Vacation 1999: Day Two

GenePool Humor

Vacation 1999

Day Two: It's Only Rock 'N Roll (and I liked it)

7:30 A.M.

Our wake-up call comes through right on schedule. I'm getting used to the concept of the wake-up call, having gone through this every day last year. I no longer say hello as if expecting there is perhaps someone on the other end. I just grunt.

When I'm at home, on weekends, I do everything I possibly can to be the last person out of bed. Becky and Tim make this easy; they wake up early enough to surprise a rooster on the average day. But on vacation, they sleep in, and I'm the first one to get up every single day. I think I'm losing out here.

8:15 A.M.

The brain-trust organizes and votes to make me and Deb decide where to have breakfast. We think this is a good thing, and applaud the decision. I place a call to the Disney Dining people to arrange breakfast at Soundstage in MGM, which is where we ate breakfast last year, twice. Tim's especially fond of the place because it also has Alladdin's magic lamp. Sadly, I soon discover the Soundstage no longer exists. So instead, I make arrangements for Hollywood & Vine. They'll still have characters prancing around, but I'm betting we won't get the lamp.

8:45 A.M.

We find ourselves, all 27 of us (it seems like that many,) at the bus stop awaiting a ride to MGM.

Someone at the Caribbean Beach clearly dislikes my mother, because over the course of the half hour we have to wait for our ride we see five buses go by, and three of them are "Internal" buses. At one point, two of them come consecutively. This is what she gets for complaining.

9:30 A.M.

After the bus drivers had a good laugh at our expense, one of them decided to change their banner to read MGM so that we could get there in time for our reservation.

Hollywood & Vine has this faux '50's Hollywood motif. (I think that's what they're shooting for.) It's hosted by Minnie Mouse, who greets us at the door. Goofy and ChipandDale (It's easier to think of them as one character when I can't tell which one is which) are also there, dressed in coats and tails. The food is very good. The only really uncomfortable part is that the chairs are made of metal, and this is only uncomfortable when one is wearing shorts, as we all are. In the air conditioning, those seats get mighty cold.

10:30 A.M.

After two plates of food, several photo opportunities, and a ballroom dance moment between Goofy and Minnie (does Mickey know about this?) we plan the rest of our day and split up.

We're hoping to do this a lot over the course of the week. It stands to reason that all 43 of us aren't going to be able to agree definitively on what to do and where to go, especially since Marissa, Dawn and Maude (Maude is replacing Flo for this episode) prefer slow rides and shows to fast rides that cause permanent back trouble and uncontrollable facial tics. I don't know why.

So Mamom and Papop, Maude, Marissa, Dawn and Becky head off to Star Tours, while me, Tim and Deb head for a couple of rides that aren't quite as wussy (not that I'm judging.) We had to do this last year too because Becky's favorite ride here is Star Tours while Tim's is the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.

10:45 A.M.

We do not, however, go directly to the Tower of Terror.

When we were here a year ago, I did a stupid thing. I know you, the reader, have a difficult time fathoming the remote possibility that I could possibly do something stupid, but, well, here we are. What I did was, I said "no" to my wife.

Now before you let your dirty little minds get away from you, much less begin to picture how I might rectify this situation right in the middle of MGM with my son watching, let me explain. Deb has a "thing" for Jeremy Irons. I'm not really sure what this "thing" is. I'm pretty certain it's not the same "thing" I have for Charlize Theron, Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ashley Judd, (I should stop,) Heather Graham, Catherine Zeta- Jones, Madeline Stowe, (please, help me find the end to this sentence,) Michelle Pfeiffer, Halle Berry, (just say "etc."!) Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jennifer Lopez, Gillian Anderson, etc. What was I saying? Oh, right. She has a thing for Jeremy Irons. And Jeremy Irons did the voice for Scar in the movie Disney Does Hamlet With Big Cats. So a year ago we found an autographed poster of Scar. That is, it was a drawing of an animated character signed by the person who did their voice. This is the silliest thing I can imagine spending money on, especially the money they were asking for it. The ONLY part of Jeremy Irons that had anything to do with the Scar character was his voice, and you can't HEAR his voice in a poster. This would be the equivalent of buying a snapshot of Jeremy Irons signed by the artist who drew Scar. But, Deb wanted it. Really really wanted it. So some time this past winter, I finally said, okay, when we go back to Disney World, she can buy it.

