The Stiteses Take Manhattan, Part Two

Day Two was to be book ended by scheduled events. We had tickets for the One World Observatory, the top of Freedom Tower which replaced the World Trade Center, at 9 am, the first group to ascend. We also had tickets for an 8:00 pm show of Phantom of the Opera. These were two things that were on our "must-do" list and we were happy to sacrifice spontaneity to be sure we had tickets.

I picked the earliest tickets for One World that I could thinking it would be cool to see the city from way up there before we delved into exploring it. Also, I hoped it wouldn't be too crowded. Both were correct. My one fear was hitting rush hour on our first attempt at using the subway, but that turned out not to be a problem. I'm not sure why, but the train was nearly empty and neither station was particularly crowded.

I'm really happy with our subway experience. I downloaded a map of the system into my phone and referenced that quite a bit both during our visit and for weeks leading up to it. It is complicated and there are multiple colors and shapes and letters and numbers used to designate a ton of lines, but we managed it well and made great use of the subways during our trip.

Those spiky things are the Occulus, the surface entrance to an underground mall of sorts

For our first trip this particular morning we rode the "E" train to it's last stop at the World Trade Center, which let us off between a very old church and one of the most modern buildings I've ever seen. That was cool, and a bit weird. Between us and the tower was a funky thing called the Occulus, which is, best as we could tell, an underground shopping mall. The above ground portion is very striking, though, architecturally. On the advice of a security guard, we didn't travel below ground but instead crossed the plaza to the 9/11 Memorial.

The 9/11 Memorial

The memorial is really impactful in a bit of an understated way, if that makes sense. The One World Tower sits right next to the memorial and takes the job of soaring into the heavens (and, I guess, metaphorically the future) onto itself. It's huge and shiny and reflective and majestic. The memorial, on the other hand, is a pair of holes where the old Twin Towers once stood. Water fills the hole disappearing into a well that has no bottom we can see. It's the opposite of the tower. Names of those killed are etched into the walls surrounding the pits. It's a somber sight, to be sure. But what made me most sad, and most reminded of how the world has changed, were the police armed with shotguns and assault rifles and the police with the Anti-Terrorism patches on their uniforms. It struck me that John found none of that odd, and that's sad.

The new World Trade Center, Freedom Tower, rises up next to the memorial

On a happier note, the One World Observatory was terrific! It's an attraction well worth the admission price. We were blessed with a clear day and we could see all over. I loved how even this high up, even where big ferry boats looked like Matchbox toys, Manhattan still looked huge. It's a magnificent city, really, and this vantage point drove that home.

The Brooklyn Bridge from the One World Observatory

Back on street level, it was time to set off and explore the city. We walked east to the Federal Hall building and then the New York Stock Exchange and the Wall Street Bull statue. This is a very different part of the city from the Times Square area we had come from. It looked to us like "classic" New York should look. Lisa at one point joked that it reminded her of the Streets of America section of facades in Hollywood Studios at Disney World. She wasn't far off.

We took the obligatory statue of the bull, of course. I found it funny that despite all the hullabaloo about the Fearless Girl statue, there were a total of four people looking at her, while at the same time there was a huge crowd waiting to get a photo with the bull's raging face and at least a few dozen taking turns posing with the bull's testicles. Media reality is not the same as real reality. Ever.

Waiting to get a photo with the bull's balls

We were all getting a bit peckish at this point and headed off to Chinatown and Little Italy on the subway. I was only able to get us in the very general vicinity of Chinatown, so we had a bit of a walk to lunch. We ended up walking through what looked like the civic heart of the city; city hall was here as well as courthouses and a ton of municipal office buildings.  It was yet another face of New York.

