Of all the family vacations I have ever taken, visiting Disney World as an adult represented, by far, the worst ratio of relaxation and entertainment enjoyed per dollar spent.
It's one of the few places on Earth that makes me wish I was back at home, working all day.
But it is such a massive black hole for tourism that I was still somehow find myself there against my will sometimes. Then, when we're all back at the hotel, thoroughly miserable, someone asks, "Why are we even here?" And no-one knows. Clearly, someone thought that it would be fun this time, but it never actually turns out that way. Nobody even remembers planning the trip. We all thought we were going to a beach up on the Florida panhandle. But when we arrive, it's actually Clearwater, near Orlando. Every road we take, trying to get back to the beach, twists around like a Moebius strip, and ends up right back in the Disney World parking lot, under the monorails.
So we say to ourselves, "Ok, we'll just get one pineapple whip, and then we'll leave, and try to get to the vacation we actually wanted." Then we trudge up Main Street USA and hang a left, then another left, and another left, spending 20 minutes to go from the park entrance to the nearest place in the park that sells the cursed treats, when I know damned well that the employee utility corridors underneath us, on the first floor, are straight and efficient. So we think, "As long as we're here, we might as well go on one of the rides, right?" And we get into line. We get through that line, which leads to another queue. And that takes us into a vestibule, where we see a short video with a group of other guests. After it finishes, the doors open into another queuing labyrinth. When we wait long enough to get through it, there's just one more line, and after that, we're on the actual ride. We get into the ride vehicle, and sit through five minutes of something that may have been considered to be good, clean fun in the 60s, but is now disappointingly dated, racist, and sexist. Afterward, we are deposited in the gift shop, which stands between us and the exit. After escaping, now we need to pee, so that's another unnecessarily long journey across the park and possibly more queuing. By now, it would be too late to get to the beach before dark, so we just decide to finish out the day there.
Again, how the heck did we even get there in the first place? Was it a Groupon? Maybe a neighbor couldn't use their vacation club passes this year? We won the trip in a sweepstakes? Booked by Satan's own travel agency? Nobody knows. We just end up there, being milked of our hard earned cash, like cows with udders overfilled with silver nitrate solution.
Nobody actually wants to be there. They all just show up one day, and are too exhausted to fight their way back out of the parking lot.
It's one of the few places on Earth that makes me wish I was back at home, working all day.
But it is such a massive black hole for tourism that I was still somehow find myself there against my will sometimes. Then, when we're all back at the hotel, thoroughly miserable, someone asks, "Why are we even here?" And no-one knows. Clearly, someone thought that it would be fun this time, but it never actually turns out that way. Nobody even remembers planning the trip. We all thought we were going to a beach up on the Florida panhandle. But when we arrive, it's actually Clearwater, near Orlando. Every road we take, trying to get back to the beach, twists around like a Moebius strip, and ends up right back in the Disney World parking lot, under the monorails.
So we say to ourselves, "Ok, we'll just get one pineapple whip, and then we'll leave, and try to get to the vacation we actually wanted." Then we trudge up Main Street USA and hang a left, then another left, and another left, spending 20 minutes to go from the park entrance to the nearest place in the park that sells the cursed treats, when I know damned well that the employee utility corridors underneath us, on the first floor, are straight and efficient. So we think, "As long as we're here, we might as well go on one of the rides, right?" And we get into line. We get through that line, which leads to another queue. And that takes us into a vestibule, where we see a short video with a group of other guests. After it finishes, the doors open into another queuing labyrinth. When we wait long enough to get through it, there's just one more line, and after that, we're on the actual ride. We get into the ride vehicle, and sit through five minutes of something that may have been considered to be good, clean fun in the 60s, but is now disappointingly dated, racist, and sexist. Afterward, we are deposited in the gift shop, which stands between us and the exit. After escaping, now we need to pee, so that's another unnecessarily long journey across the park and possibly more queuing. By now, it would be too late to get to the beach before dark, so we just decide to finish out the day there.
Again, how the heck did we even get there in the first place? Was it a Groupon? Maybe a neighbor couldn't use their vacation club passes this year? We won the trip in a sweepstakes? Booked by Satan's own travel agency? Nobody knows. We just end up there, being milked of our hard earned cash, like cows with udders overfilled with silver nitrate solution.
Nobody actually wants to be there. They all just show up one day, and are too exhausted to fight their way back out of the parking lot.