Trip Report: The Magic Kingdom (#1)
Reedy Creek I. D., Florida - 11/17/2003

"Sorry, no, I'm not from Huntington."

Prior to that, I visited with my family in about 1980. To put that into perspective, at that time, EPCOT Center was under construction, the terms, "Walt Disney World" and "Magic Kingdom" were used interchangeably, and the term, "E-ticket ride" still had a literal meaning in Central Florida. So really it had been a while since I had been there.

I'm not sure if anybody is supposed to know where the Magic Kingdom is located. Most parks are right across from their parking lots. Parking for the Magic Kingdom is on the opposite side of a good sized lake, and access to the park is via either ferry boat or monorail. Come to think of it, while Disney has an extensive bus transportation network, I'm not sure that the buses actually go to the Magic Kingdom...I don't recall seeing any bus stops there, but I know you can get a bus at the parking area. It's an interesting idea. When you go to the Magic Kingdom, you go someplace completely removed from the rest of the world, accessible by boat or by train. Then, when you enter the Magic Kingdom, you pass through an earthen barrier which further isolates the park. Once inside, you are in Disney's world.

Once under the railroad station and into the entrance plaza, I was immediately reminded of Adventureland, and of Great America. Only here, there is no major focal point. Just a broad plaza which funnels down to a single street. This is the first place where the park follows a traditional layout rather than following the theme park tradition that grew from Disneyland. The street is more like a narrow version of Kings Island's International Street, without the fountain. Instead, the buildings (most of them shops) lining the street form a visual frame for what is literally the park's centerpiece, Cinderella Castle.

The street is about two blocks long, and at the end of the first block, I was distracted by a familiar-looking building to my left. It looked like a 1900's-era greenhouse, and I recognized it as modeled after the original Crystal Palace. I think there is a restaurant inside, but I didn't go in to look. Instead, I walked on past and through the gates of Adventureland.

To my left was an odd-looking treehouse, which I later discovered is basically a themed queue with no ride at the end of it. Opposite that is a magic carpet ride, the Magic Kingdom's Roto Jet #3. No Steppenwolf music, though. Disney copies all of its own rides, but Dumbo the Flying Elephant has to be the one they have copied the most. Three in the Magic Kingdom alone, one more in Animal Kingdom.

While Disney copies its own Roto-Jet, the Disney ride that everybody else copies is, of course, the Jungle Cruise. When I arrived, it was clearly just opening up, in fact I watched as they loaded a boat, dispatched it, then sent an empty boat right behind it, then loaded two more boats and sent them in sequence. I was one of the first to board, so I ended up sitting at the forward end of the outside rail, right next to the Captain. There I could clearly see just how useless the boat's wheel is [Footnote 1]. The story is also a bit odd, in that it moves from one continent to another, changing rivers around every bend. It's essentially a dark ride, with live narration (bad jokes, mostly) and a good collection of impressive robotic critters. When it was over, those of us who enjoyed the trip exited to the right, those who didn't were instructed to exit to the left, although I noticed there was no door on the left-hand side of the boat. It didn't click at the time, but later in the day I realized that the ride exit led straight to the midway, making it one of very few attractions in the park that doesn't exit through a crowded junk shop.

Next door was a very large pavilion with a maze of posts and chains inside. A closer examination revealed that this was the entrance to Pirates of the Caribbean [Footnote 2]. I went inside and descended through the caverns to the ride platform. The boat goes around a couple of curves and then down a chute, a simple reminder that the original ride at Disneyland was in fact Arrow Development Co's first flume ride. Something seemed to be wrong, though, in that the boat I was in seemed awfully pokey. It's not just that it was slow; that is to be expected. It's that we were repeatedly bumped from behind by the next boat. Apart from that, I noticed how they used lighting tricks, forced perspective, and other design tactics to make the relatively small sets in the show building seem really huge. Even putting the ride so far below the midway was an interesting trick in that it allows a one-story building to have easily 30' ceilings. Clever use of water, light, color, set pieces, and fog made for some very believable outdoor scenes in spite of the ride being very much indoors. It's also interesting to see how shamelessly Freedomland ripped this one off for their Pirate Ride (which I rode at Cedar Point). Okay, so Pirate Ride came before this ride...but this one is copied from the one at Disneyland, which came first. An interesting technique with this ride is that while it is all gravity driven, there is no lift hill. Well, there is, but it is between the unload platform and the load platform. Riders, meanwhile, exit at the unloading platform and ride a Speedramp up to a gift shop. Oh, yes, Speedramps. I'd mostly forgotten about those things, but I remember them being all over the Magic Kingdom two decades ago.