We cut across a park that left us off in Chinatown. This is one of my favorite parts of New York because it seems so exotic. John found it to be a bit on the sketchy side for his tastes. We had lunch in a restaurant with a huge menu of stuff we'd never seen before. I had ramen with squid and oyster sauce, John got the duck and some steamed buns and Lisa played it safe with veggie fried rice. We got silverware and noticed that Asian patrons were provided with chop sticks. No one ever asked for a preference, which was cute. While we were eating, a pair of older Italian gentlemen entered who looked like they were lifted straight out of a film, fedoras and all. Not odd, since as immersed in Asia as we were, we were only a block outside of Little Italy, our next stop.

Ramen with squid stuffed with oyster sauce

The intersection of Chinatown and Little Italy

We had a tip on a fine little restaurant to try, and found it with no problem. We sat down to a second lunch (we had literally just left our first lunch about 30 minutes before) of raviolis, spaghetti carbonara and chicken pesto fusili. It was all delicious and we scarfed it down along with wine and a fine bread service. This would turn out to be a mistake on my part, as I felt like a person who had gorged himself on ramen and pasta for the rest of the afternoon. Funny thing, remember the old Italian dudes we saw in Chinatown? Well, the tables behind and next to us at the Italian place were occupied by a few dozen late high school or even college-age Asian kids accompanied by what appeared to be a mom and grandmother. We felt that rather encapsulated New York's role as a melting pot.

As we were all stuffed and a bit exhausted we decided to head back to the hotel for a Siesta. We rode the subway to Grand Central Station and walked back from there. Grand Central is truly grand. They've done a wonderful job restoring the place. All the subway riding and multiple stairs and escalators had wreaked havoc with my sense of direction, but after asking a security guard which way was east and west, we made it to our home away from home and rested up for our night at the theatre.

Kind of a lousy photo of the Phantom of the Opera set, pre-show.

Our show, Phantom of the Opera was at 8 pm in the Majestic Theatre, just a few blocks away. We skipped dinner as we were still pretty stuffed from our two lunches, and walked up to the show. The Majestic Theatre is just that, majestic, inside. It fills all the hopes one might have for a Broadway venue and Phantom is just a classic Broadway show. We all were completely wowed by the performance and walked back with show tunes in our heads, completely fat and happy and ready for a good night's sleep.

The Stiteses Take Manhattan, Part One

We promised John that if we didn't get him there before he graduated high school, we'd take him to New York City as a grad gift. John graduated, with honors, about a month ago, so grad gift it was.

We planned this thing like a Disney trip, and I really think our experience with Disney and our mindset when going there actaully helped us in a big way while planning this trip. I really took on the Disney mindset and tried to nail down the important things, the things we needed (like lodging and transportation) and the things we REALLY wanted (like show tickets and a trip to the One World Observatory) as far in advance as we could. That helped not only in peace of mind but in budgeting, as some of the highest-budget items were long paid for by the time we arrived in New York.

I'll stop right here and point out that the lovely and talented Lisa did her share of planning (booking the hotel and Phantom of the Opera tickets) and takinq quite a few of the photos I'll use in this blog. I can't remember who shot what and they are all mixed up on Amazon Prime Photo (do you use that? You should!), so I'm assigning dual credit to all of them off the bat.

We paired our trip with a visit to my parents' house both because we wanted to see them and my sister's family and some of Lisa's nearby family and because it made NYC an easy Amtrak ride away. New York is like Disney in another way in that it's silly to drive a car around there. The public transportation is great, we used the subway a bunch, and the stress of driving a car along with the expense of parking it would have been too much for me. As it turns out, there is a commuter Amtrak train running several times a day from Harrisburg, PA to New York City and it stops at the Downingtown station a few minutes from my parents' house.

Amtrak was great! From what I've heard, people shy away from it due to the cost, but I think the further in advance you purchase tickets the cheaper they are. I can't confirm that, but it makes sense. Our tickets were only about $220 round trip for all three of us together. Granted, that was non-rush hour times, but why would you travel then if you didn't have to anyhow? We went up on the 10:04 am train out of Downingtown and arrived at Penn Station by 12:30 pm. It was easy and hassle-free and actually kind of fun.

