I'm not going to bother with Disney horses that have died and been well and thoroughly beaten. So, ON WITH THE SHOW!
The show started with your intrepid heroes stuck for four hours on the I-4. People died so I really have no right complaining but taking almost five hours to get a major interstate reopened? Get your shit together people.
This actually set the right tone for the trip. We were annoyed, then frantically trying to find a better way then finally, as our Fastpass+ time for Toy Story ticked passed, we made peace with a simple notion: This was not a commando style tour. What we see, we see. What we do, we do.
We roll up into Disney Hollywood Studios in the afternoon and pick up a pair of MagicBands. These store all the stuff that is on your ticket before as well as your Fastpass+ stuff. You just touch Mickey's face to the face of the reader and you are set. Getting the ticket changed into a band was trivially easy even with a person who was in the process of being trained. Having had time to ponder what they are good for, I have noticed some non-obvious things.
First, these are a great source of income for Disney. They charge $20 for a cheap piece of plastic with an RFID chip and will sell you lots of crap to decorate your cheap piece of plastic. They will quickly make back all the money they spent and then some. They are mostly handy if you are a day guest but they are insanely cool if you are staying onsite since it's just as cool as the "Keys to the Kingdom" card but...on your wrist. That said: WHO THE HELL thought a rubberized piece of plastic worn on your body is a good idea in Orlando? SERIOUSLY!? Fears of using the RFID to track you everywhere you go are seriously off-base. You have to pretty much get the thing flat on the reader to get it to work. The signal is VERY low powered. It is almost exactly as much exposure as the "Keys to the Kingdom" room keys.
In practice, the thing is a bother for the experienced park commando. If you knew how to use the Disney apps and paper Fastpasses and which lines were full when, you are going to be crippled. You get three Fastpass+ passes and only one is an "E Ticket" type ride. Do you remember the tickets? If not, here is some history. I'm not making that comparison lightly because that is EXACTLY what the My Disney Experience is; a return to tickets by different means. The thing about a book of tickets was that you had a MESS of "A" "B" and "C" tickets...there was always something fun you could be doing. You had a few "D" and very few "E" tickets. The end result was that instead of everyone riding the very best ride over and over and over and over, making the wait interminable, you had incentive to see the less glitzy but still dead fun attractions.
That's what's happening here. Since you get two "A" "B" or "C" type tickets to every one "D" or "E" ticket ride, people use them. People are more evenly spread through the parks because they are taking in the Country Bear Jamboree or the Jungle Cruise instead of lining up for hours to ride The Haunted Mansion. So, for the average guest who doesn't care to learn how to work the system, this means less catastrophic lines and they are happy. So I give the whole thing a B. It's a money maker and it makes the park less painful for casual guests. If you knew how to work the system, It's a D+.
The first day we got to spend a little time with Jen, always time well spent and we did the Fantasmic Dining Package. This, boys and girls is the ONLY way to see Fantasmic. A decent dinner and good seats for the show. While not as epic as Illuminations, Fantasmic is damned awesome.
Day 2 was the Magic Kingdom with John our VIP Tour Guide. This is utterly outside my tax bracket. The absolute minimum this service will cost you is $1890 for six hours...and it was good enough that if this figure is something that can be managed by time leading up to your visit, do it. ESPECIALLY if this is a "once in a lifetime" trip. First, let me tell you what that covers. That gets you, a fastpass to everything that offers a fastpass...which is most of the things at Magic Kingdom. To give you an idea, in our six hours we covered pretty much everything but Space Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean (which was closed) and got front row seats to the new parade. The guide also picks up the tab on your drinks...and snacks...AND a sit down lunch. YES, Including character meals. YES...even that one. John is also an utterly charming man, he could out trivia me and had a genuine passion about his job. He has actually taught Traditions, the new cast member orientation class about what it means to be a cast member because he lives it. He was helpful and kind to everyone we ran across and would stop to tidy if he saw the need.
We had Dinner at Be Our Guest and it also absolutely lived up to the hype. We started with the Potato Leek Soup and the French Onion Soup...get the French Onion. The Potato Leek is amazing. The French Onion is better. For the entree, the Herb-Crusted Lamb Rack and The Braised Pork (Coq au vin style) were both equally amazing. We had to have The Grey Stuff for dessert and it was delicious. The other desserts looked better but... THE GREY STUFF!!! The atmosphere was amazing even by Disney standards. You enter via heavy double doors with one person charged with lighting the way with the candelabra. We were seated in the main dining room, which does look exactly like the ballroom brought to life. We toured the place and found the rose in the haunted West Wing and the music box Maurice made for the happy couple in the Rose Gallery. Before leaving we bid our thanks to Prince Adam for a lovely evening.
Day 3 Started with breakfast at Whispering Canyon Cafe...yes this was delicious and plentiful and a lot of fun. Anyday that starts with a mimosa and sausage gravy is bound to be good. The potatoes needed a little ketchup...be sure to ask for some if you visit. The rest of the day was a typical day at Epcot...except for the FREAKING MONSOON! Which was followed with some serious heat. Which combines with the water to make 98% humidity. Weather Underground said that it "felt like" 146 degrees. We soldiered on and ate and drank our way around the Flower & Garden Show which was...okay. Flowers were wilty, topiaries were cool but all the interesting sessions were over weeks ago.
Day 4 we slept in since we knew there would be a late night at Epcot. We had a good day at Epcot and dinner at The Coral Reef. This is officially off our list of recommended hits. The food was again kinda "meh" and the service was (again) dreadful. The huge fish tank is amazing but so not worth the trouble. Even after the manager having to bus our table we barely made it to our next fastpass.
Which was Illuminations. It was as awe inspiring as always. Then we made our way to the After Hours Wind Down at Spice Road Table. This is worth the price just to have a comfy place to sit (and eat and drink) while everyone heads to their cars. Having a deserted park to ourselves after was priceless. I hope I captured some good stuff.
