Lucy goes around the world in 88 days: Day 25 & 26

Day 25: Tuesday 22nd July
Today started with a visit to a New York Fire Station which are called Fire Houses. The fire house we visited today is famous because it was used in the film Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2. It still has the special ghost sign that was hung outside of the building during the movie on the wall inside. It is still a working fire house even though it is famous so we saw the huge fire engine inside.

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The next place we visited was Rockefeller Centre. The centre is made up of several famous buildings and has featured on television and movies many times and one of America’s biggest TV networks has their studios in the building called 30 Rockefeller Centre called “30 Rock” for short.

There is a fantastic flower sculpture out the front of 30 Rock called Split Rocker by the artist Jeff Koons. Half of the sculpture is the head of a cute dinosaur rocker and the other half is the head of a rocking horse. The whole sculpture is covered by millions of real growing flowering plants.

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Day 26: Wednesday 23rd July
Today is our last full day in New York and in America! Since we are flying to our next country tomorrow and there are limits on how much luggage you can take on the plane, Miss Hannaford and I went to a nearby postoffice to send home our souvenirs to Australia. We then caught the subway train downtown as Miss Hannaford wanted to see Grand Central Terminal because it had featured in many movies that Miss Hannaford had seen.

Very few of the subway stations have lifts, so there are lots of stairs to climb and sometimes it can be confusing which stairs to go up to get to where you want to go to. Miss Hannaford went up the wrong staircase when we got off the train but unexpectedly we ended up in the lobby of a very famous building that Miss Hannaford has wanted to see for 15 years- the lobby of the Chrysler building! Miss Hannaford wanted to see it because the design of the lobby and the elevator doors use lots of ancient Egyptian symbols. Even the outside of the building at the very top looks like a giant papyrus flower from ancient Egypt!

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We then walked around the corner and found the entrance of Grand Central Terminal. It is just like our Central Station in Sydney in that lots of special trains start or finish long journeys to other states. The difference from our Central station is that Grand Central is many times bigger! It has more than 100 platforms and one whole side of the Grand Concourse is an Apple Store!

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Our last stop for the day was the main branch of the New York Public Library. Miss Hannaford wanted to see it for 2 reasons- the first reason was that it is a Library and she wanted to see the activities that this library offered visitors but it was also used during the filming of the original Ghostbusters movie. Miss Hannaford really likes that movie so she wanted to see many of the filming locations that still exisit.

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It was a really hot day, so we went back to the hotel to rest and then Miss Hannaford arranged for us to watch Ghostbusters on her ipad!

Tomorrow is another travelling day when we leave the United States of America and fly to London, England! Can’t wait to see what is next on this big adventure! – Lucy

Lucy goes around the world in 88 days: Day 23 & 24

Day 23: Sunday 20th July
Today Miss Hannaford and I caught the subway train to the Museum of Natural History. The film Night at the Museum was based on this museum especially the Easter Island Moai head, the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the special dioramas. Some of the scenes were filmed in the actual museum! You walk into the museum and the main entry hall is full of real dinosaur skeletons!

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We decided to go on a free tour of the building because the Museum of Natural History is made up of 27 buildings and can be very difficult to find the places you want to go. The first stop on the tour was the 2 huge Dinosaur halls where we got to touch a real Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth and one of the plates of a Stegosaurus!

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The next stop was the hall of African Mammals where we saw the special dioramas that were in the movie including the elephants! The animals on display are real animals that were once alive, but now their skins have been taxidermied so that they can be displayed forever.

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After our tour, Miss Hannaford and I went looking for the big Moai head that says Dum Dum want Gum Gum! The Moai head from Easter Island is in the Hall of Pacific People along with artefacts from Indigenous Australians and puppets from Indonesia!

