Disney, revisited.
I think this is the fourth consecutive year I'm writing a Disney-trip post. Have I really kept up this journal for that long? There have been periods where I didn't post for quite some time -- actually, I think today's post marks the end of the longest time I've ever gone without updating -- but I always seem to come back here eventually. I honestly don't even know which of my friends and longtime readers are still here, and which have moved on to WordPress or dropped out of the blogosphere entirely. I recently spent a few hours wrestling WP myself to set up an integrated blog for THE WEBSITE, and in the process of doing so, I had to purchase a hosting account. So for some time now I've had the chaospearl.com domain and I keep thinking maybe I ought to move my personal journal over there. The only reason I haven't is that I don't want to lose everything I've written about over the years, and as far as I'm aware the only way to avoid that would be to manually go through my LJ entries and log them into a text file to keep as an archive. It isn't that I don't want to do the work, though admittedly it'd be a pain in the ass. It's that I don't want to re-read the past five or six years, however long it's been, of my life. I have a bad tendency to lose myself in melancholy. There are too many happy entries about beloved pets who have since passed, among other memories that I'm not ready to revisit yet.
Well. Enough of that. If I do still have a loyal readership here, you can all credit (or blame) my return to LJ to a complete stranger who left me a comment on a post from last autumn and stated that he or she has subscribed to my RSS blog feed. I don't think LJ even had RSS feeds when I first started blogging... or maybe I just didn't know what that meant. For some reason, whenever anybody pops up out of the blue and says that they've enjoyed something I wrote, I end up feeling guilty if I don't promptly write something new. It isn't my job to entertain the world; I think the feeling is more that I ought to appreciate the praise I'm given and not take it for granted. And that's hard for me (when it comes to writing) because, admittedly, it happens a lot. You all know I'm not much of a braggart; I have the self-esteem of your average broken-winged gnat. It's just that writing happens to be the one thing on this earth that I'm very good at, and I know this because people tell me so frequently. As a teenager I used to keep a literal file of snippets from emails and IMs and message boards that contained praise for my writing bestowed by total strangers. Obviously I do appreciate and bask in positive comments from my friends and family as well, but somehow it's different when a person I've never talked to before in my life stumbles across a journal entry or message board post I've written and enjoys reading it so much that they're compelled to hunt down a way to contact me and tell me so. I abandoned that Ego File of praise years before I could legally drink, but if I'd kept it up, the thing would have exploded by now. I should try to remember that more often when I'm feeling particularly inadequate about, well, every single other aspect of my life.
I did say this post was going to be about Disney, didn't I. Yes. For anyone just now joining us here at Bad Ham, when it comes to Walt Disney I am not-so-secretly a 5 yr old. And ever since I became a 5 yr old in possession of a credit card and capable of traveling on my own, I've taken an annual vacation to Disney World in Florida. I'd been there previously with my family; once as a little girl (I don't exactly remember how old; it was before my sister was born, so I'm guessing I was maybe 6 or 7) and again as a sullen teenager. Sometime in college a couple of friends and I got the idea to take a trip to Disney during Spring Break. I honestly don't know whose fancy it began as, whether it was my suggestion or I just hopped on board eagerly, but it sure seemed like a fantastic time would be had by all. None of us had ever been to Disney World as adults without our parents and\or siblings. Imagine being able to sleep in the hotel room until noon, go to whichever park we felt like visiting, ride Space Mountain five times in a row and skip the flying elephants completely, eat French fries for lunch and then conclude the evening by parading around EPCOT Center sampling alcoholic beverages from each country's pavilion until we finally made it back to the hotel in a drunken stupor at 3 in the morning. (It's possible you have to be a college student to understand the allure, admittedly.) Unfortunately, somewhere along the line it turned out that this would be my first experience with the frustration of making plans alongside people I now refer to as Perpetual Dreamers. It was not the last such experience, and to this day those sorts of people drive me absolutely crazy. Perpetual Dreamers are friends who will enthusiastically discuss vacations, roadtrips, or other experiences that all of you would love to do together, making plans in great detail, drawing up itineraries and even price-shopping airlines... but when it comes time to actually make a hotel reservation or buy plane tickets, suddenly the PD is squirming uncomfortably and backing away, saying something along the lines of, "Wait, you were serious?" or nervously half-laughing half-protesting, "You can't just drop everything and fly to Bermuda next week... I mean... that's insane!"
