We have your navel

We arrived in B, retrieved our luggage, met the rest of our family, then headed over to A to be greeted by the giant-hand people. These sexagenarians directed us to a counter, shuffled us onto a bus, and secretly delighted in the fact that they were no longer in our season of life. We arrived more or less at the same time. We all felt the strange sensation of anticipation and dread frosted with a creamy jetlag topping. The thought of taking a week off of school and work. The thought of spending Thanksgiving away from known realms. The thought of being dipped in Disney for a week. Four parks in three days, then a giant ship to a foreign country only to prove that it's a small world after all? Bring it on.

Our hotel was splendid. Maze-like. Very clean, full of happy, Aqua-Velva-smelling people, and conveniently placed 5 minutes from EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow), and leave it to Disney to come up with an acronym using the 'of' as one of the letters. Usually when I try to assign a clever acronym I have to skip over the 'the, for, and, to, of, etc.' articles just to make it seem like I know what I am doing. We were at the Beach Club hotel and the first day we took a boat ride to EPCOT. That was fun until we were faced with a 12 year old boy who mined and ate several boogers while we tried not to watch and tried harder not to puke. While relating this story to others in our group, however, we discovered a fun fact I should share: there was a study done in let's say Norway where booger-eating children's health was compared to non-booger-eating children. The booger-eaters were healthier. This proves the theory that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. The study forgot to point out that the physical and emotional well-being of the booger-eaters was threatened because of the other children whose booger-eating tolerance rivals my own. On one team we had the non-booger-eating-butt-kickers and on the other team we had the healthy-booger-eating-psych-patient punching bags. Healthy, but bloody. Enough of the fun fact.

The visit to the parks was great. Each park (Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, MGM, and Animal Park) offered its own unique attractions and challenges. I think the winner-ride for the parks was the Aerosmith Rock-N-Roller Coaster. This was a masterpiece of fun, speed, gravity, neon, darkness, and "Walk This Way". Academy award nominations to all the boys in the band for their stellar, balsa, cedar, oak, alder, mahogany, and pine performances. No longer does Paul Rubens hold the record for the most times looking into the camera in a single scene.

The worst ride was the Test Track at EPCOT. I think I am still waiting in line for this ride. Lines are part of the Disney experience, especially during a holiday week like Thanksgiving. However, when a line is rated at a 50-minute wait and it actually takes twice that long, something spectacular better happen on the ride. Well, it did! Imagine driving a car up a hill half as steep and half as long as the hill in Laguna Beach. WOW! Then, drive cautiously between some cones, accelerating to 30 miles per hour and slam on the brakes. Now repeat that, only this time re-activate your anti-lock brakes. Feel the excitement? Oh, and then accelerate to a whopping 65mph while driving around a banked corner - for about 8 seconds. I don't think I have ever driven 65mph in a car before. What a rush. The best part of the ride was the adrenaline rush and subsequent restraint required not to punch every orange-jump-suit wearing 'cast member' as the wait grew to twice the stated time. I think they call this Track-Rage.

The Magic Kindgom day was particularly eventful. Strangely enough, it was our last full day in the parks when we finally made it to the Magic Kingdom. Our best efforts had gotten us there with only half a day to discover the magic. When we arrived we sent a contingent to secure 'fast passes' to Space Mountain. They were for 7pm. There was a parade going on in the streets which made it difficult to move the 20+ members of our group around cohesively. A strange game of survival of the fittest ensued and at one point I was the weakest link -- because I had to pee. Once I left the bathroom, not only had I been carved away from the pack but I was unable to rejoin them or make my way to Thunder Mountain (the first ride destination) because of Snow White and company parading down the street. The group tried to keep in contact via cell phone and inform me of their progress up the 'stand-by' line.

It didn't take long for Mike to coin the moniker 'Fast Passtards'. This designation is assigned to those who obtained a 'fast pass' 3-4 hours previous to your arrival to an attraction. They then wait patiently for 3-4 hours before they can go on the ride at their scheduled time. They are provided a special line which bypasses all of America's family waiting in the hour-long stand=by line. As they move along this express line, they are ever-so-cognizant of their progress vis-a-vis those impacted in stand-by. This is evident in their smug-passtard faces as they sneer scornfully and seem to imply that they are superior when we all know good and well that they aren't and we can't wait to use our fast passes so we can experience the euphoria of being a self-important fast passtard ourselves to dominate the wait-weenies. Our chance was at 7:00pm. Or so we thought.

