It’s a cool day in October. The palm trees are changing colors and the alligators are settling in for a long winter’s nap. There is the brisk tang of sub-eighty degrees in the air. The air conditioners have negotiated a truce with the atmosphere, “I won’t condition you if you don’t stifle me,” they said. “Agreed,” nature replied.
“Oh, what the hell!” I mused. “Why not go to Disneyworld?” I’ve got an annual pass, Florida resident grade. It’s a bit over an hour away and I haven’t gone in a while. I like to just walk around Epcot center, taking in the sights, a few pictures, maybe a ride or two. A brezeln at Germany.
It used to be called EPCOT Center and had to do with science and technology, culture and understanding. Henry Kissinger liked the idea. It would expose Americans to other cultures. Funny thing to say for a war criminal, but even monsters have hobbies, I suppose. When they’re not bombing Cambodia. It was a utopian vision. Walt’s Community of Tomorrow is so 1960’s.
Walt saw World Showcase as a sort of permanent World’s Fair with its theme of Peace Through Understanding. What I mostly remember of the original World’s fair, well, the 1964-5 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, were the Belgian Waffles, little wicker baskets of lavender; rosebuds; and sage, dinosaurs, a giant tire, the GE pavilion, GM’s vision of the future; I still have a glow-in-the-dark clip that says, ‘I Have Seen the Future,’ radioactive dimes, Mr. Lincoln, the Pieta, and the Unisphere of course. Oh, and leaving a bamboo branch on the train when we got off in New London.
The few shows in Epcot are gradually being drained of value. The Norway Viking boat ride is now a Frozen commercial. Mexico’s boat ride is now a Three Caballeros commercial. China’s movie hasn’t changed. Yet. It’s only a matter of time before it becomes the Mulan show. And the museum that had terracotta soldiers and artifacts from China is now a commercial for Shanghai Disneyland. I’m seeing a trend.
‘Impressions de France’ is still there, but only at the end of the day, just before the park closes. During the day it’s, ‘Beauty and the Beast Sing-Along.’ I haven’t watched the new show, though I suppose I should. It appears to be for children, not that that stops me from watching something. Some of the most profound literature has been written so a child can understand it. I just assume it’s a sing-along meant for those freshly graduated from toddler class. I’ll check it out. Sometime. Maybe.
They changed Canada’s movie to include a bit of all of Canada’s provinces. It’s nice and all. And certainly embodies culture and understanding, but it lacks the continuity of the old show. Plus they got rid of Martin Short. He added a personal touch that I found endearing.
I decided to go the Disney Studios, instead. Being one of those hated Baby Boomers, I like nostalgia. I feel a tug of familiarity, harkening back to an old time that produced some magnificent works of art and science, and some horrors of prejudice and cruelty-when life was ambiguous, both blessed and cursed by the same fickle god. Before things went woke and everything old is garbage.
I wanted to see the new Rise of the Resistance Star Wars ride. It’s one of those trackless vehicle rides. The cars start out in a row at the loading dock, but then separate, since they were never attached to begin with, and go in different directions. Each car’s ride is slightly different. They also rely much more on projection and holographs. Not so much on animatronics. It’s flashy. It’s glitzy. It’s… two dimensional. I’ll leave it to each rider how they feel about that.
I got to the entrance a little after 8:00. Opening was 8:30, so I hoped I’d get there and have a minimal wait time. I had a nice spot, in the shade even, 30 or 40 feet from the gate. I pulled up “Stranger in a Strange Land” on my cellphone, which I have been reading over the past year or so as a waiting room book. A chapter here, a section there, while waiting to see the doctor, getting a tire fixed, or standing in line at a theme park. “Let’s see, let’s see,” I fussed. “Where are they now?” The Man from Mars is currently traveling across the country with his ‘brother,’ Jill. Do you grok? Oh, look. In a hotel he just took Jill’s cloths off just by thinking it. If I could do that can you imagine the mischief?
8:30 came and, nothing. The park actually opens at 9:00. 8:30 is early admission for resort guests, which I would know if I was paying attention. OK. Whatever. Oh, look. The Man from Mars and Jill are now traveling with Patty, the tattooed carnival lady! Grok that, Mike.
Floods of guests started streaming through the early entrance gates, while us supplicants from the outside world looked on, peasants that we be. I checked the Disney app to see how backed up the Star Wars ride was. 120 minutes? What, did every early entry-er, entry-person, rush straight to Tatooine? Or wherever the Star Wars land is supposed to be? Guess so.
I entered the park, leisurely. No sense in hurrying. The parking lot had been overwhelmingly empty when I got there. I was directed to a space about as close to the entrance as you can get, so I didn’t expect it to be this manic. But, whatever. The R of the R ride used to have a ‘boarding group’ concept. Now it’s standby because the novelty has worn off.
The boarding group was kind of like fast pass for mobs. You have to sign up for a boarding group, which only becomes available at certain times twice a day and can only be accessed if you are within the park. You are assigned a time to come back and then stand in line with the rest of your group members and are installed into the ride, like park going widgets. Maybe they should call it a boarding herd.
Last year I tried to get one. I waited, in the shade of a palm tree by a rest room, to get into a boarding group in the 2:00 distribution. 2:00 came. I clicked the button on the Disney app. I got IN-to a standby queue. Arrival time: 7:30. “PM?” I thought. “If there are any openings, yes,” it added. “Bantha poop,” I said and went home.
So now I entered the park to have a 2 hour wait for a ride that was probably not that good, anyway. I walked around, through the Toy Story land, and into Star Wars land. This part of the park was a lot more crowded than the rest. It’s still novel, I guess. Or deactivating the boarding group stimulated interest. The line for Rise of the Resistance snaked around the entrance to the ride, then turtled back upon itself, lizarded across the pedestrian path; where cast members controlled traffic both for ride waiters and ride avoiders; then alligatored under a bridge and leap-frogged completely out of the land, and finally slithered in front of the Muppets’ theatre.
