Magic Kingdom

Minutes into class, the ebullient woman wearing a gold Mickey Mouse pin and a smile that won't quit talks pixie dust. Not just any pixie dust, mind you, but the stuff that makes Disney World magical.As Baltimore prepares to welcome Pope John Paul II, 325 hospitality industry workers turned out for a seminar at the Convention Center yesterday to learn how to extend Disney-style welcomes to the 300,000 visitors expected.Let the lessons begin. Disney University is in session, with Gwen Burch presiding.

DISNEY A ghostly overhaul The Haunted Mansion at Disney's Magic Kingdom is closed for the summer. The attraction closed for renovations June 6, according to the Orlando Sentinel, and is not scheduled to reopen until mid-September. During that time, ride designers plan to add new ghosts and work to enhance the effects of the attraction with technology updates. This is the first major overhaul of the ride. Designers said they hope to update the ride without losing its traditional features or altering its story.

Even the best beach aficionado needs a day in the shade. Off the beach, there's a Florida for families featuring baroque museums, lunar modules, rodeos, alligators, vibrant modern art and kid-pleasing science centers. Whether you need a break from the sun, a rainy-day lift or just a follow-your-fancy day trip, here are some suggestions:Orlando areaSomehow, it seems that nearly every visitor to Florida, with or without a family, ends up at Walt Disney World, which consists of the Magic Kingdom, the Epcot Center and now the Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park, which opened last year.

When Walt Disney World opened in Orlando, Fla., in 1971, my parents wasted no time in taking my sister Nancy and me, and our best friend, Carolyn. We stayed in the Contemporary Resort, took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom, and could not imagine anything better. Universal Studios Florida debuted in 1990 and I showed up soon after to check it out - this time pushing my own little boys in a stroller, and meeting Carolyn and her son at the gate. We spent a lot of time in Fievel's Playland.

PERRYVILLE - The Perryville High School marching band traveled to Orlando, Fla., this month to lead a parade down Walt Disney World's Main Street at Magic Kingdom. "It was definitely fun. We were the first thing anyone saw," said tuba player John Reinhart, a senior at Perryville. "It was kind of neat; no one in Cecil County had ever done that before. ... I had a blast." After the band's 30 members heard in December that their audition tape had been accepted, the students raised more than $500 each for the trip by selling candles, fruit and Valentine's Day flowers and by performing outside a grocery store.

WALT DISNEY WORLD, Fla. - The line snakes from "Space Mountain, presented by Federal Express," doubling, tripling, quadrupling between the metal cattle gates. The sign says the approximate wait is 30 minutes.Only 30 minutes! I think, and I think again: Where else did I ever see a line this long and say, only 30 minutes? And instantly I know the answer.Where else did loudspeakers mounted on poles fill the air with joyous, repetitive music and exhortations to greater happiness? Where else was the avuncular, beloved founder remembered and quoted so often, so affectionately, his portrait beaming down from so many walls?

It jars and jumps, it pitches and yaws, it rolls and reels -- and it wows its riders. Disneyland's new Indiana Jones ride is a real trip, say those who have been on it.Riding on a "troop transport vehicle," visitors swoop and swerve through typical Indiana Jones territory -- the Mummy Chamber, the Gates of Doom, the Tunnel of Torment and the Cavern of Bubbling Death. En route, they encounter such cheerful items as skulls pierced with spears, a falling ceiling of spikes, scads of snakes and rats, and a 16-foot boulder rumbling down at them.

DISNEY A ghostly overhaul The Haunted Mansion at Disney's Magic Kingdom is closed for the summer. The attraction closed for renovations June 6, according to the Orlando Sentinel, and is not scheduled to reopen until mid-September. During that time, ride designers plan to add new ghosts and work to enhance the effects of the attraction with technology updates. This is the first major overhaul of the ride. Designers said they hope to update the ride without losing its traditional features or altering its story.

We're standing in the Dumbo line. It's 95 degrees. But at least we're close enough now to count the elephants. Ten of 'em. With no more than 300 people in front of us, and each ride only 1:37 minutes long, I quickly calculate we'll be on one of those pachyderms in 54 minutes."

PARIS -- Twenty miles east of here, a make-believe world is rising amid fields of hay and sugar beets.It's Euro Disney, the giant theme park/resort that is Disney's first venture in Europe.And what a venture it is! Disney is creating a fantasy land a fifth the size of the city of Paris, and though it's five months from its April 12 opening, it has already caught the imagination of Europeans.More than a half-million of them already have paid 10 francs a head ($1.80) to take a peek in Euro Disney's preview center since it opened last December.

ORLANDO, FLA. / / Is it possible to find peace at Walt Disney World? The short answer -- at least to most parents -- is "No!" To trek through four attraction-filled theme parks with an eager-to-do-it-all child (or two) in hand is to ask for trouble. Add in the sauna-like summer heat, the wallet-busting concession prices and the interminable waits and you have got the perfect cocktail for a parental migraine. Unless, of course, you learn to take a break. In no particular order, here are 10 of my favorite mini escapes -- places that offer a little bit of shade and quiet and an opportunity to rest your feet: Afternoon tea at the Grand Floridian Spa & Resort's Garden View lounge.

