2.22.2014

Sunshine Forever: Our Family Vacation

Dear Readers,

Family vacation, by definition and proven by several different scientific studies, is an experience in which one travels with immediate family to various locations to learn one's ability to cope with anger, frustration, and hatred for their respective kin in a smaller and more expensive environment than home.  As with any rule or theory, there is always an exception, and I recently returned home from an exceptional family vacation.

My dear mother-in-law, Paula, decided a few years ago that she wanted to take her family on a dream vacation to Orlando, Florida and all it's attractions.  She told Shay, Shay's brother Anthony (or AJ or Tony, depending on the circle you run in), and myself about this trip last spring so that we could secure time off.  12 sunny days in Florida leaving the inversion and suckiness of Idaho winter behind during February: can you just imagine?  It was kept a secret from Lucas, Paula's one and only beloved grandson, until Christmas Day.  Using the advent calendar that his grandma had made him, Lucas religiously counted down the days to our departure.

On the morning of February 1st,  we boarded our flight to the Sunshine State, and hopped onto the Disney World bandwagon.  No really, they provide a bus from the airport to your resort, televisions playing the whole time showing you what an amazing time you're going to have and that they do weird things like grow nine pound lemons and talk a lot about little girls becoming princesses at the "Bibbity-Bobbity-Botique" (no mention of the $$$ though).  I'm not gonna lie, their propaganda works and I was stoked to get there, even with my initial disappointment of learning they didn't carry my size at the princess makeover shop.

We stayed at Disney World for the first five days of our trip.  Initially, I was surprised by the sheer size of the place.  It's huge.  Miles huge.  In Europe, it would be considered it's own country (non-participating in the EU, I'm sure).  Because we were staying onsite, we were privy to using their shuttle buses from park to park, and no ride on the shuttle was less than 25 minutes.  Disney World consists of four parks: The Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Disney Hollywood Studios (formally MGM Grand) and The Animal Kingdom.  Conveniently, they have developed technology they refer to as "Magic Bands" (yes, you can buy t-shirts in the gift shops that refer to the bands) that are a bracelet with a microchip installed in it (the bracelets, I should say, are ordered in your favorite color and have your name printed on the inside), which you use as your pass into the parks, key to your hotel room, and tender when making a purchase.  They connect it to a credit card for you, so you don't have to carry those pesky things around!  That way, when you finish your roller coaster and are walking through the associated gift shop at the end of the ride, you can buy that yeti-themed hat with Mickey ears on top without a second thought.

Supposedly we were at Disney during the slowest time of the year, which is strange because a lot of the time it felt as full and chaotic as a Wal-Mart on welfare check day.  None-the-less, I'll give it to those Disney folks, they make every single person that walks through their gates feel special.  Every little girl is a princess, every little boy is a hero, and every parent there is the best parent in the world, even if they are now officially broke or heavily in debt.  The staff, or "cast members" (a very tricky way of getting around equal opportunity laws and paying staff a living wage), were always smiling, always spreading pixie dust, always sweeping the already spotless sidewalks and pavement, and always absolutely thrilled to be at work.  One of my favorite things to do was to get a cast member to act like a real person; break away from the smile and the magic and say things like, "...my feet hurt," or "I told them three times to be in row 2 and 3 and look at them, scrambling around like a bunch of idiots.  EXCUSE ME, ROWS 2 AND 3!  YES, THAT'S RIGHT!  All day every day, dealing with them."  Those moments of human interaction felt like great accomplishments to me.  We loved Disney World though, and thoroughly enjoyed our stay there.  We ate so much amazing food, rode so many amazing rides, watched a handful of incredible shows, and walked about 3,000 miles, enjoying every step, Lucas wearing an oversized novelty Goofy hat the whole time.

