d24: Early Is the Watchword

Knock-knock-knock.

This is Doug at our hotel room door. It’s 5:03 AM and outside the world is pitchy dark; Doug, Betsy, and Tom await us in their park finery. There had been some question the night before as to whether we were going to get up in time. Joe likes sleeping in on vacation, and despite my rampant desire to always get there for park opening, I’d had to wake up at 4:00 yesterday morning so’s to catch my plane on time. Despite these possible detriments, we are (relatively) bright-eyed and bushy-tailed(ish) as we step out into the early-morning cool.

But whatever enthusiasm we’re eking out of pre-caffeinated stupor, Tom’s already got it in spades. He’s bounding from foot to foot, giggling, with a Joker smile plastered to his face. “I’m excited!” he proclaims, bustling with energy. Tom’s from England, and my explanation for right now is that he’s still on British time, where our 5:00 AM is his high tea or something and he’s all about crumpets. Right? I’m bad at time zones. And England.

The giddiness is infectious, however, and soon enough we’re parked and on the monorail, swooshing our way to the Magic Kingdom and into history. For those of you who aren’t up on why I’m on monorail earlier than I’m usually out of bed, let’s catch you up. On New Year’s Eve, Disney announced this promotion called One More Disney Day, inventing a marketing campaign around Leap Day and announcing that both Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World and Disneyland Park in California would be open for twenty-four hours: 6AM on February 29th to 6:00 AM on March 1st. Reaction was mixed, especially on fan sites where Everything’s The Worst. Some were cautiously optimistic, but most seemed mystified by the whole thing. The event was taking place mid-week, school was in, and most early prognostication was that the whole thing was destined to be either mildly attended or an abject failure.

As the monorail pulls into Magic Kingdom Station, we are immediately and forcibly aware that prognostication is a bunch of pucky.

Oh my gremlins.

It’s a little after 5:30 AM and the courtyard outside the gates to the Magic Kingdom is crammed with people. News media has descended upon the crowds like bemused vultures. Disney fan-sphere luminaries like Lou Mongello and the WDW Today guys (well, Mike Newell and Mike Scopa so far) wander about, as awestruck as we are. On a lighted dais just inside the entrance turnstiles, Mickey and Minnie Mouse wave to the crowd proudly in their sleepy-time pajamas. Mickey’s holding a Duffy bear. I suddenly want a Duffy bear.

Through the turnstiles, we immediately swarm around the Cast Member with free swag. Several young people before us have boxes overflowing with One More Disney Day buttons, yellow and festive and coveted. For some reason, almost everyone is all up on one fellow by the planter, while literally two steps away, another guy with a full box is being completely ignored. I exchange glances with Doug and Joe and sidle on over to Mr. Lonely Button Man and secure a couple each. This is not the last time we will witness (or fall victim to) the hive mind this glorious morning.

I got a HAT!

We are at once on our phones, trying to locate the rest of us. We find Kim and Lori and Shelly and Meghan. We find Scarlett and Jeff. We find the Perlmutters. Deep in the crowd, I spot the Panda and gave him a giant Pete-sized hug. Like the 40th Anniversary and, later, Reunion, this event has ceased being merely a homecoming and has elevated to a family gathering. Almost all of us are here. Paul, Marty, Kristen, Kelly, Erin, Steve, Neil, Colin, Lee, Robbie: where are you guys? I miss you.

Opening ceremonies begin ten minutes before park opening, and watching the Mayor of Main Street orate under dark canopy of pre-dawn is a distinct oddity. Even odder is Kim’s overwhelming crush on the Mayor, which she can’t explain but which she throws herself into with a fervor. Then the gates are open, and guests throng forth, crushing against each other through the two gateways onto Main Street. Most are headed for merch, what little there is. It’s strange, the way things play out: at turns, pundits on the Internet seemed to think Disney was overestimating the interest in this event, dismissing it as a silly marketing stunt. As the group of us charge with the rest of the sheep into the Emporium, it immediately becomes clear that Disney underestimated its fan base. There’s a silly commemorative T-shirt flying off the racks: it’s blue and says, “I took the leap and didn’t sleep / I pulled an all-nighter at The Magic Kingdom.” Silly, but fun. I pick up a large and hold it up to myself for a moment.

“Nah,” I tell Joe. “I mean, it’s okay, but I don’t really need one.”

