Stranded in Disney World

I know, it's every Disney fan's dream, mine included, but this is the tale of how it happened.

First of all, I know a lot of you are waiting for a post about my daughter's wedding, which is why we are here in the first place. That will come soon - when my exile to Disney's Boardwalk Resort is ended. (Okay, I can hear all the sarcastic groans out there!!!) Let me just say that while the weather was hot and humid, the day went beautifully and I will post a fuller report and pictures when I am home and can do it properly.

But here we are, days after we were supposed to return home. In that time my home neighborhood has experienced a hurricane (rare) and an earthquake (much rarer)! My flight home has been canceled and the soonest flight available to return home was 4 days later!

Originally we had fears that Hurricane Irene might put a damper on the wedding day here at Boardwalk, but it missed Florida and headed up the east coast. A few days before we were to return home I was checking my flight status and found that it was posted that my flight was eligible for a free change due to the expected hurricane in the NYC area. The original flight ended up being canceled by the airline. Since neither my wife nor I had any commitments back home, we rebooked. We had hoped to book a flight for Tuesday, staying an extra 3 days - 2 past the anticipated hurricane - but by then the earliest available flight was on Wednesday morning. We booked it, changed our reservation with Disney's Magical Express, and extended our (nicely discounted) huge room at Boardwalk. (Disney was later discounting rooms for guests who were stranded like me, but with my daughter's discount we were already in good shape. I have gone ahead and put in a claim on my trip insurance for the expenses. Now just hoping it gets approved. [NOTE: It was!] )

To make things better, a pair of Annual Passes come with a Disney Fairytale Wedding, and naturally, my daughter and her new husband don't need them, so my wife and I inherited them. Now we don't have to wait for her to pass us in to the park, we can go on our time schedule.

Happily, since the reason we were here was my daughter's wedding, my son, daughter-in-law and my grandtwins were already here as well, and also had to extend their stay. As it turned out, though my house was not in a mandatory evacuation zone, my sons house, which is just minutes from me, was. (Note: as of now we have heard that both of our houses are okay, so we can end our stay here by enjoying our time in Disney World.)

So it has been like 2 separate trips to Disney World - the first for my daughter's wedding, and the second one where it is all about visiting the parks. I sit here in my room at Boardwalk writing this, having been in EPCOT this morning, and returning there later for dinner and Illuminations. We have been watching Illuminations from the balcony of our room most of the week, but tonight we hope to actually be in World Showcase to see it for the first time this trip.

Being stranded is never a good thing, but if you must get stranded, Walt Disney World is the place to be!

Reflections

Today I am in Walt Disney World. As related last week, this will be a very different visit from all of those we have ever made. Today my daughter is getting married.

This is the second time one of my children is getting married, and once again my thoughts have been very reflective. It's hard to separate the memories of my son from those of his older sister since they were very close as they grew up, sharing so many interests and activities.

My wife and I tried for two years before she became pregnant with our first child-to-be. In fact, because of her schedule, I was the one to call the lab to get the results of the pregnancy test. (This was before home tests were available.) So I was the one to call her to tell her that she was indeed pregnant.

It was a very happy and exciting time over the next nine months.

My daughter was born at the time during which fathers were just starting to be part of the birth process, rather than spectators, waiting with the rest of the family in the hospital waiting room. I was there in the delivery room, and was the first to discover that the baby was no longer an "it", but a "she", and though my father-in-law told me not to worry, the next one would be a boy, I was thrilled.

We loved watching her grow up, and all the firsts as they occurred. When her brother was born two years later, they immediately formed a wonderful sibling bond. My daughter became the big sister, and her brother's protector. There was even the time when my son was in first grade that she forged my signature on a note home from his teacher so that he wouldn't get into trouble. (It didn't work, my wife discovered the note.)

As they grew older, they shared many activities, not least of which was our (almost) yearly trips to Disney World, but also including baseball, instrumental music, and Broadway - all things close to my heart as well.

They played together on the same Little League team, and would take turns spending time with me at Mets games, having season tickets for 14 years while they grew up. There was no better quality time than the time we spent at the ballpark.

In elementary school they both started playing an instrument. He started on the clarinet while she started playing flute. Since I had played viola for more than two decades at that point in time, it was yet another thing that we could all share. (My wife plays piano.) And over the next many years we did. When she was ready for high school, she joined the school's marching band because each President's Week vacation, they would perform in Disney World. (There is that connection again.) Two years later, my son would also join that band, and not only was it a school activity, but the basis for their social life as well. My son would, in his senior year, have the honor of being one of the drum majors of the band and lead them in Disney World.

About this time, I committed to being the Musical Director of a local summer theater group, and had the privilege of having both of them in my show bands for many years. What a great time that was!

Then came college, and they both attended the same out of town university. For the first time since my daughter was born, it was only me and my wife at home. No running around with activities or running a taxi service - which had ended previously as each of them earned their own drivers licenses. We were being prepared for the next stage of our life.

