A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

THIS FEELING'S LIKE NO OTHER: Because we know that this is the blog of choice for parents of four year olds planning their Disney World vacations, here's my own smidge of insight.

• In re Scared Four Year Old Girls: Totally depends on the kid in question. Would that Cosmo Girl could have borrowed an inch of Lucy's height, because the girl is fearless and was only stopped from riding every single roller coaster in the park by her 39" (in shoes, no less) stature. She loved Splash Mountain (totally sneaked her on), Kali River Rapids, all of the 3D adventures (including It's Tough to Be a Bug, which frankly scares the heck out of me!), Goofy's Barnstormer (the only rollercoaster approved for the under 40" set) and so forth. The only things that she really didn't like were Pirates of the Caribbean (having no idea of the plot and no interest in pirates) and Snow White's Scary Adventures, which I couldn't get her to try once she realized that the word "scary" was in the name.
• Wait a Minute, We're Fish: Wow, did the success of Finding Nemo ever save EPCOT from having to bulldoze the formerly horrifically boring Living Seas Pavilion.
• Princess Wear Daily: One of my favorite things about WDW is the total nonchalance regarding a bazillion little girls running around all day in full princess regalia. In fact, our highly successful method for sneaking Cosmo Girl onto Splash Mountain was sticking a pair of high heeled princess shoes on beneath her Cinderella gown and giving her a whalespout updo to give her a more regal 40"+ bearing.
• Duuuuuuude: This was Mr. Cosmo's and my third trip to WDW in the last eight years, and every time there's some new technology that impresses me. This time it was the computer and animation technology that allows Crush the Sea Turtle to interact directly with members of the audience in Turtle Talk with Crush (which I think they have at Disneyland as well), and the similar (but improved) technology at work at the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, at which Mike Wasowski is the MC of a comedy show designed to evoke enough laughter to power Monstropolis for some amount of time. The audience was invited to text their jokes in, and so Cosmo Girl had the mindblowing experience of hearing Mike Wasowski's nephew Marty tell her favorite joke, announcing that it "was sent in by Cosmo Girl, of New York City."
• Plot Light, Effects Heavy: Disney decided it would be good to have a really big show at MGM. And when Disney decides to do something big, they really do it big. In this cast, they built a 10,000 seat amphitheater and designed a spectacle of live action, animation broadcast onto sheets of water, fireworks, dancing, really fast boats, interpretive movement, singing, a ton of live characters, every great Disney villain, and of course, a Mouse. I have to say, Fantasmic! is deserving of its exclamation point.
• Because Everyone Loves a Good Jazz Square: What do you call 300 screaming tweenies all singing "no no no, stick to the stuff you know" along with a full cast of cheerleaders and basketball players? Some might call it hell, but the High School Musical Pep Rally at Disney/MGM Studios had Cosmo Girl (as well as Cosmo Mom and Dad, I'm not ashamed to admit) bopping all the way to the top.
• Hoop De Doo! My third time seeing the show, and it never gets old. The unlimited sangria is helpful but not necessary.