So rather than finding our way directly to the rides, we instead go straight to Sid Cahuenga's One-of-a-Kind, a store near the front of the park that promises "one-of-a-kind" movie memorabilia. "Sid Cahuenga" is an imaginary person, which makes it all that much more annoying to find lots of celebrity photos signed by the celebrities themselves with "To Sid, with love." I wouldn't buy one of these just because I would never want to go through the trouble of explaining to a guest who the hell Sid is.

It is immediately clear on entering the store that my salvation is not pending. There IS a signed picture of Scar, but it's not the SAME picture. (Don't ask me to explain what difference this makes. Please.) We do still buy it, but I'm not out of the doghouse yet. In fact, I may never get out once Deb reads this.

11:20 A.M.

With the photo safely purchased and on its way to being shipped to our home (the best way to shop) we finally make our way to the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, and also the Rock 'N Roller Coaster.

Disney has introduced a new concept in line-waiting. It's called FastPass. Here's the way it works.

First, you approach the ride you would like to go on. Do this quietly so as not to disturb it.

Second, see the length of the line waiting to get into the ride and curse loudly, but not so loud that one of your children says "daddy, that's a bad word."

Third, say something to the effect of "look, they have FastPass!"

Fourth, approach the FastPass machine, insert the card you used to originally enter the park into the machine, and then wait for a little ticket to be spat out.

Fifth, do it again, but this time insert your card facing the way the little diagram on the front of the machine indicates so that you actually get a ticket.

Sixth, read the ticket. It will give you two times on it. Our Rock 'N Roller Coaster FastPass times are "12:05 P.M. or 1:05 P.M." In theory, this means if we show up at 12:10 to get on the ride we'll have to wait until 1:05, but I never saw anyone turned away for this reason. Realistically, it means you have a one hour gap.

Seventh, go find another ride.

This works remarkably well with Tower of Terror and Rock 'N Roller Coaster because they are right next to one another. After getting our passes for the Coaster, we go to the Tower.

11:40 A.M.

It would appear that Disney knows I've been having trouble verifying the number of drops on the Tower of Terror.

Tower of Terror is an elevator ride. It's loads of fun, essentially consisting of lots of eerie-spooky stuff hosted by Rod Serling (or the nearest approximation) ending with our "elevator" (it seats thirty) plummeting to the earth. Or, almost, as it returns the elevator to the top before dropping it again. The first year we did this I was genuinely ill before I even climbed aboard, but I could have sworn there were three drops total. But all of the promos declared there were only two drops. So the second year, I made a point of counting while I was holding on to dear life to the ears of the person in front of me as everything I owned, including my dental work, attempted to remain on the twelfth floor while my behind was quickly being sent to the first floor. (You kind of have to go on the ride to understand how this feels.) After riding it several times in year two I was very confident that there were, in fact, three drops.

We were informed in advance by my boss, who apparently has a lot of free time to check these things out, that there are now at least seven drops. I considered this, a priori, I'll admit, to be overkill. After a while I figured it would just get boring.

Anyhow, knowing this, Deb, Tim and I wait in line for our turn in the elevator to find out for ourselves. We get right up to the front, tell the elevator guy how many there are of us, (three, if you lost track) and get sent to row 1, which, not surprisingly, puts us in the front row of the elevator. Deb is exceedingly unhappy with this arrangement, and tries to trade with another row, but I don't let her. Yes, apparently I DO like being in trouble all the time.

