Lost and Found with the Sillies - updated 9/11

[Mr. Silly]

In which we go to WDW in Orlando for a while.

Cast:

Me: Mr. Silly, international man of mystery, intrepid hero noir. Where some might see an amusement park, he sees the sinister secrets that lie behind the friendly facade. Anti-hero with a heart of gold that's not really all that anti-hero-y, a robot with feelings and slightly less precision than most robots. Refers to himself in the third person. Has no nicknames. Not readily characterized. Disinclined to go on about himself at any length.

H: The significant other. Vacation architect. For this trip she received the nickname Tour Guide Mom.

Max: Fifteen now. Likes robots, anime, and Dr. Who. Both the second eldest and second youngest child.

Sophie: Twelve now. Referred to as Slowphie, though this is not a new nickname.

Ryan: Lower twenties. Did not go.

Items lost: Cell Phone, Notebook, Shoe, A. K. Bag, Camera Battery Charger, Car, Money, Sanity.

At some point H. decided that we needed to go to WDW again, despite the fact that we've already been there before. This has happened a number of times before. We keep going back, despite largely knowing what's there already. This trip started as a budget trip, staying at the Pop, and being general Disneymisers, but through the magic of Disneymath somehow H. fell under a spell of Disneymania and we wound up saving by spending extra money on staying at more expensive hotels. We did not use the dining plan this time.

We decided to drive in part so that we could take a detour in Alabama to see Grandpa Silly (not actual name), Grandma Pucker (not actual name), and my siblings (not actual name).

To start the trip we packed and stuff. Then we drove a lot. Then, after a long long drive we got to my parent's house. Since this is a Disney Trip Report, we'll keep the details of this brief. My dad had a few operations not too long ago, and while not exactly fragile, is not Grandpa Robustitude. Their house backs up to a lake about 50 yards back, and the yard's pretty expansive, so they have a golf cart. The last time we were out my niece showed Sophie the principles of deranged golf cart driving. Just after we arrived, as I was lugging our luggage into the house Sophie, Max, and Grandpa Smelly took the golf cart out with Sophie driving. SOphie rolled the cart on a hill. I immediately thought, "I don't even know where the ER is!" followed by "what if my daughter killed my father, would there be a way to make that work as a Greek tragedy?" Happily nobody was seriously injured, though Max was not unscathed, and took his time getting back on the golf cart.

My mother has a thing about reacting strongly to some relatively innocuous words. She doesn't like the word 'scab' at all. She also is displeased at the term 'snard', which is why as a child the term 'snardvard' was among my favorites. 'Phlegm' is also highly disliked. While we visited, the expression 'scabby phlegmfish flatulence' became one of Sophie's favorites. On the drive from a state park we filled out a Mad Lib while Max, Sophia, Grandpa, and I were riding in a separate vehicle which contained a remarkable mix of these terms, and one phrase that might offend the sensibilities of some readers,though I wish I could write it. We read this Mad Lib at dinner and it went over quite well.

One thing while might be notable later is that I packed the BB Gun so that we could peg cans in the yard while we were visiting. While packing to leave, I considered just ditching the BBs since they were heavy, cheap, wasted space, and were not really needed. But my parents put them out in the pile of things to remember, so we just stuck them in the wheel well so we could forget them and keep them out of the way.

I was taking a few notes. In the interest of properly documenting things, my notes recorded two things. At one point Sophie said "I'm hungry." Then five minutes later after nobody responded, she said "I'm hungry," to which I responded, "Is there a really slow echo in here?" I also wrote the single word "Gastropocalypse" with no context. That's how my notes roll.

Other things happened in Alabama, but nobody died, and since we're supposed to Disney focused, we can just skip over things.

Thus we got in the car again, and were off to Orlando. We drove a whole bunch. During the drive there was a minor navigation error where we drove an extra hundred miles+ or so through Georgia and became slightly lost. Thanks to free internet access at a Taco Bell we were able to re-plot a course to get us into Florida. We spent the night in some hotel somewhere in Georgia in a Microtel that was kind of smelly.

Haley's notes:
(Haley fell asleep and Mr Silly did not look at the map, had Haley slept longer we would have ended up in the Atlantic Ocean.)

Silly's comment: H. had said something about taking the I-10 to Florida at some point so I carried on with that plan. Consulting the map might have been a good idea, really. Let this be a lesson to others.

The next day we drove some more, getting into Florida. We first stayed offsite at the Hilton Parc Soleil. As we checked in I spoke French poorly to the security guard at the gate, and then annoyed Sophie by waving and saying "hi" to some people working at the desk. Sophie explained that this was "lame" and "weird." I did not need to say "hi" to everyone I met. I made a new goal to greet everyone we met.