We emerged from Penn Station into the thick of things and seeing John's face as he took it all in was priceless. We only had a few blocks to walk to get to our hotel, but it was a great introduction to a crowded city, especially with our suitcases rolling along with us.

We stayed in a Comfort Inn near the intersection of 39th Street and 8th Avenue, technically the Garment District (there was a shop selling buttons and grommets across the street. Nothing else, just

The view from our room

buttons and grommets), but close enough to Times Square that we really felt in the thick of things. The hotel building was funny as it only had four rooms per floor, but 80 rooms total as it was 20 stories high. We were a few hours early for check-in (and they are very specific about check-in time), so we dropped our bags with a very friendly front desk staff and set off for Times Square.

We stopped for lunch in a brew pub connected to the huge bus terminal around the corner and then we were off! On the way up to Times Square I let a friend, the wonderful Alison from the awesome Disphilharpodcast, know we were in town and she arranged to sneak out of the office and meet up with us, as luck would have it, in the Times Square two-story Disney Store. We chatted, introduced all around and got some good advice about places to see and Alison's offer to be a phone-a-friend if we got lost in the big city.

My Main Man George

We made our way back to the Comfort Inn, checked into a room on the 8th floor that was JUST big enough to fit all thee of us inside, and set off again up Fifth Avenue towards the Rockefeller Center. On the way, we saw more of the Garment District, which, as it turns out, is more of a pre-garment district. This is the place to buy fabric and ribbons and such, not a place to buy actual, finished garments. We passed the beautiful New York Public Library and began checking out some of the high-end shops until we came upon Saks Fifth Avenue and took a look inside. Lisa was in heaven, as she proclaimed, as she was among "shiny things and purses." We only looked around the first floor, feeling like gypsies in the palace, before hitting the road again and visiting St. Patrick's Cathedral.

New York City Public Library

St. Patrick's is absolutely, mind-blowingly, ornately beautiful. The stone arches holding up the ceiling far above, the saints in the alcoves, the massive altar, the biggest pipe organ I've ever seen......it all blew me away. I told John he'd not see a church anything like this outside of Europe. We were all humbled by this place, and all a bit saddened by the security check on the way in. But New York post-9/11 is a different place. We'd seen police with assault rifles and shotguns in Times Square and would see the NYPD Counter-Terrorism team the next day at Ground Zero. We felt safe the entire time we were in the city, but we were very aware of the efforts to make that happen.

We Love Public Art. This is possibly the largest Inflatable Woman ever.

Rockefeller Center was the next stop and we thought about grabbing a drink in the little outside cafe in the square, but after being seated directly under some equipment blowing hot air we wandered off. We looked around the inside of the Center but didn't even try heading up top as we were getting to be in a dinner-thinking kinda way.

Night Time Times Square

I might have loved looking out the window.

We headed back towards the hotel by way of Times Square and spotted a Scottish restaurant and pub that looked promising until we discovered it was closed up. Luckily, there was a Cuban place across the street that turned out to be spectacular. We had a delicious meal, walked though Times Square as the last of the light left the sky and the electric lights took over, and tucked ourselves into our cozy quarters to rest up for an exciting first full day in The Big Apple.

Refuting The 13 (now apparently 14) Reasons Not To Go To Disney, Part 6

So I'm happily looking at my Facebook newsfeed the other day and one of those "Sponsored" things is up there. It's from a site called Viral Travel (which sounds like a bad idea on the face of it) and is entitled 13 Reasons Not To Go To Disney. Of course I bite. Sue me. So its about what I expect, the same things we Disney fans expect from you non-Disney fans-- crowds, expense, capitalism, yadda yadda yadda. The thing is, many of these criticisms are true to a large extent, but avoidable. I hate to see people get spoiled on the Disney I love because they go about the whole experience unprepared logistically or mentally for the realities of the place. I figured just for kicks to take the 13 reasons one by one (or two by two) and try to explain why they don't keep ME from the Magic. This part four, part one is here, two here, three here, four here and five here.


