Our Top Ten Magical Moments at Disney World

Disney promises magic. The flagship theme park is the Magic Kingdom, after all. Too many times though, the magic feels forced, like the smiles on the dancers in the twice-daily parades. But there is real magic to be found anywhere, even a theme park. Some magic exists independently, lurking in places where you'd least expect it, and some magic you bring with you, if only you're in the mood to make it. We found both kinds of magic at Disney World, and for most of them, no guide book could have told us how to find them.

 

1) Animal Kingdom in the morning

We got to Animal Kingdom early for the park's "Extra Magic Hour," which allows people staying at Disney Resorts extra time in the park with a few thousand fewer people. And there, indeed, was extra magic. A heavy fog had rolled in to the parks that morning, and Animal Kingdom proved the right place to be. The massive Tree of Life was shrouded in mist, as was the mountain at Expedition Everest. All the meticulous theming in the Asia section came to spectacular life, as it really felt like you were high in among the clouds on a mountaintop. It was magic we could never have planned for.

 

2) Surprised by the Fireworks in Fantasyland

This is probably one a careful reading of our guidebook would have told us about, but it was made all the more magical by its seeming spontaneity. On select nights, the Magic Kingdom sets off fireworks. The best place to see them is on the front side of the castle--they're meant to be the last thing you do before you leave for the night, if you're not able to stay for the "Extra Magic Hours" offered to resort guests. We found ourselves between the fireworks--some are shot off from the rooftops of Fantasyland, meant to be right behind the castle, while others are fired from somewhere outside the park ground. The latter are the big boomers, the ones that go very high and explode into wide shapes. We were in between rides when the fireworks started, and we hopped up on a nearby wall to watch. For perhaps twenty minutes, we were treated to spectacular fireworks, and not a single person came around to tell us to hop down or to move along. It was a beautiful pause in our otherwise hectic dashing from ride to ride.

 

3) Mission: Space - "Daddy, press the button!"

This magic moment--as well as the three others that follow--is definitely of the "make your own magic" variety. First, a bit of introduction to the Mission: Space ride at Epcot. Mission: Space is a flight simulator, meant to mimic a futuristic trip from Earth to Mars. The simulator has four seats, and each seat is given a different role on the ship: Commander, Pilot, Navigator, or Engineer. During the flight, each role is responsible for hitting a couple of buttons that initiate different stages. It's not really essential to press the buttons. If you don't press anything the simulator still goes through all the motions. So nothing you do really matters--unless you are a seven-year-old girl who takes it all very seriously, including saluting Gary Sinise, who introduces the ride and declares us to be proper astronauts in training. Jo was so earnest that she obsessed over hitting the buttons at just the right moment--and screamed "Daddy, press the button!" like our very lives depended upon it when I was a little late in performing my duty. Wendi and I had a hearty laugh at that--but in private, because Jo doesn't like to be laughed at. But we didn't tell Jo the buttons didn't matter, which, unknown to us, would set up one our later magic moments...

 

4) Mission: Space - "Don't...move...a muscle."

Before we get to that magic moment, there was another worthy of our list from our first trip on the Mission: Space flight simulator. At the very end of the ride, the simulation takes a preposterous twist, caroming off the landing pad and hurtling out of control over the icy (um, icy?) surface of Mars. As the shuttle finally comes to a stop, the ice (um, ice? on Mars?) crumbles away, and the motion simulator tips you down, as though you and your shuttle are hanging off the edge of a precipice. Gary Sinise, your man in Mission Control, tells you, "Don't...move...a muscle." At which point, being the smart-ass that I am, I began waving my arms around my head like a fool and yelling, "I'm moving a muscle! I'm moving a muscle!" This got big laughs from Jo (who, I confess, I was performing for), and as soon as we got off the ride she was begging to go back on--all to have me reproduce the joke. (This is the curse of being funny for a child younger than ten. You are then begged to "Do it again, Daddy!" ad nauseam.)

 

5) Mission: Space - Disney Brand Barf Bags

Jo begged to go back on Mission: Space, and we're all about repeat gratification (particularly while on vacation), so after we tired of Innoventions and Imageworks we trucked back over to the ride. We were to ride Mission: Space perhaps four (maybe five?) times over the course of a day and a half spent at Epcot, and not once did we wait more than five minutes to board the ride. For a six-year-old ride, which reportedly cost $100 million to build, that's pretty criminal. But we did choose to go at the slowest time of the year (on purpose) and we also always chose the chicken line, which moves shorter than the manly-man line.