After we checked in and dumped our stuff in the room, then drove out and got some supplies. The kids declared the pool "lame" pretty quickly. After that we made some dinner, then got into the car and went to Downtown Disney.

And so we end the first segment of our trip report, just prior to entering DIsney property.

 

[HaleyB]

So does this mean we are going to finish it?

 

[Mr. Silly]

Not necessarily, though it does mean we'll begin it.

 

[javamom]

 

[AshClan]

I'm IN!!!!

 

[Shelby5514]

 

[MomOf2Gals]

im excited to readmore.

 

[Mr. Silly]

Dear reader, after I wrote this segment, I dutifully sent it out for review by the Powers That Be. I was told that it just didn't didn't have that certain something. It needed more. It had to break boundaries. Take risks. Push the envelope. Twist the cork. That last one's not a real phrase, as far as I can tell, but when someone tells you to twist a cork you have bigger concerns than correcting peculiar phrases. The only other requirement was that we not offend anyone, play it cool, and not get too weird. Just remember that things had been a bit dull so we had to make things a breathtaking adventure full of heart wrenching emotion, with a massively compelling narrative. Simple.

I did with that advice what I do with most advice, which was that I agreed and then did my own thing.

I need to pre-warn uninitiated readers that I am not exactly a story teller, because I am not actually great with narratives. I'll start out with really high hopes that the story will unfold with me telling about the family doing things, seeing things, eating things, smelling things, showing, not telling. Yet things always seem to digress, as you can see with everything written so far in the section, which has contributed nothing to the story. In fact, if you skipped everything up to this point, you should probably just go ahead and not bother backtracking, since most of this is not actually part of the narrative.

I also need to pre-warn uninitiated readers that for various reasons there is a requirement that trip report segments include some form of interactivity. While I'd planned to create a kind of puzzle where we include a subtle reference to Disney product or attraction that is not actually present in Walt Disney World, because I'd done that before and it's easy. But then I thought, "No I need to break new ground, to do something totally new and original." Then I realized that was kind of a lot of work, so we stuck with the puzzle. Then I vacillated. And then oscillated. Finally I landed on a position that I could be happy with: there may or may not be a puzzle in this section, but I can't remember which I decided on. Happily, you need not worry too much about it since it's not any significant part of a narrative either way.

Returning to the tale, we add some character development. Mostly about my character. I dislike driving on Disney property. My sense of direction is not great, and the signage is merely adequate, which is not quite enough for my needs. It's bad enough that I actually like buses. Buses may be slow, and the walk to the stops can be painful at the end of the day, but at least the bus drivers always know where they re going. They see signs saying "All Guest Areas" along the road and don't wonder why such a sign was ever posted. They don't miss turns without realizing it, and then get stuck drink around wishing another sign would be posted really soon. Ideally we'd have a heads-up display with information about which lane to be in, when turns were coming, warnings about which drivers were about to shoot across two lanes, but, knowing Disney, it would use Stacy's (Stacy is the woman in the running loop of the WDW commercial on the default TV channel in Disney's on property rooms, in case that wasn't obvious) voice to narrate things, there would be pointless previews of attractions we were already going to, and it would cost $4,000 a year for ten years, with minimal guarantees of future applicability in case they wanted to release Disney HUD II.

If we were going to go a little more ideal, maybe there could be helicopters that dropped us off onto helipads right by entrances, or better, personal jetpacks, or even better than that, flying carpets with little trained monkeys as navigators wearing mouse ears. Also if there were robot valets that just kind of did things for you, that would also be ideal, but that's a little off topic. As it turns out, in this case we had a car, and were initially staying off site, so we were using a car, which is not as ideal as it could be. Though if there were a robot valet in the car that would be really cool too...

Returning to the narrative, we were off property and really didn't know exactly where we were, so I got a piece of paper from the Concierge with directions for how to get to Downtown Disney, and then we set out. We drove along, followed the directions, and somehow did not get lost. We pulled into the lot and spent a while trying to find a parking spot. A few criticisms of my approach to finding a spot were generously offered, but these criticisms were not sufficiently constructive, so we just drove in circles some more. Eventually we found a spot and noted its location in my handy little notebook.

It was busy. We were close to the Lego store, so we went in there. The line at the cash wrap was mind boggling. Or at least it boggled my mind - I'm a little easily boggled, so don't take it too seriously if things boggle my mind.

We milled around, and enjoyed beholding the Lego goodness. We looked at people playing the Lego computer games. We looked at MindStorms boxes (Max wants MindStorms). We admired the gargantuan Lego sculptures. We left.