5. The Mouse Ears And Other Hats Are Embarrassing

Even though it’s a tradition, the little mouse ears sold at the park are embarrassing, not only to wear but to also see others wearing. If you have not been to a Disney resort in a while, you will be amazed at how many different kinds of mouse ears are available to buy.

There are pirate mouse ears, ears that are themed for weddings, glow-in-the-dark ears, light-up ears, and even Jack Skellington mouse ears. Pretty much any tacky design you can think of that has anything to do with Disney has been used to make a special set of mouse ears.

Even worse, people wear the ears in the park like they are a badge of honor, just like that story about the emperor’s snazzy new clothes everyone obviously could see. Of course, if you don’t want to wear a set of ridiculous mouse ears, you can put on a Goofy or Peter Pan hat like you’re a hyperactive five year-old instead of a respectable adult.

The worst part is if you are unfortunate to have your picture taken while wearing the mouse ears, that picture might make its way onto social media for all of your friends to ridicule.

This one is personal. I like hats. I like funny hats, odd hats, unusual hats. I am a very responsible adult, I dare say possibly more responsible than a guy writing for a fly-by-night travel blog for a living. Just perhaps. I wear funny hats at Disney. I don't wear Mouse Ears because they tend to fall off my head, but I have a plaid Santa hat with mouse ears on it. I have a ridiculous safari hat. One of the things I was looking forward to on our last trip was buying a safari hat with mouse ears on it, but I was unable to find one. I was sad.

Safari Hat, sadly no Ears

If you are embarrassed at seeing other adults in funny hats, you need to forgo your Disney vacation and spend that money on therapy. Really, you'll thank me later.

As for being embarrassed to wear a silly hat in the parks yourself, that's a little  bit of a different matter. We are socialized to be safe, socially, to fit in and not do anything to stand out. We are taught to be Team Players in the best sense and drones in the collective in the worst. Certainly we need to conform to basic norms for society to function and for groups within that society to efficiently do what they need to do. Wearing Mickey Ears to your job might be a bad idea. But Disney isn't work, it's a fantasy land, a play world, a stage for showing off parts of yourself that wouldn't be easy or safe to display in the real world. That's what all those people in the Mickey Ears get that this writer misses. They (we) are having FUN, we are being silly in a place where silliness is celebrated.If that offends you, I feel really sorry for you.

Mouse Ears Santa Hat

But I'm a firm believer in carrying that freedom to be silly sometimes outside the parks. Disney has turned it into a marketing campaign with their whole Show Your Disney Side thing, but I have been a proponent of sometimes not running with the crowd for years. I wear my Mickey Ears Santa hat around a lot, to parties, parades, even work. I have a Goofy shirt that is just plain goofy. I'll dress up in odd cloths with the smallest of excuses. It's liberating, really, to simply not care what people say about you on social media or anywhere else. It's not your friends making fun, anyone who is isn't a friend and why should his or her opinion matter? Worried your boss might see? Ever stop to think that your boss may be your boss and not a drone him or herself because maybe he or she isn't an in-the-box thinker? Successful people break molds, they go outside the normal. Live a little. If it starts with a Mickey Ear hat on vacation, all the better. You might just bring some of that silliness home with you and find out that often silliness is simply another word for creativity and imagination. And those are the things that open doors.

I wore this get-up to a birthday party for our friends' son. It was Renaissance themed, so why not? The mom and dad were also dressed up and also my lovely wife.  I got the stink-eye the whole time from the Cool Kids, but really, who cares?  Life's just too short :-)

Refuting The Top 13 Reasons Not To Go To Disney, Part 5

So I'm happily looking at my Facebook newsfeed the other day and one of those "Sponsored" things is up there. It's from a site called Viral Travel (which sounds like a bad idea on the face of it) and is entitled 13 Reasons Not To Go To Disney. Of course I bite. Sue me. So its about what I expect, the same things we Disney fans expect from you non-Disney fans-- crowds, expense, capitalism, yadda yadda yadda. The thing is, many of these criticisms are true to a large extent, but avoidable. I hate to see people get spoiled on the Disney I love because they go about the whole experience unprepared logistically or mentally for the realities of the place. I figured just for kicks to take the 13 reasons one by one (or two by two) and try to explain why they don't keep ME from the Magic. This part four, part one is here, two here, three here, and four here.

