ZZUB
Roll Tide, Mean It
- Joined
- May 9, 2003
- Messages
- 947
Chapter Six: Running to Stand Still
We didn’t always love Kona. In fact until two years ago, we didn’t bother going there at all. Which really has nothing to do with anything, but neither does network news and yet you still watch it. I’m not even sure we love Kona. As much as we love Tonga Toast. And by we, I mean me. My wife could take or leave the Toast, much in the same way Barack Obama can take or leave his audacious hope.
Whatever the heck that is.
Me? I’m like Hillary Clinton with Chinese campaign contributions. I’m hooked on the stuff.
There are two foods at Disney World that I crave. And Tonga Toast is one of them.
But I’ll tell you this. I can only eat it once during a visit and even then, I must have a side of pig on the side. Tonga Toast is so sweet. Like Marie Osmond, sweet. If I don’t have some salt to wash it down, I’ll go into a Diabetic coma and seize up on the floor. Except that I don’t have Diabetes, but I hear things.
After Buzz Lightyear, ZZUBY and I met up with my wife and the baby and we headed toward the front of the park. Once outside, we started to head to the Monorail platform and I was again surprised by how long and circuitous the route to get to the Resort Monorail platform. I could have walked to the Contemporary and hopped on there; it would have been closer. There are some things Disney does that make no sense. I won’t bore you with the full list here. But know that I could if I needed to.
Their operation of the Monorails makes no sense to me. To begin with, I’m not sure I understand why you have to walk all the way around the Seven Seas Lagoon to catch the Resorts Monorail. There is a shorter way, but it’s roped off. For that matter, I’ve never understood why the Resorts Monorail stops at the TTC. Since it stops everywhere on the Magic Kingdom line, maybe then it isn’t really a Resorts Monorail at all. It’s more like a Stops A Lot Monorail.
I read somewhere that Disney has something in the neighborhood of 15 Monorails. And yet, for reasons only Disney understands, on most days only about 4 or 5 of them seem to be running. On this particular day, there was only one Resorts Monorail. One.
For people who are paying north of three bills a night for the privilege of being on the Monorail line, you would think Disney would try to accommodate them. You could try to be more wrong, but you would not be successful.
As we began the Mini-Marathon to get up to the Resorts Monorail loading platform, a train pulled in. Then a voice announced that they were taking this Monorail out of service. Another train would be a long shortly. As we soon discovered, Disney has magically stretched the definition of “shortly” to mean 30 minutes.
I’m not an engineer or city planner. Although I’m mean with a car, I don’t have mass transportation skills. But time was, I thought Disney was advanced in its systems. They give the impression they know what they’re doing. Unlike Fred Thompson. Who looks mostly catatonic. Maybe his teenaged bride can cut his pills in half for him. In a battle between say, Disney and state/local government, I was inclined to believe that Disney was more proficient at what they did.
I no longer believe that.
I recently traveled through the Big D and I do mean Dallas. (I’ve had the Big D travel through me, but that’s really the subject of prior Trip Reports, isn’t it?) While connecting through DFW, I had to avail myself of the airports train system called, I believe, Skylink. Or somethinornuther. Skylink is remarkably proficient at loading, unloading and moving passengers around. On automated trains. Without the necessary “holds” because there’s a monorail in the station. I was stunned at how quick the entire process was. And the entire time I was riding, I kept comparing the experience in my mind with my recent Monorail experience. And Disney failed in the match up.
Maybe it’s true that Disney moves more people than DFW, although I highly doubt it. But even if it does, Disney surely does not move less people than Chicago. I was also recently in the Windy City and rode the “El” a few times. Although it was perhaps less clean than the Monorails, again, I found that the El was more efficient at transporting people in a timely fashion. I reckon it’s possible that DFW and the CRT have more money in their budgets than Disney World does. But I doubt it.
I’m inclined to believe Disney has learned that we’ll tolerate a good bit of inconvenience because we’re at Disney World. It’s undoubtedly cheaper to run fewer trains. And while guests might get stuck standing on a platform for 20 to 25 minutes, who cares? Few of us will actually complain. The majority of us will come back for more. And so they get away with it.
In this way, Disney is like big tobacco. Indeed, in many ways, Disney and Phillip Morris are indistinguishable.
