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January 6, 2006

Day Four: Rock n' Roller Coaster (At Last)

When it comes to rides at Disney World, there's only one that's really worth talking about. I'm speaking, of course, of the Rock 'n Roller Coaster at the Disney-MGM Studios.

Like Space Mountain, Rock n' Roller Coaster is a steel coaster inside a darkened building. Unlike Space Mountain, Rock n' Roller Coaster has a zero-to-sixty launch time of 2.8 seconds, loops, corkscrews, hard turns, and a kick-ass soundtrack provided by Aerosmith. It's fast, fun, intense, and something I can ride over and over and over and over and over again.

So today, we hit Disney-MGM, and I got on this sucker twice. Wahoo!

MGM is different from the other Disney Parks in its tight focus on staged entertainment. MGM has stunt shows, musicals, and other performances that the audience can sit back and watch. It's not so big on rides. That said, aside from the aforementioned Rock n' Roller, it's also home to a fantastic drop ride - "The Twilight Zone Tower Of Terror".

Like Rock n' Roller, I can ride Tower of Terror all day long. Unlike Rock n' Roller, however, Richard has steadfastly refused to step foot on the thing. Ever. He wasn't having and part of it when we were here in 2002, and he wasn't having any part of the one they built at California Adventure when we were there in November.

The ride's fun, and it's harmless. You do, you know, drop 13 stories and all, and it's creepy-fun with the whole Twilight Zone thing, but it's not queasy-inducing or dangerous or anything. In fact, it's much less scary than those straight-drop rides you see at most Six Flags parks.

And so, with much arm-twisting and cajoling ... I got him to go. He didn't exactly rave about the experience, but he certainly grumbles less about it. Which is something, right?

Our final event at MGM was a staged show called "Lights, Motors, Action!" which is an import from Disneyland Paris. It's a 30-minute stunt show with cars, motorcycles, jumps, fireballs, jetskis and guys falling off buildings. Pretty astoundingly cool, and very entertaining. A definite thumbs-up.

After having such a blast at Winter Summerland minigolf on Wednesday, we thought it might be fun to hit Fantasia Gardens and do a round there. The route from MGM to Fantasia Gardens is quite walkable (it's about 2 miles), so we elected to hoof it.

The golf round was a lot of fun. Fantasia Gardens is a harder, more elaborate course than Winter Summerland - more gimmicks (water spouts, trick shots, and so on), steeper banking, more skill. We worked our way around the 18 holes, each scoring a couple holes-in-one. Richard took this round by a narrow, 2-point margin.

With our evening in front of us, we thought it might be fun to hit Epcot and do some of the stuff we didn't get to last time. We continued along the path from MGM (it runs to the Boardwalk, and, ultimately, Epcot, popping out right next to France and the UK in World Showcase). We caught "Journey Into Imagination" (which sucks, by the way, unless you have reeeeeeeally small children), found out that "Soarin'" was all sold out for the evening (dammit!), but managed to slip on to "Mission: SPACE" again.

And then, one of the guests in our car barfed during the ride.

(They provide barf bags, just like an airline, so I assume this happens a lot.)

Actually, the popularity of Mission: SPACE is something of a hot topic between the two of us. Richard loves the ride, the same way I love Soarin' or Rock n' Roller Coaster. The lines for Space aren't too bad, though - usually, they're 20 or 30 minutes, as opposed to Soarin's perpetual 80-minute-wait-and-all-the-FastPasses-are-gone scenario. Some of this can be explained by the fact that Soarin' is just newer, but I think it goes beyond that. I think people are actually scared of Mission: SPACE; its intensity puts people off. Interestingly, we did some research on this, and it turns out that Rock n' Roller coaster pulls far more G-forces than Space does. But still, nobody has died after going on Rock n' Roller Coaster. (And hopefully, it'll stay that way.)

We rounded off our Epcot evening with dinner and a run on "Test Track". All in all, an excellent day.

(The Flickr photostream is now up to 245 images.)

Posted by Gavin Shearer at January 6, 2006 2:05 PM. Posted to Disney | Travel.

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