Vacation 1999: Day One

GenePool Humor

Vacation 1999

Day One: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

The month of August was already shaping up to be a massive bummer by the time we got to our vacation week, or at least enough of a bummer to make our schedules overly complicated and our children emotionally unstable.

To start with, there was an outside chance my parent would not even be able to make it on the trip. My mother's father, who had been ailing for some time, was loitering near his death bed come August first, and the possibility existed he would lie in it when mom and dad were expected to be in Disney with us. This did not actually end up happening, because he passed away in early August, but that only made their lives more difficult, as his death bed is actually located in Louisiana, which is an inconvenient location when one is in Boston and one is my mother, who does not fly. Worse, they couldn't take a train either, since no trains could be found that would get them there in time for the funeral, so they chose to drive all the way there and back. They returned almost exactly one week before our Disney trip, exhausted after having spent six of the previous nine days in a car, and terribly behind in their jobs. In most cases, it would be fair to say these two people could use a vacation, but actually, I think they would have preferred staying in the relatively cool Boston region for the remainder of the month.

Meanwhile, back in my household, we were trying desperately to get everything ready in time to take some of what we own with us to Florida. Like clothing. Laundry is a battle we're constantly waging and invariably losing, so, anticipating the possibility that we would arrive there with nothing to wear and be forced to spend several thousand dollars on Disney apparel (not that we didn't do this anyway) I started the washing-and-folding process at the beginning of the week. I finished some time on Thursday night. Saturday was the day we allocated to begin, and, hopefully, finish, packing. Oh, and cleaning the entire house. Our landlord would be watching the cats and the dog for us for the week, and we didn't want to have her walking about in an unclean house that she also happened to own.

The Saturday plan was going pretty well up until Gwen died. Gwen is a gerbil. We had already lost one gerbil at the beginning of the summer, after several visits to the vet to try and save her. Gwen's passing was somewhat more dramatic. Tim was actually holding her when blood started to come out of her mouth. He fortunately put her back into the cage rather than going "eew" and throwing her across the room (which is how I probably would have reacted.) Then he called Becky and Deb to come quick and see what was happening to Gwen. (I was in the shower.) The three of them were treated to an impromptu performance tentatively titled "Watching Gwen Die Suddenly."

It's tough to tell how your kids are going to react to something like this until it happens. Becky cried for a while, whereas Tim, who only cries when Becky breathes on him, picked up the phone and started calling people. In this case he phoned his classmate, Ruth, who we had asked to watch Gwen for us in the upcoming week. "Gwen just died!" he told her, "wanna come over and see her?"

So August had pretty much sucked right up to the day we left for our magical trip to the land of Disney Merchandise. We did succeed in packing everything-- some time around 2:00 A.M. on Sunday morning.

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7:00 A.M.

We get everyone out of bed, and send a slow procession of family members one by one into the shower. I'm not sure how we managed to do this, but sometime in April of this year we were able to convince the kids that showers are MORE fun than baths. It pays dividends in this sort of situation, where we have to be out of the house by 8:30, and we'd just as soon not offend everyone who has to be stuck on a plane with us by not bathing.

8:30 A.M.

My father arrives. Dad reminded me about fifteen times over the last two days that we had to leave "immediately" at 8:30. I made him nervous more than a couple of times on Saturday when he called and asked how the packing was going and I answered with "just great! We're going to start soon!" He has no faith in our ability to be on time for anything. I REALLY don't know why.

8:50 A.M.

We're ready to go.

Our flight is at 11:05 A.M., and generally speaking, we have PLENTY of time to get there early and with time to spare. Or we would, if we were leaving from Logan Airport. Instead, we're driving to Providence, Rhode Island, and catching the flight from there. This is what happens when we put my dad in charge of the flight arrangements. Providence is about 1 1/2 hours away. In my mind, we still have lots of time to get there, and I express this opinion to my father, who asks me if I've ever flown Southwest Air before.

Becky and Tim are showing a modicum of excitement about the trip by now. Becky is a little emotional roller-coaster. She can't decide whether to be excited about Disney or sad about Gwen, so she tries out both options in twenty minute intervals.

10:20 A.M.

Now I understand why dad was worried.