So we stood on the platform, shaded but no less hot. Sweating. A mom with her two kids stood next to us chatting it up. Her family was at Chef Mickey’s and she was supposed to meet up with them. But on account of the delay, she was late. And afraid she’d miss the best part of the meal. I assured her that the characters would be back if she missed them. My wife suggested she call her husband and tell him to go ahead and order her drink for her. Which was smart. The mom pulled out her cell phone which looked like it was a mid-1990's Nokia. That’s not really relevant except I remember thinking, “wow, that’s an old looking phone.”
Another Monorail finally arrived and we herded in. When we stopped at the TTC, I looked over at the Express Monorail platform. There was a train in the station but they weren’t letting anyone on. Here, too they were taking a train out of service. The platform was packed. The ramp was packed all the way down to the bottom. People were in the sun. Roasting. They looked so miserable, I actually had empathy for them. Not schadenfreude, not “sucks to be them,” but genuine concern. Which surprised me. I don’t think of myself as that sensitive.
We were now late for our ADR, but I wasn’t really worried about it. Even though I love me some Tonga Toast and would sooner shout War Eagle than miss a chance to eat some, I knew we’d be able to get a table. Experience is a good teacher.
So was my 4th grade teacher. In 23 years of school, I never had a teacher as good as her. She was the first one to recognize that I had gifts beyond gluing other kids to their seats. She was funny and she was tough. Until my first year of law school when I suffered under the dictatorial reign of a Contracts professor drunk with the intoxicating power of a red ink pen, she was the strictest grader I ever had.
We arrived at the check in stand and discovered that although Kona was emptier than Michael Jackson’s bank account, we had to wait. For 10 minutes. So everyone peed. Then we were seated. It was about 11ish and my wife was thinking she would rather have lunch. I walked up to three cast members who were standing around. And although they clearly had time for both leaning and cleaning, they could not muster a pleasing attitude.
“My wife was thinking she’d like lunch. Can I get us a lunch menu?”
“We don’t serve lunch before noon, so . . . .” Although it was a declarative statement, Saucy Suze stated it as a question. Without end. Her “so” just sort of hung out there, floating in the air. Like a pungent odor that keeps assaulting your nostrils.
There were five other things she could have said to convey the same message. But I got the snark. Which made me glad that beginning in January, they’ll start working for their tips again.
I returned to our table and broke the “no-lunch for you” news to my wife. She was disappointed but not devastated. She has some experience with disappointment. She wakes up next to me seven days a week and thinks to herself, “I could have done better. If only I’d waited.”
The nice thing about going to Kona for a late breakfast when you’ve got nothing but open plans ahead: you can actually take some time and enjoy your meal. But it won’t be lunch. So . . . .
The Toast was excellent again, by the way.
After breakfast, we lingered over coffee and then walked through the Polynesian’s pathetic excuse for a gift shop. Then we meandered out to the Monorail platform where, oddly enough, a train pulled in.
We made our way back to the Lodge and coming in the door to our room we saw these:
For my money, I’d rather the maids spent their time cleaning than futzing with the towels. If they don’t have time to vacuum the floors, then they don’t have time to put stickers on towels. But that’s just me. I think maids should clean. I know, radical.
We were all pretty tired, so we laid down for naps. Even me. Which made me wonder who I am anymore. One minute I’m feeling sad for sweaty people stuck in the sun waiting on the Monorail, the next I’m taking a nap at Disney World.
I made a mental note to watch out for a runaway cart.
I pulled the bedspread back from the bed and both my wife and I spotted it.
There.
A stain. A big stain. Not of our own making.
I don’t know how we missed it the night before. But there it was. Staring at us. Mocking us. Peeing on us. If you will.
We immediately yanked the bedspread completely off and threw it down. A more thorough inspection of the sheets did not reveal any such grossitude. So we napped.
I slept for a solid 15 minutes and woke up ready to go. ZZUBY was asleep but the baby wasn’t. I put her in her stroller, grabbed my phone, and took her for a walk to help her go to sleep. ZZUBY was still pretty upset about her Coconut. Although we had been at Disney World for a day, she missed her Coconut. So I called Delta Airlines to see if they found it after we left Salt Lake. I got connected to several different people. None of them could help me. I continued my laps around the 4th floor of the Wilderness Lodge and tried to find someone at Delta Airlines who might be able to help me. I eventually got a person who said it hadn’t been turned in. He then gave me the number for Salt Lake’s lost and found. Except that the number he gave me was for some other office in Salt Lake. I lapped the 4th floor some more and eventually got someone in Salt Lake who ran through a catalogue of items which had been turned in. But Coconut wasn’t among them.