Hmm. I always liked that show. I’ll come back later.
Instead, I decided to go ride the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror ride. Another Baby Boomer Bonanza. (I wonder what a Bonanza ride would be like?) The Tower of Terror only had a 20 minute wait time. I like looking at the paraphernalia in the lobby, the attention to detail, 1920’s golden age, Art Deco Hollywood. I was advised to put on my mask (Oh, right. That,) and ushered into the preshow room. Last year they just herded us through without the preshow, COVID related, I’m sure. Now they let us see it again. One or two minutes of Rod Serling telling us the turgid tale of the family visiting the posh Hollywood Tower Hotel. Picture, if you will. A dimension of sound. A dimension of sight. And how it ended in tragedy here, in the Twilight Zone.
Then we boarded the maintenance elevator, the regular elevators were out of order, you see. We had the impression of being guests in the hotel who were forced to go into the basement due to a malfunction. Around boilers. Under cables. And by machinery running the massive beast above us. To the service elevators. We were arranged in groups and asked to stand on our numbers, mine was number 1. Ah! Great! I’ll be in the front row.
The needle on the dial over the elevator door came to ‘B’. The door opened and the cast member ushered us in, my row last. No sooner had we all attached our seat belts and settled in for an uneventful ride in a doomed elevator in a haunted hotel-nothing can go wrong, than the attendant asked us to come out again. “This elevator is offline,” she said. “Please come out and we will lead you to the next one. Please get on the exact same number you had for this car.”
Offline? “Ominous,” I thought. “A malfunction in the elevator car in a ride about a malfunctioning elevator car in a hotel?” Do-DO. DO-do. Do-DO. DO-do.
We all boarded our new, perfectly performing, not at all doomed, elevator car in the no-way cursed Hollywood Tower Hotel ride. “I hope you drop by again,” said the elevator operator. And as the doors closed, “See you next fall.”
The show was enjoyable. Well told with each floor a show of sounds and sights. And of mind. We were surrounded by classic images from the 1960’s show. Swirling spiral. Child’s doll floating through space. Shattering glass and giant eyeball. Clock spinning backwards. Then the car rolled out into the hallway. “What drugs was old Ron on?” I wondered. “And where can I get some?”
Then the shaft. The car lunged up, then down, faster than gravity. The cell phone in my shirt pocket stayed where it was as my body jerked downward. It followed. I tried to grab it but it fell into the seat next to me, which was empty. “Some poor soul could have been there,” I thought. “Is that a phone in your lap or are you terrified to see me?”
After a few more sounds and sights, and shakes, the car opened and disgorged us into hell. Or the gift shop, I don’t remember. It was a well done ride. With nostalgia. A good story. Carefully decorated set pieces and a satisfying ending. I like looking at the Twilight Zone memorabilia throughout the ride. The devil fortune box. The ventriloquist’s dummy. Round, black horn rimmed glasses. A cookbook.
After that I did what I like best, wander around the park, looking at all of the details (sounds and sights) that Disney is famous for. Every detail is significant. Every wall a canvas for a joke or a pun. I watched a Pixar parade. Twice. The sun came out and pushed the temp back up to Florida Maximum-what about that truce, huh? I got an ice cream cone, swirled! Little things that make it a rich texture. That make Disney an E-ticket company.
I hear Bob Chapek is downsizing the Imagineering department at Disney. It’s one of the more expensive departments, ‘tis said. Who thought that creativity would cost so much? Disney has been, um, not making enough money lately, apparently. Missing goals. Failing to exceed expectations. Or meet them. Wall street is getting cantankerous. Scrooge McDuck’s money silo is getting cavernous. Shareholders don’t want to be stuck holding their…shares. What’s a capitalist to do if he can’t capitalize on someone-SOMETHING!? I mean capitalize on someTHING.
Being a micro-manager, his solution is to cut back on expenses and quality and other useless stuff. He is what we used to call a spreadsheet shuffler. “If I cut back at this expense here,” he reasons, supremely unreasonably. “And chisel off that amount there, shave a few points off this debit lurking on the next sheet, scrape a few points off this expense, add a qualifier to this assumption, squeeze a drop or two out of this cell, and then ‘do the numbers,’ the bottom line will explode! Bonuses all around-for me. Bonuses for me, that is. Not you. Me.”
He’s basically oblivious to consequences, a bean pusher and a pencil counter. God save the kingdom! Cutting costs can’t have an effect on anything else, right? My spreadsheet tells me so! His company may be drifting toward the iceberg, but the prerecorded band sure sounds nice!
The Rise of the Resistance hovercrafted around 130-140 minutes. Good for it. I saw the Muppets’ show. It was still as good as ever, even dated as it is. Had breakfast, er, lunch now. Started writing this essay. Most of the new rides are OK, but not worth life slicing wait times, as fascinating as the Man from Mars’ and Jill’s adventures are. But not if I have to stand in the sun.
To occupy my time before getting bored and going home, I decided to walk to Epcot, nee EPCOT, Center. It’s about a mile or two or so along a canal. You can ride a boat, walk, or take a bus. Walking sounded better than waiting in line for any ride.
Sing-along with Belle was still playing at France. I didn’t bother asking when Impressions de France would play-it would be late, past my bed time, if at all. Jugglers were juggling in Italy and Mary Poppins floated above Great Briton. A show was going on in the amphitheater in front of America. Tourists were touring, ducks were ducking, and helicopters buzzed overhead. And I was getting tired.
After a while I took the skyliner back to my car at Disney’s Studio and drove home, on the way to which I had another adventure…
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