To explain: to achieve the sensation of added Gs during take-off, the simulator is built on a huge centrifuge. Essentially, the ride is a motion simulator on a tilt-a-whirl. Not surprisingly (to everyone but Disney, apparently) this proved to be a recipe for much barfitude, and three years after the ride was introduced they turned half of the centrifuge machines off and began offering a non-spinning version of the ride, alongside the original hurl-a-rama. Being a family which doesn't enjoy being forcibly spun until we vomit, we always took the "less intense" line, choosing to find our fun in less dizzying ways. But all of the capsules, even on the less intense version, come equipped with barf bags. They're simple white paper things with nothing written on them, which I felt was particularly disappointing. You can't wipe your bum in Disney without finding a Mickey Mouse logo on your toilet paper, so why wasn't there Disney branding on the barf bags?

Thanks to the pen I always carry in my pocket, I fixed that. On each I wrote "Disney Brand Barf Bag," and drew a little picture of a sick mouse. (On some, I even had time to write, "Sponsored by HP.") Once again, a hit with Jo. She and I were laughing so hard we almost forgot to press the buttons--but of course Jo wouldn't let me forget. Until...

 

6) Mission: Space - "The Test"

Some time after our third ride on Mission: Space, while we were walking from one pavilion to another, Jo told us she wanted to do Mission: Space again. But this time, she was going to test something. "Oh yes?" we asked. "What's that?" "I want to see what happens when you don't push the buttons." Oho! Not push the buttons? Wendi and I played it straight-faced, again, already sure that the sim would play itself without anyone there to push the buttons or not. At first, we thought Jo was suspicious, in a "Daddy, are you Santa Claus?" kind of way. (This year, as a test, sh left oatmeal cookies for Santa instead of chocolate chip cookies, explaining that if Santa ate them, she would know Daddy wasn't Santa, because Daddy doesn't like oatmeal cookies.)

But as we waited to board the simulation, we learned that Jo wasn't playing mythbuster. She expected new and different things to happen. The ship might go off course, for example, and never even reach Mars. As we walked to the cockpit, she grew a little concerned about perils her test might bring. "Maybe we should just hit the button for the shields in the asteroid field," she worried. But Wendi and I assured her that the ride would be safe no matter what turn it took, still not telling her the truth. As we sat and strapped ourselves in, we all made solemn vows not to push any of the buttons, and then we were off. My button flashed--it was time to initiate the second stage! "I'm not pressing the button! I'm not pressing the button!" I assured Jo.

And the simulator, as Wendi and I knew it would, did the exact same thing it always does, initiating the next stage. Jo's reaction was priceless. "It did the same thing!" she cried. Of all the possible outcomes she had imagined, the simulation doing exactly what it always does had never crossed her mind. She was dumbfounded. Each and every time we didn't press the buttons and the sim did the same old thing, she would say, "It did the same thing!" just as incredulously as the last time. Absolutely delicious. But perhaps the best part came later, when Jo asked to ride again. "But this time," she said, "let's push the buttons. I know they don't do anything, but it's more fun." And now, grasshopper, you understand.

 

7) Soarin' for the first time

We've already waxed ecstatic about how good Soarin' is as a ride, but no rave about it in a guidebook can really prepare you for how awesome it is. At the end of our first ride, we were giddy with excitement, and already planning our next trip. Although it was always awesome, the first time was the best time by far, as there was still that wonderful feeling of surprise and unexpected delight. In fact, Soarin' was the only attraction we rode all week where riders spontaneously applauded at the end of the ride--every single time.

 

8) Experiencing Toy Story Midway Mania for the first time

This is another one where the guidebooks just couldn't capture for us how absolutely giddy we'd be at ride's end. All three of us were talking over each other as we exited, asking if we had seen this, or done that, or plotting how we could get a better score the next time--and simultaneously working out how we could use our Fast Passes to ride as many times as possible before the park closed. On both this and Soarin', Disney made the magic, and we were more than happy to experience it again and again. (And again.)