Outside, we noted a big hot air balloon thingie with Mary Poppins on it, and were unsure what to make of it, other than so say "heh, Mary Poopins." We were kind of in a crude humor phase... Regardless, we saw this big balloon other times as well, and were still not sure what to make of it. Note: this balloon was actually there, and was not a secret element slyly inserted as a puzzle element.

As we walked along, there was a a dance party going on, one kind of reminiscent of the old Videopolis that they used to have in Disneyland in the 80. Many people were there doing the Cha CHa Slide. Many people just walking past participated in the Cha Cha Slide. As a nerd, I tried very hard not to trip on my feet as much as usual, with moderate success. None of our group particularly danced.

Then we saw it. Pooh Corner. The first words to enter my mind on reading the sign were "Pooh in the Corner." I discussed this with Max and Sophie. I explained that vandalism was wrong, but if we had a novelty fake poop and some super glue, it would be difficult to resist.

We then meandered in the gift shop of the Rainforest Cafe. While there I asked H. where some other gift store was, which she rattled off. It was at this point that Mom gained the epithet "Tour Guide Mom." It was here that I saw a Puffer Fish, and noted that it was a head with fins. This is something I've said a number of times before, and slowly it dawned on me. I explained my distress to the fame. When I was in 7th grade we had to write little descriptive phrases of 8th graders as part of some assignment for the yearbook. Our group had one person on the list who none of us knew, and we had no idea what to say. At some point the expression, "cliche factory," fell out of my mouth and the leader wrote it down. The teacher was confused - what is a cliche factory? Why would we call someone that? We did not know. It was just some random words that fell out, and nobody had a better idea. Somehow by planting that seed, I realized the sinister truth: I myself become a cliche factory, just pumping out stock phrases.

We went to the giant Disney toy store, and looked at things. There we were puzzled by the fact that there was merch. for Transformers, which is not all that Disney-seeming thing. But there in the Transformers section we saw the thing that I had secretly hoped for, the Disney Personal Valet Transformer. It wasn't even remote controlled, but had a highly sophisticated AI, so that it was like an Ultra-Pal-Mickey-bot that could transform into a monorail engine with the press of a button. It was awesome. Max and I grabbed the two on the shelf, pressed the shiny red buttons on their backs and they went into battle mode. Unfortunately activating Ultra-Pal-Mickey-bot in Downtown Disney toy stores is a visit limiting move, and store security asked us to leave. This was probably just as well, since the car was packed pretty full on the drive out and we needed to be careful about space in the car for the drive back.

After being ejected from the toy store, we wandered around the rest of D.D., exchanging witty banter, tossing off bon mots, looking at things to buy, but really buying very little. Actually one great thing about that evening was that we bought nothing.

We eventually headed out to the car, using the valuable instructions written in the handy notebook to rediscover the car. We weren't going to Universal, but as we walked out, we discussed things we could have done had we been going there. As we walked to the car we made up inappropriate versions of Harry Potter spells, including "Expellianus", "Impoopio," and inserting "Flatulence" into various spell words. I think "snared" came up as well, somewhere. Probably there was a "scab" too. We'd been visiting my dad recently, and it seemed to have affected the kids a little.

As we drove back to the hotel we discovered that our instructions from the hotel were one-way. Figuring out how to get back was slightly more complicated, so we took a wrong turn, got fairly lost and had to go to a *different* Hilton where we got directions to the correct one. They actually had a pre-printed card they gave us. We got back to the hotel eventually, and slept well.

 

[HaleyB]

Hi Java!

I'm IN!!!!

Hi Ash!

Hi Shelby! (it feels weird to call you Shelby)

im excited to readmore.

Welcome aboard Momof2


I guess I should mention, I am Mrs Silly. AKA Tour Guide Mom. At some point I'll add more comments but I'm waiting until we actually get into a park. Which should be soon.

Tomorrow, in TR time, is MK day 1.

 

[nebo]

a silly quotes:
Thus we got in the car again, and were off to Orlando. We drove a whole bunch. During the drive there was a minor navigation error where we drove an extra hundred miles+ or so through Georgia and became slightly lost. Thanks to free internet access at a Taco Bell we were able to re-plot a course to get us into Florida. We spent the night in some hotel somewhere in Georgia in a Microtel that was kind of smelly.

You are joking, right? We use this thing called and Atlas that even has all the states in it and you don't have to plut it in or order it with Chalupas or anything.
I just want to know if you're going to set off the exploding big toe again, and Oh, I really could have used that bb gun on the trip we just got back from against the Brazilian tour and soccer groups.