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http://youtu.be/Bub_EJnG9Kw

After the Museum of Natural History, Miss Hannaford and I walked down the street to find a building made famous in the film Ghostbusters. It is 55 Central Park West and in the movie it was called Spook Central. We then went for a walk through the park which is bigger than any park in Sydney to find 2 special park benches. All the park benches in Central Park have little plaques dedicated to the memory of people and the bench that Miss Hannaford was looking for in particular was the bench dedicated to the Joyful life of Jim Henson.

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One of the special things you can do in the park is go for a ride in horse drawn carriage! It was lots of fun and we got to feed carrots to the horse at the end of the ride!
http://youtu.be/kqTzDmYNahU

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Day 24: Monday 21st July
Our first stop of the day was the Guggenheim Museum! This building was designed by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright and the building is an art gallery. The round part of the building is one long spiralling ramp and all of the artwork faces the ramp so they are hung on a slope too! Being a famous art gallery, you are not allowed to take pictures of the artwork above the ground floor but you are allowed to take pictures of the building looking up from the ground floor so you can see the spiral of the building.

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After the seeing all the artwork at the Guggenheim museum, we walked down the street to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This museum has one of the largest collections of Ancient Egyptian artefacts outside of Egypt. It even has a real Egyptian temple that takes up a huge hall and it has a real pond around it!

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Our next activity was to visit the Alice in Wonderland sculpture in Central Park. Children are encouraged to climb on this sculpture and sit with Alice on the mushroom or to sit with the Mad Hatter or the Door mouse with his silly poem.

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Right next to the sculpture is a really big pond where there are lots of little yachts that you can have a go at sailing using a remote control. The yachts are powered by the wind so the trick was to get the rudder of the yacht and the sail in the right place to catch the wind and move the boat. Miss Hannaford did ok- she managed to get her boat to move sometimes fast and sometimes not at all. It is really important to keep trying and be patient!

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So much fun and I am really looking forward to tommorow! – Lucy

Lucy goes around the world in 88 days: Day 21 & 22

Day 21: Friday 18th July
Today was so exciting! Miss Hannaford and I went on a bus tour of New York City where we could get on and off the bus whenever and where ever we wanted! Our first stop was at the Empire State Building- the 26th tallest building in the world at the moment but it was the tallest building for 40 years!
You can take a series of elevators to the 68th floor where there is an observation deck so you can see all of New York!

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Our next stop was Battery Park where you catch the ferry boat across New York Harbour to Liberty Island. Liberty Island is where the Statue of Liberty stands! We walked all the way around her so we could see her back as well as her front!

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After our visit to the Statue of Liberty, Miss Hannaford and I continued our bus tour around the lower half of Manhatten Island. We saw the United Nations building, the Chrysler building, and Grand Central Terminal which looks just like our Central station in Sydney!

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We later did a night time bus tour so we could see what the famous building looked like! The buildings were very pretty!

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Day 22: Saturday 19th July
Today Miss Hannaford and I did a different bus tour of ‘Uptown’ New York. The first place we got off the bus was a part of Central Park called Strawberry Fields named after the famous song by the Beatles. This area of park is dedicated to the memory of John Lennon- one of the members of the Beatles because this area of the park is across the road from the building where John Lennon lived and where he was killed on December 8th, 1980. The Strawberry Fields is a very quiet part of the park and the memorial has one simple word from one of John Lennon’s songs: Imagine.

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After visiting Strawberry Fields, we got back on the bus and toured around Northern New York all day. We drove past the Museum of Natural History where the film A Night at the Museum was based, the famous white Guggenheim musem, then past the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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That night Miss Hannaford went to see the Lion King on Broadway with all it’s amazing puppets and masks! Some of the puppets and costumes are on display just before you go into the theatre!

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Miss Hannaford sat on the edge of the isle so when the animal puppets come through the audience at different times- they brushed her!
http://youtu.be/_0OdIcCQG9I

I am really looking forward to our next adventure tomorrow!- Lucy

Lucy goes around the world in 88 days: Day 19 & 20

Day 19: Wednesday 16th July
Today Miss Hannaford and I went back to the Center for Puppetry Arts so we could make our own Fish puppets! These puppets are shadow puppets in that you hold them against a screen with a light shining on it and you see the shadow of the puppet on the other side!