After Disney World, we checked into a beautiful condo and worked our way over to Universal Studios.  If Disney is your rich and fancy aunt that spoils you with too much gourmet ice cream and unlimited swimming in her fancy pool, leaving you feeling entitled and spoiled when you return to your reality, then Universal Studios is your trashy cousin that loves to party and will spend their entire tax return on booze and drugs and concert tickets to make sure that you have the time of your life for your 21st birthday.  In essence, it's a smaller, cleaner Las Vegas with roller coasters instead of casinos.

Don't get me wrong about Universal though.  If she's your trashy cousin, she works in the highest class strip club there is.  Meaning, they know how to do it up there.  I know this, not because of my limited theme park experience.  Rather, I am a geek for a certain dark haired young man with round glasses and a scar on his forehead.  Having read the Harry Potter series of books more times than I can count, not to mention I am the proud owner of the entire set of movies on Blue-Ray (thanks again to Paula), I am nothing short of an expert when it comes to Hogwarts and beyond, and they nailed it in the attraction The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  The attention to detail was astounding and I was acting like a 13 year old girl at a One Direction (that's a boy band, right?) concert.  We drank butter beer and we toured Hogwarts and we had wands chosen for us and we played in a quidditch match and I was almost taken away enough to blow $40 on a Gryffindor scarf (good try Universal, but I'm not that big of a sucker).  Outside of Harry Potter, I had no other expectations of Universal.  It ends up, it's a pretty amazing place and the attention to detail is in every part of it from Jurassic Park to The Simpsons.  Unlike Disney, the employees there were a little more real life.  Upon learning that Lucas was denied access to The Hulk roller coaster, the kid running Dr. Doom's Terrifying Death Drop From Hell (or whatever that awful ride was called) let him cut to the front of the line.  AJ even got a free churro from a vendor for no reason.  It's the little things that will keep you coming back again and again (even if it costs $20 for parking in addition the cost of entrance and food and human drying machines).

We spent one fine day of our vacation at the baby brother of the bigger theme parks, Legoland.  My geekdom for Harry Potters pales in comparison to Lucas's obsession with Lego, and there are no shortage of blocks in this park.  The rides were mediocre compared to the human blenders at Universal and Disney, but the Lego sculptures were phenomenal and the pace of the park was so nice and relaxed that it was worth the hour drive to get there.  One of the attractions in the park is a driving school for kids.  Before allowed out on the mini-streets to tote around in cars that look like a Lego version of the Subaru Justy I used to drive, the kids are required to take a driving course complete with video.  While the other kids were shuffling around like jackasses, Lucas took this video and the directions given by the teenage ride staff very seriously.  Once out on the rode, he followed the rules to the letter, but still ended up rear-ending another driver.  "I'm honest, it wasn't my fault!" he said to us the second we found him after the ride.  "I'm honest!"  If I'm honest, he's already a better driver than me.

One of my favorite things about this vacation was taking Lucas to the ocean for the first time.  We had some time to kill earlier in the trip and ended up at Cocoa Beach on a blustery day.  That didn't stop Lucas from getting soaked chasing waves, with the biggest smile on his face that I'd ever seen.  So we decided to head back to the same beach on our last day.  The day was so pretty that I even shaved above the knee (a first time in February that I can remember), and laid in the sun on the beach proudly in my swimsuit with no cover up as if I was a young and hot cast member on 90210.  Lucas jumped wave after wave after wave and we got sand in our hair and our treats and all over our clothes and it was nothing short of wonderful.  I could have laid on that beach forever.

I'm not going to lie, it was tough to come home.  Once we did get home, I actually missed my in-laws.  We had such a great time, and got along so well, and things were so stress free I don't know that I can rightfully refer to it as a family vacation.  Speaking on behalf of Shay, Lucas, and I, it was the rejuvenating get-away that we needed, and we are so grateful to Paula for making it happen and to Anthony (or Tony or AJ) to be there alongside us.  Also, I owe thanks to my Facebook and Instagram followers for putting up with my endless posts, other people's trips can be so annoying.  But you just read this horribly long blog, so I guess you don't mind too much.  I hope you're not too jealous (though I understand if you are).

Sincerely,
h.

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