Disney Recap (Part 2)

IN THE NEWS:According to World Magazine, in a small town in Nicaragua, it was the New England Patriots that won the Super Bowl in February, not the New York Giants who pulled off the 17-14 upset. That's because all the victory T-shirts produced before the Super Bowl in case of a Patriots win have found their way to the southern town of Diriamba to help clothe poor children. The Patriots may have been losers, but, says Miriam Diaz of World Vision, the Christian organization that organizes the donation, "The children are the winners."

Hmm. Let's see... Where did I leave off? Oh. The Princess dinner. Right.

Well, that night we also had tickets for The Pirate and Princess party in the Magic Kingdom. We got there right when it started: 7PM. They gave you a treasure map when you walked in. Even the entrance to the park was all royal red carpets, skull and cross bone lights, and fake smoke. Pretty cool. On the treasure map were different music happenings and Xs where there was none other than "treasure". (Actually, it was fake jewels and paper crowns and pirate's hats) But the girlie loved it all. Disney encouraged you to dress up as a pirate or princess. A lot of grown-ups got into the act. A LOT of grown-ups. It was like an adult Halloween. That was the creepy part--for me, anyway, because most of these adults did not have children with them. We went on rides, saw a kickin' Princess and Pirate parade and then the best fireworks/display/story I ever saw in my life. At one point they pretended that Cinderella's castle was under attack with smoke and had the fireworks to match. My daughter looked up at me and said, "Whoa. That's pretty cool, Mom."

Yeah. It really was.

The next day (Sunday), we hit Animal Kingdom. We went on the Safari first and saw a lot of the live animals close up this time, including elephants, rhinos, flamingos, ostriches, zebras, lions, giraffes, and some funky animals I did not know existed. Saw The Nemo show this time, did rides, and stayed for the parade before heading back to The Boardwalk for dinner.

Monday, we did MGM--which is now called Hollywood Studios--in the morning. (Apparently, MGM backed out of their contract.) Or that's what I heard the concierge say. I really think this park is my favorite. Sad but true. I love the Beauty and Beast show and the Little Mermaid show. I love learning how they make the Disney movies and I always feel less stressed touring around. In the afternoon, we headed back to EPCOT to tour the "countries". My daughter loved the rides they have at Mexico and Norway. And I love all the food. We had our best dinner in Japan at Mitsukoshi Teppanyaki. It was Benihana style with our chef, Tom from Hawaii, entertaining us. He managed to make an onion volcano and then train and flipped shrimp in his hat to coax a laugh from my daughter. Everything was DELICIOUS.

Tuesday was our last day. We were leaving around noon, but we were able to sneak into EPCOT for a few hours. We ran into Peter Pan and The Prince from Snow White. I found it comical that he signs his autograph "The Prince". Disney really needs to give him a name.

So anyway, that's the long drawn out details of the trip. Pretty much. I skipped a lot of the laughs. In fact, I was going to skip Disney next year, since we've already done it two years in a row, but we had such a good time I'm reconsidering it. Maybe we'll try the Disney Cruise.

Anyone ever done that?