WALT DISNEY WORLD, Fla. You would think that Celine Dion would have gotten the best seat in the restaurant that night. But no, there the pop diva was -- our gossipy waiter had pointed her out -- filing in from the open-air observation deck with the rest of the crowd. Meanwhile, I sat regally at a table by a vast window and, between courses, enjoyed an unobstructed view of the very same fireworks that poor little Celine had schlepped out to see. I didn't have special tickets or celebrity status or Disney connections or even press privileges to pave my way. As a greenhorn to Walt Disney World, I didn't even have a prior visit for a frame of reference.

PERRYVILLE - The Perryville High School marching band traveled to Orlando, Fla., this month to lead a parade down Walt Disney World's Main Street at Magic Kingdom. "It was definitely fun. We were the first thing anyone saw," said tuba player John Reinhart, a senior at Perryville. "It was kind of neat; no one in Cecil County had ever done that before. ... I had a blast." After the band's 30 members heard in December that their audition tape had been accepted, the students raised more than $500 each for the trip by selling candles, fruit and Valentine's Day flowers and by performing outside a grocery store.

WALT DISNEY WORLD, Fla. - The line snakes from "Space Mountain, presented by Federal Express," doubling, tripling, quadrupling between the metal cattle gates. The sign says the approximate wait is 30 minutes.Only 30 minutes! I think, and I think again: Where else did I ever see a line this long and say, only 30 minutes? And instantly I know the answer.Where else did loudspeakers mounted on poles fill the air with joyous, repetitive music and exhortations to greater happiness? Where else was the avuncular, beloved founder remembered and quoted so often, so affectionately, his portrait beaming down from so many walls?

THE FLICKER OF HOPE that tantalizes parents wanting to bequeath some of their warmest childhood memories grows dimmer with each year that the Enchanted Forest Theme Park in Ellicott City remains closed. A stern "No Trespassing" sign hangs on the white castle that for decades introduced a fantasy wonderland to young children. Sadly, the park will not reopen any time soon, or probably ever.The park began in 1954 -- a year before Disneyland -- targeting children who consider 10-year-olds to be grown-ups.

It's no fairy tale. Your coach -- or monorail or boat or bus -- will whisk you to the ball -- or theme park -- and it won't turn into a pumpkin at midnight. The ride is convenient, clean and friendly. Talk about a magic kingdom.This transit utopia, of course, is Walt Disney World, where, for 25 years, more than 100 million people have come to find the extraordinary is routine and the fantastic is to be expected."I love this job," says John, the monorail driver. "Everywhere I look I see a picture postcard scene."

ORLANDO, FLA. / / Is it possible to find peace at Walt Disney World? The short answer -- at least to most parents -- is "No!" To trek through four attraction-filled theme parks with an eager-to-do-it-all child (or two) in hand is to ask for trouble. Add in the sauna-like summer heat, the wallet-busting concession prices and the interminable waits and you have got the perfect cocktail for a parental migraine. Unless, of course, you learn to take a break. In no particular order, here are 10 of my favorite mini escapes -- places that offer a little bit of shade and quiet and an opportunity to rest your feet: Afternoon tea at the Grand Floridian Spa & Resort's Garden View lounge.

The morning of the Bandell-Strachan wedding dawned cloudy and gray.By mid-afternoon, as the bridal party assembled at Walt Disney World's Grand Floridian Beach Resort, the talk was of rain.The air was misty as the guests were shepherded onto a triangular lawn bordered by the ornate, white tiers of the Victorian-style hotel, the soaring concrete arches of the Magic Kingdom monorail and the willow-dotted shores of Seven Seas Lagoon.A languid breeze stirred the white cloth covering a boardwalk that led between rows of gold chairs to a low platform.

Remember the E-ticket?Twenty-five years ago, before Walt Disney World went to a one-price admission, tickets labeled from A to E were required for each ride. An A-ticket, the least expensive, was good only for wimpy little rides. E-tickets were the most sought after, because they admitted you to the most sophisticated attractions, among them the Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Everyone wanted E-tickets.To celebrate its 25th anniversary, Disney World is staging an "E-ticket" celebration starting Oct. 1. You won't really need the once-coveted coupon to attend, but Disney is tagging the event as one of E-ticket caliber.

Minutes into class, the ebullient woman wearing a gold Mickey Mouse pin and a smile that won't quit talks pixie dust. Not just any pixie dust, mind you, but the stuff that makes Disney World magical.As Baltimore prepares to welcome Pope John Paul II, 325 hospitality industry workers turned out for a seminar at the Convention Center yesterday to learn how to extend Disney-style welcomes to the 300,000 visitors expected.Let the lessons begin. Disney University is in session, with Gwen Burch presiding.