The fish puppet works with 2 chopsticks for handles. One stick is on the head and the other stick is on the tail and there are paper fasteners holding the 3 parts of the fish together so that it looks like a fish swimming through the water!

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We spent the rest of the day having one last look around the Center for Puppetry Arts and I met these famous Muppets- Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy!

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Day 20: Thursday 17th July
Today was another travelling day where Miss Hannaford and I flew from Atlanta to New York City! Travelling took all day and Miss Hannaford was really excited to get her first look at some of the famous New York buildings as we drove from the airport into the city!

Can’t wait to go exploring tomorrow!
– Lucy

Lucy goes around the World in 88 days: Day 17 & 18

Day 17: Monday 14th July
Today Miss Hannaford and I went to explore one of Atlanta’s historic sites. You may have heard of a famous movie called Gone with the Wind and it also a very famous book written by Margaret Mitchell. The book was written in a very small 2 room apartment in Atlanta and the building where the book Gone with Wind was written, is now called Margaret Mitchell House.

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Gone with the Wind was the only book Margaret Mitchell wrote but she did also work for the local newspaper as a reporter which was a very unusual occupation for a woman in the 1920’s. She did marry twice but had no children. In the exhibition inside the main building, there is a place where you can try using a typewriter identical to the one Margaret Mitchell used to write her newspaper articles and to write the manuscript for Gone with the Wind. You have to press the keys harder than you do on a computer and in order to go to the next line, you have to push the slide next to the paper every time the typewriter goes ding.

Gone with the Wind is so famous that is has been translated into many different languages.

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Gone with the Wind is set during the American Civil War between the Yankee Northern States and the Confederate Southern States. Much of the fighting happened in Georgia and Atlanta suffered a great deal of damage. The story opens in a cotton plantation in rural Georgia called Tara. Tara was recreated for the movie and the actual front door of the set for Tara now stands in the Margaret Mitchell museum and in the photo below that of the door, you can see how it looked in the film as part of the set!

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Another real movie prop at the Margaret Mitchell House is the original painting of Vivian Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara that hung on the wall during some of the scenes.

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Day 18: Tuesday 15th July
This is a really special day when Miss Hannaford and I get to go behind the scenes at the Center for Puppetry Arts! Our day started with watching a puppet show based on the Dr Seuss book the Cat in the Hat! It was really funny and the staff at the Center gave me my very own glove puppet of an Otter to take home! Next Miss Hannaford was shown a very special room where puppets that are not on display are kept. These puppets are not on display because there is not enough room or the puppet needs some love and care from a museum conservator before they can go on display otherwise they will disintegrate as they are moved! Miss Hannaford saw Oscar the Grouch in his trash can on one shelf and at the back of the special room was a puppet from the film the Dark Crystal called a “Mystic”. This puppet is very special in the world but it is falling apart because of the material it is made from is rotting into tiny pieces. Fortunately, the museum has the moulds that the rotting pieces are made from, so the plan is to restore the puppet in the future.

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The next stop on the tour was to meet the puppet builders who work at the Center. They really liked me and asked if they could pose for pictures with me and Miss Hannaford. Miss Hannaford was able to ask the builders lots of questions about puppet building and she even got to have lunch with the builders!

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The last stop of the tour was with the education department about how they teach children, teenagers and adults about the world of puppetry using the classrooms in the Centre as well as over the internet using video conferencing. We had so much fun in the classrooms that they invited us back tomorrow so we could make our own puppets in the make a puppet workshop!

