ZZUB
Roll Tide, Mean It
- Joined
- May 9, 2003
- Messages
- 947
Chapter Twelve: On Food Courts and Fart Jokes
We walked out the front gates and fell forward onto the boat headed back to the Lodge. Yes. It’s that close. In fact, as you’re walking out the front gate of the Magic Kingdom, your next step is on the boat. It’s remarkably close. So close that a lot of people find themselves taking the boat back to the Lodge on accident.
At some point in the day, the boat route changes. In the morning it goes Fort Wilderness Campground, the Lodge, Magic Kingdom. Boats going back leave the MK and head to Fort Wilderness and then head to the Lodge. In the afternoon, it switches and boats leaving the MK go first to the Lodge, then Fort Wilderness.
Relevance? Just adding useful information for those people reading this who are thinking about staying at the Lodge. Which you should do. But not when we’re there. We don’t like crowds. Sorry.
After we stopped at Fort Wilderness, we headed back to the Lodge. Captain Trivia was telling me about the bear face and eyes on the back of the Lodge building. Here's a picture of the Lodge as you approach by boat. You decide whether you can see a bear face.
You have to want it.
I really didn't.
Just then, the geyser went off. I looked at my watch. 7 minutes after the hour. That’s right, the geyser that goes off “at the top of the hour” follows Disney time and goes off at 7 minutes after. I carefully noted this for later.
My little girl was laying down on a bench taking a li’l nap while I was snapping pictures. Thinking she’d want to see this too, I called her up to the front of the boat with me so she could see the geyser. She was less impressed than Rich Rodriguez.
And here’s something I never thought I’d say: although the ride back was a little long (not half as long as say the ride from Animal Kingdom to Typhoon Lagoon), I didn’t mind it so much. It was pleasant to have a spell. To sit. To not be moving at Disney pace.
Also: there are NO gift shops or commercials on board.
Yet.
Once we got back to the Lodge, we hopped off the boat and headed up the boardwalk, into the building, up the long ramp past Roaring Fork (not plural), past the DVC Dude, being careful not to make eye contact with him, over the bridge and into the lightening fast elevators.
Once upstairs, we found Mrs. Z dressed and ready.
And watching Stacey.
Which freaked me out.
Mrs. Z loves Disney. But she doesn’t LOVE Disney. If she’d never met me, she’d probably never go and not know she’s missing anything. She’d also have less stress and probably more disposable income, but let’s focus. As evidenced by the four Trip Reports I’ve written, I’m the Disney person in our family. Me and my daughter. My wife would just as soon go to Hawai’i. Which is why I recommend we stay at the Polynesian. Best of both worlds and all that.
And yet that makes our decision to stay at All Star Sports, All Star Sports, Caribbean Beach, All Star Sports, All Star Movies, All Star Sports, All Star Movies, PORiverside, All Star Movies, Old Key West, PORiverside and the Lodge hard to explain.
Harder to explain than Rich Rodriguez’s decision to shun Alabama.
Jerkstore.
In other words, normally my wife will tolerate the sound of Disney Resort TV but never really watches it. But that all changed this trip. Forced to “rest” she watched Stacey’s Top Seven and as it turns out, she learned a thing or two.
Evidently, Stacey actually imparts useful information. Who knew?
We gathered our gear and headed to Roaring Fork for lunch and then onto the pool. One of the reasons we liked PORiverside (and to a lesser extent the All Stars) was the food courts. Food courts say vacation to us. I don’t know why. Except I kind of do. And since you’re dumb enough to continue reading this, then you also must learn why we love food courts.
Not because we’re rednecks. Although we are.
But because we don’t normally eat at them. Our mall has one. But we don’t usually eat in it. Food Courts are like buffets. Except they’re not all you can eat. And someone else serves you the food. And they don’t have carving stations. Mostly. But there’s a lot of variety. Which is the only way it’s like a buffet. In fact, a food court has more in common with Jimmy Buffet than a buffet.
Sorry. I got distracted by a thing.
Since we only really eat in food courts at Disney World, it’s a Disney Thing for us. In other words, we’ll eat in the food court on our next trip because we ate in one on our last trip. It has more to do with nostalgia than economy.
There. I’ve said it.
Staying at Wilderness Lodge worried me in this regard. Roaring Fork wasn’t actually a food court. More of a snack bar. With free refills. And pricey desserts. I looked at the menu on Allearsnet and read a few Trip Reports where people described their meals there and I’m not going to lie to you. I was worried.
