Category: Disney/Pixar

Today I had some fun.

There was only one of the three Gartner sessions this afternoon that had any interest for me, so I said, “Screw it,” and went back to the hotel to play afternoon hooky with Margie.

We took the Squig down the river (well, by bus, but we used the shuttle boat on the way back) to “Downtown Disney,” which is basically a big retail center at the edge of the WDW parkland. Restaurants, night clubs (on “Pleasure Island” — on which my company also did engineering work), places of amusement (a mini-Legoland), entertainment locales (a blues club, an AMC theater, and a Cirque de Soleil arena), and several Disney-themed stores. That includes “Disney Home” (Disney meets Eddie Bauer — with some surprisingly tasteful stuff mixed in with “What would anyone be thinking in order to actually put this in their house?”), Disney Christmas (ditto), and the world’s largest Disney store (which basically has nearly everything that all the smaller stores at the various parks).

Which took care of some birthday, Christmas, and thank-you gifts for a variety of people.

It’s vaguely insidious how easy they make it for you to spend money here. Your room key can be programmed to function as a credit card (basically charging to your room). And stuff you buy anywhere can be sent back to your home resort. Danger, Will Robinson! Doctor Smith, put down that room key!

Anyway, Kitten had fun at Legoland. But she had even more fun at a fountain on the outskirts of the complex. This fountain was made up of various terra cotta pots at various angles, spilling water all over the place. This was the most fun place at all of Walt Disney World, if you gauge it by the screams and giggles of delight from a 16 month old. By the time she was done splashing about, she was soaking wet and utterly enjoying herself.

Being around Margie is also fun. I should do it even more often.

But now it’s time to sleep. Not fun, but around Margie, which does make it, then, fun. Even if all we do is sleep, and even if it is a double bed.

“I’m really not having fun.”

I made that comment to Margie Sunday. And, with provisos, that’s actually true.

And it’s all Katherine’s fault. Or the fault of her presence, since she’s fairly innocent in all of this.

That’s the problem, of course. She doesn’t understand. The good times are no more meaningful for her here than they would be at home. Look, an interesting plant! Look, a bunny on the grass!

In the meantime, all she knows is that she’s either confined to a little hotel room, or else stuck in a stroller or a high chair. Unhappy-making. Her schedule is disrupted.

Meanwhile, Margie has to deal with her all day. And we both have to deal with her in the evening (which largely means trying to get her to sleep, and then tiptoeing around the room the rest of the night).

Margie is getting night duty with her, first because I have to go to “work” in the a.m., second because Kitten has taken to screaming more loudly when I pick her up out of the crib (whic does have its advantages to me, but also its guilt). Margie’s duty is only slightly offset by the hilarity of Dave stumbling around by nightlight to get shaved, bathed and dressed without Waking The Baby Three Feet Away.

In other words, every moment in Katherine’s presence is dominated by her interests. Is she hungry? Thirsty? Poopy? Ready for bed? Into somwthing she ought not to be? Stir-crazy? Is the bathroom door shut? The bottle put away? Everything out of reach (everything that hasn’t been pulled onto the floor)? Why is she howling again, and are you sure the neighbors can’t hear?

And when you’re out with her (like at a theme park), things get even more interesting.

Not fun.

And the bitch is, she won’t remember this trip. We’ll talk about it. She’ll see pictures. But the fun parts of this trip — what could be good memories — are no more part of her than the thrills of the Haunted Mansion were (she
fell asleep).

This is a good conference. I’m glad I don’t have to miss Margie and Katherine. And there have been some fun times. And someday I’d like to come back, both when Katherine’s old enough to appreciate the place (and for us to appreciate her appreciation), and when Katherine’s out of the nest and it can Just Be the Two of Us. The Disney Resort thang can be a very enjoyable time.

But I’m looking forward to being back home.

Okay, enough self-pity! On with more blogging!

I’m going to stop tonight’s efforts by closing up that long first evening. There’s not much else to write about.

We arrived in Orlando around 1 a.m., long after everything had closed, and trekked a long, long way to baggage claim. Margie went off to find the shuttle folks, Mears, she’d contacted by phone, only to find out that they had closed down long beforehand, the scum. She did find some different folks, Transtar, who were quick to offer their service, and for cheaper. Since Mears seems to do 90% of the WDW business, I find myself obligated to suggest the good folks at Transtar. They did right by us.

The trip away from Orlando International — which Florida conveniently built as a tollway — passes you by an endless array of very elaborate billboards, all pointing to various amusement parks and resorts. Sea World. Universal Studios. Busch Gardens. And, of course, the grand-daddy of them all, Walt Disney World.

Oh, yeah. We also drove past this huge, rather ugly/modernistic church along I-4. The sign said it was the home to the Mary, Queen of the Universe Shrine. The Catholics like doing things in a big way.

The shuttle driver indicated that last week had been really dead, but things were beginning to pick up some.

We arrived at the resort — the Port Orleans Riverport (Formerly Dixie Landings) at 2 a.m. Only to discover that (a) the area of the resort we had been ostensibly booked into, we weren’t, and, more importantly, (b) they had no cribs available. Given that Squiggy was screaming her lungs out at this point (she’s sacked out on the plane, and we’d carried her off in her car seat, still asleep, all the way to the shuttle. She woke up en route, and finally decided she’d had about enough of this), Margie expressed her displeasure with the turn of events.

The bell hop took us and our ton o’ luggage off to our room on a long, golf-cart-like shuttle. It did the job quite nicely, and he described a bit about the resort, which I will do later on, too.

We got into our room. Quaint. Nice. Clean. Vaguely Southern, I suppose. Aside from no crib, the biggest problem is that there’s no desk, and the only table is across the room from the one phone (which is also the one place that has a data port — a/k/a second line — to plug into).

We’re busy unpacking, when the door knocks. Voila, someone’s found a crib. Margie’s magic works again.

We eventually get ready for bed, set Squiggy down in the crib, where she starts to scream bloody murder. Ah, but unlike our church retreat the previous weekend (which I never got ’round to blogging), we’re in a hotel room. Which means her noise is not very audible beyond these four walls. Aha. We feign sleep, just as we would at home where she wouldn’t see us. She can still see us, but it is 3 in the morning, and she’s pretty tired, too. After about 10 nerve-wracking minutes, she eventually quiets down and goes to sleep.

As do we.

More on the morrow on the morrow.