Chapter Eight: Where Even a Napkin Twirl Has Meaning
Weve never stayed at the Contemporary Resort. But since these are the Disboards, that won't stop me from giving my opinion on it. Ever since I was a little squat and toddling around Disney World with my parents, Ive wanted to stay there. We just never did. My dad loved the Contemporary. My mom loved the Polynesian. Which might explain in major part why our one stay in an on-property resort was at the Polynesian. But as best I can remember, on almost every trip to Disney World, we ate at the Concourse Buffeteria. What you people call Chef Mickeys now.
In those days, the Grand Canyon Concourse of the Contemporary Resort Hotel was the coolest inside of a building Id ever seen. For most of my adolescence and early 20s (really, even now) any open air lobby reminds me of the Contemporary. Embassy Suites: Contemporary. The Marriot Marquis in Atlanta: Contemporary. The Capitol Rotunda: Contemporary. You get the picture.
If I am a nerd, and at this point, theres really no denying it, it is because my dad is a nerd too. I come by it honestly. If I love Disney, and at this point, does anyone question my affinity for the World? its because I cut my teeth at Disney World. My dad read up a lot about how they went about designing the World; building it. So I was probably the only 5 year old at Disney who knew that General Steel constructed both the Contemporary and its sister the Polynesian with rooms that could be slid in like drawers.
I was also the only 12 year old who read
The Warren Report, so dont be questioning my nerd bona fides, kay?
My dad was enamored of the Contemporary and I reckon so I was too. But for different reasons. I liked eating at buffets. And in the 1970s, buffet restaurants were rarer than steak tartar. I knew of two: one by our house, the Swedish Smorgasbord. And the Concourse Buffeteria at Disney World. Yeah, the rooms as drawers thing was kinda cool, and the monorail whizzing by overhead, interesting. You mean this is all I can eat? That was MUCH more impressive to me.
Do you see how little has changed?
Whether we ate there every trip, I do not recall, but it sure seems like we did. I remember well the all you can eat fried chicken. And spaghetti. Who thought those went well together? There was probably other stuff, but those were the only two foods that stick with me. Not literally. Just in my head.
The point of this excessively long digression? We ate at the Contemporary a lot growing up. My dad liked it and so did I. Going there feels like going home to me. Its one of our Disney Things.
However, for reasons that are of little importance, between March, 1987 and March 1996, I didnt go to Disney very much. And I didnt eat at the Contemporary at all.
In March, 1996, my wife and I had been married only five months and I still had a lot of hair. Weve been married 11 years now, and while I think weve always had a good marriage, I concede that our first year was pretty amazing. She still thought I was brilliant and funny and I still wanted to hang on every word she said.
And because my gorgeous, intelligent, remarkably skinny despite being 5 months pregnant wife occasionally reads this drivel, I still want to hang on every word she says.
Anywho. Our March, 1996 trip was one of the best trips weve taken to Disney World. It was the first time I stayed on property since I was a kid and it was the first time my wife and I stayed on property together. We stayed at All Star Sports and we thought it was the coolest thing wed ever seen. I was amazed at how cool it all was. Innovative. I spent more than a hour one morning just walking around taking pictures of the place. We stayed in the football building and in those days they played college football fight songs in the passageways. The popcorn box light fixtures, the locker shaped dressers. Little touches like that made it seem extraordinary to us.
Were simple folk. Also, we were young and in love. So you can pardon our easy amusement.
It was as part of this trip that we first ate at Chef Mickeys. And, as with everything we did during that trip, we have very fond memories of it. And with every fond memory we have of Disney comes the desire to repeat it year after year. Thats how it becomes a Disney Thing.
We were in Disney World with some friends who were on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ. We were having a great day with them in the MK and we were getting hungry. I remembered that the Contemporary had the Buffeteria and I was in the mood for all you can eat fried chicken.
If the guys I hung out with during my freshman year at Bama are reading this, that sentence will be exceptionally funny to them.
We hopped onto the monorail to head over to the Contemporary for dinner and we told our friends that we were treating them to dinner. How much could dinner for four people cost anyway?
I know, its precious how naive I was. Our friends had never been to the Contemporary and as we rode over on the monorail I was giving them a bit of a history lesson. However, as we departed the monorail and headed towards what was supposed to be the Concourse Buffeteria, I noticed things looked a whole lot different than I remembered.
