A Visit to Magic Kingdom

Going to Florida may seem like a dream for a school trip, but we were fortunate enough to finally go to Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando from April 13-16 with our school orchestra. I still can hardly believe that this trip actually happened, as it was originally planned when I was in ninth grade three years ago and was canceled in early March 2020. I'm very thankful that we still got the chance to go, even if took three extra years! We had one day at Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios, as well as one day for both Universal parks. It was a special feeling going from wintery Pittsburgh on one day to sunny Central Florida the next, and of course, we had to start at Magic Kingdom.

We didn't arrive at rope drop, but that's difficult when you're traveling with a school group, not to mention the Monorail/ferryboat ride from the Transportation and Ticket Center to get to the Magic Kingdom. After so much traveling, it was refreshing to finally see the Magic Kingdom train station.

I was surprised that almost all of the attraction posters were vintage designs, with everything from Carousel of Progress to Sunshine Tree Terrace represented. I'm barely even familiar with this Peoplemover poster. Luckily, my friends didn't mind me taking pictures of all of them while we were rushing to get into the park. 

The Country Bear Jamboree is a Magic Kingdom classic, and there was no way I was going to miss it!

The Magic Kingdom posters are much smaller than the ones at Disneyland, but I like the attractions that are featured here more.

Now that we finally got past the train station, I stopped to take more pictures... of a plaque. I find it important to stop for these details even as everyone else is rushing to Space Mountain.

The Roy O. Disney statue is perfect, fitting for the special role Roy played in bringing Walt Disney World to life. I wonder how many people pass this statue every day not even knowing who Roy was. 

It had been five years since I had been to WDW, but I still remembered how expansive the Hub is compared to Disneyland--especially with the fireworks viewing areas like the one in the foreground of this picture.

I think there might be a castle or something on the other side of that shade umbrella? Whatever, it's not important. (Note the "ribbons" on the castle turrets left over from the 50th anniversary.)

The Crystal Palace is a pretty building, but it will never be as charming as Disneyland's Plaza Pavilion/Tiki Room/Victorian/South Seas mash-up!

My friends were very appreciative that I knew where everything in the park was located!

The Orange Bird is an icon of early Walt Disney World, and I'm happy that Disney recognizes the value of this character, including on all kinds of merchandise.

I never saw this area of the park before the Magic Carpets of Aladdin attraction was installed, and I'd be interested to know how Adventureland felt before its addition. In the background, cranes are working on the transformation of Splash Mountain into Tiana's Bayou Adventure.

These Marc Davis-designed tikis are another defining feature of the East Coast Adventureland, even if their conversion into a water playground isn't exactly in-line with the original design intention.

Pirates of the Caribbean was our first ride of the day, and it had a posted wait of an hour that only took 15 minutes. Even after reading the well-thought-out essays on Passport to Dreams explaining the ride's merits (I like the idea that Marc Davis may have designed a limited Pirates ride to keep hope for the Western River Expedition alive), it just can't compare to Disneyland's version at the end of the day.

Backtracking a bit, the Enchanted Tiki Room is the best part of Adventureland's eastern side before it transitions into the quaint Caribbean Plaza.

I didn't think about it when seeing the show at Disneyland, but the Magic Kingdom Tiki Room is situated in a much larger space than the show in California. I guess that's the advantage of building the Sunshine Pavilion from scratch instead of wedging it into a small space like at Disneyland.

Hopefully the "Hawaiian War Chant" will go on forever, just as it has for the past 50 years.

Walking through the breezeway into Frontierland, the Haunted Mansion rises imposingly across the river. Just like Pirates, the wait time was posted at an hour but took less than ten minutes. Maybe Disney is artificially inflating wait times in the hope of selling more Genie+ add-ons (which were $35/day during our trip)?

I have to give the edge to the Magic Kingdom Mansion facade over Disneyland, but I still prefer the West Coast ride overall despite the extra scenes in Florida. Despite the frustration some people feel over the Nightmare Before Christmas overlay in California, at least it means the Mansion receives extensive maintenance and upgrades on a routine basis. Having ridden the California version less than a year ago, there is a noticeable downgrade in lighting quality on the Florida ride, and that makes all the difference for me.

Of course, some of my favorite attractions at the Magic Kingdom never have a line, like the Country Bear Jamboree.

Waiting in the lobby for the show to start, I couldn't resist spending $5 for eight pressed pennies to jingle in my pocket for the rest of the day!

I love the Country Bear Jamboree, and it's right up there with the Carousel of Progress as one of the Magic Kingdom's most historically important attractions. What makes me even happier is the three times I've seen the show, everyone in the audience seems to enjoy it just as much, clapping along and laughing. While I am disappointed that I never had the chance to see the show at its original length (five minutes were cut in 2012), I'm happy that it's still maintained as a Magic Kingdom classic. A maintenance issue I noticed was one of the Sun Bonnets' eyes was stuck looking upwards... it looked like it had rolled back in the bear's head!

