The Circle of Life…after dark!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

Before we recount what happened with the company dinner at EPCOT, it’s important and calming for me to focus first on the most breathtaking part of that long Wednesday evening. At 8:30 p.m. all of us guests were ushered from the banquet facility on the park’s west edge to a centralized, gated party space on the north shore of World Showcase Lagoon. Snacks and booze were offered while we were treated to the 9:00 showing of the park’s resident closing-time light show, a 30-minute program called Harmonious. A synchronized, beauteous onslaught of fireworks, fountains, spotlights, kaleidoscopic effects, oddly shaped screens on floating platforms, songs familiar and unfamiliar, and a barely discernible narrative. It’s all you could want from the end of an amusement-park day and more.

As time-stamped in previous chapters, our Harmonious experience played the night of March 8, 2023. Not till well after the fact did we learn Harmonious was due to be retired. Its final performance was April 2, 2023, three weeks after our vacation. Consider this amateur photo gallery an overdue eulogy or an overlong retrospective, whichever.

The Stargate opens into another dimension of Disney World proportions!

With the exception of our lead photo (which falls near the halfway point), all photos herein are presented in the order in which we took them, or as close as I could get from the time stamps.

At one point Anne switched from her phone camera to her camera-camera. Those shots might be a minute or two off, but close enough to actual presentation order.

Not like anyone’s grading me on the shot order, mind you. Just mentioning it for fun.

As you can imagine, this was a fraction of the total pics we took. I struggled to whittle this down, then gave up after a certain point.

I usually limit each MCC entry to about 20-25 pics, but it’s Disney World. “Overkill” is the point, even when no one’s looking.

Fun trivia: the Disney World miniseries has not been burning up the MCC traffic charts. Hence why I’ve been in no rush to crank these out and we’re now running 13 months behind.

Time was, other WordPress users used to flock to entries about vacations or travel. Nowadays, not so much.

Y’know what’s retaining traffic nowadays? The movie entries, even the ones without scenes after the end credits.

Over the past two weeks, the entry with the biggest clicks is the one on Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days, which only made $3.5 million in domestic box office.

Between the Heartland Film Festival and my annual Oscar Quest, the site content has admittedly skewed heavier toward films over the past several months. That may have bored away some folks who just wanted to see a middle-aged geek couple enjoy unironic bumpkin pleasures.

I mean, there’s more of that come! After the Disney World miniseries, there’re the matters of how we spent my birthday last year, then “Our 2023 Road Trip”, which will be heavy on food and history.

That’s one thing I realize has always crippled MCC: my refusal to focus on a particular hobby or subject. Blogging rules say I’m supposed to post only about movies, or only about travels, or only about geekery or whatever.

A blog whose topicality is “Me Me Me: The Series” only really works if you’re someone apart from the blog. It’s supposed to be, like, a brand extension of your claim to significance, or whatever.

Blogging does not, in and of itself, bestow significance on you. Whenever you see a movie or TV show feign otherwise, it’s because it’s written by an old.

I nearly forgot April 28th will be MCC’s 12th anniversary. Twelve years of blogging! And the site has yet to make its first thousand.

In fact, the ad revenue hasn’t been enough to cover my annual fees in nearly a decade. I’m not whining or passing the hat around, just noting for context.

Time was, an internet presence with longevity alone was cause for notice. There’re plenty of social media trolls who’ve been plying their edgelord prankster ways far longer than I’ve been amusing myself here in my tiny virtual hermit shack. Some probably make money off Twitter now.

Clearly I’m not doing this for the money, fame, or because You, The Viewers at Home, demanded it. You’re more than welcome to demand it, but you don’t.

Blogging scratches an itch. Blogging creates an external hard drive for storing whichever memories I think ought to be captured in paragraph form. Blogging keeps me from running around the streets and getting shot at.

Blogging is my response to all those teachers in my life who saw something in my writing and kept encouraging me to do more, including the one or two college professors who said nice, individualized things to me before I dropped out.

Blogging is a hobby. Blogging is exploring what to do with this alleged voice I’ve been given. Blogging is my vain search for what God really intends of me, in addition to being the best husband and sidekick I can be to the amazing colossal Anne.

Blogging is a way of life! Blogging is like Happy Fun Ball but less deadly! Blogging is a floor wax AND a dessert topping!

Blogging can be even more fun if you’re pretty sure no one is reading the captions!

Seriously, of the few people who’ve made it this far into the entry, the majority are just scrolling through the pics and skipping the captions. Even Anne has admitted to doing this.

In a gallery of 40 photos, I was not about to come up with 40 different captions synonymous with “ooh” or “aah” or describing what you’re looking at, like a 1950s comic book writer.

Longtime MCC readers have seen me do this before — toss an entire stream-of-consciousness mini-essay into the fine print, like a Ryan North comic.

I intentionally didn’t plan any of these captions. Sometimes it’s invigorating to write without pre-writing in my head, and see what happens.

I can blow off steam, let my mind wander, ramble about whatever. It’s fun when it’s fun!

Or if you’d prefer, I could revert to stale basics. “Here’s a thing. Here’s a firework. Another firework. Here’s a light. Here’s water. Here’s more light.” Et cetera.

Sure, some galleries are basic slideshows. Some of them lend themselves to more varied captions than others, when the facts are interesting to write about.

The last thing I want to sound like is Patty and Selma banally growling about their trip to Mexico to a captive audience.

The best-case scenario would be to sound like Don Draper selling you the Kodak Carousel with the greatest pitch ever.

If you’ve seen our photos, you know I’m no Don Draper. But that’s a good thing on many levels.

You can definitely keep all his smoking and drinking. Very much not my thing. Which makes me uncool, but so be it.

That’s okay. My wife thinks I’m cool! (Said in his best Milhouse voice.)

Anyway, we’re almost out of captions, so I should wrap up this double-secret digression as we prepare to rejoin everyone else who just scrolled quickly through the pretty pictures.

If you actually read all these, thanks for joining me on this very special pretend DVD commentary! I appreciate your closer attention in this crowded era of waaay too much content.

In those quieter moments when reader and writer can connect, that’s my kind of harmonious.

…and those are mere slivers of the bedazzling half-hour experience.

It was not, however, the end of our EPCOT evening. Alas.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Midlife Crisis Crossover!

2024-03-04 00:50:14

Yes, There’s a ‘Word of the Day’ After the “Perfect Days” End Credits

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays this cleaner from the swift completion of his appointed rounds.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest continues! We do our best to see how many freshly nominated works we can catch before ABC’s big, indulgent Academy Awards ceremony ends the viewing season. As is often the case, candidates in Best International Feature endure the slowest rollout of any category due to the complexities of overseas finances and/or struggles to get Stateside studios to pay attention to them and give them turns at our box offices, especially cities outside NYC and L.A.

So far in the BIF competition we’ve caught Spain’s Society of the Snow set in South America, the U.K.’s The Zone of Interest set in Nazi Germany, and Germany’s The Teachers’ Lounge, whose protagonist is from Poland and whose director is of Turkish descent. Our next nominee for your Oscar consideration is Japan’s Perfect Days, from German director Wim Wenders. Thus the mixing-and-matching of nationalities among creators and works continues, apropos of its main character’s aesthetic tastes.

Koji Yakusho (Memoirs of a Geisha, Babel) is Hirayama, a diligent employee of The Tokyo Toilet. Each workday morning in his cubic bachelor pad, he undergoes the same precise procedures of hygiene and plant care. He suits up, gathers his arsenal, and zips around the city in his company van. He cleans a variety of public restrooms that in no way resemble America’s infected, infested, grimy, grungy, claustrophobic, intimidating, brutalist assembly-line death-holes. Tokyo’s own will never resemble our worst-case scenarios as long as Hirayama is on the job.

Each and every facility has its own unique architectural grandeur to it — some whimsical, some serene, some technologically upgraded, some so eye-catching that they’d make fantastic selfie backdrops. Hirayama and his story are fictional, but the bathrooms are real. Wenders doesn’t clarify whether the examples seen and cleaned here are uncommon luxuries or indicative of Japan’s impeccable standards for common-area commodes. He also doesn’t test Hirayama’s mettle or their real-life owners’ boundaries by depicting any of them trashed by drunks or sufferers of severe GI distress.

Hirayama is polite and patient toward restroom users who come and go while he’s working. He’s congenial yet taciturn, speaking only when necessary, and sometimes not even then. He has a separate yet firm regimen whenever he’s not scrubbing and freshening — lunch at a peacefully tree-lined park alongside the same set of strangers, bicycling to dinner at his favorite joints where everybody knows his name, browsing a used bookstore, errands at the same places every week, and so on.

His career is the core of his life without necessarily defining it. He lives in the present but prefers the past, and not just through the narrow gateway of his flip-phone. His bedtime reads include William Faulkner and Patricia Highsmith. Later on a recommendation he samples Japanese poet/novelist Aya Kōda. For drive-time companionship he listens to a cassette collection that’s some years older than mine and larger than today’s worldwide average of zero cassettes per household. He’s a fan of Lou Reed, Van Morrison, Patti Smith, and other early-’70s staples along the edge of the mainstream path. I’ve not yet seen Wenders’ other works, but I used to own the Until the End of the World soundtrack on cassette. I’m confident Hirayama’s predilections track with his own.

Alas, innocent Hirayama’s insular yet perfectly content world is irrevocably shattered when…wait, no, that’s where a thousand other films would go. Once we’ve settled into his quotidian comfort-groove, we see him gently tested by interruptions. A millennial coworker named Takashi (Tokio Emoto, who was in a 2021 Japanese remake of Cube) with zero work ethic begs him to sell his tapes, which could fetch ludicrous prices among trendy retro music fans. His niece Niko (Arisa Nakano) pays a visit out of the blue and decides she’s staying over for a few days without asking. Car trouble, that irritating demon I’ve known all too well, rears its entropic head. A stumble into one couple’s embrace awkwardly weirds him out. Will he face each surprise with grace and poise? Or will one of them damage his calm and send him over the edge, screaming at his capitalist overlords to clean their own frickin’ toilets?

More often than not, nothing damages his calm, nor Wenders’ serenity. If you’ve ever seen Yasujirō Ozu’s Tokyo Story (Anne and I just watched it a few weeks ago), Perfect Days is charmingly akin in its elevated, metropolitan establishing shots, in Hirayama’s tranquility, and in the precisely layered staging of his humble abode. It’s all confined within the same old-fashioned aspect ratio of the time, a vintage vantage in a 70mm-IMAX world, but can convey emotion and action just as efficiently today in the right artist’s hands. Occasional handheld cameras add some verité jittering that diverges from the legacy of Ozu’s fixed gaze — a concession to modernity, not unlike Hirayama’s minimal personal tech.

He rarely allows himself a raised eyebrow or untoward exuberance. When he does react, it’s only when it really counts – say, at coworker-induced stress, or during a brief bout of family drama that hints at whatever secrets he closely guards or simply never dwells upon. Rather, he lives and thrives in the simplicity of the ever-pleasant now. His happiness is in watching someone else’s newfound joy in discovering music for themselves that he’s loved for years. It’s in a game of Tic-Tac-Toe with a mystery opponent. It’s in sidewalk horseplay with a terminally ill stranger. It’s in the black-and-white images from his dreams, which serve as untitled, unnumbered chapter headings between his days. It’s in the towering trees everywhere he likes to be. It’s in the old-fashioned satisfaction of a job well done.

And Our Hero’s happiness is in the closing moments, when the camera fixates without cuts as he drives into the sunset, listening to one last tune on tape. If the viewer has keyed into his wavelength, they too can ride along with him feeling the singer’s spirits rise, fall, and rise again. Tomorrow is another day, another song, another day to find joy in dutifully making the rounds.

…

Meanwhile in the customary MCC film breakdowns:

Hey, look, it’s that one actor!: Min Tanaka (47 Ronin, The Great War of Archimedes) is an even more silent homeless man who keeps crossing Hirayama’s path and strikes poses like a mime imitating a bonsai, his preferred expression of happiness. Inuko Inuyama (Pokemon‘s OG Japanese voice of Meowth) pops in twice as the kindly bookstore owner.

How about those end credits? There’s no scene after the Perfect Days end credits per se, but before fading to black, the scroll leads to one last black-and-white dream image of leaves fluttering in the breeze above our heads on a bright day. Over this parting shot, Wenders shares the word komorebi, along with its definition. I didn’t write down his exact verbiage, but it refers to sunlight filtered through treetops and its interplay with the shadowy undersides, whether in a forest canopy or a modest copse in a city park. English doesn’t have an analog that’s succinct or poetic. (“Treetop-rays”? “Chlorophylluminescence”?)

While the text rolls along to a instrumental piano cover of “House of the Rising Sun”, other tidbits include Wenders thanking his own leading man (how often are directors so openly grateful?) and the names of all the toilet designers. When all’s done, viewers intrigued by Hirayama the curator can visit Neon’s official website for the film for a sort of Works Cited page with the soundtrack’s complete set list, same as in those credits, and the books he’s shown reading, some of which you might find at a used bookstore or your local library. (Well, maybe not Kōda.)

collection | PERFECT DAYS official movie site

collection | PERFECT DAYS official movie site. A beautiful tale woven by master German filmmaker Wim Wenders and acclaimed Japanese actor Koji Yakusho.

^{PERFECT DAYS}

No, I mean this kind of Disney Easter egg.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

During the late afternoon of my one-man tour through the Grand Floridian grounds and around the Disney Resorts’ monorail track, in their main lobby I came across what’s apparently an annual Easter feature in their Main Building: an exhibit of egg-shaped sculptures honoring their companies’ films and theme park rides. Some weren’t egg-shaped, instead containing egg motifs. Some were new for 2023; some were holdovers from the past. A few were works-in-progress. All were a gentle admonishment to myself that, yes, I’m sharing these pics well outside the Easter 2023 season when we took them, but in plenty of time for Easter 2024, skipping right over Valentine’s Day and getting ahead of Hallmark for once.

Not all the pics are mine; Anne finally got a chance to peruse the Grand Floridian for herself Wednesday afternoon when she found some unexpected free time between activities and I was several miles away. Between the two of us, we found most of the Easter eggs, which of course weren’t really “hidden”.

Cinderella Castle with your host Walt Disney and a cameo from 101 Dalmatians.

Bambi and his surviving friends.

Snow White’s house with eggs on the lawn.

The Princess and the Frog on the front…

…and the back.

Daisy Duck possibly throwing eggs at Donald, but with lousy aim.

Fantasia‘s unicorns from Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony segment.

The White Rabbit has non-traditional ideas about what should be inside an Easter egg.

Disney’s Winnie-the-Pooh floating through the Hundred-Acre Wood.

Merlin and friends from The Sword in the Stone.

Our Hero from Raya and the Last Dragon, which was released during the pandemic and forgotten by one and all till just now.

Isabela, Mirabel and Casa Madrigal from Encanto.