 

[Mr. Silly]

a silly quotes:
Thus ... in the car again... off ... Orlando... minor navigation error ... slightly lost.... free internet access at a Taco Bell... re-plot ... kind of smelly.

You are joking, right? We use this thing called and Atlas that even has all the states in it and you don't have to plut it in or order it with Chalupas or anything.
I just want to know if you're going to set off the exploding big toe again, and Oh, I really could have used that bb gun on the trip we just got back from against the Brazilian tour and soccer groups.

Yeah, so we're post-paper people. We actually pulled off to get a paper map, but then realized that a digital map would be way more awesome so we found a local free wireless network. This had the added advantage that we could get some Taco Bell Cinnamon Twists, which are awesome. We did run into a minor kink, which was that the people working at the Taco Bell did not know the address of the business they worked at and had to make a call to figure this out. (True story.)

The thing about driving around with a rifle shaped thing in the car is that while it's considered a mark of honor in some parts, we kept worrying about it in the Disney zone. (Also true.) And when we tried to get it through the gates at Animal Kingdom so we could try to take out a Yeti we were hearing was causing some ride-related problems they were surprisingly unsympathetic. If we could have told them we were planning on shooting Brazilians, maybe they would have been better with it. (Not actually true story.)

 

[Mr. Silly]

Some attentive readers may have noticed that so far we haven't actually gone into any Disney parks, despite our having written 2,759 words (15,196 characters for an average word length of about 4.5 letters). 2,759 words doesn't seem like many to me, but a certain someone whose name we won't mention (though in the interest of creating a puzzle, let's just say her name rhymes with "Bailey," she has added notes to previous entries, and sometimes is referred to as Tour Guide Mom) mentioned that we hadn't talked about parks and that this was, well, she used some word that sounded like "ineffable." That might have actually been the word. She also may have said "disturbing" or some adjective like that. I had actually queried her for a list of adjectives, but then forgot them before I wrote them down here. I should have brought a notebook.

Since I'd forgotten the adjectives, I went back, and had this conversation that I wrote down quickly:

Me: So, if you had three adjectives that you could use to describe answering questions about adjectives, what would they be?
H: Why are you asking about adjectives?
Me: That's not an adjective.
H: Hmm, I don't know.
Me: That is also not an adjective.
H: How about "inquisitive?"
Me: That's an adjective.
H: So why do you keep asking about adjectives?
Me: If you're worried that I am doing a Mad Lib, I'm not.
Bailey notes: I was worried about the Mad Lib possibilities, if Silly ever posts the Mad Lib in question you will understand my fear and trepidation.
H: I see...
Me: So if you had one adverb that you would use to describe adjectives, what you'd it be?
H: Descriptively.

Hopefully, this helps you better understand our Disney vacation.

So, speaking of notebooks, H. and Sophie thoughtfully picked out a notebook for me prior to the trip, assuming I would be the trip historian. While packing, I thoughtfully left it out on a table where I could admire it and then didn't pack it. So I wound up using a little blue pocket sized notebook that I got for Christmas and use in day to day life to put little notes in. It's not lined, which is fine for little lists of things to get at the hardware store, or whatever, but the lack of lines isn't great for writing quickly, and I really like this little notebook, and I didn't really want to use it. Wait, that's not what I meant to be digressing on. Let's backtrack. So after a few vacations where I took notes of the stuff we did, I discovered that there is a flaw with taking notes, which is that it distracts you from actually experiencing things, and also slows things down, like taking pictures at a museum. I almost didn't take notes for this trip, esp. when we forgot to bring the notebook, but if I don't take notes then the trip report would read "(one thousand words rambling on about notebooks)... and then we entered the park, rode some rides, ate lunch somewhere ... (a few hundred word mini-essay on why I love and hate salt) ... then we left at some point in the evening. I think we enjoyed ourselves mostly. (quiz to make sure you were paying attention, mostly focusing on salt)." And that's why I took notes - I didn't want the quiz at the end of this to focus on salt.

Bailey notes: Right, because you obviously have no hesitation towards rambling on about notebooks.

We'd added a few extra days on this thing so that we could have more leisurely days in the heat and take some breaks.

Bailey notes:
That was my story and I am sticking to it. *Although another consideration was that our original plan had 5 park days.
Me: So, if we only had 5 park days which park should we do twice?
Silly: Animal Kingdom and Epcot.
Me: There are 4 parks (I may have listed them, this is not verbatim) so we can only pick one (1).
Silly: Epcot and Animal Kingdom?
Me: Sounds good.