Day 5 found us utterly exhausted. We rolled out of bed and headed off to Animal Kingdom. We did a commando tour of AK and made it back to the car just before the skies opened up again. We then began our way home.
Pictures to follow.
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Walt would NOT approve
I am always a little annoyed when people speak for others. Be they forum trolls speaking for an imagined silent majority or those who wish to advance their own agenda by invoking the honored dead. I'm going to go out on a limb here and be part of the second group but really, I don't think I'm wrong here.
Disneyland is the example we have of how Walt thought to run a park. Admission was a $1 and $2.50 ($21.79 in today's money) bought you a book of tickets. The idea was that pretty much anyone could afford entry, those of the most modest means could ride all of the really fun rides (the books had more D & E tickets for the better rides than they had A tickets) and have a great time. The inclusion of the lesser valued tickets was also a bit of Roy-type genius since it encouraged people to see the less impressive attractions as well, thus spreading the traffic through the entire park fairly well and making lines more manageable.
That changed in 1982 and things got more...interesting. With the addition of the "Passport" ticket, rides were unlimited for all rides with predictable results. It was egalitarian in that everyone could ride until they got bored of standing in the line and boy were there lines. The price had also jumped to the equivalent of $35.88 in today's money. Considering that this also covered the newly opened EPCOT Center at Disney World, it was quite a bargain and people flocked to Orlando in droves, in spite of the lines.
As Walt Disney World grew, they began to master the art of line management. They started using techniques from the rides with the highest throughput... and the vast majority of early EPCOT Center rides looked a *lot* like a redressed Haunted Mansion with the highly efficient OmniMover. They also began making the lines more entertaining, informative and interactive. Occasionally, they were even downright sneaky with lots of blind turns so someone standing in line always thought the ride was just right around the next corner...in spite of the hour they would be standing there. People were less annoyed with standing in long lines but it could be better.
In late 1999, they came up with an answer, the Fastpass. The idea was a simple one, by allowing guests to get an advance ticket for the front of the line they managed to make lines shorter overall by making sure that the rides maximum capacity was used as much as possible. So, people spent more time walking about (eating delicious and overpriced churros and turkey legs) and riding rides. Since this service cost nothing additional, it worked quite well. You could enjoy a nice laconic day and still get some rides in or if you were in the company of a Fastpass master like Jen Juneau, you could ride a staggering number of rides in a very short time.
Then along came Fastpass+ and I am not amused. Since the normal Fastpass isn't going away this will mean that people staying at Disney resorts will have their Fastpasses before people are even allowed into the park. This means that even if you are at the front of the mob at rope drop and move as quickly (and safely) as possible to the ride...you are still going to wait. As normal Fastpasses start to be given out as well, rides that always run at full capacity (like Toy Story Mania) will have the Standby wait grow longer as now two groups of people will be allowed to go to the front of the line.
The last straw for me was adding the lunch service for Be Our Guest restaurant to the "attractions." To give you an idea of how egregious this really is, let me explain Be Our Guest for the non-Disney Park freaks. Be Our Guest is a new restaurant in the Magic Kingdom. It is modeled after the castle of The Beast from Beauty and the Beast and it. is. GORGEOUS. As a result, you will not be able to get dinner reservations unless you are staying at a Disney Resort.
Oh! I forgot to mention that existing perk: If you are staying at one of their resorts, you can potentially book your dining reservations up to 10 days before they open to the general public (it's not EXACTLY that simple but close enough) and as a result all of the dinner slots for Be Our Guest are gone within moments of them being available to the general public and in busy seasons, the general public never gets a chance.
But be of good cheer! Lunch is a "counter service" which means that you get in a line, you stand in the line, when you get to the front of the line you buy food, you sit, you eat. Or so it was. Now that this is considered an attraction with Fastpass+, you'll have people who are staying at Disney resorts walk right on past you as stand in line waiting even longer. So, Disney effectively is keeping their most popular restaurant for resort guests only.
Reading all this, I'm sure you are thinking; well that's no problem then, we will just stay there. I don't want to go into a huge discussion on the virtues of on vs off site but I'll just say that unless you plan on spending more OR don't mind staying in a loud, sticky Motel 6 that has been brightly decorated with Disney characters, this might not be for you...as a matter of fact, I can't help but think that this is the problem they are trying to solve...they aren't moving the resort rooms like they used to.
My guess is that Doreen and I are not the only ones who have been to one of the Disney resorts and came away unhappy with either the price or the quality of the stay and vowed not to return. I don't mind them adding new perks to staying at the Disney resorts to try to fill those rooms; a hotel is a business that needs to fill rooms.
I do resent them deciding that these on-site perks would be most cost effective at the expense of the "day guest." No matter how I price a Disney vacation, it's not exactly a cheap affair and I deeply resent that kind of total outlay to be treated as a second-class guest. If my choices are that or booking a hotel that I would never even consider for any other reason, Disney can (as it was summed up on facebook) kiss my ass.
Disneyland is the example we have of how Walt thought to run a park. Admission was a $1 and $2.50 ($21.79 in today's money) bought you a book of tickets. The idea was that pretty much anyone could afford entry, those of the most modest means could ride all of the really fun rides (the books had more D & E tickets for the better rides than they had A tickets) and have a great time. The inclusion of the lesser valued tickets was also a bit of Roy-type genius since it encouraged people to see the less impressive attractions as well, thus spreading the traffic through the entire park fairly well and making lines more manageable.
That changed in 1982 and things got more...interesting. With the addition of the "Passport" ticket, rides were unlimited for all rides with predictable results. It was egalitarian in that everyone could ride until they got bored of standing in the line and boy were there lines. The price had also jumped to the equivalent of $35.88 in today's money. Considering that this also covered the newly opened EPCOT Center at Disney World, it was quite a bargain and people flocked to Orlando in droves, in spite of the lines.
