TR: Cleanup In Aisle Orlando Pt. 2 : Wet N’ Wild and Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party (9/20/2015)

The impetus for this trip was the official announcement of what we knew was coming: Wet N’ Wild was closing. It isn’t imminent. We’re still talking about over a year of operation left before the gates close and the bulldozers arrive. But we know the end is near, and we know that we’ve been talking about going without actually doing it for a solid decade. This is our opportunity. We must make the most of it. I did no favors by getting back to the hotel room at 1:30AM, but we all make choices we sometimes regret or recognize as being silly afterwards. This wasn’t among the worst, honestly.

TR: Utah/California Trip Pt. 8; Disneyland (9/6/2013-9/8/2013)

Walt’s first foray into the world of theme parks, Disneyland opened in 1955 and effectively re-wrote all the rules as to amusement park design from that point forward. Today, Disneyland is still massively popular and influential across the globe. The tendrils of the empire started here have firm grips into the European and Asian continents, as well as at sea and in standalone resorts on some of America’s beaches. Then when talking about Disneyland at any length, it isn’t about what one can say so much as what they can say but about how it is said. Disneyland has been analyzed to death. Super fans and harsh critics have both made their position known. They’re not budging, and their analysis is the stuff volumes of academia has been written of. A college may pay my bills, but I don’t consider myself a professional intellectual. Or an intellectual at all.

TR: Utah/California Trip Pt. 7; Disney’s California Adventure (9/6/2013-9/8/2013)

Parts 7 and 8 of these series will be for a simultaneous time frame where we split effort between the two California Disney parks.  It isn’t narrative so much as analysis of the parks and whatever. Sorry if that’s boring to you but I guess it is what I feel like writing right now and, given how we go to parks like this, probably the best way to write about it without spending the whole time telling you about how we left one and walked to the other and then walked back to the hotel and then…yeah.

TR: Last Trip of 2012 and First Trip of 2013 Pt. 5: Embarkation Day (1/2/2013)

Wednesday morning never had a solid plan made out in advance. There was something scheduled, yes; the rental car would need to be returned to Orlando Airport at 12 noon. Aside from that, we were left to our own devices. What would we do? Where would we go? With limited time and no interest in spending serious money, that is a query that can be difficult to answer on the not so mean streets of Orlando. Prices are high for entertainment round those parts; living proof that competition doesn’t always mean the consumer wins. We settled ultimately on mini-golf, a truly red-blooded American endeavour. Orlando has no shortage of potential outlets to play mini-golf, however we decided that we wanted to go do pay money to play a course that would be kept up and not suck. We also didn’t want to pay for parking. That all pointed us in the direction of Disney World.

TR: Universal, IOA, and Magic Kingdom Pt. 4 (11/27/2011)

This was yet another long day. Anyone who does this hobby long enough can tell you when they’ve booked these kind of days into the schedule. 3-4 parks, some driving, lots of riding of stuff, lots of feeling exhausted when its all said and done. While we didn’t go all out the day prior, this was going to be a day involving some appreciable “work”. Fun, yes. But effort was to be expended.

For the second straight day, we arrived at IOA early for Harry Potter time. This time though, we left even earlier, getting to the gates around 7:45AM and then into the section before 8AM and entering the line for the wand shop. I happen to think its a pretty cool little show that goes on there even if its just selling crap no one needs, but perhaps peopleneed a reminder. Amusement parks are really grotesquely constructed monstrosities intended to entertain at the most base level and then use that entertainment to push you in the direction of buying crap you don’t need at a huge markup. Sometimes its easy to forget that, I know.

TR: Pacific Duality Pt. 3: Disneyland/Six Flags Magic Mountain (8/28/11)

No morning had ever come with as much fear for me on a trip. Not since being an adolescent and having crazy blow ups with my dad or something on some of our illfated journeys had I ever gotten up in the morning and been so quick to think about things that weren’t fun. There were plenty of stressors already in my life: I had a cat in vet boarding due to some sort of unexplained illness at home, work is generally pretty crazy due to fluctuations in staffing, etc. etc. other white people problems, as Louis CK would say. Meredith though was glad to inform me that she didn’t have any back pain or stomach issues and the nausea was gone. Phew. I was always going to be worried that she was understating it, but she was gonna get tested pretty hard with the plan we had in motion.

The first part of that plan was to go use the third day of our Disney tickets for early entry at Disneyland. Early entry is 7AM. Now, not everything is open at 7AM, but enough things that we had skipped were open that we were able to clean up most of the things left as mandatory stops on Meredith’s docket and mine quickly and easily. Small World, Mr. Toad, Pinocchio, Alice In Wonderland (which I missed in 2009 due to rehab), Mansion, and Peter Pan fell in about 90 minutes, as did a couple of muffins at the bakery on Main Street USA. We were out the door and back to the hotel for checkout before 9AM, and on the road within minutes of that headed to Valencia. We looked to be arriving just before opening at Six Flags until an overturned vehicle on I-5 caused a bunch of backup and forced our arrival time back to just shortly after opening.

