disney!

okay, i know the great disney update has been a little slow in coming, but i finally finished typing in and backdating the entries that i started (or mostly thought about starting) when i was there. they’re kind of random and i don’t know that they’ll provide any kind of complete picture of the trip, but i hope they’ll at least hint at how jam-packed and crazy and perfect it was.

(and of course i went and maxed out another webshots account – that’s the sixth one, if we’re counting – here’s the link: http://community.webshots.com/user/mccabesindisney).

laaaaaambert

back to the subject of repetitive tv – there is a classic disney cartoons station here, but for some reason, the programmers have chosen not to shuffle through the million-and-a-half cartoons that disney must have cranked out over the decades. instead, they’ve chosen like ten random cartoons from different eras and are looping them over and over. clearly this makes no sense, but luckily enough, some of the cartoons in this half-hour block are absolute classics.

so this week we’ve seen one of the best chip-and-dale/donald duck cartoons ever – the one where donald tries to make nut butter in a giant nutshell but chip and dale catch on and thwart his plans. we’ve also learned all the lyrics to the “lambert the sheepish lion” song (http://community.webshots.com/photo/388219178/388219178cgdEpk) and watched mighty…LITTLE…hiawatha sail bravely down the river a countless number of times.

tonight after our fifteen-hour theme-park marathon, we watched a full loop of stacy and then tried to catch our favorite cartoons one last time before leaving. it’s too bad we don’t have this kind of repetitive television at home, it can be wildly entertaining in a very silly sort of way.

gotta find the tapioca

so after an exhilarating and nostalgic monorail ride from the magic kingdom, we’re waiting at the disney transportation center for the bus that will take us to mgm studios. it’s two-something pm., we’ve been at the park since the gates opened at nine am. and even thought we don’t yet know that our day’s travels will take us to all three major theme parks and we won’t get back to our hotel until almost one am (an epcot nightcap is coming up – even though i very much enjoyed my first brief experience at animal kingdom, i think i’ll probably always consider that “new” park an afterthought), we’re pretty exhausted already.

so i’m standing there in the packed mgm bus line concentrating on willing my aching feet to stop hurting so badly so i can just concentrate on hitting up the rockin’ rollercoaster again when all of a sudden this brash midwestern female voice interrupts my thoughts – “yeah, this is the mgm bus…mgm…MGM I SEE THE BUS…” she’s one of those people whose voice just cuts through a crowd, and christina leans over to me and says, “oh man it’s sue.”

now sue hawk, as you’ll recall, is the lovable and classy truck driver from wisconsin who spiced up the first (and best) season of “survivor” with her inspiring words of wisdom, her breathtaking, ice-cold if-i-saw-you-laying-thirsty-in-the-street-i-would-not-give-you-a-drink speech to kelly wigglesworth, and her amazing pronunciation of the word “tapioca.” okay, maybe scratch the “lovable” and “classy” part, but at any rate sue was absolutely phenomenal to watch, and i for one miss having her in my life.

now with this new celebrity association, i turn my attention to this disney world sue, using her loud pipes and fantastic accent to corral her party together so they wouldn’t miss “THE BUS TO MGM LARRY HERE IT COMES LARRY”…

the bus lanes are packed so i’m glad we get on right after sue and larry and all their kids and friends. unfortunately for my feet, i’m stuck standing, and slightly unfortunate for my peace of mind, i’ve got sue right behind me and larry right next to me. a minute after we leave, sue (whose real name we find out is patty) yells to larry that she wants the whole gang to stop for a minute after they get off the bus so that she can talk to everyone, and larry does his part to make it happen by shouting all the way to the back of the bus so that the gang knows not to follow the crowd into the park but to hold back so patty can say something. not gonna lie, i’m a little curious as to the nature of patty’s address – no doubt she’s got some words of wisdom for her clan…

so i’m just chilling, hanging on to the little strappy thing they suspend from the overhead bar for standing passengers and trying to support all my body weight with my arms so my knees don’t give and send me crashing into patty-sue, and i’m fighting the urge to ask her to say “tapioca” when the driver gets on the mic and gives the whole “no eating, drinking, smoking, flash photography, bombs” speech when larry decides to take embellishing restrictions to a whole new level – “no knife throwing, sword fighting, stripping oooh oooh no passengers who haven’t showered in five days and don’t believe in deodorant!” – i quickly change my game plan and concentrate on not falling into larry.

the rest of the ride proves uneventful – patty blabs on about something or other while larry meets his neighbor – she’s here with her boyfriend (one of the few good men left out there) and she’s really excited about the tower of terror (larry says the reprogrammed random drops the ride now throws out makes the ride even scarier). i manage not to fall into anyone. we get off the bus, patty-sue issues her rally cry and i try to hang back for a moment to hear a bit more of that horrific accent before i remember about rockin’ rollercoaster and the reprogrammed tower of terror and dinner at the sci-fi “drive-in” and the great movie ride and i’m off for ten more hours of theme parks…love it.

