“I’m going to drop you guys off here, you get in, and I’ll catch up in time to see Magic, Memories, and You.” Joe was talking about the Magic Kingdom’s newest attraction, a show against the front of Cinderella Castle that uses projections to trick your eye and mind into thinking you’re seeing something that’s not there. When I first heard about this new show, I wasn’t immediately overcome with jollity. The first reports were that Disney was just going to project guests’ pictures on the walls … which, you know, should have set off alarum bells. It was Disney, for Pegleg Pete’s sake; were they really just going to throw up some random pictures on a wall and call it chilly? Then a funny thing happened: reports flooded the internet about how just how cool the show was. Beyond just the photos of park guests, the show would utilize the latest in projection technology, giving the illusion that the Castle is transforming before your eyes. More on that in a moment.
Joe was also saying that, once again, he was willing to sacrifice his own time in the parks for his friends. “Are you sure?” I asked. There’s selflessness and then there’s us taking advantage, and I was all about avoiding that distinction.
“Sure I’m sure! You guys scamper, and I’ll be back soon.”
He was not back soon. We entered the Magic Kingdom and found it nearly impossible to maneuver. Silly me, silly we: I had assumed that since the festivities for the fortieth had concluded that morning, the park would be pretty much back to normal at night. That was a big old roundhouse no.
“I haven’t moved a foot and we’ve been here for twenty minutes!” Paul said. Which was blatantly untrue. He’d moved at least a foot and a half. The place was choked with people. Eventually, we managed to force our way into one of the shops on the right side of Main Street, the kind that communicated with the rest of the shops that marched up Main Street. It’s one of those moments of crowd-control brilliance that Disney excels at: you can head into Disney Clothiers, for instance, and without having to go back outside, you can easily slip into the Main Street Gallery. It was nearly as crowded inside as it was outside, but at least movable. We made our way to the Gallery, and almost at once, the three of us realized that this was where we were grabbing Joe’s birthday gifts.
Joe is notoriously circumspect. It is ridiculously hard to get out of him stuff he wants or likes or craves. When it comes to giving him gifts, this can turn into either a fun challenge or an adventure in torture … sometimes at the same time. We know some things: he loves steampunk, Dr. Who, the Haunted Mansion, and Disney history. On this trip, he’d mentioned a couple of times that he was into the Disney artist Shag, who does these quirky retro interpretations of Past Disney. Paul saw the Shag lithograph display and slammed over there so fast I could almost see cartoon speed-lines trailing out behind him.
Marty and I followed. There was a Shag piece featuring the Haunted Mansion called “We’re Dying to Meet You” that Marty snatched up. I found a moody, red-tinted litho with a raven that was more spooky than Shaggy. We arranged to have them shipped to our hotel and got back out on the street to see a sliver of Magic, Memories, and You happening at the Castle. Marty craned his neck to see it, but I pulled him back in. Seeing it that way would have been a travesty. As it was, I was a little dejected that we’d missed it. Oh, you crazy 40th, and the ways you toy with me.
I glanced down at my phone. “I’m here finally!” After forty minutes, Joe had arrived. “I’m at the Bakery.”
I furrowed my brow and typed, “WE’RE at the Bakery!”
In my ear, I heard, “Look up, then.” I did and Joe was standing there, that inscrutable smile on his scruffy face. I gave him a big hug and informed him he’d missed the show. “That’s okay,” he said. “There’s another.”
My eyes went wide. “Oh wow! I’d forgotten! How had I forgotten there were two shows tonight? Am I mental?” Paul opened his mouth. “Don’t answer that! I know I’m mental!”
An unknown time later, the four of us were situated in the Hub. The Partners statue, depicting Walt Disney holding Mickey Mouse’s hand, stood watch over us as we settled onto the ground and looked up expectantly at the Castle. Joe and I had seen this here, and Paul had seen the Disneyland version, which is projected against “it’s a small world” because there aren’t projectors small enough to do shows against Sleeping Beauty Castle. This was Marty’s first time.
