GenePool Humor

Vacation 1998

Day Six: A Bad Idea

7:00 A.M. I finally manage to outsmart those crafty characters who keep calling me early in the morning to get me to get out of bed. Turns out it has something to do with me submitting requests for wake up calls. This rash decision could theoretically be attributed to my sampling the mini bar in the evenings. I did NOT request a wake-up call for this morning, so we sleep in.

9:00 A.M. Time to get up and do something. We make reservations at the Soundstage at MGM/Disney and get ourselves ready to move. For a welcome change there is no protestation from Tim or Becky regarding our departure. Tim even hides the snake in his bed again, without prompting.

10:10 A.M. We have reached the point in our vacation where we honestly feel we have seen and done everything there is to see and do. Consequently, there is nothing left to distract us from our stated goal, which is why we are able to walk directly to the restaurant without pausing for any reason. Hunger is also a tremendous motivation here.

10:30 A.M. The "been there, done that" attitude has even rubbed off on our children. The last time we were here, at the beginning of the week, (an eternity, it seems,) the kids spent the entire time going up the staircase to visit Aladdin's Lamp. Now they're happy to just eat and get mauled by the occasional character.

10:50 A.M. At the conclusion of our meal we get a tip from Esmerelda that Mickey Mouse has been spotted outside, signing autographs.

This is big news. You may have noticed in all my travels I've never mentioned actually meeting Mickey. We didn't even meet him on last years' trip. Spotting Mickey is a bit like seeing Elvis in a shopping mall: everyone knows where they saw him, but he's never there when they check again.

It is, of course, all Disney's fault that we expect to run into Mickey at any time. I remember this commercial for Disney World, where a family brings a toddler to Disney World, and the first steps the toddler takes are into the arms of Mickey Mouse, who just happened to be walking by at the time. Now, never mind that this is the most shameless commercial ever perpetrated on the American public, and forget the implication that children are genetically predisposed to recognize Mickey Mouse. What gets me is, Mickey just doesn't waltz around the park like that. None of the characters do.

So actually discovering Mickey is pretty big news. We race out of the Soundstage to go find him.

11:00 A.M. Well, at least one child is excited about this. Becky hops right in line, autograph book in hand, ready to finally meet Mickey. Tim, however, spots a man outside the Disney Animation plaza (right next door) who is making some very complex balloon animals. So I walk Tim over so he can watch this man (his name tag reads "Andy Mation") make a Minnie Mouse balloon head, while Becky gets Mickey's autograph. I get a photo of it, just to prove Mickey really exists. I personally think it's Elvis in a mouse suit.

11:20 A.M. Tim never does get a balloon animal, because "Andy" has to take a break. I don't blame him. It's getting pretty damn hot pretty damn fast. I'm not all that fond of the idea of him carrying the severed head of Mickey Mouse around anyhow.

We wander around inside the Animation gift shop for a few minutes, and even pick up a couple of those Step-By-Step drawing books. You know the kind: Step one, draw a line with a circle on top, Step two, draw three more circles, Step three, draw arms, legs, sandals, feet, cape, head, hair, face, chest, waist, belt, emblem, pants, and voila! Hercules! I hate these books.

11:30 A.M. We split up, with Timmy and I heading to Tower of Terror and Deb and Becky going to Star Tours. We're approaching this sort of as a Greatest Hits day.

11:50 A.M. We meet up again near the exit, and hop onto a bus to the Ticket and Transportation Center, where we intend to catch the monorail to Magic Kingdom. Our Greatest Hits tour has to include Space Mountain. Plus, after last night, the kids are hooked on the Game Room concept, and there's a big game room at the exit to Space Mountain.

12:15 P.M. We make a big mistake.

For a long time now we've been walking past a certain ride in Magic Kingdom, mindful that some day, if we ever see a short line there, we're going to go on it. Today, on the way to Space Mountain, we see our chance.

The ride is called The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter (their emphasis.) According to the Birnbaum Guide, taking a child onto this ride is legally constituted as child abuse, but they have similar warnings for every other scary ride we've taken the children on, so we have no reason whatsoever to believe them. It may take years of therapy before the magnitude of our error is fully understood. The kids might need therapy too.

The ride begins sedately enough. We are introduced (on video) to an alien being from a distant planet who is interested in selling us (as representatives of the human race) this great new product that will instantly transport us to their planet and vice versa. We are not exceedingly impressed by the sales pitch, especially when a robot shows us the technology first-hand by teleporting a bunny-like creature from one big tube to another, and the bunny-like creature comes out at the other end looking like a bunny-like creature who got too close to the barbeque pit.