As Walt Disney World grew, they began to master the art of line management. They started using techniques from the rides with the highest throughput... and the vast majority of early EPCOT Center rides looked a *lot* like a redressed Haunted Mansion with the highly efficient OmniMover. They also began making the lines more entertaining, informative and interactive. Occasionally, they were even downright sneaky with lots of blind turns so someone standing in line always thought the ride was just right around the next corner...in spite of the hour they would be standing there. People were less annoyed with standing in long lines but it could be better.
In late 1999, they came up with an answer, the Fastpass. The idea was a simple one, by allowing guests to get an advance ticket for the front of the line they managed to make lines shorter overall by making sure that the rides maximum capacity was used as much as possible. So, people spent more time walking about (eating delicious and overpriced churros and turkey legs) and riding rides. Since this service cost nothing additional, it worked quite well. You could enjoy a nice laconic day and still get some rides in or if you were in the company of a Fastpass master like Jen Juneau, you could ride a staggering number of rides in a very short time.
Then along came Fastpass+ and I am not amused. Since the normal Fastpass isn't going away this will mean that people staying at Disney resorts will have their Fastpasses before people are even allowed into the park. This means that even if you are at the front of the mob at rope drop and move as quickly (and safely) as possible to the ride...you are still going to wait. As normal Fastpasses start to be given out as well, rides that always run at full capacity (like Toy Story Mania) will have the Standby wait grow longer as now two groups of people will be allowed to go to the front of the line.
The last straw for me was adding the lunch service for Be Our Guest restaurant to the "attractions." To give you an idea of how egregious this really is, let me explain Be Our Guest for the non-Disney Park freaks. Be Our Guest is a new restaurant in the Magic Kingdom. It is modeled after the castle of The Beast from Beauty and the Beast and it. is. GORGEOUS. As a result, you will not be able to get dinner reservations unless you are staying at a Disney Resort.
Oh! I forgot to mention that existing perk: If you are staying at one of their resorts, you can potentially book your dining reservations up to 10 days before they open to the general public (it's not EXACTLY that simple but close enough) and as a result all of the dinner slots for Be Our Guest are gone within moments of them being available to the general public and in busy seasons, the general public never gets a chance.
But be of good cheer! Lunch is a "counter service" which means that you get in a line, you stand in the line, when you get to the front of the line you buy food, you sit, you eat. Or so it was. Now that this is considered an attraction with Fastpass+, you'll have people who are staying at Disney resorts walk right on past you as stand in line waiting even longer. So, Disney effectively is keeping their most popular restaurant for resort guests only.
Reading all this, I'm sure you are thinking; well that's no problem then, we will just stay there. I don't want to go into a huge discussion on the virtues of on vs off site but I'll just say that unless you plan on spending more OR don't mind staying in a loud, sticky Motel 6 that has been brightly decorated with Disney characters, this might not be for you...as a matter of fact, I can't help but think that this is the problem they are trying to solve...they aren't moving the resort rooms like they used to.
My guess is that Doreen and I are not the only ones who have been to one of the Disney resorts and came away unhappy with either the price or the quality of the stay and vowed not to return. I don't mind them adding new perks to staying at the Disney resorts to try to fill those rooms; a hotel is a business that needs to fill rooms.
I do resent them deciding that these on-site perks would be most cost effective at the expense of the "day guest." No matter how I price a Disney vacation, it's not exactly a cheap affair and I deeply resent that kind of total outlay to be treated as a second-class guest. If my choices are that or booking a hotel that I would never even consider for any other reason, Disney can (as it was summed up on facebook) kiss my ass.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
The big lie
Now for the second thing that diet programs don't want you to know.
This gets a little ugly so grab a seat and a beverage. Okay so are you or have you been obese? I'm not talking a little overweight, I'm talking class II (BMI 35.0–39.9) or class III (BMI >40) obese. Then I have some bad news, you are going to die that way and sooner rather than later.
That escalated quickly, didn't it? Do I have your attention? Statistically speaking, what I'm saying is true. Recovery rate on obesity is between 5-10% depending on where you got your number...and the majority of them were class I. I'm laying this really harsh slice of truth out for one reason; I think the line of bullshit that most diet programs and their followers espouse does a huge disservice to the nature of the struggle that will have to happen if you want to be that 5-10%. I don't think this can be stressed enough. Obese people are in a fight for their lives both on a very real level and for the quality of life they will have while on the way to their early, early graves.
Some of the things I constantly hear might not be lies to the person saying them. My personal favorite is: "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels." This is so amazingly untrue that I fear that the ground would open up and swallow me if I ever utter this statement. If it's true for you, great...shut your fucking noise hole because you are being the opposite of helpful...and I'm going to have to explain that now before I go on with other examples.
When you are class II and III obese your life is one of pain, both physical and emotional as well as the subject of ridicule and torment both tacitly and occasionally maliciously. It starts to sink in and even the strongest people start to pick up some heavy scar tissue. So, when encountering a statement like that, when OBVIOUSLY food has been a driving force in their lives for so long, what they hear is; "You are not normal...you are different even from reformed obese people and you are wrong." So they parrot it to fit in, they hope that since everyone says it, there will be some magic turning point where it becomes true and when they realize that point will never come, it's a harsh slice of reality.
There is also the very specific admonition that if you commit to this life change, your body will at some point start to crave the more nutrient dense, lower caloric density foods that fuel it best. You can be re-trained and your fabulous life will be on course from here on out. That's another confidence destroying lie. People don't become obese by accident. Programs pretend that people don't know how to eat, lack the habits and lack the knowledge because that's the facile and comfortable lie that will keep clients paying. The truth is, they knew what they were doing while they were doing it and were powerless to stop it. I was fully present in every delicious bite and I know full well that even if I hit goal weight and meet fitness goals that would make 18 year old men weep, I would still want to do it again.
and remember those mental scars I was talking about? That's the next lie. It's never told explicitly but part of what is sold is this fabulous, active, healthy and amazing life you will be living. Yea, that doesn't happen. If you've been obese for a while, your confidence is rough around the edges, you still believe a lot of what you could hear people whispering about you. In your mind, you are still the ugly stupid whale that everyone rejected and ignored. You still feel more comfortable at home, alone, maybe with a book, a chat room, a computer game, Ben & Jerry...wait, what? Yes. That's exactly how it happens.