Southwest Airlines has developed an innovative, cost-cutting concept in an effort to make flying more affordable with the added benefit of being extraordinarily annoying. Essentially, there are no seat assignments. So we get to the gate and wait in line for our plastic boarding cards. Each card has a number, which corresponds to the Boarding Group one is in. The higher the number, the longer you get to wait to find a seat. We get numbers 100- 104. I understand SWA's new ad campaign is "Because We Think Of Our Customers As Cattle."

11:00 A.M.

We board the plane fully expecting to find the only seats still available to be in the overhead compartment. We are surprised to find six consecutive seats in the back that are unoccupied. You know that weird set of seats in the back that face each other? Those are the ones. I don't know why every plane has these. I suppose it's because there's not quite enough room in the cabin to fit every seat and have them all face front, but if that's the case, couldn't they just make a slightly larger plane?

11:05 A.M.

Our sixth remaining seat is occupied by a journalism major from the University of Miami whose name I never quite caught. She ends up being very talkative (in a good way; I know that's usually not a compliment when it comes to people on airplanes) which is how I find out she's a journalism major from the University of Miami. We talk a bit about writing, among other things. We probably would have talked a lot more if it weren't for the little voice in the back of my head shouting "DO NOT SEEM TOO INTERESTED IN THE CO-ED WHEN YOUR WIFE IS SITTING NEXT TO YOU."

12:15 P.M.

We learn very quickly why nobody likes the facing-seats section. For one thing, the seats don't recline. For another, there are no tray tables. Our airline snack (SWA does not serve lunch on this flight. Moo.) consists of honey roasted peanuts, and a packet containing four crackers, spreadable cheese for the crackers, a small summer sausage, a fruit granola bar, one napkin, and one plastic knife. It's fairly entertaining watching the six of us attempt to properly dine on this with no tray table, especially while also holding our drink.

2:20 P.M.

We touch down in Orlando, and bid farewell to our journalism major friend, who we are sure has been quite entertained by the Traveling Doucette Family Road Show.

Our next step, after exiting the plane and fetching our luggage, is to find the Hertz Rent-A-Car counter. Here's something I find awfully annoying about the Orlando airport. If you call an auto rental agency and ask them if they are located at Orlando airport, they will say yes, even if the actual car pick-up spot is five miles away. They feel that as long as they have a shuttle of some kind to take people to their cars, it's close enough to being "at the Orlando airport" to suffice. ALL of them will tell you they're AT the airport. Maybe six of them actually are.

3:00 P.M.

We're on the Hertz shuttle. Our driver is providing us with a tremendous amount of amusement, as he has not stopped speaking since he closed the doors. This is another thing one evidently has to cope with when one takes a rental car shuttle. He speaks as if he's just casually mentioning a couple of the nice places we might want to visit while we're in town, but the entire monologue is so well-rehearsed, and so totally lacking in the need for input from us, that it's obvious he delivers it every day. It also ruins the faux- spontaneity when he produces actual restaurant menus from the places he's just casually mentioning.

3:45 P.M.

Now we're in the rent-a-car. My father requested a mid-sized vehicle once it was determined that a car large enough to seat all of the people on our trip was going to be prohibitively expensive. The drawback is it takes us five attempts to fit all the luggage into the trunk, and even then we don't completely succeed. Some of the luggage ends up on our laps instead.

Becky and Tim are starting to get mildly excited by now. They've been through this often enough by now to understand that "getting there" is an all-day sort of thing, but since there is a billboard every thirty feet on the highway announcing some thrill ride of some kind, it's hard for them to contain themselves. Plus, they've been asked to sit still for seven hours now, and this is just not possible for young children without a substantive quantity of drugs. Pockets of exuberant child-energy keeps escaping into the atmosphere of the back seat and injuring Deb, who has to sit between the kids.

4:15 P.M.

The man at the gate won't let us in.

Disney is very protective of their resort areas. In order to park at them one has to prove one belongs there, either by displaying a parking permit-- which one gets when one checks in-- or by giving the man at the gate your name and having him call up your reservation. The problem is, he can't find ours. We throw all sorts of random things at him-- our confirmation number, our first, middle, and last names, the name of our pet, Walt Disney's nickname in college (Bonzo)-- until he finally decides we seem sincere enough and he lets us go.

4:30 P.M.