By now the baby was asleep.
I wheeled her down to the Merc to see if I could find something for ZZUBY. I looked around for a while and bought her a Mickey Mouse stuffed deal. I also bought the baby some little chubby, squishable plastic characters to suck on and play with. The noise of everyone shouting, “ZZUB!” when I walked back into the Merc didn’t wake the baby, so I walked her around and did more exploring.
I headed to the arcade and looked around. Then I felt old. But I marveled that you can use your Key to the World card to play video games now. That Disney. They can’t seem to find an efficient way to run the Monorails or the fakakta busses and their Central Reservations office is manned by people who know more about Fourth Meal than any of the resorts, but you can charge video games to your room! I headed over to the Villas building. That place is really cool. The lobby is very nice:
I walked around some more and then headed out by the pool. I wasn’t out there for very long because it was Monorail Platform hot. I moseyed back over to the Lodge and after awhile, headed back up to our room.
When I opened the door to our room, it appeared that everyone was still sleeping. Letting the door close behind me took care of that in a hurry.
“Oh, are you up?” I asked.
“We are now,” my wife said.
I gave ZZUBY the bad news about Coconut and helped her wash it down with her new Mickey Mouse. Then we readied ourselves for the pool and the Waterslide Olympics, being careful to step around the stained bedspread on the floor. No one wanted THAT to touch their feet.
We got our bathing suits on and packed our pool bag, grabbed our mug and various snacks, slathered ourselves in copious amounts of waterproof sunscreen and then, and only then, did we head towards to the pool.
I love going to the pool on vacation. I grew up with a pool and took for granted that I could go swimming whenever I wanted to. Growing up, we swam 9 months out of the year. Living where I do now, a pool is an indulgence that only those making 4 million dollars a year lay out the money for. Here, you can really only swim about 3 months out of the year. A pool in these parts is as useful as nipples on a man. Maybe less so.
Going to the pool is a Disney Thing. We have entire rituals and traditions built up around it. That’s right, throwing food and an empty mug in a Mickey Mouse bag is a tradition.
In our house, if you do something more than once, it’s a tradition.
I like the pool at the Lodge. It’s got a great slide and the way the pool is laid out is cool. The water, on the other hand, was lukewarm. Like too many ducks had peed in it. And perhaps they had. Who am I to judge?
We found a chair and dropped off our stuff and then headed to the slide. ZZUBY had taken swimming lessons all summer and she thought she might be ready to brave the slide. But she wanted a life vest. She can probably swim better than she thinks, but the pool is still somewhat intimidating to her. I went out to the boat and bike rental shack and got her a life vest for the week.
I knew from past trips that Disney’s lifeguards won’t let you ride down the slide holding onto your kids. They have to come down on their own. The pool she takes lessons at didn’t have a slide, so in order to “practice,” I’d have her jump in the pool into my arms. And every so often, I’d catch her in the water so she could get the sensation of coming off the slide into the water. She told me she was ready and we headed up to the top of the slide. I am 100 percent confident that if she did it once she’d love it. And I’m all about not letting fear conquer you. But fact is, standing at the top of the Wilderness Lodge slide, looking at it through the frightened eyes of my little five year old daughter, it looked intimidating. I told ZZUBY I’d go down first and Mommy would tell her when to go. I promised I would catch her at the bottom. Just like we practiced.
But ZZUB’s a multiple Gold Medal winner on the Waterslide. ZZUB grew up in the water. ZZUBY didn’t. And although she trained for this all summer, fact is, that slide freaked her out.
I went down, hit the pool and quickly turned around to wait for ZZUBY. The lifeguard chastised me to move farther back. I gave the impression of movement but stayed pretty much in the same spot so I could catch ZZUBY. I waited for awhile and after three other kids and a middle aged man with hulking man breasts came splashing down, I realized ZZUBY changed her mind. I moved over to the side as my wife was bringing ZZUBY and the baby down the stairs. ZZUBY was in tears.
“Daddy, I’m sorry. I just can’t go on the slide.”
I patted her foot and told her it was ok. She didn’t have to. She was brave for even trying. My wife said that she actually got in the water at the top but the tunnel at the beginning of the slide was too much for her.
