Disney HELL!!!!!!

“Well, my TT friends, my family and I are now preparing to go on the DisneyHell trip. We're packing up our van, and early tomorrow, we'll head off down to Orlando to the Happiest F'king Place On Earth.

I doubt if I will have Internet access while I'm there, but you never know. I'll miss all of you and our repartee on Trail Talk.

Watch for headlines with an Orlando, Florida location.

See y'all in a week or so, assuming I survive. If not, stink up a Pizza Hut for me after your next hike.

Bye!”

“Bye Bit.....be safe and HAVE FUN!!!”

“Get the scoop on The Everest Expedition. It is under construction now, I just heard about it.”

“Best of luck. No kicking the big rats ass. Major party foul.”

“goin' to Disneyland tonight. we'll light a candle at the Altar of Mickey for you.”

“

Into the valley of Death 

             Rode the six hundred.

Don't step on the cricket and watch out for the midgets....”

“Though ye walk through the corporate shadow of the valley of Walt, ye shall fear no Goofy, for the trail talk is with you.”

“Is it true that Minnie Mouse is _______ Goofy?”

“Mr. Mouse, let me see if I understand you correctly. You say you wish to divorce your wife because she is insane???”

“Make sure you do a timeshare tour
for the disney tickets. Maybe you can get them to throw in dinner, also. lol. There are about 10 time share resorts if you do all the tours you can realy get the tickets. Have fun.”

“Our family thought MGM Studios was pretty good.

Go with a good attitude and you should have fun.”

“Well I live here. I actually havn't been to Disney is years. With a seventeen month old our Sea World passes are a lot of fun. I'm going this afternoon for my free Amberbock and to show Little Coop the fishes, sharks, dolphins, seals and, of course, whales.

Disney will come when she's older.

A little secret. There is a cute little FREE petting zoo deep in the bowels of Fort Wilderness. It is a nice getaway, and a chance to show little ones some animals close up.”

“Coop, I know of that petting zoo! It is pretty cool. I spend most of my Thanksgivings at Ft. Wilderness. :-)”

“Hey I was just in Disney Hell myself. Not All that Bad, Animal Kingdom was sort of cool, Sea world was fun got to feed a dolphin.
Went to a small park called Gatorland outside of Orlando. That was the most fun got to sit on a live Alligator.”

“Details later when I have more time to post a true trip report.

However, of course, a few shorts notes:

1) Anyone who takes a child younger than the age of 5 to Disney World is CERTIFIABLY INSANE AND SHOULD BE TAKEN AWAY TO A FUNNY FARM! You have to pay $40 to get a THREE YEAR OLD into the place and THEY WILL NOT REMEMBER A DAMN THING.

2) Five days is both too long and too short of a time to spend at DisneyWorld. At the end of the fifth day, when we were leaving on the tram, my daughter got a little sad that we wouldn't be coming back the next day (even though she also was dead on her feet). I told her "Sweetie, if we came back again tomorrow, Daddy would probably die." This was amusing to the other parents on the tram.

3) Epcot sucks. We went on a day when they were closing it early because the mucky-mucks were there to open the new Space ride they have just finished. 6 hours was plenty of time to do what little there was that was worthwhile at Epcot. More on that later.

4) MGM Studios is okay. They have the best coaster ride of any of the parks there.

5) October is a good time to go. The crowds aren't overwhelming, and it's not all that hot, really. The only drawback is that many of the rides are down for maintenance at that time.

That's enough for now. I have to go put my kids to sleep bed...”

“Glad you had fun, bit!

Wait... or did you? :-)”

“Next time come in Feb and slip off to the TT Ocala hike.

Sweetie, just ride "It's a Small World" until daddy comes back.”

“"It's a Small World" is the Ninth Circle Of Hell.

Here's something funny that happened while my brother and I were watching the Cubs game one night (Go Cubs!)

There was some local news involving a woman who had somehow driven her car off a road in the Greater Orlando area. The car flipped over and landed in a bog, and sank to the point of her having a six-inch gap between the floorboard of her inverted car and the level of the bog water. She also managed to do this at about 8:00PM, which is well after dark in Orlando at this time of year, so she wasn't discovered until 7:00AM the next morning, and of course it took a couple of hours for the fire and rescue people to haul the car out of the bog and rescue her. The good news is she lived.

Okay, enough story set up.

So this is the big story in Orlando that day. My bro and I are watching the Cubs-Marlins game on the local Fox affiliate, and during a break, they're running the current "I'm lovin' it" McDonald's commercial. You know, the one with the funky rap beat and lots of teenagers doing stupid stuff. Anyway, in the middle of the commercial, some poor sap at the TV station manages to put a graphic showing the location of the accident (with the heading "WOMAN TRAPPED") to air, while still playing the audio of the McDonald's commercial (I'm lovin' it), thus giving the impression that someone down at channel 35 was extremely pleased by this woman spending 13 hours trapped in her partially-submerged car.

