Disney, part 1
Lots to say.
We left the house on Sunday (12/14) at around 3:15am. It was hard to wake them up, but I managed. We drove the car over to Airport Valet Parking, and they put us on a shuttle to the airport; it all went really smoothly. The last thing we did before leaving the car was take off our winter coats and put them in the trunk. It was coooold, but the coats would just be a burden on the trip. We were warmly dressed in sweatshirts anyway; too warmly dressed, it turned out.
The outbound flight was a two-leg trip; first was a small 70-seat jet from T.F. Green in Providence RI, to Atlanta GA.
It was really cramped, with two seats on each side and a narrow aisle down the middle. Sebastian was a really good flier, and the stewardess chatted with him a lot. Teri has a history of claustrophobia and fear of flying, but she handled it really well too - better than either of us expected, I think. Sebastian, of course, couldn't resist trying the bathroom. :D
Atlanta's an interesting airport. It has high-speed trams connecting the terminals. We didn't have a lot of time to make the connection, but we did make it with no trouble.
The jet from Atlanta to Orlando was large, with a central row of three seats in addition to the two seats on each side. Sebastian was in the window seat with Teri next to him, while I was in the middle row seat closest to them; there was a little girl, perhaps two years old, sitting next to me, and she kicked, poked, and bumped me a lot. But I didn't mind much.
Each seat had its own video touch-screen, with lots of options - and a slot to slide your credit card to pay for some of the programming! I didn't do any of the pay options, of course, but there was a trivia game that you could play against other people in the plane. Unfortunately we bumped a little while I was making a selection, and ended up with my screen set to German. Several stewardesses tried to fix it, but it took quite a while to get it right. I still managed to kick ass in the final trivia game, though. Not so much because of my knowledge of trivia, but because I figured out the way the game worked; it paid to make your selection as quickly as possible, in order to maximize your points.
The line for the Disney buses at Orlando was insanely long. But it moved quickly, and before long we were on the bus.
Oh, almost forgot: luggage. We put special Disney tags on our three pieces of luggage, and they took care of them. Basically we checked them at T.F. Green, and they were delivered straight to our hotel room. The same process worked in reverse, except we had a bit of a wait at the baggage carousel in Providence.
Disney World was interesting. We stayed at the Disney Beach Club, near the Boardwalk. There were huge swimming pools, a "broken" pirate ship with a huge waterslide into the pools, a whirlpool, hot tubs, pools with white sand at the bottom, a kiddy pool, a shallow pool with HUGE amounts of white sand for kids to play in...and on the perimeter, lots of places to eat and an arcade.
Here's Sebastian with the top of the pirate-ship waterslide in the background. Disney people were confused about the rules for that slide, among other things. First, we were told that Sebastian had to wear a life vest if he wanted to go on the giant waterslide. The next day a new lifeguard said that he couldn't go on the slide if he needed a life vest. That seemed weird since he'd already gone on the slide ten times WITH the vest. Nonetheless, we descended the stairs - Sebastian crying bitterly all the way.
But once we were in the pool, another lifeguard came over and said that he COULD go on the slide with the vest - and that if we wanted to also try it without the vest, I could go down first and catch him. So we tried it both ways.
We were about a five-minute walk from the edge of Epcot, but it took a 15-20 minute bus ride to get us to the Magic Kingdom. There are six different parks that make up Disney World, I believe. Our passes gave us access to all of them, but with only four days to spend there was no way we'd get to see all of even ONE park.
God, this thing could go on forever. And I don't even know if anyone is interested. Let me hit a few bullet points about the Disney World part of the trip:
I'm sure I've forgotten some points that I wanted to make, but I'll fill them in later if they come back to me.
All in all, Disney World isn't the magical, transcendant place that their advertising makes them out to be. It's huge, and neat, and well-run, but you don't really feel that you're in another world. Well, maybe kids do; Sebastian certainly enjoyed himself a lot, and so did I. But although it was bigger than any other park I've ever been to (about a thousand times bigger), it wasn't actually all that different from other parks.
I've had far greater thrills at Arisia, over the years. The one thing that came close to an "Ooooh!" moment was when they lit up their magic castle with an amazing lighting effect; it was a lovely shade of blue with incredible-looking silver lights all over it. It looked like a beautiful magic castle. Unfortunately my pictures didn't come out well.
All in all, Disney World was fun and I'd do it again - if it weren't so incredibly expensive.
Coming up: the cruise, and the first of three video blog entries.
We left the house on Sunday (12/14) at around 3:15am. It was hard to wake them up, but I managed. We drove the car over to Airport Valet Parking, and they put us on a shuttle to the airport; it all went really smoothly. The last thing we did before leaving the car was take off our winter coats and put them in the trunk. It was coooold, but the coats would just be a burden on the trip. We were warmly dressed in sweatshirts anyway; too warmly dressed, it turned out.
The outbound flight was a two-leg trip; first was a small 70-seat jet from T.F. Green in Providence RI, to Atlanta GA.
It was really cramped, with two seats on each side and a narrow aisle down the middle. Sebastian was a really good flier, and the stewardess chatted with him a lot. Teri has a history of claustrophobia and fear of flying, but she handled it really well too - better than either of us expected, I think. Sebastian, of course, couldn't resist trying the bathroom. :D
Atlanta's an interesting airport. It has high-speed trams connecting the terminals. We didn't have a lot of time to make the connection, but we did make it with no trouble.