At some point, I apparently made the transition from Adventureland to Frontierland. To my left, a large mountain containing an enormous dark ride/flume. Splash Mountain is a somewhat schizophrenic attraction when you think about it, which seems appropriate, given that it is based on a movie that most of its riders will never see [Footnote 3]. The queue rivals the one for Dueling Dragons for sheer length, because the boarding platform is on the back side of the mountain and, as seems typical for the Magic Kingdom, below the midway. The ride features dark-ride scenes of the story of how Brer Rabbit left town on account of trouble always seemed to find him. Then the boat cruises out about halfway up the mountain, past the front of the main drop chute, to float through the briar patch. As each boat drops down the main chute, various water cannon fire off splash effects. One of these effects, blasting outward from the drop chute, moistened my boat as we floated by. The next sequence detailed how Brer Rabbit managed to get himself captured by Brer Fox and Brer Bear, and tricks them into flinging him into the briar patch. Following Brer Rabbit's story means following him down the hill, through the briar path and down the rabbit-hole beneath the midway. No airtime on that drop, but no lap bar, either, and even though it comes with plenty of warning, it is still a good drop. Oddly enough, with very little splash, considering the name of the attraction...anyway, after that, the ride is pretty much over, but there is one last dark ride scene where Brer Rabbit celebrates his escape. Looking over at the wrong wall, I noticed a series of windows high in the "back" wall of the room. I later learned that this particular scene is also visible from aboard the park's railroad train. Disney seems to do that kind of thing a lot.

Right next to Splash Mountain is another mountain, just freshly painted in desert reds and browns, but I don't think I was supposed to notice. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is back there someplace, but it was down for scheduled maintenance, and expected to re-open on the day I go home. Damn.

Big Thunder Mountain is a sort of plaza at the back end of Frontierland, so I returned over a bridge towards the center of the park. The bridge crosses over the bottom of Splash Mountain's major drop, and I noticed that while the fronts of the Splash Mountain logs have the standard log flume cut-out in front intended to maximize splash, on Splash Mountain there is a ramp at the bottom of the drop similar to that used on a Hydro-Jump flume so that the nose of the boat never actually hits the water. I wonder if there is also a braking mechanism (other than the water) under there.

I found myself standing in a street that looked like the stereotypical amusement park Western town. The Country Bear theater was closed for a change of show, but the bears themselves (live versions, not the animated version) were standing on the midway greeting kids and signing autographs. I walked on down the street and past the shooting gallery, and the architecture changed. It was an almost unnoticed change as the buildings went from unfinished, weatherbeaten lumber to brick buildings and frame buildings covered with white paint. In what looked like a municipal park, a couple of rowdy kids had jumped a fence and were gleefully ringing a bell which could be heard for blocks. Main Street USA was over by the park entrance, but Small Town Downtown USA was right here. I continued around the park to a quiet dead-end alley. On a hill stands a large brick house with a distinctive bay window on the end. I walked down the path to a closed door. A few moments later, the door opened, and a number of people assembled on the driveway were admitted to the Haunted Mansion.

