Christmas was a time of little sleep. I worked 6pm-4am on Christmas Eve (as it was a normal workday), got to bed around 5am, was awoken a few hours later to open presents, and was asked to work 10pm-10am on the night of Christmas day. However, because our plane to Disney left at around 1030am on 12/26, I was allowed to leave around 7am so we could head to the airport. Sleepiness was rampant, but at least it made it easy to fast forward through the always tedious plane ride.

The trip itself was really fun. It was a secret for my sister, who had been begging to go for months. On Christmas day, one of her gifts was some Mickey Mouse-related trinket, like a pen or watch or something. Her halfhearted enthusiasm for the gift was obvious, but then someone mentioned that the pen would go well with a trip to Disney, and why don't we go ahead and go tomorrow morning? She figured we were kidding and played along with the joke. It wasn't until my parents started packing that she said, "Wait... Are we really going?!" After that it was mostly incoherent screaming and giggling.

We had some free time the night that we got there, so we headed to the Magic Kingdom for a few hours (specifically, Tomorrowland, a.k.a. Futureworld). After doing a few of the more "show"-type rides, we took Natalia to Space Mountain. As we careened through the dark at high speed, I was somewhat worried that she would be scared and have no one to comfort her, so as soon as we got out in the light I anxiously turned to see how she had fared. As she got out of the rollercoaster she said, "Man, what a ripoff!" Haha. Goood, goood. That means she's fair game for the scariest rides we can find :)

We did Splash Mountain and that train-themed roller coaster right next to it, along with most of their other interesting rides. On the third way we headed to Epcot and broke every one of their rides. Or at least it seemed that way. Either their rides break down all the time, or we are bad luck, because almost every ride we stood in line for broke down. We were treated to the wide variety of innovative ways Disney technicians have discovered for telling you that "unfortunately, your wait time has been increased." One of these was the GM Test Track, which was the most tantalizingly frustrating of all. After waiting through the whole line and hearing all these pronouncements of things breaking and then being fixed, only to break again a few minutes later, we finally made it to the platform and were standing on our painted numbers, ready to get into the car. As our car pulled up, it suddenly stopped, and the loudspeakers declared that the ride was closed for the day. Awesome.

Fortunately, they DID give us a pass that would let us take the FastPass line next time and skip the real line, and was good for up to 6 people. When we returned the next day and were making our way past the regular line, someone jokingly called out "Wanna sell your FastPasses?" But since there was only four of us, we went back and invited him and his wife to join us. Good deed for the day.

The ride was pretty entertaining. At one point they show you what it feels like to spin out because you try to brake on a turn and have no ABS. It was really convincing, but since I've actually done it for real, it just gave me that familiar sick feeling in the stomach, the one you get when somebody else is driving and they do something stupid and you can't do anything about it :)

We headed to Universal Studios for our last two days there, which was infinitely more enjoyable. For one thing, their rides seem better designed and thought-out. Also, they seemed to break down a little less (though it seems we weren't able to entirely leave behind our wafting aura of brokenness). Definitely the most terrifying — and as a result, most thrilling — ride was, surprisingly enough, the Dudley Do-right water ride. The free-fall drop is long and fast and scary and you get wet which only adds to the shivering. The 54" roller coasters (that's height requirement, not height of coaster itself :) like Dueling Dragons and Hulk were ridiculous, but you're so well strapped in that it doesn't really ever feel scary. The water rides tend to feel much more frightening just because you're sitting there loose in a boat which is not fixed to the track at all. Jurassic Park was also fun, and we got a great picture from that one which I really need to scan.

I was curious about the technology behind the Hulk rollercoaster (how it shoots you up the climb to the first drop) and I came across a website called RCDB (Roller Coaster Database) that lists stats for various rollercoasters. The Hulk apparently does 0-40mph in 2 seconds, at 4 G's, and has a max speed of 63mph. Pretty impressive. Then I looked up the Millenium Force which I remember riding at Cedar Point in Ohio with Cat a few years ago. That one was supposedly the fastest in the world at the time, but now I see it has dropped to 4th place. Its stats page says it has a 310' drop at 80 degrees, and goes 93mph. Eek. (Amusingly, it only requires 48" to ride, so Natalia could ride that one.)

So then I wondered what holds first place. The fastest operating coaster in the world at the moment is apparently a new one, also at Cedar Point, called Top Thrill Dragster. Its stats page says it has a 400' drop at 90 degrees (in other words, straight down), plus a hydraulic catapult. The catapult launches you from 0 to its max speed of 120mph in 4 seconds, and then you shoot vertically up the hill, crest the apex, and then fall vertically straight back down and reach 120mph again. Egads. Look at that thing, it's absolutely insane. I'm dying to go :)