The Peru Gazette

By Donald McBrayer

It’s been a few years since we took our kids on a Disney World vacation in Orlando Florida and considering we celebrated our 25th anniversary recently, we decided it was time to revisit Mickey from an adult perspective.

There has been many changes to the park since our last visit. (Click here for more photos) The huge Mickey hand and wand have been removed from the Epcot ball (Spaceship Earth). MGM Studios is now called Hollywood Studios – a lawsuit over the use of MGM material apparently spurred the change in 2007. And, many of the attractions have been refitted to showcase more recent characters from Disney & Pixar. Obama has been added to the Hall of Presidents, Johnny Depp to the Pirates of the Caribbean, and the bone crushing horrifying alien from Tomorrow Land’s ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter has been replaced with a smaller, playful Stitch puppet from “Lilo & Stitch” . . . better for kids, booooooring for geeks.
And more changes are coming. Many of the attractions are under extensive renovations including The Tower of Terror, Blizzard Beach, and most notably, the iconic Cinderella’s Castle. It is a strange site seeing a huge construction crane hovering over the place of dreams. Many smaller attractions are also undergoing refits. If I had young children and was planning a Disney vacation, I would wait until 2012 when the work is completed.

Don’t get me wrong, Disney World is still a place of wonders and after 5 days there I still hadn’t seen half the place has to offer. We enjoyed fantastic dinners in the park’s most premier restaurants, took the time to explore how magic is created “behind the scenes,” enjoyed long romantic walks along the moon-lit paths of Epcot’s World Showcase, and marveled at everything from the gut-wrenching Yeti encounter at the Animal Kingdom to the explosions at the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular. It truly is a wonderful place.

If you plan to go I would suggest the following:

• Pre-plan as much as you can online including flights, meals, park passes (including hopper-passes) and transportation. Disney will do it all, but it has to be arranged before you get there.
• Try visiting after the holidays. We didn’t wait in line for a single attraction, never needed reservations for the restaurants (we made them but didn’t need them), and always had a seat on the buses, boats, and rails we used to explore the parks.
• Pace yourself. It’s easy to get caught up in the fantasy and forget basic needs. Drink lots of water. Be sure to get a full night’s sleep every night you’re there. Eat a good breakfast. Don’t forget sunblock – it’s Florida afterall. Wear very comfortable shoes – you’ll walk an average of ten miles a day. And be ready for a stiff neck by day three – you’ll be doing a lot more looking up than normal and by the third day it takes its toll.
• Finally: Don’t be cheap. Dreams really do come true, but to do it right (including everything from flights to lodging to food & fun) you should budget around a thousand dollars a day.