Orlando Vacation Part II, Day Five

Note: I’ve broken Day Five into a few bites for ease of digestion.

Magic Kingdom. Kids loved it, of course. The Weather Fairies graced us with some blessed cloud cover in the afternoon, so it was not so brutally hot. It took a full ten minutes for my camera lens to clear after I took it out of the backpack.

Lovely effect of fog on lens.

We started out with the train tour of the park, then headed for Frontier Land.

Boo and T-Bear on the train.

Boo pretty much had his fill of exciting rides at Sea World, but T-Bear eventually agreed to go on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (twice) and Splash Mountain (my favorite). And, of course, you can’t keep Brother and Papa off of any exciting ride. We all went on Pirates of the Caribbean, but T-Bear and I skipped The Haunted Mansion, T-Bear waiting anxiously at the exit for Papa, Brother and Boo to return safely from their adventure (Boo wasn’t scared at all, and had a great time).

T-Bear anxiously awaiting his family's safe return.

We had sticker shock for lunch. In addition to being exorbitantly expensive, the meals are just too bloody big for anyone with a normal appetite to finish. Too much food and overpriced is a deadly combination. It just sucks a little part of my soul away to pay that much for a meal and then to have half of it wasted to boot. Dinner wasn’t quite as bad, because we ordered fewer meals and shared them. Still expensive, but not as much went to waste. Done grumbling now. Note to self; check out other diners’ meals before ordering, so I know how big the portions are.

Other stuff we saw and did (in no particular order): Swiss Family Tree House, The Magic Carpets of Aladin, The Enchanted Tiki Room, Jungle Cruise, The Hall of Presidents, “it’s a small world”, Peter Pan’s Flight, Cinderella’s Golden Carousel, Dumbo the Flying Elephant, Pooh’s Playful Spot, Donald’s Boat (Boo got completely soaked), The Barnstormer, Tomorrowland Indy Speedway (I just about passed out from the fumes…can’t they convert to electric or propane?), and Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin.

May I just pause a moment and say how mind-boggling huge is Disney’s … I don’t even know what to call it. It’s kind of a city with no permanent residents whose sole industry is entertainment and retail. I honestly had no clue how many parks and attractions and Disney Stuff there was here, or how long it would take to drive from one end of Disney to the other. You could spend a month here and not see everything. I can’t imagine what that would cost.

Overall, it was a very successful, very full seven-hour day. No melt-downs, and T-Bear's BS stayed pretty well in check. I've pretty much concluded that heat pushes his numbers higher, and I'm just not that great at estimating carbs on the fly. But, I managed to stay pretty stress-free and enjoy a great day with my family. What else can you ask for?

Random Pix at The Magic Kingdom

In The Hall of Presidents

My final thoughts about our day at Disney relate to my experience in The Hall of Presidents. I’ve been to the production at Disneyland in California, where President Lincoln delivers his Gettysburg Address, and have been moved by it despite the theoretical hokeyness of the entire concept. I mean, how weak do you have to be to get teary-eyed watching an animatronic machine move around to a recorded voice? But, I do. And, the Orlando presentation was even better. Disney just has a knack for pulling out emotions, and their Hall of Presidents production is no different. With a series of photos, clips of speeches, and narration by Morgan Freeman, it’s very effective. President Lincoln stands from his chair and delivers his speech. But the final sequence is the best. Every President of the United States, right up to and including President Obama, shows up all together, some speaking, some not, all making subtle movements, each spotlighted and introduced in turn. T-Bear actually gasped, pointed, and whispered “That’s Obama!” The illusion was so effective, as we left Brother Bear asked me why all those presidents didn’t get tired standing there for the whole show.

But, as cool as it was for me to see my President up there, I was actually kind of anxious during the time leading up to his introduction. And, when it came time for his introduction, there was an additional pause during which President Washington stood, gave a short speech, and then introduced President Obama. I was literally anxious about what the audience would do when his name was spoken, and how my kids would react if anyone in the audience did anything disrespectful. It’s really stupid and unfortunate that I should even have this question in my mind, but the events of the past several weeks, the nastiness of the healthcare debates, the rude, angry people showing up at townhall meetings, topped off by Senator Outburst disrupting President Obama’s speech to Congress, has left me apprehensive and doubtful about the capacity of my fellow citizens to show basic respect and courtesy for one another and for their leaders.

My mother has told me that she and my father were living in Georgia when President Kennedy was assassinated, and how appalled she was when her neighbors threw a party to celebrate. A part of me never wanted to believe that story, that Americans would ever be so horrid as to rejoice in the murder of their own democratically elected leader. But there is a significant part of me now that has been forced to acknowledge that similar parties would be thrown by many Americans, not just in my new home State of Georgia but all over our country, if President Obama were ever killed. It is a very sad thing to have to admit about the country that you love.

In the end, the audience in The Hall of Presidents was courteous and respectful, and we all quietly filed out at the end of the production. I tried to explain to Brother Bear that the presidents were mechanical on the inside, not really people, but I think that was too much for him to grasp. I guess that’s the magic of Disney, isn’t it?