Had H. been writing more, you'd already know that, but that's more a Tour Guide Mom kind of thing. As a result of our greater leisureliness, we actually slept a bit later than expected. Since it's been more than 500 words, we really need to work our way to the gate of the park. Moving the narrative along, we drove to the Magic Kingdom, and I think we didn't get lost, though since I wasn't taking notes as I drove, it's hard to say for sure. We parked and headed to the gate.

Tour Guide Mom notes: Took a tram, then a monorail, you know the drill. The Monorail part is important though.

This time around we'd done the Give a Day thing, volunteering with Project Linus. We opted for the Give A Day fastpass, which, BTW, according to Sophie "awesometastic," and according to Max is a "Cliche Factory." We'll let the person whose name rhymes with Bailey add her own comments, since that's a total Tour Guide Mom topic.

TGM notes: Legend wait for it ... *dairy. It had to be said, this was the "How I Met Your Mother"/"Big Bang Theory" trip.

GAD fastpasses were all that and a bag of chips, to quote a friend. *They made our socks go up and down. *Seriously. *YAK knew we were debating how to use our vouchers and was kind enough to clue me in. *GAD fastpasses have ruined me for life. *I started thinking crazy thoughts like: if we just bought two extra tickets and went through the gate twice...

We have a bunch of old tickets, some of which have things like park entries or whatever on them. While we were at the Will Call window getting the GAD Passes, TGM tried to have them check the tickets to see which had something good on them, but this would have taken the entire day, so we still have a big stack of mystery tickets.

Tour Guide Bailey notes: We actually went through about four of them. *Because of this we ended up with 6 GAD fastpass cards instead of 4. *I only asked for 4, the CM said "I can give you 6 since you have 6 tickets with multiple days on them" who was I to argue?

We got into the park around 9:30ish. It was kind of odd getting there after opening, not waiting around at the gates, not seeing the people in the old-timey suits dancing by the train, and not doing other opening related activities.

Bailey Guide Mom notes: I had learned on this one Disney website that with the GAD passes we didn't need to worry about being there for opening, and it was nice not to rush in the morning and to wander into the park without the masses at our heels all running for Space Mountain.

We got in and hastened our way to TomorrowLand. I went ahead a bit to get FPs for Space Mountain while they went up to Buzz. I grabbed the FPs (non GAD, we saved those for later) and noted that the Space Mountain line was actually really short. We did Buzz, which was a walk-on.

Bailey Bailey Bailey notes: Where was everyone? I was expecting crowds. *Maybe they all got to Tomorrowland 45 minutes before us and had already moved on to Fantasyland????

This is a game where perhaps the BB gun shooting helped to improve scores a bit, though it's hard to say. Maybe they've changed things since the last time I recall, or maybe it was the cart, but that the score updating was delayed a bit, which helped to make it trickier to find and keep hitting the high score targets, but they hadn't actually changes the scoring of the targets, so pegging the upper left target on the volcano adds up fast.

We then did Space Mountain standby. We pretty much walked on, passing by the little video games. I almost wished there was some line up to that point so we could have played with them, but not enough to go standing around waiting for the timer over the line entry to bump up a bit and then get back in the line so I could play a game where there's basically one button you keep pressing. I did get to pound the buttons as we walked past, and that was kind of gratifying, though not deeply satisfying.

Somehow on this ride, oh so very early in the day, a mysterious thing happened. H. lost her cell phone. Hopefully she will add notes on this event.

BBB notes: I am not sure there is anything to add. *Second ride of the trip and my cell phone is gone. *This is why I am not allowed to have an expensive smart phone. *I knew my pockets were not the best because I had lost the very same phone a few weeks earlier while wearing the same pants. *I got it back that time. This time, not so much. *I thought I checked for it when I got off the ride, but clearly I didn't.

I'd mentioned a quiz earlier, and here it is:
On a separate piece of paper, a computer screen, or other place you can write things on, please enter words:

Adjective:
Noun:
Adverb:
Verb (ideally a transitive verb in the past tense):
Adjective:
Plural Noun:

Now string those words in a sentence. If it says, "deadly ninjamonkeys quickly attacked ineffable pirates," then you get 100 points. Otherwise give yourself 20 points for each word you got correct. Sorry if you got six words correct but only got 100 points, but this is a lesson on why it doesn't pay to always be right. Or perhaps it's a lesson on why it's usually be good at math, but not when dealing with Disney matters.

TBGB notes: I got 87.

 

[HaleyB]

Yeah, so we're post-paper people. We actually pulled off to get a paper map, but then realized that a digital map would be way more awesome so we found a local free wireless network. This had the added advantage that we could get some Taco Bell Cinnamon Twists, which are awesome. We did run into a minor kink, which was that the people working at the Taco Bell did not know the address of the business they worked at and had to make a call to figure this out. (True story.)

