Dream Vacay at Disney World, Orlando, Florida, USA: INTRO, MAGIC KINGDOM

WHY DISNEY?

After posting about the theme park Sea World at San Antonio, thought it may be good to follow up with our Disney park experience. So here goes...

There is a tendency for adults to look down on Disney theme parks and movies. The expression “disnefied” in snobbish circles refers to fake, over the top, commercial kitsch. Disney resorts are supposedly meant for only kids and adults who are not mature enough to handle the real world.

We have traveled the world and do possess the aesthetics, sophistication and refined taste [even if we say so ourselves! Ha, Ha!] to enjoy high brow art and culture all over.

We had also fell in line with the cynical view of Disney for quite a while. But doubts kept creeping in and we decided to give Disney a whirl!! WOW!! We did have a great time!!

 Goofy and Donald Duck above...

 The general ambience is LOVELY as you can see. The specifics are beyond AMAZING!
Look at the fountains below... not your run of the mill stuff. The jumping fountain looks like a water hose, the last fountain moves in reverse, from bottom to top, instead of the other way around!! 

Even the gift shops were so inviting!! Again, these are not your typical kitsch, are they?? Not just the products but the whole decor!!

The whole park set up gets revised and redone periodically, so these posts are just a record of our experience at that point in time. May be the general guidelines we used can be put to use any time!

LOGISTICS:

Disney World, located in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, near Orlando, is the most popular theme park resort in the world.

We visited Walt Disney World's four theme parks: The  Magic Kingdom, Epcot,  Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom in 8 days. Entry ticket for 1 day is around 89$ [2011 prrices]... however, as we add more days, the price comes down, for 8 days we paid around $290 per ticket—that amounts to $35 per day—quite a nice discount. [2020: Disney World, a single-day ticket costs around $114-$199 for adults, however, this can vary slightly since Disney uses dynamic pricing. Single-day tickets to Disneyland Resort are now about $117 for adults, . For both parks, the per-day cost decreases as you add more days to a multi-day ticket]

Also each park needs 2 full days to cover all shows, rides, so our time was just right. We spent just 1 day at Hollywood studios though and spent the extra day at Magic Kingdom

Disney World over Disneyland:

Disney World covers 43 square miles of land. Disneyland is just 500 acres —  51 Disneylands can fit inside Disney World.

Inside those 500 acres, Disneyland hosts two distinct parks: Disney California Adventure Park and Disneyland Park. Disney World hosts four main parks: Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

With its larger size and 2 additional theme parks, Disney World has nearly 50 rides while Disneyland has about 25 

Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle is 77 feet tall, while Disney World’s Cinderella Castle at the Magic Kingdom is more than double that height at 189 feet tall  

Disneyland comes with just three hotels: the Disneyland Hotel, Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel and Spa, and Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel.

Disney World has more than 25 different hotels stretched across its landscape. That includes everything from budget hotels like Disney’s Animation Resort to deluxe options like the Animal Kingdom Lodge, as well as deluxe villas like those at Disney's Polynesian Villas & Bungalows. 

So our choice was clear!

WHEN TO GO? WHERE TO STAY? 

ALL STAR MUSIC RESORT, DISNEY WORLD:

Since we stayed at a Disney resort on the property, we had the advantage of magic hours—extra hours in the morning or night ... more than other ticket holders coming from outside. So after fireworks, when other visitors left, we stayed on .. park was open till 1.30 in the night.

Disney buses arrive at regular intervals to the bus stops at the front of all resorts and take us directly to the theme parks... our grouch was that our room was almost half a mile from the entrance of our resort and the bus dropped us almost a km from the entrance of the parks... the more expensive resorts (starting $500/night, costliest villa is $2000/night!) have the nearest stops to the entrance....

Ours was a value room at $95/night which becomes $180, the next week... timing is important to avoid crowds as well as getting fleeced. The official website lists room rates by season. Our choice was the 2nd least crowded part of the year.

Early December is definitely the best time  to visit these theme parks—lovely weather and comparatively less crowds. AVOID SCHOOL HOLIDAYS!!