I learned that first lesson about Perpetual Dreamer friends the hard way -- every discussion we'd had, every detailed itinerary, pointed towards this trip to Florida being a reality. I'm not oblivious nor am I a complete moron; I wouldn't have gone out and put down money for our reservations if there had been ANY indication that somehow all along, my best friend didn't really think that we were serious about it when we spent an hour comparing photos of cheap hotel rooms in the Orlando area. In the end she finally claimed that her parents wouldn't allow her to go, but it was fairly obvious from her reaction when I emailed her a copy of the receipt for the hotel deposit that all along she'd never seriously intended to go through with it. So there I was left holding the bag, or rather, holding a receipt from Priceline.com for a plane ticket and hotel room. I'd gotten a fantastic unbelievable price, but the way I'd gotten it was by "naming my own price" (this was ten years ago at the height of Priceline's dominance in the discount travel scene) and with the steep discount came the drawback that the reservations were set in stone, pre-paid and absolutely non-refundable for any reason. I'd already spent the money; I was going to Disney World for four days with or without companionship. Now, in the years since this incident, I've traveled alone quite frequently and all told I've spent a good couple of weeks at Disney on my own as a solo adult. At the time however, I admit it never even occured to me that going by myself was an option. I don't remember what exact thoughts went through my mind, but I probably assumed my parents wouldn't want me to fly across the country and stay in a hotel completely alone, and even if they were okay with it, what would be the point of going on a vacation all by myself? It just wasn't something that I even sat down and considered -- if I had, if I'd honestly entertained the notion long enough to weigh the pros and cons, I likely would have decided that it sounded like a pretty cool experience and perhaps the entire course of history itself might have been different! -- but at the time, going alone just didn't seem like an available option and I dismissed the idea without giving it any thought whatsoever. My choices were either accept that I'd flushed $400 down the toilet (I told you it was a great price for a round-trip plane ticket and three nights at a nice hotel) or find somebody else to go with me. Spring Break was only a couple of weeks away and I doubted that I knew anybody at all who would be able to drop everything and fly down to Florida to spend a few days with me and Mickey Mouse, let alone anyone whose company I would appreciate. In desperation I sent IMs to practically everybody I knew, and when I left for my class that evening I set my Instant Messenger status to say something like, "Looking for somebody to come to Disney World with me during break, hotel room already paid for, please save me!"
I returned from my class a few hours later to a minor miracle -- my cousin Patrick was interested and wanted the details. He had plenty of frequent flier miles because his father traveled for business, and as a fellow college student he had the same week for Spring Break that I did. Looking back, I'm still amazed that the whole situation worked out as smoothly as it did, and that the events unfolded in such a way as to permanently alter my future Disney travel plans. My plane landed in Florida on a Sunday afternoon, but Patrick couldn't get there until late Monday evening. Nothing to be done about that on either end, and so it was that I flew to Orlando and checked into the hotel by myself, ate dinner in the restaurant at a table for one, went to bed early and woke up the next morning all alone and with a full day ahead of me. I decided to go to Epcot because it was the park that Patrick had the least interest in seeing. I was a little nervous and a little apprehensive and a little excited, and not really sure what I would or should do, or whether it would be any good at all.
Obviously, it was good. And every year after that I managed to end up back in Orlando with one excuse or another -- once I went to attend a convention of gamers who were fans\customers of the gaming company I was working for at the time, and once I managed to convince a group of friends from an online forum to hold an annual get-together at Disney. At this point I've stopped bothering to look for reasons to be in the area, and I simply purchase my tickets and fly down there once a year without apologizing for it. I typically stay for a 10-day visit, that being the length of the cheapest per-day park ticket currently offered. Tickets to the theme park are one of the most expensive aspects of a Disney vacation and the company's not stupid when it comes to the pricing scheme. You can purchase a single-day ticket for roughly $100 (it's a bit less, but I like round numbers), a two-day ticket for $175, a three-day for $220... the more days you purchase, the less you pay for each day, which obviously encourages people to stay longer. By the time you're up to a 10-day ticket you're paying less than $30 per day. And because Disney is far and away my biggest expense each year, when I've already got plane tickets it makes little sense to stay just for a week when I can extend the trip by a few days for only a small added cost. I've found that 10 days is a good amount for me; if I had my way I'd live in the Magic Kingdom permanently, but the truth is that after a week I'm really starting to miss my girls, and feeling guilty because I know that Sky doesn't handle my absence very well. I of course miss my soft white fluffball just as much, but although it pains me to admit this, Alpine loves her daddy far more than her mommy and doesn't seem to take it very hard when I vanish for over a week, whereas Sky has tiny hysterics when I'm gone for a few hours. In any case, the other major limiting factor is that I require a good deal of pain control to stay on my feet for 14 hours a day, and it takes me basically the entire year to hoarde away sufficient quantity of extra medication so that I don't need to stint during those 10 days. The past two years I've overestimated what I'd need and come home from Orlando with enough unused morphine to stun a small elephant, but I refuse to take the chance of having to make decisions on whether to ride Space Mountain again or change my clothing for a nice dinner, knowing that I won't be able to do both without my pain level skyrocketing to the point where I can no longer function, let alone enjoy my time.