The jet from Atlanta to Orlando was large, with a central row of three seats in addition to the two seats on each side. Sebastian was in the window seat with Teri next to him, while I was in the middle row seat closest to them; there was a little girl, perhaps two years old, sitting next to me, and she kicked, poked, and bumped me a lot. But I didn't mind much.
Each seat had its own video touch-screen, with lots of options - and a slot to slide your credit card to pay for some of the programming! I didn't do any of the pay options, of course, but there was a trivia game that you could play against other people in the plane. Unfortunately we bumped a little while I was making a selection, and ended up with my screen set to German. Several stewardesses tried to fix it, but it took quite a while to get it right. I still managed to kick ass in the final trivia game, though. Not so much because of my knowledge of trivia, but because I figured out the way the game worked; it paid to make your selection as quickly as possible, in order to maximize your points.
The line for the Disney buses at Orlando was insanely long. But it moved quickly, and before long we were on the bus.
Oh, almost forgot: luggage. We put special Disney tags on our three pieces of luggage, and they took care of them. Basically we checked them at T.F. Green, and they were delivered straight to our hotel room. The same process worked in reverse, except we had a bit of a wait at the baggage carousel in Providence.
Disney World was interesting. We stayed at the Disney Beach Club, near the Boardwalk. There were huge swimming pools, a "broken" pirate ship with a huge waterslide into the pools, a whirlpool, hot tubs, pools with white sand at the bottom, a kiddy pool, a shallow pool with HUGE amounts of white sand for kids to play in...and on the perimeter, lots of places to eat and an arcade.
Here's Sebastian with the top of the pirate-ship waterslide in the background. Disney people were confused about the rules for that slide, among other things. First, we were told that Sebastian had to wear a life vest if he wanted to go on the giant waterslide. The next day a new lifeguard said that he couldn't go on the slide if he needed a life vest. That seemed weird since he'd already gone on the slide ten times WITH the vest. Nonetheless, we descended the stairs - Sebastian crying bitterly all the way.
But once we were in the pool, another lifeguard came over and said that he COULD go on the slide with the vest - and that if we wanted to also try it without the vest, I could go down first and catch him. So we tried it both ways.
We were about a five-minute walk from the edge of Epcot, but it took a 15-20 minute bus ride to get us to the Magic Kingdom. There are six different parks that make up Disney World, I believe. Our passes gave us access to all of them, but with only four days to spend there was no way we'd get to see all of even ONE park.
God, this thing could go on forever. And I don't even know if anyone is interested. Let me hit a few bullet points about the Disney World part of the trip:
- The Disney meal plan is EXTREMELY confusing. When we arrived on Sunday night we were given a print-out that said we would get 12 snacks, 12 "quick-serve" meals, 8 adult table meals, and 4 children table meals. By Monday, all the children table meals had mysteriously disappeared. Basically you really have to know what you're doing with that plan, or you'll end up paying hundreds of dollars more than necessary. Note that Disney representatives CAN make retroactive adjustments to your meals.
- Disney people themselves seem confused about the meal plan. We got told all sorts of different things about what constitutes a quick-serve meal vs. a snack, for example.
- We had to do a lot of walking.
- The tap water at Disney is the most vile-tasting I've ever encountered. We used many snack coupons to buy bottled water.
- The hotel room was really nice and the bed was unusually comfortable. Even so, I had some neck and back problems, and took a fair amount of Tylenol.
- I feared that I'd rupture myself on rides, if I took any. Nonetheless I ended up going on a pretty scary kid's roller coaster at the Magic Kingdom, Goofy's Barnstormer. I had visions of being rushed to a Disney hospital and being operated on by Doctor Mickey. The ride was very exciting, but it didn't hurt me.
- Later, I went on Splash Mountain, a much more violent ride. I was scared, frankly, but when I saw that people in wheelchairs were going...well, it occurred to me that I may have been really building up my umbilical hernia into something far more than it should be. Still, when we tipped over the peak and looked straight down into a five-story fall into a black hole surrounded by giant spikey plastic briar-patch thorns, I will admit that I closed my eyes and waited for it all to be over.
I survived, though. No problems. - There were lots of characters for Sebastian to get autographs from and have his picture with. I'll spare you.
- Most Disney employees are nice, but some are assholes.
- The lines for attractions aren't as long as I had been lead to expect; perhaps 15-30 minutes at most. In comparison, Hershey Park had lines that went for hours.
- We saw little lizards and a turtle and her baby while waiting for the bus at the hotel.
I'm sure I've forgotten some points that I wanted to make, but I'll fill them in later if they come back to me.
All in all, Disney World isn't the magical, transcendant place that their advertising makes them out to be. It's huge, and neat, and well-run, but you don't really feel that you're in another world. Well, maybe kids do; Sebastian certainly enjoyed himself a lot, and so did I. But although it was bigger than any other park I've ever been to (about a thousand times bigger), it wasn't actually all that different from other parks.
I've had far greater thrills at Arisia, over the years. The one thing that came close to an "Ooooh!" moment was when they lit up their magic castle with an amazing lighting effect; it was a lovely shade of blue with incredible-looking silver lights all over it. It looked like a beautiful magic castle. Unfortunately my pictures didn't come out well.
All in all, Disney World was fun and I'd do it again - if it weren't so incredibly expensive.
Coming up: the cruise, and the first of three video blog entries.