Monday 5 July 1993 and our long-awaited first look at Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom.
This view is so familar to everybody whether they have been to a Disney park or not that once you come through the turnstiles and see Main Street USA before you with the princess's castle at the far end it really is a magical moment. We just stood for a moment taking it all in, saying things like "Wow!" and "Brill!"
We had made a point of being at the park early and not everything was open. We explored Main Street USA with its shops full of fluffies and an arcade with old amusement machines (and a couple of new pinballs!) We went in a 3D cinema and saw a Chip 'n' Dale cartoon in 3D and stopped off for a drink where this was one of the napkins. Then the rest of the park opened and we made a beeline for the castle.
In Orlando the castle is Cinderella's and the tale of Cinderella is told in mosaics containing hand-cut glass, marble and a lot of 14 carat gold on the inner walls of the castle. We tried lots of the rides, Pirates of the Carribean in pre-Johnny Depp days was even then an excellent ride. Also note Gill's Mickey ears - a happy accident - they are plants in the distance!
Each section of the park - Fantasy Land, Tomorrow Land, Frontier Land etc, had it's own uniform for the ride operators who were not allowed to venture into another part of the park wearing the wrong uniform. All the staff were excellent. They were genuinely concerned with making your day a brilliant day, whether it was helping with the rides or simply waving for the video camera. Also there was a total lack of litter.
We went on the stern-wheeler Mississippi boat and as you can see from the rather generously-built lady with the umbrella, testing the thickness of the ship's decking, it was by now getting to thunderstorm time. It didn't really spoil the trip I have to say - rain there was a welcome break from the heat for a while. In fact, every day at 4:00pm on the dot there was a horrendous thunder storm, heralded by strong winds that bent over the palm trees. The lightning and thunder were fierce and everyone was scurried away from water of any kind. After the rain finished, the Disney employees came out in force with brooms, to sweep the water towards the drains! I was amazed and said "You missed a bit!" The young lad didn't miss a second in his comeback; "I got it Buddy!" and he did a quick circle around me with the broom! Impressive! In England the most probable response I'd have got was "Sod off!"
What? Er... yes, the chap with the hideous legs and white socks would be me...
When the rain came everyone put on bright yellow capes that either had Mickey Mouse or Shamu the Killer Whale on the back - depending on where you bought them! They had hoods and especially over a baseball cap they reminded us of chickens with the cap peak forming the beak. 16 years later, we still refer to rain capes as plastic chickens...
We thoroughly enjoyed our day in the Magic Kingdom. It really was magical and the firework display at night was the best we had ever seen. We then set off to drive back to the hotel at 11:00pm, getting hopelessly lost on the Freeway. We had remembered where we got on it, only to find you couldn't get off it at that junction travelling north! We didn't get back to the hotel which was only 20 minutes away until 1:30am...!
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