We march into the next room, which is a large, round amphitheater, where we take our seats. A "safety bar" lowers onto our shoulders at this point, which means, effectively, we can't get up and leave. We're trapped. In the middle of the room us a very large glass tube. We are told that the alien salesman is going to transport himself to the tube so that we can meet him firsthand. The usual mayhem follows, as one might expect, (this sort of thing is an everyday occurrence in science fiction movies, because teleportation is, unfortunately, not regulated on most planets,) when the transportation beam is intercepted by another planet, and something decidedly unfriendly gets sent instead.

Before we even get to this point I realize we're in big trouble here. Every other ride we've been on has involved GOING somewhere. There's no real sense that we're being trapped in any way because when, say, a dinosaur jumps out at us the vehicle we're in quickly speeds past it. The idea that we're trapped and powerless is an entirely different kind of fear, and that's what the Alien Encounter is treating us to.

Way back on Day Two, I bought a leather hat at Morocco, and since then I've been wearing it, even though this was an incredibly stupid thing to do, because although it did keep the sun out of my eyes, it also increased the temperature of my head by about 500 degrees. I am very glad, however, that I have this hat at this particular moment. I immediately remove it from my head and put it over my daughter's face. Likewise, Deb, who does not have a hat, covers Tim's eyes with her hand. Both of us know this is going to be bad.

The alien that intercepted the beam looks just different enough from the creatures in the movie Alien so as to avoid a lawsuit. But it's the same idea. Big jaws, lots of teeth, leathery skin, long claws. Plus wings. Basically, after it arrives, there's a power failure, then the light returns just long enough for us to discover the container it arrived in has been shattered. Through a variety of special effects we are lead to believe that the alien is flapping about the room, breathing down our necks, and eating some of us. There are sounds of crunching, the occasional shower of what we are supposed to think is blood, and lots of screaming, most of which is coming from us. I was actually not very frightened by all of this because I was too busy worrying how much of this my children were actually understanding.

The best part about this ride is at the very end. That's when the lights come back up and we all get to leave. Becky and Tim, who are already pissed off that we detoured from our direct route to Space Mountain, are downright angry at us now.

12:45 P.M. We ride Space Mountain for the absolute LAST time. We also take in the game room, and specifically, the candy claw game, which goes a long way toward repairing the damage we've done to them with the Alien Encounter ride.

1:15 P.M. It's time to go.

Since this is our last full day at Disney you might think we'd be interested in filling it up with all the stuff we wont be able to do again for a long time. But we're pretty much sick of the whole thing now. Instead, we'd much rather spend the rest of the day at the hotel.

2:00 P.M. We park ourselves at a table near the hotel swimming pool and start a tab at the bar. The kids hop into the swimming pool; our afternoon is set.

The swimming pool itself is a sight to behold. The pool is straddled by a castle-like structure with a water slide at one end and a jacuzzi next to it. The deepest part of the pool is six feet and there is a waterfall at the deep end. The shallow end is three feet and it's next to the outdoor bar. There are two lifeguards on duty at all times (for the swimming pool, not the bar.) If this were a standard rectangular swimming pool it could easily occupy the children for at least two or three hours. The frills that come with this pool could keep them happy for ten hours at least.

And we get to spend the day drinking tremendous quantities of alcohol and roaming into the pool just long enough to cool off. Forget all the parks and all the rides; THIS is the way to do Disney.

6:30 P.M. We're kinda hungry, and the sun is starting to set. The kids are so wrinkled from spending the afternoon in the pool they look like tiny septuagenarians. We decide to go back to the room and change, so we can have dinner at the Captain's Tavern, which is the hotel's restaurant.

We are both very glad to have been put into a room that is so close to the pool that the kids can find their own way back, as we are both drunk enough to get lost, and are forced to rely on their sense of direction. (Someone tell my mom I'm exaggerating.)

There is a storm looming in the distance, according to reliable sources. The hurricane that has been toying with us all week might conceivably be sending us an actual storm this evening. As such, we feel it would be in our best interest to eat quickly and get the hell back into our room.

7:30 P.M. The Captain's Tavern has magnificent food, which I highly recommend. Their waiters also have excellent senses of humor, especially when dealing with tired, drunken parents who are prone to giggling fits.

8:30 P.M. We go to the game room yet again. The storm outside is now offering us a fabulous electrical light show, which we use to convince the kids that this is probably not the best time to linger at the candy machine. This actually works; they're scared of lightning.

9:15 P.M. There is another fringe benefit to letting the kids swim all day long. They're exhausted, and in no time, asleep. We do likewise shortly thereafter, which is also a good thing. Tomorrow we have to pack up the room we've spent the last six days trashing.

© 2000, Gene Doucette