GenePool Humor

Vacation 1999

Day Six: Because Mickey Doesn't Sleep

10:00 A.M.

There comes a time in every vacation when one must sit back, relax, and appreciate the very fact that one is on vacation, and also, to burn one's toes. But I get ahead of myself.

There are two important things to know about this particular day. The first is, Marissa and Dawn are leaving by midday. They have to leave because of the second thing you need to know. Last night, late in the evening, while Deb and I were getting the crap scared out of us by The Blair Witch Project, my father and Bobo were at the airport picking up Bobo's husband, Trapper John. [Note: Trapper is our new cast member. He still regrets having assumed he was important enough to the show M.A.S.H. to hold out in a contract dispute. He hasn't been the same since, even though he did get his own show later, when he was bald. He agreed to play the role of Deb's father provided I bring him the head of B.J. Honeycutt. Oddly, since B.J. also can't seem to find any work, he didn't mind this. "At least I have a bit part," were his last words.]

Since Marissa and Dawn have to leave so early, we opt to remain at the hotel for much of the day. Deb hates this, since it means we are forced to dine on the food at the hotel, which, with little provocation, she will describe at length using invectives I can't possibly repeat here. I don't think the food is all that bad, myself.

11:00 A.M.

After a couple of back-and-forth trips to and from the food court, I take the children to the pool, where I meet up with Marissa, Dawn, and Trapper. Deb and Bobo stay behind to make arrangements for dinner. The fact that I have elected to abandon Deb to determine where we're eating dinner on her own is something she takes personally. Consequently, she refuses to tell me where we're going. But hey, the bar's open.

12:15 P.M.

It's tough to gauge exactly how much Trapper is enjoying his first visit to Disney World. All he's really seen so far is the Caribbean Beach Resort, and all he's done is burn his toe.

This happened on the pavement mid-way between the pool and the entrance to the Port Royale. I've nearly seared myself on this strip myself; if the restaurants inside run out of frying pans this would substitute nicely. (If you ask Deb, they already do this to cook their eggs.) I think it's a distinct possibility some disgruntled employee mixed iron filings with the bricks.

While we discuss the proper temperature to cook human digits, the kids chase each other around the pool. Occasionally, one of us go into the pool so that the three of them can attempt to drag our heads under the water.

1:30 P.M.

Dawn and Marissa pack up and head back to the room to clean up. Deb and the kids follow soon after, while I go to the food court to buy some mediocre food for our lunch.

2:00 P.M.

There is a reason we're not getting dressed and heading into one of the parks right now.

For two years I've been trying to hide all evidence of the brochures for the Magic Kingdom's after hours party. This year I've failed.

They hold the after hours party two nights a week. If you're staying at a resort, all you need to do is cough up some cash to get an E-Pass (I have NO idea what the E stands for) and with that pass, you get to stick around for three hours after the park closes and presumably after all the rabble has cleared out. (Damn that rabble.) We tried to secure passes for Tuesday night-- Day Three in this account-- but they were already sold out, so we landed six passes for tonight instead. That's four for me, Deb and the kids, and two for Bobo and Trapper John.

Since we are actually TELLING our children that we expect them to remain awake until 1:00 A.M., they are mildly excited about this whole thing. The trade-off is, we all need to take a nap first, which is what we do after we've eaten lunch and said our goodbyes to Marissa and Dawn.

6:00 P.M.

Either we all actually slept successfully, or the children have perfected the skill of remaining quiet for three straight hours, which is doubtful. We take our showers. This is all very strange. I feel like I should be calling this Day Six point Five.

7:00 P.M.

We reunite with Bobo and Trapper, say our goodbyes to Mamom and Papop, who are on their way to Downtown Disney, and head off to the Magic Kingdom.

7:40 P.M.

Before we attempt to locate wherever it is we're eating (Deb still hasn't told us) we stop by City Hall at Main Street U.S.A., and exchange our E-Passes for wristbands. This identifies us as The Chosen.

8:00 P.M.