 

9) Making friends at The Voyage of the Little Mermaid

Jo has never had a problem making friends. At playgrounds, she will run up to other kids and announce, "My name's Jo" as a prelude to becoming their best friend in the world for an hour. Disney World was no exception. Wendi and I had seen The Voyage of the Little Mermaid during our last, sans Jo, visit, and we knew it was worth the wait. During the wait--in a large room with no seats where we sat on the floor to rest our weary legs--Jo made BFFs with two little girls her age, and within minutes they were playing sticks and planning who would sit next to whom in the theater. At show's end we had to go our separate ways, but for a brief time Jo had brought the magic all by herself.

 

10) A mid-day ferry ride across the Seven Seas Lagoon

Only on our last day were we able to finally work a ferry ride into our transportation arrangements, and it proved--again, without planning--to be one of the more magical moments. Perhaps because it was our last day, and perhaps because we had had enough of canned music and crowded avenues, the ferry ride proved magical in its quietude. Being the middle of the day--not the mad crush coming or going in the morning or evening--there were only a dozen or so other souls with us on a ferry built for hundreds, and the breezy, peaceful trip across the lagoon from the Magic Kingdom to the Transportation Center was a much needed moment of Zen for all of us. Jo stood at the rail, watching the water go buy, and Wendi and I sat quietly and enjoyed the silence and restfulness, not daring to break the spell by talking about it until after we were off the boat and on to another crowded, standing-room only bus bound for Hollywood Studios.

Next up: Our Top Ten Pictures from Five Days at Disney World!

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Our Ten Least Favorite Disney World Attractions

Yesterday we listed our top ten favorite attractions at the Disney World theme parks. Today, the opposite end of the spectrum: our ten least favorite attractions. We should clarify here: we didn't ride everything. Some rides and attractions we knew we wouldn't like, so we avoided those. Those rides and attractions don't appear on this list. What follow then are the ten rides and attractions we thought would be fun, but turned out to be terribly disappointing. It probably goes without saying that we think you should give these a pass when you go to Disney World, but as always, your mileage may vary.

 

1) Dinoland USA

"Did they build this part of the park on an old parking lot?" That's the first thing we asked when we arrived in Dinoland USA, where there are no trees, no shade, and no respite from the oppressive Florida sun. What we learned, eventually, was that the parking lot was fake (like everything else at Disney), meant only to pretend that we were at a real American roadside amusement park. But Dinoland USA is not an homage to those roadside amusement parks, it's a literal reproduction, one that lacks any of the charm or whimsy of the rest of the parks (particularly the rest of Animal Kingdom, in which this cancer sits.) One of the reasons to go to Disney, perhaps the thing that really sets it apart from all other amusement parks, is its imagineering: the fake "Beware of Yeti" posters on line for Expedition Everest, the bellhop costumes on the Tower of Terror cast members, the tombstones outside the Haunted Mansion. But in Dinoland USA, even the art is horrible, bearing none of the Disney style or imagination. We couldn't wait to leave Dinoland USA, which we did immediately after riding the one (painful) roller coaster we went there to ride.

Dinoland USA is also, not surprisingly, home to the absolute worst Disney cast member uniforms ever created:

Tragic.

2) The Seas with Nemo and Friends

Oh, how we debated between Dinoland USA and The Seas with Nemo and Friends for the top worst spot. The Seas with Nemo and Friends is given top billing in Epcot, and has a queue line that looks like it was built to hold hundreds of people at a time. In the summer months, this ride no doubt brings in those kinds of numbers, but if we had waited more than ten minutes to ride this one, we would have been spitting mad. Riders board "clamobiles" in a similar fashion to other classic Disney rides like Haunted Mansion or Peter Pan's Flight, and are taken on what is supposed to be a magical journey under the ocean following Nemo, who has gotten lost again. There's nothing magical about it though. The clamobiles guide you, herky-jerky, past a series of television screens built into fake coral, and you watch an animated, 2-D Nemo swim circles around familiar characters from Finding Nemo. That's it. It was boring, uncomfortable, and, to paraphrase a very old joke--way too short.