The thing about driving around with a rifle shaped thing in the car is that while it's considered a mark of honor in some parts, we kept worrying about it in the Disney zone. (Also true.) And when we tried to get it through the gates at Animal Kingdom so we could try to take out a Yeti we were hearing was causing some ride-related problems they were surprisingly unsympathetic. If we could have told them we were planning on shooting Brazilians, maybe they would have been better with it. (Not actually true story.)

I was actually more in favor of a paper map, but I was outvoted 3 to 2 (I get 2 votes, of course).

 

[AshClan]

Yeah, so we're post-paper people. We actually pulled off to get a paper map, but then realized that a digital map would be way more awesome so we found a local free wireless network. This had the added advantage that we could get some Taco Bell Cinnamon Twists, which are awesome. We did run into a minor kink, which was that the people working at the Taco Bell did not know the address of the business they worked at and had to make a call to figure this out. (True story.)

Oh, I'm sure Haley just LOVED that!!

 

[mmeb144]

I followed the shameless plug from Nebo's TR.

I really like how you describe the drive down: "We drove a lot." We live in central Indiana. It's a nice 18 hour drive from these parts to the Mouse House. I suppose that I could describe the driving part of our journey as a lot of driving.

 

[wlake]

Mr. Silly, I hate to break it to you, but the Disney bus drivers get lost too. We took a bus from MK to POR and for some unexplained reason drove through Ft. Wilderness. We didn't stop, just drove through. We decided he forgot where he was supposed to be going.

 

[HaleyB]

Sorry for the delay.

The darn kids think they need to be fed everyday!!???! Plus we really needed to finish doing our 2009 taxes

We'll try to have the rest of the MK day, with the Monorail incident (foreshadowing) and everything posted tonight.

 

[Mr. Silly]

Sorry for the delay.

The darn kids think they need to be fed everyday!!???! Plus we really needed to finish doing our 2009 taxes

We'll try to have the rest of the MK day, with the Monorail incident (foreshadowing) and everything posted tonight.

To further foreshadow, other things that are likely to be mentioned include laughing Haunted Mansion CMs, mild vandalism of the Pirates of the Caribbean, breaking the 15th wall, the incredible highly edible amazing awesomeness of free mushrooms at Cosmic Rays, a real life Cinderella story, notes, marketing's new demands, corporate sponsors, the amazing ubiquity of hidden mickeys, and some other stuff.

Though that seemed like a lot of words, so perhaps simply writing that was enough and I don't need to bother with details, and we can go onto the next day of tasteful refined behavior at the Grand Floridian's Tea.

 

[Mr. Silly]

Mr. Silly, I hate to break it to you, but the Disney bus drivers get lost too. We took a bus from MK to POR and for some unexplained reason drove through Ft. Wilderness. We didn't stop, just drove through. We decided he forgot where he was supposed to be going.

I have to say, if even seasoned professional drivers can get lost on property, then this makes things look much better for me. Though I will admit that I have gotten lost leaving the bathroom next to Boma in the AKL several times, which makes things look much worse for me.

 

[Mr. Silly]

Picking up after the misplaced phone incident, we carry on with the narrative account of our trip. So we left Tomorrowland, noted that the phone had been lost, and then headed out towards the Haunted Mansion, which is among the greatest rides ever devised by humanity. Interestingly during the gap when we were busy not writing this trip report, marketing came to us and asked that we get things in shape. It was requested that we create the greatest Trip Report yet devised by humanity. When asked for specifics, they said "I don't know, that's a weird question. You're trying to trap me." And so it was that we managed to get out of having to meet any requirements at all. Since we want to get this out by the end of today, for now, we're going to attempt to follow a straight narrative style, and see what happens, making no guarantees that such a form is even possible from a person like me.

So our narrative begins with us wandering along to the Haunted Mansion. There is a story that I heard that HM CMs are not supposed to laugh, so when we go on the ride we try to figure out ways to make them laugh. Mostly this involved telling them riddles, since, well, I am a corny dad-type without a lot of other ready facilities for making CMs laugh while in the Haunted Mansion line. I'd memorized a number of cory jokes, since they are useful when volunteering at the school. Walking up, I drew a blank, not remembering any jokes, except the wrong ones, like the one I told at some later point that caused H. to hit me just because it involved Hitler, I think.

There was one riddle, though, one very powerful riddle that I did recall. And so, we wandered in prowling for a victim, but didn't see any CMs. Except the main guest-herder who you don't really want to talk to, since they are busy being all somber and serious as they get people in the door.