There is no award ceremony where you are given an award, people treat you with new found respect and you become confident, suave and charismatic. You are still the person you were but with a few more active hobbies and this new person owns smaller pants...but the pizza guy knows your name, greets you warmly and always has something that makes you feel good, if only for a little while.
So, to sum it up: It never becomes easy nor intuitive. Your body doesn't crave healthy food nor is it retrained to have a better sense of satiety. Plus you're likely a lot more socially awkward than most...and you know you are just going to end up fat again.
That's what it's REALLY like.
People should know that. This is going to be hard work, DAMNED hard work and you are going to have to do it for the rest of your life. No one will care and you are going to have to lose a lot of baggage to be living the life they promise in the commercial. Every day will be a struggle to not give in to the ever present temptations of gluttony and sloth. Gluttony and sloth that are programmed into your DNA as having won at the game of life...not to mention a food industry that spends billions of dollars to find ways to make the cheapest to prepare and nutritionally empty foods taste orgasmically good. It's going to be hard and it's going to suck and no one is going to understand.
The only way I can deal with this is to remind myself that I'm worth it.
Even if my knee prevents me from running again, I can easily fit into cars, I can buy pants in any store that sells them, I can easily get up from a seated position, I can walk up a flight of stairs easily, I can tie my shoes and I can enjoy more years with my friends and my family and my wife and yea... Pizza still tastes better than thin feels, LOTS better but I want all those other things more than I want that feeling.
This gets a little ugly so grab a seat and a beverage. Okay so are you or have you been obese? I'm not talking a little overweight, I'm talking class II (BMI 35.0–39.9) or class III (BMI >40) obese. Then I have some bad news, you are going to die that way and sooner rather than later.
That escalated quickly, didn't it? Do I have your attention? Statistically speaking, what I'm saying is true. Recovery rate on obesity is between 5-10% depending on where you got your number...and the majority of them were class I. I'm laying this really harsh slice of truth out for one reason; I think the line of bullshit that most diet programs and their followers espouse does a huge disservice to the nature of the struggle that will have to happen if you want to be that 5-10%. I don't think this can be stressed enough. Obese people are in a fight for their lives both on a very real level and for the quality of life they will have while on the way to their early, early graves.
Some of the things I constantly hear might not be lies to the person saying them. My personal favorite is: "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels." This is so amazingly untrue that I fear that the ground would open up and swallow me if I ever utter this statement. If it's true for you, great...shut your fucking noise hole because you are being the opposite of helpful...and I'm going to have to explain that now before I go on with other examples.
When you are class II and III obese your life is one of pain, both physical and emotional as well as the subject of ridicule and torment both tacitly and occasionally maliciously. It starts to sink in and even the strongest people start to pick up some heavy scar tissue. So, when encountering a statement like that, when OBVIOUSLY food has been a driving force in their lives for so long, what they hear is; "You are not normal...you are different even from reformed obese people and you are wrong." So they parrot it to fit in, they hope that since everyone says it, there will be some magic turning point where it becomes true and when they realize that point will never come, it's a harsh slice of reality.
There is also the very specific admonition that if you commit to this life change, your body will at some point start to crave the more nutrient dense, lower caloric density foods that fuel it best. You can be re-trained and your fabulous life will be on course from here on out. That's another confidence destroying lie. People don't become obese by accident. Programs pretend that people don't know how to eat, lack the habits and lack the knowledge because that's the facile and comfortable lie that will keep clients paying. The truth is, they knew what they were doing while they were doing it and were powerless to stop it. I was fully present in every delicious bite and I know full well that even if I hit goal weight and meet fitness goals that would make 18 year old men weep, I would still want to do it again.
and remember those mental scars I was talking about? That's the next lie. It's never told explicitly but part of what is sold is this fabulous, active, healthy and amazing life you will be living. Yea, that doesn't happen. If you've been obese for a while, your confidence is rough around the edges, you still believe a lot of what you could hear people whispering about you. In your mind, you are still the ugly stupid whale that everyone rejected and ignored. You still feel more comfortable at home, alone, maybe with a book, a chat room, a computer game, Ben & Jerry...wait, what? Yes. That's exactly how it happens.
There is no award ceremony where you are given an award, people treat you with new found respect and you become confident, suave and charismatic. You are still the person you were but with a few more active hobbies and this new person owns smaller pants...but the pizza guy knows your name, greets you warmly and always has something that makes you feel good, if only for a little while.
So, to sum it up: It never becomes easy nor intuitive. Your body doesn't crave healthy food nor is it retrained to have a better sense of satiety. Plus you're likely a lot more socially awkward than most...and you know you are just going to end up fat again.
That's what it's REALLY like.
People should know that. This is going to be hard work, DAMNED hard work and you are going to have to do it for the rest of your life. No one will care and you are going to have to lose a lot of baggage to be living the life they promise in the commercial. Every day will be a struggle to not give in to the ever present temptations of gluttony and sloth. Gluttony and sloth that are programmed into your DNA as having won at the game of life...not to mention a food industry that spends billions of dollars to find ways to make the cheapest to prepare and nutritionally empty foods taste orgasmically good. It's going to be hard and it's going to suck and no one is going to understand.
The only way I can deal with this is to remind myself that I'm worth it.
Even if my knee prevents me from running again, I can easily fit into cars, I can buy pants in any store that sells them, I can easily get up from a seated position, I can walk up a flight of stairs easily, I can tie my shoes and I can enjoy more years with my friends and my family and my wife and yea... Pizza still tastes better than thin feels, LOTS better but I want all those other things more than I want that feeling.
