Disney fun

Over the last week, I spent the time in the company of Walt Disney World.  It was a great week – and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge – we had gone for the Savannah room; to be honest if you’re staying at AKL you need to go for one of these rooms as you will have the opportunity to look out of the bedroom window and see animals!

Because we stayed within the Disney area, we made use of the Disney coaches to get from park to park.  The cool thing is that these buses are free, but you may have to wait 20 minutes for the bus to come!  We also made use of the Disney Magical Express – so we had a lift to and from the airport as well!

So – the parks.  The Magic Kingdom is exactly as you expect it to be – a magical theme park that is fun for everyone and is saccharine sweet enjoyment.  This is a great place – dominated by the Cinderella castle.

Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM) is a more adult theme park with a film score setting; it also hosts some of the best rides going. The Tower of Terror is a fantastic ride where you will drop 13 floors; the Aerosmith coaster ride is also an extreme thrill ride.  I’d heartily recommend the Toy Story Midway mania ride – it really doesn’t matter how old you are, this is a fun trip!

Epcot is a park of two halves.  The larger physical area is the world showcase – and whilst the UK seems to be just London & Stratford and not Scotland, Wales and Ireland – these are how many people would expect the countries to be.  It was a lovely place to be; the other part is the showcase for Tomorrow – to me this is probably the most difficult park – because it focuses on how to move forward in the future, I was surprised and a little disappointed that it didn’t go far enough in some places.  One ride, sponsored by a car manufacturer, featured a car that could be inspected (and possibly bought).  Disappoitingly, having seen a film on how we should be more careful on consumption, this car boasted a 22mpg… surely something with a better mpg or was a hybrid would have been better?!

The Animal Kingdom is another park in a similar way.  It’s not a zoo - but there are a number of animals at this park to look at.  Little is made about conservation and protection throughout the park – but there is a being part of the world.

I guess that’s the thing with the Disney.  There were a number of characters that didn’t make a presence at the park – Pinocchio for example – yet others Jiminy Cricket, were used to prick your conscience.  They were careful to make any lessons interesting, yet not enough to take Disney in a direction that would be out of the “playground”.  Is that a bad thing?  Well, it is annoying that Disney is prepared to showcase the future, but with Mickey Mouse ears used as blinkers when required.

But for all that – it is a place of fun; too often we have to justify our enjoyment of the “highbrow” and pooh-pooh the base fun.  Seeing the children getting of the slides laughing and having fun really reflects what Disney is all about… and in another 10 years time, I’ll see how it’s changed again.

Solstice journey to Avalon

 

I know I’ve written this a little later (that is, about 4 weeks after the event!) but I felt the need to write up my last adventure.  Shortly after my first adventure with Frog and Sue (in the town of Whitby) we headed up to Scotland and I was able to stand at Dunadd fort – reckoned to be one of the seats of the Scottish Kings.  It was a fantastic experience.

Well at the end of the year I was taken out again on the next adventure – this time to Glastonbury.  Frog and Sue had been there many times before, but this was a special time of the year as it was the weekend before the Winter Solstice – when the night is at its longest.  Frog had hoped to see the sunrise from within Stonehenge, but got the dates wrong on his leave, so that put paid to that.  However, on the Sunday we walked up Glastonbury Tor.  I was quite pleased that it hadn’t snowed as even with my fur I could still feel the cold; but it still wasn’t warm and there were one or two tricky slippy bits that kept us all on our toes.

No-one really knows how the Tor was used; there are loads of guesses about whether there is a labyrinth to get to the top (the sides are sloping but with some interesting levels) but there was a church on the top once (now there is only a tower).  After a few minutes of quiet contemplation, we all headed back down into the Town for a cup of tea to warm us up!

After, we strolled back almost to the foot of the Tor to go to the Chalice Well.  This well, known in the past as the Blood Well or the Red Well, was rumoured to be where the blood of Christ was placed (along with the holy grail).  There was supposed to be a second spring well, but the site for that is now obscured with a supermarket.

Anyway, the Chalice Well is a peace garden, with lots of areas where you can sit in quiet contemplation.  Unfortunately it was cold, so the only contemplation was whether fingers would remain on the ends of hands!  The well cover was really lovely – the symbol representing the interaction between this world and the other; the water has long been thought to have healing properties.  there are two glasses under a small water spout that is constantly fed from the well, the water also goes onto fill a healing bath (bet that’s cold!). The water has a high iron content (hence the Red in the name) and this has also coated much of the water flows with a red tinge!

 

Overall, Glastonbury had a very calm feel to it – a bit like the Kilmarten valley in Scotland, but with more people.  I had a really lovely time.

For a few more pictures, head over too: http://www.magpieschest.co.uk/glastonbury09.html

Article by Whitby. 

Pictures by Frog.