A nod to Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride on the 25th anniversary of its last run at Disney World before it was removed to make way for Pooh.

Another Disney World ride tribute, the Country Bears Jamboree.

Figment sitting atop an ovoid Spaceship Earth. This made a little more sense after I eventually got to EPCOT.

More salutes to Disney Parks traditions from before our time.

The titular star of Pixar’s Luca and Disney World’s iconic Orange Bird, or so we were told.

Dadgum! It’s Tow Mater!

Remy from Ratatouille, easy to miss among the larger eggs.

The eponymous bird from the 2016 Oscar-winning short “Piper” (which was released in front of Finding Dory), and Pooh’s honey jar.

Avengers Assemble!

I’m old enough to remember when Disney’s Buena Vista Home Video began releasing Miyazaki films on VHS, like My Neighbor Totoro.

Not an egg, just the largest Easter bunny in the exhibit, begging to be Disney-fied.

Also not an egg per se: Kevin from Up.

The all-star collage egg in our lead photo was only half done. By the time we had to leave Friday morning, this is where things stood with its other side.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Midlife Crisis Crossover!

2024-01-12 05:13:59

Disney World! Part 4: Party of One v. Party of Many

Far from other tourists, this was my view across Seven Seas Lagoon of Disney’s Contemporary Resort. The glowing blue mountain is Cinderella’s Castle.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

Our Disney Resort experience had only just begun. We’d been together all day, but wouldn’t be for long. Among the divergences in the four-day itinerary, Anne had to attend an “evening event” for employees only beginning at 5 pm at the Grand Floridian’s Convention Center. We plus-ones were cordially asked to go bug off on our own recognizance. At first I’d worried about possibly spending my solo night sulky and depressed. It’s a thing I do sometimes.

Then I remembered I was at DISNEY WORLD. I had some light exploring to do before my big, big day tomorrow.

First things first: I was starving. The snacks we’d been given while waiting an extra hour for our room hadn’t lasted me long. Disney restaurants generally, legendarily require reservations weeks or months in advance. For this particular evening I decided in advance I’d wing it. I walked over to the Grand Floridian Cafe and saw the tables were less than half-full. For decorum’s sake I logged into the official My Disney Experience Mobile App — an essential travel tool that came in constantly handy throughout our trip — and joined the waitlist. Five minutes later they were ready for me. Three cheers for off-hours on off-days.

My dinner of shrimp and grits, generous with the Florida seafood protein.

Minute Maid Zero-Sugar Lemonade with a Mickey Mouse berry powder head to be plunked in and dissolved for extra flavor.

Biggest letdown: the menu promised the lemonade would be served in a souvenir cup honoring Disney World’s 50th anniversary, which explained why it was priced more than alcohol. I’d expected something larger, showier, and not made of Dixie plastic. I left it behind.

I wandered the Grand Floridian’s Main Building, passed other restaurants, and peeked inside some of their shops. My souvenir want-list was short, but “shirt” was at the top. To my chagrin and complete lack of surprise, the only ones in my size were $120 Tommy Bahama tops in an upscale clothier — not my comfort level. For the moment I settled on a Disney World logo magnet for my cubicle collection at work. It was a start.

On the brighter side, on the second floor I found a smashed penny machine. Longtime MCC readers know these are Anne’s favorite memento. She has several books filled with li’l mutilated coinage restamped with happy fun travel images. I’d brought no change with me, for the sake of simplifying my airport security gauntlet (which worked!), but to my delight the machine took credit cards. I bought all the choices for the woman I love. For all I knew, it might just be the one and only smashed penny machine I’d see this week.

Other sights along my aimless path:

Live pianist in the lobby, one of many signs we were having the most decadent time of our lives even before we touched a single square foot of theme park.

Olde-tyme beach painting for ambiance and to plug the Disney Vacation Club. In daytime they had signup tables set up.

The Floridian grounds south of the Main Building, on its opposite end from the Convention Center.

Across the Seven Seas Lagoon, the monorail runs in front of Disney’s Contemporary Resort.

For fun and science, I decided to give the monorail a whirl. The complimentary rail service around the lagoon ran a full circle through the Grand Floridian, the Magic Kingdom, the Contemporary, the Transportation Hub (site of the Magic Kingdom’s parking lot and a transfer point to other monorails), and Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort. Some reconnaissance for the next two days’ travels seemed wise and maybe I’d see cool stuff gratis. The Grand Floridian’s station was attached to the Main Building’s second floor and included a minor security checkpoint. I barely registered on their radar as they waved me past.

Monorail! Monorail! MONORAIL!

The Grand Floridian campus from afar.

I had no view at all of the Magic Kingdom from my seat, but the Contemporary was just down the way.

A full lap took slightly over ten minutes. Back at the Grand Floridian, I wandered a bit more as nightfall continued and I worried not one bit about safety. I took it on faith they had people for that. I found the pier where guests could take boats to the Magic Kingdom and back again, but it was closed. I settled for taking the lead photo and went on my way before alligators or snakes could pin down my location.

The water jungle gym at night, kid-free on this fine Tuesday.

A 1929 Cadillac that’s been parked by the Grand Floridian since at least 1996 or so.

The Cadillac had absolutely no signage around it for context, which I had to look up ex post facto. Once upon a time it was part of the finale in the Stars and Cars Motor Parade at Disney Hollywood Studios, where it chauffeured park “cast members” in their larger-than-life Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy suits. The car, or ones like it, was also available for rental in Disney destination weddings. As of this night it was merely a display item.

Meanwhile, on the clock: after a couple hours of introductions and classified Company Business for business-trip purposes, Anne and her fellow winning employees were treated to a beach dinner party, complete with sand everywhere. Business dinners are never a thing for us, but she was fed on their dime and felt obliged to stick it out for the duration.

Hors d’oeuvres round 1: “spicy Korean on a cracker”, according to her text.

Hors d’oeuvres round 2: crab cake with mango chutney.

Dinner is served: chicken breast, mahi mahi, mashed potatoes, and quiche.

For dessert, Magic Kingdom blueberry macarons and a flourless chocolate torte with chocolate Mickey head coin.

(Not pictured: Hors d’oeuvres round 3, a “truffle scented tenderloin”.)

A different kind of after-dinner treat: complimentary Ray-Bans!

The party didn’t have the best view of the Magic Kingdom’s nightly fireworks show. We’ll come back to that, though.

For those who didn’t simply want to sit around and get drunk, beach party activities included Giant Connect Four…

…a fancy beanbag-tossing game on what looks like a giant smartphone…

…and caricatures! Anne’s artist may have taken some liberties. To be clear, that isn’t a drink in her hand; it’s her phone.

(Longtime MCC readers may recall this isn’t Anne’s first time in caricature.)

Not till sometime after 9:30 pm was she informed that, other than dinner itself, absolutely everything about this evening was optional and she could’ve left anytime. Once aware, she split. Even then, the evening wasn’t over.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Our Road Trip Checklist

Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken a road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home in Indianapolis. From 1999 …

^{Randall A. Golden (Midlife Crisis Crossover!)}

This isn’t a setting where people like us hang out. This is where Higgins gives Thomas Magnum his latest case.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

After landing at Orlando International Airport, we wandered a bit in search of the exit where Anne’s employers (hereafter referred to as The Company) had arranged for a charter bus to pick us up. We stopped to ask an NPC for directions, but misunderstood and took three passes to spot the turnoff — a down-escalator in a narrow, unmarked passage with no up-escalator twin next to it. At the bottom we found the doors, checked in with company reps, took off our now-superfluous winter jackets, and hung out in the lobby for a bit with a fellow employee Anne knew from another department. Soon our plushly seated chariot arrived and spirited us off to the resort where we’d be staying for the next three nights, which would prove the poshest place we’ve ever stayed in our lives.

A half-hour later we pulled up to Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa, an immaculate Victorian complex est. 1988 comprising six buildings surrounding a palm-treed courtyard, positioned on the western shore of Seven Seas Lagoon, and dotted with special features here and there. One building, Sugar Loaf Key, was walled off for construction, but we’d otherwise have the run of the grounds. In the planning stages The Company had given winners the choice of staying either here or at Disney’s Contemporary Resort, a separate hotel on the other side of the monorail loop (which in turn would lead to other points of Disney interest). We took a few pics of the Contemporary in passing later on, but our first impression of the Grand Floridian assured us we’d chosen wisely.

The Main Building houses multiple restaurants, shops, and decorations, as well as the spa we never tried. For Anne’s free day Thursday, the spa was one of several options she could’ve availed herself of as part of her reward package. We chose differently, but if she wins again in the future, we’ll keep it in mind.

The Main Building, viewed from the southeast Friday morning. The main entrance was on the west side, but we’re jumping around in the timeline for a general Grand Floridian mini-tour.

Our stay coincided with the celebration of Disney World’s 50th anniversary. A welcome mat was one of many flourishes in its honor.

The opulent main lobby. One afternoon there was even a bespoke player at that piano.

An awestruck gaze upon their skylight array.

The elevator.

The carpet on the second floor, which was as high as we could travel in the Main Building without actually having a room there.

Decorations included a Ferris wheel model and a Poppins-esque Seurat homage let’s call Sunday in the Park for a Balloon Race.

A fake window lets guests think they’re next to some other lagoon, or pretend Orlando is anywhere near the ocean.

The Grand Floridian monogram was a repeating Easter egg of sorts, not unlike the Mickey Mouse heads reputedly found everywhere on Disney grounds.

Mrs. Potts suggested we go that-a-way.

Chip was not far away on the same floor.

The chandelier from a closer vantage.

A chocolate Cinderella Castle hand-decorated by the Grand Floridian Bakery.

In the lobby is the Grand Cottage, a snack shop where we bought treats Thursday: a Mickey Mouse-shaped lemon blueberry whoopie pie, macarons, and a guava cream cheese sweet roll.

Shortly after 3:00 the bus dropped us at the front door of the Grand Floridian Convention Center, on the grounds’ northwest corner and next door to the Main Building. Two rows of representatives from The Company stood on either side of the walkway leading inside, applauding and high-fiving winners and us guests as we strolled the carpet and walked in. New arrivals checked in and were directed to their assigned rooms elsewhere in the resort, where their luggage would be waiting for them.

Decor inside the Convention Center included horsey statues, Unisphere replicas, and another Seurat pastiche we’ll call Sunday in the Park Outside the Grand Floridian, The Balloon Race Bores Us Now.

All the other new arrivals departed one by one (or two-by-two), leaving only the organizers, their welcoming-committee volunteers…and us.

We were the last couple standing, left to wonder if there was room at the inn. For some reason we and only we were asked to wait for a while, as our room wasn’t ready yet, whatever that meant. In the meantime we were invited to enjoy a selection of snacks in a nearby room, gratis — half-cut sandwiches, sugary treats, soft drinks and so forth. That helped, especially since I was starving (the airport bagel brunch had been hours ago), but a combination of Impostor Syndrome and FOMO began to set in and fray at my temper. Why us? Why only us? Everyone else got to go dancing an prancing around the resort, but not us. What did we do wrong? Did someone delete Anne from the roster by mistake, and now we’d have to beg someone to let us crash on their floor, with only Mickey-head rugs as our pillows?

Also, somewhere out there in the universe was our luggage, out of our grasp and beyond our control, a sensation I hate hate HATE, which is why we’ve almost never flown with bags large enough to require checking.

When a Disney Resort photographer asked to take our picture, I bottled up my anxieties the best I could.

Anne was much more optimistic that everything would be fine, as she enjoyed a Rice Krispie treat that was chronologically the first of many edible Mickey-heads to come on this trip.

Around 4:30, a full ninety frustrating minutes after arrival, we were finally told our room was ready. We headed out and followed the directions. As Anne unlocked the door to our accommodations, I felt all anxieties evaporate in a flash to be replaced by stunned joy.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Your humbled narrator, who’d rarely stayed this close to scenic waters in past vacations.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

After 90+ minutes of going stir-crazy on the convention center’s patio despite free snacks, we were at last escorted to our room in Boca Chica, the building at the Grand Floridian’s eastern edge on the bank of Seven Seas Lagoon. Renovations were completed in fall 2022 to upgrade the rooms to a Mary Poppins theme, apropos of the resort’s Victorian-chic ambiance. Fortunately we weren’t required to wear Sunday suits or hoop skirts.

Their overhauled lobby, as seen from our second-floor perch.

Mary Poppins art in the lobby.

The second-floor carpet.

In terms of square footage, we’ve stayed in bigger hotels. Fairfield Inns routinely have pretty spacious accommodations for us middle-class ragamuffins. But the bathroom was appreciably spacious, and there were the cutesy animals and floating nannies in the details. Boca Chica was a vast improvement over our 2007 Orlando matchbox.

Disney beds, one of each of us for value-added sprawling space, which is something we each crave. I just realized I left my pill organizer on the nightstand.

Birdie chandelier.

Flowery closet doors.

Bonus mirror outside the bathroom.

Closer look at the birds next to the mirror.

Mary Poppins diptych.

Mary Poppins lumbar pillow.

Amenities included Disney brand K-Cups, the most free coffee I’ve ever had in a hotel room. Now that I’ve recently gotten into using K-cups at work, I wish I’d taken a few home with me.

Disney toiletries! I took the cooling gel home because it worked like magic. Months later I tried to order more online only to learn it’d been discontinued.

Disney cleaning fluids! Or course there were!

The room’s real star was the balcony view.

On the balcony was our first look at Seven Seas Lagoon, adjacent to the main park and other Disney World resorts. A monorail surrounds the lagoon.

Soothing lagoon ripples and oceanesque sounds abounded even though we were nowhere near the ocean. In the distance is Disney’s Contemporary Resort, our backup option if the Grand Floridian had been full.

A happy Disney ferry full of guests who got to start having Disney fun before we did.

On the lagoon’s north banks, Disney’s Magic Kingdom beckoned.

COMPUTER, ENHANCE IMAGE. Voila: our first-ever in-person glimpse of the iconic Cinderella Castle. Alas, our first footsteps in its presence were still a full 48 hours away.

East of the Castle lay what looked like a billion-dollar futuristic indoor agricultural complex. On Thursday we’d learn this was Tomorrowland.

Lest our exotic getaway feel too idyllic, exiting Boca Chica’s back door brought us to this sobering reminder of that time in 2016 when an alligator mauled a 2-year-old to death right around here.

ANYWAY, WELCOME TO FLORIDA, YOU CRAZY KIDS!

On the brighter side, this was sunrise Wednesday across the lagoon.

Most importantly, more so than any Disney-classic Easter-egg-deco flourishes: all our luggage was safely in our room, waiting for us as promised. Everything else was extra credit. Lots of extra credit.

As of March 2023 a stay on our own dime would’ve run $900 a night. This is not who we are. For three nights we could escape into a temporary fantasy that this was real life.

Unfortunately the next step on our itinerary was to go our separate ways.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Midlife Crisis Crossover!