Miss Hannaford and I had the most amazing day and we can’t wait to go back tomorrow to make our puppets! – Lucy

Lucy goes around the world in 88 days: Day 15 & 16

Day 15: Saturday 12th July
Today was travelling day from Orlando Airport to Atlanta, the capital city of the state of Georgia in the United States. The flight was really short only an hour and 15 minutes.

Once we got to Atlanta, Miss Hannaford spent lots of time helping me update the blog with all the pictures and videos from our week in Orlando.

Day 16: Sunday 13th July
Today I visited a really important place in Atlanta- the Center for Puppetry Arts! This is the world’s largest museum and education centre dedicated to puppetry!
When you walk into the centre, the first thing you see is Pinnochio’s feet coming through the ceiling!

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The Center for Puppetry Arts building used to be a Primary school called Spring Street School and they are about to add a new building to the front of the property so the Center can put all my Muppet friends on display as the current museum is now too small for all the puppets in the collection!

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Miss Hannaford tells me that we are going on a special tour of the whole centre in 2 days time!

-Lucy

Lucy goes around the world in 88 days: Day 13 &14

Lucy goes around the world in 88 days: Day 13 &14

Day 13: Thursday 10th July 2014
Today was mostly a rest day after all the excitement of the last four days so Miss Hannaford and I decided to explore our hotel more. Our hotel room is in the Toy Story section of the hotel so right outside our hotel room door is R.C.!

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Next to our building are huge building blocks that spell out Woody and Buzz’s name as well as a giant Woody and Buzz Lightyear next to the building!

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In the middle of the space is Rex and Bo Peep and walking through the door to Andy’s room makes you feel the same size as all the toys!

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In the afternoon, Miss Hannaford and I went to visit the area called Downtown Disney which has one the largest toy stores in the area! Miss Hannaford went in to make her own Star Wars droid where you can choose every part of the droid including a novelty hat! Miss Hannaford has decided to name her droid P714.

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Nearby to the toystore is a HUGE Lego Store! We spent ages playing with the Lego and Miss Hannaford bought a few Lego things for school and she really liked the really big Lego display of the Maleficient Dragon fighting Prince Philip in Sleeping Beauty!

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Day 14: Friday 11th July 2014
Today was Harry Potter Day! We travelled 1.5 hours away from Disney World to visit Universal Studios Florida. Universal studios is 2 theme parks- Universal Studios Florida which has the brand new Diagon Alley attraction and the other park is called Universal’s Islands of Adventure which has the Hogsmeade attraction. While we walked up to the Diagon Alley attraction, we walked through the Simpsons attraction. All the buildings look like Springfield!

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Once we walked through Springfield, we could see the entrance to the new Harry Potter area across the water. It looks just like a London street!

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When we got closer- Miss Hannaford and I were able to have our photo in front of number 12 Grimmauld Place and in front of the Purple Knight Bus! We then walked past a plain brick wall not realising it was the entrance to Diagon Alley, so we back tracked and discovered that we were walking into a perfect replica of Diagon Alley!

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Here are some videos Miss Hannaford took of all the various things you can do in Diagon Alley!
Using a wand to create real Magic:

A View of Diagon Alley:

The Dragon on top of Gringotts Bank roaring:

Puking Pastilles at Weasley Wizard Wheezes:

Meeting the Goblins at Gringotts to exchange Muggle money for Wizard Money:

To get to the Hogsmeade area of Universal Studios- you have to catch the Hogwarts Express! To get to the train, you have to go to platform 9 and 10 at Kingscross Station and slide through the wall to Platform 9 3/4!

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Hogwarts express arrives at the platform and you climb aboard for the trip to Hogsmeade!

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Once you get off the train- you arrive in Hogsmeade Village complete with the 3 Broomsticks where Miss Hannaford and I had lunch followed by our walk up to Hogwarts Castle!

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At the end of the day, it was time to get the Hogwarts Express back to Kingscross but the journey was very different this time!

It was an amazing day!- Lucy

Lucy goes around the World in 88 days: Day 12!

