time until our Fastpasses were valid, so Craig decided that he wanted to go on the ‘Tomorrowland Speedway’ ride, where we climbed into a car and accelerated around a track – not all that fast but we both enjoyed it nonetheless! We were then able to go straight onto the Buzz Lightyear ride, where we span around shooting at aliens and the Evil Emperor Zurg! Right next door, the ‘Monsters Inc Laughter Floor’ show was about to start, and we watched as Mike Wazowski and a few of his monster friends interacted with the audience, making fun of various people and telling jokes - we somehow managed to get a lucky escape, with everyone around us showing up on the screen at some point!

We then went on the ‘People Mover’, a gentle transportation ride that loops around the ‘Tomorrowland’ section of the park, also passing through a few of the rides around there, including the pitch black building containing Space Mountain. It was a nice relaxing break and gave our feet a bit of a rest before we continued our way to ‘Fantasyland’, where we had a quick spin on the teacups! We also had a ride on the classic ‘Dumbo’ ride, a pretty iconic ride at Disney that we just couldn’t pass on!

They are currently building a new ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’ gold mine ride, so sections of Fantasyland were boarded up, but we were able to have a wander around the new areas dedicated to ‘The Little Mermaid’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’. We went on the ‘Voyage of the Little Mermaid’ ride, where we rode on a clam shell as the ride retold the story from the film with the familiar songs and various animatronics – the pictures don’t show this but these are incredible realistic and they have the movements down perfectly!

It was also at some point around this time that Emma made her first purchase of some Minnie Mouse ears, which she wore for the rest of the day. We continued around the castle, snapping some pictures on the way round, before going on another classic ride – ‘It’s a Small World’. Have to say, probably won’t be rushing to re-ride this one again – the song is played constantly throughout the ride, sung in lots of different languages as you pass on a boat through different countries of the world, filled with creepy little characters (much older animatronics that looked a little like ‘Chucky’ from ‘Child’s Play’) that sang and danced around. The song does really start to grate on you after a while (it’s rather repetitive as it is!) and the ride lasted over 10 minutes – we were quite glad to finally get off and both agreed that it could be used as some sort of torture device! We grabbed a Fastpass for the ‘Peter Pan’ ride that was opposite, as this had a queue of 30 minutes.

We then passed the gates of ‘The Haunted Mansion’, so we walked through the queue line through the cemetery and onto the ride. There were a few walk-through parts to begin with as we made our way through the mansion, and then we boarded a “Doom Buggy” which took us through the rest of the rooms, filled with lots of ghosts and ghouls – one of which appeared perched on our buggy in a mirror near the end of the ride, which was a pretty cool effect!

Our next stop was ‘Big Thunder Mountain’ – a runaway mine train roller coaster that winds through a gold-mining town. We both really enjoyed this, and actually got a video of the ride as we went round, though this is way too big to upload on here! We still had a bit of a wait until our Peter Pan Fastpass was valid, so we stopped off to grab some lunch before returning to the ride, on which we flew above London and Neverland on a pirate ship, encountering various scenes of Peter Pan, the lost boys, Captain Hook and the pirates.

We were getting a little hot, so we stopped off at Aloha Isle for a Dole Whip Pineapple Float – something that had been recommended by many people online that had visited Disney. This basically consisted of pineapple ice cream on top of pineapple juice and it was DELICIOUS – really refreshing and tasty, and we’ll be sure to have another while we’re here! The ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ ride was nearby, so this was our next stop, although it was a little dark to get any pictures. The Captain Jack Sparrow animatronics were incredible – the mannerisms were scarily real and anyone at first glance would just assume that it was a person standing there!

We had done all of the rides that we wanted to do (it was a little overcast so we decided to leave ‘Splash Mountain’ for another day), so we returned to Tomorrowland for a final ride on the Peoplemover and then ‘Space Mountain’ again, getting some pictures on the way around this time – it was pretty funny when we realised that the picture taken on the ride was of us taking a picture of ourselves and we swiftly made our way out before they noticed us!

We dragged our aching feet towards the exit and over to the bus stops, where we caught a bus back to our hotel. We rested our feet for about half an hour before deciding to take a trip to Downtown Disney to get something to eat and to visit DisneyQuest – a large interactive arcade that was included in our tickets. We returned to the bus stop and once again got straight onto a bus, taking around 15 minutes to reach Downtown Disney. We each had a sandwich from ‘Earl of Sandwich’ – REALLY good and reasonably priced – before walking through to DisneyQuest.

We LOVED this place – there are five floors filled with lots of arcade games – both old and new – that are all free to play. We spent a good few hours playing on games such as Pacman, Space Invaders, Guitar Hero, Dance Dance Revolution and various car racing games amongst many others – completely in our element! There were also a few larger attractions on each floor that we rode as we went round. The first of these was a raft ride, where we sat in a dinghy on top of a large inflatable ‘river’, and we were tossed around as we tried to paddle around in front of a large screen with our oars, which had wheels attached to them – very surreal but hilarious!

There was also a ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ ride – Craig was the Captain and Emma the gunner as we were put in a room shaped like a ship deck with a wheel and various cannons dotted around and surrounded by screens. We had to steer the ship as we ran around the deck shooting ships around us to get gold, before encountering a big sea monster which we also had to shoot down – again, hilarious but so fun! There was also a ‘build-your-own-roller coaster’ attraction, where we were able to design a roller coaster from scratch before riding it in a simulator. We, of course, made ours as crazy as we could, with lots of inversions, and were delighted to find that the simulators actually span you round and upside down as you rode, so you get the real feeling of flying around the track!

There was also a ride where you get in a little buggy equipped with a cannon, and you have to drive around (like bumper cars), shooting at the targets on the other vehicles around you. You had to drive over the little balls, which would then get sucked up into your car, where you could then load it into the cannon to shoot. We were a good team, and didn’t get hit once as Emma drove around over the balls and positioning the car to shoot, whilst Craig loaded up the cannon and shot them at everyone around us – absolute pros!

We didn’t actually get any pictures at DisneyQuest, but we’ll definitely be returning so we will try and get some photos on our next visit! We returned to the hotel at around 10pm and got straight into bed ready for our next park – Animal Kingdom!

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Comments

[samantha]

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