As we walked up to the restaurant, I could see the buffet so I knew it was all you can eat, even if the décor had changed. There was a sign with the menu off to the side, over in front of the Outer Rim Lounge (at which you cannot get coffee). My wife and I walked up to it and read the menu. It all sounded good.
And then we saw the price. $15.99 per person!
Gulp.
First of all, I would sell the Schpup! to only pay $15.99 to eat at Chef Mickeys now. Now that theyre charging $29.99 for THE EXACT SAME FOOD! But in those days, the halcyon mid-90s when
Friends, Seinfeld and
Frasier was Must See TV and when ZZUB wasnt a lawyer, $15.99 per person was a lot of money. My wife asked me whether we could afford it.
No, but theres nothing we can do about that now. Were here. So, um, maybe we dont eat out at all next month, okay?
If our friends saw the price or if it registered in their minds how much we were paying for their dinner, I still dont know. We walked up to the hostess stand to inquire about eating dinner.
Do you remember 1996 when you could just walk up to a restaurant and be seated?
She told us it would be a few minutes but they could accommodate us. Soon enough, we were seated and my friendship with Chef Mickeys began.
Whats not to love? The whole set up of the restaurant makes great sense. Its filled with a frenetic energy but its not insane; you wont need prozac to eat there. Its loud, its colorful and the characters to guest ratio is pretty low. Or high. I never know which is the good one.
Hey, I went to law school not math school. And I did my undergrad at Alabama. Im lucky I can balance my checkbook.
I use Microsoft Money for that, by the way.
The other thing I love about Chef Mickeys is the food. Victoria and Alberts it aint but then again if youre eating at V&As youre probably not a buffet person anyway. But its good eatin for people like me who use the phrase good eatin and think its a superlative description.
Its meat.
Its peel-and-eat shrimp.
Its parmesan potatoes.
Its a dessert bar that makes you think you died and went to Heaven.
As a small person.
The desserts at Chef Mickeys are bite sized. Like a Snickers. This is actually one of the things I like about Chef Micks. Because the desserts are ridiculously tiny, no one looks at you funny when you pile your plate with a dozen German chocolate brownie bites, or a half dozen carrot cake squares. If a piece of cheesecake the size of a Tic Tac is more your thing, you can have a score of those too. Plus, theres a boatload of candy and other sundae toppings. But you dont have to eat ice cream to enjoy the candy toppings. You can just put them in a bowl and eat them.
Not that Id do that.
Not that theres anything wrong with that.
One of the reasons I love Disney is because they take an ordinary idea and make it extraordinary. Its that creative touch, that unique attention to detail that I appreciate. At its most basic, Chef Mickeys is just a buffet with slightly above average food. What makes it exceptional is the fact that there are two identical buffet lines and a mess of characters wandering about.
What are the All Stars but a Days Inn with bright colors, big pools and oversized icons?
PORiverside is nothing more than a Comfort Inn with columns and a great food court.
You get the idea.
If you dont, then re-read this chapter.
As a punishment.
So to sum up, I love Chef Mickeys in part because it reminds me of being a kid and being at Disney World with my then-happy family. I also love Chef Mickeys because it reminds me of being at Disney World with my then-new wife. With only one exception, during every trip to Disney World since March, 1996 we have eaten at Chef Mickeys. In 2003, we ate there twice. Some of our most signal Disney memories occurred at Chef Mickeys.
My daughter celebrated her 2nd birthday there.
Now then. We arrived at the Contemporary and because I had valet parked at the Lodge, I could valet again for free at the Contemporary. (Just a helpful tip. Use it as you wish.) I asked the valet to get me a wheel chair for my wife because I didnt want her doing too much walking. We went up to the 4th floor and checked into Chef Mickeys. They told us it would be a few minutes so we wheeled over to BVG.
This part of the night felt weird to me. It felt weird then and it feels weird now. We always go to BVG and we actually look forward to it. But it felt like we were going through the motions. I had a nagging sense of anxiety about my wife and the baby. My head was filled with images of where we had been 24 hours before. I do that sometimes. Get stuck watching the movie in my head. Comparing where I am right now with where I was a day before. I kept reliving scenes from the ER and then worrying about whether the baby was actually ok. It felt suffocating to me inside BVG and I could feel the sweat running down my side. A wet spot formed underneath my hands on the wheelchair handles. My daughter, for her part, seemed blissfully unaware anything was going through our minds. She was happily running around the store showing us stuff she liked. Oh to be her age again. Innocent and unaware.
