I am back from an 8 day adventure at Walt Disney World. I am tired, I am "out of it," and most likely broke after I get our credit card statement. I will share several observations about my vacation, vacationing with teenage sons and Disneyworld policies in general for those of you brave enough to attempt this with your own family.
For the most part our vacation was fun, exhausting, expensive, and it was good to get away.
I discovered something about myself while we were vacationing. I discovered that I am, in fact, a total and complete news hound. I don't mean I watch the news at night. No, I have taken news watching to a whole other level. I get up in the morning, check my Yahoo and Fox news sites to see headlines, I check Huffington Post to see what people are blogging about. Then I flip on the TV to see what the news shows are talking about and lastly, I listen to talk radio in the afternoon while preparing dinner to see what the local talking heads are tossing around that day. I didn't realize how fixated I was on news until I spent over a week without doing any of those news seeking activities. It was not a total news blackout, the hotel delivered USA Today to our room every day (we didn't ask for it, it just appeared outside the door every day) but I didn't read most of it. I did catch the major headlines about the oil spill and the awful massacre in CT. Other than that, I did not delve into anything newsworthy. As I have blogged before, the news these days is predominantly negative, and if you read or listen to it a lot, you will start to feel more negative and stressed. I decided that I do need to have a news blackout once in a while to decompress. But not today!! I have not seen any good headlines for a week so I am scouring them now.
Another discovery made on our Disney vacation was that the word "complimentary" is almost nonexistent in the Disney vernacular (save for that free USA Today paper!!) As my husband put it, "if they could figure out a way to charge you for the air you breathe while at Disney, they would." The $2.50 bottle of water, the $3.75 ice cream bar, the $10.00 burger and fries all fell into this category. The prices on snacks, Tylenol, bandaids, pins (pin trading is big business at Disney World) all are out of sight.
We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. It was beautiful and a great place to stay. Animal Kingdom Lodge (Jambo House) has 3 restaurants; one is Mara, a cafeteria style, low key, lower priced food court. The next is a buffet style restaurant, Boma, very nice, very good food, fairly high prices for a buffet ($26pp for breakfast buffet, $34 pp for dinner buffet) and the third was a lot dressier and fancier so we opted out of visiting that one. The cafeteria style place, Mara, not only had breakfast and lunch/dinner food, they also had sections for those people who opted to "grab and go". You could get a pint of milk for $1.50, a candy bar for $2.00, a cupcake, $3,49, a bottled water for $2.75, ! When I think of how much I would pay for those same items at home it really ticked me off. You could get the same size Snickers bar for .50 cents at home and pay .35 cents for an equivalent sized water bottle. Why do these places feel they need to keep ripping you off endlessly? It is not only a Disney thing to do, but they seem to do it so well! Feeling ripped off puts a slight damper on the "Disney Magic."
One more observation about the way Disney does business is how it handles transportation issues. DisneyWorld provides shuttle bus transportation to and from any of it's parks and resorts for anyone staying onsite. Some of the resorts have other transportation options such as the monorail or boats in addition to the buses.
That being said, this was one of the hottest months they have had in Florida in years and we were lucky enough to be vacationing in it. The air temp. was in the mid 90's with a saturated heat index that put the real temperature feel up to about 115 degrees. It was HOT. On those days that we had spent the early morning and mid day at a park, we were totally ready to go back to the Animal Kingdom Lodge for some R & R just to cool off and regroup. We would trudge in the blazing hot sun out the park exit and over to our Animal Kingdom Lodge bus stop and hope our bus was either right there or just around the corner waiting to pick us up. On several occasions, those plans were sent way off kilter however by a vacationer also heading to the Animal Kingdom Lodge who was either in a wheelchair or on a scooter.
I have NO PROBLEM with someone that has a legitimate reason for riding in a wheelchair or scooter. If you are disabled due to illness, injury, accident, or surgery, by all means, ride on the bus in your wheelchair or scooter. I will be happy to let you go first, etc. But there were a few occasions where someone arrived at our bus stop that happened to weigh about 400 pounds and was riding on a scooter; simply unable to walk due to their sheer size. I had no patience for those people. When any person was in a scooter or wheelchair waiting for a Disney bus, it meant that when the bus arrived and let riding passengers disembark, the bus driver then had to get out, let down a ramp, help the scooter or wheelchair bound person up into the bus, and secure their scooter with straps. This process took anywhere from 5-10 minutes depending on the bus driver's expertise in this area. Some were very obviously better and more efficient at it than others. Meanwhile, the rest of us weary park goers were forced to stand outside in the swelter waiting to get on the air conditioned bus. This happened over and over again. I simply had patience for the people who seemed to have a legitimate reason for being in a chair, and no patience for those who had eaten themselves into the position of holding up the rest of us.
