Zorac's LiveJournal

Today was the second day of St. Giles' Fair. I was going to be meeting up with kay_taylor and some other folk, but missed messages conspired against that. For those that don't know, every year St. Giles (the large road on which the Eagle and Child is located) is closed down for a couple of days to become a fairground. There were dozens of attractions ranging from gypsy fortune-tellers to a fair-sized roller-coaster. There were, of course, all the usual games of skill - throwing hoops over things, shooting with pellet guns, arrows or crossbows, basketball, and so on. Not having much in the way of that kind of skill (and also not having any great need for large stuffed toys), I decided to pass on these.

The roller-coaster was a wild mouse type - not the sort I'm too keen on, so my first choice was Big Ben Tower. It's an impressively tall edifice, and you get bounced to the top of the tower, where it held for a fair while (fantastic views of the dreaming spires of Oxford) before dropping back down, again with a few bounces. Next up was Stargate - a nasty piece of work in which you stand on the inside of a drum which both spins and a fair clip and flips over as well - I was beginning to think "can we stop now" towards the end. Finally I went on Chaos - you sit in hanging seats, which are spun around in addition to the whole thing doing a big swing like a pirate ship - top stuff. An this point, my stomach (and other parts of me that had been constricted by the seats and safety restraints) politely suggested that enough was enough and I decided not to tempt fate with a fourth ride.

Our last day in the parks was at EPCOT, the park of two halves. In the morning, we did parts of future world, featuring (among other things), the Big Giant Golf Ball (aka Spaceship Earth), Honey, I Shrunk the Audience (yet another 3D movie thing), Body Wars (Star Tours-like motion ride with synchronised video) and the all-new Test Track - fun, if sometimes violent and very fast.

Afternoon saw us working our way around the World Showcase (a.k.a the Magic Snackdom - and yes, we did indulge). Not heavy on the rides (beyond a gentle log-flume in a Viking boat), this was more a sightseeing trip. A special mention goes to the "Human Statue" who was doing a hilarious job posing for photos with the tourists. It's all very authentic - and yet at the same time, all very fake. Dinner was at the Rose and Crown - a fair stab at faking up a British pub, where we did have an excellent view for the evening's fireworks.

Tuesday saw us taking the bus to the Magic Kingdom - twice. Morning and early afternoon were for the "lesser" rides - nothing too serious, and much of it rather twee - but nonetheless enjoyable. Special mentions to The Pirates of the Caribbean (who we’d be seeing more of later in the trip) and the Tigger-bouncing on the Winnie-the-Pooh ride. Mid-afternoon, we headed back to the hotel for a nap and then dinner at the Italian restaurant.

We then returned to the Magic Kingdom to take advantage of the E-ride night - limited capacity opening for another three hours after the park's normal closing (in this case from 11pm to 2am), allowing us to take on the big rides with virtually nothing by the way of queuing. Also, there's the fun of taking on the three mountains in the dark - OK, so Space is always dark, but it certainly added to the fun of Splash and Big Thunder. We also experienced the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter - a nice piece of "less is more" with well placed effects - and darkness. As the rain had delayed it, we also got to see the late night illuminated parade, which was really quite nifty.

Monday was our first day hitting the theme parks, so we made an early start to catch the boat to Disney/MGM studios. Plenty of fun was had, including the Tower of Terror - an excellent plummeting elevator experience, Rock'n'Roller Coaster - indoors, with a standing start and loops, and Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The latter is a highly authentic rendition of the original, albeit with a few twists - the entire audience plays along to decide who gets into the hot seat, and phone-a-friend is replaced by phone-a-complete-stranger. Due to not being first with the fastest finger, neither of us actually made the hot seat, but when the scoreboard came up at the end of the show, I had taken second place and hermorrine tenth - out of an audience of several hundred. Go us!

Later on, we caught the Indiana Jones stunt spectacular - which really was quite impressive (not least for the large moving sets). Dinner was at "Mom's Place" - with the waiters laying down the law: no elbows on the table, no dessert unless you finish your vegetables etc. The kids at the table next to ours were recruited to keep an eye on their elders - and were positively delighting in reporting misplaced elbows and the like to their waiter (goodness knows how long it'll be before their parents can get them to behave at the table again) - poor Grandma was fed some of her unfinished veggies. Oh, and the drinks had electric ice cubes :-)