My daughter and I had already been in there a few times. I had scoped the place out and it smelled good. But how would it taste? Turns out it wasn’t bad. I had a cheeseburger and either I was really hungry or it was really good or a little of both. The fries were good too. We ate there a few times for lunch during our stay but at no time was it as good as the first time. Which means I was really hungry that day.
Later in our trip, I picked up breakfast, yes breakfast, from Roaring Fork. This has more to do with my need to use all of my free dining credits then with there being a shortage of Frosted Cherry Pop Tarts. May it never be. The breakfast food at Roaring Fork was pretty bad. Like seeing your name in orange. Or having your name used as a euphemism for vomit. Or going to Auburn.
Properly warned ye be.
Maybe deluxe folks don’t require or desire food courts. That might explain why no deluxe has one. But I’m telling you, I really missed the PORiverside food court. I missed the variety and the size of it. I missed the cheesteak the most. So much that we almost, almost drove over there for lunch one day.
So, from the Department of Pay it Forward: to the person reading this who will be staying at the Lodge and wondering about the food at Roaring Fork, I say this: like the Clinton Administration, once is enough. Be hungry when you go. It was ok for late night snacks but it will never beat the grab and go area in the All Star food courts. However, I understand they’ve pared down their offerings as well. Roaring Fork put on a decent lunch if you’re in the mood for a burger. They also had some ridiculous looking salads but you’re on vacation: have a calorie already. I would not plan on eating there a lot.
Anywho. After scarfing down our food, we headed out to the pool. A family of ducks would have greeted us but they were on their break. And we didn’t have any food.
We parked ourselves at the oversized toilet cleverly disguised as a kiddy pool. Because we live in the Pacific Northwest, we slathered ourselves with plenty of sunscreen. The white sunscreen made our pasty white skin look dark. Or something like that.
Li’l Z got in the “pool” and I sat on the edge and watched her splashing around. The swimming lessons were well worth the money. Ahem.
Then the geyser went off. For reasons which escape me and which prevent me from ever revealing my true identity, I was excited to see it go off. Like it was real. Which it’s not. No one else in my family was even remotely intrigued. My wife was annoyed because the spray from the geyser was schpritizing her hair. She actually got up and moved. Ironically, if we were at Yellowstone, I wouldn’t hike 100 feet to see the geyser. I’d spout of some ZZUBism, “It’s water. Why would we walk to see water? We have water at home.” But at Disney World I’m all like, “oooooh it’s a geyser!”
Disney ZZUB scares real world ZZUB.
Here are some pictures of the geyser. Yes. I took pictures.
After that hootenanny, I decided it was time to check out the slide. Yes, I’m a grown man, late 30’s, professional. Man of some accomplishment and standing in my community. And I get totally giddy about going down a waterslide.
There’s another reason you will only ever know me as ZZUB.
Which, by the way, is in fact Buzz spelled backwards.
Buzz Lightyear is my favorite Disney character.
The fact that I have a favorite Disney character is yet another reason . . . oh never mind.
We didn’t know whether the Waterslide Olympics were going to take place during this trip, but if they did, it was important to get some trial runs in. I had to be prepared to best my competitors. They’re teenagers you understand.
To get to the slide, I walked across the pool. To my fellow Lodge guests, you probably know what I’m talking about. To those of you less fortunate, there’s a section of the pool where the “stream” flows into the pool over some rocks. There is a, let’s call it a ledge, at the edge of the rocks which separates it from the pool proper. The ledge is under about 3” of water. You can walk across it to get from one side of the pool to the slide area.
You can see what I'm failing to describe in this picture
So across the water I walked. I climbed the steps through the rocks up to the top where I was met by several pre-teens. They were clearly staging their own Waterslide Olympics and they were concerned that an adult had infiltrated the opening ceremonies. The kid who was about to get in the water said, “go ahead, Mister.”
“No, that’s alright. I don’t mind waiting my turn,” I said, wondering when the last time was I heard a kid call me “Mister.”
“No, you go,” he said somewhat insistently.
The next two kids in line also said, “Go ahead, sir.”
“Good enough,” I said. I was on to them. I was one of them.
The Lodge slide is amazing. It cuts through some rocks, and there might be a tunnel. I honestly don’t know. The whole thing moves remarkably fast. Like Mexican food. Plus there’s this really cool steam effect which disorients you. The next thing you know, you’re being spit out into the pool. It’s amazing.
I splashed down, and I got out of the pool and ran over to my wife and daughter to tell them about it. Imagine what this must have looked like. Some not-quite-middle-aged guy comes running up to the kiddy “pool” and he’s waving his arms all excitedly describing the slide to his clearly pregnant wife and under whelmed preschooler. My wife immediately recognized that I was not going to stop dripping water on her until they came and watched me go down it again. And again.