2023-12-11 02:47:09

Disney World! Part 2: Welcome to the Grand Floridian

This isn’t a setting where people like us hang out. This is where Higgins gives Thomas Magnum his latest case.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

After landing at Orlando International Airport, we wandered a bit in search of the exit where Anne’s employers (hereafter referred to as The Company) had arranged for a charter bus to pick us up. We stopped to ask an NPC for directions, but misunderstood and took three passes to spot the turnoff — a down-escalator in a narrow, unmarked passage with no up-escalator twin next to it. At the bottom we found the doors, checked in with company reps, took off our now-superfluous winter jackets, and hung out in the lobby for a bit with a fellow employee Anne knew from another department. Soon our plushly seated chariot arrived and spirited us off to the resort where we’d be staying for the next three nights, which would prove the poshest place we’ve ever stayed in our lives.

A half-hour later we pulled up to Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa, an immaculate Victorian complex est. 1988 comprising six buildings surrounding a palm-treed courtyard, positioned on the western shore of Seven Seas Lagoon, and dotted with special features here and there. One building, Sugar Loaf Key, was walled off for construction, but we’d otherwise have the run of the grounds. In the planning stages The Company had given winners the choice of staying either here or at Disney’s Contemporary Resort, a separate hotel on the other side of the monorail loop (which in turn would lead to other points of Disney interest). We took a few pics of the Contemporary in passing later on, but our first impression of the Grand Floridian assured us we’d chosen wisely.

The Main Building houses multiple restaurants, shops, and decorations, as well as the spa we never tried. For Anne’s free day Thursday, the spa was one of several options she could’ve availed herself of as part of her reward package. We chose differently, but if she wins again in the future, we’ll keep it in mind.

The Main Building, viewed from the southeast Friday morning. The main entrance was on the west side, but we’re jumping around in the timeline for a general Grand Floridian mini-tour.

Our stay coincided with the celebration of Disney World’s 50th anniversary. A welcome mat was one of many flourishes in its honor.

The opulent main lobby. One afternoon there was even a bespoke player at that piano.

An awestruck gaze upon their skylight array.

The elevator.

The carpet on the second floor, which was as high as we could travel in the Main Building without actually having a room there.

Decorations included a Ferris wheel model and a Poppins-esque Seurat homage let’s call Sunday in the Park for a Balloon Race.

A fake window lets guests think they’re next to some other lagoon, or pretend Orlando is anywhere near the ocean.

The Grand Floridian monogram was a repeating Easter egg of sorts, not unlike the Mickey Mouse heads reputedly found everywhere on Disney grounds.

Mrs. Potts suggested we go that-a-way.

Chip was not far away on the same floor.

The chandelier from a closer vantage.

A chocolate Cinderella Castle hand-decorated by the Grand Floridian Bakery.

In the lobby is the Grand Cottage, a snack shop where we bought treats Thursday: a Mickey Mouse-shaped lemon blueberry whoopie pie, macarons, and a guava cream cheese sweet roll.

Shortly after 3:00 the bus dropped us at the front door of the Grand Floridian Convention Center, on the grounds’ northwest corner and next door to the Main Building. Two rows of representatives from The Company stood on either side of the walkway leading inside, applauding and high-fiving winners and us guests as we strolled the carpet and walked in. New arrivals checked in and were directed to their assigned rooms elsewhere in the resort, where their luggage would be waiting for them.

Decor inside the Convention Center included horsey statues, Unisphere replicas, and another Seurat pastiche we’ll call Sunday in the Park Outside the Grand Floridian, The Balloon Race Bores Us Now.

All the other new arrivals departed one by one (or two-by-two), leaving only the organizers, their welcoming-committee volunteers…and us.

We were the last couple standing, left to wonder if there was room at the inn. For some reason we and only we were asked to wait for a while, as our room wasn’t ready yet, whatever that meant. In the meantime we were invited to enjoy a selection of snacks in a nearby room, gratis — half-cut sandwiches, sugary treats, soft drinks and so forth. That helped, especially since I was starving (the airport bagel brunch had been hours ago), but a combination of Impostor Syndrome and FOMO began to set in and fray at my temper. Why us? Why only us? Everyone else got to go dancing an prancing around the resort, but not us. What did we do wrong? Did someone delete Anne from the roster by mistake, and now we’d have to beg someone to let us crash on their floor, with only Mickey-head rugs as our pillows?

Also, somewhere out there in the universe was our luggage, out of our grasp and beyond our control, a sensation I hate hate HATE, which is why we’ve almost never flown with bags large enough to require checking.

When a Disney Resort photographer asked to take our picture, I bottled up my anxieties the best I could.

Anne was much more optimistic that everything would be fine, as she enjoyed a Rice Krispie treat that was chronologically the first of many edible Mickey-heads to come on this trip.

Around 4:30, a full ninety frustrating minutes after arrival, we were finally told our room was ready. We headed out and followed the directions. As Anne unlocked the door to our accommodations, I felt all anxieties evaporate in a flash to be replaced by stunned joy.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Midlife Crisis Crossover

Midlife Crisis Crossover. Gefällt 90 Mal. Aging mind hosts pointless fight scenes among cultures of pop, geek, and faith

^{www.facebook.com}

Far from other tourists, this was my view across Seven Seas Lagoon of Disney’s Contemporary Resort. The glowing blue mountain is Cinderella’s Castle.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

Our Disney Resort experience had only just begun. We’d been together all day, but wouldn’t be for long. Among the divergences in the four-day itinerary, Anne had to attend an “evening event” for employees only beginning at 5 pm at the Grand Floridian’s Convention Center. We plus-ones were cordially asked to go bug off on our own recognizance. At first I’d worried about possibly spending my solo night sulky and depressed. It’s a thing I do sometimes.

Then I remembered I was at DISNEY WORLD. I had some light exploring to do before my big, big day tomorrow.

First things first: I was starving. The snacks we’d been given while waiting an extra hour for our room hadn’t lasted me long. Disney restaurants generally, legendarily require reservations weeks or months in advance. For this particular evening I decided in advance I’d wing it. I walked over to the Grand Floridian Cafe and saw the tables were less than half-full. For decorum’s sake I logged into the official My Disney Experience Mobile App — an essential travel tool that came in constantly handy throughout our trip — and joined the waitlist. Five minutes later they were ready for me. Three cheers for off-hours on off-days.

My dinner of shrimp and grits, generous with the Florida seafood protein.

Minute Maid Zero-Sugar Lemonade with a Mickey Mouse berry powder head to be plunked in and dissolved for extra flavor.

Biggest letdown: the menu promised the lemonade would be served in a souvenir cup honoring Disney World’s 50th anniversary, which explained why it was priced more than alcohol. I’d expected something larger, showier, and not made of Dixie plastic. I left it behind.

I wandered the Grand Floridian’s Main Building, passed other restaurants, and peeked inside some of their shops. My souvenir want-list was short, but “shirt” was at the top. To my chagrin and complete lack of surprise, the only ones in my size were $120 Tommy Bahama tops in an upscale clothier — not my comfort level. For the moment I settled on a Disney World logo magnet for my cubicle collection at work. It was a start.

On the brighter side, on the second floor I found a smashed penny machine. Longtime MCC readers know these are Anne’s favorite memento. She has several books filled with li’l mutilated coinage restamped with happy fun travel images. I’d brought no change with me, for the sake of simplifying my airport security gauntlet (which worked!), but to my delight the machine took credit cards. I bought all the choices for the woman I love. For all I knew, it might just be the one and only smashed penny machine I’d see this week.

Other sights along my aimless path:

Live pianist in the lobby, one of many signs we were having the most decadent time of our lives even before we touched a single square foot of theme park.

Olde-tyme beach painting for ambiance and to plug the Disney Vacation Club. In daytime they had signup tables set up.

The Floridian grounds south of the Main Building, on its opposite end from the Convention Center.

Across the Seven Seas Lagoon, the monorail runs in front of Disney’s Contemporary Resort.

For fun and science, I decided to give the monorail a whirl. The complimentary rail service around the lagoon ran a full circle through the Grand Floridian, the Magic Kingdom, the Contemporary, the Transportation Hub (site of the Magic Kingdom’s parking lot and a transfer point to other monorails), and Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort. Some reconnaissance for the next two days’ travels seemed wise and maybe I’d see cool stuff gratis. The Grand Floridian’s station was attached to the Main Building’s second floor and included a minor security checkpoint. I barely registered on their radar as they waved me past.

Monorail! Monorail! MONORAIL!

The Grand Floridian campus from afar.

I had no view at all of the Magic Kingdom from my seat, but the Contemporary was just down the way.

A full lap took slightly over ten minutes. Back at the Grand Floridian, I wandered a bit more as nightfall continued and I worried not one bit about safety. I took it on faith they had people for that. I found the pier where guests could take boats to the Magic Kingdom and back again, but it was closed. I settled for taking the lead photo and went on my way before alligators or snakes could pin down my location.

The water jungle gym at night, kid-free on this fine Tuesday.

A 1929 Cadillac that’s been parked by the Grand Floridian since at least 1996 or so.

The Cadillac had absolutely no signage around it for context, which I had to look up ex post facto. Once upon a time it was part of the finale in the Stars and Cars Motor Parade at Disney Hollywood Studios, where it chauffeured park “cast members” in their larger-than-life Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy suits. The car, or ones like it, was also available for rental in Disney destination weddings. As of this night it was merely a display item.

Meanwhile, on the clock: after a couple hours of introductions and classified Company Business for business-trip purposes, Anne and her fellow winning employees were treated to a beach dinner party, complete with sand everywhere. Business dinners are never a thing for us, but she was fed on their dime and felt obliged to stick it out for the duration.

Hors d’oeuvres round 1: “spicy Korean on a cracker”, according to her text.

Hors d’oeuvres round 2: crab cake with mango chutney.

Dinner is served: chicken breast, mahi mahi, mashed potatoes, and quiche.

For dessert, Magic Kingdom blueberry macarons and a flourless chocolate torte with chocolate Mickey head coin.

(Not pictured: Hors d’oeuvres round 3, a “truffle scented tenderloin”.)

A different kind of after-dinner treat: complimentary Ray-Bans!

The party didn’t have the best view of the Magic Kingdom’s nightly fireworks show. We’ll come back to that, though.

For those who didn’t simply want to sit around and get drunk, beach party activities included Giant Connect Four…

…a fancy beanbag-tossing game on what looks like a giant smartphone…

…and caricatures! Anne’s artist may have taken some liberties. To be clear, that isn’t a drink in her hand; it’s her phone.

(Longtime MCC readers may recall this isn’t Anne’s first time in caricature.)

Not till sometime after 9:30 pm was she informed that, other than dinner itself, absolutely everything about this evening was optional and she could’ve left anytime. Once aware, she split. Even then, the evening wasn’t over.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Midlife Crisis Crossover!

2023-12-14 15:25:58

Disney World! Part 3: Three Nights in Boca Chica

Your humbled narrator, who’d rarely stayed this close to scenic waters in past vacations.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

After 90+ minutes of going stir-crazy on the convention center’s patio despite free snacks, we were at last escorted to our room in Boca Chica, the building at the Grand Floridian’s eastern edge on the bank of Seven Seas Lagoon. Renovations were completed in fall 2022 to upgrade the rooms to a Mary Poppins theme, apropos of the resort’s Victorian-chic ambiance. Fortunately we weren’t required to wear Sunday suits or hoop skirts.

Their overhauled lobby, as seen from our second-floor perch.

Mary Poppins art in the lobby.

The second-floor carpet.

In terms of square footage, we’ve stayed in bigger hotels. Fairfield Inns routinely have pretty spacious accommodations for us middle-class ragamuffins. But the bathroom was appreciably spacious, and there were the cutesy animals and floating nannies in the details. Boca Chica was a vast improvement over our 2007 Orlando matchbox.

Disney beds, one of each of us for value-added sprawling space, which is something we each crave. I just realized I left my pill organizer on the nightstand.

Birdie chandelier.

Flowery closet doors.

Bonus mirror outside the bathroom.

Closer look at the birds next to the mirror.

Mary Poppins diptych.

Mary Poppins lumbar pillow.

Amenities included Disney brand K-Cups, the most free coffee I’ve ever had in a hotel room. Now that I’ve recently gotten into using K-cups at work, I wish I’d taken a few home with me.

Disney toiletries! I took the cooling gel home because it worked like magic. Months later I tried to order more online only to learn it’d been discontinued.

Disney cleaning fluids! Or course there were!

The room’s real star was the balcony view.

On the balcony was our first look at Seven Seas Lagoon, adjacent to the main park and other Disney World resorts. A monorail surrounds the lagoon.

Soothing lagoon ripples and oceanesque sounds abounded even though we were nowhere near the ocean. In the distance is Disney’s Contemporary Resort, our backup option if the Grand Floridian had been full.

A happy Disney ferry full of guests who got to start having Disney fun before we did.

On the lagoon’s north banks, Disney’s Magic Kingdom beckoned.

COMPUTER, ENHANCE IMAGE. Voila: our first-ever in-person glimpse of the iconic Cinderella Castle. Alas, our first footsteps in its presence were still a full 48 hours away.

East of the Castle lay what looked like a billion-dollar futuristic indoor agricultural complex. On Thursday we’d learn this was Tomorrowland.

Lest our exotic getaway feel too idyllic, exiting Boca Chica’s back door brought us to this sobering reminder of that time in 2016 when an alligator mauled a 2-year-old to death right around here.

ANYWAY, WELCOME TO FLORIDA, YOU CRAZY KIDS!

On the brighter side, this was sunrise Wednesday across the lagoon.

Most importantly, more so than any Disney-classic Easter-egg-deco flourishes: all our luggage was safely in our room, waiting for us as promised. Everything else was extra credit. Lots of extra credit.

As of March 2023 a stay on our own dime would’ve run $900 a night. This is not who we are. For three nights we could escape into a temporary fantasy that this was real life.

Unfortunately the next step on our itinerary was to go our separate ways.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Our Road Trip Checklist

Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken a road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home in Indianapolis. From 1999 …

^{Randall A. Golden (Midlife Crisis Crossover!)}

Mission Space, one of many rides I skipped.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

Touring EPCOT solo felt less lonely and awkward as the day wore on and I got used to it. I couldn’t linger too much longer, though. Anne’s company had scheduled a celebratory dinner for all employees and their plus-ones at 5 p.m. The exact location was TBA, traditionally kept secret every year until hours beforehand. One of Anne’s coworkers was a previous winner whose shindig was held in Disney’s Animal Kingdom. There was no guaranteed hers would do the same, but if it were, that would mean we’d indeed get to see all four Disney parks in Orlando on the same trip. We crossed our fingers and hoped for the convenience.

In the meantime, I had a few more sections of EPCOT to see.

EPCOT’s World Showcase area continued with Disney’s Norway!

The Norway pavilion is the home of their Frozen ride, but the wait was an hour long and my time was growing short.

Salute to Norwegian runner Grete Waitz, a longtime marathon veteran and Olympic Silver Medal winner.