Oh, how three minutes changes a man.

“Joe! Joe!” I’ve been from one side of the store to the other and several life truths are now apparent: getting this shirt is now the most important thing I will ever do in life, and if I end this day without getting one, I will quite likely fall victim to a sadness so deep that it manifests itself physically, until you’ll find me on the TTA at 3:30 AM, wasting away to nothing before you, my rampant desire and subsequent crushing disappointment registering only in my flickering, far-away eyes. “Holy balls I need that shirt.”

“What happened to it’s okay but you don’t really need one?”

“Hive mind!” Joe stared at me. “Look, just because I know it’s ridiculous doesn’t mean I’m not a willing victim.”

We scour the store. Kim acquires one. Meghan, too, and Tom and Lori and Doug and Betsy. Everyone who wants one has one but me. Oh my God, this was the iPad all over again. I’m a social pariah. I’m an outcast hiding devilishly amongst the in-crowd. I’m

“Hey, Kevin, this woman’s giving out larges.” I nearly tackle the Cast Member who emerges from the back room, arms laden with swag. Triumphantly, I hold the shirt high above my head, contemplating only momentarily the urge that gets people pumped when they win the right to buy something. I don’t contemplate long, though. I used to collect rare books. I’ve been in line at midnight to buy albums. This one time, I waited in line for seventeen hours to get a primo spot at a Springsteen concert. The urge makes no sense, but when it’s got its claws in you, it won’t let you go until you win or fail. I’d won. My adrenaline surges. My endorphins pop.

“Oh hey,” I remark. “That sure is a long line to buy shirts.”

Boy howdy, is it. It does to our morning what a long camping trip in the snow does to a seven-book fantasy series nearing its climactic finale. Made bold by inertia, Lori, Kim, and I glance out onto Main Street. One way. The other way. And then, shirts in hands, we amble across the street to the jeweler, whose store is empty and whose counter is magically approachable. After some checking, she informs us that, sadly, she can’t sell the shirts here … so we amble back to the Emporium and get ourselves into a different line. We’re a rambunctious bunch, but we’re honest.

FUN!

Finally free of the clutches of early-morning purchase frenzy, we head out toward the Hub. There, before us, is one of the most spectacular sights to which I have ever borne witness. Light has come to the world, filtered through low clouds and ground mist. Street lamps glow mutely, suggesting our path like benevolent will o’the wisps, their glass coverings limned in fairy-rings. The flags ahead of the forecourt are jaunty in daylight, red and blue and yellow; now, they seem more somber, signals of a change in the normal order of things. And rising above all this, the stately majesty of Cinderella Castle, fog swirling between its spires.

Joe and I get a picture in front of this magnificent sight, and then the whole group is here, crowding together in front of the Partners Statue. We’re a living multi-plane movie: us in the front, then the statue, then the Castle holding sway over all. We all make a pact to come back to this very spot the next morning and take a follow-up picture. It doesn’t quite happen, but that’s okay. That one picture makes me happy every single time I see it; that’s enough continuity for me.

From there, the park, and everything in it. Our first stop is Sleepy Hollow Refreshments, where we all gorge on waffles until we burst. More people joined our little cadre as others took off for regions unknown. This would happen throughout the day, our group morphing and mutating and coming back together, because companionship is delightfully elastic. Before the fog burns off, we need to get to the Haunted Mansion; if the fog in the Hub makes the Castle look even more Old World, the fog at Mansion lends an ominous air. We crowd into the stretching room –and literally everyone recites our Ghost Host’s spooky spiel: “Oh, I didn’t mean to frighten you … prematurely” is never more fun than when sixty people are saying it together.

Then Liberty Square, where Lori and I get into stocks and no one will visit the Hall of Presidents because no one “needs a nap just yet.” Ingrates.

In Fantasyland we ride “it’s a small world,” and then I almost get arrested because Kim’s persuasive.

“Aw, I wish I could see over the wall so I could see into the New Fantasyland construction,” I tell the group en masse.

“Oh, well what you need to do,” says Kim, “is get up on that little rock wall outside Winnie-the-Pooh and take pictures.”

“That sounds both unsafe and illegal.”

“DO IT.”

“Okay!”

I glance around, see some Cast Members manning the Winnie-the-Pooh exit, glance at Kim who is staring at me with an expression that clearly states if I don’t do this right now then I can’t possibly retain any dwindling respect she might have for me. I climb up.

