GreatBiscuit
Golden but never flaky
- Joined
- Aug 20, 1999
Disney trips come in many shapes and sizes and this one was certainly unique. Uncooperative weather, unexpected cancellations, and a random HBO film crew all conspired to make this trip completely different than what I was expecting. Yet despite it all, the trip was also deeply enjoyable. Of the five days I spent in Orlando, all of them saw me on property in some way, shape or form. That said, I only was able to visit a park on one day. Also before plunging much deeper, I should note that this installment is light on photos as I was mostly recording video. Other installments will have quite a few pics, though video is the primary way I documented the journey. I'll add links at the of each one for the video related to that installment.
There isn’t much of a crew to introduce as it was primarily a solo excursion with occasional bouts of coworker side-kickery. This was, first and foremost, a work trip. A significant portion of my daily employment is devoted to Web Accessibility compliance, specifically the WCAG 2.1 standards. If that sounds boring, trust you have only scratched the surface of drudgery. But for reasons I cannot fully comprehend, I enjoy doing it. When I’m not knee deep in governmental regulations, I’m also the producer for our sports radio station as well as for our video production studio, a project manager/subject matter expert for all of our stadium & auditorium PA systems, and the tech advisor for the high school master scheduling database. (The joys of working in a small school district is that one wears many hats.)
There is an annual conference in Orlando devoted to Assistive Technology and this year I was one of the speakers. My coworker and I traveled down on a Tuesday and departed on a Saturday. While our schedule was supposed to be full on Thursday & Friday, and half full on Wednesday and Saturday, things didn’t turn out as planned. Enter Omicron, that rascally little variant that stirred up a crap ton of drama. We got a warning the week before that there were a large number of attendees who were switching to virtual attendance. When we arrived, we found workshop after workshop being cancelled. While this sucked in that we really wanted to attend several of them, it also opened gaping holes in our schedule. And when Bubba is in Orlando, an open schedule means one thing…Disney.
But before we get into all of that and how exactly it all played out, we must first actually get to Orlando. This is after all a trip report and all trips need a beginning. In what would become an omen for the week ahead, it was a cold and drizzly morning when I left Biscuit manor and drove over to my office to pick up my Associate Producer / Webmaster Cole. For convenience sake, we were flying out of our little regional airport which is basically a 7-11 with a runway. When we arrived, I was surprised to see how crowded the parking lot was and how many giant tents were setup outside. We pulled through the drop off area (because I was staring at the tents and missed the dadgum entrance for the long-term parking) and we passed by a dozen semi-trucks all offloading massive lights and cameras. Turns out HBO was filming a mini-series inside the lobby. For a couple of dudes who love video production, this was like winning the lottery.
We got ourselves parked and followed the signs to a doorway at the end of the building and immediately our jaws dropped. Then entire lobby had been transformed into a Braniff Airlines terminal. There was a video village setup, rows directors chairs full of important looking people, grips running all over the place with gear, stacks of 1970’s period luggage, and the most amazing cameras I have ever seen. We checked in and oogled everything as long as we could but regretfully we were not able to film anything and were shooed out as soon as our bags were checked. They ushered us out the door we came in, around the building and up to the upstairs area where our gate was. We couldn’t see them actually filming but after about 30 min, we could hear them shouting for quiet, shouts of “Rolling”, “Action”, “Cut”, “Reset” and so on. It was a really cool way to start the trip.
Before too long we boarded our little plane and headed to the big city of Dallas to transfer over to a real aircraft for the Orlando leg of the trip. What is there to say about DFW? It’s big. They’ve got a monorail. We ate some Chinese food. We swapped planes. (I don’t recall much about this portion of trip as I spent most of the first flight, all of the layover, and all of the next flight on my laptop working.) Though I do recall texting my buddy about the effects of Chinese cabbage, pressurized planes, a three hour flight, my failure to account for these things when selecting and entrée, and the potential of oxygen mask deployment.
Upon arrival in Orlando we encountered our next unexpected moment of inconvenience…our gate’s jet bridge was broken. After 30 min of them trying to fix it, they finally backed us up and moved us elsewhere, but this took another 15 min. Sitting on a runway in Orlando wanting desperately to deplane and begin your adventure royally sucks, but at least we were there.
(Our view for 30 min)
Once we finally made it off the plane, I headed to the fake monorail and the joys of Orlando arrival finally began to sink in. We were staying off property for this trip and renting a car. After claiming our bags, we headed down to Enterprise. After nearly being killed by a car while trying to cross the street, we said hello to our ride for the week, (a red Jeep Cherokee) and headed off to check in at our resort.