I failed to get an establishing shot of Disney’s Mexico. This art was my first pic in that pavilion.

Live music courtesy of Mariachi Cobre.

Plaza de Los Amigos is the place to be for Mexican souvenirs, Day of the Dead paraphernalia, or merch from Pixar’s Coco.

Skulls for sale.

Not for sale: Sugar Skull Wall, a 2017 installation by Alba Hernandez Santiago, an artist from Oaxaca.

Still more skulls hung from a tree of orange leis.

Another 2017 piece, Bridal Couple by Felipe Linares Mendoza.

I understand they put on quite the Day of the Dead celebration every year.

Unofficial special features around the Wold Showcase Lagoon included ibises…

…and an actual egret. Florida welcomed so many birds we don’t see ’round the retention pond behind our house.

Back in the vicinity of gift shops sans specific nationality, Marvel fans can now fill their entire kitchen with logos.

One of many shops commemorating Disney World’s 50th anniversary.

I am Groot!

I was pretty tired by the time I reached the World Discovery section, filled with thrill rides such as the Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind.

…and my one-man walkabout wrapped up around 3:00. I boarded the monorail and headed back to the Grand Floridian for some much-needed rest. Maybe I’d return one day, but I wept lightly inside, for there would be no new EPCOT worlds to conquer.

Well…at least I thought I would weep. At precisely 2:00 Anne had texted me from one of her mandatory work meetings to inform me the location of the celebratory dinner had been revealed unto all guests at last.

The night’s festivities would be held at EPCOT. So I would, in fact, return much sooner than anticipated, for better or worse.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Spotted on my way out: a 16-foot acrylic fountain installed in December 2020. Farewell for a couple hours, EPCOT!

At last I would see the world’s largest golf ball for myself.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

Lo, there shall come at long last an actual Disney Theme Park in this saga! Well, for one of us, anyway.

DAY TWO: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2023.

One of us had been looking forward to this day. Once again Anne and I would have to go our separate ways for the first several hours. Her company’s itinerary began generously with a magical breakfast buffet. Unfortunately magic came with a price: they’d have to spend the day’s first half legitimizing the “business trip” concept with mandatory meetings, workshops, team-building exercises, product updates, and other numbing duties that could kill a readership dead. I’ll spare you the same way she kindly spared me.

We’d have all of Thursday to spend together, but Wednesday morning we plus-ones were ordered to bug off and go make our own plans. I’d asked myself months ago: what’s something I could do alone that Anne might not be jealous about missing? The answer came to me in seconds: EPCOT. All throughout our childhoods, since its opening in 1981 it’d been badmouthed as the black sheep of the Disney Theme Park empire, until 1992 when Euro Disney came along to take the heat off it. We’d heard The Simpsons mock EPCOT (“Awww, it’s even boring to fly over!”), as did my son, who’d gotten to visit it with his mom’s family when he was 8 and came home underwhelmed. We were definitely not wasting our precious Thursday quality time on it.

My alone-time was a different story. I couldn’t help feeling inquisitive about it. Why the backlash? Nobody talks trash like that about Disney’s Animal Kingdom (especially after they added the Avatar ride in 2017). Clearly I ought to see EPCOT and judge for myself. Like, for science. What’s the worst that could happen?

Admittedly my first guess was “I could be mistaken for a stalker.” I’d never visited a theme park alone. Sure, I’ve been to more than a few since age 4, the first time my family ever took me to Kings Island in Ohio, but who pays an extravagant price to wander a theme park alone? Do a lot of guys do this? Would I stick out among the happy families and cliques? Consider how many fat, bearded, white dudes regularly turn into bullies, brutes, pervs, or internet trolls on any given American day. (This is something I think about every single time we meet an actress at a comic-con, where I try to present as harmlessly as possible, sometimes even pitching my voice up a little, in a humble act of Midwest code-switching. I don’t like the idea of being lumped in.) Would Mouse Security spot me sticking out, profile me and surveil me extra closely just in case? Or could I just, y’know, relax?

After wishing Anne well and praying the Lord would deliver her from ennui, I adjourned to the monorail station, where I seemed two mere counterclockwise stops away from the Transportation and Ticket Center, the hub where I’d need to transfer to the dedicated EPCOT monorail. That day I learned the monorails around the Disney resort grounds only rode clockwise, necessitating I go nearly a full lap ’round. To be fair, that only took ten minutes, but I wanted to be in official Disney World now now now. After I disembarked at the TTC, I bounced nervously in place while waiting seven whole minutes for the next car to EPCOT. The subsequent four-mile ride took forever according to the impatient child inside me. I wished I’d had someone with me so I could ask over and over again, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”

Eventually, we were there yet.

My view of some future attraction’s grounds as the southbound monorail bypassed Spaceship Earth by several hundred feet before doubling back and stopping at the entrance gates on the park’s north end.

I took the lead photo as I approached the front gates ten minutes before 9, just as cast members were dismantling the daily early-entry perk signage for Disney Resort guests like me. I was sad to have wasted that perk, but it was my own fault for not parting from Anne sooner and/or beginning my preparations at 4 a.m. Worse still, I’d decided to skip breakfast at the Grand Floridian after noting the EPCOT map’s numerous opportunities for grazing throughout the day. Their prevalence came in handy later, but I might’ve rethought my strategy if anyone had told me none of their concessions would open till 11. The discomfort of escalating hunger wasn’t fun.

On the bright side, I took about ten minutes to stop feeling self-conscious about going stag. At first I consciously tried to look cheery on the outside rather than lonely or anxious, and hoped I didn’t look predatory. That’s challenging sometimes when you’re born with resting ogre face, which runs in the family. My skittishness faded as I got comfy, got into the Disney World spirit, and came to realize, more so than any other theme park I’ve seen, EPCOT is basically one big outdoor shopping mall (or “lifestyle center”, if you prefer that euphemism). I’ve done malls alone plenty of times. This was just an old-fashioned mall, except the motorized kiddie rides cost more than a quarter and there’re no cool book or record stores.

Also, they had museum exhibits sprinkled here and there for educational purposes. Remember back in the ’90s when the U.S. government required a certain percentage of Saturday morning cartoons to be spoon-fed after-school lessons that felt like small-screen home detention? I was reminded of that. But now I’m 51 and sometimes I love me some museum exhibits — more so than thrill rides, frankly. It didn’t help that I can be prone to motion sickness (longtime MCC fans may or may not recall the 2003 Six Flags incident) and had forgotten my Dramamine back at our room.

Of course EPCOT has rides, but they’re a minority percentage of the total activities on hand. First-time visitors who’re undecided what to do first can stop pondering when they realize the very first object in their way is Spaceship Earth — that iconic, 7,760-ton geodesic dome towering 18 stories over one and all. Given its prominence in every advertisement or briefest glimpses of EPCOT, it’s easy to assume Spaceship Earth all there is to EPCOT — like, you enter the gate, enter the dome, walk on the walls in zero-G, buy a T-shirt, and presto, you’re done for the day, go back to the hotel. Not quite! Spaceship Earth is a ride and you can go inside it. It’s not an impenetrable display model like Mount Rushmore.

Welcome to the belly of the ball.

I only had a half-day to spend at EPCOT, so I had to be judicious about which lines I braved or skipped during the time allotted. Thankfully this was only March, and Spaceship Earth’s line moved quickly.

I was inside in less than 15 minutes. The polyhedral tiles were wild to stare at while I waited.

Next to the entrance is a mural painted by Claudio Mazzoli, who also had a hand in the ride’s interior designs.

Inside the air-conditioned geosphere, a series of Omnimover cars (read: extremely slow, leisurely roller coaster) takes riders on a scenic tour of the timeline of human civilization and milestone innovations from cave-dwelling times to EPCOT’s original, contemporaneous setting at the dawn of the home computer age. I had a two-seat row to myself as I coasted past an assortment of animatronics, dioramas, and sparkly stars — altogether a tidy runthrough of any given state history museum but on a much bigger budget, minus the real dinosaur fossils and arrowheads of disputed provenance. Working off a script that was originally written by Ray Bradbury but oft-amended since then, its recorded narrator since 2008 has been none other than Academy Award Winner Dame Judi Dench, star of such Disney classics as Home on the Range, Artemis Fowl, and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. (Previous narrators in reverse order were Jeremy Irons, Walter Cronkite, and Vic Perrin, the Outer Limits guy.)

The ride should’ve taken about 15 minutes, give or take a minute, but dragged a little because our Omnimover stopped suddenly while going backwards downhill, and sat there for a few minutes of darkness that were accompanied by neither sights nor sounds and did not feel scheduled. After some time we moved on, completed our faux-time-travel journey and were then herded into an interactive kids’ science museum as an epilogue.

Surprise activities for the kids! Notice my face there in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for some reason.

I did not try every station, but did pause at a control panel that would allow riders to email themselves an electronic postcard précis of the experience, with a photo of their own face (taken during the ride) pasted onto the body of a wacky PowerPoint avatar. I thought I’d downloaded the postcard for posterity and/or for sharing in this entry, but I can’t find the file now and the link has since expired. It was nonessential and my heart will go on, but it was cute in the moment.

The email image that once linked to my now-deleted kiddie souvenir.

Once outside Spaceship Earth, I spent the next 100-odd minutes wandering the grounds, browsing and doing some light shopping. On Anne’s behalf I looked around an entire shop dedicated to collector pins, which have become her thing over the past couple years. Fans of Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars can find IPs to their liking, including a plethora of Grogu (one of which I nabbed for her). I also discovered smashed-penny machines all around, which longtime MCC readers know full well are totally her jam. At first I bought her every available smashed penny I could find as consolation prizes for her morning spent on-the-clock on this sunny Florida day. After a while I had to knock it off because EPCOT has smashed-penny machines everywhere and my pockets were getting heavy.

Souvenir shops still carried merch from EPCOT’s 2022 celebration of its 40th anniversary.

Random sights along my path included “The Seas with Nemo and Friends”, some indoor whiz-bang thingamabob that was closed that moment and had several cast members standing weirdly stoically in front of its entrance.

Those distant pyramids are “Journey into Imagination with Figment”, starring the park’s dragon mascot about whom I know nothing except what I just typed.

At the park’s west entrance, the Skyliner takes fans to and from other parts of Disney’s Orlando terrain.

Our next several chapters won’t necessarily come in chronological order, but rather in themed galleries that hopefully simplify my posting process. EPCOT’s southern half is divided into various territories saluting the most famous countries according to whichever EPCOT planners had the most voting power. Some areas inspired me to take so many pics that they’ll each get their own entries, while others will be space-sharing blog-roomies. As one example, please enjoy fleeting looks at EPCOT’s take on the world of France.

Of course France has an Eiffel Tower, just like actual France and Kings Island in Ohio.

A presumably French fountain amid an ostensibly French shopping neighborhood.

Chapter 10 will cover the second and third attractions I checked out, but my fourth attraction in EPCOT was located squarely and aptly in France — Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, inspired by one of Pixar’s most underrated films. In this trackless ride, guests flit around in smoothly magnetic cars through a giant-sized simulation of Gusteau’s, the restaurant where our rat hero Remy lives and surreptitiously works. At rat height the cars scurry across the floor and flee the kaiju-sized chef who chases and tries to kill any rodent-sized intruders, while various 4-D effects and occasional sudden drops liven things up even more. New dialogue accompanies all of it, courtesy of the returning voice talents of Patton Oswalt, Brad Garrett, Lou Romano, and Elemental director Peter Sohn.

The entrance to Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. The marching John Hammonds are indifferent to its animated allure.

The line led indoors through differently simulated streets of France through a Pixar lens.

Also along the path was a recreation of a Pixar artist’s studio during the film’s production process.

I finally found an open snack stand right before I joined the line. (Our Disney World culinary experiences will be rounded up later in this series.) The wait for Remy’s ride was nearly an hour long, but worth it. I ended up sharing a car with some other dude, who seemed to be enjoying EPCOT solo like me. He kept his phone up and shooting through the entire ride, and surely posted some fun footage later minus the optical VFX that only work in person. I did no such thing; I was there to enjoy the ride for myself, so you’ll forgive me for not dedicating myself to living instantly vicariously instead of being physically and mentally present in-the-moment. ‘Twas much more fun that way…except for the sudden drops, which were really jarring without Dramamine. I’m glad my stomach forgave me, because the two of us had lots more to do.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

“THERE IS NO WAY OUT!” I imagined an evil alien broadcasting telepathically to me from the very core of Spaceship Earth.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

When I began my one-man tour of EPCOT with awkwardness and a little anxiety, I’d asked myself going in, “What’s the worst that could happen?” We found our answer there Wednesday night.

Around 3:00 I left EPCOT on the monorail back to the Transportation Hub, switched monorails, and learned the hard way I’d boarded the wrong one. I’d enjoyed a full lap around the resort monorail Tuesday night while Anne was at her employees-only beach party. I’d of course just completed my round trip on the EPCOT/Hub monorail. Thanks to my inattention to minute detail, I discovered I was on a third line — the express monorail that runs the same full circle but stops only at the Magic Kingdom and the Hub, nowhere else. I grimaced as we passed the Polynesian Village and my stop the Grand Floridian, then sighed and tried to enjoy the extra minutes of sitting and relaxing. I can handle inconvenience when I know what’s going on and can rest easy knowing when or where the endpoint will come.

Another teaser image for Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom.

My best shot yet of Disney’s Contemporary Resort, on the opposite end of the lagoon from our room.

Art inside the Contemporary as the monorail drove through its center.

Meanwhile, Anne’s mandatory business meetings, classes, announcements, and HR-directed team-building exercises wrapped up a couple hours earlier than she’d expected. She used this delightfully bonus free time to explore the rest of the Grand Floridian grounds that I’d mostly already seen without her. She did some light souvenir shopping, took superior photos of the Easter egg collection (many of which were in that gallery), and retired to our room in the Boca Chica building for a spell.

The ceiling in the Grand Floridian Convention Center.

Her alternate shot of the fountain behind the Grand Floridian’s Main Building.

By the time I circled back to the Hub, switched to the correct monorail, and finally got back to her a little before 3:30, her first nap of the week was well in progress. Now that the woman I love is old, naps are one of her favorite activities in the world.

Milady conked out on the balcony. She’d been kept well-fed by her superiors’ caterers, but she’d had a long day.

#1 on her Disney World to-do list had been “BUY MICKEY MOUSE EARS”. Achievement unlocked that very afternoon. The sunglasses were freebies handed out at the Tuesday night beach party. They aren’t prescription, but they were an okay sleeping mask.