Day 12: Wednesday 9th July
Today was our last day in the Disney Parks. Miss Hannaford wanted to go back to Hollywood studios one more time since this is her favourite theme park and we didn’t have a great deal of time to explore it completely 3 days ago. We started in the animation courtyard as you can still see Disney animators hand colouring animation cells in the traditional method using paint and a brush. In the same buildng, Miss Hannaford discovered that we could meet Mickey, Minnie, Ralph and Vanellope. So we had more pictures taken and Minnie Mouse thought I was really cute!

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While we were in the animation courtyard, Miss Hannaford and I went into the One Man’s Dream attraction about the creation of Walt Disney World and the cast members who were supervising the attraction really liked me! While Miss Hannaford was looking at the objects on display, the cast members who met us at the front door, came up to Miss Hannaford and I and gave us a very special present! Honorary Citizenship of Walt Disney World! We were given special badges which got us a lot of attention for the rest of the day throughout the park!

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Next stop of the day was an attraction called the back lot tour. Disney’s Hollywood Studios used to be a working tv and movie studio called a ‘lot’ but now all the sound stages where the movies were made have been turned into attractions so the Backlot Tour is not of a working backlot anymore. We did get to experience some big special effects that are used in movies and at the end of the tour was a special exhibition of costumes and props from movies like Batman, Indiana Jones and Miss Hannaford was really excited to see the some of the original puppets used in the movie the sound of music!

When we left the special exhibition- look who we met next door! Mike really liked my skin colour and Sully gave Miss Hannaford a really big hug!

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We got to have lunch at Pizza Planet from Toy Story 2- and yes it looks just the same! After lunch we headed over to the Star Tours attraction were we got to watch some young students learn to use lightsabers from Star Wars and even fight Darth Vader!

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After watching the students at the Jedi Training Academy, Miss Hannaford took me over to an area called Sunset Boulevard so we could go and see Beauty and the Beast on stage! It wasn’t the animation- it had real people singing all the songs as well as all the kitchen characters such as the clock, the candlestick and Chip the teacup!

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After Beauty and the Beast, Miss Hannaford and I had to wait very patiently for 2.5 hours in line to see the amazing nighttime fireworks spectacular called Fantasmic! Since we waited patiently, we were allowed to choose where we wanted to sit so we sat in the perfect place to see all the amazing fireworks, the water that splashed towards the really big audience as well as all the amazing puppets that they used in some of the big sequences. Miss Hannaford was really impressed although I found the bits with the Disney Villians a bit scary!
http://youtu.be/6_gl4hN2GIk
Having so much fun- Lucy

Lucy goes around the world in 88 days: Day 11

Day 11: Tuesday 8th July
After visiting Epcot last night, Miss Hannaford and I wanted to come back and see some of it in the cool of the early morning. Since we were staying at a hotel within the boundary of Walt Disney World, we were allowed to go into Epcot at 8am- a full hour before the rest of the public!

I saw these really interesting masks outside the Canada Pavilion last night. They are inspired by the native tribal masks of the Pacific Northwest of Canada. The Canada pavilion also has a huge totem pole out the front of the buildings that also comes from the tribes of the Pacific Northwest.

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We then walked back towards Spaceship Earth and found a really interesting building that looked similar to a pyramid. The attraction inside was called Journey into Imagination with Figment. Figment is a little puppet character and Miss Hannaford knows who puppeteered and provided the voice of figment so we went on the ride. The ride is really slow and you see little scenes on various sides of the little train but before we got to the halfway point- the train stopped! The people who supervise the ride had to come and guide the passengers back to the start of the ride because the ride was now broken. The good part was that because we waited quietly and patiently, the staff gave us special passes to jump the queue at any attraction in Epcot!

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Miss Hannaford and I did get our picture taken in front of Spaceship Earth and we saw the special World Cup Soccer topiary display.