I'm going to quit here and actually post this, but don't worry, I'll be back. There are still important things to be discussed, such as the contents of my neon pink luggage, and the culmination of a 20-yr search for a strapless bra that doesn't make me cry.
Well. Enough of that. If I do still have a loyal readership here, you can all credit (or blame) my return to LJ to a complete stranger who left me a comment on a post from last autumn and stated that he or she has subscribed to my RSS blog feed. I don't think LJ even had RSS feeds when I first started blogging... or maybe I just didn't know what that meant. For some reason, whenever anybody pops up out of the blue and says that they've enjoyed something I wrote, I end up feeling guilty if I don't promptly write something new. It isn't my job to entertain the world; I think the feeling is more that I ought to appreciate the praise I'm given and not take it for granted. And that's hard for me (when it comes to writing) because, admittedly, it happens a lot. You all know I'm not much of a braggart; I have the self-esteem of your average broken-winged gnat. It's just that writing happens to be the one thing on this earth that I'm very good at, and I know this because people tell me so frequently. As a teenager I used to keep a literal file of snippets from emails and IMs and message boards that contained praise for my writing bestowed by total strangers. Obviously I do appreciate and bask in positive comments from my friends and family as well, but somehow it's different when a person I've never talked to before in my life stumbles across a journal entry or message board post I've written and enjoys reading it so much that they're compelled to hunt down a way to contact me and tell me so. I abandoned that Ego File of praise years before I could legally drink, but if I'd kept it up, the thing would have exploded by now. I should try to remember that more often when I'm feeling particularly inadequate about, well, every single other aspect of my life.
I did say this post was going to be about Disney, didn't I. Yes. For anyone just now joining us here at Bad Ham, when it comes to Walt Disney I am not-so-secretly a 5 yr old. And ever since I became a 5 yr old in possession of a credit card and capable of traveling on my own, I've taken an annual vacation to Disney World in Florida. I'd been there previously with my family; once as a little girl (I don't exactly remember how old; it was before my sister was born, so I'm guessing I was maybe 6 or 7) and again as a sullen teenager. Sometime in college a couple of friends and I got the idea to take a trip to Disney during Spring Break. I honestly don't know whose fancy it began as, whether it was my suggestion or I just hopped on board eagerly, but it sure seemed like a fantastic time would be had by all. None of us had ever been to Disney World as adults without our parents and\or siblings. Imagine being able to sleep in the hotel room until noon, go to whichever park we felt like visiting, ride Space Mountain five times in a row and skip the flying elephants completely, eat French fries for lunch and then conclude the evening by parading around EPCOT Center sampling alcoholic beverages from each country's pavilion until we finally made it back to the hotel in a drunken stupor at 3 in the morning. (It's possible you have to be a college student to understand the allure, admittedly.) Unfortunately, somewhere along the line it turned out that this would be my first experience with the frustration of making plans alongside people I now refer to as Perpetual Dreamers. It was not the last such experience, and to this day those sorts of people drive me absolutely crazy. Perpetual Dreamers are friends who will enthusiastically discuss vacations, roadtrips, or other experiences that all of you would love to do together, making plans in great detail, drawing up itineraries and even price-shopping airlines... but when it comes time to actually make a hotel reservation or buy plane tickets, suddenly the PD is squirming uncomfortably and backing away, saying something along the lines of, "Wait, you were serious?" or nervously half-laughing half-protesting, "You can't just drop everything and fly to Bermuda next week... I mean... that's insane!"
