Chapter 28
Thanks for Lunch, Stitch

(Originally posted August 14, 2012)

I feel almost blasphemous revealing that we had never before been on the Carousel of Progress.

Since this is such a classic attraction, I’d heard a lot about it, but we had never fit it into our trips. All that changed as we got in the short line and soon took our seats in the rotating theatre.

This show is great! It’s easily one of the best uses of audioanimatronics in the entirety of WDW. It also has a lot of humor, great voice talents, and obviously the wonderful song by the Sherman brothers. Basically, we discovered what pretty much every other Disney fan already knew. The only downside of the experience was that we got stuck in the last scene for an extra showing.

After exiting the Carousel, we moved along to one of the most controversial attractions in all of Disney World.

I had ridden Stitch’s Great Escape one other time back when it was new, but I didn’t remember all that much about it. I had LOVED Extra Terrorestrial Alien Encounter on my trips when I was younger. It scared me stiff, but it was one of my favorite attractions. Obviously Stitch was never going to live up to its predecessor… It’s not like there’s really anything wrong with the attraction; it’s just not like there’s really anything great about it either. The Stitch animatronic is really cool, and I like the integration of the effects in the seats, but it’s just obvious that they installed this attraction into the existing framework left over from Alien Encounter and didn’t do a great job with story or theming.

In a somewhat disgusting turn of events, however, riding Stitch did influence our lunch choice for this afternoon. We were on the fence about which quick service restaurant to eat at for lunch since we had already had what we considered the two best options at Magic Kingdom on our first day. We thought about going to Columbia Harbour House, but by this point we were already feeling like we didn’t want more fried food if we could avoid it. Then Stitch let out his infamous chili dog burp, and at first we were grossed out by it like everyone else. Then we realized just how hungry we were. Then we remembered how good our chili dogs at Casey’s Corner had been on our first day. Suddenly, almost before we knew it, we were back at Casey’s.

This time, we both got chili dogs.

They were just as delicious as we remembered them. I think this may be the first time we have ever eaten the same thing twice on a single WDW trip. These dogs were just that good. This time, we mixed it up a little and got French Fries and Cotton Candy with one of our meals and Apple Slices and Cracker Jack with the other.

We certainly couldn’t finish everything, though we did both polish off our dogs. We ate a few bites of cotton candy, and a couple fries, and we put the Cracker Jack in our fanny pack for later. After eating, we set off again.

We made our way to Liberty Square.

Like I think many people do, I had taken Liberty Square for granted on most of my other trips to the World. I had mostly just thought of it as the home of the Haunted Mansion. Then, right before this trip, I listened to Lou Mongello’s Audio Guides to WDW, and while I learned a lot about all of the lands of the Magic Kingdom, I think the one I learned the most about was Liberty Square. There are so many great details here that I had never thought to look at before. For instance, the olde-time spelling of “Pensylvania” on the Liberty Bell.

And this duck.

We happened to walk by the Riverboat Landing right as it was about to take off.

We hadn’t ridden the Liberty Belle in four years, so we decided to climb aboard.

I was always the worst type of student in high school. I got good grades, but I didn’t learn a single thing in a lot of my classes. And a lot of the time it was entirely my fault. I was always totally preoccupied with extra-curricular activities, so a lot of the time homework just fell through the cracks. I would always turn in my papers and whatnot, but I didn’t crack a single book for most of my high school career. Since graduating college, however, I’ve found more and more often that I want to know what I should have learned in high school. So I’ve gone back and read many of the books that I pretended to read back then. Among these were Mark Twain’s Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. After reading both of these books between our last two trips to Disney World, I garnered a new appreciation for everything Twain-themed in the Magic Kingdom. I had obviously enjoyed the experience of Tom Sawyer Island a lot more on our first day having read the book, and now I was able to appreciate and enjoy the Sam Clemens’ narration of the Liberty Belle with a new set of ears.

In addition to the narration, this ride provides some of the greatest unique views of the Magic Kingdom. It’s also just a great way to relax and take a break from a busy day.

I think it’s fascinating that this is a working paddle-wheeler.

We got some great views of Big Thunder Mountain. The construction looked done, so we really just wanted it to be open already.

These little details are some of my favorites on the ride. Beware of river pirates.

The greatest views of the Haunted Mansion are to be had via this ride.

As the Liberty Belle pulled back into its dock, we realized it was just about time for us to start heading back toward Main Street. We had a parade to lead, and it was almost time for it to start!

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