The lights go down. Cinderella Castle goes dark. All at once, a spotlight shines from nowhere, and Tinkerbell appears, larger than life. Then – then – theatre curtains appear and fly open across the whole face of the Castle, revealing the show behind it. And what a show! Vines sprout and grow magically up the Castle walls. Bricks from the walls explode, appearing to shower down below. The entire building turns into a daylight sky, where cartoon planes dip and soar. At one point, the high turret becomes a rocketship and took off. How cool is that?
The newish song swells: “the pictures we make / the dreams that come true / may open the window to a memory made by you.” It’s always gratifying when Disney creates new songs for new shows; we don’t always need a rehash of songs from movies we’ve seen hundreds of times. Besides, the song is apt: in the midst of all these amazing transformations, pictures and video actually taken at the parks pop up and have a brief spotlight against the Castle walls. This in itself was more interesting to see rather than to read about, with actual park guests taking part in a major Disney spectacular.
The show concludes with Walt Disney himself appearing with his famous line, “To all who come to this happy place, welcome.” It always brings tears to my mind. I turned to Marty to share my giddiness.
Marty had gone blank. His eyes were wide, staring. His mouth hung open as if on a busted hinge. Later, he explained: “I literally couldn’t make sense of what was happening. It was absolute sensory overload. My brain just could not keep up with the Castle changing like that. I knew it wasn’t real, but it seemed real. I wasn’t scared, precisely. It just totally overwhelmed me.” By the time the show concluded and we’d beat our way back through the extant crowds into Fronteirland, he seemed mostly okay. He assured me that he absolutely liked the show; it was just that watching it challenged his fundamental reality. The dark side of magic, you could say.
None of this, of course, stopped us from gamboling up to Splash Mountain, however. Joe, though, decided to sit this one out. “I don’t want to risk getting soaked,” he said, “but I’ll take all your bags and stuff.” We handed them over and I gave him another hug. One of the things I’ve learned on my many, many trips to the Disney parks is that not everyone you’re traveling with is going to have the same drive, interest, or stamina as you. If someone says they want to sit something out, you listen, acknowledge, and respect. If you force it, everyone ends up crying into their Dole Whip.
We headed into Splash, and that’s when my phone buzzed. It was Kristen. “Hey, Lee and I are going to hit Blizzard Beach tomorrow morning. Want to come along?”
Blizzard Beach is one of the two water parks on Disney World property (the other being Typhoon Lagoon). I’d only been there once before, on my birthday trip in July, when it was as packed as the Magic Kingdom was for the 40th. And I realized all at once that I could go, because even though the water parks are a separate charge when you have a plain old Annual Pass, they were included with the price of a Premiere Passport. I consulted with the boys – Paul, who had his own Premiere Passport, and Marty, who did not. Both seemed game, especially Marty, who hadn’t been to a water park in decades.
“Hooray! Everything’s the best!”
And then Splash Mountain for the first time on the trip. Perhaps sensing that it would also be our last time, we made sure to get evidence.
* * *
Joe, who had accompanied us on our July Blizzard Beach trip, opted to sleep in a little while the three of us went cavorting with Lee and Kristen. We arrived at Park Opening and, unlike my trip in July, which involved the awesome of a Polar Patio cabana but also the less awesome of waiting for thirty minutes while the Cast Members set it up, we headed right to the slides. Slopes. Slipes? See, Blizzard Beach is set up like a ski resort that was constructed on the quick after a freak snowstorm hit Florida, because Disney is all about “everything’s awesome and fun and OH MY GOD CATACLYSM.” The theme permeates the whole park: there are ski slopes and mountains and an honest-to-God ski lift.
Ladies and gentlemen: Blizzard Beach.