I confess, I was sincerely disappointed. This was a tough one for me. I don’t abide quitters and I never want to do anything to feed fear but I also don’t want my kids to think my love is performance based. They should know we love them no matter what. And they don’t have to perform to any standard to earn love. So I swallowed my disappointment and let her know that I was proud of her for trying. I reminded her that I wouldn’t let her do something I thought was unsafe or would hurt her and I knew she’d love the slide if she went down. But it was ok if she wanted to wait and try it another time. And it was ok. I could wait another year to enter her into the Waterslide Olympics.
But this summer, we’re finding a pool at home with a slide for her to practice on.
See, experience is a good teacher.
She jumped into the pool and my wife and the baby got in and we splashed around for a bit on the slide side of the pool. Then we walked over to the river part. The part where the river runs into the pool over the rocks. ZZUBY thought that was pretty cool for a while but then she wanted to go splash in the kiddie pool so my wife took both girls over there.
I hung back for a bit.
For a few minutes.
I stretched my arms across the side of the pool and let the water run over my shoulders and felt the late-afternoon sun on my face. I hung onto the wall and sorted through the competing images and thoughts in my head. At first I chewed on whether to encourage ZZUBY to try the slide again or whether to let her decide when it was time. Then the thoughts in my head rushed past like the water falling over my shoulders. I thought about the day the baby was born. How scary wonderful that day was. Arriving at the Wilderness Lodge: another juxtaposition of anxiety and excitement. Then I was off into fully random thoughts. Our room. Tonga Toast. The week ahead. Alabama under Nick Saban. Dinner. Samuel. My new car. Whether ZZUBY would ride Test Track. When I let myself, my mind is awash in thoughts and images at once serious and silly, trying and trivial.
Not unlike this Trip Report.
Sure, there were pressing things to attend to. A schedule to keep. Rides to hit. There was also the matter of a stained bedspread which needed to be removed from our room. Maybe even from the building. But those things could wait for a little while longer.
As most things can.
_________
Click Here For Chapter Seven:
We didn’t always love Kona. In fact until two years ago, we didn’t bother going there at all. Which really has nothing to do with anything, but neither does network news and yet you still watch it. I’m not even sure we love Kona. As much as we love Tonga Toast. And by we, I mean me. My wife could take or leave the Toast, much in the same way Barack Obama can take or leave his audacious hope.
Whatever the heck that is.
Me? I’m like Hillary Clinton with Chinese campaign contributions. I’m hooked on the stuff.
There are two foods at Disney World that I crave. And Tonga Toast is one of them.
But I’ll tell you this. I can only eat it once during a visit and even then, I must have a side of pig on the side. Tonga Toast is so sweet. Like Marie Osmond, sweet. If I don’t have some salt to wash it down, I’ll go into a Diabetic coma and seize up on the floor. Except that I don’t have Diabetes, but I hear things.
After Buzz Lightyear, ZZUBY and I met up with my wife and the baby and we headed toward the front of the park. Once outside, we started to head to the Monorail platform and I was again surprised by how long and circuitous the route to get to the Resort Monorail platform. I could have walked to the Contemporary and hopped on there; it would have been closer. There are some things Disney does that make no sense. I won’t bore you with the full list here. But know that I could if I needed to.
Their operation of the Monorails makes no sense to me. To begin with, I’m not sure I understand why you have to walk all the way around the Seven Seas Lagoon to catch the Resorts Monorail. There is a shorter way, but it’s roped off. For that matter, I’ve never understood why the Resorts Monorail stops at the TTC. Since it stops everywhere on the Magic Kingdom line, maybe then it isn’t really a Resorts Monorail at all. It’s more like a Stops A Lot Monorail.
I read somewhere that Disney has something in the neighborhood of 15 Monorails. And yet, for reasons only Disney understands, on most days only about 4 or 5 of them seem to be running. On this particular day, there was only one Resorts Monorail. One.
For people who are paying north of three bills a night for the privilege of being on the Monorail line, you would think Disney would try to accommodate them. You could try to be more wrong, but you would not be successful.
As we began the Mini-Marathon to get up to the Resorts Monorail loading platform, a train pulled in. Then a voice announced that they were taking this Monorail out of service. Another train would be a long shortly. As we soon discovered, Disney has magically stretched the definition of “shortly” to mean 30 minutes.