The elevator arrives, and we pile in, take our seats, and me and Tim get to listen to Deb whimper for a while about being in front, then the door closes, Rod Serling's voice starts piping in, the lights dim, and.... then Rod stops talking, the lights don't dim any more, and we don't move. We SHOULD be moving, because this is what the elevator, at this stage in the ride, is supposed to do; it's supposed to go up.

"Everyone okay in there?" the elevator guy shouts through the still-closed door. "You won't believe this, but you're actually on a broken elevator."

Of course, we don't believe this. By my reasoning, if they added so many drops they had to figure out a way to make the wait time longer, and what better way than to make us sit still in this tight enclosure, all thirty of us, strapped in, staring at the walls that seem to be getting CLOSER somehow, unless of course that's just an illusion brought on by the lack of OXYGEN caused by THIRTY panicky people TRAPPED in a TINY LITTLE BOX, getting hotter and hotter and HOTTER because it's AUGUST and there is NO EXCUSE for THIRTY people to be THIS CLOSE TOGETHER for THIS LONG, NO excuse AT ALL unless Disney's selling self-help books on overcoming DEBILITATING CLAUSTROPHOBIA at the end of the ride if we EVER GET TO THE END OF THE RIDE, that is, which they probably ARE since they market EVERYTHING, including SUDDEN BOUTS OF RAVING LUNACY which is what we've bought into here, evidently, when all of a sudden the DOORS OPEN. Turns out it really is broken. The elevator guy lets us out, and escorts us to another elevator, where, to Deb's chagrin, we get the same seats.

Oh, yes. The number of drops? No idea. I like the way it's set up now. The first drop is a genuine one. Then the elevator goes all the way back up, drops us only one floor, then goes up again, and drops us all the way. It stutters like this, seemingly at random, for some time. There is no real way to tell whether to expect a complete drop or a fake one. This increases the effectiveness of the ride considerably.

12:05 P.M.

Well, the unexpected delay in Tower of Terror has results in us showing up right on schedule for the Rock 'N Roller Coaster.

Here's what having a FastPass enables you to do. There is a very large line leading up to the entrance of the building, full of sweaty, tired vacationers who currently hate us and want us dead. This is because we are going ahead of them, to the front of the line and directly into the building. I know they hate us because yesterday, at Space Mountain, I hated everyone who waltzed right past me in the FastPass lane while I had to stand still in line.

And this is the drawback. If there's one nice thing to be said about the lines at Disney World, it's that they are always moving. Or rather, they used to always move. Now, with FastPass, they hardly move at all, because there's always a group cutting in front of the "stand-by" line, as they call it.

In the case of the Rock 'N Roller Coaster, the joy of being able to cut is brief. It gets us into the building, which is air conditioned (they could have a ride called "stand still in air conditioning for a while" and it would be a success.) But there is a substantial line inside, too.

As with every other ride-- the newer ones, at least-- there is a premise being adhered to here. We are supposedly in the lobby of "G-Force Records." There are glass-enclosed displays on both sides of the line showing old recording equipment, guitars, tape decks, etc. along with pithy descriptions of each item characterized by an extraordinarily bad pun. (Example: a Les Paul original guitar with the note "musicians soon discovered Les is more.") There are also a decent collection of old psychedelic concert posters for bands that, by and large, nobody in this decade has ever heard of. Some music-- decent music, actually-- is piped in over the speaker system, along with supposedly genuine banter from one of the sound stages during a presumed recording session.

Once we wend our way to the front of the line we find ourselves entering one of the studios, where Aerosmith is busy putting the finishing touches on their recording session. Well, no, Aerosmith isn't actually there. They are on a flat screen directly behind the studio, and the impression we're supposed to get is that all of them, having done the actual recording already, are working on the mixing board to get the song just right. (The non-reflecting flat screen being used makes this an almost flawless effect.) Of course, the song they're busily mixing is "Walk This Way" which was recorded so long ago Mozart was on keyboards, so it's a little hard to believe they're STILL working on it, but that's okay.