“C’mon sweetie,” she said to our daughter. “Let’s go watch Daddy go down the slide.”
That’s a sentence that could only be said in Disney World.
I made a few more runs down the slide and each time I was amused by how much fun it was. If the Games took place later in the week, I was prepared.
My daughter could not be talked into giving it a try herself and she was clearly unimpressed with my gold-medal like slide runs. So she headed back to the kiddy “pool” with Mommy in tow.
I headed back to the water ledge and hung out there in the water, balancing myself with my arms on the ledge. Letting the water run over them.
It was pretty darn relaxing.
For about a minute.
And then I was over run by three pre-teens. Not old enough to think Disney World is really lame, but too old to think spending the day with your parents is fun. Trapped between Buster Browns and Busta Rhymes.
Splash.
Two of them jumped over me into the pool.
Whistle!
“No jumping in the pool!” Lance Lifeguard came a running. Like Mercy.
As is usually the case in these situations, no parents were to be found. They disappeared. To where? What wonderful hiding place have they found? Do they have my socks? And emails I sent but were never received? The extra cream I asked for in my coffee?
Since jumping in was not allowed, the three decided to splash. Each other. Me. The rest of the universe. Pluto. Both the Disney character and the planet. Only it’s not a planet anymore. Doesn’t that rock your world a little?
In between the splashing and kicking, they were hurling 12 year old insults at each other.
Stupid.
Your mom’s stupid.
Fartmunch.
Your mom’s a fartmunch.
They weren’t my kids so I could laugh. It was my way of punishing their parents for leaving their kids to the good graces of total strangers. I encouraged their antics by laughing at them. Which amused me for a minute or two.
I figured I’d wait them out. The only people on this planet with a shorter attention span than me are 12 year olds. Surely they’d grow bored of my end of the pool. Or a parent would magically appear. Or the geyser would erupt.
But it was not to be. After ten minutes of wiping water out of my eyes, and wiping water out of my eyes, after facing the other direction, moving to the other side and wiping water out of my eyes, I grew tired of their little reindeer games. It had grown as old as the crust in . . .
Well, you get the picture.
______________
Click Here for Chapter Thirteen:
We walked out the front gates and fell forward onto the boat headed back to the Lodge. Yes. It’s that close. In fact, as you’re walking out the front gate of the Magic Kingdom, your next step is on the boat. It’s remarkably close. So close that a lot of people find themselves taking the boat back to the Lodge on accident.
At some point in the day, the boat route changes. In the morning it goes Fort Wilderness Campground, the Lodge, Magic Kingdom. Boats going back leave the MK and head to Fort Wilderness and then head to the Lodge. In the afternoon, it switches and boats leaving the MK go first to the Lodge, then Fort Wilderness.
Relevance? Just adding useful information for those people reading this who are thinking about staying at the Lodge. Which you should do. But not when we’re there. We don’t like crowds. Sorry.
After we stopped at Fort Wilderness, we headed back to the Lodge. Captain Trivia was telling me about the bear face and eyes on the back of the Lodge building. Here's a picture of the Lodge as you approach by boat. You decide whether you can see a bear face.
You have to want it.
I really didn't.
Just then, the geyser went off. I looked at my watch. 7 minutes after the hour. That’s right, the geyser that goes off “at the top of the hour” follows Disney time and goes off at 7 minutes after. I carefully noted this for later.
My little girl was laying down on a bench taking a li’l nap while I was snapping pictures. Thinking she’d want to see this too, I called her up to the front of the boat with me so she could see the geyser. She was less impressed than Rich Rodriguez.
And here’s something I never thought I’d say: although the ride back was a little long (not half as long as say the ride from Animal Kingdom to Typhoon Lagoon), I didn’t mind it so much. It was pleasant to have a spell. To sit. To not be moving at Disney pace.
Also: there are NO gift shops or commercials on board.
Yet.
Once we got back to the Lodge, we hopped off the boat and headed up the boardwalk, into the building, up the long ramp past Roaring Fork (not plural), past the DVC Dude, being careful not to make eye contact with him, over the bridge and into the lightening fast elevators.
Once upstairs, we found Mrs. Z dressed and ready.
And watching Stacey.
Which freaked me out.
