Ok, so my wife wants to go to FLA to visit a friend next month. Wants to go to Disney World because, the best I can tell, “all her friends have gone” and she needs to keep up.
My wife hates rides, can’t tolerate heights, and is afraid of water. A movie theme park would be a waste due to my wife not liking movies. Certainly not any movie that has spurred a thrill-based attraction. (If I mentioned the words “Star Wars” or “Jurassic Park” to her, she wouldn’t know what the hell I was talking about). The Alligator or World of Reptiles park is right out.
She could probably tolerate Sea World, but the last time we went to an aquarium (Baltimore), she was bored. Plus, I think Sea World shut down the Orca and dolphin shows, so really no point.
So you see, I have my work cut out for me.
I can knock out a day at the Outlet Mall, which is the one thing she is definitely interested in. We have a 2-day little side trip down to Key West. So still need to fill up a few more days, with something Disney being the main focus.
My wife insists that “all her friends” say there are “lots of things to do” at Disney World that don’t involve rides. Anybody have any suggestions?
Second, Disney World does have a lot of good stuff other than rides. Epcot has rides, but most of them are more of the informational variety, so if she’s interested in technology, the environment, foreign countries, then she’ll enjoy Epcot. All slow rides(except for one), no heights.
Pleasure Island is where all the night clubs and shopping are.
Animal Kingdom has animals of every variety, assuming she’s cool with that.
The Magic Kingdom has a variety of rides and attractions, many of which don’t involve movies, heights, or water. If she’s interested in history, the Hall of Presidents Attraction is a must, as is the Carousel of Progress.
Hey, thanks for the feedback. As far as this goes…
…my wife’s perspective on animals is a bit…odd.
100% True story: The time we went to the Baltimore aquarium, there was a room showing a short film on sea lions. 5 or 10 minutes showing them shuffling around, avoiding predators, caring for their young, etc. Typical nature show type stuff. Anyway, toward the end of the clip she leans over to me and says “Can we eat those?”
“No, honey, we don’t eat sea lions.”
“Oh, ok.”
So here I am thinking about the interesting life of sea lions and all my wife is wondering the whole time is how to cook one.
Some people are just tough to figure out. I have similar challenges with my wife and doing things outside of the house. She doesn’t like the stuff I like, but it’s not exactly clear what she likes either. Plus she doesn’t like to do things twice. She loves Christian contemporary music, so I took her to the Rock the Universe festival at Universal Orlando. She had a marvelous time. But doesn’t want to go again.
But if she likes clubbing and shopping, Pleasure Island or Downtown Disney, whatever they call it these days, is a treat. And if she likes learning Epcot is something that just has to be seen, even if it’s a pale shade of what it used to be.
If your wife doesn’t like looking at exhibits then I’d say just don’t take her to a theme park, but otherwise I’d still recommend Animal Kingdom out of all the Disney parks. A lot of the exhibits are like a garden but with animals. Epcot is the second-best looking of the parks but half the fun is the rides. If you were coming a few weeks earlier you could go to the Epcot Food and Wine fest where you can sample dozens of appetizers and beverages from around the world (for around 5 bucks apiece of course) but I think it is closing before you are coming. You can still do the same thing at the regular Epcot restaurants and stalls, but the selection is much more limited after the Fest stops.
If “afraid of water” extends to not wanting to be near water or see bodies of water, Epcot may not be a good choice. You are almost always near a body of water at Epcot.
Frankly, admission to any of the Disney parks is expensive and I wouldn’t spend the money on someone who is so disinclined to enjoying herself. If “all her friends” say there are “lots of things to do” at Disney World that don’t involve rides, ask her friends what those things are, specifically. I think that you’ll find that they were just trying to be encouraging and they can’t really list many interesting things to do that aren’t rides. Some of the things that aren’t rides are parades, shows, restaurants, shopping, character visits, and just walking around looking at the buildings and themed areas. Maybe her friends mean “there are lots of rides that aren’t thrill rides”, which is true, but it sounds like your wife has no interest in rides at all. If you’re not going on anything that moves I don’t see the value in spending $100+ per person per day.
So we just did an adults trip to Disney - a whole different experience than with kids. My husband isn’t a thrill ride person. We went with friends.
