New Rides

We got to the Magic Kingdom at opening one morning and got to ride and ride with no lines for a couple hours. We rode the Tea Cups for the first time (and the second time). We all really enjoyed that ride. We also rode the race cars. They were tolerated by both boys but we won't bother with those again. We also rode the carousel over and over again, did It's a Small World, Peter Pan and Snow White. We climbed the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse for the first time. Eli really seemed to like that. We had time to catch the Country Bear Jamboree before lunch and after lunch, Sean and I rode Splash Mountain.

It was my first time on Splash Mountain although I didn't realize that until after the ride started. I thought I rode it my very first trip to Disney World but obviously I was mistaken. I thought it was okay, but my enjoyment of the ride was probably dampened by the shaking, screaming kid beside me. Sean hated it. He loved watching other people go over the big hill and splash into the water but he was scared to death after only the first little hill and by the big hill was just screaming his head off. Poor kid.

At Epcot, we rode the Grand Fiesta Tour inside the Mexican pyramid. It's a silly little ride we won't be doing again, but we were glad we tried it because we didn't realize how much stuff was inside the pyramid. I also got to do Soarin' with Sean. I loved it, although it did push my motion sickness right to the limit. I had to close my eyes a few times and wait for a scene change, but I am so glad I did it and I would definitely do it again. Sean, on the other hand, was more scared this time around than last time. He remembered the ride and was excited to ride it, but once it started, he got a little antsy. He leaned in to me the whole time and that seemed to calm him. He even started to like it by the end.

At Animal Kingdom I almost got to ride Dinosaur. I say almost because at the last second Sean and I had to duck out the chicken exit. Sean had ridden it before with Jonathan and didn't like it. But since that was over a year ago and he's been into dinosaurs recently, I thought he might want to try again. Everything went well until he saw the actual cars you ride in and the memories must have come flooding back. He started shaking and little tears were falling from his eyes. I couldn't put him through that.

Especially not since he was having such a great trip. For the first time ever, Sean asked to ride a ride other than the carousel. Every time we entered Epcot, he made us ride Spaceship Earth, the ride inside the big ball. He loves it! That is fine with all of us. We love it, too. He also asked to see Goofy spontaneously. That was so cool! He proved to us time and again that he knows Epcot by heart. He would go directly to all the things he loves, namely all the many water fountains and the model trains in Germany. You could actually see the anticipation in his face as we would get near something he wanted to see. I am still not completely sure how he feels about all the parks but he without a doubt likes Epcot.

(Zandria, for some reason, Cinderella's horse is no longer on the carousel. There isn't one with a gold ribbon on the tail. There was in January but this trip it was gone.)