So we just filtered into the ride, which was a walk-on. We meandered into the expanding room and said the script along with the voiceover, because it is so awesome that we can't not say all the words to the speech. I mean part of it is, "Your cadaverous pallor betrays an aura of foreboding, almost as though you sense a disquieting metamorphosis." Awesome. There is creepy laughter at some point in there, BTW, so if you timed a joke really well, you could get the ride to laugh at your joke. I didn't do this, FWIW.

We rode the ride, spotted the hidden Mickeys, the hidden Donald, and so on. Towards the end, we have a tradition, which we call Hitchhiking Ghost Nose Picking. It's pretty self explanatory - you put your finger up the Hitchhiking Ghost's nose. This particular time was uniquely awesome, because we noted that a rider in the Doom Buggy following us also began Hitchhiking Ghost Nose Picking. And even more awesome, the same thing happened with the Doom Buggy after that. It was like we'd finally hit Hitchhiking Ghost Nose Picking Critical Mass. I like to think that now I have created a legacy, something that I can point to - note exactly a claim to fame, but at least a notable contribution to humanity.

As we left I cornered a CM and told her the riddle:

Why did the chicken cross the seance?
(spooky voice) To get to the other side...

She laughed. Thus we were victorious once again, and didn't even need to resort to the really heavy guns that H. might have hit me over.

On the way out, my blood sugar was dropping a bit and it was hot, so we went into the Harbor House and got a soda and a few glasses of water. We also looked at food prices and recoiled in horror since we were not on the dining plan, so food was out of pocket. Disneymath can make your head spin a bit when first adjusting to the Disneyconomy. It take getting some accustomed to, kind of like getting used to the August heat in Orlando, but similarly, one never can really get totally comfortable with it.

While drinking and cooling down, we noted a hidden Mickey on a chart on the wall. On the topic of hidden Mickeys, we noted a metric carp-load of the things as we went along. Some, like the three round maps on the wall placed in the standard pattern seemed more legitimate, others like patterns of leaves in plants seemed less legitimate. But it was the glass of water that got me wondering. You see, each water molecule has one larger Oxygen atom with two smaller Hydrogen atoms bound to it. H2O is a hidden Mickey. And there is water all over the park. Could it be that they put the water all over the place intentionally? It gets me wondering...

Speaking of water, we finished out drinks and headed off for Frontierland to hit the Splash Mountain/Big Thunder side. We grabbed FPs for Big Thunder, and got in the standby line for Splash Mountain, which had a short line. Some members of our party like rides that get you wet, but I am generally not so sure that I want my clothes infused with millions upon millions of molecular hidden Mickeys. While I like the idea of wet clothes being Disney themed, since this means that when I sweat I am just a big Disney fan, that's about all I like about it.

Happily, despite my trepidation, we went anyway, and it was a not so splashy Splash Mountain, which was nice. We had a brief conversation about the old America Sings ride from which many of the characters on the ride have come from (and discussed how a few were recycled without their fur as droids in Star Tours, which is also awesome).

Big Thunder was awesome. I get the little "hang on to them hats and glasses" prospector-talk wrong every time, I think it's different in California or something, but the ride was quite good.

We cut over to Adventureland. As we went through we hit Pirate of the Carribean, which is a favorite of mine. Not quite as awesome as Haunted Mansion, but in the Top 5, along with Jungle Cruise, Space Mountain, and that other really good ride. For whatever reason, people always veer left when picking the side of the line to get into, so if you veer right the line tends to go quicker. While the left hand path was a little longer, on the right hand side it was pretty much a walk-on. We were getting kind of amazed at the lines at this point, since we were expecting crowds. Anyway, we boarded the boat (which they didn't even fill) and cruised towards the projection of Davey Jones onto the water vapor screen. I realized something. It was just vapor. As we approached, I blew on it really hard and pretty much defeated Davey Jones. At that point I made a plan. We could coordinate, bring some things like maps or something to use as fans, and we could annihilate Davey Jones. We would be heroes. Or vandals. We stored that plan, but did not actually make it on the ride a second time. So, dear reader, it is up to you to realize your hero-ness. Unless you think it's vandal-y, then don't do it whatever you do.

We didn't linger in the post-ride gift shop, but as we wandered through I noticed something a bit unusual. On one of the shelves, one of the pieces of the theming art that they had put up was an image of a Tibetan Goddess. One notable thing about Tibet is that not only is it landlocked, but it's on a high mountain plateau far far from any sea. It's about as un-piratey a place as you're going to find.