We had just enough time to survey the store one time when our buzzing coaster started flashing and we wheeled back to Chef Mickeys. I naively thought that just going into the place would shift the scene in my head from a worried one to a happy one. I hoped the memories of countless other visits would flood back and I would be able to enjoy myself. We parked the wheelchair by the strollers and walked, up to the hostess stand. As she walked us to our table, the hostess was giving us instructions. Slowly. She kept stopping and pointing out the most ridiculously obvious things. I know she was just doing her job and I was unusually anxious, but seriously when she said, This is our buffet and you can eat as much as you want, I had to interrupt her.
Maam, I appreciate that youre doing your job, but my wife was in the hospital less than 24 hours ago and she cant be standing up this long. Can you please get us to our table?
I wish I could tell you that I at least spoke those words with a polite tone. I did not. My wife was weak and I was worried and I didnt need anyone to explain to us that the colorful display we just passed was the dessert bar. I needed to get my wife into a chair.
The clearly offended hostess moved with dispatch at that point and seated us. But not before she scolded me for not keeping my wife in her wheelchair. Although I could have let it go, I didnt. I explained that my wife didnt want to eat in a wheelchair. She could walk and chose to. My tone suggested it was none of her business. Im not proud of this exchange. Not at all. I know she was just doing her job. But so was I. I needed to take care of my wife in that moment. I apologized to the hostess for my curtness. She seemed to understand.
And then we were sitting at our table in Chef Mickeys.
Around us were dozens of tables of people. The food was a few feet beyond my wife's shoulders. The sound of fun Disney music was at once irritating and infectious. As we gave our drink orders to the waiter, I wondered whether this night would be a disaster. Would this be the last time we ate at Chef Mickeys?
My daughter spotted a character a few feet away and got herself all excited about it. I instinctively reached for my camera to get it ready and somehow in the process, I stopped watching us and started to enjoy her infectious excitement. My wife figured out that Minnie was headed a different way and we had some time to get our food. I took my daughter to the buffet and fixed our plates.
Never done that before. Thats my wifes job. I was reminded again things were different.
But different isnt always bad.
She patiently stood with me while I fixed my plate too. Nice slice of meat and a heap of parmesan potatoes. Or two. We went back to the table and I offered to go get my wifes food. But she wanted to do it herself. Either she wanted to stand up on her own or she knew I was going to load her down with protien. Hard to say.
Once we were all back at the table, we said grace and thanked the Lord that we were there, in Chef Mickeys, and about to enjoy some good food. No sooner had we finished than Minnie was at the table.
Its times like this I wish we didnt have an inordinate fear about posting pictures of ourselves on the internet. I have several pictures from Chef Mickeys but one in particular is special to me.
Its my wife and daughter with Mickey Mouse. My daughter is beaming because she loves Mickey and his restaurant. But my wife. Oh my wife.
She looks beautiful.
Youd never know that 24 hours ago she was in the emergency room. Thinking her baby had died. You would never know that to look at her. Ive been married to her for 11 years and I cannot even see it in her eyes. She looks calm and happy. At peace. I love that picture. Its the desktop on my office computer. The one I stare at for 12 mind-numbing hours a day. I remember when I took it thinking how happy they both looked. And I remember thinking, maybe this will be a good trip after all.
Shortly after that, they started the music and my daughter grabbed her napkin and hopped out of her seat. She knew it was time to part-te! She actually stood in the middle of the aisle and twirled her napkin with reckless abandon.
I have the most awesome picture of her in mid twirl, her tongue stuck out just like her daddy when hes engaged in some serious task. My little girl was twirling her napkin like a pro.
Its hard to know what she had absorbed of the last 24 hours. She knew I had to take Mommy to the hospital and she knew we might not go to Disney World. Shes not stupid; she could tell Mommy and Daddy werent acting like we normally do when were on our way to Disney. The conversations were different. Daddy seemed extra tense. Now Mommy was in a wheelchair. She didnt say much about any of these things. Little kids normally dont. Still, Im pretty certain she figured out things were different.
But she saw Daddy acting crazy, doing a victory dance on the bed so she knew I was on vacation.
I watched her twirl her little napkin and I couldnt help but think to myself, "my little girl is acting crazy. Shes on vacation now."
That's OK though. I can't wait to hear more about your trip and your wonderful family. 
I loved your description about my best friend, the dessert bar. 
