2013: I See Stupid People

We started Sunday at Chef Mickey, or, the Scream Chamber, as I like to call it. This is a breakfast buffet at Disney's Contemporary Resort. The Contemporary is a large triangle shaped hotel that allows monorails to run strait through the center of the hotel. The buffet has excellent breakfast choices. Breakfast in interrupted by Disney characters (Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Donald, and Goofy) who pause for pictures.

I call this the Scream Chamber because the restaurant sits in a cove within the cavernous hotel. The screaming kids causes a defining echo chamber. I have read the area has been flagged by OSHA for sound levels, and workers are required to take longer breaks to recover.

When on vacation too many parents take a vacation from parenting. They allow their 5 and 6 year olds to go to the buffet by themselves. The children return with a plate mounded high with food. The child takes one bite from the plate and the rest goes into the garbage. Why are these parents doing allowing this to happen?

My back was in the worse shape so far. Even though I was heavily medicated, I remained in significant pain. But I didn't let that slow us down!

After breakfast, we walked the short distance from the Contemporary to the Magic Kingdom. It was a very hot day but luckily we had cooling towels. These were recommended by The Dis Podcast and are shamies that you soak with cold water and wear around your neck and it keeps you cool. Yes, we looked like dorks. But we were cool dorks.

The park was very hot. In the North when it is hot you can find relief in the shade. But in Florida when it is hot with high humidity, the heat radiates from the air surrounding you - there is no relief! I saw one lady buy the famous Mickey Ears (chocolate covered ice cream on a stick) and she opened the package and the ice cream immediately fell to the ground. These things are expensive ($4)! And there it sat on the pavement. What would you do? Well, she picked it up, put it back on the stick and ate it.

In addition to being very hot, the park was packed. Maybe it was due to my back pain but I was very annoyed by all the self centered idiots who had no sense of presence. They would stand in doorways and stare off into space - hay! Don't block the way! Or they would be walking in the stream of people and just stop in the walkway. Or a family of three would hold hands and stretch across a walkway while walking slow. And the strollers! These are supposed to carry children but instead people push them empty and use them as weapons to stab their way through the crowds. In one case a lady kept running her stroller into the back of my foot, say "sorry" and then do it again. In another situation, we were in a crowd with 10,000 people all headed down a walkway and a lady come up behind us with a stroller saying "Excuse me, excuse me" expecting us to get out of her way - there was no place to go! And we were all headed in the same direction at the same speed! These crowds are all crushed together tight. In one situation I saw a girl go to hit her boyfriend and ended up smacking a lady that was passing by. When it came time to do the fireworks at the end of the day, they pushed all these thousands of people into Main Street and told them to squish together. It was hot, smelly, people were tired, and frustrations were high. At one point a guy hit Mike with his bag so Mike pushed it back. The guy yelled at Mike for touching his bag, then took a look at me, realized that was a bad idea, and walked away. They keep letting more and more people into the Magic a kingdom and they all want to see the fireworks and ride Peter Pan an do everything - at some point you can't fit anymore people in the park!

I think someone from Disney is reading my blog. After I wrote that Disney water tastes like toilet water? On Sunday we had three people tell us the drinking fountains are triple filtered and healthier than bottled water. Well, filtered or not? It still tastes like toilet water.

It has rained every day we have been in Florida. When it rains it is usually for only 30-60 minutes. Without fail, it rained on Sunday so we decided to eat dinner.

Eating in the Magic Kingdom can be a challenge. If you want a sit down meal? Forget it. These restaurants require reservations and are often booked months in advance. Can you imagine owning a restaurant in the real world that is booked for months? That is the way every Disney restaurant is. The only solution is fast food. In the North we expect a certain efficiency where people are working very hard. We went to a Burger King the other day and waited 15 minutes for our order because there was one guy making burgers and three people standing around chatting filling the orders. We went through a Wendy's drive thru and it took 30 minutes. At Disney fast food, you stand in line to place your order and then stand in another line waiting for your food. The food is ready (giant pile of burgers under a heat lamp) and sitting there and is just waiting to be assembled, and is assembled as slowly as humanly possible. If you want to eat? You had better not be in a hurry!

My back caused problems for me throughout the day but I kept moving and didn't slow down. It probably made me a little more grumpier toward my fellow man, and less tolerant of all the fricken' idiots that over populated the park's attendance.