“What do you see?”

“A crane!”

“Sir, please come down from there right now!”

“Yes, you’re right, absolutely!”

Kim looks at me. “Did you get a picture?”

“I got a picture of a crane!”

“You sure did.”

I sure did.

Then, Tomorrowland! Our friends Kirk and Shane are attempting the improbable: riding the TTA Peoplemover for 24 hours straight. Someone tells me they tried to get into Guinness for doing it, but Disney wasn’t having it. So now they’re just doing it. Over and over again. For 24 hours. I’m both impressed and terrified.

And awake!

We take a jaunt around Tomorrowland with Kirk and then beeline over to Space Mountain, where some folks are about to have their worlds flip-turned upside-down by British terror.

The inside of Space Mountain is cool and calm and pleasant, the Star Tunnel music at once dragging me away from the hustle of the morning and the roar of the crowds. Space Mountain is such an odd juxtaposition – it’s one of Disney World’s fastest and most intense rides, but the queue leading up to it is so sedate, everything awash in gentle blue light. It’s the calm before the space storm.

“I want to ride with Tom this time!” Lori proclaims as we near the front of the line. “I never have!”

“Dear God,” Tom says, because Tom says that a lot on Space Mountain. I get the privilege of riding behind Lori, which benefits everyone because Tom’s fear is for some reason my pinnacle of hilarity. We settle into our seats, Tom in front (“Dear God.”) and blast through the blue tunnel and up the first climb.

I’ve talked about Tom’s reaction to Space Mountain in the past, but there’s some stuff I’d forgotten. It was easy to remember the yips – those short, startled barks that explode out of Tom when the cars jump or turn suddenly. Oh, but how had I forgotten the screams? The high-octane blood-curdling screams that sounded like a kind young British chap being slaughtered in a low-budget slasher movie. Every time we plunge down in the dark, every time, Tom shrieks, to the delight and merriment of us all.

We ride again (and will ride still more), but soon we return to world of daylight and crowds. The fog has all burned away and one of the predictions has come true: during normal daytime hours, the Magic Kingdom has reverted to a normal day. The crowds are no bigger or smaller than any Wednesday during the off-season, and being thrust back into the world of the semi-regular seems a little odd; we’re like time travelers who have seen too much and know too much to readily acclimate back to our own reality. We’ve been to the dark side, man. Literally. I mean, when we got here it was really dark. Because it was before dawn. Remember?

When I only knew them on Twitter, I used to think Kim and Doug were young lovers. This type of picture is why. (Spoiler alert: they're so not young lovers.)

There’s a stop for the trolley show (my God, am I a sucker for trolley shows) and a picture on Main Street USA where Doug is stuck in the back of the group and tries, and tries, and tries to jump sufficiently to get his blond mug into the picture. Joe and I (and, as it will turn out, Lori and Doug and Kim and Tom) have lunch at the Plaza at 11:20, the fact of which Joe is gleefully unaware.

“Are we having Italian today?”

“No.”

“So we’re eating at the Plaza.”

“But how?!”

“Because there are like three sit-down places in the Magic Kingdom, we’ve been to Crystal Palace, and we’re not eating at Tony’s.”

“There could be another place. There could be a hidden place. I could be taking you to the Blue Bayou.”

“That’s in Disneyland.”

“Curses!”

Before breaking for the afternoon, we decide that a jaunt around the park on the Disneyland Railroad is just the ticket. Kim, who has had to skedaddle away to join a conference call, texts us and says that work ended more quickly than she thought and she’s on our way to join us. The group of us (multiplied now exponentially) climb up to the train station overlooking Main Street. “There she is!” Todd shouts, pointing at Kim making her way toward the station. “Hey! Kim!”

Hey! Kim!

We all take it up: “Kim! Kim! KIM!” Maybe twenty-five of us, shouting her name down. A man we don’t know looks up and smiles and waves. We wave back. We’re a friendly bunch, who like doing things in perfect unison. And then there’s Kim, right below us, cracking up and raising her hand.