Deb plays it coy right up until we actually walk into the castle. Our dining establishment for the evening is Cinderella's Royal Table. This is remarkable, really, since we've never been able to land a reservation here, in two years of trying. I'm just excited to get into the castle. I'm hoping I get a chance to poke around for Walt Disney's cryogenically frozen body.

8:30 P.M.

The castle still confuses me.

There's a cinematic/theatrical technique called forced perspective. In essence, it's the art of making something look larger than it really is. Cinderella's Castle is my favorite example. It looks huge from a distance, and it isn't until you get right up to it that you realize it's only about three or four stories tall. So being inside the castle is weird, since in your mind you're still sitting inside an enormous building.

Cinderella's Royal Table is a pretty small restaurant, which is probably the main reason it's so tough to get a reservation. As I sit at our table and look up at the domed ceiling, I realize this little restaurant in all likelihood takes up the entire upper body of the castle. My chances of locating Walt Disney's body decrease substantially with this revelation.

Dinner is lovely. They serve mostly jumbo variations of cow products, with a few oddities. I make the mistake of ordering an appetizer of fritters, only to discover they evidently believe I'm a much larger man than I currently am. The high point is our discovery of a childrens' sized prime rib. For once Tim doesn't have to steal our food.

9:30 P.M.

Well-fatted, we now have to try and make it from the castle to Adventureland, but to do so we have to part a veritable sea of rabble and cross a parade line. The Main Street Electrical Parade effectively isolates Adventureland from the rest of the park.

9:45 P.M.

The parade finally gets past us on its way to Frontierland. We storm the barrier and hold up our wristbands to make it clear to all concerned that we are The Chosen, and they must let us pass. This doesn't work.

9:50 P.M.

The last two years we were here, we didn't realize until after it was much too late that we'd completely missed 1/3 of the Magic Kingdom. Part of what we had missed consists of kiddie rides in Fantasyland, which we could just as well do without; the entertainment reward to line wait ratio there is just not worth it. Adventureland, however, is reportedly a worthy investment. We've heard good things about the Pirates of the Caribbean, for example. In fact, given that everything shuts down (except for the eight rides available for The Chosen) at ten o'clock, the ONLY thing we have time for now is the Pirates of the Caribbean.

10:00 P.M.

Well I don't know what all the fuss was about. After two years of listening to "what do you mean, you didn't ride Pirates of the Caribbean! Are you nuts? How can you NOT ride Pirates of the Caribbean?? Put down that gun! Please! I have a family!" we finally get to ride this thing, and all it is is a bunch of animatronic pirates raping towns and pillaging girls. Or something like that. It's not that we aren't entertained by this. In fact, re-enactments of warfare and violent assaults on females are the sorts of things I go out of my way to find, usually. I just think this could do with some updating. This technology was exciting twenty-five years ago. Now it's old hat.

We walk outside after having experienced the Pirates, just in time to see the latter half of the fireworks signalling the closing of the park. We laugh heartily just thinking about all the poor miscreants who have to fight their way out of the exit now. Once we're done laughing we head to the nearest ride that's still open.

10:10 P.M.

The nearest ride turns out to be the Country Bear Jamboree, in Frontierland. We really don't know what the Country Bear Jamboree is, but given that nothing has happened so far today to make this account even mildly interesting, we decide to give it a try. Otherwise, I'm going to have to make things up.

10:30 P.M.

Okay, animatronic pirates are kind of dumb. Animatronic drunken singing bears are very very funny. I think Disney World definitely pushed the animatronic envelope here. Timmy even enjoys it, and we had to drag him in initially.

These bears come out and sing a bunch of generically entertaining hillbilly (I assume) songs, most of which are genuinely quite funny. Unfortunately, I don't remember any of the lyrics, so I may have to make something up after all.

10:40 P.M.

While discussing exactly how we intend to tackle the remaining rides, Becky spots a little man hiding behind a bush. At first we think he might be a topiary of some kind (Disney has tons of character topiaries) but then we see him move. Then he disappears altogether.

