One Mean Wave

In the interest of maintaining myself as someone who will admit when I've made a mistake, I want to own up to one now so I'm not misleading anyone considering travel to the Orlando area, my current locale. (Interesting side note as I jot this from my hotel room: I'm subjected to listening to a future virtuoso practicing very wobbly scales on some type of brass instrument...over and over and over and over. What a perk!)

My previous entry was a big old rant about the outrageous cost to get into one of Disney's water parks. I discovered this price through the Disney website and found that it was $75/adult (of which 10 year olds and up were considered adults--that's still ridiculous). However, I have learned that I was incorrect. While this steep fare is accurate for the standard parks--Epcot, Magic Kingdom, etc--the cost for the water parks is actually $45/adult. I didn't realize the water parks had different pricing so I just wanted to say, in all fairness, that I misrepresented the water park cost. So while still not cheap, and still not any lower than it was when times were booming, it is $30 less than I'd have had you believe. If you're thinking of going to the non-water variety parks, still plan to shell out a portion of your life savings.

Anyway, we did go to Typhoon Lagoon yesterday and had a good time. It's a very neat water park and one of the most unique aspects of it is a gigantic wave pool that sends the most enormous wave throughout the pool every 5 minutes or so. I've seen many a wave pool but they consist of rolling waves that go on for a few minutes every 20 minutes or so. Not so here. This wave takes the cake. Starting from perfectly calm water, you hear a buzzer and then everyone in the pool screams their fool heads off. And from nowhere, you see a mass of water created that's about six feet high and comes marching through masses of people who are all screaming and losing their minds in general.

Folks body surf on this water monster and that part is pretty cool to watch except that they're body surfing into hordes of other people. Not so cool whether you're the surfer or the obstacle. Lots of chaos going on.

So in the interest of protecting life and limb, we chose not to venture out farther than about waist deep. (My cousin actually just tore her rotator cuff in said-wave-pool.) And what do you know...later in the afternoon, Chase was playing in the pool at the shallow end, body surfing in the wave that's left at about 2-3 feet deep and the thing still had so much power, it flipped him over and proceeded to drag him along the extremely rough bottom of the pool. Next thing I know, he's stumbling toward me, crying, his back covered in "road rash," bleeding in the worst spot. He also received a terrible scrape on his knee and his elbow. He looked like he'd tangled with a stretch of asphalt and most decidedly lost.

After some Anti-Sting Bactine and bandaids and a very pricey cup of ice cream, I snapped this picture, although it doesn't do the damage justice:

You can see I bribed a smile out of him with some ice cream. Ah well...what's a trip to an amusement park without also stopping into the First Aid stand? If you visit the Happiest Place on Earth and check out the monster wave, wear body armor.

Theme Park Delusions

If there was one thing I was sure of these days, it's that the economy is in the tank. You know it, I know it, you'd have to live under a rock not to know it. So you can imagine my surprise to learn there apparently is one entity with their heads in the sand about the financial struggles going on.

Let me preface: My family reunion is next weekend so me, my favorite husband and favorite son will be heading south to Orlando. Are we flying? Nope. Train? Don't make me laugh. We have to cruise south more efficiently than that. We're hitchhiking. Going old school--schlepping luggage down the highway in 100 degree heat with our thumbs stuck out. It'll be an adventure! Alright, maybe it's not that bad. We're driving. But trust me when I say our budget isn't thrilled with the idea of a vacation right now. But it's a family reunion and I cannot let my grandmother down by missing it. So the whole trip is going to be, lets say, "on the cheap."

And then we got to thinking, since we'll be in the capital of all mega vacation spots and it's the last summer fling for my 11 year old, maybe we'd surprise our son and do something we never do during the many times we've visited Orlando to see family: go to a theme park.

Since we don't frequent these places, I had no idea what it costs to get in. Our neighborhood theme park, Six Flags, is about $40 admission usually but there are so many "offers" out there for discounted tickets, if you pay more than about $10 to get in, you got ripped off. The park clearly realizes that folks' pocketbooks are pinched tight and if they hope to have any visitors, they better make it cost effective for the people who'd like some roller coaster thrills but only if they're reasonably priced. With this as my reference, I checked online to see what the cost is for one of Disney's water parks. And here's where the delusion comes in. A one day adult admission to one of Disney's water parks costs a whopping $75. That's an awful lot of smackers and mysteriously reminiscent of the cost to get in while we all lived in economic bliss.

And look, I'm a big fat fan of Capitalism. It's why America is great--companies can make pot loads of money if they offer a great service/product people are willing to pay for. But you would also think that a company whose success comes from its patrons, there might be some slack cut when said-patrons are struggling but still want a little love, fun and It's a Small World After All in their lives. Alas, no. And get this, if you're 10 or over, you're an adult and get to pay the adult price. That's right, Chase. Go register to vote, pay your own bills, start supporting your mom, you're an adult now! Seriously? $75 to get in is ridiculous and then to slap that kind of fee on a child's admission is even worse.

It was disappointing to learn The Happiest Place on Earth continues to charge an ultra-premium price, though most folks' finances are mere fractions of what they used to be. Let me give credit where credit is due, however. If you buy more than one day's admission, you do get a discount. We don't have the funds or desire to go more than a day but if we were looking for a two day Mouseketeer excursion, we could save big bucks: 50 cents a person per day. 50 cents. For us three, $1.50. Maybe that'd buy lunch at the park.