Then she’s with us, and just in time. We’ve got a train to catch!

d24: Look Closer

Beeep. Beeep. Beeep. That’s my alarm. It’s 4:00 AM and I’ve been asleep five hours. Almost. The moon’s still in the sky when I kiss my dude goodbye and head down into the street. Everything is painted in shadow, except those places where the streetlights crosshatch in brightness. My cab is waiting for me already, and bleary-eyed, I climb in and trust the man to deliver me to my gate on time. He doesn’t disappoint. Early mornings at the airport are glimpses into the duality of the human condition. The clerks are all pleasant and friendly, their smiles seemingly sincere, even as the sun is barely making its presence known over the control tower. The travelers, we weary masses, slouch toward seats, collapse into them and blink furiously at the dawn. I’m listening to Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, read by Wil Wheaton, and I don’t have to see the light. It occurs to me that I’ll be doing this exact same thing tomorrow and I cringe a little. I’m not twenty anymore. Hell, I’m not thirty anymore. But I still THINK I'm eleven! We’re in the air and on the ground before I know it, perhaps because I’ve spent much of my flight drifting in and out of consciousness, my waking moments spent alternately enjoying the melodic bardsmanship of Wil Wheaton, Springsteen’s new album, and a whole bunch of Drive-By Truckers. I’ve entrusted my suitcase to the loving care of Disney’s Magical Express – they take it from the plane right to your hotel room – and I tumble into a seat on the motor coach that will whisk me magically to Pop Century. No, it’s not the Polynesian or the Boardwalk, or even Port Orleans French Quarter, but just because it’s Value doesn’t mean it isn’t home. It’s my first trip this year, but it’s my eighteenth time total at Disney World, so I’m settling into it in ways I never anticipated. The place still has the capacity to thrill me, excite me, affect me in ways that no other place can … but my general experience is now one of comfortable bliss. When the coach drops me off in front of Pop, I stand there a moment and my entire body breathes a long sigh of relief. I don’t relax well. I work four jobs in part because I have to and in part because I want to. Keeping busy is not just what I do, it’s who I am. And what Disney World (and Disneyland) does for me at this stage of my life is give me a rare opportunity to just chill out. I almost want to say it gives me the chance to just be me, but hell, this is all me. And I’m not saying that my vacations are all about relaxy simmer down times – my buddy Joe can attest to that – but the more Disney World and I grow to know each other, the more comfortable we are with each other. This developing sense of ease with the parks allows for something I had previously thought impossible: I’m engaging the nuance. There’s an irritating internet adage that goes “Disneyland is for purists; Disney World is for tourists.” It’s a lie, and in more ways than one. First: sure, purists may love Disneyland, but guess who else loves Disneyland? SoCal locals who have annual passes and care about the rich historical tapestry about as much as they care about Jamba Juice at the mall. Never was this more apparent than when I went to go see the Disneyland version of The Magic, the Memories, and You, and what little crowd there was rolled their eyes and wouldn’t shut their stupid hipster mouths about how cheesy it all was. Second: Walt Disney World historians are a fervent bunch. I mean, Classic EPCOT Center alone brings out both the drooling fanboys and the dedicated researchers like no other. The longer my history with WDW grows, the more I come to realize that inside me, there’s room for both on either coast: I have become a tourist and a purist. Evidence! I shower and change quickly and then I’m on a bus to Hollywood Studios, stepping out to Hollywood Boulevard and allowing myself to be enveloped by the atmosphere. Engaging the nuance: I look up and down, into windows and at tile-work, down at this street in 1930s Hollywood I will never know and yet visit four times a year. For the first time ever, I glance up at the windows above the Hollywood & Vine Restaurant and I see a listing for Eddie Valiant, Private Detective; a few windows down, there’s a Roger Rabbit-sized hole in the Venetian blinds. It’s always been there, just waiting for me to look up and see it. These details are everywhere – everywhere! – and while there are fast rides and dance parties and princesses and Vinylmation for the people who just want those parts of Disney, there’s all this smaller stuff, hidden stuff, that rewards those of us willing to look closer, and more often. Of course, immediately after snapping that picture I dash down Sunset Boulevard and into the Single Rider Line at Rock N Rollercoaster. I mean, a man can like details and nuance but he also wants to go from 0 to 57 MPH in 2.3 seconds. And then he wants to head on over to the Tower of Terror and plunge two, three, four times in a row. On my last ride, a teenage girl with an apparently heretofore-unexplored horror of heights and/or dropping issued forth a ululating shriek I would not experience again until the following night around 3:30 AM (don’t worry; we’ll get there). Now, there’s a sympathetic person in all of us who worries about this poor girl and hopes she won’t be traumatized forever. And then there’s the lizard part of our brains, the part that drives us to be scared for fun in the first place, that absolutely relishes this kind of screaming. Everyone in the car starts screaming along, some of us (me) laughing, but I assure you it was not malicious. Just hilarious! When the ride comes to an end, everyone