Two months prior to this trip to Disney World. It’s high summer, and I’m returning from a trip to visit my New York friends. I’m on a Greyhound, and night has come down, and with it, a little melancholy. I’m halfway between my Empire State buddies and my home, and things rarely seem as lonely as when you’re traveling alone and your tethers are so far away.
Then, in the dark of the bus, my phone buzzes against my leg. And there’s Joe, glowing in the dark.
“You know what I’d really like to do on our upcoming trip?” he texts. Smiling, I text back that I’m not entirely sure. “I’d love to go to Sanaa for my birthday.”
Before responding, I tap my app for Disney Dining. Within three minutes, I’ve secured a table for four on October 2nd, Joe’s birthday. “Got you a table, good buddy,” I text into the light.
“Thank you much.” We fall silent, but it’s okay. Suddenly the dark doesn’t feel so lonely.
* * *
Sanaa is a restaurant tucked onto the ground floor of the Animal Kingdom Lodge, a deluxe resort that offers rooms with “Savannah View,” meaning that you can look out across the grounds and see giraffes just, like, grazing. The place is beautiful, all golds and reds and browns, simmering earth tones that calm me and thrill me in equal measure. The place is done up like an African wildlife reserve lodge – I’m told it’s all done in the Kraal African village design, but I know little to nothing about real Africa or design – but it towers, six stories up and beyond impressive. “Sanaa” means “work of art” in Swahili, and I think the term applies to the whole resort.
Joe and I had first (and last) been here for a somewhat raucous dinner with my friends Lee and Doug and Tom and Tom’s mum. We’d marveled over the bread service: four different kinds of bread and eight kinds of sauce, which we’d shared around, discussing what we liked, what we didn’t, and why. It had been like a miniature version of the Food and Wine festival, only we got to rest our feet and double-dip. What made the whole thing boisterous were all the birthday celebrations all around us, in which three of the serving people walked up to a table and played bongos and sang “Happy birthday (to ya); HAAAPY birthday (to ya)!” Seriously, they’d gone to four other tables before Lee got the bright idea that we should tell them it was Doug’s birthday, too (which it most certainly was not), and they came over and Doug protested vehemently and Lee lost his shit and we all howled.
Not so this time. The server sat us in a darker area of the restaurant, perfect for a sedate, relaxed meal. The four of us – Joe, Paul, Marty, and me – settled into our seats and ordered the bread service and our meals. I looked at each of them, all wearing a contented smile, and I took just a minute to marvel that the four of us – from Atlanta, from San Diego, from Jersey City, from Boston – were all here, around one table, in an Orlando restaurant that looked and felt like Africa. I think it’s amazing when four people have interests similar enough that they can enjoy the same place at the same time. I think it’s remarkable that they can find kinship with each other, that beyond our shared interest there are people there, who like each other easily enough to spend time with. Good time. Important time.
Inside our work of art, we quite literally broke bread and shared food. After our plates had been set down, I raised a glass. “To Joe,” I said, and Marty and Paul also raised theirs. “One of the best friends I’ve ever had, and one of the best people I’ve ever known. Happy birthday, Joe.”
He smiled his inscrutable Mona Lisa smile, always open to interpretation, but then the bongos came and sang us home. It wasn’t quite as boisterous as the time before, but you know? When it’s Disney World, and you’ve been pushing yourself almost nonstop for three days, and it’s hot and muggy and occasionally overwhelming? Sometimes quiet is better.
* * *
Paul thinks I have my sequencing wrong, which is the challenge of writing trip reports two months after the trip. Remember during my last trip reports, I promised to get these out super quick? Boy howdy, did I lie. What the hell, though, I had deadlines. Next year: photo essays. All photo essays. Oh, except for my midsummer Disneyland trip. For reasons I will reveal then.
Anyway, the way I remember it, after Sanaa, the four of us headed out to Hollywood Studios, which I will illustrate for you with this swell map:
We … okay, look, I don’t remember what we did. I’m pretty sure we did the Rock N Rollercoaster, which I did indeed hear someone calling the Rock and Roll Rollercoaster. Handily, I had my portable trebuchet on me. They won’t be fucking up portmanteaus anymore.