TR: Pacific Duality Pt. 2: Disneyland and Bonus Parkdom (8/27/11)

Another day dawns and it is another day to be spent with the Mouse. Prior to the trip, my wife had specifically requested that I bring Cedar Fair season passes along with us in case we got some spare time to go to Knott’s. On some level, I really wanted to go ride Windseeker, their new for 2011 attraction, because I hadn’t been on Cedar Point’s yet nearest to me. I won’t lie. In the back of my head, the idea was percolating to go there. So when we woke up early and decided to just hit Disneyland 8AM opening rather than wait for DCA at 10AM, the window seemed to be somewhat open. Meredith was very clear though: No Knott’s on this day. Just not to happen. We tasked ourselves with breakfast at Mimi’s and proceeded with action.

We were off to Disneyland and went about collecting visits to many of the key e-ticket attractions. We rode Indiana Jones (which is still fantastic), Big Thunder (ditto), and Splash Mountain (ditto, even with my fear of a wet and damaged camera at times) in fairly short order. I love being able to do that. We had started the day by grabbing a Star Tours fastpass and then circled back after a quick tour of the park’s western side back into Tomorrowland. I demanded a brief stop at the good Buzz Lightyear before boarding the redone Star Tours as well. Hey, you can pick up the gun! How novel!

TR: Pacific Duality Pt. 1: Disney’s California Adventure (8/25-26/11)

Over the last 7 months, my wife and I have embarked on scheduling a trip that, was for us at least, the most exotic and difficult we’ve yet put together. The idea was hatched on an otherwise boring January Saturday earlier in 2011 thanks to a trip report on a general purpose message board my wife lurks on (the name of which I do not remember and is frankly unimportant). The exotic and strange nature of the trip will be revealed later on when we actually get around to arriving there – this was a multi-stage trip, I suppose you could say.

The first stage of this trip was to get to where we needed to go for the second stage – that being the enormity of LA’s greater metro area. In doing so, a large part of our plan was to visit a long-time favorite amusement area of ours in the Disneyland Resort area. We unabashedly love Disneyland. In fact, we like it more than Disney World. For example, the Downtown Disney in Anaheim serves an actual need for guests and is thusly not abandoned and pathetic. The off site hotels are more convenient than 2/3 of the onsite facilities and generally don’t suck. The rides are generally better than their Disney World counterparts, cramming in a sort of greatest hits and then upping the ante in other ways. I refuse to get into a “The way Walt wanted things!” sort of discussion because that always ends badly and with lots of fanboyism, so I don’t include that, and I don’t need to either. The rides speak for me.

TR: Disney’s Hollywood Studios (5/9/2011)

The former MGM Studios would be the last day of our trip before heading to the airport. We packed our things up and headed for the desk/breakfast area for the last time. I was able to get the housekeeping charges for the room knocked off thanks to the toilet mishap earlier in the trip (came to almost $70!) and with some more bagels and juice to get us prepped, we headed to what I think is the weakest of the WDW parks.

Without Star Tours there, there’s really only 4 “must ride” attractions and then you start to get into live shows fast. No Disney park in the US is as heavily reliant on the live show as MGM, err, Hollywood Studios – mop up the rides in the first two hours, and its off to watching American Idol, one of two stunt shows, Beauty and the Beast, Voyage of the Little Mermaid, a couple of a movie attractions (One Man’s Dream and Muppetvision), and then maybe you stick around to close and get a seat for Fantasmic. Or you don’t get a seat and you get pissed at Fantasmic. In a nutshell, that’s my problem with the place. It isn’t that I don’t like live shows, but when I pay a premium for entertainment in an amusement park, I prefer rides. If I want to see live entertainment, I will pay for live entertainment. I have a performing arts theater 20 minutes walk from me and an arena about 45 minutes walk away. I can walk to see U2 in a month’s time or full Broadway shows, and they might cost me a lot less than going to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. I don’t pretend to talk for everyone because I know my wife likes a lot of the live shows there and my mom will enjoy a show from time to time too as an escape from crowds. They do take up a lot of people and they don’t require much standing in line or whatever. I can see the appeal. But scheduling around from show to show to show just isn’t my idea of fun. I paid for an amusement park, not an open air music festival with multiple stages. I guess there’s a lot of similarities there, right down to $3 waters.

TR: Epcot (5/8/2011)

With it being Mother’s Day and the Flower Show going on at Epcot, we expected some crowds. Just as was the case at Magic Kingdom, we headed to the park to be there at opening and got in nice and early. And as was the case at Magic Kingdom, we went with touring plans – Fastpass at Soarin’, then off to Test Track and Mission Space.

My mom hadn’t been to Epcot since 1996; that meant that virtually everything in Future World had changed since then. Horizons and World Of Motion were gone, Universe of Energy, Journey Into Imagination, Spaceship Earth, and Living Seas all got heavy rethemings, Wonders of Life closed, the Land lost Kitchen Kabaret/Food Rocks and got Soarin’ – man, that’s a lot of change to take in. And for the most part, I think she was more than OK with the changes. She really enjoyed Test Track, had fun on Mission Space in spite of her fear of being ill from the spinning, got a kick out of Spaceship Earth’s new ending, and proclaimed that we could have left her on Soarin’ for a couple hours and she would have been OK with that (minus the need for a smoke break). The only thing that was largely unchanged was Living with the Land, which my mom said was still her favorite attraction there. And yes, I know that there’s an auto-spiel now instead of a live person. The rest really isn’t much different.