Over President’s Day weekend, my parents took the three of us to Walt Disney World for some quality vacationing with the grandson. I’m not going to bore anyone with a blow-by-blow account of the trip, but will just offer a few Random Bullets of Disney Reflection:
- We stayed at the Polynesian Resort, which was both lovely and convenient (right on the monorail). On two mornings, we went to a character breakfast (with Pluto, Mickey, Lilo, and Stitch), which E. liked more than I would’ve thought. The only drawback was that the internet router was broken in our room, so we had no internet access, which was unexpected.
- We also had one of the Disney Dining plans. This was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it was super-convenient. On the other hand, to get full value, you have to eat a spectacularly unreasonable amount of food. (3 courses each at lunch *and* dinner, for instance.) For a new perspective on gluttony, I heartily recommend spending 15 minutes people-watching at a funnel-cake snack cart, or watching a mom bribe her 15-month-old with Chicken McNuggets. Finally, my mother had made arrangements for reservations at various locations around the park. You could cancel them without repercussions–except, if you canceled, it was almost impossible to get in anywhere else.
- The one thing that I would warn any parents about is that the Stitch’s Great Escape ride is both dumb and a little scary for small kids–ours is 4. You’re “trapped” in the dark, with “laser” cannons blasting you, you get urinated on by Stitch (just water, obviously), and he farts on you as well. It was our second ride of the day, and put E. off a remarkable number of rides after that.
- We also got the PhotoPass package, wherein Disney photographers take your picture, and you can order various things afterwards. This turned out pretty well, and would’ve been better if not for the complication below. Here’s a set of the pictures, and here’s the picture that’s E’s and his Grammy’s favorite.
- Here’s the set of our own snapshots. (See E peeking out of a race car, or riding in the tea cups with his Grammy.
- We’d not been to the Wild Animal Kingdom before. On the one hand, there were some cool parts–half the snapshots are of E playing in a giant dino-playscape, and the safari wasn’t bad. On the other hand, the relentless eco-preaching (poaching is the cause of all Africa’s woes! don’t litter!) was so over-the-top that even A was ready to pick up a gun and start hunting for endangered species.
- Favorites: E: Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, Indycar Racing, Mad Tea Party, Safari. A: Mad Tea Party, Carousel, Test Track, Mission: SPACE. Me: Test Track, Mission: SPACE, Pirates of the Caribbean–really, though, just watching E. Unanimous least-favorite: Stitch’s Great Escape.
- E. got sick for the last 2 days–an absolutely inevitable consequence for a kid who touches everything and then touches his face. On Monday, after throwing up, he said, “the good news about being sick is that I got to spend some quiet time with Grammy and Granddaddy.” I passed the news along to Grammy, who said, “Yeah, that’s because after y’all slipped away to Epcot, we let him watch the Daytona 500, some hockey, a Simpsons episode, and half of American Gladiator.” So he’s all caught up on his Fox viewing for the next several years, which is good.
After E got sick, I did, too, and then Grammy and Granddaddy. A did not, which largely confirms her in her health fascism (“sickness is the fault of the sick themselves!”). And, of course, without Internet access, we came back from the holiday weekend pretty far behind. All in all, though, a fun trip!
Bonus trip fact: If you see a middle-aged man with a dirty t-shirt that fails to cover his stomach, and the t-shirt says, “I came here to see tits and drink beer . . . and I’m out of beer,” then you are probably at the Orlando airport the day after the Daytona 500, and NOT at the Bradley airport at Hartford.
Bonus trip-related grammar snark: Are these seats wheelchair-reserved, or not?