Thus concludes the introduction to this tale. To see the 3 Min condensed version and get a somewhat obscured peek at the HBO Film trucks, you can watch along here:
Table of Contents:
Part 2 - Dinner at The Polite Pig BBG
Part 3 - Breakfast at the Grand Floridian Cafe
Part 4 - Heading to Epcot
Part 5 - Touring Solo
Part 6 - Ranking the FARTS
Part 7 - Of Rats and Rockets
There isn’t much of a crew to introduce as it was primarily a solo excursion with occasional bouts of coworker side-kickery. This was, first and foremost, a work trip. A significant portion of my daily employment is devoted to Web Accessibility compliance, specifically the WCAG 2.1 standards. If that sounds boring, trust you have only scratched the surface of drudgery. But for reasons I cannot fully comprehend, I enjoy doing it. When I’m not knee deep in governmental regulations, I’m also the producer for our sports radio station as well as for our video production studio, a project manager/subject matter expert for all of our stadium & auditorium PA systems, and the tech advisor for the high school master scheduling database. (The joys of working in a small school district is that one wears many hats.)
There is an annual conference in Orlando devoted to Assistive Technology and this year I was one of the speakers. My coworker and I traveled down on a Tuesday and departed on a Saturday. While our schedule was supposed to be full on Thursday & Friday, and half full on Wednesday and Saturday, things didn’t turn out as planned. Enter Omicron, that rascally little variant that stirred up a crap ton of drama. We got a warning the week before that there were a large number of attendees who were switching to virtual attendance. When we arrived, we found workshop after workshop being cancelled. While this sucked in that we really wanted to attend several of them, it also opened gaping holes in our schedule. And when Bubba is in Orlando, an open schedule means one thing…Disney.
But before we get into all of that and how exactly it all played out, we must first actually get to Orlando. This is after all a trip report and all trips need a beginning. In what would become an omen for the week ahead, it was a cold and drizzly morning when I left Biscuit manor and drove over to my office to pick up my Associate Producer / Webmaster Cole. For convenience sake, we were flying out of our little regional airport which is basically a 7-11 with a runway. When we arrived, I was surprised to see how crowded the parking lot was and how many giant tents were setup outside. We pulled through the drop off area (because I was staring at the tents and missed the dadgum entrance for the long-term parking) and we passed by a dozen semi-trucks all offloading massive lights and cameras. Turns out HBO was filming a mini-series inside the lobby. For a couple of dudes who love video production, this was like winning the lottery.
We got ourselves parked and followed the signs to a doorway at the end of the building and immediately our jaws dropped. Then entire lobby had been transformed into a Braniff Airlines terminal. There was a video village setup, rows directors chairs full of important looking people, grips running all over the place with gear, stacks of 1970’s period luggage, and the most amazing cameras I have ever seen. We checked in and oogled everything as long as we could but regretfully we were not able to film anything and were shooed out as soon as our bags were checked. They ushered us out the door we came in, around the building and up to the upstairs area where our gate was. We couldn’t see them actually filming but after about 30 min, we could hear them shouting for quiet, shouts of “Rolling”, “Action”, “Cut”, “Reset” and so on. It was a really cool way to start the trip.
Before too long we boarded our little plane and headed to the big city of Dallas to transfer over to a real aircraft for the Orlando leg of the trip. What is there to say about DFW? It’s big. They’ve got a monorail. We ate some Chinese food. We swapped planes. (I don’t recall much about this portion of trip as I spent most of the first flight, all of the layover, and all of the next flight on my laptop working.) Though I do recall texting my buddy about the effects of Chinese cabbage, pressurized planes, a three hour flight, my failure to account for these things when selecting and entrée, and the potential of oxygen mask deployment.
Upon arrival in Orlando we encountered our next unexpected moment of inconvenience…our gate’s jet bridge was broken. After 30 min of them trying to fix it, they finally backed us up and moved us elsewhere, but this took another 15 min. Sitting on a runway in Orlando wanting desperately to deplane and begin your adventure royally sucks, but at least we were there.
(Our view for 30 min)
Once we finally made it off the plane, I headed to the fake monorail and the joys of Orlando arrival finally began to sink in. We were staying off property for this trip and renting a car. After claiming our bags, we headed down to Enterprise. After nearly being killed by a car while trying to cross the street, we said hello to our ride for the week, (a red Jeep Cherokee) and headed off to check in at our resort.
Thus concludes the introduction to this tale. To see the 3 Min condensed version and get a somewhat obscured peek at the HBO Film trucks, you can watch along here:
Table of Contents:
Part 2 - Dinner at The Polite Pig BBG
Part 3 - Breakfast at the Grand Floridian Cafe
Part 4 - Heading to Epcot
Part 5 - Touring Solo
Part 6 - Ranking the FARTS
Part 7 - Of Rats and Rockets
Last edited:
