Adventures in the USA part 8 - Magic Kingdom, Disney World Florida

On our final day at the parks, we were at the Magic Kingdom.  The Magic Kingdom is usually the first park we visit, but this time, it was the last.  We visited the Magic Kingdom on Friday 17th July 2015, the day of the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Disneyland Resort in California, and also coincidentally my dad's 60th birthday.  Therefore, he was the one who wanted to go to the Magic Kingdom for his birthday.  My favourite of the Disney World theme parks has always been the Magic Kingdom.  There's Cinderella's Castle, so many Disney characters to meet, some of my favourite rides and attractions, and they have the spectacular firework display, Wishes Night-time  Spectacular, every night.  As a result, it's quite difficult to pick top 5s, but after some VERY careful thinking, I think I have my list of my top 5 rides and top 5 attractions at Disney's Magic Kingdom:

Top 5

• Mickey's Philar Magic - This attraction in the Fantasyland section of the Magic Kingdom is the only thing my family and I did twice (well, my brother didn't, but he was on Space Mountain at that time, and the rest of us don't like Space Mountain), and it's probably been an absolute favourite since we first went to Disney World Florida in August 2004.  Mickey's Philar Magic is a 3D spectacular that follows Donald Duck as he travels through scenes from classic Disney films such as Beauty and the Beast (Be Our Guest), Fantasia (The Sorcerer's Apprentice sequence), The Lion King (I Just Can't Wait to be King), The Little Mermaid (Part Of Your World), Peter Pan (You Can Fly!) and Aladdin (A Whole New World) in pursuit of Maestro Mickey's sorcerer hat after he touches the hat against Mickey's orders.  Expect pies, plates, champagne bottles, Flounder, jewels and flutes to be in very close proximity to your faces as the 3D effect brings everything to life!  Obviously, this isn't anywhere near as good as seeing it in person and isn't of the best quality, but if you want to see Mickey's Philar Magic outside of the park, I found a video of it to watch here!
• Tomorrowland Speedway - I may not be able to drive on real roads yet (although I am more than old enough, I'm only now about to try to start learning to drive again), I can just about manage a car on the speedway race track.  Well, slightly.  I find it difficult to steer around curves in the track, so it feels a bit bumpy, but it's less stressful than a real road.
• Splash Mountain - As someone who is definitely scared of heights (amongst many other things), Splash Mountain and its steep 50 foot drop is probably an interesting option to be on my top 5 list.  When I was 11 years old, I had my eyes squeezed shut when it came to the drop, so I look funny in the photograph we have from it.  However, while I'm still scared of heights, I can still tolerate Splash Mountain it has the lighting element that Space Mountain lacks (Space Mountain is very dark and has far too many sudden rises, drops and turns) and it also depicts animated segments from Song of the South, telling the story of Br'er Rabbit.  The drop represents Br'er Rabbit's fall into the Briar Patch.  Also, you'll get wet and also possibly soaked on this ride!



Cinderella's Castle



Cinderella's Castle from a bit closer.



A statue of Walt Disney with Mickey Mouse.

• It's A Small World - I think this is another ride to have changed in the past 5 years, and it now includes the famous It's A Small World song being sung in different languages as you see the puppets throughout the boat ride.
• Wishes Nighttime Spectacular - Normally, we see this from the actual Magic Kingdom, standing near the Walt Disney Railroad at the entrance to Main Street USA.  This time, we saw my favourite fireworks display ever from behind Cinderella's Castle, from our table at the California Grill at Disney's Contemporary Resort.  Before now, we didn't realise how far behind the castle the fireworks were actually set off, and it was interesting to see it from a new and different angle.  We even had the restaurant lights dimmed and soundtrack to the display playing in the restaurant, so we could hear what viewers in the park itself could hear.  In fact, I stopped eating my starter at the restaurant to grab my camera and take 50 photos of the fireworks, my favourites of which are below!



Cinderella's Castle at night from the California Grill at Disney's Contemporary Resort.







Wishes Night-time Spectacular.













In case that's difficult to see, it's a golden firework shower.

For my dad's birthday dinner, Mum tried to secretly make a reservation for the California Grill at Disney's Contemporary Resort, which is only a short monorail ride away from the Magic Kingdom.  However, this reservation appeared on the My Disney Experience app that Dad had downloaded onto his smartphone (this app is useful for booking Fast Passes in advance), so it was no longer a secret.  Something I have discovered recently is that I find eating 3 course meals very difficult and I can get bad tummy ache.  Instead of having a heavy starter and a heavy main course, I opted for the House-Made Potato Gnocchi Salad for mains and the Artisan Romaine Salad for starters, for which I have recreated the recipe below!

Ingredients

4 large romaine lettuce hearts per person
croutons
sun-dried tomato pieces
roasted garlic dressing (recipe below)

Instructions

1. Wash and arrange the four lettuce hearts on each plate.
2. Scatter the sun-dried tomato pieces and croutons amongst the lettuce.
3. Drizzle with roasted garlic dressing and serve.

Roasted Garlic Dressing Ingredients (to make 1/2 cup of dressing)

1 large head or 2 small heads of garlic
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
2 tablespoons balsamic or red-wine vinegar
1 tablespoon lime juice
1/8th teaspoon salt
freshly-ground pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius or 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Rub off the excess papery skin from the garlic without separating the cloves.  Slice the tips of the head (or heads), exposing the ends of the cloves.
3. Place the garlic on a piece of foil, drizzle with 1 tablespoon oil and wrap into a package.
4. Put in a baking dish and bake for about 40 minutes to 1 hour until the garlic is very soft.  Unwrap and let the garlic cool slightly.
5. Squeeze the garlic pulp into a blender or food processor (discard the skins).
6. Add the remaining 3 tablespoons oil, vinegar, lime juice, salt and pepper and blend or process until smooth.
7. Cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days.

Artisan Romaine Salad

This post marks the end of my Adventures in the USA series, so we'll be back to normal in the next few weeks.  This week, I've been volunteering with packing Team Bradford bags in preparation for Freshers week, so there's been a couple of achy arms and trying to avoid papercuts from putting all the paper into bags.  I'll be starting my final year of university on Monday (well, next week is Freshers week and lectures start the Monday after that, but I'm volunteering during Freshers week) and some other very exciting things will be happening this year as well, so stay tuned!

Adventures in the USA part 1 - Washington DC

A few weeks ago, I finally went off adventuring again (friends of mine on Facebook will have recently seen a photo series involving flowers, food, Colours Ball, bowling with friends, and things I've been up to while fighting a wanderlust of just over two years), and this time it was to the USA with my family.  We had two stops, Washington DC and Walt Disney World Florida, which I will cover in a series of posts which should last well into September.  The first of posts will cover our time in Washington DC.  We spent 4 days here, in which we saw memorials to several presidents, a few of the Smithsonian museums, and the White House.  Below, I share my favourites of the places we visited and a couple of top tips!

Top 5 places to visit in Washington DC

1. Franklin Roosevelt Memorial - Out of all the presidential memorials that I saw (including Jefferson and Lincoln), the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial was my favourite.  It felt like an endless road of walls filled with inspirational quotes and punctuated by small waterfalls.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   


2. World War 2 Memorial - With a view of both the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial in the background, a granite pillar adorned with a bronze wreath to represent each of the United States, and a large central fountain and pool, the World War 2 Memorial in Washington DC could be a great place for reflection and expressing gratitude. 
   

   

   The World War 2 Memorial in Washington DC.

   
   
   A "Freedom Wall" holds 4048 gold stars, each of which represents one hundred American service personnel who died or remained missing in the war.  The 405,399 Americans dead or missing in World War 2 is second only to the 620,000 Americans dead or missing following the American Civil War.
   

   

   The Freedom Wall.

3. White House visitors center - Since I'm one of those people who can easily go around a small museum reading stopping at every artefact and reading every sign, the White House visitors center is definitely somewhere to keep a few hours for.  In this mini-museum (everything is on one floor in one big room), you can learn about the role of the White House and Washington DC since its inception in 1790 as the capital of the United States of America, different presidents, hear audio clips from presidential speeches, learn about the role of the First Lady and the First Family, and see both original and replicas of items found in the White House and used by past presidents.
   

   

   The back of the White House.

4. National Air and Space Museum - From the first hot air balloons to the early aircraft models similar to that flown by the Wright Brothers to Federal Express planes to modern passenger aircraft, you can see and learn about the history of the flight of man.  You can also see spacecraft, including modifications of the Hubble Space telescope.
5. 4th July fireworks - As we arrived in Washington DC on the afternoon of Saturday 4th July, we were able to see the evening Independence Day celebrations (there were celebrations throughout the day, but we only arrived in the early evening).  Our hotel gave us timings of the fireworks display being held behind the Washington monument, where to see it from, and informed us that they would be holding a barbecue at the hotel afterwards.  Despite arriving at a patch of grass near the Smithsonian museums about half an hour to 40 minutes before the display was due to start, this patch of grass was already packed with American viewers decked in red, white and blue (I, meanwhile, had spent the flight in black and white), with rumours that some of them could have been waiting there for the 9:15pm firework display since about 3pm.  Given the nature of the firework displays that I had seen in Florida in the past and would see in Florida in the following week, the Washington DC fireworks display for Independence Day wasn't very spectacular, but I still think it was good to experience a part of the Independence Day celebrations.

Independence Day fireworks behind the Washington Monument.

Top Tips

1. Fill up at your hotel's breakfast buffet (if they have one) and take extra food from the buffet to eat later in the day.  This can mean saving the time and money you would spend on lunch.  For breakfast each day, I ate a bowl of dry Raisin Bran, 2 slices of jam toast, and a big bowl of fruit (this is the equivalent of my typical breakfast, lunch AND fruit snacks when I'm at home), and then took fruit to eat later in the day.
   

   

   Extra fruit from the buffet which we took to eat later in the day instead of stopping for lunch.

    

2. Unfortunately for us, breakfast wasn't included in the hotel price, but I managed to save $4 on breakfast each day by having a continental breakfast buffet (described above) instead of a cooked breakfast buffet.  I therefore spent $12.95 on breakfast and lunch combined each day instead of $16.95 each day as the rest of my family did.
3. On the first morning, we went to Starbucks and since we could only see the water in glass bottles at the time, we asked the man at the counter where the plastic bottles of water were.  He then offered us ice-cold tap water in a plastic cup for free, so we had more water to take with us and it was so refreshing and cool.

Stay tuned for part 2 of my Adventures in the USA series, in which I will reveal my top places to visit in the Downtown Disney shopping district at Walt Disney World Florida!