We weren’t sure what to expect from the evening. The original itinerary told her only “5:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.: Evening event.” At 2:00 this same day they’d revealed the shindig would be held at EPCOT. We were to meet in front of the Grand Floridian’s Convention Center and board charter buses to the park. The meal options were also provided to employees so they could order dinners in advance. That’s really all we knew going in. We hoped it wouldn’t take the entire evening because we had big, big, big, big, BIG plans for Thursday. We dumpling-shaped fiftysomethings knew we’d need our rest so we could enjoy The Greatest Theme Park Experience of Our Entire Lives the next morning. If we simply had to party for a while, we’d roll with it for as long as necessary, but we aren’t party people. We’re virtually never invited to parties except by Anne’s relatives.

Come 5 p.m. sharp, we boarded a bus right on time. For reasons unknown it sat and sat and sat before departing at last around 5:45. Thankfully the seats were plush and the legroom was adequate, but the inactivity made us a little antsy. We’d’ve been happy to sit and sit and sit in our own room.

We pulled up to EPCOT’s west side circa 6:15, then resumed sitting and sitting. Eventually we disembarked and were ushered onto EPCOT grounds, through the United Kingdom area — no stopping or gawking permitted — and into the World ShowPlace Pavilion, an event facility and/or banquet hall that isn’t marked on their official maps. At this point, we were now officially attending a Company Party, and all that entails.

The obligatory pre-dinner mixer, where we could chat up hundreds of strangers or the few new faces Anne had met in her meetings. Some had even packed nice clothes for this “evening event”.

The waitstaff kept the unidentified hors d’oeuvres coming nonstop, including this delectable fried thing seasoned with stuff.

Around 7-ish we were encouraged toward our assigned tables for dinner. The food was fine for what it was; Anne’s was better than mine. Things got momentarily awkward when I allegedly took a fork that, per 16th-century nobility-feast customs that weren’t taught to me in my section-8 childhood home, actually belonged to the young lady in a fancy evening dress seated on my left. I maintain it was closer to my plate than to hers and was therefore mine by basic turf rights. Rather than follow those same antiquated rules to their ultimate conclusion and order the Disney World waitstaff flogged for their ambiguous utensil placement, she grumbled for a bit before begrudgingly compensating by taking a fork from the empty seat on her left. Miss Manners may not have been thrilled with my indifference to the duel-worthy slight I’d just committed. If only I hadn’t quit finishing school a few credits short.

Spring greens with pickled avocado, garbanzo beans, spring peas, watermelon radish, Gorgonzola cheese, and minted mustard vinaigrette. I feel utterly spoiled whenever I’m served a complimentary salad that isn’t just iceberg lettuce, tomatoes and Ranch dressing.

Pairing this ordinary dinner bread with Mickey Mouse-head butter turned it into elevated dinner bread.

For Anne, sea bass in a blood orange beurre blanc with citrus gremolata, roasted butternut-squash-and-pumpkin risotto, haricot verts and roasted baby carrot.

For me, tenderloin of beef filet with bordelaise sauce, Gruyère potato pavé, haricot verts and roasted baby carrot.

(Not pictured: our desserts. For Anne, strawberry shortcake pound cake with a Chantilly cream and strawberries. For me, vanilla cheesecake with graham cracker crust, guava gel and mango compote. Give or take an ingredient.)

After we’d had some time to eat and commiserate with our table mates (or not), the Powers That Be took to the stage along with a British comedian who’d been emceeing the various business meetings and team-building exercises which, up till now, had been proprietary, on-the-clock housekeeping. The ensuing presentation piggybacked on all that behind-the-scenes programming and presented some awards as well as still more company business and HR-written corporate affirmations. Numerous in-jokes were lost on all us plus-ones. And frankly, I have my own job and my own HR-written corporate affirmations, catchphrases, and Seven Habits knockoffs to absorb on an everyday basis. I don’t really benefit from being inundated in two companies’ worth of it.

The dinner portion of our program ended at 8:30. We were herded outside and toward a gated party space on the north shore of World Showcase Lagoon. We hundreds outnumbered the available seating, a handful of picnic benches. Still more amuse-bouche desserts and various forms of booze (couldn’t tell you what; not our thing) were offered while we were treated to the 9:00 showing of Harmonious, EPCOT’s closing-time light show as of March 2023. That, as previously recounted, was spectacular.

At 9:30 the private dessert party kept going, but Anne and I were ready to go back to our room and get some sleep as soon as they’d let us.

They wouldn’t let us.

For the first few minutes, the staff gently asked us to stay put. More minutes passed. They kept asking this of us.

After a time, we and several other guests were informed we were not allowed to leave the party. At all. They wouldn’t tell us why not.

When several ladies protested that they needed restrooms — an amenity the party space lacked — they reluctantly allowed folks to go to the nearest restrooms a city block away, but made them promise to come right back to the party space after they were done and not go anywhere else.

We understood not running toward the shops or rides that were closing. We did not understand why we couldn’t simply go take the monorails back to the resort. We received no answers. No promises. No tantalizing hints. No announcements. No emceeing. No communications. No nothing. Just a roped-off exit and a cast member to stand guard and grant conditional bathroom breaks.

Some guests were doubtlessly so engrossed in each other’s company that this was never a problem to them. They had booze. They had small talk. They had nice Florida weather. They were probably surrounded by more familiar acquaintances than either of us. Back home, partying is probably their only hobby. Bully for them. The two of us, and many other exhausted fellow inmates, were done.

But we couldn’t leave. At all. We just kept standing and standing and standing on hard concrete, waiting for any authority figure to appear and explain any of this. We hazarded a guess that perhaps we were waiting for all of EPCOT to be 100% emptied of guests before we’d be permitted to go forth and…I dunno, actually do something. But, again: no one would talk to us.

Is a party still a party if it’s holding you captive?

Spaceship Earth looked pretty at night. Sure would’ve been awesome if we could WALK TOWARD IT.

At 10:15 the silence was broken. Yes, as a nominal party-planning committee rep finally informed everyone, we had indeed been kept waiting for all other remaining guests in the whole park to exit, disappear, or be hunted down one by one and eliminated like Bambi’s mom. We were then herded for the last time toward the World Discovery pavilion — i.e., the area with all of EPCOT’s most hyperballistic, motion-sickening thrill rides that I’d skipped without regret on my earlier six-hour EPCOT adventure. Everyone was free to roam there and only there for the rest of the night, with permission to ride unlimited rides and/or keep partying and partying until whenever.

Or, alternatively, if we were really truly sure we were ready to go and didn’t want any more freebies, we could board the charter buses parked in the northeast corner of the park, through the darkness just past the Treasures of Xandar gift shop.

With nary a further word between us, fatigue notwithstanding, Anne and I channeled our middle-aged rage and barreled directly northeastward through the crowd like Juggernaut and the Rhino aiming for the nearest Marvel superhero. Well, Juggernaut and a cute li’l Lady Rhino. We weren’t the only ones. Our pack was small yet mighty, as in “mightily peeved”.

We passed dozens or maybe even hundreds of 24-hour party people who were probably younger or drunk enough to stick around as long as possible and still get up early in the morning for their long-awaited free day. Some were likely kidding themselves and were dead the next day. We bypassed them as well as several new serving tables that had sprouted up all around, offering still more free snacks to one and all. And not just amuse-bouche sized, but actual meats and other full-sized theme-park concessions. We ignored very nearly all of it.

I paused to grab a pair of churros only out of spite. No dips. Minimal sugar coating. Stale.

Our no-longer-hardy band of expatriates boarded the bus and collapsed within. We welcomed our freedom from EPCOT and the plush seats, in that order. We mercifully took off a few minutes later and were returned directly to the Grand Floridian around 11-ish without further incident.

Ironically, our in-bus entertainment for the ride back was not a Disney cartoon.

Well, almost without further incident. After our heads hit the pillows, at some point the Electrical Water Pageant once again took to the Seven Seas Lagoon outside our window and tooted the night away. The pageantry was even less charming now. Or maybe it was only a nightmare.

…

Anne and I agree this night was the worst part of the trip. Of course we knew This Too Shall Pass, but in the moment we did not appreciate being trapped without explanation. As we know all too well from our respective day-jobs, communication is such an important part of serving others.

As it happens, Thursday would indeed bring The Greatest Theme Park Experience of Our Entire Lives, leading off with the absolute best part of the trip. Longtime MCC readers who know much about Disney World can guess where our day began…with an unforgettable experience five years in the making.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Midlife Crisis Crossover!

2024-02-11 22:16:27

Disney World! Part 8: Welcome to EPCOT

At last I would see the world’s largest golf ball for myself.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

Lo, there shall come at long last an actual Disney Theme Park in this saga! Well, for one of us, anyway.

DAY TWO: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2023.

One of us had been looking forward to this day. Once again Anne and I would have to go our separate ways for the first several hours. Her company’s itinerary began generously with a magical breakfast buffet. Unfortunately magic came with a price: they’d have to spend the day’s first half legitimizing the “business trip” concept with mandatory meetings, workshops, team-building exercises, product updates, and other numbing duties that could kill a readership dead. I’ll spare you the same way she kindly spared me.

We’d have all of Thursday to spend together, but Wednesday morning we plus-ones were ordered to bug off and go make our own plans. I’d asked myself months ago: what’s something I could do alone that Anne might not be jealous about missing? The answer came to me in seconds: EPCOT. All throughout our childhoods, since its opening in 1981 it’d been badmouthed as the black sheep of the Disney Theme Park empire, until 1992 when Euro Disney came along to take the heat off it. We’d heard The Simpsons mock EPCOT (“Awww, it’s even boring to fly over!”), as did my son, who’d gotten to visit it with his mom’s family when he was 8 and came home underwhelmed. We were definitely not wasting our precious Thursday quality time on it.

My alone-time was a different story. I couldn’t help feeling inquisitive about it. Why the backlash? Nobody talks trash like that about Disney’s Animal Kingdom (especially after they added the Avatar ride in 2017). Clearly I ought to see EPCOT and judge for myself. Like, for science. What’s the worst that could happen?

Admittedly my first guess was “I could be mistaken for a stalker.” I’d never visited a theme park alone. Sure, I’ve been to more than a few since age 4, the first time my family ever took me to Kings Island in Ohio, but who pays an extravagant price to wander a theme park alone? Do a lot of guys do this? Would I stick out among the happy families and cliques? Consider how many fat, bearded, white dudes regularly turn into bullies, brutes, pervs, or internet trolls on any given American day. (This is something I think about every single time we meet an actress at a comic-con, where I try to present as harmlessly as possible, sometimes even pitching my voice up a little, in a humble act of Midwest code-switching. I don’t like the idea of being lumped in.) Would Mouse Security spot me sticking out, profile me and surveil me extra closely just in case? Or could I just, y’know, relax?

After wishing Anne well and praying the Lord would deliver her from ennui, I adjourned to the monorail station, where I seemed two mere counterclockwise stops away from the Transportation and Ticket Center, the hub where I’d need to transfer to the dedicated EPCOT monorail. That day I learned the monorails around the Disney resort grounds only rode clockwise, necessitating I go nearly a full lap ’round. To be fair, that only took ten minutes, but I wanted to be in official Disney World now now now. After I disembarked at the TTC, I bounced nervously in place while waiting seven whole minutes for the next car to EPCOT. The subsequent four-mile ride took forever according to the impatient child inside me. I wished I’d had someone with me so I could ask over and over again, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”

Eventually, we were there yet.

My view of some future attraction’s grounds as the southbound monorail bypassed Spaceship Earth by several hundred feet before doubling back and stopping at the entrance gates on the park’s north end.

I took the lead photo as I approached the front gates ten minutes before 9, just as cast members were dismantling the daily early-entry perk signage for Disney Resort guests like me. I was sad to have wasted that perk, but it was my own fault for not parting from Anne sooner and/or beginning my preparations at 4 a.m. Worse still, I’d decided to skip breakfast at the Grand Floridian after noting the EPCOT map’s numerous opportunities for grazing throughout the day. Their prevalence came in handy later, but I might’ve rethought my strategy if anyone had told me none of their concessions would open till 11. The discomfort of escalating hunger wasn’t fun.

On the bright side, I took about ten minutes to stop feeling self-conscious about going stag. At first I consciously tried to look cheery on the outside rather than lonely or anxious, and hoped I didn’t look predatory. That’s challenging sometimes when you’re born with resting ogre face, which runs in the family. My skittishness faded as I got comfy, got into the Disney World spirit, and came to realize, more so than any other theme park I’ve seen, EPCOT is basically one big outdoor shopping mall (or “lifestyle center”, if you prefer that euphemism). I’ve done malls alone plenty of times. This was just an old-fashioned mall, except the motorized kiddie rides cost more than a quarter and there’re no cool book or record stores.

Also, they had museum exhibits sprinkled here and there for educational purposes. Remember back in the ’90s when the U.S. government required a certain percentage of Saturday morning cartoons to be spoon-fed after-school lessons that felt like small-screen home detention? I was reminded of that. But now I’m 51 and sometimes I love me some museum exhibits — more so than thrill rides, frankly. It didn’t help that I can be prone to motion sickness (longtime MCC fans may or may not recall the 2003 Six Flags incident) and had forgotten my Dramamine back at our room.

Of course EPCOT has rides, but they’re a minority percentage of the total activities on hand. First-time visitors who’re undecided what to do first can stop pondering when they realize the very first object in their way is Spaceship Earth — that iconic, 7,760-ton geodesic dome towering 18 stories over one and all. Given its prominence in every advertisement or briefest glimpses of EPCOT, it’s easy to assume Spaceship Earth all there is to EPCOT — like, you enter the gate, enter the dome, walk on the walls in zero-G, buy a T-shirt, and presto, you’re done for the day, go back to the hotel. Not quite! Spaceship Earth is a ride and you can go inside it. It’s not an impenetrable display model like Mount Rushmore.

Welcome to the belly of the ball.

I only had a half-day to spend at EPCOT, so I had to be judicious about which lines I braved or skipped during the time allotted. Thankfully this was only March, and Spaceship Earth’s line moved quickly.

I was inside in less than 15 minutes. The polyhedral tiles were wild to stare at while I waited.

Next to the entrance is a mural painted by Claudio Mazzoli, who also had a hand in the ride’s interior designs.

Inside the air-conditioned geosphere, a series of Omnimover cars (read: extremely slow, leisurely roller coaster) takes riders on a scenic tour of the timeline of human civilization and milestone innovations from cave-dwelling times to EPCOT’s original, contemporaneous setting at the dawn of the home computer age. I had a two-seat row to myself as I coasted past an assortment of animatronics, dioramas, and sparkly stars — altogether a tidy runthrough of any given state history museum but on a much bigger budget, minus the real dinosaur fossils and arrowheads of disputed provenance. Working off a script that was originally written by Ray Bradbury but oft-amended since then, its recorded narrator since 2008 has been none other than Academy Award Winner Dame Judi Dench, star of such Disney classics as Home on the Range, Artemis Fowl, and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. (Previous narrators in reverse order were Jeremy Irons, Walter Cronkite, and Vic Perrin, the Outer Limits guy.)