 Our research told us Disney World in Orlando , Florida is better than Disney Land California. So we opted for that... both are almost equidistant from Houston!!

Disney World here covers an area over 27,000 acres ...

.

It also has two of the world's three most popular water parks,

Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach,—we felt December was a little too cold to visit them. 

Two shopping and entertainment districts, Downtown Disney and Disney's Boardwalk are also there—but we did not even have the time to go there and collect our free gift.

There was Excellent service by the resort.... they had sent tags for our checked in baggage, we put them on, so we did not wait to collect them at the Orlando airport but directly boarded the free shuttle (Disney's Magical Express) and reached our resort—ALL STAR MUSIC.

 We left our hand baggage at the checkin desk and took the shuttle to Magic Kingdom...And yes, we did start our vacation on Monday... flights were remarkably cheaper than weekend prices!

DAY 1, Monday, DEC 5, 2011:  Magic Kingdom:

This is the oldest and most popular park of the complex; in fact, with over 17 million visitors annually, it's the most-visited single theme park in the world.

Cinderella castle, the focal point of magic kingdom.. 

Cinderella Castle sits at the end of Main Street USA—-it is the 1st thing we see from the entrance.. it is the hub of commercial activity with little girls paying to be decked as Cinderellas... you need reservations for dinner at the restaurant at the top floor of the castle...here's a video...

1st impression was unfavorable though. Things appeared tacky and crowded... 

thankfully, we started falling in love with the 'magic' soon. Above is Walt Disney surveying his kingdom.

There are music /dance performances in the dais at the front of the Cindrella castle every hour.

Of course the highlight is the ever changing lights of the castle when dusk settles in and the fireworks here. Before the fireworks they have a laser show with music projecting colorful images on the castle.. even our pics can be shown if we have asked the Disney photographers to take free pics of us.

The atmosphere starts building up with the characteristic gateway, each place has music suiting its theme as well. This area reminds us of Victorian-era tales of exotic adventure in far-off locales. 

The environment evokes the jungles of deepest Africa, of the type explored by David Livingstone and H.M. Stanley in the late 19th century.

We started off with a tame ride—The Magic Carpets of Aladdin. We guided our carpet up and down with the lever as it was spinning round  we did not notice the spitting camels...

IMAGINEERING is the term used for the innovative engineering involved in all the Disney rides and animatronic shows... very apt..

Cinderella castle is the landmark we can see from any part of magic kingdom...

all parks have a tall landmark with which we can orient ourselves—cindrella castle is that landmark for magic kingdom....

Swiss family Robinson tree house....the tree house is quite well built and true to description in the book.

 All details from the book faithfully reproduced...
Here's the video:

Mad tea party.. The Mad Hatter and the March Hare invite us for a spin in a giant teacup.

we can spin our teacup around its center axis at whatever speed we like, but that's not the only thing that'll be moving; each group of five cups also spins around a common axis, and then the whole shebang rotates around a giant teapot. 1st time we just sat in the cup and enjoyed the ride... we noticed others rotating the central dial and we did that on our 2nd visit and made the cup spin more and had much better fun... one of the best rides...

Here are screen grabs from other rides.

After Galactic ride...

 Space mountain...

After Test track...

Here's the Honey drawing when waiting for Winnie the Pooh ride...

 Here's the video

This is from the all time favorite, It's a small world ride...we rode this 3 times 

End of a very happy day!! Will upload more videos here after testing if the current ones load and work

Report on our days at EPCOT is here:

https://adventuretrav.blogspot.com/2020/05/dream-vacay-at-disney-world-orlando.html

CA Road trip II:: Morro Rock, Elephant Seal Rookery, Ragged Point, Hearst Castle, San Simeon

Morro Bay/ Morro Rock:

From 198 W we hit 41 S and reached Morro Bay by evening. Morro rock is a 581-foot (177 m) volcanic plug located at the entrance to Morro Bay Harbor. We saw it from the bay area 

and then drove on the causeway connecting it to the mainland. Pretty good.

CA Highway 1

We hit hwy 1 from there and drove to San Simeon. Our hotel Day’s Inn is just a block inside and we checked in and called it a day.

