Notes on Disneyworld

The Bosch Family has made it there and back again. By car. With my parents. Just a day over a week. Gah.

I was beset by some random observations about the park:

• Capt. Jack Sparrow's addition to my favorite ride, "The Pirates of the Carribean," was not nearly as dreadful as I initially imagined. The animitronic Depp looks convincing, and he was added in several places that seemed organic. My only issue is that the sweepingly epic movie version of "Yo Ho a Pirate's Life for Me" has replaced the original. They only play the original version in maybe two of the "scenes" on the ride. (You can still get the original on iTunes. I did. It's worth it.)
• I miss the "20,000 Leagues" and "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" attractions. I know they haven't been there for like more than a decade, but I really liked them.
• EPCOT sucks major donkey schlong. I'd take a stick to the face rather than go, truth be told. The food is good, I will grant, and I do like ogling the Nordic women at the Norwegian attraction in the World Showcase, but by and large, I could really do without the experience. I remember liking the future-world part as a kid, and the Imagineering stuff by Kodak has been improved since my last visit(holla back, you Figment fans). For me, EPCOT was ruined in college by my first on-my-own-no-parents visit to the park. I went with two female language majors, and we stayed on the World Showcase side of the park the entire day except for one minor foray into the Land which is the MOST boring part of EPCOT. I'm not sure I'd voluntarily go back for a month of blowjobs.
• The Safari trip in Animal Kingdom was interesting, but that was the only part that I experienced. It was only slighly less preachy about evil white guys fucking up Africa than EPCOT's Land exhibit, but I cannot give a complete account of Animal Kingdom because we left before I could actually see any of the park that I might have found interesting. Long story short, if you're going there for the animals, give your local zoo your patronage instead. In true Disney fashion, they have a wonderful menagerie, but it was nothing the Dallas Zoo didn't have. There is a new roller coaster called Mt. Everest that I had to skip, and there is a whole dinosaur themed section that I had to skip as well. Not that I'm bitter.
• I've got to harp on EPCOT again. The Sea attraction used to be kind of cool in a "I've got park hopper tickets to Disney so I can't afford to go to Sea World, too" kind of way, but with the addition of the "Finding Nemo" silliness, the Sea Base Alpha to which you are to have been transported at the end of the ride seems out of place after the playful romp to find a digital clown fish. Skip it and go see Figment.
• Disney MGM is well worth the trouble. Good blend of rides and shows, really good food. My three favorite places to eat in all of Disneyworld are all there. The first is Pizza Planet, as in Toy Story. I don't know why I like it so much, but I do. Could be its proximity to the Muppet theater. The second is a 50's nuclear family television themed restaurant where the waitresses act like your aunt, you sit at a table in what looks like June Cleaver's kitchen while old television shows and commercials play on vintage tv sets, and you get hassled for not eating your veggies. Our waitress, Aunt Elaine, looked and sounded like Hazel. She rocked my lame world. Finally, I really like the sci-fi drive in. You sit in old cars facing a huge screen that plays bad 50's sci-fi flicks. If it were darker, couples could fuck.
• It's worth noting that there is an Indiana Jones stunt show, a Muppet theater show, a Star Wars ride, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, and a roller coaster that goes from 0-60 in less than 3 seconds all in the Disney MGM Studios park. There is your grain of salt.
• The wife and I went to Pleasure Island while we were at Disney on our honeymoon. That was 10 years ago, and my complaint back then was that the part of Disney advertised as "for adults only" was overrun with kids. It was like mom and dad needed to get a beer and act stupid, but they couldn't ditch the kids, so they let the kids run amok while they grabbed a beer and acted stupid. Ten years later, I'm in ToonTown trying to let my kid burn off her sugar high in the "ten and under" playground area, but the place is overrun with surly high school punks. When my preschooler is being pushed down by a "kid" wearing varsity high school gear, it's a problem. This happened in MGM, too. Disney needs to find a polite way to enforce its rules. If Disney's willing to shut down a ride because one kid won't sit down, then surely they can enforce a "you can't be taller than this" policy for a playground. Furthermore, if it's going to open a dance bar, then it needs to keep the under 18 set out.

Also, the trip generated some economic observations:

• For a peak summer time frame, there really weren't that many people there. Maybe two and a half or three of the Magic Kingdom's parking lots were full, but there were at least three other lots with no cars. And even with the bus-loads of Brazilian tourists, the lines were not that bad; we never had to wait more than 10-15 minutes for a ride with or without a Fastpass.
• It is impossible to eat a meal in the Magic Kingdom for under $8/person. Note that I said "a meal" as opposed to a snack or something. Even at the restaurant "sponsored" by McDonald's, the tab for four adults and a child was $42 and change for fast-food fare. How is an average family of four supposed to afford that for more than a day? (For the record, all six of the extended Bosch family ate at a McDonald's in Lousiana this afternoon for $20.55.)
• In roughly an hour, Mrs. Bosch and I dropped nearly $300 for Disney souvenirs/gifts. I'm not bragging here; I'm actually kind of horrified. This doesn't include however much else we spent earlier on other trivial knicknacks like mouse-eared hats with embroidered names.
• What's Brazil's inflation rate? Something like 400-500% or something like that? The Brazillians we saw there had to have been filthy frickin rich to afford not only the trip but the cost of admission.

I'm all for the House of Mouse, so please don't let me be misunderstood. Disneyworld good, economy bad. We all know that theme parks are notoriously overpriced, and they have to be for a number of reasons, cost of labor and upkeep not the least of which. This all begs the question: at what point does the presitge of taking your family to the mecca of theme parks get outweighed by the economics of travelling to the middle of nowhere in Florida? My father remarked to me that he had never, in more than twenty years of visiting Disney attractions, seen the park so deserted. And the current promotion is a lu-lu. Disney is giving out free upgrades to random people such as instant Fastpasses to get on any ride at any time, and free nights to families to stay in Cinderella's castle.

I guess I'm trying to make some kind of commentary on the state of the economy, but I fear that it sounds like I'm just bitching about the cost of theme parks. Suffice it to say that I'm glad I'm home, and I'm actually glad that I'll have to go to work next week. I need the money, but who doesn't?