The only innovative thing about the ride is when, at the very end, they manage to project Nemo and his friends into a real, live fish tank behind the glass, so it looks like Nemo is in there with all the real fish. But this only served to make us more unhappy: there was a real aquarium, with real fish, swimming behind that wall the whole time, and instead they showed us TV screens? And the fish in the tank aren't even tropical, which means Nemo and his friends don't even look like they should belong there, animated or not! As the ride ends, the starfish from Finding Nemo is projected onto the glass wall of the aquarium, begging the riders to take her with them. "Please, get me out of here! All they do is sing that awful song over and over again!" It was like she was reading our minds...

The fact that this ride was installed in the old The Seas pavilion in 2006 makes this abomination even more inexcusable. It's brand new! An absolute waste of time. Skip it and go to Turtle Talk with Crush, then view the aquariums from the back side, without the lame ass ride.

3) Innoventions

Billed as "the information superhighway meets The Road to Tomorrow," this over-commercialized sideshow in Epcot's Future World might better be described as "the corporate publicity department meets The Road to Promotion." Segway sponsors...Segway rides. Microsoft sponsors Xbox stations with Disney-themed video games. Waste Management, Inc. sponsors an interactive waste disposal demonstration, complete with your own little Waste Management trucks to haul trash in. Or take the "Road to Tomorrow" and learn all about the miracle of Velcro, the connector of the future! The absolute limit for us was a weather demonstration that ended with the advice to buy flood insurance.

4) Imageworks: "What If?" Labs

Almost as lame as Innoventions, but in a very different way. Where Innoventions actually does feature some cutting edge science--albeit with corporate branding attached--Imageworks lets you do state of the art things like...take your picture, and manipulate it by adding on silly hats and eyes! Or...step on different pictures of instruments on the floor and hear the sound of that instrument play! Or...wave your hands around and watch as an avatar of Figment the dragon moves around on a screen! Um, thanks, but we already have Photoshop, Beatles Rock Band, and a Wii at home. Thirty years ago, this may have been some cutting edge stuff. Today, we can do it all better at home on our TV and our computer--and have a lot more fun doing it.

5) Test Track

This won't be a popular pick as a "worst of," as many people seem to like this ride. Our guidebook gave it a "Birnbaum's Best!" which was pretty accurate the rest of the time, but this time we just have to disagree. The premise of Test Track is that you are going to be the crash test dummies in a series of tests of the car you ride in, but the tests are pretty lame. Ooh. Look out. We're driving really fast up a windy hill--for three seconds. Oh, wait--now we're in the paint job testing lab, under heat lamps and air conditioners. Yawn. We're going over bumps. Yay. Let's be honest here: the only reason anyone wants to ride Test Track is for the end, where they get you outside and open it up to sixty miles an hour in that little convertible car. But that, alas, is over far too soon, and you begin to wonder why you wasted your Fast Pass on a roller coaster that does nothing but go really fast around a round track for half a minute. Now, if the ride was just going fast for five minutes, with some quick turns and steep drops thrown in you'd have something--but then, it wouldn't be the Test Track anymore. It would be a real roller coaster.

6) Snow White's Scary Adventures

Okay, we'll be honest here: we rode this because of the ride's description in our guidebook: "This 3-minute attraction takes guests on a twisting, turning journey through a few happy moments and several scary scenes from the famous fairy tale. Snow White makes several appearances, as do the seven dwarfs. But the wicked witch pops up with a suddenness that freaks out some kids (mostly those under the age of 5)." Too funny! So off we went when the line was short enough to walk on. To get an idea of what this ride is really like, scroll your screen up and down and make that picture of the wicked witch (above) pop up a dozen or so times. That's about it. For everyone over the age of five (Jo included), it's paralyzing dull, boring, and tedious. For everyone under the age of five, it is almost absurdly and unnecessarily nightmarish and terrifying. So if the over fives are bored to tears, and the under fives are driven to tears, exactly who is this ride for? And they removed Mr. Toad's Wild Ride instead of this one!?

7) The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Speaking of the dearly departed Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, we almost refused to go on its replacement--The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh--out of protest. But our guidebook gave this another "Birnbaum's Best," and late one night after riding It's a Small World so many times the cast members began to recognize us, we decided to give it a try. Look, we love Winnie the Pooh. All of us. We have nothing against Pooh, his many friends, and their many adventures. But his ride replaced Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, for Christopher Robin's sake! There's some bad blood here. But we entered the ride with open minds, only to be disappointed. This ride's greatest sin is that it's boring. It's a boring ride, it's boring to look at, and it's a boring story to follow. It has no redeeming value whatsoever. This ride is just an excuse to have a gift shop at the end. Bring back Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, damn you! Giving Mr. Toad a grave outside The Haunted Mansion is not enough:

Wherefore art thou, Toad?