Now our curiosity is piqued, so we check behind a bush, where we discover an open manhole cover which leads to a vast underground cavern containing thousands of little dwarfish people who all appear to be chained to machinery. All except for the little man we followed, who implores us in his beautiful gaelic lilt to help him free his people from the evil Disney overlords.

Yes of course I'm making this up.

10:40 P.M.

We discuss how we want to tackle the remaining rides. Ideally, we would prefer doing Splash Mountain, Thunder Mountain Railroad and the Haunted House, because we're very near all three of them. But Tim wants to do Space Mountain RIGHT NOW, and since we made him see the Country Bear Jamboree, which dared to entertain him so mightily, we decide to give in and walk the length of the park to get to Tomorrowland.

11:00 P.M.

Space Mountain isn't the only thing open in Tomorrowland. Also available are Alien Encounter and Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. We never ever intend to go on Alien Encounter again on advice from our family therapist, but the Space Ranger Spin sounds interesting, so we go there first.

11:15 P.M.

Conceptually, this is an interesting idea. We sit in a little spaceship with two laser cannons and a joystick. The joystick allows us to spin our spaceship 360 degrees while the ship moves along a conveyor that takes us past lots of alien thingies we're supposed to shoot with the laser cannons. On the dashboard is a counter that tells us how many points we've racked up.

The problem is, each cannon has been used about 287,000,000 times by the time we get to use it, rendering them fairly useless. At least mine is. Tim's too. Becky and Deb, in front of us, have functioning weapons, and so do Trapper and Bobo. I don't even realize mine isn't working at first because the laser light is not actually visible. I just figure I suck at this, although let's not discount that entirely. It's not until Deb and Becky turn their spaceship around and shoot me that I realize I should be emitting some sort of red dot with my laser, and yet when I try to shoot them I get nothing.

Tim gets frustrated by all of this up until we get to the end of the ride. At that point the score counter scrolls to zero, which means every conceivable number combination shows up. He announces proudly a final score of 101010000.

11:30 P.M.

We ride Space Mountain. Twice. Becky and Tim would probably be content to ride it non-stop for the remainder of the evening, and since there's not much in the way of lines-- The Chosen are few-- they probably could. One thing that's a little scary, the employees all act as if they've been at this since the park opened this morning, which is entirely possible. Most times of the day they look as if they actually WANT to be here, and I'm thinking air conditioning is a big reason for that. Now, at nearly midnight, they look like they could use a drink. I'm hoping none of them doze off when they're supposed to be applying the brakes to my Space Mountain space ship.

11:50 P.M.

We're pretty much wiped out. All except for the children. Becky and Tim are currently in heaven. They're even behaving semi-angelically.

After waiting in line for some time (only one refreshment stand is open) for a couple of sodas and some sort of glowing beverages for the children, we march allllll the way back to the other side of the park to Frontierland.

12:10 A.M.

This is probably the best time of day to visit the Haunted House. Or it would be, if it was even a tiny bit scary. When we first did this a couple of years ago it completely freaked out Becky. This year even she's unimpressed. In fact, she spends most of her time trying to console the rest of us in case we decide we're frightened for some reason.

All of the ostensibly scary things here are either animatronic or video inventions. There are people pushing their way out of graves, ghosts flitting about that are actually projections onto a non-reflective transparent screen, and the mandatory ghoulish noises. If I were in charge, I'd put one real live person somewhere in here every day and have them jump out at people from different spots along the tour. I'd even volunteer to do it myself. This is why I'll never work at Disney.

12:30 A.M.

We commit to our final two rides: Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain Railroad. Deb, the kids and I are the only ones to do these rides as we've succeeded in completely exhausting Trapper and Bobo. The children aren't slowing down, however. They may be animatronic as well.

1:00 A.M.

We manage to tear the kids away from the Kingdom and onto a bus.

I will say this about the E-Pass concept. This was the only time all week that we went on rides without sweltering extensively first. I fully expected the children to be cranky little messes all evening, but they held up remarkably well. And they both proclaimed that this was the "best time" they ever had here.

This is not to say they didn't fall asleep on the bus.

© 2000, Gene Doucette