By the time we’re exiting the Garden Grill, our table has rotated to the back of the restaurant again, so we have to walk around half of the restaurant to exit. In doing so, we pass Chip, Pluto, and Mickey – in fact, Mickey’s visiting with a young couple, and the guy is taking a picture of Mickey and his wife.
On an impulse I offer to take the picture for him so he can be in it. They both seem surprised and pleased. He hands me the camera and slides into the booth next to Mickey. I take the picture, examine the result, and return the camera, and the couple thanks me graciously. I tell them they’re welcome and give the Mouse a casual wave. “See you 'round, Mickey.”
Wow. That took twenty seconds at most, and it was such a little thing, but it sure felt good to help these two strangers make a memory together. It’s what my CM friends call “making magic,” and they often talk about how it’s their jobs’ greatest reward – certainly more than the pay. I’m starting to understand the feeling.
I may have to do that again.
We exit the restaurant and do the “long way around” bit to get to the down escalator: up and around, exit the pavilion, u-turn back into the pavilion, down the ramp and down the escalator. Whoops, looks like the down escalator is not functioning at the moment, so… down the stairs instead.
The crowds have let up a little since noon, but not too much. We work our way together across the lower level towards Soarin’, tightly clutching our treasured fastpasses. As we approach, we can see that the fastpass machines are shut down, all fastpasses gone – no surprise there – and the standby queue is out the door. The sign is showing a standby time of 180 minutes. Three whole stinkin’ hours!!
It just makes us smile more to work our way across the standby line and to the fastpass entrance!
The CM there scrutinized our passes and waves us through. Yay!!! Now comes one of the most enjoyable times that doesn’t involve actually riding an attraction – walking past the poor schlubs stuck in the standby queue. It’s especially sweet when the line is long, and this line is the longest we’ve ever passed!
We enjoy the theming of the Soarin’ line, like a modern airport terminal, but we enjoying while walking through it nonstop, instead of standing for hours with time to inspect every detail. Above we can hear the audio to the interactive wall video displays installed to help pass the time in the standby queue, but the fastpass return queue is at a lower level so we don’t see the screens.
No time to admire them anyway.
And… in the time it’s taken you to read about our trip through the line, we’ve passed up all 3 hours of the standby line and are being directed to a loading area for Soarin’.
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