 8) Tomorrowland Indy Speedway

Yes, the cars. You remember the cars, don't you? What you probably don't remember is that they are loud as hell and impossible to control--especially for seven-year-olds--which means you'll be slamming back and forth the entire time you're puttering around the track. Jo loved these, as probably all kids do, as it's a chance to drive real cars. But honestly, a proper go-cart track would be more fun and far more satisfying. And why in the world hasn't this ride been made over with a Pixar Cars theme? Driving Speed McQueen would be lots more fun. For that matter, why isn't there any kind of Cars attraction? Rip out that Test Track nonsense, put in a larger oval, and let's bump and run at sixty miles an hour around a proper racetrack, not this relic.

9) The Enchanted Tiki Room: Under New Management

Oy. The Enchanted Tiki Room used to be a cutting edge demonstration of audio-animatronics, with a full cast of singing, preening, mechanical birds. But the mechanical birds didn't age well, and people stopped going.  Disney decided to give the show an overhaul, which we were excited to see. We shouldn't have. The way they've jazzed things up is by having Zazu from The Lion King (voiced by Rowan Atkinson) and Iago from Aladdin (voiced by Gilbert Gottfried) interrupt the show to announce they've become the new owners--but the result is unfunny, and unentertaining. Worse, the climactic scene with a Tiki god, which we were at least interested to see for the design of the thing, faced the other half of the audience and never turned toward us! In a round theater! With the Tiki god emerging from a round, center stage! #Tikifail.

10) The Magic of Disney Animation

Rounding out the list is an attraction at Disney's Hollywood Studios that isn't so much bad as it is a terrible missed opportunity. What we expected was a look at how animated movies are made. What we got was a lot of Eddie Murphy as Mushu the dragon from Mulan making jokes and introducing us to the people who had worked on him, without ever showing us what the people actually did. We really wanted Jo to see all the work that goes into character design, scene design, storyboarding, animation, and all the rest, but the ten minute movie is light on the technical stuff and heavy on the silly stuff. Probably to be expected, but definitely a missed opportunity. The closest we got to learning anything about that stuff was a poster in the lobby, explaining all the jobs you can get as an artist on movies. A movie about that, with live examples, would have been much more interesting.

Next up: Our Top Ten Magical Moments at Disney World!

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Our Top Ten Favorite Disney World Attractions

This month we took Jo (age seven) on her first trip to Disney World in Florida. After five days, six nights, and countless miles walked, we returned home tired but happy. We went armed with good information, and learned even more, so this week we thought we would chronicle our experience in list form, for the edification of anyone planning a similar trip.

Why don't we begin with the things we loved? Today's list: our top ten favorite attractions! We enjoyed many more things than are listed here, and often the things Jo loved we didn't, but these were the consensus favorites among parents and kid alike.

 

1) Toy Story Midway Mania

If you've played the Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin in the Magic Kingdom park, you may be tempted to skip the Toy Story Midway Mania ride at Hollywood Studios, thinking you've already been there and done that. You'd be wrong. Yes, both rides put you and a co-pilot in a car with laser guns, letting you shoot targets, but Toy Story Midway Mania is lightyears better than Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin--so much so that once we played Midway Mania, we swore we would never stand in line for the Space Ranger Spin again.

What makes this ride so incredible? For one thing, it's in 3-D, and GOOD 3-D. Wearing 3-D glasses, you are pulled through six "mini-games," where you shoot at targets on richly animated screens with art straight out of the Pixar movies. Your shots translate into paint balls, baseballs, rings, or plungers depending on which mini-game you're playing, and the interface is so seamless and real you'll feel as though the little toy gun on the car is actually shooting things. The ride is massively addictive--so much so that we used every single Fast Pass we could on it, and stood in line another two or three times without Fast Passes.