Hearst Castle, San Simeon

When we were planning our trip we knew Hearst Castle is a highlight on this HWY1 drive and it needs advance reservation for its tour slots. We had not wanted to commit to a time and so did not reserve online. When we checked around a week before the trip only 11am onward slots were available for the Grand Rooms tour. We still did not reserve.

We decided we’ll drive up and see if we can buy tickets 1^st thing in the morning or drop the visit. We were ready by 7am but the routine Californian fog that envelops the shoreline in summer was very much on. We relaxed and went up to Hearst Castle by 8.45. The ticket counters were open and 12.45 slot was the earliest available for the Grand Rooms tour. We decided to buy it, look around a bit, go on our coastal drive and come back in time for our tour.

We checked out the exhibits and the gift shop. 

The exhibits were great. 

Even the gift shop was pretty good; there were very good reproductions of classic statues we have seen in top museums Paris Louvre’s Venus de Milo, Winged Victory, Abduction of Prosperina we had seen in the loggia in Florence … we loved browsing there. 

We tried to buy Three Graces statue magnet but the counter person was not available. We started off on our hwy1 drive.

Elephant Seal Rookery

1^st stop was the Elephant Seal Rookery near the light house. Plenty of elephant seals lounging around the beach and nice signboard with info as usual. 

Enjoyed watching baby elephant seals and mothers lying in the sand and frolicking in the water. 

Then we drove on.

Ragged Point

Next was the Ragged point view. We parked and walked in. It’s a lovely landscape with colorful flowers and a short walk with great views of the coast line and hills around with hwy 1 snaking its way. 

The oaks with huge branches looked great too. 

We then drove onward enjoying the switchbacks and the glimpses of the sea. At around 11.15, we turned back. This gave us the chance to drive on the side closer to the shoreline. We enjoyed the different perspective and reached the castle.

Hearst Castle, Again

We had our picnic lunch and then reached the visitor center. 

We were just in time for our bus ride up the hill. It’s a 5 mile drive up sloping roads and there are Barbary sheep  (goat antelope) and cows grazing on the slopes.   

Hearst Castle is a group of mansions designed by architect Julia Morgan, between 1919 and 1947 for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst on a huge estate "La Cuesta Encantada" ("The Enchanted Hill"), but usually called "the ranch". 

The estate is atop a hill of the Santa Lucia Range at an altitude of 1,600 feet (490 m).

Hearst Castle was built on Rancho Piedra Blanca that William Randolph Hearst's father originally purchased in 1865. The younger Hearst grew fond of this site over many childhood family camping trips. He inherited the ranch, which had grown to 250,000 acres (1,012 sq km) and 14 miles (23 km) of coastline, from his mother Phoebe Hearst in 1919. Although the large ranch already had a Victorian mansion, the location selected for Hearst Castle was undeveloped, atop a steep hill whose ascent was a dirt path accessible only by foot or on horseback over 5 miles (8 km) of cutbacks

Morgan, an accomplished civil engineer, devised a gravity-based water delivery system that transports water from artesian wells on the slopes of Pine Mountain, a 3,500-foot (1,100 m) high peak 7 miles (11 km) east of Hearst Castle, to a reservoir on Rocky Butte, a 2,000-foot (610 m) knoll less than a mile southeast from Hearst Castle.

This is the oldest artifact...

The estate is a mixture of historic architectural styles that its owner admired in his travels around Europe. 

Hearst was a prolific buyer who did not purchase art and antiques to furnish his home; he built his home to display his art collection! 

This led to incongruous elements, such as the private cinema, whose walls were lined with shelves of rare books. 

The floor plan of the Main Building is chaotic due to his habit of buying centuries-old ceilings, which dictated the proportions and decor of various rooms.

Hearst Castle featured 56 bedrooms, 61 bathrooms, 19 sitting rooms, 127 acres of gardens, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts, a movie theater, an airfield, and the world's largest private zoo. Zebras and other exotic animals still roam the grounds.