We park at the "Custom House" of the Carribbean Beach Resort, the place where until fifteen minutes or so ago we thought we'd be staying. Now we're not so sure. When we get to the front desk we discover the reason the gate man couldn't find us is that Deb's mother had already checked everyone in, which consequently erased the "pending" aspect of the reservation from the main computer. Subsequent checking on our part revealed that my own mother-- who had arrived by train earlier in the day-- had not checked in.

This is the point in my travelogue where I'm going to have to ask you, the reader, to start taking notes. This is going to get very confusing. As I mentioned earlier, this year we invited various members of our extended family to vacation with us, and we're all arriving at different times by different methods. My mother, who as I've also mentioned does not fly, left on Saturday by train in order to be in Orlando on Sunday when we arrived. Deb's mother arrived on Saturday, paid for a room for one evening, then checked out of that room and into another room with our package on Sunday. Deb's father, however, could not get away from his job in time to join us for the entire week, so a large portion of his hotel stay is being taken up instead by Deb's sister Dawn. Tagging along with Dawn is her daughter, Marissa, who is seven. (Becky is eight, Tim is six.) Later in the week, Dawn and Marissa will return home, when Deb's dad gets in.

Henceforth, to avoid confusion, my father will be referred to as "Papop," and my mother will be called "Mamom." These are the names my children refer to them as. Complicating matters for both of us (me and you) is that Deb's mom has expressed no interest in having either her or her husband mentioned in these columns. This creates a sticky situation for me, as I'm not willing to simply pretend they weren't there, but offending one's mother-in-law is not a healthy thing to do. As a compromise, I've decided the role of Deb's mother will be played by another character. For today's column her part will be filled by Flo, from the old "Alice" T.V. show. She hasn't gotten a lot of work lately, and I always enjoyed her character. I'll cast Deb's father later.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, we're still at the front desk, trying to check in. Papop is understandably concerned that Mamom hasn't checked in yet, so he asks the lady at the desk to double check and see if their room keys have been assigned yet. He's preparing to describe her so that someone can put out a Disney APB of some kind when, not unlike an O'Henry story, he looks outside the window directly behind the front desk, and sees her walking along the sidewalk.

She manages to make it into the building just before the skies break open and a tremendous amount of rain falls. This would be the only time we see real rain for the entire trip.

Apparently, when Mamom attempted to check in earlier, she was told she could not do so because check-in time was 3:00 P.M. So she took a bus to Port Royal, which is where the food court at the Carribbean Beach is. (Port Royal is a story unto itself. The bus stop for Port Royal is called Calypso, and the building has a big banner above it naming it Centertown. It's like they WANT us to get lost.) Her main purpose for hanging out there was that it's air conditioned. Knowing we were going to be at the Custom House some time around 3:00 P.M., she left Port Royal and made her way to the bus stop. Every few minutes a bus would come by, she'd tell them where she was trying to go, and they would tell her to wait for an "internal" bus, as one would be by presently. Forty-five minutes later, crazed by the heat, she took a bus hostage until the driver agreed to drop her as close as possible to the Custom House. She never did find that internal bus.

One drawback we discover as we're checking in. Since the reservations for all three rooms were made under one name, all the keys have Deb's name on them. This in itself is not a big deal. But we also want to link a credit card to the keys so we can shop, and so does Papop, and Flo. But only one card can be linked. We ultimately decide to link our card and authorize only Deb and me to charge with it. The others will have to rough it by charging with their own cards.

5:00 P.M.

Our room assignment lands us in Jamaica. As I mentioned last year, the Carribbean Beach Resort is broken down into "islands." Last year we stayed in Trinidad North, which happened to be right next to Port Royal, which was very convenient. This year we end up as far as possible from Port Royal, with a lake between us. Fortunately, there is a bridge over the lake, so we're still very close.

We also discover that the extremely convenient pay-as-you-drink wet bar that was in our room last year no longer exists this year. Reportedly, the hotel received "complaints" about them and had them all removed. Who would possibly complain about this, I have no idea. Perhaps they service a lot of Mormons. I also discover we are in a non-smoking room. I suspect this is because Flo checked us in, because they asked us last year which we preferred. This is not a completely terrible thing; I can always smoke outside.

5:15 P.M.