See, I love water parks, but more than anything I hate those rickety-feeling scaffolding structures you have to climb up and look down and contemplate your fragility in an uncaring universe. To combat the absolute worst part of any waterpark, Disney does one of those things Disney does best: they built a mountain. Mount Gushmore (no, for real) is the main feature of Blizzard Beach, and it’s home to most of the park’s best waterslides … which, in this context, are meant to be ski slopes. It’s so simple – take away the bad parts of waterparks so people can focus on the good parts – but it’s brilliant. You get off the ski lift at the top of Mount Gushmore and you’re on solid ground.
Of course, at the top of the mountain, you could always look up and see one of those tall, rickety-looking scaffolding structures and realize, oh wait, the top of the mountain isn’t the top of everything. Way up there is a waterslide called Hey! You Want Your Shorts to Ride Up While Simultaneously Your Life Flashes Before Your Eyes and You Attempt To Remember Every Prayer Ever. No, wait, it’s called Summit Plummet, and it’s 120 feet tall and you travel down it at roughly the same speeds as Test Track zooms around the loop. In other words: it is one of the fastest attractions at Walt Disney World … and you’re doing it in your swimwear. I went on it in July and vowed never to ride it again, which worked out well for Paul and Marty and Lee and Kristen, none of whom were at all interested in plummeting, gibbering to their doom. We instead took our chances on the Slush Gusher, which is thirty feet shorter but includes, like, moguls, and gives you actual airtime and yet feels like a security blanket smelling vaguely of sweetness compared to the implied malice of the Summit Plummet.
Not pictured: implied malice.
We did almost all the slides, relishing the pleasant weather and the lack of tour groups that had so plagued our July. Paul and Marty – especially Marty – seemed ecstatic, and so was I. Plus, I hadn’t gotten any quality time with either Kristen or Lee this trip, and getting to hang with them for a whole morning thrilled me. We got on mats for Snow Stormers and Toboggan Racers, where you slalom down the water-slopes on your belly. We did the Downhill Double Dipper, with its canned and oft-repeating “HEY Double Dippers!” announcement that was the genesis of all our waking nightmares.
The best of the day, though, the absolute ginchiest, was of course Teamboat Springs, whose name I constantly forget and call the wrong thing because apparently I’m Adrian Zmed’s character from Grease 2. Marty called it Tugboat Willie. I think at one point I called it Steamtrain Circletron. Look, I don’t know, okay? Six people fit in a circular raft, like the structure of Grizzly River Rapids or Kali River Rapids. Then it surges down the slide, taking turns at a suicidal pace, sloshing your entire raft up the sides before righting itself down the straightaway. It’s waterslides, but you’re doing it with your buddies, all at once, and I’m laughing every time we go up the side, and Kristen’s laughing at me laughing, and Marty is thrilled beyond belief, and Paul is giddy as all get-out, and Lee’s trying to catch all of it on his waterproof instamatic, but it’s tough because he’s laughing just as hard as the rest of us. At the very end, we very nearly caromed off a teenage boy and girl just hanging out in the water, but in the end we sailed right over them, erasing the possibility of mortal malfeasance by water flume off our to-do lists.
Marty and Paul and I finished our stay at Blizzard Beach as Joe and I had last time, with a relaxing trip around Cross Country Creek, a slow-moving river that circumnavigates the whole park. After the thrills of the day – which may include a race down the terror machine known as Summit Plummet – you can’t ask for a better end to a day at Blizzard Beach.
Except for the mini doughnuts in raspberry sauce. Holy mother of yum, I can’t even tell you. I don’t like raspberry sauce, even! And yet by the time we’d showered and dried and put on our changes of clothes and got a text from Joe saying that he’d meet us at the Studios in a half-hour, Theme Park Kev was craving mini doughnuts in raspberry sauce like Normal Everyday Kev craves chai. “They’re for Joe,” I explained to the boys as I presented them. “He really liked them last time!”
Paul said, “I guess the question is, are we going to save any for Joe?”
I glanced about conspiratorially. “He never has to know.”
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