The ride should’ve taken about 15 minutes, give or take a minute, but dragged a little because our Omnimover stopped suddenly while going backwards downhill, and sat there for a few minutes of darkness that were accompanied by neither sights nor sounds and did not feel scheduled. After some time we moved on, completed our faux-time-travel journey and were then herded into an interactive kids’ science museum as an epilogue.

Surprise activities for the kids! Notice my face there in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for some reason.

I did not try every station, but did pause at a control panel that would allow riders to email themselves an electronic postcard précis of the experience, with a photo of their own face (taken during the ride) pasted onto the body of a wacky PowerPoint avatar. I thought I’d downloaded the postcard for posterity and/or for sharing in this entry, but I can’t find the file now and the link has since expired. It was nonessential and my heart will go on, but it was cute in the moment.

The email image that once linked to my now-deleted kiddie souvenir.

Once outside Spaceship Earth, I spent the next 100-odd minutes wandering the grounds, browsing and doing some light shopping. On Anne’s behalf I looked around an entire shop dedicated to collector pins, which have become her thing over the past couple years. Fans of Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars can find IPs to their liking, including a plethora of Grogu (one of which I nabbed for her). I also discovered smashed-penny machines all around, which longtime MCC readers know full well are totally her jam. At first I bought her every available smashed penny I could find as consolation prizes for her morning spent on-the-clock on this sunny Florida day. After a while I had to knock it off because EPCOT has smashed-penny machines everywhere and my pockets were getting heavy.

Souvenir shops still carried merch from EPCOT’s 2022 celebration of its 40th anniversary.

Random sights along my path included “The Seas with Nemo and Friends”, some indoor whiz-bang thingamabob that was closed that moment and had several cast members standing weirdly stoically in front of its entrance.

Those distant pyramids are “Journey into Imagination with Figment”, starring the park’s dragon mascot about whom I know nothing except what I just typed.

At the park’s west entrance, the Skyliner takes fans to and from other parts of Disney’s Orlando terrain.

Our next several chapters won’t necessarily come in chronological order, but rather in themed galleries that hopefully simplify my posting process. EPCOT’s southern half is divided into various territories saluting the most famous countries according to whichever EPCOT planners had the most voting power. Some areas inspired me to take so many pics that they’ll each get their own entries, while others will be space-sharing blog-roomies. As one example, please enjoy fleeting looks at EPCOT’s take on the world of France.

Of course France has an Eiffel Tower, just like actual France and Kings Island in Ohio.

A presumably French fountain amid an ostensibly French shopping neighborhood.

Chapter 10 will cover the second and third attractions I checked out, but my fourth attraction in EPCOT was located squarely and aptly in France — Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, inspired by one of Pixar’s most underrated films. In this trackless ride, guests flit around in smoothly magnetic cars through a giant-sized simulation of Gusteau’s, the restaurant where our rat hero Remy lives and surreptitiously works. At rat height the cars scurry across the floor and flee the kaiju-sized chef who chases and tries to kill any rodent-sized intruders, while various 4-D effects and occasional sudden drops liven things up even more. New dialogue accompanies all of it, courtesy of the returning voice talents of Patton Oswalt, Brad Garrett, Lou Romano, and Elemental director Peter Sohn.

The entrance to Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. The marching John Hammonds are indifferent to its animated allure.

The line led indoors through differently simulated streets of France through a Pixar lens.

Also along the path was a recreation of a Pixar artist’s studio during the film’s production process.

I finally found an open snack stand right before I joined the line. (Our Disney World culinary experiences will be rounded up later in this series.) The wait for Remy’s ride was nearly an hour long, but worth it. I ended up sharing a car with some other dude, who seemed to be enjoying EPCOT solo like me. He kept his phone up and shooting through the entire ride, and surely posted some fun footage later minus the optical VFX that only work in person. I did no such thing; I was there to enjoy the ride for myself, so you’ll forgive me for not dedicating myself to living instantly vicariously instead of being physically and mentally present in-the-moment. ‘Twas much more fun that way…except for the sudden drops, which were really jarring without Dramamine. I’m glad my stomach forgave me, because the two of us had lots more to do.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Our Road Trip Checklist

Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken a road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home in Indianapolis. From 1999 …

^{Randall A. Golden (Midlife Crisis Crossover!)}

I’ve got a great feeling about this!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

…except on Thursday. That was her one free day, all play and no work. She’d be asked to suffer no business meetings, no HR-mandated activities, no coworker chitchat, and no miss-you-SO-much text exchanges miles apart juxtaposing my solo adventures with her expertly catered drudgery. The Wednesday evening captive dinner was the nadir of our trip, but the next morning was The Best.

Five years ago we attended Star Wars Celebration Chicago, where the exhibit hall featured a sneak preview of Disney World’s extravagant, then-upcoming new attraction, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios. An entire corner of that park was terraformed into a full-scale recreation of that world-famous far-faraway galaxy. Rides! Ships! Shops! Props! Merch! Environments! Cosplaying “cast members”! Long lines just like at the theater! The convention preview was fancy and entertaining, but we kept our enthusiasm in check. We’d already been to Florida once, visited the other Orlando theme parks, and didn’t plan a Florida encore anytime soon. Of course we dreamed of one, preferably before retirement while we could still walk under our own power, but it seemed pretty doubtful at Disney World prices. We figured by the time we did come back, Galaxy’s Edge would be long gone and replaced with, like, Doc McStuffins Village or whatever.

A lot can change in five years. And, to our shock, did. Their overpriced Star Wars-themed hotel was history, but Galaxy’s Edge was still there, waiting.

Pretty much within the first minute of our trip planning, we’d known where and how this day would begin: STAR WARS!

As we entered the park, the Skyliner foreshadowed our morning to come.

DAY THREE: THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2023.

Despite being kept late against our will the night before, we were both up early like kids on Christmas morning. By 7 a.m. we were out in front of the Grand Floridian and boarded the next complimentary Disney World Resort bus that would take us directly to Hollywood Studios. We arrived, we joined the crowd in line, and — unlike my foot-dragging EPCOT blunder — absolutely took advantage of the resort perk that would let us guests into the park early. At 7:45 we stampeded inside, bore southeast, and joined the considerable line for Ride of the Resistance, which we correctly assumed would be their best Star Wars ride, and possibly one of Anne’s all-time favorite amusement park rides.

The resisting begins here! Note the surprise Florida bird I couldn’t bear to crop out because I’m a tourist at heart.

Cast members get psyched up to take on the First Order and whatnot.

The line was a veritable museum tour through an immersive alien environment. Lots to look at, such as this decommissioned A-Wing Fighter.

GNK Power Droids and the requisite sci-fi antenna array.

Authentic space trash cans.

We kept our spirits high even when the line stopped moving for several minutes.

The line snakes through a “cave” because of course you’re preparing to join an underground rebellion.

Deeper into the darkness, secrets of the Resistance are revealed, such as this maddeningly misdrawn space radar.

Cages held costumes and SF gizmos.

Sorry, kids, these grenades are merely display items, not for sale.

Same goes for the flight suits. They just didn’t have enough to go around.

The farther we went, the more interactive things got. Deep in the Resistance’s hideout…

….above us loomed BB-8, jittering and beeping but mostly ignoring us as its attention was turned…

…toward a tiny Rey hologram delivering a special report and performance. (I cannot believe this photographed at all.)

Video messages came in from the Star Wars Sequels’ answers to Nien Nunb and Ackbar.

Such a lovely flourish: a prerecorded cameo by Oscar Isaac as ace pilot Poe Dameron. Will he ever get over Palpatine’s return?

The line took us outdoors one more time, passing by Poe’s ship Black One.

Come 8:30, a plot twist! We’re all captives of the First Order, boarding a prison transport!

The detailed engines on our “transport”.

Live cast members played our First Order captors, and ordered us down a hallway to where we’d board the actual ride. Apropos of Disney, animatronics abounded.

By this point a lot was going on as kept walking and interacting, which we couldn’t track and photograph at the same time.

The Stormtrooper lineup in our lead photo was among the biggest jaw-drop moments. This half-sized Force Awakens TIE Fighter was mounted in the same giant room.

Finally we got to the part where we sat and rode. Same as the Chicago sampler, R5-J2 was mounted on the front as our driver.

The grand finale worked much like EPCOT’s Ratatouille ride — trackless magnetic cars skating across smooth metal floors, occasionally hitting short drops (a bit of a gut-punch to our motion-sensitive stomachs) as we navigated the perilous escape from the First Order’s sinister clutches. A space battle is waged everywhere around you. At one point you’re jetting under the legs of an AT-AT. A cast member as Kylo Ren bellows orders, comes at you ready to kill, and you narrowly get away while his lightsaber slices through the ceiling overhead. And so on goes the sensory overload.

By 8:45 we had to exit the ride and readjust to reality. As we walked out, Anne screamed in my ear, “THAT WAS AWESOME!” Our mutual giddiness took a while to ebb.

The Resistance may have been done rising, but for us the Star Wars had only just begun.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Midlife Crisis Crossover!

2024-04-22 00:03:35

Disney World! Part 16: Prisoners of EPCOT

“THERE IS NO WAY OUT!” I imagined an evil alien broadcasting telepathically to me from the very core of Spaceship Earth.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

When I began my one-man tour of EPCOT with awkwardness and a little anxiety, I’d asked myself going in, “What’s the worst that could happen?” We found our answer there Wednesday night.

Around 3:00 I left EPCOT on the monorail back to the Transportation Hub, switched monorails, and learned the hard way I’d boarded the wrong one. I’d enjoyed a full lap around the resort monorail Tuesday night while Anne was at her employees-only beach party. I’d of course just completed my round trip on the EPCOT/Hub monorail. Thanks to my inattention to minute detail, I discovered I was on a third line — the express monorail that runs the same full circle but stops only at the Magic Kingdom and the Hub, nowhere else. I grimaced as we passed the Polynesian Village and my stop the Grand Floridian, then sighed and tried to enjoy the extra minutes of sitting and relaxing. I can handle inconvenience when I know what’s going on and can rest easy knowing when or where the endpoint will come.

Another teaser image for Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom.

My best shot yet of Disney’s Contemporary Resort, on the opposite end of the lagoon from our room.

Art inside the Contemporary as the monorail drove through its center.

Meanwhile, Anne’s mandatory business meetings, classes, announcements, and HR-directed team-building exercises wrapped up a couple hours earlier than she’d expected. She used this delightfully bonus free time to explore the rest of the Grand Floridian grounds that I’d mostly already seen without her. She did some light souvenir shopping, took superior photos of the Easter egg collection (many of which were in that gallery), and retired to our room in the Boca Chica building for a spell.

The ceiling in the Grand Floridian Convention Center.

Her alternate shot of the fountain behind the Grand Floridian’s Main Building.

By the time I circled back to the Hub, switched to the correct monorail, and finally got back to her a little before 3:30, her first nap of the week was well in progress. Now that the woman I love is old, naps are one of her favorite activities in the world.

Milady conked out on the balcony. She’d been kept well-fed by her superiors’ caterers, but she’d had a long day.

#1 on her Disney World to-do list had been “BUY MICKEY MOUSE EARS”. Achievement unlocked that very afternoon. The sunglasses were freebies handed out at the Tuesday night beach party. They aren’t prescription, but they were an okay sleeping mask.

We weren’t sure what to expect from the evening. The original itinerary told her only “5:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.: Evening event.” At 2:00 this same day they’d revealed the shindig would be held at EPCOT. We were to meet in front of the Grand Floridian’s Convention Center and board charter buses to the park. The meal options were also provided to employees so they could order dinners in advance. That’s really all we knew going in. We hoped it wouldn’t take the entire evening because we had big, big, big, big, BIG plans for Thursday. We dumpling-shaped fiftysomethings knew we’d need our rest so we could enjoy The Greatest Theme Park Experience of Our Entire Lives the next morning. If we simply had to party for a while, we’d roll with it for as long as necessary, but we aren’t party people. We’re virtually never invited to parties except by Anne’s relatives.

Come 5 p.m. sharp, we boarded a bus right on time. For reasons unknown it sat and sat and sat before departing at last around 5:45. Thankfully the seats were plush and the legroom was adequate, but the inactivity made us a little antsy. We’d’ve been happy to sit and sit and sit in our own room.

We pulled up to EPCOT’s west side circa 6:15, then resumed sitting and sitting. Eventually we disembarked and were ushered onto EPCOT grounds, through the United Kingdom area — no stopping or gawking permitted — and into the World ShowPlace Pavilion, an event facility and/or banquet hall that isn’t marked on their official maps. At this point, we were now officially attending a Company Party, and all that entails.

The obligatory pre-dinner mixer, where we could chat up hundreds of strangers or the few new faces Anne had met in her meetings. Some had even packed nice clothes for this “evening event”.

The waitstaff kept the unidentified hors d’oeuvres coming nonstop, including this delectable fried thing seasoned with stuff.

Around 7-ish we were encouraged toward our assigned tables for dinner. The food was fine for what it was; Anne’s was better than mine. Things got momentarily awkward when I allegedly took a fork that, per 16th-century nobility-feast customs that weren’t taught to me in my section-8 childhood home, actually belonged to the young lady in a fancy evening dress seated on my left. I maintain it was closer to my plate than to hers and was therefore mine by basic turf rights. Rather than follow those same antiquated rules to their ultimate conclusion and order the Disney World waitstaff flogged for their ambiguous utensil placement, she grumbled for a bit before begrudgingly compensating by taking a fork from the empty seat on her left. Miss Manners may not have been thrilled with my indifference to the duel-worthy slight I’d just committed. If only I hadn’t quit finishing school a few credits short.

Spring greens with pickled avocado, garbanzo beans, spring peas, watermelon radish, Gorgonzola cheese, and minted mustard vinaigrette. I feel utterly spoiled whenever I’m served a complimentary salad that isn’t just iceberg lettuce, tomatoes and Ranch dressing.

Pairing this ordinary dinner bread with Mickey Mouse-head butter turned it into elevated dinner bread.

For Anne, sea bass in a blood orange beurre blanc with citrus gremolata, roasted butternut-squash-and-pumpkin risotto, haricot verts and roasted baby carrot.

For me, tenderloin of beef filet with bordelaise sauce, Gruyère potato pavé, haricot verts and roasted baby carrot.

(Not pictured: our desserts. For Anne, strawberry shortcake pound cake with a Chantilly cream and strawberries. For me, vanilla cheesecake with graham cracker crust, guava gel and mango compote. Give or take an ingredient.)

After we’d had some time to eat and commiserate with our table mates (or not), the Powers That Be took to the stage along with a British comedian who’d been emceeing the various business meetings and team-building exercises which, up till now, had been proprietary, on-the-clock housekeeping. The ensuing presentation piggybacked on all that behind-the-scenes programming and presented some awards as well as still more company business and HR-written corporate affirmations. Numerous in-jokes were lost on all us plus-ones. And frankly, I have my own job and my own HR-written corporate affirmations, catchphrases, and Seven Habits knockoffs to absorb on an everyday basis. I don’t really benefit from being inundated in two companies’ worth of it.

