Snow White's Scary Adventures - A Running Tally

[lokheed]

Previous total: 1407

4/14/07: 0

That's right, zero. Oh, we went to Disney today. We even went at Ben's specific request. It's just that for the very first time ever, he requested to go here:



We were at my mom's place, when Ben stopped watching a tape and specifically said, "Epcot!"

"You want to go to Epcot?" I asked, skeptically.

"Epcot!!"

Honestly, I thought he was teasing me. I thought sure that once we turned off to the Epcot parking lot instead of the Magic Kingdom parking lot, he would throw a fit. He didn't. Then I was sure that as soon as we parked he would refuse to get out of the car, since that's what he usually does at any park besides the Magic Kingdom (and sometimes there as well). Instead, he smiled and gathered up his things, and then bounced right out of the car. Then I was sure he would change his mind once we reached the turnstiles. Wrong again. Ben, who has never voluntarily stepped foot in Epcot, was dragging me along like I was some kind of spoilsport trying to slow him down. I got him to stop long enough for me to snap the above picture, just so I would have evidence not only that he went there, but that he was happy about it.

He took me right to Spaceship Earth, and he had a grand time riding it even though the ride stopped six times. The stops didn't bother him, rather he seemed to enjoy having extra time to look at things. Bear in mind, without any stops Spaceship Earth takes a solid twenty minutes, as compared to Snow White's zippy three minutes. He loved every minute of it.

From there he spent some time walking around Future World, and even went to check out the butterfly exhibit that is running as part of the Flower and Garden Show. He walked through a gift shop and paused to look at an entire shelf full of Pirate Candy, a treat that he always begs for and usually throws a tantrum when he doesn't get it. Instead he just looked at them with an expression like, "hey, those are pretty cool," and then he moved on.

We went over to Mexico, and he went on the newly refurbished ride there, formerly El Rio del Tiempo and now Grand Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros. He was a little scared going on that one, since it is a water ride, but although he cried a little he never actually panicked. The new version is really well done, a vast improvement over the previous ride. The original had been built for Epcot's opening in 1981 and never upgraded, and had not aged gracefully at all. Now it is very fun, with Donald Duck and the other two caballeros showing up all over the place. The big finale still has the cool fiber-optic fireworks, but now there is a big stage with the Three Caballeros performing their song, which Ben liked quite a bit.

After that he wanted to walk around some more, and then asked to go on Spaceship Earth again. By the time we finished there it was starting to get late, so we went a head and left. By then Ben had spent well over two hours at Epcot, entirely by his own choice and with no coaxing on my part. I was absolutely thrilled to see him wanting to go somewhere, if not entirely new then at least not completely familiar. His willingness to try a new ride even though he was scared was also impressive.

All in all, a very good day out.

Comments

[stannius.livejournal.com]

When Nat and I were in Disneyland Tokyo we made sure to check out their version of Snow White's Scary Adventure. They removed the word "Scary" from the title but I suspect it was essentially the same as the Florida version.

[lokheed.livejournal.com]

Actually, the ride used to be called "Snow White's Adventures" at all of the parks, and it used to be substantially different. The premise was that you, as the rider, were Snow White and you were reliving her adventure. That meant that a)you never actually saw Snow White on the ride (since you are supposed to be her), and b) a large part of the ride consisted of the evil witch jumping out at you and cackling. Children were coming off the ride in tears, and everybody kept asking "where in the heck is Snow White?" So what they did, at least at Walt Disney World, was to add the word "Scary" to the ride name, and then completely re-do the ride so it was actually less scary and so that you got to see Snow White frequently throughout the ride.

[stannius.livejournal.com]

Ah, from your description it's pretty clear we got the old version.