 

2) Expedition Everest

We're cheating a little here--this wasn't a total consensus pick. Jo loves roller coasters, but the theming on some of the rides--like this one, and on the Tower of Terror--scares the pants off her, and she refuses to ride a second time although she screamed in excitement the first time she rode both. Expedition Everest is first and foremost an excellent roller coaster, taking you both backward and forward on the same ride, and spinning you in and out of a dark mountain. But what really puts Expedition Everest over the top is the incredible theming--from the brilliant Nepalese outfitter shop you queue through in line, to the sound effects and Yeti animations during the ride. (It was the Yeti animation that did Jo in.) Expedition Everest is the perfect synthesis of Imagineering and flat out rollercoastering we've ever been on.

 

3) Soarin'

Easily a consensus pick at number three, and hands down Jo's favorite ride, as her number one wish is to be able to fly. Soarin' comes pretty darn close to giving you the feeling of independent flight, strapping you in to a long row of seats that are mechanically lifted up into a round, Imax-like screen. There, you swoop in and out of clouds and over a series of aerial flyovers of California, from the vineyards at Napa Valley to the city of San Diego and all points in between. Soarin' is absolutely the best thing at Epcot (by far) and deserves multiple rides. Like Midway Mania at Hollywood Studios, we used every Fast Pass we could on this one--and you'll want to. The wait time for this ride is insanely long, perhaps the worst standby line wait we experienced in any of the four parks at any time the whole week. (This is helped, some, by games you can play on massive computer screens while waiting in line.) When they open the gates to Epcot, make for the Land pavilion, get a Fast Pass for Soarin', then jump into the standby line, which shouldn't be too awful first thing. If you love it as much as we did, you'll want to come back and get a new Fast Pass for it each and every time you can...

 

4) It's a Small World

All right, we're going to take some grief over this pick. People who revile It's a Small World remember the repetitive song, which is sung over and over (and over) again in many different languages. What people don't seem to remember is the art of It's a Small World, which was created by Mary Blair, a legendary mid-century Disney concept artist. Her work is also featured on the Peter Pan ride, which is well worth your time, but the line for Peter Pan is three times as long as the one for It's a Small World, and there's less of her genius art to be seen. If it's the song that's keeping you away, plug your ears and go back with open eyes and pay more attention to the sets than the dolls. It's a Small World is like riding through a forty year old piece of art.

5) Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror

This was the other one Jo refused to ride twice, but only because of the atmospheric theming. The two days we were at Hollywood Studios in mid-December, this ride had insanely short wait times--basically, you could ride this one as quickly as you could walk up the line queue to it. (I once got on in five minutes.) And Tower of Terror is worth repeated rides. Essentially a "Whoa Belly" ride, at its heart this is a raise you up and drop you ride, but where it stands apart from the usual up-and-down stomach churner is its randomly programmed sequence of raises and drops: no two rides are ever the same. You're also treated to periods of darkness and periods of light--including glimpses outside, which let you see all the way to the Magic Kingdom. (If you don't have your eyes closed.) The Twilight Zone theming in the hotel is great, and the ghost effects at the beginning of the ride are a neat prelude to the ride to come, but the theming effects will definitely keep younger riders from going twice. (The creepy little girl singing "It's raining, it's pouring..." did it for Jo.)

6) Nemo: The Musical

In past visits (all as adults, and without Jo) we've skipped the shows. Why bother when there are all those great roller coasters and thrill rides? But this year we hit the shows for Jo's sake, and many times were were blown away--as we were with Nemo: The Musical. The songs were just okay, but what really made the show outstanding was the puppetry. All the characters are rendered as puppets, handled by visible operators and moved around the stage on foot, fly-wire, and even bicycle. Nemo: The Musical has Broadway-level production values, and is worth the combination wait and show time of an hour out of your day. (It's also a great way to get off your feet and into the shade for a while, so plan your visit to the show for a time when you think a rest will do everyone some good.)

7) Turtle Talk with Crush

A hidden gem in Epcot, Turtle Talk with Crush can be found in The Seas pavilion. Skip "The Seas with Nemo and Friends" ride (seriously--we'll cover that in our top ten worst attractions post) and ask the cast member at the entrance to steer you around the back way to Turtle Talk. Another interactive Pixar feature, you and the kids sit in a small auditorium, and Crush, the wise, aged surfer-dude tortoise from Finding Nemo, swims up on a screen made to look like a large aquarium to talk to you. And when we say "talk to you," we mean it. He doesn't talk "at" you, he asks and answers questions from the audience. The computer animated turtle reacts in funny and surprising ways, and the guy hidden away doing his voice has great jokes in his repertoire--as well as actual facts about sea turtles. The best fun comes when he's stumped by the inevitable random kid questions--like "How does ice cream get flavored?" which one kid in our session asked. The same technology is used on the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor, which just missed our top ten list but is also terrific, live-show fun.