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We then caught the monorail from Epcot to the Magic Kingdom! The first thing you see when you arrive at the Magic Kingdom is the steam train station. It is free to go for a ride so Miss Hannaford and I went up to the platform and had a train ride around the whole park. It was also very helpful for working out which part of the park we wanted to visit first!

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This was our view of Main Street as we got off the train!

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Miss Hannaford booked us in to meet Mickey Mouse at the Town Square Theatre! Mickey told us a story about a ghost who had followed him home one day and he showed us what the ghost was doing when Mickey met him. It looked like the ghost was trying to hitchike!

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Since I had finally met Mickey Mouse, Miss Hannaford bought me my own set of Mickey Mouse Ears to wear and even had my name stitched on the back!

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After we met Mickey, the street party parade was going past! http://youtu.be/DhSSW_LUNag
As we walked up Main Street USA towards Cinderella’s Castle, we stopped to have our photo taken in front of the castle and Tinkerbell landed on our hands wishing us a happy ever after!

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Next, Miss Hannaford wanted to see the famous Hall of Presidents because of the audio animatronics used there to make each of America’s past and current presidents come to life.

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It was then time for Miss Hannaford to go back on a ride she has always loved since she was last in Disney World 20 years ago! It is called the Haunted Mansion and it uses lots of movie making tricks to scare people. Miss Hannaford thinks they have changed the location of the building as she doesn’t recognise it, but they have added lots of fake tombstones some of which have silly names on them.

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During July in Florida, it is very hot and humid as it is a tropical climate. There is a major electrical storm virtually every afternoon. So during the storm on this day, Miss Hannaford decided to go to Pinnochio Village Haus to eat dinner. Across from Pinochio’s Haus is an attraction called Mickey’s Philharmagic. I really enjoyed the presentation because it was in 4D. You have to wear the special 3D glasses but when Donald Duck gets caught in the wind- the wind blows on the audience too! When Donald can’t control the waves like Mickey, the audience gets splashed with a little bit of water too!

After Mickey’s Philharmagic, it was time for the next parade called Festival of Fantasy! Miss Hannaford really liked it because of the big, mechanical dragon puppet from Sleeping Beauty! http://youtu.be/nzNC_QrzI_U

Now one area of the Magic Kingdom Miss Hannaford never got to 20 years ago was Tomorrowland. So since she had time to spare before the night parade, Miss Hannaford went to Monster’s Inc Laugh Floor where Mike and some of the other monsters were telling jokes to collect everyone’s laughter to power Monstropolis. They even asked the audience to submit jokes or to participate live! Next door to the laugh floor was Walt Disney’s Carrousel of Progress. This was a demonstration of how humans have used progress in technology in the family home starting at the beginning of the 20th Century. On our way to our next activity, Miss Hannaford took me inside Cinderella’s castle so I could see all the amazing pictures on the wall made up of tiny tiles called Mosaics. http://youtu.be/33t5Ok1qSr4

Our next activity was to go on a ride on the Paddlewheel boat called Liberty Bell along the frontierland river.

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The boat uses steam power to turn the paddle wheel- you can see the arm that turns the wheel in this video.

The last 3 activities of the day was the Main Street Electrical Parade followed by Celebrate the Magic where special projections were put up on Cinderella’s castle, followed by the big fireworks show called Wishes!


http://youtu.be/cRIzFNeEMqs

It has been a very long day- but boy it has been fun!
– Lucy

Lucy goes around the World: Day 10

Day 10: Monday 7th July
Today Miss Hannaford took me on a very special access all areas tour of Walt Disney World called ‘Backstage Magic’. We started at Epcot and something I learned straight away about Epcot is that the word ‘Epcot’ stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Walt Disney wanted to create a new way of designing a suburb where people live. Sadly Walt Disney died before he could create his new community, but his brother Roy Disney still created the theme park part of the plans and added in a space called World showcase.