Casa Grande, the "castle", is 60,645 square feet (5,634 m²); 

The Spanish style guest houses on the property are: 

Casa del Mar (House by the sea): 5,875 sq feet (546 m²); 

Casa del Monte (House by the mountain): 2,291 sq feet (213 m²); 

Casa del Sol (House by the sun): 2,604 sq feet (242 m²)

One highlight of the estate is the outdoor Neptune Pool, located near the edge of the hilltop, which offers an expansive vista of the mountains, ocean and the main house. 

The Neptune Pool patio features an ancient Roman temple front, transported wholesale from Europe and reconstructed at the site.

Our docent gave us a 60 minute tour of 4 rooms, the Assembly room, refectory (named after monk’s dining room), Billiard room and the private theater. 

This is the Assembly

This is the Refectory

This is the Billiard room.

Celebrities from Hollywood and politics were frequent visitors here. With all the religious tapestries and paintings, these rooms emanate an atmosphere of piety... wonder how a party mood was created in such an environment! As our docent wryly commented... With all the Saints from the ceiling looking down, what conversation of the Hollywood elite spun around!! 

There was so much info given by the docent that if we stood around hearing him, we could hardly see anything let alone take pics. when he was through with his account, we had to move to the next room. The number of people in each group is high and people fill all the space in the room. We had to give up listening to him and we moved around taking pics and observing on our own. When the group moved to the next room, we took hurried pics of the empty room! 

Not the best of experience after shelling out $25 for a tour of 4 rooms... anyways it's what it is! I had seen reviews and knew about this ...so it's fine.

We exited passing through the indoor Roman pool. 

It was an interesting experience over all and the views were awesome from any nook or corner.

The Three Graces here...and a sarcophagus

We had some food and exited the estate at 3.30 to continue our hwy 1 drive.

We reached Monterey and then hit hwy 101 to reach San Francisco. We would have loved to see the small towns on hwy 1 and visit the Monterey aquarium but we did not have the luxury of time! 

We drove on. The setting sun was directly in our eyes as we drove the last few miles in!

Hostels International San Francisco Downtown

We reached our Hostels International San Francisco Downtown and checked in by 8.30 pm.

We parked our car in the garage just opposite for $22 overnight parking.

We had earlier planned to go to the pier by public transport and watch the July 4 fireworks. It looked a little muggy and we decided to give it a miss. We turned in as we wanted to leave early for our flight back home.

July 5, 2016:

We had our flight back on Frontier airlines was scheduled at 10.30 am. Though the airport is just 12 miles away on hwy101, we had read that the busy weekday morning traffic would cause delays.

We left the hotel by 7am and drove on to the airport. There are clear signs to car rental returns… we had to take the San Bruno exit and not the regular airport exit further on. We returned the car, complained that they had downgraded us to compact when we had booked a sedan. The engine had been noisy and struggling to climb up hills and it was too small. The lady was patronizing and brushed off that all such cars are included in that category.

We took the skytrain and reached our terminal 1. Like earlier we had one carryon bag shared between the two of us apart from the free personal item. The person with bought carryon bag gets zone 1 boarding but they allowed both of us to board zone 1. It was an uneventful flight back to Houston.

We arrived at 4.30PM Houston time. So a whole day had gone by in transit for a domestic trip but we did not care.

We were very happy with the highlights we had managed to enjoy during a busy weekend and would definitely return to savor all the other delights of this lovely state of California     

Our videos:

Here’s the link for our videos. As usual there is music added and some frames are captioned. I'll add a couple more when they are ready

https://get.google.com/albumarchive/108910506663540711253/album/AF1QipOsPIIUFCwyHNLZVeGm3JyWOGs8RaFmNq_f4BQq/AF1QipPVrCrivPT2W0_0ry4jc-ndKD0zzSVOJobsNKUl

covers Hearst castle

https://picasaweb.google.com/108910506663540711253/6294685377235791985#6305036907708381378

covers Hwy 1 Morro rock, Elephant seal rookery, Ragged Point

http://adventuretrav.blogspot.com/2016/07/spain-consists-of-17-independent.html
is the next post that covers our vacation in Spain