From: shuford@cs.utk.edu (Richard Shuford)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.disney
Subject: a visit to Disney World, Sea World, and beyond
Summary: observations from Central Florida
Keywords: Magic Kingdom, Orlando, Sea World, Space
Date: 5 Apr 92 07:15:19 GMT
Expires: 7 May 1992 22:23:24 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.disney
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Tennessee, Knoxville--Dept. of Computer Science
NNTP-Posting-Host: alphard.cs.utk.edu

Having recently visited the Magic Kingdom (MK) at Walt Disney World
(WDW) and another nearby vacation spot, here are some observations for
those planning to visit:

One good way to find out about how to visit WDW is, oddly enough, to read
a book on the subject.  In a local bookstore, I scanned the shelves of the
Travel section and found a useful book:

     \Walt Disney World with Kids, 1992: The Unofficial Guide/ by
     Kim Wright Wiley.  ISBN 1-55958-140-9.  $9.99 US.  Published
     by Prima Publishing, P.O. Box 1260-U8, Rocklin, CA 95677 USA,
     voice telephone +1 916/786-0426.  (Bulk distribution by St.
     Martin's Press.)

This book is indeed written from the standpoint of parents traveling to
WDW with youngsters.  (Usenet reader: If you are not a parent, you will
be unable to appreciate the unique delights and hazards of traveling
with children.)  Reading the book did give me a good idea of what is and
is not feasible to do in a brief visit to the Disney complex. 

Wiley provides a brief description of all the major attractions at WDW
and the attractions at the nearby Universal Studios theme park.  She
also discusses how to reserve seats in restaurants and how to optimize
numerous aspects of a Central Florida vacation.  She also briefly treats
the other tourist-catering sites in the area, such as Busch
Entertainment's Sea World and Busch Gardens, the Wet 'n Wild and Water
Mania water parks, the Mystery Fun House, the Gatorland Zoo, and
Medieval Times. 

In addition to Kim Wiley's experiences in traveling to Central Florida
destinations, there are nuggets of wisdom culled from surveys of 150
families that visited WDW.

A more sensory way to see what to expect from the Magic Kingdom is to
view a Walt Disney Home Video videocassette entitled "Disneyland Fun". 
This is Volume 7 of the Disney's SingAlong Songs series, but you don't
need the first six tapes.  The WDHV stock number is 935; the ISBN is
1-55890-935-4.  The tape is available at discount stores for $10 to $16,
runs 29 minutes, and gives glimpses of many of the major attractions of
the Anaheim theme park, much of which is duplicated in the Orlando MK. 
Mickey Mouse and his friends ride the rides and march down Main Street
U.S.A.  while singing various songs, some from the movies and some not. 
Just follow the bouncing ears. 

-----------

Now some information from our own trip:

From 22 February to 17 April this year, Disney is giving students on
spring break a good deal; such students can enter a single one of the
three major WDW theme parks (MK, EPCOT, or MGM) for one day for $23.20. 
You have to present current, valid student identification.

Disney prefers to sell 5-day passes, allowing admisssion to all the
various parks at WDW, for $145 for adults or $116 for children, but
ordinary members of the public may buy 1-day, 1-park tickets at $33 for
adults or $26 for children.  There is also a 3-park, 4-day deal.  Those
who have membership in the Magic Kingdom Club get a slight discount. 

We did not want to devote our entire vacation just to Disney, so we
spent just one day at the Magic Kingdom.  My wife and I, with our son
(age 8) and our daughter (age 4), were there on Monday, 23 March.  The
number of people in MK that day was much smaller than is seen during the
summer months.  (In any season, Friday is said to be the least crowded
day of the week.)  Also with us at MK was my wife's sister April (see
"uses of AI".)  At several times during the day, we were glad to have
a majority of grown-ups in our party. 

Splash Mountain was not yet open.  The Peter Pan's Flight attraction in
Fantasyland was undergoing some kind of renovation.  The Skyway to
Tommorrowland was closed on the day we visited because of high winds. 
Otherwise, all the attractions were functioning normally. 

In one day, one cannot possibly see and do everything in MK.  From
reading Wiley's book and the Disney official brochures, we formed a
general plan, based on our family's interests, of what things we wanted
to try to accomplish.  We ended up modifying the plan several times, but
having some general strategy did help at crucial moments. 

The afternoon character parade was a Mardi Gras theme, with many of the
cast perched on stilts.  These alternated with the cold-air balloons,
which you may have glimpsed in TV advertisements.

