My Turn: Disney World, where dreams of exhaustion come true
For senior citizens like my wife and I, there is no greater joy than spending time with the grandkids. Except, maybe, one: returning home. After six days at Disney World with our son, his wife, their two little angels, and our adult daughter and her boyfriend, we are still in recovery mode.
Perhaps you’ve never spent much time in intense negotiations with a 2½-year-old supercharged, headstrong spitfire determined to have his way. A sample:
“David, you have to sit in your stroller. It’s very crowded here.”
“I don’t want to sit in the stroller.”
“If you sit in the stroller, you can read your book on trucks.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Then you have to hold mommy’s hand.”
“I don’t want to hold mommy’s hand. I want grandma to pick me up.”
I glance at my wife, Joan, with her balky back, the color quickly draining from her face as she ponders whether we had enough Advil.
Our 6-year-old granddaughter, Alexis, was enchanted by the Disney characters; she got a makeover, complete with gown, new hairstyle and accessories at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique for what I estimate was the price of a midsize kingdom.
And then there were the rides. I’ve never had a problem with rides that go sideways, upside down and every which way, testing the body’s tolerance of G-force and centrifugal force. I’ve been on rides where my pocket change has rained down to the ground below, much to the delight of passersby below. (That didn’t happen on this trip, though Disney has other ways of magically making your money disappear.) I was fine until the “Guardians of the Galaxy” ride. As I sped through the cosmos at warp speed, my olfactory sense was powerfully reminded of breakfast as my internal organs were rearranged. Stepping off the ride, I felt that the ground beneath me had turned to Jell-O and the planet was spinning out of orbit. Such fun.
Then came these terrifying words from Alexis: “Grandpa, can we do that again?”
Not all rides were traumatizing, of course. There is the cutesy, upbeat “It’s a Small World,” for instance. The only problem: I got the tune stuck in my head for three days, a maddening, endless loop into the wee hours of the night.
Then there’s the smartphone app to help visitors navigate Disney World. It is easy to use — if you’ve brought along a professional tech consultant. Disney offers Genie, Genie Plus (an additional fee on top of the princely sum paid for the daily pass), and Lightning Lane (a misnomer if ever there was one). With Genie Plus, you can reserve a place on the Lightning Lane, where you only have to wait a half-hour instead of two on the standby line. My wife and I spent hours on YouTube before our trip to try to make sense of the app. Finally, we made a smart decision: We left everything to our tech-savvy son, Andrew.
Perhaps most daunting were the 20,000-plus steps (according to my smartwatch) we put in daily to roam the park in temperatures approaching 90 degrees. Andrew, a marathoner and triathlete, casually strolled at a speed about equal to a brisk gallop for my wife and me.
To pack in the most fun, we started one day not long after the crack of dawn. At an 8 a.m. character breakfast, Snow White and her entourage greeted us — and I found the most kinship with Sleepy and Grumpy.
After six delightful but draining days, we parted ways: Andrew and his crew back home to Virginia, our daughter Lauren and her boyfriend Evan back to Manhattan, and Joan and I off to West Palm Beach for five days of much needed R and R before going home to Great Neck.
Of course, there was the inevitable onslaught of texts and emails requesting ratings and reviews (“We appreciate your feedback. Please take a moment to tell us about your experience.). OK, Disney. This is your feedback. You can read it right here.
Michael Golden,
Great Neck
For senior citizens like my wife and I, there is no greater joy than spending time with the grandkids. Except, maybe, one: returning home. After six days at Disney World with our son, his wife, their two little angels, and our adult daughter and her boyfriend, we are still in recovery mode.
Perhaps you’ve never spent much time in intense negotiations with a 2½-year-old supercharged, headstrong spitfire determined to have his way. A sample:
“David, you have to sit in your stroller. It’s very crowded here.”
“I don’t want to sit in the stroller.”
“If you sit in the stroller, you can read your book on trucks.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Then you have to hold mommy’s hand.”
“I don’t want to hold mommy’s hand. I want grandma to pick me up.”
I glance at my wife, Joan, with her balky back, the color quickly draining from her face as she ponders whether we had enough Advil.
Our 6-year-old granddaughter, Alexis, was enchanted by the Disney characters; she got a makeover, complete with gown, new hairstyle and accessories at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique for what I estimate was the price of a midsize kingdom.
And then there were the rides. I’ve never had a problem with rides that go sideways, upside down and every which way, testing the body’s tolerance of G-force and centrifugal force. I’ve been on rides where my pocket change has rained down to the ground below, much to the delight of passersby below. (That didn’t happen on this trip, though Disney has other ways of magically making your money disappear.) I was fine until the “Guardians of the Galaxy” ride. As I sped through the cosmos at warp speed, my olfactory sense was powerfully reminded of breakfast as my internal organs were rearranged. Stepping off the ride, I felt that the ground beneath me had turned to Jell-O and the planet was spinning out of orbit. Such fun.
Then came these terrifying words from Alexis: “Grandpa, can we do that again?”
Not all rides were traumatizing, of course. There is the cutesy, upbeat “It’s a Small World,” for instance. The only problem: I got the tune stuck in my head for three days, a maddening, endless loop into the wee hours of the night.
Then there’s the smartphone app to help visitors navigate Disney World. It is easy to use — if you’ve brought along a professional tech consultant. Disney offers Genie, Genie Plus (an additional fee on top of the princely sum paid for the daily pass), and Lightning Lane (a misnomer if ever there was one). With Genie Plus, you can reserve a place on the Lightning Lane, where you only have to wait a half-hour instead of two on the standby line. My wife and I spent hours on YouTube before our trip to try to make sense of the app. Finally, we made a smart decision: We left everything to our tech-savvy son, Andrew.
Perhaps most daunting were the 20,000-plus steps (according to my smartwatch) we put in daily to roam the park in temperatures approaching 90 degrees. Andrew, a marathoner and triathlete, casually strolled at a speed about equal to a brisk gallop for my wife and me.
To pack in the most fun, we started one day not long after the crack of dawn. At an 8 a.m. character breakfast, Snow White and her entourage greeted us — and I found the most kinship with Sleepy and Grumpy.
After six delightful but draining days, we parted ways: Andrew and his crew back home to Virginia, our daughter Lauren and her boyfriend Evan back to Manhattan, and Joan and I off to West Palm Beach for five days of much needed R and R before going home to Great Neck.
Of course, there was the inevitable onslaught of texts and emails requesting ratings and reviews (“We appreciate your feedback. Please take a moment to tell us about your experience.). OK, Disney. This is your feedback. You can read it right here.
Michael Golden,
Great Neck
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