I made the ride, Thunder Mountain, with only minutes to spare, climbing over those waiting patiently to ride and excusing myself along the way. (Trent described a similar experience but the ridicule was more cruel because he was hitting those he passed with his oversized, swinging backpack.) Just as we arrived at the line-gate staging area immediately prior to ride embarkation, or in other words, just before we got on, our ride manager came on the PA and informed us that somehow Thunder Mountain had lost its thunder and needed some sort of viagra-like repair to bring Ol' Thundy back to life. Or something like that. So, we stepped through the roller coaster cars and out the other side. We were handed a General Pass good for fast pass privileges on any ride at any time. Cool.

Finding ourselves in the mountainous region of Disney World, we decided to transfer from Thunder Mountain to Splash Mountain (Not to be confused with Space Mountain or Cash Mountain --the accounting offices of Disney) armed with a small ticket that gave us Pastard Powers. We bypassed a MASSIVE line to get on Splash Mountain. As we rounded the first turn and began to ascend to the upper regions of Splash Mountain we suddenly stopped. Our log/car/boat/vessel/vehicle had started up an incline and we were facing up a 45 degree angle. After a few minutes a woman ran down the stairs adjacent the incline and informed us that the computer controlling the ride had ‘frozen’ and that the whole thing had to be rebooted. Well, since I know a bunch about computers, I was a little perplexed by this. Mike and I made light of the computer explanation and waited for them to reboot Splash Mountain. As they brought each portion of the ride back online we became hysterical at the funny PA announcements declaring each part of the ride fit for restart. What we heard: “Boat 4 has been conformed. Yes, boat 4 has been conformed. We have your navel.” I’m sure it was probably something about being ‘enabled’ and not ‘your navel’ but in the echoey cave with water running down the track on which we sat it sounded like they really had our navel. Trixy from Disney told us not to stand up because there were about 400 passengers trapped on the ride and if anyone stood up it would delay the restart of the ride. We complied, but apparently someone in one of the other car/boat/log thingies was not so patient or didn’t get that message. They doomed us to the equivalent of making the whole class stay after school. I wish when the ride resumed they would have told us which group of passengers had done this so we could host a little game of payback slapjack.

We were finally off and running/floating/riding/sailing and when the ride finished we were given another fun pass to yet another attraction in the park. We were unaware at the time, but this would be the second of a series of rides that stopped while we were riding it. We were honorary fast pastards for most of the day. 75% of the rides we chose broke down and we were rewarded for our patience with another pass. We finally ran out of passes around the time we were scheduled to ride Space Mountain. With a few minutes to kill, we went on two rides – both of which were, um, unique in their own way.

The ‘Stitch’ attraction (not a ride) was maybe the biggest waste of time and energy I have ever experienced. Because it was evening, I had only one requirement of this ‘ride’ and that was that I get to sit down. I didn’t care where or how but if I got to sit, all would be OK – or so I thought. We went into the inner chamber and then went to the main event where we did get to sit. However, we were forced to suffer indignities reserved for 12-year-old younger brothers on Saturday night when the parents aren’t home. The audio in the attraction mentioned something about Stitch eating a chilidog with onions and then he burped and the most foul gas was blasted in our faces like a stinging face-fart from the butt cheeks of older brother who like refrieds. (Booger-eater probably enjoyed this ride the most) Trapped. Unable to move our heads, the foul stench and spit doused us for a few minutes. I could not have been more uncomfortable and disgusted at the same time. As I was accosted I wanted to projectile vomit to add to the atmosphere. Putrid.

TTA was a good enough ride that the boys (Max and Zack) actually made fun of it and tried to hip it up. Tomorrowland Transit Authority is a segmented car ride providing bench seats and an elevated view of Tomorrowland. This ride was so benign that no seatbelts were provided. Imagine our thrill. I was going slowly enough on this ride that I was able to take a time-laps digital photo of Cinderella’s castle at night without blurring the picture. Shinkansen it ain’t.

The other parks and land adventures were great. The weather was great as well – for the most part. We ate the first night at the Earl of Sandwich restaurant. That was good enough. While many of us were in the restaurant, it rained so hard that nowhere was safe. I heard reports that it rained INSIDE the bus carrying part of our party. They weathered the storm and joined us for the meal. After we were all done, the wet ones and the dry ones went home back to the great hotel we all enjoyed.