We barely spent any time in Fantasyland, with the only attraction we rode there being the Mad Tea Party. The rest of my pictures of the land either didn't turn out or are too crowded with people, so let's move on to Tomorrowland!

Something that I was excited to check out (in a nerdy way) was the semi-restoration of the original Tomorrowland aesthetic from the 1970s. Of course, in 1994, Florida's Tomorrowland was the first American Tomorrowland to receive the "retro-futuristic" look established in Disneyland Paris' Discoveryland. While the East Coast version stayed far enough away from the color bronze to look decidedly better than Anaheim's Tomorrowland, it still felt rather cluttered and certainly seemed as if it was stuck in the 90s by the late 2010s.

To my surprise, Disney recently took some simple yet effective steps to bring the pre-1994 Tomorrowland back to life. It didn't take much more than removing some of the steampunk clutter and bringing back the area's paint scheme of white punctuated with a few bright colors.

This is where the retro look works, in the walkways surrounding the Astro Orbiter. Beyond this, the area around Space Mountain had been largely left untouched since the 70s anyway. But closer to the castle, the main Tomorrowland concourse (below) still feels conflicted. 

Short of the unlikely move that would bring back the towering fountains facing the Hub, I feel like this part of Tomorrowland needs a more major refurbishment, something more than the simple reskin carried out in the rest of the land.

I am in love with the retro design of the Peoplemover track. And it was time to ride this classic!

New signage like this was part of the light Tomorrowland re-theme over the past few years.

The description on Passport to Dreams of Disney calling "1975 boxcars pushed around with magnets" the transportation system of the future is apt, but who doesn't love the cool tour around Tomorrowland?

There was a moment when I was standing in the middle of Tomorrowland, with the Peoplemover gliding overhead, the Astro Orbiter whirling above, and the Tomorrowland Speedway cars making their rounds. The background soundtrack to all this (the "World on the Move!") was the synthesizer version of "Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" as I watched the Carousel of Progress slowly rotate. It was a really special moment. I'll share some more thoughts on the Carousel of Progress, the crown jewel of Tomorrowland (sorry Tron) at the end of this report.

The absolute highlight of the Peoplemover is the glimpse of the Progress City model. Although you are whisked by it so fast that you can't take in any of the details, this is something that every fan of Disney history can appreciate. We are so fortunate that at least a small part of this model still exists and is seen by thousands of people every day!

The Florida Peoplemover isn't exactly similar to the old Disneyland ride, with these concrete canopies cutting across the flat Florida landscape. And yes, we did ride Space Mountain (after we "previewed it the scenic way"), waiting in a full, 115-minute-long queue. It wasn't exactly worth the wait, but we had to ride it!

I think this may be one of the most glamorous pictures of the otherwise ugly Tomorrowland entrance "rocks" out there, with the blackness of the water reflecting their cool, dark tones. :-)

Eyeing a 30-minute wait for Big Thunder Mountain, we had to run all the way across the park. At this point, the sun was beginning to set, casting a golden glow on the Rivers of America.

We had a great ride on Big Thunder, with both the steamboat and WDW Railroad passing by us during the parts where they run close to the coaster. I love how the queue affords you this great view of the trains racing around the mountain for a large part of its length.

One show we didn't see was the Hall of Presidents. We could only do so much in a crowded park.

Darkness was coming quick, but there was one ride at Magic Kingdom that I would not leave the park without experiencing.

Tron Lightcycle / Run had opened less than two weeks prior to our visit, and I consider myself lucky that I was even able to ride this highly in-demand attraction. The ride itself was a little short, but the launch into the outdoor segment is hard to beat. So although I would've liked it to be a little longer, it's still one of the best roller coasters I have ridden. I even got to ride in the front row.

The Tron coaster and its futuristic canopy are fascinatingly complex yet simplistically elegant in a way that I feel Disney has largely lost touch with in recent decades.

Space Mountain is perfectly framed in the canopy, one of my favorite things about this area. It's absolutely breathtaking to walk around and under the coaster at night.

I could have been watching the fireworks in front of the castle with my friends, but I was more focused on capturing them behind Tron!

That brought a close to our wonderful day at a very crowded Magic Kingdom, but leaving this brand-new Disney attraction, you know I can't forget about one of the greatest old Disney rides to still exist today.

It's hard to explain why the Carousel of Progress makes me so happy, but it just has everything I love about a Disney attraction: Audio-Animatronics, a great theme song, and a storied history. There is no ignoring that the Carousel is almost laughably out of date during the final scene (next year will be 30 years since its last refurbishment), but I truly hope that Disney realizes that this is one piece of history that must never go extinct.

May the "longest-running stage show in the history of American theater" play on forever.

There's nothing like walking out of Main Street with all the lights... except that I may have been running to catch the ferryboat because I lingered a little too long taking pictures of the Carousel of Progress. Don't worry, I made it with plenty of time to spare. :-)

I'll close with something I heard one of my classmates say when we were on the bus back to our hotel, kind of a summation of the power the Magic Kingdom holds on us all.

 "The Peoplemover not only moved me physically... it moved me emotionally too."