 8) Peter Pan's Flight


As we said before, this ride features great art. Pay attention, in particular, to the early scenes of London and Neverland, as seen from above. The real charm to this ride, of course, is that you board little stylized pirate ships, thinking you're going on another of those static drive-you-around rides, or worse, that you'll soon be bobbing in a water track ala It's a Small World. But then you cruise through Wendy's bedroom, and suddenly the boat takes flight, up and out the window, and never lands until ride's end. It's the magic of that flight that makes the line for Peter Pan stretch around the corner no matter what time of day, and makes this one of the few non-thrill rides to actually offer Fast Passes. Despite the constant loading and unloading of the boats, the line for this one is slow. Use up a Fast Pass on it if you plan to ride, which you should.

9) It's Tough to be a Bug

Disney's Animal Kingdom wasn't open the last time Wendi and I visited, so it was as new to us as it was to Jo. Hidden in the base of the Tree of Life at the park's center is a "4-D" auditorium--"4-D" because it not only shows you a movie in 3-D, it has real effects too--including a stinky smell from a stink bug, squirting water, and ants in your pants. This one's sure to have you screaming and laughing, and (like most of the shows) gives you a good excuse to rest your feet--this time in an air-conditioned theater. Don't skip this one.

10) The Maharajah Jungle Trek

This is perhaps our oddest pick, as it's not really a ride at all. It's a path. A path you walk. But this zoo walk through the pens of creatures from Asia--including Komodo Dragons, foot-tall fruit bats (!), pythons, Bengal tigers, and dozens of exotic birds--is on par with the best traditional zoos. Zoo keepers stand ready at each of the enclosures to tell you about the animals, and we were treated to up-close and personal looks at almost all the animals--including a close encounter (just feet away!) with the Bengal tigers which we'll all remember. Disney likes to advertise that Animal Kingdom is not a zoo, but at its heart it really is--and it's a good one.

Tomorrow: our least favorite Disney World attractions!

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Happy Holidays from Gratz Industries

Via Newsarama.

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Professional Rock Paper Scissors

 

There is, believe it or not, a Rock, Paper Scissors League. There are even world championships. Your current world champion: American Tim Conrad, who took home a $7,000 cash prize. For playing Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Perhaps the most high-stakes game of Rock, Paper Scissors ever played though was between auction houses Sotheby's and Christie's. Via Wikipedia:

When Takashi Hashiyama, CEO of a Japanese television equipment manufacturer, decided to auction off the collection of impressionist paintings owned by his corporation, including works by Cézanne, Picasso, and van Gogh, he contacted two leading U.S. auction houses, Christie's International and Sotheby's Holdings, seeking their proposals on how they would bring the collection to the market as well as how they would maximize the profits from the sale. Both firms made elaborate proposals, but neither was persuasive enough to get Hashiyama’s business. Unwilling to split up the collection into separate auctions, Hashiyama asked the firms to decide between themselves who would hold the auction, which included Cézanne's "Large Trees Under the Jas de Bouffan", worth $12–16 million.

The houses were unable to reach a decision. Hashiyama told the two firms to play rock-paper-scissors, to decide who would get the rights to the auction, explaining that "it probably looks strange to others, but I believe this is the best way to decide between two things which are equally good."

The auction houses had a weekend to come up with a choice of move. Christie's went to the 11-year-old twin daughters of an employee, who suggested "scissors" because "everybody expects you to choose 'rock'." Sotheby's said that they treated it as a game of chance and had no particular strategy for the game, but went with "paper".


Christie's won the match, with millions of dollars of commission for the auction house.

And for those of you for whom three options is not enough, there is always Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock, immortalized on a t-shirt available from ThinkGeek:

Live long and rock scissors.

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Lovely Sailboats

Ann Wood makes the most lovely paper mache boats - and now she has complete instructions on her blog. So nice! If you need any more inspiration you can see some of her sold boats here.