6. The Food Is Insanely Expensive

You know it’s bad when movie theater concessions look like a bargain in comparison. Have you ever paid $8 for a hot dog? At Disneyland you can have that privilege.

Anyone else notice a trend here? Everything is "insane" it seems. I wonder about that...

And just for the record, hot dogs are $7.79 with fries at Casey's Corner in the Magic Kingdom or $5.25 from a cart in either Storybrook Circus or Frontierland. Been to a ball game lately? I challenge you to find a cheaper hot dog at a major league ballpark.

Yes, food in the Disney parks is not as inexpensive as you could find outside the parks. But ALL theme parks are like that. And the circus. And the fair. And concerts. And sporting events. Anywhere you are a captive audience, you will be charged more for food. Welcome to capitalism.

The Lapu Lapu

One of the reasons we love Disney, though, is the food. Sure you can get burgers and dogs and mac-n-cheese, but you can also eat sushi and baklava and dole whips and Hawaiian barbeque and wiener schnitzel and creme brulee and pretty much anything else you can imagine. You can eat these things in a pagoda or a fish tank or with Winnie the Pooh or Cinderella. You can listen to your wedding song played on a ukulele while drinking a fruity rum concoction from a pineapple then watch the Magic Kingdom fireworks from your table while you finish your meal with bread pudding.

I'll just say that our last trip both the Lapu Lapu (the aforementioned pineapple drink) and breakfast lasagna
were life-changing experiences. 

Disney isn't about an $8 hotdog, even if that was the price. It's about having experiences you can't have in the real world, and for our family many of these experiences involve food.

Oh, and if you love food as much as we do, look into the Disney Dining Plan. This is basically pre-paying for your meals during your trip. You get, with our favorite option, a snack (we use this for breakfast usually), a counter service meal and a table service meal for each day of your trip.  It's a good deal if you are foodies and tend to clean your plate. But it is worth a whole post, or series of posts, on its own.

Refuting The Top 13 Reasons Not To Go To Disney, Part 2

So I'm happily looking at my Facebook newsfeed the other day and one of those "Sponsored" things is up there. It's from a site called Viral Travel (which sounds like a bad idea on the face of it) and is entitled 13 Reasons Not To Go To Disney. Of course I bite. Sue me. So its about what I expect, the same things we Disney fans fans from you non-Disney fans-- crowds,expense, capitalism, yadda yadda yadda. The thing is, many of these criticisms are true to a large extent, but avoidable. I hate to see people get spoiled on the Disney I love because they go about the whole experience unprepared logistically or mentally for the realities of the place. I figured just for kicks to take the 13 reasons one by one (or two by two) and try to explain why they don't keep ME from the Magic. This part two, part one is here.


12. There Is Constant Construction

You might see this as a positive, but Disney is always under construction. If you see a ride that looks way cool but it’s not complete, that means the kiddos will be bugging you to death to go back so you can endure even more Disney in the near future. Joy.

7. Rides Are Shut Down All The Time

Disney is careful about maintaining rides and keeping them safe, but the flip side is that your favorite ride might not even be open the whole time you’re at the park. Some rides seem to be especially prone to breaking, or always shut down when there’s even the slightest hint of rain. Of course this means you can go back again and hope the ride is open, or you could just go to the beach.

I've bundled these two complaints into one becuase they go hand-in-hand, I think. First off, the writer admits that new construction is really a good thing. I mean if a place that makes you wat to return is a bad thing, maybe stay-cations are more your cup of tea. The second issue, number seven on his list, is also true. In part. Let's look at construction and refurbishment in Disney Parks realistically.