The dinner portion of our program ended at 8:30. We were herded outside and toward a gated party space on the north shore of World Showcase Lagoon. We hundreds outnumbered the available seating, a handful of picnic benches. Still more amuse-bouche desserts and various forms of booze (couldn’t tell you what; not our thing) were offered while we were treated to the 9:00 showing of Harmonious, EPCOT’s closing-time light show as of March 2023. That, as previously recounted, was spectacular.

At 9:30 the private dessert party kept going, but Anne and I were ready to go back to our room and get some sleep as soon as they’d let us.

They wouldn’t let us.

For the first few minutes, the staff gently asked us to stay put. More minutes passed. They kept asking this of us.

After a time, we and several other guests were informed we were not allowed to leave the party. At all. They wouldn’t tell us why not.

When several ladies protested that they needed restrooms — an amenity the party space lacked — they reluctantly allowed folks to go to the nearest restrooms a city block away, but made them promise to come right back to the party space after they were done and not go anywhere else.

We understood not running toward the shops or rides that were closing. We did not understand why we couldn’t simply go take the monorails back to the resort. We received no answers. No promises. No tantalizing hints. No announcements. No emceeing. No communications. No nothing. Just a roped-off exit and a cast member to stand guard and grant conditional bathroom breaks.

Some guests were doubtlessly so engrossed in each other’s company that this was never a problem to them. They had booze. They had small talk. They had nice Florida weather. They were probably surrounded by more familiar acquaintances than either of us. Back home, partying is probably their only hobby. Bully for them. The two of us, and many other exhausted fellow inmates, were done.

But we couldn’t leave. At all. We just kept standing and standing and standing on hard concrete, waiting for any authority figure to appear and explain any of this. We hazarded a guess that perhaps we were waiting for all of EPCOT to be 100% emptied of guests before we’d be permitted to go forth and…I dunno, actually do something. But, again: no one would talk to us.

Is a party still a party if it’s holding you captive?

Spaceship Earth looked pretty at night. Sure would’ve been awesome if we could WALK TOWARD IT.

At 10:15 the silence was broken. Yes, as a nominal party-planning committee rep finally informed everyone, we had indeed been kept waiting for all other remaining guests in the whole park to exit, disappear, or be hunted down one by one and eliminated like Bambi’s mom. We were then herded for the last time toward the World Discovery pavilion — i.e., the area with all of EPCOT’s most hyperballistic, motion-sickening thrill rides that I’d skipped without regret on my earlier six-hour EPCOT adventure. Everyone was free to roam there and only there for the rest of the night, with permission to ride unlimited rides and/or keep partying and partying until whenever.

Or, alternatively, if we were really truly sure we were ready to go and didn’t want any more freebies, we could board the charter buses parked in the northeast corner of the park, through the darkness just past the Treasures of Xandar gift shop.

With nary a further word between us, fatigue notwithstanding, Anne and I channeled our middle-aged rage and barreled directly northeastward through the crowd like Juggernaut and the Rhino aiming for the nearest Marvel superhero. Well, Juggernaut and a cute li’l Lady Rhino. We weren’t the only ones. Our pack was small yet mighty, as in “mightily peeved”.

We passed dozens or maybe even hundreds of 24-hour party people who were probably younger or drunk enough to stick around as long as possible and still get up early in the morning for their long-awaited free day. Some were likely kidding themselves and were dead the next day. We bypassed them as well as several new serving tables that had sprouted up all around, offering still more free snacks to one and all. And not just amuse-bouche sized, but actual meats and other full-sized theme-park concessions. We ignored very nearly all of it.

I paused to grab a pair of churros only out of spite. No dips. Minimal sugar coating. Stale.

Our no-longer-hardy band of expatriates boarded the bus and collapsed within. We welcomed our freedom from EPCOT and the plush seats, in that order. We mercifully took off a few minutes later and were returned directly to the Grand Floridian around 11-ish without further incident.

Ironically, our in-bus entertainment for the ride back was not a Disney cartoon.

Well, almost without further incident. After our heads hit the pillows, at some point the Electrical Water Pageant once again took to the Seven Seas Lagoon outside our window and tooted the night away. The pageantry was even less charming now. Or maybe it was only a nightmare.

…

Anne and I agree this night was the worst part of the trip. Of course we knew This Too Shall Pass, but in the moment we did not appreciate being trapped without explanation. As we know all too well from our respective day-jobs, communication is such an important part of serving others.

As it happens, Thursday would indeed bring The Greatest Theme Park Experience of Our Entire Lives, leading off with the absolute best part of the trip. Longtime MCC readers who know much about Disney World can guess where our day began…with an unforgettable experience five years in the making.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Our Road Trip Checklist

Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken a road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home in Indianapolis. From 1999 …

^{Randall A. Golden (Midlife Crisis Crossover!)}

Fun trivia; English citizens use Shakespeare busts in their gardens the same way we Americans use scarecrows.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

Most of my EPCOT experience was spent dawdling in the World Showcase, a combination outdoor international shopping mall and museum complex, subdivided into eleven nation simulations across four of the seven continents. Guests can learn about their cultures, sample their cuisine, buy their merchandise, and decide for themselves which bits are authentic carryovers and which are fun stereotypes. All the artifacts, curios, and souvenirs were doubtlessly vetted by multiple committees, but opinions will nonetheless vary among subscribers to the “Death of the Curator” interpretive theory.

Some areas showed up more in my photos than others. Exhibit A: England, as well as its next-door EPCOT neighbor Canada.

The Rose & Crown Pub, one of EPCOT’s high-end restaurants, exemplifies British architecture after a good power-washing.

English phone booths for time travel, or for Clark Kent’s use whenever he drops by.

A Hamlet quote sign in the same garden as the Shakespeare bust in our lead photo.

Crops include Earl Grey tea, which Patrick Stewart does not in fact like.

Cameo by Spike the Bee from various ’40s/’50s Donald Duck shorts, amid flowers that probably bloomed long after my visit.

An outdoor tea cart, essential equipment for any British campsite.

Shops sell Minnie Mouse tea service. I’m not sure if they’re microwaveable.

Monty Python was once peak counterculture; now it’s all over their boarding school uniforms.

Dragon eggs, unrelated to either the Grand Floridian’s Easter egg exhibit or the world of Harry Potter, which is in some other Florida park.

SWORDS!

To the immediate south of Disney’s England is Disney’s Canada, which at first glance resembles an amazing mini-golf course.

Much of what I saw there was quite, shall we say, indigenous-forward.

In this solo adventure I had no companions to stick their heads through the holes and pretend they were Canadian gods.

Deconstructed totem pole.

Subjects from all walks of Canadian life agree: freshly whittled bears are fun.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Anne the lucky winner, photographed by the guy who’s lucky to be by her side for 19 years and counting.

Welcome to the launch of a brand new MCC miniseries!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. We’re geeks more accustomed to vicarious life through the windows of pop culture than through in-person adventures. For years we contented ourselves with everyday life in Indianapolis and any surrounding areas that also had comics and toy shops. As our relationship persisted and blossomed, we chucked some of our self-imposed limitations and resolved as a team to leave the comforts of home for annual chances to see creative, exciting, breathtaking, outlandish, and/or bewildering new sights in states beyond our own, from the horizons of nature to the limits of imagination, from history’s greatest hits to humanity’s deepest regrets and the sometimes quotidian, sometimes quirky stopovers in between. We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do.

One thing we rarely do is fly. The first time we ever boarded airplanes was in November 2015, when Anne was sent to scenic Colorado Springs on her very first business trip. I was permitted to tag along, provided I pay for my own plane ticket and meals. I had more free time for enjoying the surroundings than she did, but it was a groundbreaking experience in many ways.

The following summer we introduced my son to this same luxurious travel mode and, in lieu of our annual road trip, used planes for our return visit to New York City. It was nice to save some hours not having to drive through Ohio and Pennsylvania, but we lost some of the quality-time along-the-way joy that enlivened some past family vacations. And we couldn’t just ask our pilots to pull over at the nearest gas station so we could pick out some snacks. We had to settle for whatever pittances the attendants just so happened to have in their pockets.

NYC Part II was seven years ago. Next year, we went back to road-tripping. Ultimately we prefer to control our own vehicles and itineraries. Some airline prices may be lower than in past eras, but they’re still a luxury. Most annoyingly, the changing cabin pressure upon ascent and descent wrecks my hearing and fills my head with the roaring of an imaginary ocean for hours afterward unless I perform a lot of inner-ear calisthenics throughout the last half-hour of every flight. Given the choice, we prefer Avis over airlines. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so.

Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation!

The prize package included round-trip airfare for her (and only her) to Orlando, Florida; a three-night stay at a Disney World resort; and a pair of Disney World one-day Park Hopper passes. Other, smaller objects were also thrown in along the way, such as a Disney MagicBand+, which looks like a watch but doesn’t tell time. Instead it’s this wearable, ostensibly interactive toy that’s supposed to trigger special features on various park attractions. We were so busy being bedazzled by everything else around us that she didn’t get much use out of it. Not every Disney-labeled object is magic, as their shareholders seem to be realizing about the company’s other lines of business in 2023.

Wait, sorry, I’m drowning out the lede: we could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

Two major catches tempered the blowing of our minds. One: for Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. She had a fixed itinerary filled with mandatory business meetings, seminars, luncheons, and other gatherings rife with proprietary jargon implemented to leverage daily-inculcated encouragement of attitudinal synchronization with HR behavioral objectives for long-term performance improvement and personal evolution into team-built role models within their proactively for-profit paradigm. In short: much of the time, she’d have to work.

Not me, baby! Same as with Colorado Springs, I was allowed to tag along again provided I paid my own way, and was excused/barred from almost all those appointments. My company and hers have had dealings in the past, but her bosses aren’t my bosses. Employees were granted one (1) free day on the trip to spend off-the-clock with their plus-ones, but by and large I’d be on my own recognizance and free to enjoy whatever pleasures I could afford until then. I could go crazy Broadway-style!

The second catch: we had to fly. We couldn’t simply drive down early and arrive the same time as everyone else’s flights. We dealt with it.

We’d driven to Orlando once before, the endpoint of our 2007 road trip, but we hadn’t done Disney World. My son had already seen all Orlando’s major parks years earlier on a vacation with his mom’s family. Based on his experience and choice of encore options, we did Universal Studios instead. Anne and I had never been to a Disney theme park in our entire lives…until now.

Our departure from Indy was scheduled Tuesday, March 7, 2023. We’d return home Friday, March 10th. This miniseries will cover what happened in between except her boring work matters that’re none of my business or yours — our extravagant accommodations, my first time wandering a theme park alone, our first glimpse of the fabled Magic Kingdom, the very few rides we rode (we are slightly over 50), the foods, the statues, the characters, the fireworks, the one evening we spent in a fit of mutual rage, and, for anyone who knows us and/or this site well, the one section of the one park that you know had to be our first stop together, even before the Magic Kingdom or whatshisname the mouse.

If you visit Disney World, internet bylaw says you’re required to blog about it. MCC will be the sixteen billionth blog on the subject, but chiefly as an experiential narrative and hardly an authoritative tips-and-tricks advice column. Our version will run at least thirty chapters. As you’d expect, we took a plethora of photos. The more responses we get, the faster I’ll try posting them. Then I can finally post about our official 2023 road trip, which followed three months later.

For the third round-trip flight of our lives; Indianapolis International Airport.

DAY ONE: TUESDAY, MARCH 7TH.

Our Southwest Airlines flight from Indy to Orlando was scheduled shortly after lunchtime. We arrived a couple hours early per the style of the times. We went through the usual motions to which all frequent flyers are accustomed, which is not us. A dozen or so passengers were ahead of us in the TSA line, which moved reasonably quickly. After I sailed through my inspection without incident, I stood by for a floor show I already knew was coming.

Despite frequent reminders in the days leading up to takeoff, Anne had a hunch that the whole “liquid containers must be less than 3.4 ounces” thing was more of a guideline than a rule, and/or that 22 years after 9/11 was more than enough time for security to start loosening up on that one, especially for cute tiny middle-aged ladies who were Grand Prize Winners. This hunch did not pay off for her.

While I re-pocketed my possessions and put my shoes and belt back on, I watched from afar as Anne was asked to step aside toward The Bad Booth, where a more thorough inspection of her carry-on bag would be conducted. One escalated X-ray and rummage session later, the very polite TSA agent confiscated one normal-sized tube of toothpaste and an entire, brand new, unopened, hefty bottle of sunscreen. Anne accepted their decision and did not go full Karen because she is not that sort of woman. I, on the other hand, am not the sort of man to deny himself a gentle I-TOLD-YOU-SO giggle-fit. I did try to contain myself till we were out of earshot, because that seemed more gentlemanly.

One of several art installations along either concourse: We Are the People by D. Powell-Smith, 2021.

After stopping by a supply store for much smaller replacements that would not get her tackled and manacled, she grabbed a terminal seat while I fetched us bagels for brunch from Shapiro’s Deli. Along the walk, I happened to run into my old boss, who taught me a lot of what I know before she retired several years ago. She and her husband were going to visit their grandkids down in Texas, which sounded pretty keen. Our chat was the sole reminder of my own workplace for the entirety of this trip.

The chariot we awaited.

Our flight boarded without incident and took off only a few minutes later than the original posted time. On the way up into the heavens and on the way down, I tried my best to keep my ear canals opened and/or exercised and/or constantly contorting to maintain proper head pressure and avoid hearing loss — a combination of Valsalva maneuvers and chewing. In lieu of gum, which had done absolutely nothing for me on the NYC trip, I’d brought a bag of beef jerky that tasted like Ren Faire leather. On the way up, none of this worked and I couldn’t hear a single word of the conversations between Anne and the woman sitting next to her over the next two hours. On the way down, I figured out my system and was back to normal eardrum sensitivity within a few minutes of disembarking.

And thus we beheld Orlando once again. It took a few seconds to confirm we definitely would not need the jackets we were wearing for the next three days.

Our first lagoon of the trip, and not the last.

Welcome to Orlando International Airport! Obviously!

Palm trees inside and out. We definitely weren’t in Indiana anymore.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete road trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Alternate shot of the 4:00 Thursday performance of Mickey’s Magical Friendship Faire at Cinderella Castle.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work…

…though we treasured the free times allotted to her in between. Nevertheless, the trip reached its conclusion. Before we leave Orlando behind, let’s take a look back at a selection of outtakes that didn’t make the cut in our previous thirty chapters for various reasons. I’ve arguably posted too many pics as it is, in this epic-length vacation slideshow carousel that didn’t quite hold its audience captive. The average internet user has likely been to Disney theme parks multiple times in their lives and may chuckle at the expense of us starstruck bumpkins who’ve gone on and on about this. Congrats on your affluent first-world upbringing that we didn’t quite have. To us the Disney World trip was like a one-in-a-billion lottery win minus the devastating tax burden. And I’d wager our ending credit card balances were smaller than yours.