This was very funny to the both of us, and we had a good time with it for a couple of days.”

“IMHO, EPCOT is not for little kids. Teen-agers and above can enjoy it. Weather is a factor. I have only been there in August when it was sweltering. Employees, parents, and kids alike are not always in their best moods.

MGM rocks. The Indiana Jones Show is awesome.

I am a Disney fan, but surprisingly, Busch Gardens Tampa is one of the best theme parks I have ever been to. Great rides (two of the best coasters in the world), LOTS of kid stuff, and good food at reasonable prices (for a theme park).”

“Epcot was my favorite park when I was in Orlando back in 98 (and I was only 17 at the time).”

“Yes, this is bitpusher.

Last Saturday, we hopped in the car good and early and headed to Orlando. The trip was uneventful, although I have been concerned for some time about the transmission on our van. The early Windstars are apparently notorious for tranny problems, and it's been shifting hard lately. We made it down with no difficulty, however, and I even got my wife to do most of the driving.

As many of you are aware, my wife and sister-in-law have been planning this trip for the better part of a year, trying to find the most economical way to see the Mouse. To this end, we stayed at a Quality Suites in Kissimee, FL, only a few miles from the park. It was an okay hotel, with a free Continental breakfast, pool, hot tub, pool bar with happy hour, etc. The rooms are all two-bedroom suites, with living room, kitchenette and two bathrooms as well. This setup worked out really well. My brother brought his Nintendo setup, and hooked it up to the TV in his bedroom for the kids to play with during downtime. We had brought our 9" AC/DC TV/VCR combo, of course, so the kids could watch videos during the driving, and I brought this in and set it up in our bedroom so the kids could watch videos in the room as well. Having plenty of diversions for the children is a must in this situation.

My family arrived at the hotel first, and my brother and his family arrived a little later. It was fairly late, so we turned in a little early so we could get a good start the next morning.

On Day 2, I believe that I got up first, followed soon after by the kids. We spent most of the day just fooling around, but did eventually go have lunch at a local seafood place, Crabby Bill's, which was excellent, then we went to the grocery store and got the food items we would need for the week. This took awhile. In retrospect, it would have been much better to have taken the kids back to the hotel and let them play, rather than try and corral them in the store (a Super Wal-Mart), but that's what happens when we let my sister-in-law make the decisions.

That evening, we watched the Cubs polish off the Braves, and went to bed to prepare for the next day.

Next part, Animal Kingdom!”

“. . . that's the way I like to describe going to a Disney attraction. Glad to see you survived. Here in So Cal their California Adventure park just seems like one continuous chain of cosponored, branded attractions whose main purpose is to sell you more and more overpriced souveniers.

Now go out for a real vacation; a hike in your local hills.”

“Yah, most of the newer attractions empty out into a souvenir shop that sells stuff associated with the ride, or sometimes pictures of you on the ride.”

“Hi Bit, glad to see you made it back safely.”

“Thanks MDS. Everything worked out great, but I think my van's tranny definitely needs some work now.”

“When you go to Epcot, you have to go to dinner at the Morrocan place with the Belly Dancers.”

“little italy has the best fettucine alfredo and fried calamari in epcot”

“The Cape May Cafe (I think that's the name) has a great seafood buffet, too.”

“i am in love with seafood”

“top dawg - I agree that Disney California Adventure appears to be mostly selling food and merchandise. All the attractions are well hidden. Now that we have been there many times, we have discovered the fun stuff and really enjoy it.

I am surprised Disney has never really helped people appreciate it. Closing 2 hours before Disneyland doesn't help.

Re: EPCOT - We have eaten at the Chinese, Italian, Morrocan, and Canadian restaurants (and snacked at many of the bakery type shops). We thought the Chinese restaurant was excellent. The Italian restaurant was good, but I always struggle paying so much money for pasta, cheese, and tomato sauce.”

“bitpusher........you were missed this weekend......”

“Phil; Glad you've been able to find the trick to enjoying California Adventure. I just wish they'd get back to what they had at Disneyland in the past; you could bypass the merchandise on Main Street and go right to the attractions. When your day was ending, you had enjoyed the attractions so much that you wanted to by a souvenier as you were leaving. Too bad they've gotten so business oriented that the $$$ come first, the product second.”

“we LOVED disney....


glad you did too bitpusher!

heh heh”

“Monday I got up first again, but this time I managed to corral my family and get them down to breakfast. Now, breakfast is always an interesting time, as neither my son nor my wife are big eaters right when they get up. They both prefer to eat a little later in the morning. So all my wife would eat was toast, and my son would barely eat anything at all. The fact that we were all excited by the prospect of going to the HFPOE didn't help matters any.

