Day 4: MGM (More Great Moments)

Ok, so we're finally at the last day of vacation. This day was spent back at MGM, cause there were quite a few things there that we wanted to do. We didn't get up as early this day. We were both tired and a little sore, so we took our time in the morning. Josh did both of the thrill rides, Aerosmith's roller coaster and the Tower of Terror, and I looked around in the shops. After a while, the stores start to have all the same things, but there is a lot of variety. Photo albums, Disney scrapbooks and supplies, snow globes, pins, kitchen items, aentenna balls, hats, plush toys, t-shirts, picture frames, and the list goes on. I'll have to show you guys the souvenir I got later.




The next event we attended was a 30-minute stage performance of Beauty and the Beast. Ok, so I've seen this movie a zillion times and I've seen it on Broadway, but I still had to watch it again. And besides, I was curious to see how they'd abbreviate it and still get the whole story in. They did a great job, by the way. But I think the most entertaining part was what happened before the show began. This guy set up some microphones and spoke into each one of them to do a sound check. When he was done the audience clapped, like he was so great for saying "check." He liked the attention, so he came back to the mic and started doing this beat. Then two other crew members came out and started singing, and before long, we were listening to this great quartet! They did so good-- I think I liked it so much because it looked unplanned, so you weren't expecting them to be any good, but they were. So here's a video of them. And keep in mind, they had no music playing in the background. It's all their voices doing the sounds.

So yeah, they were awesome. And then of course I had to take some pictures of the actual show. They didn't do every song, just the major ones. And they had a narrator telling the story, so that helped when they were skipping parts to keep it moving.












Ok, this was probably one of Josh's favorite things to see. I liked it a lot too. Apparently they started this stunt show at the Disney World in Paris, and it was so popular that they have it in the US now, which I'm glad about, cause it was awesome. Boy, where do it begin? It was so loud! They put motorcyle engines in the cars, and it was probably echoing off the stands we sat in. They also made a lot of smoke with their sharp turns and such. They demonstrated different car chases, and some of them (or all) have been in movies. So the red car is the hero, and the four black vans are the bad guys. They showed us some of the tricks they do. For instance, the red car starts driving backwards and goes behind a building. He comes out still driving backwards, but he's going so fast and he's driving so accurately. The trick is that another red car replaced him, and inside this car the driver is facing the direction he's driving in. We just can't see, cause the windows are blacked out. So from the outside, it looks like he's maneuvering backwards, but in reality, he's got total control of the car. Josh took some good pictures of this thing. This first one shows the vans chasing the red car and all the smoke they gave off. The second one looks like the red car is just taking off from the ramp, but actually he's just landing. That's the backwards car I was telling you about. Pretty cool, huh?






Here's the one stunt driver on the left who drove the forward car. The car on the right is the backward one, and the driver's still in there, I believe.



And of course they had to connect this to Disney somehow, so they brought out Herbie! They played his theme song and showed some of his best moments from his movies on the screen, and then they had him drive away and we hear him "crash." And he comes out split down the middle, but still able to drive, of course. Classic Herbie--what a show off ;).



These next two shots just show the kind of stunts they pulled off. The first one has the red car jumping from one truck to the next (very cool), and the second one has the vans driving on two wheels. They did it for quite a while too--it was very impressive.





This last picture is really cool. They implemented a motorcycle chase, and if you can see there's a motorcycle on its side about to slide through this wall of fire. Right behind it is his rider, wearing a white helmet. He too slides through the fire and catches on fire. At first I thought, whoa, is that supposed to happen? But they had guys right there with fire extinguishers. It was so much fun to watch.



We were really looking forward to taking the MGM Studios Backlot Tour that would take us by tram to see how they make movie magic, but we only got one picture on the tour, and it was this.



