A dozen Disney notes from my family vacation
And now, a dozen notes about my late August week in Disney World ….
1) We met my parents outside Splash Mountain around 3:45 on Monday. It was our first day at Disney, it was 273 degrees outside with infinity humidity, and myself, my wife, and my three kids had been bouncing around the Magic Kingdom since 9 a.m.
It was hot, we were tired, and we had a 5 p.m. dinner reservation at the Skipper Canteen.
“I want ice cream,” were literally the first words my father said out loud, which sent my kids into an “I want ice cream too!” frenzy which forced me to be the asshat, pointing out we had dinner in an hour and no one is getting ice cream now, including you, Dad, and that’s final.
Basically, this: Going to Disney with grandparents is simply adding two more children to the equation. It’s not that they weren’t helpful; it’s just that they have as many wants and needs as my kids and good gracious mom, you couldn’t have gone to the bathroom in the 45 minutes we were on the “Avatar” ride?
2) Pro tip: The “Avatar” ride is bonkers. Bananas. Crazy. Worth the price of admission, the hotel, and the flight down. It’s that good. You’ve never experienced anything like it.
3) Other ride I absolutely love: Splash Mountain. Love that ride. A classic, never gets old.
4) Small World? A little too ethnic for my tastes.
5) That was a joke, settle down with the #FireJeff tweets.
6) Back to grandparents for a second: There were tons of grandparents in Disney World, and every single one of them insisted on referring to strollers as “carriages.” Stop it. It’s not 1876.
7) We were there two years ago, and tons of guests were sporting pro-Trump T-shirts and hats. I didn’t see one the whole time I was there this go-around. This means nothing, but I did note it.
8) I’m stone convinced there were more people from New Jersey at Disney than there were people left in New Jersey the week I was there. Reason? Most of the country was back in school late August, but not us. I tweeted this tidbit out while there, and the best response came from @jevtalktome who quipped, “I’m going to assume that people are angrily navigating the circle around the Magic Kingdom with strollers and not letting anyone else in.”
8a) Thanks for calling them “strollers,” @jevtalktome.
9) My parents, lovely people, had a great time, thanks for coming. And also thanks for letting me know exactly how hot you were while outside, and precisely how cold you were every time we walked into a restaurant. I never had to wonder where you guys stood on the current temps.
10) As a corollary to #9, there should be a thrill ride for the senior citizen crowd at Disney, something like where they’re brought through a series of rooms that are either slightly too warm or slightly too cold and exasperated 30 and 40-somethings pop out of the walls and calmly state, “What do you want me to do about it? It’s August in Florida. Settle down. Go back to the room. I don’t care.”
11) My running joke that constantly aggravated my 9-year-old son: Me remarking on how real the animals looked. As in, the real animals. Squirrels, birds, and the like. My dad jokes have already worn thin on the kid.
12) I had a great time, BTW. Disney is so damn good at what they do, it’s hard not to be swept up in it all. Best part, though, was later in the trip. My boy wanted to repeat a few of the rides at Animal Kingdom, but there wasn’t enough there for my two younger daughters to do. So my wife and I split up. She took the girls to the Magic Kingdom, I went with the boy back to Animal Kingdom.
And as we were walking around the park, he grabbed my hand and thanked me for a great summer, and this made me get a little dusty, and then I realized he wasn’t going to be grabbing my hand that much as he got older and … well, I’ll just leave it right there with a little Disney Magic, I suppose.
Jeff Edelstein is a columnist for The Trentonian. He can be reached at jedelstein@trentonian.com, facebook.com/jeffreyedelstein and @jeffedelstein on Twitter.