I’m not an engineer or city planner. Although I’m mean with a car, I don’t have mass transportation skills. But time was, I thought Disney was advanced in its systems. They give the impression they know what they’re doing. Unlike Fred Thompson. Who looks mostly catatonic. Maybe his teenaged bride can cut his pills in half for him. In a battle between say, Disney and state/local government, I was inclined to believe that Disney was more proficient at what they did.
I no longer believe that.
I recently traveled through the Big D and I do mean Dallas. (I’ve had the Big D travel through me, but that’s really the subject of prior Trip Reports, isn’t it?) While connecting through DFW, I had to avail myself of the airports train system called, I believe, Skylink. Or somethinornuther. Skylink is remarkably proficient at loading, unloading and moving passengers around. On automated trains. Without the necessary “holds” because there’s a monorail in the station. I was stunned at how quick the entire process was. And the entire time I was riding, I kept comparing the experience in my mind with my recent Monorail experience. And Disney failed in the match up.
Maybe it’s true that Disney moves more people than DFW, although I highly doubt it. But even if it does, Disney surely does not move less people than Chicago. I was also recently in the Windy City and rode the “El” a few times. Although it was perhaps less clean than the Monorails, again, I found that the El was more efficient at transporting people in a timely fashion. I reckon it’s possible that DFW and the CRT have more money in their budgets than Disney World does. But I doubt it.
I’m inclined to believe Disney has learned that we’ll tolerate a good bit of inconvenience because we’re at Disney World. It’s undoubtedly cheaper to run fewer trains. And while guests might get stuck standing on a platform for 20 to 25 minutes, who cares? Few of us will actually complain. The majority of us will come back for more. And so they get away with it.
In this way, Disney is like big tobacco. Indeed, in many ways, Disney and Phillip Morris are indistinguishable.
So we stood on the platform, shaded but no less hot. Sweating. A mom with her two kids stood next to us chatting it up. Her family was at Chef Mickey’s and she was supposed to meet up with them. But on account of the delay, she was late. And afraid she’d miss the best part of the meal. I assured her that the characters would be back if she missed them. My wife suggested she call her husband and tell him to go ahead and order her drink for her. Which was smart. The mom pulled out her cell phone which looked like it was a mid-1990's Nokia. That’s not really relevant except I remember thinking, “wow, that’s an old looking phone.”
Another Monorail finally arrived and we herded in. When we stopped at the TTC, I looked over at the Express Monorail platform. There was a train in the station but they weren’t letting anyone on. Here, too they were taking a train out of service. The platform was packed. The ramp was packed all the way down to the bottom. People were in the sun. Roasting. They looked so miserable, I actually had empathy for them. Not schadenfreude, not “sucks to be them,” but genuine concern. Which surprised me. I don’t think of myself as that sensitive.
We were now late for our ADR, but I wasn’t really worried about it. Even though I love me some Tonga Toast and would sooner shout War Eagle than miss a chance to eat some, I knew we’d be able to get a table. Experience is a good teacher.
So was my 4th grade teacher. In 23 years of school, I never had a teacher as good as her. She was the first one to recognize that I had gifts beyond gluing other kids to their seats. She was funny and she was tough. Until my first year of law school when I suffered under the dictatorial reign of a Contracts professor drunk with the intoxicating power of a red ink pen, she was the strictest grader I ever had.
We arrived at the check in stand and discovered that although Kona was emptier than Michael Jackson’s bank account, we had to wait. For 10 minutes. So everyone peed. Then we were seated. It was about 11ish and my wife was thinking she would rather have lunch. I walked up to three cast members who were standing around. And although they clearly had time for both leaning and cleaning, they could not muster a pleasing attitude.
“My wife was thinking she’d like lunch. Can I get us a lunch menu?”
“We don’t serve lunch before noon, so . . . .” Although it was a declarative statement, Saucy Suze stated it as a question. Without end. Her “so” just sort of hung out there, floating in the air. Like a pungent odor that keeps assaulting your nostrils.
There were five other things she could have said to convey the same message. But I got the snark. Which made me glad that beginning in January, they’ll start working for their tips again.
I returned to our table and broke the “no-lunch for you” news to my wife. She was disappointed but not devastated. She has some experience with disappointment. She wakes up next to me seven days a week and thinks to herself, “I could have done better. If only I’d waited.”