in the elevator turns to the girl and she’s laughing a little from reaction. “You okay?” I ask. She assures me she’s okay, just a little shaken, and then a woman in the back says, “You made the ride better.” And the girl laughs some more, and thanks her, and everything’s chilly in the fake state of California, 1939. A short lunch later (a hot dog from Fairfax Fare Shawn introduced me to last time he was here with me; it’s got macaroni and cheese and truffle oil on it, what the yum) and then I head out, back to the room to get a little rest before I head out to Epcot and start my trip proper. Back at my room, I run into Tom and Doug, fresh from Seaworld (OFF PROPERTY GASP!) I lie down for a little while, then get packed up and head out to Epcot. There is a Joezer awaiting me! We text each other pictures. Which aren't text. So we ... picture each other? That sounds like imagination instead of technology. Hmm. Alan Alda would know, but he's dead. (Update: Alan Alda isn't dead. He also doesn't know.) So, here’s the deal: Joe and I are big fans of surprising each other on these trips, especially food-wise. On my first trip ever with him, he set up a dinner at the 50s Prime Time because he knew I’d love it (and he was right; the waitress called me Scooter, which was once Bruce Springsteen’s nickname, and I was in Kevin Heaven), and at the Crystal Palace because he knows how much I love Winnie-the-Pooh. This time, I was double-surprising him. A few months back, I’d asked him to provide me a list of table service places he wanted to try out but had never eaten at (or hadn’t eaten at in years). He did so. Around the same time, my friend Betsy, a Cast Member, explained that even Annual Passholders could sign up for the Disney Dining Plan, a piece of information that was all new and no one had ever told me before (especially not my buddy Paul, who, if he had, certainly didn’t attempt to share the information whilst I was entranced by Stacy’s Must-Dos on Disney TV, and would certainly not have been of sound mind and body). Betsy also helped us with the reservations – my first time outside the comfort zone of my travel agent, Michelle – so that she, Joe and I, and Doug and Tom were all together in the same block of rooms. Look closer at any successful trip and there’s a person beyond you at the gears and pulleys, making sure everything works smoothly so you don’t have Trip Panic. This time, Betsy was that person, and I am forever indebted to her for making it such a wonderful time. I text Joe with a picture of his room key as I head out. Two seconds later he texts back. “Wha…?? You put us on the dining plan?” Oh by the way guess what?! There’s a thing on the room key that totally says DDP (Disney Dining Plan) and because I’m a novelist with a keen eye for detail I totally missed it and ruined the surprise because dur. DUR! I find Joe sitting on a planter inside the main Epcot gates, and there’s very little more adorable than my tall buddy Joe sitting somewhere where his feet don’t touch the ground. Spaceship Earth rises majestically up from the entrance plaza, dwarfing him and us and everything around for miles. If Pop is coming home, then Spaceship Earth is coming to Mecca; I never feel less than a sense of wonder standing beneath it, never less than a dramatic humbling. By its nature and its purpose, Spaceship Earth is, to me, the central figure in Disney’s past, present, and future. It celebrates the history and the ongoing ease of human communication; well, I met most of my Disney friends on the Internet, and then came here to find them in real time. Here Joe and I stand, having met in the real world before developing our friendship online. For these reasons and others, Spaceship Earth is the quintessence of my Disney experience. Or maybe this is. “Hey, we have some time before dinner!” I say, leading Joe into Mouse Gear to look for more vintage Epcot shirts, which they’re probably holding out on until the Epcot 30th Anniversary, coming later this year. Then: “Oh hey! Let’s go grab FastPasses for Soarin’! That’s exactly what we should do right now.” Joe looks at me. “Wait. You want to take me to The Land right now, ten minutes before you said our dinner was?” “Um.” “So we’re going to Garden Grill!?” “No.” I pause. “Okay, maybe.” I pause again. “Joe it rotates!” “You goober.” I have never been to the Garden Grill, located on the second floor of the Land Pavilion, where Soarin’ is, and Living With the Land, and the best counter service on property, Sunshine Seasons. Joe hasn’t been since he was very young … and that’s the other thing about Epcot: all of my memories of this place start five years ago. Joe’s go back to the beginning. He rode Horizons. He rode World of Motion. He was here the year the park opened, and he actually has a history with this place that’s brand-new to me. By virtue of its long existence, Disney World can be everything to everyone. Over a family style meal of meat and salad and chicken and fish and oh my God did I mention the meat, Joe and I closed the gap of distance our friendship challenges, and the gap of years between our Disney World experiences. Put differently: I miss Joe when he goes away, and because we both love Disney as much as we do, there’s always a place to go where neither of us has to be away long. MEAT. We also met characters, because OMG characters love us! Farmer Mickey, you guys! When we emerge, Epcot is silky dark. We scurry to France, where Joe sips a Grand Marnier slushie in honor of a buddy who’s had a terrible week, and though the temptation to hang about waiting for IllumiNations to begin is strong, we beat feet back to the Create parking lot. It’s early yet, but early is about to become the watchword. It all begins before dawn.