The Haunted Mansion is, in many ways, Disney's signature attraction. It's the attraction that brought us the Omnimover, the high-capacity continuous darkride vehicle that added high-quality narration and theatrical staging to the dark ride. The attraction uses just about every trick that Disney's attraction designers could think of, including lots of animated figures, several different kinds of ghost effects, several kinds of image projection, and who knows what all else. The ride is a tour through a haunted mansion, and even out to the garden where many of the current inhabitants are apparently planted. Again, everything is exceptionally well done, one of the most impressive bits being the outdoor scene, which is pretty convincingly outdoor, though most certainly staged indoors (of course; outside the sun was shining!). The ride did stop for a minute or two in the crystal ball scene, but apparently that's nothing terribly extraordinary, as the show elements continued. I was just glad I was stopped in a room that had a long scene and therefore a long audio program instead of an annoying 8-second sound loop.

The Haunted Mansion is a huge ride, but it is well hidden. And I suspect parts of it may be stacked...specifically I wonder if the garden is on top of the seance scene. But as big as the ride is, they did an amazing job of hiding it away. I suspect that most of it is directly below a disused chalet on around the corner. At the midway, there is an archway with a rope stretched across the path. The path leads up a hill, and on top of the hill is a building that looks like a stereotypical chalet. A disused restaurant, perhaps? It took some head-scratching before I figured out that it used to be a sky ride station. Sky ride station? I thought they took that thing out YEARS ago...and the station still stands. No worse than Cedar Point, I guess, where the Frontier Lift main station that closed in 1986 is still standing...but then it serves as a rest-room building, while this chalet appears totally disused. Interesting.

This turn put me into a narrow alleyway, possibly the most congested spot in the entire park. To my left is a stone-block fortress of some kind, to my right is a building that has a sort of Tudor look to it. That building turns out to be a Fantasyland structure housing two attractions. Maybe three; I'm not sure if the Hall of Presidents is in the same building or not. Anyway, I stood in my longest line of the day (about fifteen minutes) for a ride on Peter Pan's Flight.

The ride vehicle looks like a small boat with a large square sail on the front. More interesting to me is the hardware up above, which looks a whole lot like a Caripro/ETF Batflyer car. The ride uses a suspended monorail to carry riders above the dark ride scenes. The trick here was to use lighting tricks, forced perspective, and a really detailed model to give the rather convincing illusion of flying high above London and above Neverland (NOT Michael Jackson's place...). Naturally, I also noticed the nearly-invisible evacuation platforms spaced at intervals through the ride, between the scenes.

Across the way, that unassuming fortress contains perhaps the lowest-tech dark ride at the park, "it's a small world." The concept here is a bit different from the other dark rides, in that realism isn't an issue. The characters in this ride are little international puppets that are meant to look like little dolls. In many cases, the primitive mechanical systems that make the gags work are placed out in the open. I think some engineer was particularly proud of the Octopus mechanism used for several groupings of stuff hanging from the ceiling. It's literally the same mechanism as the center of an Eyerly Octopus, where eight items are suspended from a series of sweeps that turn one way, and supported from an offset series of sweeps that turn the other way, resulting in an undulating motion. I do like Wolf's idea of having Sally retrofit their equipment to this ride, though. 8-) Mechanically, the ride uses a flow-driven boat similar to the ones on Pirates of the Caribbean, but the track is not gravity fed; instead, the course is level and uses pumps to keep the water flow running. Oh, as I exited I had to disappoint a nice couple from West Virginia who had noticed my Camden Park shirt. No, sorry, I'm from Central Ohio.

The other attraction in the Peter Pan building was Disney's new Philharmagic show, which, unfortunately, I skipped, not knowing what it was. From Joe's description, it sounds like I should have seen it. Ah, well, a reason to go back, I guess. I thought it was a scheduled show, not a continuous attraction. The midway in front of the theater is wide, but crowded, as hundreds of temporarily-vacated kiddie perambulators are parked out front. I'm almost surprised they don't have parking areas off the midway for these things.

In the middle of this section is a surprisingly unremarkable carousel, and Dumbo the Flying Elephant. It's a big Zamperla Mini-Jet-type ride, and the decorative rack and pinion gears on the sweeps are a neat touch. As expected, the ride has the longest line in the park; I think it was pegged at 40 minutes when I stopped by. Instead of riding it, I went on to Snow White's Scary Adventures. You know you are in the Magic Kingdom when the warning sign at the ride entrance cautions you that the Witch makes several appearances. Hey, it is called "Snow White's SCARY Adventures," isn't it? What do you expect? The ride features little electric cars on a guide rail; they track a little strangely around the tight curves because the cars have a really short effective wheelbase.