While she was performing in Disney World with her band during her senior year in high school, I heard my daughter tell a friend that after college, she intended to return to Central Florida and work in Disney World. This was when my son and my daughter discovered the Walt Disney World College Program. The first semester of my son's sophomore year in college was spent in Disney World, working in the Haunted Mansion, and earning 12 credits in Theme Park Management. My daughter would actually do two semesters of the College Program after she had graduated from college, one in Disney's Animal Kingdom and one at the Caribbean Beach Resort. As she predicted, she graduated college and then moved to Central Florida to work in Disney World. Today she is still there as an IT Analyst.

After college, my son returned home for a while during which time he worked as a lab assistant for a year before becoming a high school science teacher. He was the first of the two to get married, and now is the father of (almost) two year old twin boys.

Now, my daughter is getting married.

It has been an adventure, and one I wouldn't trade for anything!

Video for Wedding Day

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to ...

... Street! (well, that's how my daughter would say it when she was very young.)

First, a brief disclaimer. It is now summer here in New York City, and very hot. It is also a time when my wife is off for the summer vacation from school so we actually do things out of the house. And lastly, in a month, my daughter is getting married and we will be traveling down to Florida for the wedding, and there are still a few projects that I need to finish before we head down. In fact, I am just taking a break from one of them to write this. So what does all of this mean? Well, you may have noticed that it has been longer than usual since my last blog post, and will likely be so until the summer is over. Oh, if the muse moves me I will sit down and write, as I am doing now, but there might be times when there will be more time between posts than during the rest of the year. (Now on to business.)

Right about the time my son was born, Children's Television Workshop (as it was called then) opened two Sesame Street themed parks, one in Irving, Texas, and one in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Although the one in Texas was only open for two seasons, the one in Pennsylvania fared much better. We didn't get there for its first summer of operation, but did in year 2. My son was a year old, my daughter was three. It was a small park then (3 acres) and had water activities and dry activities for the toddler set. There were no motor driven rides, everything was geared for the child to be active. There was a building which contained educational exhibits for the younger child, as well as sets where pictures could be taken in Ernie's bathtub, on the steps of 123 Sesame Street, or with (a fiberglass) Oscar the Grouch in his garbage can. There were banks of computers (remember, this was in the early 80's - people didn't have these things at home) with games using music, colors and numbers.

Although my son was not yet walking by himself, there were many things that he could take advantage of, and while I was climbing cargo nets with my daughter (well, I was almost 30 years younger back then), he was crawling around in Big Bird's Nest. Both of my children, along with my wife and myself, were able to enjoy all of the water activities which included a large wading pool, and a lazy river type tube attraction. All of the food served in the park was healthy food, and there were no stands selling the usual theme park fare. However you could buy a package of carrots or fruit as a snack. Even the restaurant served healthier options such as a whole grain pizza. It was just the thing you would expect from the producers of Sesame Street.

Then our children grew up and the activities of Sesame Place were a bit too childish for them, so they (and their parents) continued to get their theme park fix yearly at Walt Disney World. Sesame Place faded into our memories.

This summer my twin grandsons are just a bit younger than two years old, and my son and daughter-in-law decided that Sesame Place would be a good option for a summer day for the twins. My wife and I accompanied them there this week. And as expected, things were different than when we were last there.

In that time, the park has been operated by Anhaeuser-Busch (the beer company who operate Busch Gardens), and now by SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment. As you would imagine, the focus has changed a bit away from the purely educational to a more commercial venue. However, it is still a great day with the toddlers.

Our visit came as we entered a heat wave, so the day was very hot, and we spent the early afternoon in one of the many water based activities which are still a big part of the park. This was the most baby friendly of the water areas, but still included three large sections with increasing depths, but still shallow enough in all areas for the twins to enjoy. There was water spraying and gentle waves that the kids played in, having a wonderful time keeping cool. (I have to say that I did as well - playing with the grandtwins and cooling off myself.) And unlike the visits in the 1980's, none of us came away with painful sunburns. We have all gotten smarter since then. When we were as fully saturated and cooled down as we were going to get, we changed into dry clothes and started exploring the rest of the park.

After a day of activities (the merry-go-round was a bit hit with the boys) and the necessary souvenir shopping...

... we had a reservation for dinner with Elmo and Friends. While the food was good, this was almost entirely about meeting the characters during your meal as they came around and visited with you. The boys enjoyed interacting with all the characters that they knew from Sesame Place on TV.

  

After dinner we all went to see Elmo's World Live! The boys love Elmo's World and here was Elmo in his world right in front of them!

And of course a visit to Sesame Street itself to meet up with Ernie and Bert.

And like any good theme park, the day ends with a parade.

Yes, the park has grown from 3 acres in the 1980's to 14 acres today, and the emphasis on education and healthy eating, while not entirely gone, has been changed to a more entertainment oriented atmosphere, but it is still great that toddlers have a theme park that has been created for them. There is plenty to do and characters to meet, and parents (and grandparents) can have just as good a time as the little ones. It was fun coming back here after two decades away, and I fully expect to be back a number of times with the grandtwins again over the next few years.

(More pictures from our day at Sesame Place can be seen here.)