Marissa sneaks into the room to surprise Becky and Tim. We hadn't told them that Marissa would be coming, because we wanted to see the surprise on their faces. Unfortunately, my children are now old enough to be actively interested in not giving us any such satisfaction. Becky informs me that she knew about this "weeks ago." Considering the decision to have Dawn and Marissa make the trip took place three days before we left, I have a lot of trouble believing this.

5:25 P.M.

I make dinner plans. This involves calling the Disney Dining people and asking them if they have any free space at one of their restaurants for nine people. For some reason, nine seat tables are hard to come by. We shoot for the Crystal Palace (which is where we ate on our first day in Disney the previous two years there) but nothing is available. We settle for Tony's Town Square Restaurant.

6:00 P.M.

On our way to the bus stop, we discover nature. They have lots of nature in Florida, especially right after it rains. In this instance, nature comes in the form of a small snail. He is sitting in the middle of the sidewalk we're traversing. Since I'm leading this ragtag band, I'm the first to spot it, so I stop.

"Becky," I say, "look at..."

CRUNCH, says Becky's shoe.

"What, daddy?" Becky asks.

"Never mind, " I say.

7:00 P.M.

We get seated for our 6:45 P.M. "priority seating" reservation. Since the tables there are round, there is no way to sit us all together, so we end up with two tables next to each other, but in different waiter sections, meaning we're served by two different people and we have to split the bill. However, we're eating "Disney Dining Style" so all our food money has been paid up front and put into a large kitty which we are going to try very hard to spend all of by the end of the week. A split bill isn't a big deal.

7:35 P.M.

The food is great, of course. Flo seems a little disappointed to not find grits on the menu, but other than that, everyone appears content. Except the children.

When eating at Disney, children seem to be capable of inhaling food in previously unheard-of record time. Adults-- and by this I mean, my wife-- like to savor their food by eating it so slowly it theoretically spans both dinner and breakfast. So Tim, Becky, and Marissa have to alternately be taken from the table so that they may run about outside, feint toward a ride or two, and then be brought back in to see how the eating is going for everyone else. In one particular jaunt Mamom buys fake lightsabers for Becky and Tim. The mantra for the remainder of the evening becomes "put that away before you hurt someone."

8:30 P.M.

Once everyone has been fed, and the bathrooms have been duly visited by all in attendance, me, Deb, Becky, Tim, Mamom, Marissa and Dawn ditch Papop and Flo and attend to Space Mountain. The Main Street Electrical Parade starts at 9:00 P.M., and Flo and Papop both want to watch it. We want to get to some rides before it's too late. Mamom, who has no intention of riding this, hangs out outside instead. This will be a recurring theme.

The Space Mountain line moves somewhat more slowly than it used to, thanks to something called FastPass. We'll talk about it more later.

9:20 P.M.

Having genuflected to one mountain, we cross the entire park to pay homage to the other two: Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain Railroad. As before, Mamom's job is to wait outside and to hold our various bags and eyeglasses.

Marissa had never been on any of these rides before, and we're not really sure how she's going to react. Splash Mountain, for example, ends with a plunge into an imposing-looking "briar patch" and it looks, from the outside, as if the people are actually HITTING the thorns when their flume-riding log plunges in.

We are already on the ride when she sees the thorns for the first time. Me and Dawn are sitting in the front, which is not altogether wise as we are the tallest, and will consequently get the most punishment from the water. Marissa and Deb are behind us, and Tim and Becky behind them.

"Are we going to hit the THORNS???" Marissa asks desperately.

"Of course not," Deb says.

"Don't worry, " I say, trying my damndest to be Good Uncle Gene, "your mother will hit them first."

9:55 P.M.

Our tour of the mountains has left us at the wrong end of the park at the wrong time. Keep this in mind in the future. You do NOT want to be anywhere but near the exit near the time the park closes. Because at that time you and 77,000,000 other tired people are all going to have to leave through the same, very small exit at the same time. We also have to reacquire Papop and Flo on our way out, which is no small task even though Tony's is right near the exit.

11:30 P.M.

Yes, it takes us this long to get back to the room. After merging with the sea of humanity to leave Magic Kingdom, we had to find our way to the bus to the Carribbean Beach and, to make matters worse, Jamaica is one of the last stops it makes.

We are asleep almost immediately.