You can get with this or you can get with...whatever you want to get with really
Maybe it's because Google has helped skew the news I see and my selection of friends has tilted the news I see in favor of things health and fitness related or maybe as silly crap like Bloomberg's soda ban screams for attention but the inherent wrongness is getting under my skin.
I'm going to break this all down in the most simple and real terms possible. People gain weight because they eat more than they need. That's all. Since we love us a quick fix and tricks to get ahead, we are always looking for an angle...and so, we are given one. It's carbs that make us fat, it's high fructose corn syrup, it's GMO foods, it's the food industry, it's the additives, it's gluten, it's the fat... NO! Own this or learn to be happy at whatever weight you have; you gain weight when you put too much into your gob.
Conversely, if you want to lose weight, put less into that pie hole than you need. It's very simple. At this point people chime in espousing Weight Watchers, Paleo, gluten-free, Spark, cabbage soup, fasts, cleanses, shakes, powders, potions and substitutes.
...and they all work
...and they are all bullshit
They work because each of them reduces your calorie intake and they try to do so without impacting your sense of satiety so that you don't stuff that hungry cake pit. They are all bullshit because they sell this notion that they have the "secret sauce." That there is something about the way that they reduce your calorie intake that is special and unique. Some of them work better than others and the ones that do, it's for two reasons, they work better at keeping you from being hungry and more importantly, they acknowledge the single simple truth about intake in a tacit way. These are the programs that demand you log everything you put in your mouth.
If you are going to manage to follow the single truth about losing weight, you need to know exactly two things: "How much energy does my body need?" "How much energy is in this food?" If you don't know these two things, your weight loss will be hit and miss and when you are done with your weight loss, you'll resume overeating (that's how you got overweight in the first place) and the cycle will continue.
BUT WHAT ABOUT EXERCISE!?!
Don't worry, I'm going to piss all over that like a drunken alley cat next post.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Disney part 2
This is where the intrepid heroes start to realize that they made some bad choices.
We finished our dinner with plenty of time to make it to the Magic Kingdom extra magic hours so we decide to hop in the car and head on over to the Ticket & Transportation Center so that we didn't have to come back to the hotel. We hop on the monorail (por favor, mantangense alejado de las puertas) and are at Magic Kingdom just as the sun was going down and the lights were coming up.
Magic Kingdom was lovely and we got some wonderful pictures of the park at night. I was profoundly stupid getting on the Journey of the Little Mermaid. I decided that the lens I had attached wasn't the best choice and was making a quick swap as we entered our clam and I lost my grip on my camera bag. It landed with a loud *THUNK* and in my mind a lot of valuable glass had just been turned into valueless powdered shards. It's also worth noting that this loud impact caused me to utter words that one should not utter in the Magic Kingdom...and I didn't use my "inside voice" to do so. At the end of the ride, the cast members were kind enough to quickly retrieve my bag with a fully operational lens still inside. We shot some more pictures and went to go back to our hotel.
We made for the exit in high spirits and saw most of the monorail entrances were roped off. We went to the one open entrance and a cast member shouted "The monorail isn't running!"
Whaaaaaaaaa?
So we wait at the boat dock and let me tell you how Disney lies without lying. If you are part of a huge summer crowd, the cast members (trying to steer suckers to the ferry) will tell you that the monorail and the ferry take the same time to cross the lagoon and that is true. What they don't tell you is that you will stand there for 10 minutes waiting for the ferry, spend another 15 minutes boarding the ferry and another 5 securing the boat and exiting. As we sit on the uncomfortable bench we feel more than a bit scammed.
We finally make it back to our car and are on our way back to our room. Sorta. You see there is little consistency to the directional signs on Disney property. Think fast! Is Pop Century a "Magic Kingdom Area Resort," "Disney Hollywood Studios Area Resort," "Animal Kingdom Area Resort," or an "ESPN Area Resort?" Well, we guessed wrong. Since Disney roads handle a LOT of traffic, many of the directional changes are on and off ramps instead of intersections. So, you get turned around and find the signs now are for specific resorts...but not ours. So two turn abouts later, we find ourselves back at the room at around midnight as we are exhausted and decide to sleep in a bit.
One of the many unsupervised children decides to overrule this, banging on the metal railing that runs the length of the resort. This produces a noise not unlike a gong right outside your door, a door that is made of aluminum foil and some sort of sound amplifying membrane. So with 6 hours of sleep we put on our happy face and go to breakfast.
Now let me preface this with Doreen and I have been in military chow halls. Quite a few of them in fact and NOTHING prepared us for this. We are immediately greeted with a floor and most surfaces covered in... lightly used food. Crumbs, spills, sloshes and good ole fashioned thrown food are every where. We also quickly notice that there are about half as many tables as there are diners. Well, this will be fun. We decide on the omelet station. We quickly realize that the omelets are made somewhere "backstage" and held in huge steam trays. The "hash browns" are similarly industrial potatoes. I get a side of sausage that looks a lot like McSausage and we move on to pastries. This is a full-contact sport. Kids and teens facing the morning without their sugar will push, shove and bite. We got our bounty and went to pay and pay we did. So we finally found a table that was only slightly sticky to eat our apparently gold plated Mcfood. It was horrible. The eggs were dry, the sausage tasteless and the danish, well the danish didn't suck but Disney is pretty good with bakery items.
We head back over to Disney Hollywood Studios. There is still stuff to be seen and our dining reservations are there. We spend the morning touring and are in a fairly good mood when we head over to the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater. This was hugely fun! The "tables" are all made to look like cars. The bad news is that there are three double seats, so unless you come with a big family, your dining experience is very much at the mercy of other people. The food was good but the atmosphere was stellar. We both ordered the "All American Picnic Burger" and that was a mistake that would haunt us. It's a burger topped with a hot dog. I was imagining a non-full sized burger and non-full sized dog. There is one drawback to this place: The seating is close and table is narrow. If you are "Pooh sized" or have a lot of tackle, you are not going to enjoy this. A small camera bag and an SLR were problematic.