It was close enough to noon at that pint that we then hit Cosmic Rays for lunch. H. and I split a veggie burger thing loaded with giga-load of mushrooms and onions. I invented a new condiment, redneck Salsa, which is mayo and BBQ sauce mixed together with a hint of black pepper. It goes well with mushrooms, and we were eating a lot of mushrooms. Lots and lots of delicious mushrooms. Mmm, free mushrooms. They taste better because they're free.

After I finished eating the kids were still nibbling away with their tiny little bites that take aeons to chew for some reason, so I headed to the men's room to partake of the utterly wonderful Gold Bond powder. When it is hot and you are walking out of doors, Gold Bond powder placed in a few moist areas can make you feel much much happier about walking out of doors. My outlook on the universe is so improved by the stuff, that we now call it God Bond powder. I don't even care that it makes me officially old to be happily praising and recommending medicated powders, it's that awesome.

While I was powdering up in a stall, someone came into the stall next door. It was two someones, one of whom was probably about three years old. I heard a conversation:

Dad: Okay, now it's time to go poopie.
Kid: No, I don't want to go poopie.
Dad: But we're in the bathroom now, so you should try to go. Please just a little poopie?
Kid: No, I don't have to go.
Dad: Maybe you could just push a little and try?
Kid: Okay, I'll push a little.
Me: (Muffled giggle as much as possible).
(small splash)
Dad: Okay, good job, but that's not very much, could you push some more.

At this point I had completed my task, delighted at feeling cooler and dryer, and also delighted at the poopie conversation I'd overheard, so I left, returned to the table, and told the people who were eating my poopie story.

Surprisingly, lunch ended pretty fast after the talk of pooping and how awesome medicated powder was on nether-regions, and we headed out into Tomorrowland to do the Peoplemover. We are still a little sad about the voiceover changes, but we noticed that Tom Morrow is back, and that's a relief. At this point the crowds were clearly growing.

We then hit Autopia, which they have incorrectly named Tomorrowland Speedway on the ride signs and maps. There was a bit of a line for this. As we stood in line the rain began to come down pretty solidly, to the point that H. used a parka for a bit, though wearing a plastic sheet in the heat and humidity was worse than getting wet to most of us. I subtly shifted line positions in such a way that Sophie was 1st, I was second, H. was 3rd, and Max was 4th. In the Disney parks we are generally rule-followers, but one thing I learned in kindergarten is that you are supposed to pound the tar out of the other cars as much as possible, and everything I need to know I learned in Kindergarten (some changing dinosaur and planet names excluded). As it turns out, the person in from of Sophie had some issues pressing the gas pedal, so I bumped her a number of times. H. and Max got separated into a different round of cars, so I was not able to do the pincer move I'd planned with Max. So it goes.

We caught up with H. and Max and headed along to Fantasyland. As we went through we hit Philharmagic. It was here that things with me began to go a little downhill on one front. The kids (mostly Sophie, but Max too) were indicating that I was embarrassing them. This is really just the wrong thing to tell me. And so it was that I was forced to say in a clear voice near crowds, "Hey guys, you shouldn't put the 3D glasses in your armpits, put those back and get some new ones." And then not too long later, "Oh my goodness, you wouldn't believe the gas I've got." I may have done this in response to something Sophie did, all I have are some sparse notes. Perhaps H. can fill in.

Have you noticed just how much narrative there is here? It really boggles the mind to see so much narrative with so little digression. But even with this massive sea of narrative, we're still not nearly all the way to the end of the day, so our plan of getting to the end of the day's not likely to happen. But we're pressing on.

Post-Philharmagic we headed out of the park to cool down for a while. We walked to the monorail which we took back to the TTC. For some reason the monorail always smells a bit like farm animals to me, which I always wonder about. It was at this point that I think I might have been worrying about my parenting skills, so I decided to help them by teaching them a lesson. You see, the kids were too easily mortified by family behavior. So at some point, as we headed to the tram, while I am not really fully sure why, I decided that the way to teach them was to pour some water on my shorts so it looked like I'd peed a bit. I figured this would build character for sure. This might not have been the best line of thought in retrospect.

But there we were, me with a damp spot on my shorts, as we waited in the tram line next to the redneckiest of redneck families. And it was at this point that I said, clearly, "You know, they need to have more urinals here." Mama Redneck looked over at me, and gave me such a look of sheer horror, bewilderment, contempt, and a few other shocked things thrown in that I really wish I'd had a camera available. She kept sneaking looks at me until the tram came.

H: I just don't think I have anything to add to this in any way.

We didn't quite get to the Cinderella story, corporate sponsors, or a few other things. We'll have to get to those in part V.