The system for transporting disabled persons at Disneyworld needs to be reviewed. Disney should possibly have a special bus that is adapted to handle several chairs and scooters and transport these visitors and their aides separately. It would be more efficient to do it this way and it would inconvenience the masses a lot less. Maybe if the weather had not been so unbearably hot, I would not have even noticed this situation, but my brain would be frying while watching a "jumbo" person roll up the bus ramp and make the rest of us wait in the heat while they got secured into the bus. This happened many times over the course of a week. I noticed the frustration on the faces of the other riders as well.
Going to Disney is never a relaxing vacation, well, maybe it is if you don't go with kids. We took our 16 and 20 year olds with us. It seems, all they cared to do was find the biggest thrill rides. Really, that is all they cared about. They did not want to see animals, they cared not about the countries of Epcot, and really were not concerned with characters, shows, or exhibitions. All they wanted to do for the whole time is get jostled, spun, shot into the air, and twisted around. And believe me at their age, I was a lot more concerned with those things too.
I decided to "go along to get along" for the first few days. I rode on Expedition Everest in the Animal Kingdom with my men. Oh boy! I am not a thrill ride lover, or even liker. I am not in any way thrill seeking by nature. I love to stay on Terra firma. Flying in a plane to Florida was enough thrill ride for me. I hate flying, I hate feeling any G forces, I have a fear of heights, and don't like going fast. Are you getting the picture I don't usually do thrill rides? I did it for them. I really hated it!! I was screaming and cowering the whole time and got a stiff neck to boot from the G forces that push your head toward your knees. I can't imagine how anyone finds this fun! But they sure did!! I also rode Splash Mountain, a lot tamer, Thunder Mountain Railroad-not as tame, but G forces were only side to side so easier on a middle aged body, Tower of Terror-I was not loving that free fall, and Space Mountain. You might wonder why on earth I would ride Space Mountain after going on Everest? I had ridden Space Mountain with my brother as a teenager and made it through unscathed so figured I would be ok. It was not as bad as Everest, but I was not loving that one either. My boys were amazed I went on any of those rides at all. They did a lot of the rides more than once. They rode Everest 3 times. They even rode on Rockin Rollercoaster. I drew the line there. I refuse to go upside down for any reason. Period. That was their favorite ride of all. They were talking about that one all day and laughing at the expressions on their faces in the photo they take of you mid ride.
My conclusion: if you want to go to Disney and relax, don't take kids. If you want to experience the shows, the cultural diversity of Epcot, the beauty of the grounds, the rides that try to educate rather than thrill, don't go with teenage boys!
By far, one of my most favorite rides was in the Land pavilion, Living with the Land. It really looked lame at first but I had read in a guidebook it was worth seeing. It was really cool and I would have liked to have ridden that one again. It was an exhibition about alternate forms of farming and gardening. It was fascinating. My kids even liked it although they would not admit it.
Having taken our boys to Disney when they were 5 and 9 we had a totally different experience this time. We didn't have to worry about nap times, strollers, scary rides, scary characters wandering the park and stopping to say hi while your child freaks out. We were able to find out via text where they were in the line, and find out what the wait time was for the rides (via Disney text) before we arrived at the parks.
Something I found to be disappointing was that it seemed like with the exception of Epcot World Showcase, all of the stores and shops in the parks and in Downtown Disney had pretty much the same merchandise. There were pins, t shirts, kitchen stuff, clothing, Christmas ornaments and toys all with Disney characters on them. It felt like 11 years ago there was a much more diverse variety of souvenirs. Downtown Disney to me felt like a waste as far as shopping. Other than a couple of independent stores that sold cigars, legos, candy, and magic supplies, most of the retail stores were Disney themed merchandise. Boring!! And worse, it felt like a whole lot of shameless self promotion on the part of Disney. Also, everywhere you turned they were trying to get you to consider Disney Vacation Club. There was a DVC kiosk at every turn. Sorry!! I am not going to think about booking my next vacation while I am still on this one. It is like asking a Mom who is in the midst of giving birth when she will have her next baby!! A little less self promotion, a little more variety in merchandise would be a nice change.
All in all, it was great to get away, the boys had a blast, and best of all they are old enough to remember it this time! I remember it too and will remember it over again when that credit card statement appears in my inbox in a few days. Sigh!
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