We enjoyed more park and all too soon our dinner reservations were up. This was our first time at the Hollywood Brown Derby and we enjoyed it. Our waitress was a bit confused and we had to specifically ask for silverware, straws and (not making this up) plates. We both agreed that the food was quite good. Not the best we'd had on site nor the best value but it was a very good evening. Cue Yakety Sax for figuring out which way back to the resort. We then find out how lucky we are with our stained room with grimy grout. We hear our next door neighbor out on the walkway alternating between tears and rage. She's spent the last three days with a malfunctioning door lock that she can't get anyone to fix. The problem today is that she can't even really leave the general area since her phone is behind the locked and now unopenable door so they have no way to reach her if they deign to dispatch a maintenance man and she missed most of a park day so far waiting. Walt Disney World has recently gone to a RFID device for room keys and tickets and apparently it's not fully baked yet.
So ends day 2. We had fun, though not as much as we had liked. Typically you go to Disney because they pay attention to the little things. When they stop that level of attention, you realize you are paying a lot of money for a really pretty amusement park.
We finished our dinner with plenty of time to make it to the Magic Kingdom extra magic hours so we decide to hop in the car and head on over to the Ticket & Transportation Center so that we didn't have to come back to the hotel. We hop on the monorail (por favor, mantangense alejado de las puertas) and are at Magic Kingdom just as the sun was going down and the lights were coming up.
Magic Kingdom was lovely and we got some wonderful pictures of the park at night. I was profoundly stupid getting on the Journey of the Little Mermaid. I decided that the lens I had attached wasn't the best choice and was making a quick swap as we entered our clam and I lost my grip on my camera bag. It landed with a loud *THUNK* and in my mind a lot of valuable glass had just been turned into valueless powdered shards. It's also worth noting that this loud impact caused me to utter words that one should not utter in the Magic Kingdom...and I didn't use my "inside voice" to do so. At the end of the ride, the cast members were kind enough to quickly retrieve my bag with a fully operational lens still inside. We shot some more pictures and went to go back to our hotel.
We made for the exit in high spirits and saw most of the monorail entrances were roped off. We went to the one open entrance and a cast member shouted "The monorail isn't running!"
Whaaaaaaaaa?
So we wait at the boat dock and let me tell you how Disney lies without lying. If you are part of a huge summer crowd, the cast members (trying to steer suckers to the ferry) will tell you that the monorail and the ferry take the same time to cross the lagoon and that is true. What they don't tell you is that you will stand there for 10 minutes waiting for the ferry, spend another 15 minutes boarding the ferry and another 5 securing the boat and exiting. As we sit on the uncomfortable bench we feel more than a bit scammed.
We finally make it back to our car and are on our way back to our room. Sorta. You see there is little consistency to the directional signs on Disney property. Think fast! Is Pop Century a "Magic Kingdom Area Resort," "Disney Hollywood Studios Area Resort," "Animal Kingdom Area Resort," or an "ESPN Area Resort?" Well, we guessed wrong. Since Disney roads handle a LOT of traffic, many of the directional changes are on and off ramps instead of intersections. So, you get turned around and find the signs now are for specific resorts...but not ours. So two turn abouts later, we find ourselves back at the room at around midnight as we are exhausted and decide to sleep in a bit.
One of the many unsupervised children decides to overrule this, banging on the metal railing that runs the length of the resort. This produces a noise not unlike a gong right outside your door, a door that is made of aluminum foil and some sort of sound amplifying membrane. So with 6 hours of sleep we put on our happy face and go to breakfast.
Now let me preface this with Doreen and I have been in military chow halls. Quite a few of them in fact and NOTHING prepared us for this. We are immediately greeted with a floor and most surfaces covered in... lightly used food. Crumbs, spills, sloshes and good ole fashioned thrown food are every where. We also quickly notice that there are about half as many tables as there are diners. Well, this will be fun. We decide on the omelet station. We quickly realize that the omelets are made somewhere "backstage" and held in huge steam trays. The "hash browns" are similarly industrial potatoes. I get a side of sausage that looks a lot like McSausage and we move on to pastries. This is a full-contact sport. Kids and teens facing the morning without their sugar will push, shove and bite. We got our bounty and went to pay and pay we did. So we finally found a table that was only slightly sticky to eat our apparently gold plated Mcfood. It was horrible. The eggs were dry, the sausage tasteless and the danish, well the danish didn't suck but Disney is pretty good with bakery items.
We head back over to Disney Hollywood Studios. There is still stuff to be seen and our dining reservations are there. We spend the morning touring and are in a fairly good mood when we head over to the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater. This was hugely fun! The "tables" are all made to look like cars. The bad news is that there are three double seats, so unless you come with a big family, your dining experience is very much at the mercy of other people. The food was good but the atmosphere was stellar. We both ordered the "All American Picnic Burger" and that was a mistake that would haunt us. It's a burger topped with a hot dog. I was imagining a non-full sized burger and non-full sized dog. There is one drawback to this place: The seating is close and table is narrow. If you are "Pooh sized" or have a lot of tackle, you are not going to enjoy this. A small camera bag and an SLR were problematic.
We enjoyed more park and all too soon our dinner reservations were up. This was our first time at the Hollywood Brown Derby and we enjoyed it. Our waitress was a bit confused and we had to specifically ask for silverware, straws and (not making this up) plates. We both agreed that the food was quite good. Not the best we'd had on site nor the best value but it was a very good evening. Cue Yakety Sax for figuring out which way back to the resort. We then find out how lucky we are with our stained room with grimy grout. We hear our next door neighbor out on the walkway alternating between tears and rage. She's spent the last three days with a malfunctioning door lock that she can't get anyone to fix. The problem today is that she can't even really leave the general area since her phone is behind the locked and now unopenable door so they have no way to reach her if they deign to dispatch a maintenance man and she missed most of a park day so far waiting. Walt Disney World has recently gone to a RFID device for room keys and tickets and apparently it's not fully baked yet.