Mrs. Z loves Disney. But she doesn’t LOVE Disney. If she’d never met me, she’d probably never go and not know she’s missing anything. She’d also have less stress and probably more disposable income, but let’s focus. As evidenced by the four Trip Reports I’ve written, I’m the Disney person in our family. Me and my daughter. My wife would just as soon go to Hawai’i. Which is why I recommend we stay at the Polynesian. Best of both worlds and all that.
And yet that makes our decision to stay at All Star Sports, All Star Sports, Caribbean Beach, All Star Sports, All Star Movies, All Star Sports, All Star Movies, PORiverside, All Star Movies, Old Key West, PORiverside and the Lodge hard to explain.
Harder to explain than Rich Rodriguez’s decision to shun Alabama.
Jerkstore.
In other words, normally my wife will tolerate the sound of Disney Resort TV but never really watches it. But that all changed this trip. Forced to “rest” she watched Stacey’s Top Seven and as it turns out, she learned a thing or two.
Evidently, Stacey actually imparts useful information. Who knew?
We gathered our gear and headed to Roaring Fork for lunch and then onto the pool. One of the reasons we liked PORiverside (and to a lesser extent the All Stars) was the food courts. Food courts say vacation to us. I don’t know why. Except I kind of do. And since you’re dumb enough to continue reading this, then you also must learn why we love food courts.
Not because we’re rednecks. Although we are.
But because we don’t normally eat at them. Our mall has one. But we don’t usually eat in it. Food Courts are like buffets. Except they’re not all you can eat. And someone else serves you the food. And they don’t have carving stations. Mostly. But there’s a lot of variety. Which is the only way it’s like a buffet. In fact, a food court has more in common with Jimmy Buffet than a buffet.
Sorry. I got distracted by a thing.
Since we only really eat in food courts at Disney World, it’s a Disney Thing for us. In other words, we’ll eat in the food court on our next trip because we ate in one on our last trip. It has more to do with nostalgia than economy.
There. I’ve said it.
Staying at Wilderness Lodge worried me in this regard. Roaring Fork wasn’t actually a food court. More of a snack bar. With free refills. And pricey desserts. I looked at the menu on Allearsnet and read a few Trip Reports where people described their meals there and I’m not going to lie to you. I was worried.
My daughter and I had already been in there a few times. I had scoped the place out and it smelled good. But how would it taste? Turns out it wasn’t bad. I had a cheeseburger and either I was really hungry or it was really good or a little of both. The fries were good too. We ate there a few times for lunch during our stay but at no time was it as good as the first time. Which means I was really hungry that day.
Later in our trip, I picked up breakfast, yes breakfast, from Roaring Fork. This has more to do with my need to use all of my free dining credits then with there being a shortage of Frosted Cherry Pop Tarts. May it never be. The breakfast food at Roaring Fork was pretty bad. Like seeing your name in orange. Or having your name used as a euphemism for vomit. Or going to Auburn.
Properly warned ye be.
Maybe deluxe folks don’t require or desire food courts. That might explain why no deluxe has one. But I’m telling you, I really missed the PORiverside food court. I missed the variety and the size of it. I missed the cheesteak the most. So much that we almost, almost drove over there for lunch one day.
So, from the Department of Pay it Forward: to the person reading this who will be staying at the Lodge and wondering about the food at Roaring Fork, I say this: like the Clinton Administration, once is enough. Be hungry when you go. It was ok for late night snacks but it will never beat the grab and go area in the All Star food courts. However, I understand they’ve pared down their offerings as well. Roaring Fork put on a decent lunch if you’re in the mood for a burger. They also had some ridiculous looking salads but you’re on vacation: have a calorie already. I would not plan on eating there a lot.
Anywho. After scarfing down our food, we headed out to the pool. A family of ducks would have greeted us but they were on their break. And we didn’t have any food.
We parked ourselves at the oversized toilet cleverly disguised as a kiddy pool. Because we live in the Pacific Northwest, we slathered ourselves with plenty of sunscreen. The white sunscreen made our pasty white skin look dark. Or something like that.
Li’l Z got in the “pool” and I sat on the edge and watched her splashing around. The swimming lessons were well worth the money. Ahem.
Then the geyser went off. For reasons which escape me and which prevent me from ever revealing my true identity, I was excited to see it go off. Like it was real. Which it’s not. No one else in my family was even remotely intrigued. My wife was annoyed because the spray from the geyser was schpritizing her hair. She actually got up and moved. Ironically, if we were at Yellowstone, I wouldn’t hike 100 feet to see the geyser. I’d spout of some ZZUBism, “It’s water. Why would we walk to see water? We have water at home.” But at Disney World I’m all like, “oooooh it’s a geyser!”
