Visiting Mickey Mouse

Maciek is a huge fan of Mickey Mouse, so it was our parental responsibility to visit Disney's park. We don't really understand his love for Mickey Mouse Club House but we've heard he is not the only one, besides for this entry we'll get a bag full of dollars from Walt Disney, so we are not going to complain.

Disneyworld is a gigantic complex made of four separate parks. We read in Lonely Planet that some people find it hard to believe that there is a city near by. That's true, driving on the highway we are passing by many signs for exits to different parks, Orlando is lost among them.

Tickets to Disney's empire can be bought for one or few days. One day ticket gives the entrance to one selected park (there's additional charge for park-hopper option). After a short discussion we've decided to see just one part - Magic Kingdom. Such a one-day pleasure costs 89 USD for an adult and 83 for child older than 3. And there's parking -14 USD. We took food with us and that was smart, as inside you can buy hot-dogs for 9 USD. And that was the cheapest food we found.

We got there around noon (not because it was far, we just like to sleep late). For a second we were considering going back home and coming back first thing in the morning on the next day, but then we admitted that it's not gonna happen, tomorrow we'll sleep late too. Besides the park is open until 9PM. Adult will manage but a child for so many hours...(later, around 6 PM we were sooo ready to go and Maciek was just getting started).

Disneyworld is loud. Loud music and screaming kids everywhere. When we once found a quite place it turned out to be the for smokers. We don't smoke but we stayed there for few nice minutes. Besides everything is perfect. From the moment of crossing the parking gates guests are sucked into a huge marketing machine. At the parking everyone is directed to their spots, then they get transported by ferry or by train to the park. Magic Kingdom is made of - if we remember well - 6 parts, between them you can ride a steam train (there are stations in 3 of them) or a rented golf cart if you are handicaped or you live in an rv park for "adults over 55" (more about it in next entry). You can also rent a stroller for the amount that pays back the price of a new one in just few days. There is a lot of places you can't go into with a stroller but each of them has a parking for strollers and even if you park it somewhere else, stroller fairies will bring it back in no time.

The first place we went to see was a theater were shocked Maciek was hugged by Mickey We were shocked too and before we realized it we did all the hugging the mouse too.

Then we went to see an all-stars, very moving show about dreams coming true.

Next we got sucked in by world of roallercoasters, rides and other attractions typical for this kind of place, most of them we had to wait in the line for at least 15 minutes, which probably isn't so bad for this place.  In the meantime we've decided to go for it - we bought icecream (in case you wonder what we did with this bag full of dollars) - Paweł didn't even try his one - seagull got to it first. And it was not a single case, there were lots and lots of them, sitting on strollers and taking out whatever they could find (luckily for Kalina - not babies). We have to ask: can this fundamental terrorism, threatening western ideology (overpaid icecream in a theme park)  practised by seagulls be be tolerated? We'll be in Washington DC in a few months, we'll ask. Then we can address an ultimatum to pay us back for the icecream. 

And did we like it? Like on roallercoaster, after being excited and amazed at first we had second thoughts. Often it was half an hour wait just to have 5 minutes of fun from which you go straight to a gift shop. And then the next one and the next one, all of them perfect in every inch. At the end, at 8 pm there were fireworks, and even though we were dead tired and really freezing by then, it was worth seeing. And then when we got lost on our way back we realized how much we didn't see, there were whole parts of park we didn't even get to.

What did Maciek remember? Unlike we expected not meeting Mickey Mouse. Actually, when he saw Mickey he asked where is Goofy. After finding Goofy he got worried about Pluto. After the show, where we saw most of the characters, question "what about Daisy?" was coming back even few days later. The only answer that was understandable for Maciek was that she went on vacation.

But what Maciek remembered best was a cruise inspired by "Pirates of Carribean", to be more exact a part with a fire. - I was a bit scared - he said - Why was there a fire? Did the firefighters come? - he kept asking. Another thing that got stuck in his mind were letter-shaped contrails (in case you don't know Maciek we can tell you he is a big fan of contrails:)

What did we remember? Really high prices of everything, seagulls-terrorists, too many sounds and long lines. But what the hell, there were moments that we did feel like kids. Sometimes it's good to remind yourself that dreams come true.