So ends day 2. We had fun, though not as much as we had liked. Typically you go to Disney because they pay attention to the little things. When they stop that level of attention, you realize you are paying a lot of money for a really pretty amusement park.
and we all learned something
Despite careful planning, this was the worst trip to Disney we've done...and that includes the one in '08 when we showed up on a whim.
It started with a failure on our part. We worked late into the night to make sure everything would be ready so that we could just grab our bags and leave. Which is a good plan if your alarm doesn't have a snooze. So, 40 minutes later than we thought we were out the door.
The first few hours of the road trip were uneventful. We were making good time but since there were other cars on the road as we went around the Baltimore and the DC beltway, we hadn't made up any time. Then north of Emporia, VA, the state police happened. We didn't get a ticket, we got a stupid. We were driving along when traffic began to slow and eventually stop. We were in very slow, stop and go traffic for about 10 minutes when we came upon a sign warning about an emergency ahead. We spend the next hour going a mile or two. We see a crew dash past on the shoulder with signs and pylons. I try to keep my perspective. Up ahead someone is having a far worse day than we are...but I'm really getting frustrated. Finally we get encouraged when motion becomes consistent, slow but consistent.
That's when we realize that it's because we are being detoured off of I-95. All of the traffic from I-95 is being sent to some two lane road in the middle of no-where VA. Great. So we finally get on the exit ramp only to find that there is no "detour." No sign, no indication where to go, just...get off the road. We make a quick right to check maps and gain bearings. This road does go south and does have another exit back on to I-95. GREAT! As we get turned around, we go over the I-95 overpass (with a police officer blocking the on-ramp) and see that traffic below is us MOVING. WHAAAAAA? We decide that the officer will surely re-open the ramp at any moment so we turn back around and head back to the ramp...where he still sits. So we turn around again and this time I slow and roll down a window to ask him if he was going to re-open the ramp since obviously the road was now open and I'm very angrily waved off. So we proceeded with the "B" plan in place and went for another 10 miles or so down a two lane and got back on I-95. We were now 2 hours behind with three states left to cross.
All set-backs tallied, we rolled into Jacksonville, FL at 10:30pm, NOT the 8:00pm we had originally planned on. Still! We are in Jacksonville and a short drive away from the most magical place on earth! We slept in a bit, deciding that we would forgo some morning park goodness in favor of sleep. Our math put us at Disney by 10:30am and that would give us plenty of time to get checked in, get to the park and meet up with Jen & Josh in time for our lunch date at 12:20pm. We had clearly never dealt with staying at a Disney resort.
We arrived at Disney's Pop Century right on time and were encouraged by there being a separate line for people who had done the on-line check-in process. At this point they just needed to hand out information, keys, explain the few ins and outs, collect a signature and done. With four people ahead of us, we thought we might get some park time in anyway. At 10:45 the line had yet to move. There were three cast members working check-in and we were at the front of the line by 11:15. That's not a misprint nor an exaggeration. We spent 45 minutes in line behind FOUR people.
We are much relieved to finally get to the counter. It's 15 minutes to the park, so maybe we'd at least get to ride something. The nice woman took our information and told us our room wasn't ready and that was fine, check-in isn't until 3pm but we just wanted to check-in so that we could get into the park. This was not good enough for Disney. They are going to put you into a room unreasonably early even if it takes all day. So she picks up a phone to talk to people in house keeping to find out what rooms were ready. This is another 10 minutes gone. So, she hands us our key as well as a circled map as directions to our building. Notice she didn't explain anything about the resorts, or tickets or transportation...this will bite us in the ass later.
Disney resorts being huge we decide to get a bell cart. Complication: All of the real bell carts are in use by the luggage delivery service...who can deliver my luggage to my room sometime in the next hour or so. I look at my watch and um, that's no good. So, we sign our life away for the use of a hand truck. We then spend a few minutes trying to figure out the vague signs (remember we have no clue where our building is) to find our room. We find our tiny and dingy room. The bed is a bit sway-backed but feels okay, the carpeting very short napped and deeply stained and the bathroom grout has apparently never been scrubbed. We quickly toss suitcases into a corner and go to the safe to secure our valuables...which unless your valuables are a pair of iPads or half a ream of legal sized paper, you are SOL, even my smallest camera lens would not fit. We aren't feeling the value in the value resorts. It's about 11:45 so we will head straight to Disney Hollywood Studios.
That part all went according to plan. We arrived without incident, met Jen & Josh, had a great lunch at 50s Prime Time Cafe, a favorite for a good "homestyle" meal and a fun experience. Thanks to Jen's formidable skills at Fastpassery we got a lot of fun in before we had to leave to make our dinner reservations. We arrived a few minutes early and we were quickly seated at our last minute second choice of a restaurant.
Usually we like to kick our trips off at 'Ohana. This is a "family style" all-you-can-eat. It's an endless parade of veggies and meat cooked over a roaring fire with some fun entertainment. This year they went to a cheaper cut of pork and took several of the dipping sauces off the service and as the final insult, they messed with the heaping bowl of broccoli that is usually one of the courses...and I'm SO GLAD they did or we would have never gone to Kona Cafe.
Kona is the flip side of 'Ohana. It's small, it's quiet and it has a fairly sophisticated menu. It quickly leaped into the top five restaurants I'd instantly recommend for visitors. I had the Togarashi Spiced Ahi Tuna, which comes with an interesting veggie/starch presentation. Your veggies are at the center of a tempura fried sushi roll. So you have a lovely crispy roll that is filled with rice and some perfectly cooked vegetables. Doreen had the Kona Coffee Rubbed Pork Chop which also delivered huge flavor.
