Friday, December 14, 2012

Moving North

Magic Kingdom in the daylight was a much happier proposition for me than it had been in the dark for MVSCP. With the benefit of having already seen some of the attractions we had some kind of plan for visiting the rest. Part of this plan was to use the Fastpass system, a sneaky way of beating the queues. You pop your ticket in a machine at some of the busier rides and it gives you another ticket with an hour 'window' to return. When you come back you simply report to the Fastpass lane and skip to the front. This is particularly appealing on attractions where queue waiting times are up to 50minutes.


There's nothing very scary at the Magic Kingdom. It's more about the Disney brand and atmosphere and the stand out to me is that everyone who works there appears so incredibly happy and positive. I know this is essential as part of the role play but I'm guessing that the Walt corporation pays its employees a decent wage because there's no way I could open and shut the same doors or say, 'Please watch your step and stay to the right', thousands of times a day with that sort of smile on my face without an incentive!



Anyway we went on all the rides we could manage, including risking death by boredom on Winnie the Pooh (imagine if we hadn't fast passed that!) and when it got cold we went home. We let Taine choose for dinner and that led us to the T Rex restaurant at Downtown Disney. Dodging the meteor showers that run every 20 minutes, we dined on BBQ ribs and queso and prehistoric themed cocktails (a mocktail in Taine's case!) We also managed to track down Taine's other choice of R2D2 Disney ears.


This morning we had to pack up and leave the haven of the Port Orleans Resort. We really enjoyed our 4 nights there and would recommend it to anyone. We were even able to check in to our Washington flight at the resort, leaving the every increasing pile of bags to them so we could fit the four of us in the rental car to get to the airport.


Luckily we arrived early at the Orlando airport because getting through security there is a lengthy business as four lines of people merge into one to get through the scanners. It was our first experience on Jet Blue and a very positive one. They have lots of leg room and free snacks to keep the kid happy. They also let him into the cockpit to sit in the pilot's seat. Pretty special.



We arrived in the nation's capital at 6.30 and were amused to find so many Obama souvenirs in the airport. The thought that anyone would buy a Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott cap beggars belief.




We knew we were back in the real world when we spotted the line of homeless people lining up at a soup kitchen for dinner across the road from our hotel where expensive car doors were being opened for bejeweled guests heading out to the theatre. In our jeans, trackies and runners we felt pretty under dressed but luckily we ran into a fellow Aussie in the elevator and she was wearing junners too.

Even downtown the capital was very quiet for a Friday night. We found an Irish pub for dinner where we had delicious hamburgers and salad. It is of course a very sad day in the US with the school shooting in Connecticut. The flags are at half mast all over the city out of respect to this unimaginable horror :-(

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