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Perfect Little Pincushions

Mimi Kirchner is one of my favorite dollmakers - and she also makes the most fabulous pincushions I've ever seen. Like this Fantasy Island Pincushion. She calls them Tiny World Pincushions. Isn't that perfect?

And look! She sells a pattern too! Just added to my wish list. Now I need to find the perfect tea cup. . .

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HOW TO: Make a chicken waterer that doesn't freeze

The water in our chicken coop keeps freezing! What's a backyard poultry farmer to do? Build a homebrew chicken water warmer. Here's how we did it:

To start, you'll need a large tin coffee can, or something comparable. It just needs to be metal.

Next, buy an "Electric Water Pipe Freeze Protection Cable," also known as a "Pipe Heating Cable." These are supposed to be used for keeping exposed pipes from freezing. Our local Ace Hardware had a nice selection of lengths. For this project, you'll want the one that's just three feet long. Out of the box, they look like this:

 The black part is the heating cable.

The larger orange case is the thermostat, and the black circle is the sensor that must be touching whatever you need to keep warm. This Easy Heat model kicks on when the temperature falls to 38 degrees Fahrenheit, and warms the water until it reaches 45 degrees F. The documentation says it works down to -38 degrees. If that claim is ever tested, our chickens are going to have bigger problems than a frozen water dish.

The last thing you'll want is a tape that can withstand temperature extremes. The Easy Heat manual says electrical tape is fine, but we went fancypants and bought metal repair tape usually meant for duct repair. (*See EDIT, below.)

Lastly, you'll need a short cake pan. We chose a heart-shaped pan because we love our chickens. Also, it was getting rusty and we were going to throw it out anyway.

Wrap the heating element part of the cable around the can in a downward spiral, beginning about an inch from the top. Be sure that when you finish, the thermostat part of the cable isn't so low that it'll be sitting in your water. To make sure we didn't screw up, we put the can in the cake pan to help us eyeball it. Make sure the black circle that senses the temperature of the can sits as flat as possible against the can.

Tape down the end of the heating cable at the top, and then tape the wire in front of and behind the thermostat, to keep the thermostat from losing its contact.

Once we had all the ends taped down,we went back and added metal tape all along the cable. We figured this would make the connection more secure all along the heating element, and perhaps keep a bit of that heat focused inward, rather tan outward.

Using a hammer and a Philips-head screwdriver, punch a hole in the can near the height of the cake pan rim, but still below it. The hole is essentially your water line, as, through the miracle of science, the water inside the can will only pour out until the water level outside covers the hole. The same principle works in the dog and cat watering stations that use an upturned two-liter soda bottle.

For the hole punching, remember to put something on the inside to hammer against, or you'll just dent your can. The corner of a table you don't mind getting scratched works well.

To keep the electrical cord up out of the water (more for chicken accessibility than any worry about the wire in the water) we also ran the orange electrical cord straight back up the can and put a piece of tape on it to hold it there, but you can handle the cord in whatever way works best for your coop.

And that's it! It's time to fill up your new de-luxe, heated chicken waterer and plug it in. To fill it, remove the can from the cake pan and fill it up in the sink. Put the cake pan over the open mouth of the can (upside-down) and flip the whole thing over. Do this quickly, and right where you're going to be setting it down, just in case it sloshes. To our surprise though, this actually wasn't a messy affair.

We already had electricity running to our coop to power an incandescent bulb on a Christmas tree timer, both to keep our chickens warmer and to extend the chickens' daylight hours, which keeps our hens laying all winter long. (The tree timer is the green box hanging there in the picture; it clicks on at dusk, and can be programmed to switch off again a set number of hours later. We found ours at Target.) The only way to test this sucker was to plug it in out there in the cold and see if it kept the water from freezing, and darn if it didn't work! While our other waterers are frozen solid, the water in our No-Freeze Chicken Waterer is fresh and frost-free all day and all night long. (*See EDIT, below.)

Here's hoping your chickens stay warm and well-watered this winter!

*EDIT: First, don't use the silver reflective tape. The chickens will just eat it. (Our did, at least.) Instead, we've attached the heating cord with the duct joiners that tighten when you use a screwdriver on them. (Pics to come.) Second, the waterer still freezes at very low temperatures. I don't know an exact level, but if the temperature is even in the 20s, you'll still have an ice block. It still works right around freezing, but for anything much colder...ah, well. Back to the drawing board.

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