What follows is a little skit wherein their "manager" (I know it isn't their real manager because I recognize the actress) bursts in to the back of the mixing room and tells the band they better get into the limo fast because they're late for a show. Displaying acting ability that would make Keanu "I'm afraid my face will break if I change expression" Reeves proud, Steven Tyler convinces the manager to get another limo for all of us to come to the show as well, since she knows "how MUCH we care about our fans." So they leave, she calls for another limo, and tells us to go out the next set of doors to the back alley, where the limo will be waiting for us.

So we head through the doors and find ourselves in a faux-back alley, and another line. This one does move pretty fast, though, and soon we end up next in line for our limo. Due to some confusion regarding the best way to prepare oneself to get into the car, Tim and Deb end up taking the ride ahead of me. I get stuck with the bag.

We carry a bag with us everywhere we go in Disney. This is, usually, a very good idea, especially if you can find a waterproof bag. We have all sorts of crap in the bag already, and we just got here. It's also holding Deb's glasses, so high on my list of things to walk off of the ride with are, my own head, and the bag, and not necessarily in that order.

When my car arrives, I climb in and immediately pull the guard bar down over my chest, making it nearly impossible for me to 1: breathe, and 2: reach the floor to put the handle of the bag around my ankle. I manage to succeed about two seconds before the ride starts, leaving me somewhat unprepared for what comes next.

And what, you might ask if this were an interactive column experience, which it's not, comes next? Well first, I'm going to have to slip into past tense. Hang on, this will only take a minute.

Okay, better. I would personally like very much to know exactly what happened to us after the ride began. I suspect asking Disney to describe it in detail is going to be a dead end because I believe what happened to us on the Rock 'N Roller Coaster is illegal in several states. By the time I left Disney World this year I had ridden it three times (I think,) and I rode it three times so that I would be able to describe it to you, the reader, in mind-numbing detail, cramming in vast amounts of minutiae that you would never ever find in any way practical. Here is what I was able to cull from my three trips:

1: It went very very very very fast.

2: They played Aerosmith music very very very loud piped through speakers that were very very very close to my ears.

3: It all took place in the dark.

4: It went upside-down a lot, starting with the instant the ride began. I think it went upside-down a total of three times-- twice in the beginning, and once at the end-- but Deb thinks it was once at the beginning and twice at the end. We both agree there was a corkscrew in there somewhere, but disagree as to exactly where.

Try to imagine riding Space Mountain and having the car you're in derail suddenly near the top, sending everyone on-board plummeting two hundred feet to their deaths. Rock 'N Roller Coaster was a lot like that, except more frightening and with less overall mortality. I now return you to present-tense.

I get off of this ride and verify that I have made it out with both my head and the bag. I have to check very carefully for both. The bag is all the way on the other side of the floor of my car, evidence that it most definitely would not have made it to the end had I not managed to attach it to my ankle. My head is still on my shoulders, but it does not appear to be working properly. They have a few Disney personnel standing on the landing and making sure everyone who comes off the ride is okay. They ask me how I am and I respond with "blahoo hahahaha!" I don't know what language this is, but they evidently recognize it.

12:25 P.M.

I find Tim and Deb in the gift shop. Both are very happy with their experience. Tim has proven yet again that he is invincible. I think he could pass a NASA stress-test with ease.

We stop to purchase a photo of Tim and Deb screaming madly. Just about every major ride now takes a mid-ride souvenir photo. We have several of them now, a few from each year. Interestingly, Deb's expression is exactly the same every time. It's surreal.

12:35 P.M.

We meet up with the others on Sunset Boulevard.

In addition to riding Star Tours, Becky, Marissa, Dawn, Maude, and Mamom and Papop also caught the Little Mermaid stage show and found a camera lens for Mamom. They seemed to have enjoyed their excursion, but it is now the hottest part of the day. In our discussion concerning what we should do next, Tim is the only one who shows anything approximating rational thought, which is remarkable given that he's just had his brains scrambled.