Disney ZZUB scares real world ZZUB.
Here are some pictures of the geyser. Yes. I took pictures.
After that hootenanny, I decided it was time to check out the slide. Yes, I’m a grown man, late 30’s, professional. Man of some accomplishment and standing in my community. And I get totally giddy about going down a waterslide.
There’s another reason you will only ever know me as ZZUB.
Which, by the way, is in fact Buzz spelled backwards.
Buzz Lightyear is my favorite Disney character.
The fact that I have a favorite Disney character is yet another reason . . . oh never mind.
We didn’t know whether the Waterslide Olympics were going to take place during this trip, but if they did, it was important to get some trial runs in. I had to be prepared to best my competitors. They’re teenagers you understand.
To get to the slide, I walked across the pool. To my fellow Lodge guests, you probably know what I’m talking about. To those of you less fortunate, there’s a section of the pool where the “stream” flows into the pool over some rocks. There is a, let’s call it a ledge, at the edge of the rocks which separates it from the pool proper. The ledge is under about 3” of water. You can walk across it to get from one side of the pool to the slide area.
You can see what I'm failing to describe in this picture
So across the water I walked. I climbed the steps through the rocks up to the top where I was met by several pre-teens. They were clearly staging their own Waterslide Olympics and they were concerned that an adult had infiltrated the opening ceremonies. The kid who was about to get in the water said, “go ahead, Mister.”
“No, that’s alright. I don’t mind waiting my turn,” I said, wondering when the last time was I heard a kid call me “Mister.”
“No, you go,” he said somewhat insistently.
The next two kids in line also said, “Go ahead, sir.”
“Good enough,” I said. I was on to them. I was one of them.
The Lodge slide is amazing. It cuts through some rocks, and there might be a tunnel. I honestly don’t know. The whole thing moves remarkably fast. Like Mexican food. Plus there’s this really cool steam effect which disorients you. The next thing you know, you’re being spit out into the pool. It’s amazing.
I splashed down, and I got out of the pool and ran over to my wife and daughter to tell them about it. Imagine what this must have looked like. Some not-quite-middle-aged guy comes running up to the kiddy “pool” and he’s waving his arms all excitedly describing the slide to his clearly pregnant wife and under whelmed preschooler. My wife immediately recognized that I was not going to stop dripping water on her until they came and watched me go down it again. And again.
“C’mon sweetie,” she said to our daughter. “Let’s go watch Daddy go down the slide.”
That’s a sentence that could only be said in Disney World.
I made a few more runs down the slide and each time I was amused by how much fun it was. If the Games took place later in the week, I was prepared.
My daughter could not be talked into giving it a try herself and she was clearly unimpressed with my gold-medal like slide runs. So she headed back to the kiddy “pool” with Mommy in tow.
I headed back to the water ledge and hung out there in the water, balancing myself with my arms on the ledge. Letting the water run over them.
It was pretty darn relaxing.
For about a minute.
And then I was over run by three pre-teens. Not old enough to think Disney World is really lame, but too old to think spending the day with your parents is fun. Trapped between Buster Browns and Busta Rhymes.
Splash.
Two of them jumped over me into the pool.
Whistle!
“No jumping in the pool!” Lance Lifeguard came a running. Like Mercy.
As is usually the case in these situations, no parents were to be found. They disappeared. To where? What wonderful hiding place have they found? Do they have my socks? And emails I sent but were never received? The extra cream I asked for in my coffee?
Since jumping in was not allowed, the three decided to splash. Each other. Me. The rest of the universe. Pluto. Both the Disney character and the planet. Only it’s not a planet anymore. Doesn’t that rock your world a little?
In between the splashing and kicking, they were hurling 12 year old insults at each other.
Stupid.
Your mom’s stupid.
Fartmunch.
Your mom’s a fartmunch.
They weren’t my kids so I could laugh. It was my way of punishing their parents for leaving their kids to the good graces of total strangers. I encouraged their antics by laughing at them. Which amused me for a minute or two.
I figured I’d wait them out. The only people on this planet with a shorter attention span than me are 12 year olds. Surely they’d grow bored of my end of the pool. Or a parent would magically appear. Or the geyser would erupt.
But it was not to be. After ten minutes of wiping water out of my eyes, and wiping water out of my eyes, after facing the other direction, moving to the other side and wiping water out of my eyes, I grew tired of their little reindeer games. It had grown as old as the crust in . . .
Well, you get the picture.
______________
Click Here for Chapter Thirteen:
. But if you were a Disney character, you'd SO be Buzz Lightyear. I meant that in a good way.