Next door, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh appears to use the same transportation system as Snow White, but with a much longer line, a posted 30-minute wait. I didn't feel like waiting that long. Across the way is the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, the Disney circular flat ride that hasn't been cloned three times across the park. I didn't ride this one either, but I was surprised by the low fences with wide openings surrounding the ride. It just seemed odd compared with the rest of the park.

A quick detour took me off the park's main loop and back into Mickey's Toontown. It's a tiny little area of the park with a large playground in the middle. More important, a farmyard off to one side contains The Barnstormer at Goofy's Wiseacre Farm. The Barnstormer is a most unusual Dutch aircraft, which Goofy calls a "segmented octoplane." I prefer the term, "Vekoma 700J", or better yet, "big Roller Skater." The ride is a custom layout, similar to IOA's Flying Unicorn. I rode in the back of the train, and noticed right away that this Roller Skater is different. Not because of the airplane wings over some of the cars, but because it has a chain lift instead of the usual pinch drive system. So I guess this is an all-weather Roller Skater. Why else would Disney opt for a chain when every other 700J I've ridden has a pinch lift? Anyway, the ride is comparable to either Flying Unicorn or Woodstock Express.

I returned to the main path for the walk past the sports car ride and into Tomorrowland. The last time I was in the park, Tomorrowland had just been remodeled to look less like Yesterdayland, and was being shown off for the IAAPA social. Today, the place was significantly less crowded, and was being its ordinary self. I headed straight for Space Mountain. With no wait, both tracks were open, so I made sure to ride both. This time around, I could better see how the ride is actually visible from the loading platform. Because the Peoplemover, or whatever they are calling it now, was operating, I could see how the lift space is shared by two lifts, a quick drop on each side, and the Peoplemover track coming in between the lifts. I don't think they wasted an inch of space inside than conical dome, apart from not building the coaster over the loading areas. This time I also noticed the ride's second lift, right behind the unloading platform, which allows empty trains to be moved up from unload to load. Finally, I noticed what an amazingly violent ride Space Mountain can be. It's not a huge ride, it's not terribly fast, and it isn't real wild, but it has a lot of violence packed in there, because of the sharp curves and quick dips taken in near total darkness. I like it quite a lot.

Next to Space Mountain is a dilapidated building that looks kind of like a monorail station. It took some head-scratching, but I finally concluded this was the other Sky Ride station. Right now it is simply empty. As are two adjacent ampitheaters, one next to Space Mountain, and another, larger facility behind a construction wall. At the center of Tomorrowland is Big Mini-Jet #2, sitting on top of the Peoplemover station (Tomorrowland Transit Authority). In a lonely corner sits the Carousel of Progress. The doors were open, so I stepped inside.

They make a big deal about the Carousel of Progress being entirely Walt Disney's idea and design. It is clever in many ways. The attraction is built like a track-system carousel, with six identical theaters facing the stationary center. The story is presented in a series of scenes, each scene staged with animatronic characters. By making each scene exactly the same length, and by using synchronized transition music between scenes, it's possible to run four shows simultaneously, with one more about to begin and another just ended. Rotating the theater around the stage adds an element of novelty to the show, but it is also quite practical, as the theater is less mechanically complex than the staging. Well, it's an interesting show, anyway. Clearly "progress" was one of Walt Disney's favorite subjects; it pops up all over his World.

