As a grown-ass man, it shocked my wife that I had never been to Disney World, nor had really any desire to do so. Growing up, my family did a lot of camping around the state of Michigan. This was cause for a marriage moment one time when I took my wife camping, and after a few days of cooking eggs in a cast iron pan and soaking up the wilderness, she said "...so, you guys just...sit in the woods?"
I blinked a few times and said "Yeah. It's relaxing, isn't it?"
No schedules, no time tables, just a week away from it all. And, mind you, growing up (and into married life), we're not talking wilderness camping. I've always done campground stuff, with water nearby and restroom facilities...these days, it's important to have a power outlet for phones and stuff. But, the conversation in question was at a campground right off of a main highway going through the UP - there was a McDonald's and a gas station within a quarter mile, and the campground butted up to an Ace Hardware. Hardly roughing it, but still disconnected enough to where we could cook over a firepit, get lulled to sleep with the moon and stars, and wake with the sun. No agenda other than deciding where to hike, or figuring out which breweries open at what time.
With all that being said, her family has always done the heck out of vacations. I've been on the receiving ends of her phone calls as the family (crammed into a Dodge Caravan) made an 8 hour stop at a WalMart in Georgia, on the way to Florida. They stopped to pick up some various asundries for Grandma, then someone wandered off into the store, then someone else had to use the bathroom, then there were the eternal debates over what to eat for lunch, then someone else wandered off into the store, then someone else walked back to the car and nobody knew where they were, and before ya know it, the whole family took 8 hours to stop at WalMart initially for a pack of socks or something.
This became evident to me just a few weeks ago as we had a series of Emergency Family Meetings to hash out an agenda for our trip to Disney World. Because we were staying in a Disney hotel, we got to go into each park a half hour early, so the Emergency Family Meetings (EFM's for short) started with deciding which parks we were going to go to on each day, and which specific rides we had to "rope drop" to get into first. Each day's agenda was set by that first initial ride, then there was the quagmire of Lightning Lanes, Genie Passes, and Virtual Queues that structured the rest of the day.
Monday was our free day - we had no park passes for that day, so we as a group hit Disney Springs. Disney Springs
made headlines recently for a guest who passed away at Raglan Road, an Irish-themed diner/store. Disney Springs is an outdoor mall/plaza, most similar to the
Tanger Outlet Mall over in Byron Center. For my wife and I, this was important as Allegiant Airlines lost our luggage and we had to buy a few days' worth of clothing while they found our suitcase and mailed it to us. Then, we had a tee time at
Disney Palm Golf Course, former home of the
Walt Disney World Golf Classic. It was a blast - as we were travelling, we weren't able to bring our own clubs, so we rented a brand new set of Taylor Made Qi-10s from the shop. We got paired up with a couple of local guys who were enthused that they could share their favorite course with a couple of tourists
Tuesday, we hit Magic Kingdom - the heart of it all; Cinderella's Castle, Main Street USA, all the classic Disney stuff you can think of. I was enamored with all
the easter eggs hidden around Main Street USA due to...uh...all the time I've spent online over the past 20 years on Digg, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, and Reddit. Knowing bits of trivia that even my in-laws (Veteran Disney travellers) didn't know was kinda cool. Highlights were The Haunted Mansion and the Hall Of Presidents (due to my geekiness about robots, optical illusions, and visual effects), the TRON coaster and the absolute icon Space Mountain.
Wednesday, we hit EPCOT - the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Josh and Chuck of
Stuff You Should Know did a recent podcast 'sode about the community of
Celebration, Florida, that was initially envisioned to be an extension of sorts of EPCOT. As a youngster, there was a couple year stretch where I was obsessed with being a Disney Imagineer, so my nerd brain was tickled by all the animatronics and everything all around EPCOT. Then, of course, the World Concourse (of Drink Around The World fame) was across the pond from the giant geodesic sphere.
Thursday was Hollywood Studios - the park envisioned to be the Hollywood equivalent of Magic Kingdom. This park has rides like the Tower Of Terror and, possibly my favorite coaster of the whole trip, Aerosmith's Rock'N'Rollercoaster. One of the coolest meals I got came from this park, in the Star Wars area - sort of a cream-based barbecue pulled pork with a smokie link sausage, wrapped in a pita flatbread.
Friday we hit Animal Kingdom, got to see the veritable zoo there, and hit a couple of rides. I was endlessly thrilled by the "exotic storage containers" around the Avatar area: nothing more than standard ol' Microstar beer kegs. This is the newest park, opened in 1998. As such, things felt newer and fresher than the other parks.
Would I go back? Most definitely! The only real hiccups we had were from Allegiant Airlines. And, knowing what to expect from a Disney World vacation, I'd go in better prepared.
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