At this point we breathed a sigh of relief that our troubles were behind us. We had half a day of park hopping and fun with friends, two really fine meals and our troubles were behind us...but we underestimated the whole value resort experience.
That will be in part 2.
It started with a failure on our part. We worked late into the night to make sure everything would be ready so that we could just grab our bags and leave. Which is a good plan if your alarm doesn't have a snooze. So, 40 minutes later than we thought we were out the door.
The first few hours of the road trip were uneventful. We were making good time but since there were other cars on the road as we went around the Baltimore and the DC beltway, we hadn't made up any time. Then north of Emporia, VA, the state police happened. We didn't get a ticket, we got a stupid. We were driving along when traffic began to slow and eventually stop. We were in very slow, stop and go traffic for about 10 minutes when we came upon a sign warning about an emergency ahead. We spend the next hour going a mile or two. We see a crew dash past on the shoulder with signs and pylons. I try to keep my perspective. Up ahead someone is having a far worse day than we are...but I'm really getting frustrated. Finally we get encouraged when motion becomes consistent, slow but consistent.
That's when we realize that it's because we are being detoured off of I-95. All of the traffic from I-95 is being sent to some two lane road in the middle of no-where VA. Great. So we finally get on the exit ramp only to find that there is no "detour." No sign, no indication where to go, just...get off the road. We make a quick right to check maps and gain bearings. This road does go south and does have another exit back on to I-95. GREAT! As we get turned around, we go over the I-95 overpass (with a police officer blocking the on-ramp) and see that traffic below is us MOVING. WHAAAAAA? We decide that the officer will surely re-open the ramp at any moment so we turn back around and head back to the ramp...where he still sits. So we turn around again and this time I slow and roll down a window to ask him if he was going to re-open the ramp since obviously the road was now open and I'm very angrily waved off. So we proceeded with the "B" plan in place and went for another 10 miles or so down a two lane and got back on I-95. We were now 2 hours behind with three states left to cross.
All set-backs tallied, we rolled into Jacksonville, FL at 10:30pm, NOT the 8:00pm we had originally planned on. Still! We are in Jacksonville and a short drive away from the most magical place on earth! We slept in a bit, deciding that we would forgo some morning park goodness in favor of sleep. Our math put us at Disney by 10:30am and that would give us plenty of time to get checked in, get to the park and meet up with Jen & Josh in time for our lunch date at 12:20pm. We had clearly never dealt with staying at a Disney resort.
We arrived at Disney's Pop Century right on time and were encouraged by there being a separate line for people who had done the on-line check-in process. At this point they just needed to hand out information, keys, explain the few ins and outs, collect a signature and done. With four people ahead of us, we thought we might get some park time in anyway. At 10:45 the line had yet to move. There were three cast members working check-in and we were at the front of the line by 11:15. That's not a misprint nor an exaggeration. We spent 45 minutes in line behind FOUR people.
We are much relieved to finally get to the counter. It's 15 minutes to the park, so maybe we'd at least get to ride something. The nice woman took our information and told us our room wasn't ready and that was fine, check-in isn't until 3pm but we just wanted to check-in so that we could get into the park. This was not good enough for Disney. They are going to put you into a room unreasonably early even if it takes all day. So she picks up a phone to talk to people in house keeping to find out what rooms were ready. This is another 10 minutes gone. So, she hands us our key as well as a circled map as directions to our building. Notice she didn't explain anything about the resorts, or tickets or transportation...this will bite us in the ass later.
Disney resorts being huge we decide to get a bell cart. Complication: All of the real bell carts are in use by the luggage delivery service...who can deliver my luggage to my room sometime in the next hour or so. I look at my watch and um, that's no good. So, we sign our life away for the use of a hand truck. We then spend a few minutes trying to figure out the vague signs (remember we have no clue where our building is) to find our room. We find our tiny and dingy room. The bed is a bit sway-backed but feels okay, the carpeting very short napped and deeply stained and the bathroom grout has apparently never been scrubbed. We quickly toss suitcases into a corner and go to the safe to secure our valuables...which unless your valuables are a pair of iPads or half a ream of legal sized paper, you are SOL, even my smallest camera lens would not fit. We aren't feeling the value in the value resorts. It's about 11:45 so we will head straight to Disney Hollywood Studios.
That part all went according to plan. We arrived without incident, met Jen & Josh, had a great lunch at 50s Prime Time Cafe, a favorite for a good "homestyle" meal and a fun experience. Thanks to Jen's formidable skills at Fastpassery we got a lot of fun in before we had to leave to make our dinner reservations. We arrived a few minutes early and we were quickly seated at our last minute second choice of a restaurant.
Usually we like to kick our trips off at 'Ohana. This is a "family style" all-you-can-eat. It's an endless parade of veggies and meat cooked over a roaring fire with some fun entertainment. This year they went to a cheaper cut of pork and took several of the dipping sauces off the service and as the final insult, they messed with the heaping bowl of broccoli that is usually one of the courses...and I'm SO GLAD they did or we would have never gone to Kona Cafe.
Kona is the flip side of 'Ohana. It's small, it's quiet and it has a fairly sophisticated menu. It quickly leaped into the top five restaurants I'd instantly recommend for visitors. I had the Togarashi Spiced Ahi Tuna, which comes with an interesting veggie/starch presentation. Your veggies are at the center of a tempura fried sushi roll. So you have a lovely crispy roll that is filled with rice and some perfectly cooked vegetables. Doreen had the Kona Coffee Rubbed Pork Chop which also delivered huge flavor.
At this point we breathed a sigh of relief that our troubles were behind us. We had half a day of park hopping and fun with friends, two really fine meals and our troubles were behind us...but we underestimated the whole value resort experience.
That will be in part 2.
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