Carl Hutzler's Blog

OK, most everyone loves Disney. But I am not a big fan. I just don’t like rides that much nor crowds nor all the pretend stuff. I mean, if you want to experience white water rafting, they have the technology and it is a lot more fun when you are on an actual river! And if you want to experience driving a formula I car at 100 miles an hour, well they have a lot of places where you can do just that (including Disney World!). Along with sky diving, balloon riding and more, why not just do it instead of a 50 minute wait in a line and a 38 second ride. And if you need to feel zero g’s or 2 g’s, well they got better roller coasters in Kings Dominion which is an hour from most everyone’s house and a heck of a lot cheaper.

OK, I am not all bahhh humbug. I understand the whole Disney thing. They do it well. VERY well. They have thought of everything. And each ride has several neat little surprises which make you appreciate just how much attention to detail there is. Take the water park, Blizzard Beach. They had a chair lift to take you up to the top of the water slide (it is a sky resort theme). The lift was a real chair lift and when the safety bar came down a pair of ski tips came up under your feet! Well done. And they had sand and a big wave pool like you would expect. But they even had a small area like you get at low tide where some water pools up in a low sandy area for little kids to play in….you know what I mean? That is thinking it all the way through and I appreciate that a lot.

And the staff (cast members – ughh) are well trained, professional, and pleasant almost 100% of the time. And the parks are incredibly clean. And so on. And who can argue with being able to do so many things (experiences) in a single day. You can fly in a hang glider, dine in Italy, and be transported to the future without leaving Epcot.

But the problem with Disney is the crowds and the prices and the money-grubbing rules and the sad fact that most of the people there are so out of shape that they could never go on a white water raft trip…or balloon ride…or even ski down a mountain if they wanted to. Many can’t even walk far enough to get to the rides…I have never seen to many grocery store electric scooters in my life! It just gets to me after a while. Wouldn’t it be great if people flocked to real places and did these things? Or maybe I should be glad they don’t ;-)

With all of that said, I actually had a rather unfrustrating experience in the big DW with my family last week (we got back yesterday). We went the week after new years so most everyone was back in school (my kids are on a modified/all-year schedule with school). So crowds were just not that bad. Rylan had the parks planned out and new what to get “fast passes” for. I didn’t have to think at all. Just walk here and walk there. Go with Anna to some rides while Jake and Rylan did the roller coasters. Carry Anna at the end of the day. It was amazingly easy. Tiring, but easy.

The only bad day was at the Hollywood Studios park as it was very crowded. Not sure why that one was crowded and the others were not…but I suspect it was more of the fact that several of the attractions at that park were closed for one reason or another so people were funneled into a smaller set of options. No big deal, we all decided to get the heck out of there by 2:30pm or so.

Oh, and we stayed at the awesome Nickelodeon Hotel. That was the best part in my opinion. Kids had a room to themselves with a Playstation video game console, TV and bunk bed. Food was right downstairs (Pizza Hut and Subway). And out the door was a fairly awesome water park with 5 slides, a big bucket, and a huge pool. For my money ($180 a night), I think we could skip Disney and just do the Nick Hotel.

In the end I might even say I had a good time. But that was all thanks to Rylan’s planning of everything. Without that, I would have been sitting in line after line and miserable as would the kids too.

Pictures from the trip