Why just one picture, you may ask? Well, see the clouds in the picture, all dark and ominous? Well, it started to rain, so a 35-minute tour was shortened to a 5-minute tour. It was such a bummer too, cause I'm sure we would've seen some cool things. It was only sprinkling, so we walked casually to our next destination. Suddenly, the rain fell harder (as Florida rain is famous for) and we found shelter at a nearby table and chairs under an overhang. This kid walks by and looks at all of us hiding from the rain and says, "It's no big deal, it's just a little rain." Then it falls even harder and this kid got drenched! He deserved it :). So it wasn't just rain. There was thunder and lightning, but we had chairs, so we comfortably waited out the storm. The temperature dropped a lot, so it felt really nice. The sun came back out after 20 minutes or so, and we made our way to the next tour on our list. We wanted to go back and try the backlot tour again, but we ran out of time. This one was called The Magic of Disney Animation, and we watched a short presentation of a guy on stage interact with Mushu (from Mulan) on a screen. It was cute, and then we were dismissed to look at some storyboards that showed the progression of drawing some of the characters, like the Beast and Woody. We tried to get in another line, where we would be taught how to draw a Disney character, but we waited too long, and there wasn't enough room for us :(. Oh well, I'm not an artist anyway. We also took a tour of Walt Disney's life, from childhood to his future visions, and there was a video with real footage of him too. It was cool. Josh went through it quicker than me, but that's because I kept stopping to read all the signs.


Our final event at Disney was Fantasmic! a "nighttime spectacular with lasers, lights, dancing fountains, and special effects." We started waiting early for it, so we were some of the first ones they let in. As the time drew closer, they would unrope a section, and we would walk to the next roped off section. We did this a couple times until we finally reached the ampitheatre. We found seats front and center, so I was excited. I knew we'd have a good view of everything. While we were waiting, we saw dark clouds looming closer and coming fast. They kept announcing that due to weather the show might be delayed or cancelled, so we all kept waiting. It finally did pour, and Josh and I were glad we remembered to pack the ponchos. I tried to arrange my poncho so me and my seat would stay dry, but my shorts still managed to soak up a bunch of rainwater. It was kinda fun being with all the other poncho-wearers and waiting through the rain. It sure helped the time go by fast. The workers who were selling those light-up toys packed up their stations, but then others came around selling ponchos to those who didn't have them. Some people had umbrellas, but those weren't allowed, cause it could cause injury in the large crowd. Eventually the rain stopped. We meant to get a picture of us in our orange ponchos, but we forgot. We looked cute though, I promise ;). Here's a picture of the stage, before it got dark.



And here's Mickey Mouse! He started the show (naturally) and he brought up the colored fountains and lights shot out from his fingers. There was awesome music going on too, so it added to the exciting atmosphere.





Remember the picture of the rocks I showed you? Well, they did a scene from Pocahontas on them. First canoes with Indians floated by us on the water, and then Radcliffe and his men were singing and digging, and John Smith was there, and of course Pocahontas made an appearance. That part was cool, but I wasn't quite sure how it fit with the rest of the story. Yes, there was a plot to this whole show. It was really cool. They sprayed a huge wall of water and displayed images on it from Fantasia, the cartoon with Mickey and the sorcerer's hat. So the whole idea is that Mickey has this dream, but then the villains from all the other stories decide to get into his dream and destroy him once and for all. They showed images of Ursula, Jafar, Scar, and others. Then they dropped the wall of water and the evil queen from Snow White was on stage, where she turned into the ugly witch!



The special effects were so neat, and I liked how they used that plus the stage for the performance. Oh, these next pictures are cool. This first shot is the dragon from Sleeping Beauty. It was huge, and in the picture you can only see its bright eyes in the darkness. They put flames on the water, and you can see the mist in the air--it was so awesome!



Here's Mickey about to fight the dragon. He's kind of distorted from the heat of the flames. I thought it was a cool effect.



And here he has pulled the Sword from the Stone to kill the dragon. See the fireworks coming from the sword? It was so awesome! I got really into it :)



Once he killed the dragon, they put up the wall of water and showed all the villains dying by electrocution. For most of the images, they just added lightning to it, but for Ursula, they didn't have to. Cause if you remember in The Little Mermaid, when she died she already had lightning on her. Anyway, we all cheered of course, and then a steamboat came out with all the characters aboard, and guess who was driving? Steamboat Willie!!





It was a fun-filled vacation, and we both had an awesome time. I think if we'd have brought kids, I still would've had more fun than them! Josh and I have already talked about going down there again when we have a family. I want to make sure we go when all our kids are old enough to remember it. So it may be a while until I get to go back, but I'm not complaining! I'm so happy that I got to go in the first place. And thus ends the Disney saga. I hope you've had fun reading and looking at the pictures :)