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Monday 4 April 2016

Vacation Blog VI: Brock Lesnar vs. Mickey Mouse in a Texas Death Match

7:45 AM - There aren't many days this trip where we will be up early, but this is one of them. This is our first Disneyworld trip since they totally rolled out the MyMagic+ program which features the ability to book Fastpasses well in advance, among other benefits. I, of course, booked everything as soon as we could, and today all of our Disney fun is scheduled for the morning.

9:00 AM - We arrive at the Ticket and Transportation hub where we park and hop onto the ferry boat for the short ride to the gates of the Magic Kingdom. It's windy and cold this morning but that won't last long. We have to fight with the usual number of strollers. Parents: if your kid needs a stroller, they are too young for Disney. Just leave them the Hell at home please.

Yeah that's gonna happen.

Anyway, after the ferry ride we have to hop into a HUGE lineup to get through their new advanced security. There are metal detectors somewhere but we didn't see them. The bag search that they've been doing for years has been stepped up to a brand new level. Obviously Disney is smart enough to know that they are a perfect target for those pieces of shit who keep screwing up our world, and they are going to do everything they can to keep their guests safe. I'm fine with a little extra time to get into the park if it's due to extra security.

Loving the new RFID system, We scan our park tickets and are into the park in seconds. Those same park tickets host the details of the Fastpasses that we booked a couple months ago. As we get into the park we head straight to Splash Mountain, where our first Fastpass is already scheduled.

You can book 3 of them per day in advance, and when you have used up those 3 you can go and schedule more for the day pending availability. It's crazy busy today - this will be the busiest park day we experience this trip - so there is no way we will be doing any more than these three rides today, which was always our plan anyway.

After we both get pretty wet on Splash Mountain we head right next door to Big Thunder Mountain. Great ride as always. It was originally scheduled to go down for refurbishment tomorrow so we made sure to get on it today, but they have changed the refurbishment to August so we can get on it again later in the trip if we like.

Next up is Pirates of the Caribbean, which we generally make our first ride of every trip, but this is as close as I could get to make the Fastpasses work. I told Tracey I probably lost 170 "Good Husband" points for the poor scheduling. She says no, more like 270. Sigh.

There is a scene in Pirates that always reminds me of Newman (the cat, not the Seinfeld mailman).... a scene with a drunk pirate laying in the mud with a couple of pigs. We aren't sure why this always reminds me of Newman, I guess it has to do with his piggish pink nose and huge belly. Even though he's been gone for a couple years now, it chokes me up a touch.

Gotta tell you about our lunch. We wandered into Frontierland, not far from the Haunted Mansion, and found a place called Columbia Harbour House. It's a cafeteria-style restaurant with two qualities, one of which is very much Disney, and one notsomuch.

The food is excellent. No surprise.

It's pretty affordable! Not always so Disney-esque.

We actually got three entrees, one of which was a salad featuring chicken and various vegetables in a peppercorn vinaigrette. Fabulous. Tracey had a sandwich which she absolutely loved and I had a shrimp dinner. It came with eleven ELEVEN large butterfly style breaded shrimp, coleslaw and a huge amount of Newman's (the Seinfeld mailman, not the cat) least favorite vegetable, steamed broccoli.

Seinfeld: "Newman, you wouldn't eat broccoli if it was deep fried in chocolate sauce".

This entire lunch was about $32, including two pop. The food was really fantastic and the price is more than reasonable. ELEVEN big shrimp? In some places that would be $32 all by itself.

We head down Main Street and go into a few of the shops and do a little shopping on our way out of the park. We have three more visits to this park during the trip so no need to deal with the crowds today, and we have other plans tonight.

3:00 PM - We get back to the room in time for the Wrestlemania pre-show which should be starting any minute.

Oh for F***s sake. I'm in the Eastern time zone. What an asshole. It doesn't start for hours.

Since we have some time to relax Tracey decides it's time for another 2 hour bath (yes, that jet tub is pretty awesome) while I update the blog and relax waiting for the 2-hour pre-show to start at 5 PM. I'm such a moron I can't believe I forgot about the time change when setting today's itinerary.

The show is in Dallas at Cowboys stadium which seats around 100,000 people. I don't know how many tickets they sold; I can't believe it's close to being sold out (I mean why would anyone buy tickets for a wrestling show that is so far away you might as well be watching ants and cockroaches battle over a piece of popcorn???) but I could be wrong.

.....and it appears I AM wrong, as they announce a new WWE record crowd of over 110K. Seems legit, too as the seats at the top of the arena, which I'm pretty sure aren't even in the same county, look full.

It's the best Wrestlemania in years, top to bottom, save for the Main Event which was pretty lousy and the finish was even worse.

Oh, and here we are, sitting in Orlando, watching the year's big event on a computer screen and IPad when they announce that next year's Wrestlemania is taking place in......

Orlando.

Fuck me gently with a chainsaw.

11:30 PM - The 4.5 hour event (6.5 if you count the pre-show) finally ends and we are off to bed. Our day tomorrow consists of dinner and evening activities at Epcot so we can sleep until we sleep and do whatever we want until the late afternoon.Thanks Christ for that, because we are both really tired after a pretty full day!
















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