Disney Trip Report Hub

Three Libras

In which three of my best friends come from all corners of the country to celebrate their - and Walt Disney World's - birthdays, and I come along!

Part One: Maps and Stuff

Part Two: Animal Kingdom In My Soup

Part Three: Thunder Riders

Part Four: Forty Years and Counting

Part Five: Buoyancy

Part Six: Pieces of Art

Part Seven: Marching Home Again

Three Libras: Marching Home Again

Unless you’re John Irving – who writes them first – the hardest thing for any author is writing the ending. There’s various reasons, but at the bottom of it is that when you’re living with something for so long, when you’re invested, when you love the characters and the story, you simply don’t want it to end. It’s not just finishing a chapter, it’s closing the book. There’s melancholy there, even if it was a happy good-bye.

This is farewell, my friends.

Here we come to the end.

* * *

On our last full day at Walt Disney World, we woke as a group and sped toward Epcot. Getting FastPasses for Soarin’ first thing in the morning is at least as important as getting them for Toy Story Midway Mania at the Studios, if not more. Plus, the going is more treacherous. After grabbing everyone’s park passes, you dash under Spaceship Earth (taking a bare moment, of course, to gaze up and marvel at the beauty, because you’re nutty over Spaceship Earth), you veer right into Future World West, up the ramp into the Land pavilion, then down the stairs, then you elbow tourists in the face and get to the FastPass machines. It’s magical.

My three Libras caught up with me at Sunshine Seasons, the best quick service eatery in Walt Disney World … which kind of stinks, because it’s at Epcot, and should Epcot really have all the best food? Especially during Food and Wine? I mean, spread the wealth, Epcot, jeez.


I love The Land. Those are balloons that represent seasons, in case you were wondering.

We had some hours to kill before we lifted off on Soarin’, so we took the time to … you know, just kind of take some time. We had one Event today, but it wasn’t like we had to be at the 40th anniversary or meet people for Blizzard Beach or get back to Animal Kingdom at any set time. We were already at the park we needed to be at, we had nothing particular to do, and we were in the perfect frame of mind to do it.

One of the coolest things about being with Disneyphiles is that in general, they seem more willing to get into certain mindsets. A lot of my favorite things at Walt Disney World fall under the category of “edutainment,” which I’ll eventually stop putting in quotes because it’s seriously been a valid portmanteau for two decades. I like history. I like science. And I apparently like agriculture.

At the ground floor of the Land pavilion, there’s a boat ride called Living With the Land, which used to have this ultra-groovy folk song that went with it called “Listen to the Land,” which would not have been out of place on Schoolhouse Rock. The boat takes you through these huge dioramas showing different landscapes and how plants grow there, and then you go into an actual greenhouse and lab where you get to see all these, like, sciencey ways to cultivate stuff, and there’s a nine pound lemon, and tomatoes grow on trees, and I swear to you it’s awesome and fascinating and not boring. I think Epcot – early on and still – challenges the staid concepts of what a theme park can and should be. It’s not that you can go there and either learn or have fun; you can go there and learn and have fun.


Nine pound lemon. You thought I was being facetious!