Having seen Disney's view of progress, I opted to make some myself. I went up the unexpectedly steep Speedramp to the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. At the top, I boarded one of the Peoplemover cars for the grand tour of Tomorrowland. The ride, like the Carousel of Progress, is a relic of the "old" Tomorrowland, where we were given a glimpse of what life might be like by the year 2000. It still fits with the re-worked Tomorrowland, though, in fact, if anything it fits better just because the personal rapid transit system it represents still hasn't caught on yet, and probably never will. It's a great way to see Tomorrowland, though, including glimpses inside many of the attractions. I would have liked to have had a better look at the future city model, but the ride through Space Mountain was at least as interesting. And no, I didn't get to see a Space Mountain E-Stop with the lights on. I did notice that there is a pair of switches at the point where the TTA enters and exits the Space Mountain building. I figured that was for bypassing Space Mountain if necessary, though I suppose it could also be the maintenance and storage area. Yes, Space Mountain was built long after the Peoplemover/TTA, but obviously there were major changes to the Peoplemover when Space Mountain was built.

Exiting the TTA it is obvious a major reason the system simply isn't practical for mass transit: because it doesn't stop, it can't be automated: people in general are simply too clumsy. If it weren't for that, though, it would be a cool automated transit system.

At the bottom of the ramp, I turned right and walked in to the Buzz Lightyear attraction. This is an Omnimover-type dark ride, except that the rider controls the rotation and is supplied with a gun, which is pivotally connected to the lap bar. I found the gun to be awkward at best, and riding solo, the rotation system was practically impossible to manage. I got a crummy score, largely because the gun is optimized for a rider a couple of feet shorter than me. The system on Scooby Doo at Kings Island is a lot more user-friendly, at least for this user. Apart from that...well, I didn't catch the story, and in general I thought the ride was pretty forgettable.

At this point I had ridden all the attractions in the park I knew I wanted to ride, except one. I walked back to the hub, and then...uh-oh. It seems Main St. USA was totally impassable. So was the hub. So was Liberty Square. I ducked through the castle and backtracked through Fantasyland, arriving at the back end of Frontierland just as the tail end of the parade was moving down the midway. Two people were walking along behind the tail of the parade route carrying what looked like big game fishing reels. They were winding up the crowd control ropes on either side of the parade route, while other people were pulling carts, collecting the poles the ropes had been attached to. Disney has the parade clean-up down to an inexact science. Actually, to a person like me who is largely interested in operations, it's more interesting than the parade. In any case, this gave me a means to go around the back of the parade and get onto the other side of the street. I worked my way through the crowd on Main St. USA and down to the barber shop (Barber shop?! How many other amusement parks actually have working, public barber shops inside the park gates?), around the corner, and finally, up to the Walt Disney World Railroad.

Well, I was a little disappointed. The railroad runs on the berm that surrounds the park. Outboard, heavy vegetation obscures any view at all, and on the inboard side, there is very little to see. There are some interesting points near the Frontierland station, such as the windows looking in on the last scene in Splash Mountain. More interesting to me was the train crossing immediately downtrack of the Frontierland station, where the railroad track is crossed by tubular steel rails. I'd have liked a closer look at exactly how they did it...I presume Big Thunder Mountain Railroad's storage and maintenance facility is outside the berm. About the only other obvious feature outside the berm is Space Mountain.

I rode all the way around, then decided to bid a fond farewell to the Magic Kingdom. It's a full park in ways that Islands of Adventure is not, with enough stuff in it to keep me busy all day. I had been warned that, "That place is mostly for little kids," and I found that to be only about half true. Yes, the park is overrun with little children, some of whom are screaming at the top of their lungs that they would rather be somewhere else, most of whom appear to be having a wonderful time, and many of whom are sitting in small wheeled contraptions being carelessly pushed around the park (and into the ankles of people like me) by distracted parents. But on the whole, it's a friendly crowd, a crowded park, and it truly is a park that can be easily enjoyed by people of all ages. Perhaps I can spend a day there again before another quarter-century goes by.

Footnote 1: Cedar Point's Captains have to steer their boats on Paddlewheel... [Return to text]

Footnote 2: A quick glance at the gigantic banner hanging over the front of the building would have identified the place sooner... [Return to text]

Footnote 3: "Song of the South". I seriously doubt Disney will ever re-release that one. [Return to text]

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