Just as Big Thunder Mountain is better at night, so is the entirety of Hollywood Studios. The whole thing is meant to represent an idealized Hollywood of the late 1930s and the early 1940s, what with its art deco and California Crazy landmarks, where there are buildings made up to look like other stuff (for example, one of the Brown Derby restaurants in actual real-life California was actually in the shape of a brown deby; in one of my many childhood hometowns, there was a diner that looked like a milk bottle. I’m not sure why, as it wasn’t a dairy place. I think it sold burgers. None of which explains the building in the Echo Lake section of the Studios that looks like the early cartoon character Gertie the Dinosaur. They serve ice cream in there. In Gertie’s belly. Think about that next time you have some delicious soft-serve at Disney World. Pardon me, I’m addicted to parenthetical run-ons.)
The reason why the Studios is better at night isn’t so much the architecture as it is the neon covering the architecture. Magic Kingdom has lamplight on its Main Street and Epcot has futuristic LED lighting and Animal Kingdom has this sedate, mostly hidden light so that the park continues to look wild. But the Studios has all this neon, and popcorn lights, and when you step inside at night, it really is like stepping into a dream of old Hollywood.
One thing I know we did that brightly lit night was the Tower of Terror, because if we hadn’t, how could this brilliant slice of awesome have happened:
Later, we…
You know what? Instead of relying on my increasingly unreliable memories of that evening (did I get a shake at the Prime Time? I think we did Star Tours), why not instead take on the next day, for which I have pictures and thus an antidote to my Memento/Quantum Leap memory. It’s easy to go from night to day in trip reports! You only need to mind the triple asterisks!
* * *
The three of us – I say three of us because Joe slept in again, having been utterly tuckered by the activity and lateness of the night before – got to the Studios just as the park was opening. Paul was wearing my Crocs because he’d left his actual shoes in Lee’s car the day before. There’s a whole involved story of how we ended up getting Paul’s shoes back, which felt a lot like a mini-game adjacent to the main quest in a very involved RPG. Suffice it to say that me having Mickey Crocs saved Christmas, so everyone who made fun of me for owning and liking them can totally suck it. Disney!
As instructed, we did not run up Hollywood Boulevard, the Studios’ main thoroughfare and analogue to Main Street USA. We walked. Briskly. Maybe we jogged a little. One of the important things to know about any trip to the Studios is that if you don’t get in line at Toy Story Midway Mania like first thing in the morning, you will probably die. Okay, maybe you won’t die. Unless someone you’re with has a portable trebuchet. But you will get trapped in one of those Disney lines that everyone who thinks you can just go on trips without planning gets caught in. (Brief editorial: seriously. Disney World is the size of San Francisco. It’s bigger than Boston. Why do people think they can just go down and “wing it”? These people inevitably come back complaining that they stood in line for hours on end, and that Disney only had burgers and hot dogs to eat. I know this one family whose daughter was a Disney expert, and she kept trying to get her family to understand how Touring Plans can save all this time, and to make Advanced Dining Reservations, and do all this pre-planning, and they laughed her off. Later, she told me that her family had a miserable time there, argued the whole time, and wanted to go home by day 2 because all they were doing was waiting in line. All I’m saying.)
Joe and Paul wait in line. With some guy.
Toy Story Midway Mania is the second most-popular attraction in all of Disney World (Soarin’ in Epcot is the first), and the thunder of people beating feet there first thing is a sight to behold. You slam up Hollywood, down the steps into the Animation Courtyard, then a hard left into Pixar Place. The throngs here are so overwhelming that just the four FastPass lines are each ten people deep. It’s a split-second decision: do FastPass and come back later in the day – a later that gets later with each consecutive second, as the FastPasses disappear with a rapidity that brings hotcakes metaphors to mind – or leap into line right now and get this thing ridden.
We got this thing ridden. Did I love it? I loved it. I always loved it. It does seem a little strange that a playful dark ride is so insanely in demand, but I never regret the early morning run, or the strategizing, or braving the crowds. For me, that’s all part of the game.
Duffy eats my head.
Joe joined us midmorning, and I’m going to say right now that this may have been my favorite part of the whole trip. I always tell myself that I’m going to calm down, relax, just go with the flow … but that never happens. Maybe I’m not built that way. I get there, I get hyper, and I stay hyper.
