was in Orlando for a business conference and got to spend a few hours at Animal Kingdom. Rode Expedition Everest for the first time. WOW! It is terrific from start to finish. That's me in the front in the blue shirt, my brother next to me and niece directly behind. So fun!!!
Yes. It is a rather remarkable experience. And the engineering, to have switchbacks as part of the normal ride experience, is most impressive.
In situations like this, I'm the guy with a hand on his breast pocket. Because that's where my fountain pens (a whole flock of low-end Pelikans), flashlight, notebook, MasterCard chits, and ticket media (or hotel key card) are. And I've probably also got my hat (if any) stuffed into my shirt front. Many years ago, I lost what turned out to be an irreplaceable hat on the DL Space Mountain.
I agree that E:E is a really fun ride, and it can be sneaky with how intense parts of it are. That said, there's just something about it that never quite felt all the way finished to me. Disco yeti aside, it just feels like they got about 90% of the way there and gave up. Some things would be pretty easy to fix (making the backward segment actually dark) and others would be more difficult to work with (uninspiring helix segment), but the whole thing has never quite gelled for me That said, it's still probably my favorite coaster in WDW. It's just a fun ride! We have a great picture of a family friend in the process of losing her hat on Splash Mountain, with it hovering just above her head. As far as I can remember, that's the only time we've ever bought an on-ride photo at Disney
According to what I've read online, EE doesn't have any inversions, but according to my inner ears, it did. Are my inner ears playing tricks with me? (It wouldn't be the first time my inner ears played tricks with me: my first overnight visit to Washington, DC, I developed a severe case of vertigo on the shared van ride from the airport to my hotel, with a strong sensation that the van was in a Z-axis spin [i.e., a barrel roll], lasting for several minutes, and I was genuinely surprised when I arrived without filling the vehicle with the contents of my stomach. Thankfully, there were no long-term effects.)
Nope, there are no inversions on E:E. During the backwards portion there are some pretty strong downward G-forces, similar to what you'd expect in a loop or corkscrew, but they're from going through the banked curves at relatively high speed. Being in the dark (mostly) and backwards, that segment can be kind of disorienting, so I can definitely understand the confusion
Yes. As I recall, the vertigo I experienced in Washington was triggered by a freeway (or turnpike, or . . . ?) interchange with a helix of more than 360 degrees, while my middle ears were still unsettled from the flight (as I recall, I had a bit of a cold at the time, and so I might have also been on antihistamines and/or decongestants). As I recall, when I got off EE, I was a bit unsteady on my feet for a few minutes. And it wouldn't be the first time I was disoriented at WDW (although a somewhat different kind of disorientation): a first visit to the WDW-MK can be very disorienting for anybody who is intimately familiar with the layout of DL, and I would imagine that the opposite is true as well: you're lulled into a false sense of knowing where everything is, only to come up short when it turns out to be somewhere else.
"All Air Force pilots go een that door. When they all go een, they all look thee same. But when they all come out, they all look different." "How's that?" "They all look SCARED!" -- Attributed to Al Shepard (impersonating Bill Dana's "Jose Jimenez" character), from the "Lovelace Clinic" sequence, in The Right Stuff.