The nice thing about going to Kona for a late breakfast when you’ve got nothing but open plans ahead: you can actually take some time and enjoy your meal. But it won’t be lunch. So . . . .
The Toast was excellent again, by the way.
After breakfast, we lingered over coffee and then walked through the Polynesian’s pathetic excuse for a gift shop. Then we meandered out to the Monorail platform where, oddly enough, a train pulled in.
We made our way back to the Lodge and coming in the door to our room we saw these:
For my money, I’d rather the maids spent their time cleaning than futzing with the towels. If they don’t have time to vacuum the floors, then they don’t have time to put stickers on towels. But that’s just me. I think maids should clean. I know, radical.
We were all pretty tired, so we laid down for naps. Even me. Which made me wonder who I am anymore. One minute I’m feeling sad for sweaty people stuck in the sun waiting on the Monorail, the next I’m taking a nap at Disney World.
I made a mental note to watch out for a runaway cart.
I pulled the bedspread back from the bed and both my wife and I spotted it.
There.
A stain. A big stain. Not of our own making.
I don’t know how we missed it the night before. But there it was. Staring at us. Mocking us. Peeing on us. If you will.
We immediately yanked the bedspread completely off and threw it down. A more thorough inspection of the sheets did not reveal any such grossitude. So we napped.
I slept for a solid 15 minutes and woke up ready to go. ZZUBY was asleep but the baby wasn’t. I put her in her stroller, grabbed my phone, and took her for a walk to help her go to sleep. ZZUBY was still pretty upset about her Coconut. Although we had been at Disney World for a day, she missed her Coconut. So I called Delta Airlines to see if they found it after we left Salt Lake. I got connected to several different people. None of them could help me. I continued my laps around the 4th floor of the Wilderness Lodge and tried to find someone at Delta Airlines who might be able to help me. I eventually got a person who said it hadn’t been turned in. He then gave me the number for Salt Lake’s lost and found. Except that the number he gave me was for some other office in Salt Lake. I lapped the 4th floor some more and eventually got someone in Salt Lake who ran through a catalogue of items which had been turned in. But Coconut wasn’t among them.
By now the baby was asleep.
I wheeled her down to the Merc to see if I could find something for ZZUBY. I looked around for a while and bought her a Mickey Mouse stuffed deal. I also bought the baby some little chubby, squishable plastic characters to suck on and play with. The noise of everyone shouting, “ZZUB!” when I walked back into the Merc didn’t wake the baby, so I walked her around and did more exploring.
I headed to the arcade and looked around. Then I felt old. But I marveled that you can use your Key to the World card to play video games now. That Disney. They can’t seem to find an efficient way to run the Monorails or the fakakta busses and their Central Reservations office is manned by people who know more about Fourth Meal than any of the resorts, but you can charge video games to your room! I headed over to the Villas building. That place is really cool. The lobby is very nice:
I walked around some more and then headed out by the pool. I wasn’t out there for very long because it was Monorail Platform hot. I moseyed back over to the Lodge and after awhile, headed back up to our room.
When I opened the door to our room, it appeared that everyone was still sleeping. Letting the door close behind me took care of that in a hurry.
“Oh, are you up?” I asked.
“We are now,” my wife said.
I gave ZZUBY the bad news about Coconut and helped her wash it down with her new Mickey Mouse. Then we readied ourselves for the pool and the Waterslide Olympics, being careful to step around the stained bedspread on the floor. No one wanted THAT to touch their feet.
We got our bathing suits on and packed our pool bag, grabbed our mug and various snacks, slathered ourselves in copious amounts of waterproof sunscreen and then, and only then, did we head towards to the pool.
I love going to the pool on vacation. I grew up with a pool and took for granted that I could go swimming whenever I wanted to. Growing up, we swam 9 months out of the year. Living where I do now, a pool is an indulgence that only those making 4 million dollars a year lay out the money for. Here, you can really only swim about 3 months out of the year. A pool in these parts is as useful as nipples on a man. Maybe less so.
Going to the pool is a Disney Thing. We have entire rituals and traditions built up around it. That’s right, throwing food and an empty mug in a Mickey Mouse bag is a tradition.
In our house, if you do something more than once, it’s a tradition.
I like the pool at the Lodge. It’s got a great slide and the way the pool is laid out is cool. The water, on the other hand, was lukewarm. Like too many ducks had peed in it. And perhaps they had. Who am I to judge?
We found a chair and dropped off our stuff and then headed to the slide. ZZUBY had taken swimming lessons all summer and she thought she might be ready to brave the slide. But she wanted a life vest. She can probably swim better than she thinks, but the pool is still somewhat intimidating to her. I went out to the boat and bike rental shack and got her a life vest for the week.
I knew from past trips that Disney’s lifeguards won’t let you ride down the slide holding onto your kids. They have to come down on their own. The pool she takes lessons at didn’t have a slide, so in order to “practice,” I’d have her jump in the pool into my arms. And every so often, I’d catch her in the water so she could get the sensation of coming off the slide into the water. She told me she was ready and we headed up to the top of the slide. I am 100 percent confident that if she did it once she’d love it. And I’m all about not letting fear conquer you. But fact is, standing at the top of the Wilderness Lodge slide, looking at it through the frightened eyes of my little five year old daughter, it looked intimidating. I told ZZUBY I’d go down first and Mommy would tell her when to go. I promised I would catch her at the bottom. Just like we practiced.
But ZZUB’s a multiple Gold Medal winner on the Waterslide. ZZUB grew up in the water. ZZUBY didn’t. And although she trained for this all summer, fact is, that slide freaked her out.
I went down, hit the pool and quickly turned around to wait for ZZUBY. The lifeguard chastised me to move farther back. I gave the impression of movement but stayed pretty much in the same spot so I could catch ZZUBY. I waited for awhile and after three other kids and a middle aged man with hulking man breasts came splashing down, I realized ZZUBY changed her mind. I moved over to the side as my wife was bringing ZZUBY and the baby down the stairs. ZZUBY was in tears.
“Daddy, I’m sorry. I just can’t go on the slide.”
I patted her foot and told her it was ok. She didn’t have to. She was brave for even trying. My wife said that she actually got in the water at the top but the tunnel at the beginning of the slide was too much for her.
I confess, I was sincerely disappointed. This was a tough one for me. I don’t abide quitters and I never want to do anything to feed fear but I also don’t want my kids to think my love is performance based. They should know we love them no matter what. And they don’t have to perform to any standard to earn love. So I swallowed my disappointment and let her know that I was proud of her for trying. I reminded her that I wouldn’t let her do something I thought was unsafe or would hurt her and I knew she’d love the slide if she went down. But it was ok if she wanted to wait and try it another time. And it was ok. I could wait another year to enter her into the Waterslide Olympics.
But this summer, we’re finding a pool at home with a slide for her to practice on.
See, experience is a good teacher.
She jumped into the pool and my wife and the baby got in and we splashed around for a bit on the slide side of the pool. Then we walked over to the river part. The part where the river runs into the pool over the rocks. ZZUBY thought that was pretty cool for a while but then she wanted to go splash in the kiddie pool so my wife took both girls over there.
I hung back for a bit.
For a few minutes.
I stretched my arms across the side of the pool and let the water run over my shoulders and felt the late-afternoon sun on my face. I hung onto the wall and sorted through the competing images and thoughts in my head. At first I chewed on whether to encourage ZZUBY to try the slide again or whether to let her decide when it was time. Then the thoughts in my head rushed past like the water falling over my shoulders. I thought about the day the baby was born. How scary wonderful that day was. Arriving at the Wilderness Lodge: another juxtaposition of anxiety and excitement. Then I was off into fully random thoughts. Our room. Tonga Toast. The week ahead. Alabama under Nick Saban. Dinner. Samuel. My new car. Whether ZZUBY would ride Test Track. When I let myself, my mind is awash in thoughts and images at once serious and silly, trying and trivial.
Not unlike this Trip Report.
Sure, there were pressing things to attend to. A schedule to keep. Rides to hit. There was also the matter of a stained bedspread which needed to be removed from our room. Maybe even from the building. But those things could wait for a little while longer.
As most things can.
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Click Here For Chapter Seven:
.
on the bedspread issue. 
for letting ZZUBY decide when she should go down the slide. 
I know Zzuby had to love the toothbrush holder b/c our DD6 did! (And yes, it now holds a place of honor on the bathroom sink 
.)
They probably won't get it really clean.
I remember less than a month ago telling my DD that if she wouldn't go down the slide that daddy wouldn't love her anymore. At the time, it seemed like the reasonable thing to do. 