Behind the scenes at Epcot we saw how the robotic people called ‘Audio Animatronics’ that you see in many rides and attractions work from behind the scenes at an attraction called “American Adventure”. Now to preserve some of the secrets and to protect the privacy of the people who work backstage at Disney World, the people on the tour, including Miss Hannaford and I were not allowed to take photographs or video. However, Disney has published some things on youtube so I can share them here.

After Epcot, we went to the Walt Disney World plant nursery and saw how they create all the topiary sculptures that can be seen in the parks! A topiary is a plant that has been grown and pruned to fit a wire frame. Some topiary’s take 20 years to fully fill their frames and some can be created very quickly using moss and fast growing plants. Miss Hannaford saw the actual Miss Piggy Topiary in the greenhouse as it is no longer on display at Epcot but you can see the sculpture in this video!

The next stop on the tour was behind the scenes at Disney Hollywood Studios in their costume workshop. All the costumes for every Disney character you meet in Walt Disney World as well as every Disney park around the world are created at the costume workshop. Miss Hannaford wished she could have taken home the special fabric cutting machine for her Puppet making! We were allowed to ask lots of questions and we saw how a costume for Minnie Mouse was designed, printed out on special pattern pieces and sewn together!

The next stop was behind the scenes at Disney Animal Kingdom where we saw where the animals sleep at night. We didn’t spend very long at this stop because everyone was very hungry so we got back on the bus and travelled over to Wilderness Lodge to the Whispering Canyon Cafe. Miss Hannaford tried American ribs for the first time as well as corn bread- both were very unusal tastes. Wilderness Lodge was the only place where Miss Hannaford was allowed to take a photo and she really liked the Native American totem pole in the huge atrium of the building!

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After lunch we headed over to a space called Central Shops and saw how they built everything for the parks all over the world from rides through to props carried by the Disney characters. Objects enter as raw materials or attractions that need maintenance or repair at one end of the building and come out the other end fully finished from construction, painting and final assembly. The building is 9 football fields long and the height of a 10 storey building! We saw animatronic hippos and elephants from the Jungle ride being repaired. A ride called the Astro Orbiter laid out on the floor in hundreds of pieces being repaired and maintained so the the ride remains safe. Miss Hannaford really liked the room where they use moulds to create new parts for the animatronic puppets around the parks. I really liked seeing the printing room were all the signage in the park is created from menus in the restaurants to huge street signs!

This was then followed by a visit to the Magic Kingdom and we went into the Utilidors that run under the whole park. The Ultilidors are corridors/ tunnels so the people who work at the Magic Kingdom can quickly get to where they need to be without disturbing the visitors to the park. It is where dancers in the parade get changed into different costumes and where food supplies for the different restaurants and refreshment carts are kept. We went back upstairs to the outside and saw the new parade called Festival of Fantasy. Miss Hannaford really liked the Dragon from Sleeping Beauty! This was the only other time we were allowed to take pictures so Miss Hannaford recorded this video!

After the parade we finished our 7 hour tour back at Epcot! Miss Hannaford decided to stay at Epcot and see the fireworks show called Illuminations! But that was not for a few more hours so Miss Hannaford took me on the ride that goes around the big ball called Spaceship Earth right at the entrance to Epcot!

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Epcot is designed in 2 halves. The main entrance where Spaceship Earth is is called Future World. The other half of the park is called World Showcase. There are 11 different countries represented in spaces called pavillions. Each pavillion looks like the architecture of that country so in one day you can walk around the world!
Japanese Pavilion

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Moroccan Pavilion

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Italian Pavilion

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English Pavilion

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While Miss Hannaford was at the American Pavilion, she saw the globe of the world that she saw during the tour in the morning when it was behind the scenes having the fireworks loaded into it. The globe of the world is a giant jumbotron- special screens that are shaped into the countries of the world!

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Miss Hannaford found a really good spot to see the fireworks display and filmed it for you to see!

Lucy

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