It's Magic (and... Pandora)

It's hard to imagine many people traveling to Walt Disney World without specifically visiting the Magic Kingdom park -- especially when traveling with kids who have never been there. That's just where we went on the second Disney day of our trip.

Both previous times I visited Orlando, I went to Universal Studios before visiting Walt Disney World. This time, we did the reverse -- and I'm here to say that if you're doing both, that's the order to do it. The rides at Disney (and Magic Kingdom in particular) can seem a little tame if Universal is freshly in your mind. Going to Disney with a "first timer" helps a lot too.

Disney World gets crowded the week of Thanksgiving, I hear... but we were there the following week. We were also there on a day when Magic Kingdom was closing early for an evening Christmas event. Those factors seemed to combine to thin the crowds for us. We got to do basically everything we wanted without ever waiting more than 25 minutes (and typically almost walking right on).

(The one exception was the Jungle Cruise. I would have liked my fill of Dad Jokes on a Boat, but the Christmas themed "Jingle Cruise" version of the ride seems to be extra popular. I didn't need to wait an hour for said Dad Jokes.)

There were a couple of new experiences in the mix. We ate lunch at Be Our Guest, a dining hall set in the castle from Beauty and the Beast. Pricey, but great food. (Yes, there is "grey stuff," and yes, it's "delicious.") I also rode Splash Mountain for the first time, getting that in just weeks before they close the ride to re-theme it for The Princess and the Frog (to finally remove the last vestiges of the racist Song of the South).

We were able to breeze through Magic Kingdom so quickly that we weren't quite ready to call it a day. We'd had Animal Kingdom on the back burner, "if there's time," and our friends' son was especially keen to get there and ride Expedition Everest. So park hop we did, where he loved that ride so much he rode it 3 times consecutively, all in less than half an hour. (Once was good for me.)

Then we decided to brave the wait for the the Avatar Flight of Passage ride -- not for any love of the subject, but because it's one of Disney's newest things and people say it's actually worth the wait. Let me caution you: it can be a rough wait. We only waited about 75 minutes; I've heard it can take 2 to 3 hours. But the queue is oddly retro, with very little going on in it to keep you entertained until almost the very end. You just pass through decorated forest areas and caves for an hour until finally ending up in a lab. A touchstone for Denverites: it reminded me a lot of Casa Bonita.

But... the ride is pretty good. (Not top 5 for the trip for me, though.) A huge 3D IMAX movie is projected in front of you as you straddle a seat that moves like a bird in flight. It's like Soarin: The Next Generation. And the Pandora area of Animal Kingdom in general is pretty impressive.

Night had fallen between the time we got in that line and the time we exited the ride, so it was time to go. A Christmas show was being projected on Animal Kingdom's giant tree as ended our day with the most walking of the entire trip. (Not that there were any "light" days.)

We had one more Disney day to go in the trip....