Behind the Magic

Waking up with the sun, we arrived early back in Orlando.  Having already seen many sides of the city, oddly enough we had yet to see the one side that put the city on the map; Walt Disney World! But in order to properly enjoy Disney World and all the associated parks, you need at least a week, but in our case one jam packed day would have to do. Katie's friends Brenna and Rob both happen to be employed by this fine organization, and offered to get us in for free the next day bright and early as well as share with us some of their behind the scenes knowledge while serving as our pseudo tour guides.  Therefore we spent the rest of the day hanging out at their place and discussing our plan of action for the following day in order to get the most we could out of our free day at the parks.  At dinner time, Brenna and Rob took us to their favorite local barbecue joint, Yellow Dog Eats.  After adding our names to the graffiti filled tables and walls, and enjoying some spectacular food, we went back to the house to get a full nights sleep for our magical day tomorrow.   We all got up early and heading to the park first thing in the morning.  Brenna had the day off and was going to show us around all day while Rob had to work until the evening.  First stop of the day was

destined to be at the Animal Kingdom for a couple reasons.  Mainly, it was the only park that both Katie and I had never been to, but also it was where Brenna worked, so she could get us up close parking and give us some behind the scenes info on the park.  As we entered the Animal Kingdom, we were greeted by the Tree of Life, which ironically enough isn't a tree at all, but rather a 14-story tall, 50 ft wide hunk of metal, with all sorts of animal sculptures making its enormous trunk.  It is an amazing piece of art and the centerpiece of the park so that as you walk around, you get to

see all the different sides and intricate details of the animals.  Once we finished gawking at the tree, we headed to the back of the park for the Kilimanjaro Safari.  During her working days, Brenna leads a VIP tour through this attraction that allows visitors which basically lifts the vail on all the imagineers work.  She points out which trees are fake and what they are made of, trouble they have had with the animals and all sorts of fun facts. Though she wasn't able to give us our own private tour, we happily listened to the abridged version as we rode along with the rest of the paying customers.  The safari was awesome, and we got to see lots of animals in what appeared to be there natural habitat.  Still, this is no comparison for the real thing, and I am not willing to check "African Safari" off my bucket list.  Next we headed over to Asia to ride the Expedition Everest ride.  Though we couldn't get on right away and actually left the Animal Kingdom and came back before we rode it, this was hands down the best Disney thrill ride I have ever been on.  Which made it all more disheartening to hear from Rob that the ride is currently only a shadow of what it had been.  Apparently, the Yeti at the end of the ride, which now is barely visible, illuminated by a strobe light, and stationary, once used to jump

out at the moving car and swing a giant club above the riders heads as the plunged down a hill.  Rob told us the whole history of how the Yeti slowly broke down over time and instead of repairing it, the imagineers just chose to cheaply cover up the mistakes and now the Yeti is stuffed in a corner and only partially visible... regardless, it was the best ride of the day.  After Animal Kingdom, we headed for the MagicKingdom and spent the rest of our day basking in memories of our childhoods.  We visited all of the old time

favorites, Space and Slash Mountains, It's a Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Peter Pan's adventure.  I was sad to see that Mr. Toad's Wild Ride was gone and unfortunately the Haunted Mansion was closed that day, so we couldn't ride that one either.  We spent the day waiting in lines and going on rides.  Once night came we inadvertently got cut off and watched the Light Parade go by before making it in front of Cinderella's Castle to watch the nightly fireworks then we headed back to the house for the evening.  We got the

most we could out of the day, never stopping longer than to get our bearings and head to the next attraction.  We saw more than we could ask for, all for free, and with our own private tour guides.  After our busy day, it didn't take us long to pass out as soon as our heads hit the pillows, thankful for a bed to sleep in for the night.