You’ll never convince a skeptic, I guess. I love the Hall of Presidents, and I was still angling on seeing the Fife and Drum Corps , who performed near the American Adventure in World Showcase; despite the fact I live in Boston, I go to Florida to get my fill of Colonial reenactments. I also have a cousin who lives twenty minutes away and we only ever see each other when we’re both in New York. I bet there are lessons in there I’m supposed to be learning.

Anyway, after we Lived with the Land, we broke out into the sunlight and humidity, and immediately detoured into The Seas With Nemo and Friends, because hooray indoors! Now, there’s a whole gigantic long history involved with this pavilion. It used to be called The Living Seas, and there were these hydrolators that made it feel like you were going into an underwater station and there was a whole film reel with an epic female narrator who is remembered best for her somber delivery of “…and it rained … and it rained … and it rained. The deluge.” It’s heartily missed and people put up a stink when they “Pixarified” the ride, and I get that, absolutely. It went from a hugely immersive attraction to a charming dark ride, but there’s still one of the largest aquariums in the world at the end, and the four of us spent quite a long time doing aquatic quizzes and staring at fishes and wondering if the manatees know they’re adorably ugly.



Emerging back into the world, we headed straight up split up for a bit so that Joe and I could sing along with Michael Jackson in Captain EO, because my rampant and often misplaced nostalgia knows literally no bounds. Did I dance in my seat? I might have danced in my seat. (BTW: I danced in my seat. And sang. Out loud.) The other two, fearing Michael Jackson’s awesome de-Borgifying powers, opted instead for Journey Into Imagination with Figment and a Lot Less Awesome Since the Days of Epcot Yore. That’s its full title.

Today, we ventured not into the Food and Wine Festival, and there was a reason for that. A good reason. A secret reason. See, I may have mentioned in these reports that while Paul can take or leave “fur” characters, like Mickey or Donald or even, yes gasp, Baloo, he is a humungaloid fan of the Disney Princesses. I’m not sure how he feels about the expanded Princess line, with Mulan and Pocahontas and stuff, but the core? With Cinderella and Ariel and Tiana and all them? Paul goes nuts. (He goes even more nuts over the Princes, but as most – aside from Aladdin and Beast and, currently, Flynn Rider – are somewhat rare, he contents himself with full-on princess squee. But you shoulda seen him when all the princesses and princes showed up for the 40th celebration. He went lunatic.)

I feel like I should be doing another flashback here, but who wants to hear about my workout while texting Paul three months prior? No one, because talking about your workout is always boring to anyone who’s not your workout buddy. And even then. Seriously, just don’t do it. To sum up: awhile back, while I was totally maxing on my quads (literally just made that up; are quads like fingers, or perhaps your duodenum?), Paul and I were texting about what dining he’d fancy during our trip. His Great Big Wish was to have lunch at Cinderella Castle, which literally books up six months in advance. No, I’m not exaggerating. I did my mobile thing, just for kicks, and the Ghost of Siri Future laughed her electronic butt off at me.

Such predicaments I must forge ahead! I then tap-tap-tapped and within moments, I had reservations at the Akershus Royal Banquet Hall in the Norway Pavilion … which, incidentally, was the first full-service location I ever dined at in Walt Disney World. Hooray symmetry!

Somehow, against logic and my own blabbermouth tendencies, I managed to keep Akershus an almost complete secret from Paul the entire time. He had an idea something was up, but didn’t seem to have the foggiest as to the specifics. “Is it going to be fun?” Paul asked as we waited in the blue-neon-drenched corridors of Soarin’. “I mean, will I like it?”

Joe said, “You’ll like it.”

Paul: “I want to know!”

Me: “Soon enough, young padawan.”

And so it transpired. We trudged north – oh, did we trudge, in the rampant humidity and the baking, unforgiving sun – out of The Land and into World Showcase. Did we head right and walk nearly the entire circumference before arriving at Norway? That … that seems absurd, but for some reason, I have a feeling that’s exactly what happened. Why would we do that? Why would anyone do that? There are eleven countries in World Showcase. In counter-clockwise order, they are: Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Morocco, Japan, the United States, Italy, Germany, China, Norway, and then Mexico. I haven’t even mentioned the bridges and this place called The Outpost, which is almost like an African pavilion but mainly serves Coke and has bongos. All the way around.