Since Animal Kingdom only runs from 9 to 5, we decided to drive my brother's van there, because otherwise, we'd be having to do some strange things to ride the hotel shuttle. We ended up driving everyday. The 7$ you pay is well worth being able to come back to your own vehicle and leave when you want to.

We got to Animal Kingdom just about as it opened, had our bags searched, went through the ticket readers, and bang! we were there!

Animal Kingdom is pretty cool. There are lots of animals there, of course. AK is divided into several sections centered around a gigantic fake tree, in its own section called Discovery Island. The other sections are The Oasis, Africa, Asia, Rafiki's Planet Watch, DinoLand USA, and Camp Minnie-Mickey. We didn't even make it into Rafiki's Planet Watch, Camp Minnie-Mickey, or much of Asia. If I had to do this trip over again, I'd have gone back to AK a second day and picked up what we missed there.

The first thing we did was the "It's Tough To Be A Bug" show, on Discovery Island. This is a pretty cool 3-D movie, with stimulation for all five senses. No kidding. Unfortunately, it's a little scary for small kids, and my son was really scared towards the middle. I think it was the last time he was scared all week though. After that, we went and actually stood in line for the Kilimanjaro Safari in Africa for 45 minutes. We hadn't quite figured out the FastPass thing yet at this point. This safari was pretty cool, and I burned most of a roll of film taking pics of the animals during it. My wife was a little unimpressed, but mostly I think because the big cats, which are her favorites, were sleeping in the hot Florida sun, instead of out stalking game or whatever.

After the safari, I believe we had lunch, then went over to DinoLand USA. We had figured out the FastPass stuff at this point, and we got fastpasses for the DINOSAUR! ride, then let the kids play at the Boneyard (a large, dinosaur-themed playground) until it was time for that ride. We also rode the Primeval Whirl a couple of times, which is a nice coaster for kids. My daughter loved it and had me go again on it with her. My wife didn't ride any of the coaster rides at all, because she was afraid they would trigger a migraine, and that would effectively end the vacation for her.

After playing at the Boneyard, we herded the kids over to the DINOSAUR! ride. This is a new, fairly high-tech ride, in which they send you back in time to view some dinosaurs in their natural habitat. Part of the setup, however, is that one of the researchers on the project wants to bring an iguanodon back to the present, using you as bait. The ride is part adventure, part coaster, and is pretty cool. It was on this ride that I managed to lose the FRS radio off my belt. I didn't realize it until I got back to the hotel that evening.

After DINOSAUR! we got fastpasses for the Tarzan Rocks! show, then let the kids play at the Boneyard some more.

The Tarzan Rocks! show is a rock-and-roll-with-acrobatics retelling of the Tarzan story, Disney version. It's okay. I liked the acrobatics more than the music. It was a little loud for my wife, who had her fingers in her ears for most of the show. Again, loud sounds and music can be a migraine trigger for my wife, but luckily, she never got one.

After Tarzan Rocks! we left the park and went back to our hotel room, fixed dinner, watched some baseball, and went to bed to prepare for the next day.”

“I think the most I have ever missed the trail was while I was at DW.”

“Look at it this way, Bit, you dood it. Ya hafta doo it and now it's dood. When your daughter gets older and asks to go to Disney you'll be able to say that your took her once and she didn't like it. We older people have been through it and I guess it's your turn now.”

“There's a CANADIAN (whatever that is) restaurant in Disney, California? Go figure.

On the other hand, we have Californian restaurants up here. Do you people REALLY eat flowers? I guess you don't have any poison ivy down there. LOL.”

“I once ate a vase of chrysanthemums in a restaurant in Nashville...”

“There's a Canadian restaurant in the Canada section at Disney World, too, as well as a bandstand.

When my brother and I were leaving the "countries of the world" section of Epcot, I heard a band butchering Rush's "Tom Sawyer" from the direction of the Canadian stage.

I swear, I heard someone playing a set of bagpipes in that band. Ugh.”

“my .02

Epcot is more for adults, it's like the Discovery Channel... and they sell beer from all over the world!

MGM's Islands of Adventure is an awesomely themed amusement park. You can see why it was so expensive to build. May not be as suitable for young ones (a lot of rollercoasters), but they did have a well themed Dr. Suess area...

If you take some time to plan a trip to Orlando can be surprisingly inexpensive. I may have stayed at the same hotel as bit, free breakfast every morning, free appetizers every night.

TGIF's are on EVERY corner, they run extensive happy hours. Domestic drafts (including Yuengling) were .99, appetizers were half priced too.

The average service worker in Orlando is %200 friendlier and more helpful than their California counterparts.”

“Thanks for the trip report we’re doing this Disney thing next month.”

“LOL bit”

“Renamed DismalWorld”

“Good one Geo.... think of that one yourself?”