The Spectromagic parade at 8:00 p.m. currently replaces the evening
fireworks display.  The floats for this are marvels of technology. 

It's often a good idea to call the day before you arrive at WDW to
inquire about the exact hours of operation planned for the theme parks
and about any attractions that may be undergoing repair.  The phone
number for this, and for other kinds of information, is

    +1 407/824-4321

If you want to stay on the Disney property in a Disney-run hotel, one of
the least expensive ones is the Dixie Landings.  This is not on the
monorail, but there are frequent buses to the Ticket and Transportation
Center (TTC).  If you want one of the $85-per-night rooms, you'd better
reserve really early.  The rooms with a better view cost more but don't
fill up \quite/ as fast.  There are some advantages in staying in one of
the WDW lodging facilities; for instance, you may make reservations for
certain restaurants 2 days in advance, instead of having to wait until
the day you'd like to eat there.  But lodging outside WDW is cheaper.
There are about 76,000 hotel rooms in Central Florida, including the
Disney ones.

-----------

Friday that week we went to Sea World in Orlando.  After seeing so many
"Audio-Animatronic" things at Disney World, it was rather refreshing to
see some real animals doing their thing. 

At the time we visited Sea World, there were numerous sources of
discount coupons for a couple dollars off the normal 1-day admission
price.  In the lobby of the International Drive Days Inn, I encountered
some folks with Sea World ticket prices that seemed incredibly low.  But
this turned out to be part of a deal wherein you are obligated to attend
a meeting where salesmen urge you to purchase timeshare memberships for
vacation condominiums, so I decided to buy tickets at the gate.  Using
a coupon that we picked up at a Wendy's restaurant, two adults and two
children got in for one day for just under $100.

Sea World is not quite so big as Magic Kingdom, so it is humanly
possible to see everything there in one day.  It's a nice park, but
there are a couple of traffic bottlenecks.  We ran into one when the
audience exiting the sea-lion-and-otter show ran into the crowd that had
gathered around the Clydesdale horses.  Not all the food service
facilities were operational during March; we found the sandwiches at the
International Sandwich Shop to be elegantly prepared, but the elegance
came at the price of a very long wait in line to get fed.  (Of course,
the actual price of the food was also considerably higher than you'd pay
on the outside.  But it's that way at every theme park I've ever been
to, including MK.)

In March, Sea World had not yet darkened the Penguin Encounter (to
simulate the continuous gloom that Anarctica gets from May through
August), so we got a good view of that.  There were three daily shows
with Shamu the Killer Whale.  The seating filled up quickly for at least
the first two of these.

There are numerous other live shows and aquarium exhibits.  I was most
impressed by the "Terrors of the Deep" exhibit, wherein you are conveyed
down a long dim tunnel, the walls of which are transparent, and through
which you can see dozens of real sharks swimming beside you at a
distance of about arm's length.  

The Cap'n Kid radio-remote-controlled boats are overpriced, at $1.00
for two minutes of boating. 

The Mission: Bermuda Triangle attraction and the Shamu's Happy Harbor
child-play area were not yet open.  The schedule predicted that these
were to open during Memorial Day weekend 1992.

For information about Sea World, call +1 407/351-3600.  To make
reservations for the evening Polynesian Luau, call +1 407/363-2195. 

--------------

Another stop on our trip was a visit to the Spaceport USA facility on
the outskirts of the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, a little
over an hour's drive from Orlando.  After paying admission to the theme
parks, we rejoiced at the free admission to most of the museum exhibits. 
There is a mockup Space Shuttle orbiter, the Ambassador, through which
the public may climb. 

We did buy tickets to the Spaceport theatre to see "The Dream Is Alive". 
Viewing Space Shuttle operations and astronaut training in the giant-
screen IMAX format is a thrill that competes with the theme-park rides. 
The emergency-crew-escape sequence made me nearly fall out of my chair. 
(I'm told that this IMAX movie can be seen at other NASA sites, not just
Florida.)

And yes, we did also get to see the launch of Atlantis on the STS-45
ATLAS-1 mission, and that was great, but a discussion of seeing the
launch is well beyond the scope of this newsgroup, and probably some
Mousketeers are grumbling that I'm way off topic already. 

-- 
 ....Richard S. Shuford  | "When the righteous triumph, there is great elation;
 ....shuford@cs.utk.edu  |  but when the wicked rise to power, men go into
 ....BIX: richard        |  hiding."  Proverbs 28:12 NIV