I learned that first lesson about Perpetual Dreamer friends the hard way -- every discussion we'd had, every detailed itinerary, pointed towards this trip to Florida being a reality. I'm not oblivious nor am I a complete moron; I wouldn't have gone out and put down money for our reservations if there had been ANY indication that somehow all along, my best friend didn't really think that we were serious about it when we spent an hour comparing photos of cheap hotel rooms in the Orlando area. In the end she finally claimed that her parents wouldn't allow her to go, but it was fairly obvious from her reaction when I emailed her a copy of the receipt for the hotel deposit that all along she'd never seriously intended to go through with it. So there I was left holding the bag, or rather, holding a receipt from Priceline.com for a plane ticket and hotel room. I'd gotten a fantastic unbelievable price, but the way I'd gotten it was by "naming my own price" (this was ten years ago at the height of Priceline's dominance in the discount travel scene) and with the steep discount came the drawback that the reservations were set in stone, pre-paid and absolutely non-refundable for any reason. I'd already spent the money; I was going to Disney World for four days with or without companionship. Now, in the years since this incident, I've traveled alone quite frequently and all told I've spent a good couple of weeks at Disney on my own as a solo adult. At the time however, I admit it never even occured to me that going by myself was an option. I don't remember what exact thoughts went through my mind, but I probably assumed my parents wouldn't want me to fly across the country and stay in a hotel completely alone, and even if they were okay with it, what would be the point of going on a vacation all by myself? It just wasn't something that I even sat down and considered -- if I had, if I'd honestly entertained the notion long enough to weigh the pros and cons, I likely would have decided that it sounded like a pretty cool experience and perhaps the entire course of history itself might have been different! -- but at the time, going alone just didn't seem like an available option and I dismissed the idea without giving it any thought whatsoever. My choices were either accept that I'd flushed $400 down the toilet (I told you it was a great price for a round-trip plane ticket and three nights at a nice hotel) or find somebody else to go with me. Spring Break was only a couple of weeks away and I doubted that I knew anybody at all who would be able to drop everything and fly down to Florida to spend a few days with me and Mickey Mouse, let alone anyone whose company I would appreciate. In desperation I sent IMs to practically everybody I knew, and when I left for my class that evening I set my Instant Messenger status to say something like, "Looking for somebody to come to Disney World with me during break, hotel room already paid for, please save me!"
I returned from my class a few hours later to a minor miracle -- my cousin Patrick was interested and wanted the details. He had plenty of frequent flier miles because his father traveled for business, and as a fellow college student he had the same week for Spring Break that I did. Looking back, I'm still amazed that the whole situation worked out as smoothly as it did, and that the events unfolded in such a way as to permanently alter my future Disney travel plans. My plane landed in Florida on a Sunday afternoon, but Patrick couldn't get there until late Monday evening. Nothing to be done about that on either end, and so it was that I flew to Orlando and checked into the hotel by myself, ate dinner in the restaurant at a table for one, went to bed early and woke up the next morning all alone and with a full day ahead of me. I decided to go to Epcot because it was the park that Patrick had the least interest in seeing. I was a little nervous and a little apprehensive and a little excited, and not really sure what I would or should do, or whether it would be any good at all.
Obviously, it was good. And every year after that I managed to end up back in Orlando with one excuse or another -- once I went to attend a convention of gamers who were fans\customers of the gaming company I was working for at the time, and once I managed to convince a group of friends from an online forum to hold an annual get-together at Disney. At this point I've stopped bothering to look for reasons to be in the area, and I simply purchase my tickets and fly down there once a year without apologizing for it. I typically stay for a 10-day visit, that being the length of the cheapest per-day park ticket currently offered. Tickets to the theme park are one of the most expensive aspects of a Disney vacation and the company's not stupid when it comes to the pricing scheme. You can purchase a single-day ticket for roughly $100 (it's a bit less, but I like round numbers), a two-day ticket for $175, a three-day for $220... the more days you purchase, the less you pay for each day, which obviously encourages people to stay longer. By the time you're up to a 10-day ticket you're paying less than $30 per day. And because Disney is far and away my biggest expense each year, when I've already got plane tickets it makes little sense to stay just for a week when I can extend the trip by a few days for only a small added cost. I've found that 10 days is a good amount for me; if I had my way I'd live in the Magic Kingdom permanently, but the truth is that after a week I'm really starting to miss my girls, and feeling guilty because I know that Sky doesn't handle my absence very well. I of course miss my soft white fluffball just as much, but although it pains me to admit this, Alpine loves her daddy far more than her mommy and doesn't seem to take it very hard when I vanish for over a week, whereas Sky has tiny hysterics when I'm gone for a few hours. In any case, the other major limiting factor is that I require a good deal of pain control to stay on my feet for 14 hours a day, and it takes me basically the entire year to hoarde away sufficient quantity of extra medication so that I don't need to stint during those 10 days. The past two years I've overestimated what I'd need and come home from Orlando with enough unused morphine to stun a small elephant, but I refuse to take the chance of having to make decisions on whether to ride Space Mountain again or change my clothing for a nice dinner, knowing that I won't be able to do both without my pain level skyrocketing to the point where I can no longer function, let alone enjoy my time.
I'm going to quit here and actually post this, but don't worry, I'll be back. There are still important things to be discussed, such as the contents of my neon pink luggage, and the culmination of a 20-yr search for a strapless bra that doesn't make me cry.