Anyway: last call for Disney World photos! And an epilogue.

Journey Into Imaginarium with Figment, one of several rides I didn’t investigate during my one-man EPCOT tour.

Waterfall adjacent to the Imaginarium.

In EPCOT’s England section, a doll diorama puts happy faces on a typically fanciful and merciless court.

An unexplained diorama in the Italy section.

I definitely posted too much of EPCOT’s since-replaced “Harmonious” closing-time show, but I withheld, like, zillions of shots.

Thursday sunrise over Dinosaur Gertie’s Ice Cream of Extinction in Hollywood Studios, which we rocketed past to reach Rise of the Resistance ASAP.

Later in Hollywood Studios, we eventually crossed paths with Elastigirl…

…and her husband Mr. Incredible, trying to catch up.

We soon caught up with them as well.

Anne attempts a selfie with Frozone but forgets to adjust for her hat.

Thursday afternoon in the Magic Kingdom, Aladdin fans may love that section of Adventureland. The camel’s butt, maybe not so much.

Anne spotted me as the Dumbo ride came in for a landing.

Anne enjoying our final minutes gazing upon Cinderella Castle at night. I took a few tries to get that errant balloon in the shot, which frightened and confused another patron.

…and so it went, as otherwise previously chronicled.

Friday morning after the Character Breakfast, we finished packing, took one last look around the Grand Floridian grounds, boarded our charter bus, and tried not to be depressed on our ride to the airport.

One last close-up glimpse of Seven Seas Lagoon, out behind Boca Chica.

Sights along the interstate included their Casting building, which I presume holds their HR offices…

…and a Disney gift shop, as if the parks didn’t already have enough of their own.

Orlando International Airport was what it was. We grabbed unremarkable lunch at McDonald’s, our traditional go-to at the end of every long trip. One of the two admission booths to our TSA checkpoint had a system malfunction, leaving two long lines to merge into a single, frustrating bottleneck. Our plane departed a bit behind schedule, though not enough to raise our tempers. Disney euphoria lingered in our veins.

We meet again, Southwest Airlines, our old friends who have yet to disappoint us massively on our very few flights ever.

We wound up sitting in the back row, which we now know is not our favorite plane row. Anne recalls a bit more turbulence on our way north, though I may have been so preoccupied with several minutes of Vasalva-maneuvering to retain my poor, precious hearing that I ignored any other discomforts. We landed a couple hours later in Indianapolis just in time for rush hour traffic, not to mention much colder springtime temperatures that reminded us why we’d brought jackets at all.

The evening was spent unpacking, sorting, and just kinda gazing upon our souvenirs. Some of them are still sitting on our computer desk, waiting for us to tuck them somewhere out of sight. Part of me likes having them on casual display seventeen months later amid other, less meaningful clutter.

Some of Anne’s souvenirs and swag.

Our souvenir cards — Anne’s per-diem expense card, our resort room keys, and so on.

We agree we’d love to do this again someday before we’re too old to walk for more than ten minutes at a time. It isn’t impossible for Anne to become a repeat winner, according to her employers’ rules for their annual corporate getaway. In fact, the more times an employee wins, the more perks they receive — extra days’ stays, plus-ones’ travel expenses paid for, upgraded flights, etc. An encore on their dime would be amazing, provided the Wednesday night ordeal doesn’t happen again, but we’ve made peace with the probability that this may have been her one and only win ever. Just the one time was mind-blowing enough; we’ve had plenty of “WE’RE NOT WORTHY!” moments before, during, and after in appreciation.

In the meantime, we’ve been hedging our bets with some pre-planning for what could be a Disney World follow-up on our own dime someday. Step one is already in progress: saving up all the Marriott points. Since our return home March 10, 2023, every single hotel we’ve used for all our subsequent trips to date — our last two summer vacations, every comic-con outside Indiana, every birthday overnighter — has been at a Marriott for exactly this hypothetical purpose. In hindsight I regret having wasting some points utterly needlessly on a disappointing and somewhat scary stop in 2022, but we’ve been compensating for that rash choice ever since.

Fortunately Orlando has a few Marriotts within reasonable distance of the parks, whether by shuttle or by our own devices. The Grand Floridian incontestably provided the greatest accommodations of our entire lives, but it’s priced phenomenally beyond our middle-class means. We have a long, long list of sights we haven’t explored yet — the Magic Kingdom’s other rides, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Disney Springs, maybe a checkup on what Universal’s changed or updated since our last adventure there seventeen years ago, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But our primary objective is to not go massively into credit card debt for Disney’s sake if we can help it. We’re not really close to retirement yet, but that’s baggage we don’t want to carry into our quote-unquote “golden years” (no pun intended).

On the other hand, if Anne’s present or future bosses decide she’s as awesome as I think she is, and choose to reward her again someday, we’re more than ready to accept that honorable privilege. There’s something magical about the unexpected granting of a wish that means a lot more than self-destructively forcing it to happen.

One more final thought, if I may:

I’m still not a fully accredited member of the unsecret society of sixty million Disney Bloggers™, so you won’t see any Disney World tips-and-tricks listicles from me…but if I could give you a single sincere recommendation: much of this trip — from planning to execution to issues in media res — were aided, solved, and/or simplified tremendously by the “My Disney Mobile Experience” app. I don’t do affiliated links, I refuse paid promotional consideration (well, okay, no one ever offers me free junk, because I reserve the right to trash their product anyway if it sucks), and I earn absolutely nothing from anything I plug here on MCC, so it’s with appreciative enthusiasm that I tell you the app had literally everything I needed to survive and enjoy my time, whether on my own or at Anne’s side. As further proof that no one asked me to say this, notice the complete lack of links in this paragraph. As of today I’ve yet to uninstall it from my phone because it’s another fun memento.

Well…that and my one last anecdote, which will mean more if you’ve read along with this entire miniseries, which you may recall began with Anne’s light misadventure at Indy’s TSA checkpoint. Three days later at Orlando’s airport, we arrived a couple hours early per the style of the times. We went through the usual motions to which all frequent flyers are accustomed, which is not us. A few dozen or so passengers were ahead of us in the TSA line, which moved reasonably quickly. After I sailed through my inspection without incident and reacquired my pocket contents and my shoes, I watched from afar as Anne was once again asked to step aside toward The Bad Booth, where a more thorough inspection of her carry-on bag would be conducted.

One escalated X-ray and rummage session later, the very polite agent located the object that had concerned their monitors: a coin purse containing every smashed penny we’d collected on our trip.

101 Disney World smashed pennies, no two alike.

I can’t believe these all fit into a single coin purse, but somehow she managed it. The agents were surely relieved to confirm Anne was not in fact trying to smuggle a fragmentation grenade on board. Unlike last time, this time they gave the offending object back to her and sent us on our way. I may have cackled for a while afterward, a rather mean and unfair response on my part considering I bought at least half of these for her at EPCOT while she was working.

So yeah, maybe we won’t be flying to Disney World next time.

The End. Thanks for reading! Lord willing, we’ll see you for our next road-trip miniseries in the very near future, guaranteed 100% TSA-checkpoint-free.

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on Twitter, Threads or Bluesky. Thanks for reading!]

Midlife Crisis Crossover!

2023-12-01 04:29:46

Disney World! Part 1: A Grand Prize Trip to Orlando

Anne the lucky winner, photographed by the guy who’s lucky to be by her side for 19 years and counting.

Welcome to the launch of a brand new MCC miniseries!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. We’re geeks more accustomed to vicarious life through the windows of pop culture than through in-person adventures. For years we contented ourselves with everyday life in Indianapolis and any surrounding areas that also had comics and toy shops. As our relationship persisted and blossomed, we chucked some of our self-imposed limitations and resolved as a team to leave the comforts of home for annual chances to see creative, exciting, breathtaking, outlandish, and/or bewildering new sights in states beyond our own, from the horizons of nature to the limits of imagination, from history’s greatest hits to humanity’s deepest regrets and the sometimes quotidian, sometimes quirky stopovers in between. We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do.

One thing we rarely do is fly. The first time we ever boarded airplanes was in November 2015, when Anne was sent to scenic Colorado Springs on her very first business trip. I was permitted to tag along, provided I pay for my own plane ticket and meals. I had more free time for enjoying the surroundings than she did, but it was a groundbreaking experience in many ways.

The following summer we introduced my son to this same luxurious travel mode and, in lieu of our annual road trip, used planes for our return visit to New York City. It was nice to save some hours not having to drive through Ohio and Pennsylvania, but we lost some of the quality-time along-the-way joy that enlivened some past family vacations. And we couldn’t just ask our pilots to pull over at the nearest gas station so we could pick out some snacks. We had to settle for whatever pittances the attendants just so happened to have in their pockets.

NYC Part II was seven years ago. Next year, we went back to road-tripping. Ultimately we prefer to control our own vehicles and itineraries. Some airline prices may be lower than in past eras, but they’re still a luxury. Most annoyingly, the changing cabin pressure upon ascent and descent wrecks my hearing and fills my head with the roaring of an imaginary ocean for hours afterward unless I perform a lot of inner-ear calisthenics throughout the last half-hour of every flight. Given the choice, we prefer Avis over airlines. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so.

Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation!

The prize package included round-trip airfare for her (and only her) to Orlando, Florida; a three-night stay at a Disney World resort; and a pair of Disney World one-day Park Hopper passes. Other, smaller objects were also thrown in along the way, such as a Disney MagicBand+, which looks like a watch but doesn’t tell time. Instead it’s this wearable, ostensibly interactive toy that’s supposed to trigger special features on various park attractions. We were so busy being bedazzled by everything else around us that she didn’t get much use out of it. Not every Disney-labeled object is magic, as their shareholders seem to be realizing about the company’s other lines of business in 2023.

Wait, sorry, I’m drowning out the lede: we could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

Two major catches tempered the blowing of our minds. One: for Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. She had a fixed itinerary filled with mandatory business meetings, seminars, luncheons, and other gatherings rife with proprietary jargon implemented to leverage daily-inculcated encouragement of attitudinal synchronization with HR behavioral objectives for long-term performance improvement and personal evolution into team-built role models within their proactively for-profit paradigm. In short: much of the time, she’d have to work.

Not me, baby! Same as with Colorado Springs, I was allowed to tag along again provided I paid my own way, and was excused/barred from almost all those appointments. My company and hers have had dealings in the past, but her bosses aren’t my bosses. Employees were granted one (1) free day on the trip to spend off-the-clock with their plus-ones, but by and large I’d be on my own recognizance and free to enjoy whatever pleasures I could afford until then. I could go crazy Broadway-style!

The second catch: we had to fly. We couldn’t simply drive down early and arrive the same time as everyone else’s flights. We dealt with it.

We’d driven to Orlando once before, the endpoint of our 2007 road trip, but we hadn’t done Disney World. My son had already seen all Orlando’s major parks years earlier on a vacation with his mom’s family. Based on his experience and choice of encore options, we did Universal Studios instead. Anne and I had never been to a Disney theme park in our entire lives…until now.

Our departure from Indy was scheduled Tuesday, March 7, 2023. We’d return home Friday, March 10th. This miniseries will cover what happened in between except her boring work matters that’re none of my business or yours — our extravagant accommodations, my first time wandering a theme park alone, our first glimpse of the fabled Magic Kingdom, the very few rides we rode (we are slightly over 50), the foods, the statues, the characters, the fireworks, the one evening we spent in a fit of mutual rage, and, for anyone who knows us and/or this site well, the one section of the one park that you know had to be our first stop together, even before the Magic Kingdom or whatshisname the mouse.

If you visit Disney World, internet bylaw says you’re required to blog about it. MCC will be the sixteen billionth blog on the subject, but chiefly as an experiential narrative and hardly an authoritative tips-and-tricks advice column. Our version will run at least thirty chapters. As you’d expect, we took a plethora of photos. The more responses we get, the faster I’ll try posting them. Then I can finally post about our official 2023 road trip, which followed three months later.

For the third round-trip flight of our lives; Indianapolis International Airport.

DAY ONE: TUESDAY, MARCH 7TH.

Our Southwest Airlines flight from Indy to Orlando was scheduled shortly after lunchtime. We arrived a couple hours early per the style of the times. We went through the usual motions to which all frequent flyers are accustomed, which is not us. A dozen or so passengers were ahead of us in the TSA line, which moved reasonably quickly. After I sailed through my inspection without incident, I stood by for a floor show I already knew was coming.

Despite frequent reminders in the days leading up to takeoff, Anne had a hunch that the whole “liquid containers must be less than 3.4 ounces” thing was more of a guideline than a rule, and/or that 22 years after 9/11 was more than enough time for security to start loosening up on that one, especially for cute tiny middle-aged ladies who were Grand Prize Winners. This hunch did not pay off for her.

While I re-pocketed my possessions and put my shoes and belt back on, I watched from afar as Anne was asked to step aside toward The Bad Booth, where a more thorough inspection of her carry-on bag would be conducted. One escalated X-ray and rummage session later, the very polite TSA agent confiscated one normal-sized tube of toothpaste and an entire, brand new, unopened, hefty bottle of sunscreen. Anne accepted their decision and did not go full Karen because she is not that sort of woman. I, on the other hand, am not the sort of man to deny himself a gentle I-TOLD-YOU-SO giggle-fit. I did try to contain myself till we were out of earshot, because that seemed more gentlemanly.

One of several art installations along either concourse: We Are the People by D. Powell-Smith, 2021.

After stopping by a supply store for much smaller replacements that would not get her tackled and manacled, she grabbed a terminal seat while I fetched us bagels for brunch from Shapiro’s Deli. Along the walk, I happened to run into my old boss, who taught me a lot of what I know before she retired several years ago. She and her husband were going to visit their grandkids down in Texas, which sounded pretty keen. Our chat was the sole reminder of my own workplace for the entirety of this trip.

The chariot we awaited.

Our flight boarded without incident and took off only a few minutes later than the original posted time. On the way up into the heavens and on the way down, I tried my best to keep my ear canals opened and/or exercised and/or constantly contorting to maintain proper head pressure and avoid hearing loss — a combination of Valsalva maneuvers and chewing. In lieu of gum, which had done absolutely nothing for me on the NYC trip, I’d brought a bag of beef jerky that tasted like Ren Faire leather. On the way up, none of this worked and I couldn’t hear a single word of the conversations between Anne and the woman sitting next to her over the next two hours. On the way down, I figured out my system and was back to normal eardrum sensitivity within a few minutes of disembarking.

And thus we beheld Orlando once again. It took a few seconds to confirm we definitely would not need the jackets we were wearing for the next three days.

Our first lagoon of the trip, and not the last.

Welcome to Orlando International Airport! Obviously!

Palm trees inside and out. We definitely weren’t in Indiana anymore.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete road trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Our Road Trip Checklist

Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken a road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home in Indianapolis. From 1999 …

^{Randall A. Golden (Midlife Crisis Crossover!)}