… ’cause i’m the next big thing

at disney when you buy something with a credit card they ask for your autograph, not your signature. it almost makes you feel famous. i may start asking people to do that at the gap, but i don’t think they’ll get it.

i still want a hula-hoop…

today the mccabe clan learned the answer to an age-old question: what does santa do with his 364 vacation days? apparently he spends them in disney world, and today he decided to see if epcot’s soarin’ was worth all the hype…

when my cousins and i walked off the ride, we saw santa (it could have been his stunt double, but we’re pretty sure it was him…) eating a quick morning snack in the land building (it looked to be a salad…). we almost felt bad about our blatant staring and then my attempt to stealthily capture his picture (see exhibit a), but then we decided that the guy had to know what he was doing. i mean, it would be a terrible thing to point at someone who happens to be pleasantly plump with white hair, but if that person chooses to grow that white hair longer, add a ginormous, perfectly santa-shaped curly white beard, and then walk around disney world wearing a red shirt and white suspenders…well then he’s embracing his role and it would be a shame not to acknowledge it.

exhibit a:

later, we found him sitting on a bench outside of figment’s world of imagination, just taking in the sights (see exhibit b). we observed him (and we watched the way that every kid walking by him stared at him), and our consciences were further cleared when a woman walked up to him and said something that prompted him to pull out a business card, write something on it, and give it to her. ah-ha! so it would seem that our dear santa may be hitting up the disney theme parks to try to make a few bucks during the off-season…very clever, santa.

exhibit b:

after that, my mission was clear – i needed a picture with him. a stealth picture. i enlisted my cousin’s help, and i’d say our mission was successful.

exhibit c:

mischief managed.

confession: sometimes, the cheesiest things make me want to cry. people who know me know that i’m not a crier, but occasionally, i’ll be watching a really cheesy commercial or hear a really cheesy song or some expansive orchestral melody and it will bring me right to the brink of tearing up.

i don’t know if this really falls into that category, but tonight’s magic kingdom fireworks were one of the most spectacular things i’ve ever seen, and i swear i almost cried. i don’t know, there was something about watching a single shooting star firework arc over cinderella’s castle while an orchestra played “when you wish upon a star” in the background that really got to me. i may be pegging myself as a complete dork here, but i think i’m okay with that – watching those fireworks made me wish that i could remember how i felt when i watched them as a little kid, and everything about being here makes me feel nostalgic for the days when i thought i was actually meeting the real snow white. visiting disney world as an “adult” is a new experience for me, but i think the number one thing i’ve noticed is that even though you start to see all the commercialism and the non-glamorous, non-fairytale parts that make up this place, you can’t deny that you still feel and know that it’s magical. i’d like to think that i’m running around disney a little less crazily than i did when i was little, but the truth is that i’m just as excited to be here now as i ever was. i hope i never become too jaded to feel the kind of thrill and tugging at the heartstrings i felt when watching that shooting star fly over the castle.

http://community.webshots.com/user/mccabesindisney

stacy

with a grand total of twenty mccabes hitting disney this week, i don’t think that any of us were anticipating a need to make new friends while here. however, find a friend we did, and she has undeniably and profoundly influenced our trip and touched our hearts. her name is stacy, and she is the host of the channel 18 (disney information channel) “top seven must-sees in disney world.” i don’t think that written words will do her justice, but i will try.

the disney cameras follow stacy on her journey through typhoon lagoon, pleasure island, the magic kingdom, animal kingdom, mgm, and epcot, and in each location she gives us key stats about the parks, the rides, and the food. we see her experience attractions like aerosmith’s rockin’ rollercoaster (“in the name of all that rocks…let’s hit it dudes!”) and epcot’s soarin’ (where we see her react to each changing scene with different levels of amazement and awe while the people sitting on either side of her appear not to remember that they’re being filmed and should similarly pretend to actually be on the ride). i would have put her at around eighteen years old until we saw her in germany holding “unt beer!”…i guess i didn’t really think that any self-respecting person over the age of twenty-one would allow herself to look like such a huge dork on television.

the most compelling and rich parts of the whole program are stacy’s personal reflections on her experiences, filmed reality-show-confessional style. i mean, “love rollercoasters, love aerosmith – helloooo!”…we also learn about her not-so-secret crush on mickey, and then we watch her carefully break that news to minnie. *this* is drama at its finest.

my favorite confession comes right after we see her dancing along to african tribal drum beats with a group of performers in animal kingdom. the cameras shift to stacy, possibly the whitest girl ever, as she explains to us with a little hip-hop bouncing and attitude that “the tribal rhythm was all mmmmm in my bloood.” just breathtaking.

(http://community.webshots.com/photo/388225227/388233335NCHdHc)

“welcome to new york…fuggetaboutit! – just kidding, i’m at mgm studios!,” she tells us as she walks down a fake nyc block. wow stacy, you had us fooled…what a kidder.

(http://community.webshots.com/photo/388225227/388235023hIxVgW)

she advertises “pal mickey,” a mickey doll that impressively gives out current information about showtimes, character sightings and such depending on whichever park you happen to be in. when you leave the parks you can still play interactive games with him, but how does he know where you are? can stuffed animals have gps locators? if so, can police use them to track someone down? “we’re zoning in on the thief now…he and the crate of mickeys are headed towards frontierland – let’s move!”…

the full impact of stacy can’t translate to writing, so i suppose that she may just sound like your average annoying tv guide person, but trust me, she is so much more.

not appropriate for airport conversation

now that i’m no longer in an airport, i suppose i’m allowed to discuss this – by some bizarre mistake, both of my little brothers’ names wound up on the no-fly list. the national one. now, this caused us some additional wait time at the airport, actually not a tremendous deal, but this is strange for a number of reasons. first, my brothers are waaaaay too busy playing video games and watching tv to spend time orchestrating any real-life malicious attacks. second, my brothers are two of the most america-loving, fox-news-watching, marke-lavine-listening republicans i know, and terrorism is most decidedly un-republican. so as not funny as the situation should have been, my siblings and i kind of got a laugh out of the whole thing, imagining someone tracking the masses and somehow selecting my brothers, probably two of the most upstanding citizens in that airport and certainly two of the world’s least likely terrorists, as a potential threat to our national security.

on my way figment!

i totally feel like a little kid for being so excited about going to disney world tomorrow, but i don’t care – trips to disney kind of defined my childhood, and after nine years i can’t wait to revisit the place and see if it’s as magical as i remember it. i have a feeling i won’t be disappointed.

(don’t worry i’ll provide a more interesting recap when i get back)