Regardless of how we did it, we eventually ended up at the Princess Storybook Dining, where we were immediately shown indoors for our picture with Belle. This totally happened, you guys:



We were seated and at once the princesses started coming. Unfortunately for Paul, there was no Tiana in sight. Boo! However, Snow White was there (who I’d gotten my picture with way back in the day, the day being 2007), and Ariel with legs, and even Cinderella, who managed come down off her high horse and mingle with the commoners awhile. Look, I love Cinderella, but like, she knows there’s a Castle named after her, and she seems all haughty about it. You heard me. Haughty.









But our favorite lady at the table was not one of the princesses, but our awesome waitress Ina, originally from Norway and going back the very next day. She told us stories, and listened to ours, and seemed genuinely nice and interested in our trip. “These three are all Libras,” I said, pointing to my friends. “And this is the last birthday party of the trip!”



She beamed down at Paul, and he stood for a picture with her. When she disappeared out back for ten minutes, we were initially concerned … until she returned with Paul’s birthday cupcake, and a song to help him see his special day in.



Three Libras. Three birthdays. Three awesome friends. God, I miss hanging out with those guys.

* * *

The next morning, we ate an early breakfast at Everything Pop, the combination food court/gift shop connected to our resort. It was with some sadness we ate our Mickey waffles; all of us knew this was going to be our last meal together.

I won’t draw that part out, because it hurt then and it still hurts, a little. After we ate, we tossed our suitcases and baggage into Joe’s car.

“I’m gonna miss you, Paul,” I said, hugging him fiercely. “You kind of rule.”

“Maybe December,” he said … although that ended up not happening.

Marty and he exchanged hugs, too, and then Joe was off on chauffer duty again, heading to the airport with the first of us going. Stuffing my emotions deep inside, I caught the bus to the Magic Kingdom with Marty, where we rode Space Mountain again. And again. And again. (My current obsession with Space Mountain will wane, I promise. Just not yet.)

Joe texted to say he was on the way back. There was a Betamouse podcast meet at the American Adventure in Epcot, and wouldn’t it be fun to go there? Indeed it would be! We met Joe by Spaceship Earth, sitting by his lonesome against the fountain and looking impossibly young. Then I made him and Marty have a fake conversation for awhile, because I needed more candid shots of the two of them. At this point, I’d be quite fed up with me.


"So tired of him!" "Me too!" "Oops, here he comes!"

We headed through Future World and all the way to the back of World Showcase. There, we ran into some old and new friends, like Angie and Bob Basl, with whom we’d later travel around the Showcase and sample Food and Wine until our bellies threatened to give out. That milk chocolate crème brulee, I am serious.

But one last thing happened before all that.

“Kevin?” Joe came up behind me and rested his hands on my shoulders.

“Yes?”

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Hear … that.” He turned me around, and there, advancing up the World Showcase promenade, were the Fife and Drum Corps, who I’d wanted to see since touching down at Orlando International all those days ago. So much had happened, and so many plans had gotten shunted aside in favor of new things, more important things. But now, completely unplanned, was this. My thing.






I broke free of Joe and dashed toward them, snapping as many pictures as I could. They played “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” and a whole bunch of other Revolutionary War songs. They were serious, stolid, committed to their work and to what their uniforms meant. I felt almost as if I could reach out and touch the moments before we were America, when George Washington and John Adams were men instead of legends. My trip was coming to an end, but what these people represented was a beginning. History was before me in red, white, and blue, a larger history which I, by comparison, can only feel humbled.

But then another thought hit me: these people, these women and men, return every day, to this spot. History repeats itself, right here, where I was standing. What I’m getting at is that there are new beginnings, every single day. We experience them. And just because these were the last moments of my trip didn’t mean that a brand new one wasn’t just around the corner.



* * *

I’ve been a minor character, sort of, in these reports. I’ve let these recollections be about the parks themselves, and my friends. Disney World, along with Marty, Joe, and Paul, is a Libra. I was there for its birthday. I was there for all of their birthdays. That makes me gladder than they’ll ever know.

One day, the four of us will do it again. Maybe next year. I hope it’s next year.

Until then, though, I will read these reports back, and smile, and laugh at my silly inconsistencies and my ridiculous mustache and the way nothing ever goes the way you plan, but how life is richer for it.

I miss you all. So very much.

Happy birthday!

Three Libras: Pieces of Art

Flashback:

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: