The Houghs: A Farewell to Parks

Hey players.

Seeing how we'll be uprooting our family and moving across the continental United States in about a week, the Voigts offered to let us into the infamous Disney World theme parks for one last hurrah in the oppressive, Florida sun. We decided on Magic Kingdom, as it was the most kid-friendly of the four parks (and taking into consideration that we had previously done Animal kingdom a couple weeks ago), but - unlike last time we were there - we'd be staying away from Fantasyland (for the most part.)

Check it out. . .

Trammies.

At the Monorail station

The kids - like every red-blooded American citizen - love the Monorail (that's Space Mountain there in the background. . . we wouldn't be going on that today.)

After clearing the security bag-check lines, we had to wait just outside the ticket entrance for Adam and Jack (Lindsay was keeping Ella at home this morning, as it was waaaay too hot out to be dealing with an infant at a theme park.)

More public dance moves. Why not.

Uncle Adam arrives.

See the train guy there? He was yelling at me. Not sure why, but he didn't like me leaning over to snap a picture of the incoming train. Screw you, pal - I do what I want.

Adam wanted to take Jack on the train to Adventureland, our first order of business for the day.

Clearly, this was a No-Dancing train.

As we disembarked off the train, Kris asked Alayna if she wanted to try out Thunder Mountain Railroad. Abby, myself, and the boys waited nearby and attempted to snap some pictures of them as they rode on the attraction.

(I brought my telephoto lens with us today, just in case.)

Good thing I did, too - otherwise I wouldn't have been able to capture these precious images of Alayna not enjoying Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Entering Adventureland.

They hadn't done this ride in a long, long time, so I was really looking forward to showing them one of my personal favorites once before we left for Michigan. . .

Abby wasn't thrilled about the boat venturing forward into the mist and dark caves of the ride's first stage, but once we 'traveled back in time' down a short decline, and floated through a crew of pirates sacking some Spanish port city, she livened up a bit.

Exit through the gift shop.

Abby chooses a souvenir (no, we didn't buy this for her.)

Adam was nice enough to buy the girls each a little bag of plastic 'jewels,' with his Disney employee discount. These kids love shiny crap.

Cannonballs.

Adam had gotten us Fast Passes for a few different rides throughout the park today - Pirates, Jungle Cruise (shown here), and, later on in the afternoon, Ariel's Little Mermaid ride (forget what it's called.)

More dancing.

Awaiting our jungle ferry.

See all the red shirts? It just so happened that today was some big Gay Pride Gay Fest at the Disney parks. Or something. I don't know. All these gay people were about, wearing red shirts. . . definitely made finding your kids in a crowd a hell of a lot easier.

The Cannonball is not impressed.

Exiting the treasure hordes of Asia

I'm always nervous these assholes are going to splash me.

A brief snack after the cruise (shortly before Alayna deemed it necessary to pet a frickin' squirrel.)

Kris, Adam and the younger two kids hung around Adventureland while Alayna and I went off to do the other of my two favorite Disney rides - the Haunted Mansion (I'm a sucker for animatronics.)

Alayna was amused by these as we waited in line (fortunately not long, either - there was maybe a five minute wait. . . no idea why this ride isn't as popular as some of the others.)

While Alayna and I were dealing with ghosts, Kris and Abby watched a Johnny Depp impersonator outside Pirates of the Caribbean. . .

Captain Jack Sparrow

Verdict: the Cannonball approves.

After we reunited with the rest of our people, we decided to leave Adventureland and make our way over to Fantasyland for lunch before hitting up that previously-mentioned Ariel ride.

As I mentioned before, it was hotter than Hell out (Florida in the summer, duh), so the kids were exhausted well before noon.

We were going to let the kids ride the Carousel, but just as we were about to go on the damn thing, it broke down (the attendant explained to more than a few pissed off moms that the 'horses needed a break' . . . you can imagine how that went over with a crowd of sweaty parents.) So instead we took this quick photo of Abby attempting to free Excalibre from its resting place.

. . . then it was on to Disney's Philharmagic, for an air conditioned break in a comfy seat. To music. In 3D.

Once we got our 3D fixes in, we stopped off into some Pinocchio-themed joint to eat our packed lunches.

View from our table of Fantasyland (you can see the carousel there off to the right.)

We ate upstairs in this almost VIP-ish area of the restaurant (there were only six tables upstairs, and we snagged three of them.)

A couple cast members looking out over a balcony above Fantasyland, right outside our window.

Post lunch, en route to Ariel's mermaid-y ride. You can see the Beast's castle there in the distance.

This dude was clearly not happy with me 'taking his picture.' He looks like a pleasant guy.

Abby and I in line for the Ariel ride (which is more or less exactly like the Finding Nemo ride at Epcot, only instead of scenes from that movie you have scenes from the Little Mermaid.