"I wanna go back to the hotel and swim in the pool!" he announces. I happen to think this is a fabulous idea. I also think it might be a good idea to get Mamom out of the heat, as she currently looks like she might find a bout of sunstroke to be refreshing. So after far more discussion than is actually needed, I trade Deb for Mamom and Papop, and the four of us head back to the hotel.

1:30 P.M.

Tim and I walk to the pool.

As I mentioned before, in order to get to Port Royale-- which is where the pool is-- we have to cross a bridge. In fact, we actually have to cross two bridges. There is a man-made island in the middle of the man-made pond that we have to meander through first. The island is called Parrot Cay. "Cay" is evidently a word meaning "poop," and there is a plentiful supply of it.

The pool area at Port Royale is the perfect place to spend an afternoon when it's too hot to move, especially when you're a tan-challenged individual like myself. One of the things I look forward to on these trips is getting, albeit temporarily, a shade of skin that makes me look like a healthy human being. My normal skin color is "off-corpse," so every minor tint helps.

The pool area also has a bar, which is a wonderful thing to include. Conveniently, the drinks are watered down and also very expensive, so it's quite difficult to get drunk.

2:30 P.M.

The drawback. It's very hard to read while attempting to obtain a tan in this weather because it's also too hot to remain in the sun for more than ten minutes without going into the pool to stave off spontaneous human combustion. As it is I have to liberally spray water on my book to keep the pages from charring.

Tim is having a lovely time in the pool, but he keeps coming out and demanding to go into the arcade. I manage to hold him off for a while by pointing out that I have to finish my drink. Then, when he's not looking, I refill the drink. Deception is the only way to survive an afternoon with Tim.

3:10 P.M.

Papop shows up and I convince Tim to get Papop to take him to the arcade. That's what grandparents are for. I join them later for a rousing game of air hockey.

3:45 P.M.

We head back to the room. Deb and company still have not returned from MGM, which is bad because we're going to have to make dinner reservations soon or we'll be forced to dine in mediocrity this evening, and I know Deb will not accept this.

4:15 P.M.

Moments before I decide to call and make plans myself, they return.

They had managed to see two shows (Beauty and the Beast, and Hunchback) and ride Star Tours a second time, but that's it. They probably would have gotten back sooner were it not for Brittney Spears. Evidently, she was AT MGM today, putting her hands in cement in front of the Chinese theater and appearing nude with Mickey. Or something. The throng of people thronged so much nobody could get through.

I call the Disney Dining people and make reservations for nine at the Coral Reef at Epcot, while Becky and Marissa head to the pool.

6:15 P.M.

Becky discovers a rash. There is something on the top of her back and on her chest below the neck that looks like hives. She complains that it itches, and we have no idea whatsoever what it might be.

This calls for a meeting of the minds. This is one of those times when it's useful to have two grandmothers along for the ride, as this is the sort of thing they are good at. So Deb consults Mamom and Maude for opinions, and the ultimate conclusion is to give her (Becky) an allergy pill and hope it clears up.

7:30 P.M.

Epcot, being no less enormous than it was last year, takes forever to meander through in order to get to the restaurant. And then we have to wait for a table because finding one that seats nine is still an impossibility. Then, when we DO sit, we find ourselves as far as we can possibly be to the main attraction of the Coral Reef, i.e., the windows to the aquarium.

And Becky is falling asleep. The medication we gave her, while being successful in quelling her need to scratch herself, is also making her drowsy. I'm dreading the possibility of having to carry her back.

9:10 P.M.

It really does take us this long to eat. The food is good (naturally) but not AS good as the price tag implies. Make note of that, as I don't think I'll ever say that again about a restaurant at Disney.

This is ordinarily the worst possible position to find ourselves in at the end of a long day since the park closes at 9:00. However, the park does not officially close until after the fireworks show, and, due to technical difficulties, the fireworks are delayed. We watch some of the show, and then make our way as fast as possible for the exits.

10:30 P.M.

Back in our rooms, we discuss possible options for the following day, and then lapse into exhausted slumber.