We visited resorts and had some incredible meals. We drank. A lot - bar hopping our way through resorts and Epcot. We shopped out way through the World Showcase in Epcot and saw a Cirque du Soliel show. We did do rides - but a lot of them for the kitsch factor. One of our friends liked thrill rides - so I did them with her, but we could have skipped everything thrill ridey and still had a great time.
(Full disclosure, we had four adults, and my seventeen year old daughter and her friend - they were our ‘designated adults’ - we didn’t spend all of our time with the girls - they did other things when we were drinking and shopping)
Another vote that for someone who is ride-phobic, Epcot is probably the best choice of the parks (never been to Animal Kingdom).
If she has any interest in science/space, a drive over to Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center can eat up a day and touring the center/bus tour of the launch sites are fascinating if that sort of stuff might interest her.
There’s the part of Epcot with the different country-themed pavilions. There are live shows, although some of them are movie themed. But I think you can still enjoy them because, I think, the quality of the performances is quite good. In the Animal Kingdom, there is a safari tour that you take about special buses, and that’s fun to see the animals.
I considered mentioning this, but assumed that it wasn’t the case because they have
and you can’t get to Key West without being over a lot of water.
Come to think of it, OP, do you know how far it is to Key West? It’s 6 hours of driving, so it will take up two whole half-days of driving if not more. And dozens of miles of bridges.
The water issue: She’s mostly afraid of going into water. So no water park or river tubing. Some sort of slow-moving boat-based “ride” would be okay I think, but no log-flume ride.
Key West. I estimated a 7-hour drive, but that’s a good point about the driving over water. I’m pretty sure she is not aware of that aspect. The Bay Bridge freaks her out, but I’m thinking that is because it’s so high, whereas the Key causeway is mostly flat. I’ll fill her in and make sure she’s okay with hours of driving over water to see if she might want to reassess Key West.
Rides v. thrill rides: Good point. She’ll ride a train, like for a park tour or something. I could probably get her on a slow-moving “sights of interest” ride.
If indeed “no rides” is to be taken literally, Disney World may not be the best choice. It is probably too expensive a place to go to just for the sake of going.
On the other hand, if it means “no thrill rides,” then Disney can be enjoyable. I’m not much of a thrill ride person, but we go to Disney World every year or two. There is quite a lot to do there that isn’t thrill rides–in fact, Disney World is rather short on thrill rides, as those things go.
The “afraid of water” restriction, on the other hand, probably removes even some of the more gentle rides like It’s a Small World at Magic Kingdom and the Three Caballeros Gran Fiesta Tour at Epcot. And Epcot, as mentioned, does surround a pretty big lake, but you don’t have to get that close to the water if you don’t want to.
That said, I agree that Epcot and/or Animal Kingdom may be the best choices. Epcot has relatively few rides, and the various country pavilions offer a lot of shops, restaurants, and short films. Animal Kingdom has Festival of the Lion King, which even though it’s based on a movie, is an absolutely spectacular show that combines music, dance, and acrobatics and really is a sight to behold. I also enjoy Kilimanjaro Safaris, depending on whether you consider that a ride or not, for some close up views of the animals.
And I feel like everyone should see Mickey’s Philharmagic (at Magic Kingdom) at least once in their life. When I am god-king, this will be mandatory.
If you’re actually going to go, I’d strongly suggest going to one of the disney oriented websites, like wdwinfo or disboards. You’ll find out basic info like the fact that there are 4 different parks, what’s at each, it costs extra money if you want to switch parks in a single day, etc.
There are actually 3 thrill rides at Epcot - Test Track, Soarin, and Mission Space.
Pleasure Island is gone. It’s now called Disney Springs. No more clubs.
My mom wanted to go to Disney World “for the food. No rides!”
We had a great time. Stayed at Disney’s Yacht Club, and spent most of our time just lounging around their pool (Google it; many interconnected pools with a lazy river and a sandy beach and a great burger joint/bar/ice cream place). Had the best steak of my life there, and we took a short walk to that World Showcase (the different countries). Had wonderful food in Morocco, Norway and France (where they also had Grey Goose/Grand Marnier smoothies!), and great shopping in Japan (a Mitsukoshi store).
tl/dr: Grey Goose/Grand Marnier smoothies!