But that afternoon at Hollywood Studios? We marched down Sunset Boulevard and did Rock and Rollercoaster, of course. Shooting off at sixty miles an hour that early in the day never fails to make me scream in delight (by the end of that day, I was hoarse and my voice was constantly crackly). And we rode Tower of Terror like 80 times (note: twice). I think at one point, I showed Marty the floating penny trick, where when you’re poised at the tippy-top of the elevator shaft and the doors open and you see Hollywood Studios laid out thirteen stories below you, you hold a penny in the palm of your hand and have a hot makeout session with physics as you bullet back down. This trick has only worked once with me, by the way. Usually, physics goes a little too far and smacks me in the face with my pin lanyard. I promise you that’s not a metaphor.
"It's a metaphor."
Back at the Animation Courtyard, we took part in the Animation Academy, where Joe and Marty drew passable Piglets, Paul was without a pencil, and I sketched something that looked like Cthulu’s regurgitated lunch. Awhile back, I drew Bolt and gave him an earring. The Animation Academy instructor did not seem pleased. I didn’t show this new guy my Piglet travesty, for fear that his eyes would combust out of his head and he would weep dark tears forever and ever.
Paul with Brother Bear!
The best part of the day happened not at Star Tours, but in the gift shop afterward. Some quick observations about Star Tours: in the past, it was never my favorite ride. I don’t really love Star Wars as my nerd friends think I should, and its alternate name has always been The Flight Simulator That Makes Me Blow Chunks. It opened in 1987, and you’re supposed to be a space tourist person on board a Starspeeder with a droid pilot named Rex, who is of course inexperienced. Then, further of course, Something Terrible Happens and you’re caught in some big climactic battle like at the end of Blue Harvest or whatever. I really like Star Trek.
Last year, they did this massive overhaul of the ride. They made it smoother – with six ways for the Starspeeder to move, not just four – and they made it 3D, so that it’s more immersive an experience. When it comes to 3D in general, I’m on the fence, but adding it to something like this drastically changes the attraction. You’re involved now. The effects are better, too, so that it not only feels smoother, it looks smoother. The whole ride can be broken down into four distinct chunks: preflight, the first planet, a holographic message from a Star Wars person, and the second planet and finale. There are options for each of these parts, and the options are randomized, so that you will, in general, rarely get the exact same ride twice (though we, unfortunately, got the exact same ride twice in a row).
Two other things: one, C-3PO is now your pilot, a decision that (in my opinion) allows non-Star Wars fans to more easily connect wit the ride. When you start in with Sarlacc Pits and whether Greedo shot first, you’re traipsing on the edge of internal Wars mythology. C-3PO exists beyond Star Wars fandom. He’s just pop culture. The other thing: at the start of the ride, someone from your Starspeeder shows up on a little screen at the front of the cabin, and is declared the Rebel Spy (which gives more a coherent reason for us to be involved in space battles; above all other things, the actual storytelling in this version of Tours is better).
On our second trip through that morning, the screen lit up … and the Rebel Spy was Marty.
“Oh my God!” Paul shouted, giggling.
“We’re harboring a fugitive!” I laughed. I am pretty sure I never saw Marty smile so wide.
Except for now.
Joe, who had opted out of this trip through the cosmos, met us in the gift shop … and there we spent the next hour or so. There was a family getting themselves Star Wars-ified at a photo area as we came out of the exit, and at once we all agreed we had to do it. For various reasons, I don’t actually have the picture we got, but let me describe the tragic awesomeness. The shop had only, like one template for four people. The idea is that you become the characters, though clever photography and Photoshop wizardry. The picture they have is prequel Star Wars – already a little ridiculous – and that picture features Anakin Skywalker, Mace Windu, Obi-Wan Kenobi … and of course, Queen Amidala. Four guesses as to who got to be Amidala. Amidala with a hugely disturbing mustache.
I posed for a picture solo … but even though it was super cool, I couldn’t really afford it. I headed deeper into the shop, where Joe was pointing out that there was a Pete figure dressed up as Boba Fett. Two things I know about this scenario: Boba Fett is some sort of bounty hunter who was sad as a kid, and Pete rules my life. I snatched it up faster than you can say tauntaun.
Ah, but sneaky Paul was being all sorts of mischievous behind the scenes. As we headed out of Star Tours, he turned to Marty and handed him a brand new shirt. It says I Was the Rebel Spy. I thought Marty was going to burst in half. Then Paul looked at me and said, “Here you go. It suits you.”
Cautiously, I took the bag. This, friends and neighbors, was inside:
Star Tours is literally, physically, exciting.
ReplyDelete