Some "construction" is really upkeep or even seasonal decorating, like in the photo of the Cinderella Castle below being fixed up with Christmas lights during our last trip. Most decorating is done at night out of public view, but the castle is a big job and each year there will be times when it has cranes around it. While you may be disappointed you can't get the "perfect" castle photo on your trip during these times, there's always Photoshop, and besides, as my friend pointed out to me it's kinda cool to have photos of the decorations going up, not everyone gets to see that process.

Hanging Christmas Lights on The Castle

Upkeep is also a constant and closes some attractions and restaurants throughout the year. This can cause hassles if you're ill-prepared. Luckily, there are plenty of on-line resources to keep you up to date on what is going to be closed and when. The Walt Disney World site itself is the last word, but fan sites often have the info just as current and much easier to find all in one place. It's important to check this out, there WILL be rides you can't go on and/or shows you can't see due to refurbishment. Knowing before you go will save you much worse disappointment later, especially with little ones. The writer's contention that "some rides seem to be especially prone to breaking, or always shut down when there’s even the slightest hint of rain" is exaggerated at best. Do the attractions break down and have to close for short periods sometimes, sure, but it's far from common. And besides, there is SO MUCH to do at the Disney parks, that no one attraction is a game-breaker for us.

Actual new construction is also always going on. It's a GOOD thing, even a great thing. Every time you visit Disney there will be something you've never seen before, and often it will something spectacular. During our last visit, Disney was in the process of building a huge expansion of Fantasyland called, rather stupidly, New Fantasyland. I wonder if the creative team was on vacation when they dreamed that one up. Anyhow, it's kinda a big deal and while some of it was open when we were there, we had a ball peeking over and around barricades and walls to catch a glimpse of the Beast's Castle and the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. One of the big reasons I planned to get at least half a day in the Magic Kingdom during our upcoming weekend trip was to get a chance to check out the completed New Fantasyland.

New Fantasyland Under Construction

We don't sweat the refurbs, honestly, because we've been enough to see most everything and there's plenty else to do. We actually enjoy the construction both because it means new things on the way and simply for it's own sake. We like watching the Magic being created. We are such Disney Geeks we even took pictures of all the little Walt Disney quotes hanging on the construction barricades. Take some time to read them yourself when you visit, he is the reason this place is magic.

 

Refuting The Top 13 Reasons Not To Go To Disney, Part 1

So I'm happily looking at my Facebook newsfeed the other day and one of those "Sponsored" things is up there. It's from a site called Viral Travel (which sounds like a bad idea on the face of it) and is entitled 13 Reasons Not To Go To Disney. Of course I bite. Sue me. So its about what I expect, the same things we Disney fans fans from you non-Disney fans-- crowds,expense, capitalism, yadda yadda yadda. The thing is, many of these criticisms are true to a large extent, but avoidable. I hate to see people get spoiled on the Disney I love because they go about the whole experience unprepared logistically or mentally for the realities of the place. I figured just for kicks to take the 13 reasons one by one and try to explain why they don't keep ME from the Magic.

13. The Tickets Are Insanely Expensive

 If you think going to an amusement park and paying $60 a person is steep, wait until you pay the price of admission for Disney. You’ll be looking at well above $100 per person, depending on the type of tickets you get and the time of the year.

Yes, tickets to Disney theme parks are expensive. However, the above item is only half correct. Park tickets do not fluctuate with time of year, but adding certain options CAN increase the cost significantly, depending on how you plan your stay. Like anything Disney vacation-oriented, it's complicated.

A one day ticket to the Magic Kingdom is $99. But the cost per day decreases as you add days to your ticket. Stay for 5 days and the tickets are $60.80/day and each day you add after that only brings the total cost up $10 each. For example, a ticket that gets you into the Magic Kingdom for one day costs $99, one that gets you in for 5 days costs $304 and one that gets you for that extra sixth (perhaps when you arrive in the afternoon) day costs $314.

The "type of ticket" they talk about refers to certain options Disney offers, the most popular being the "Park Hopper" option. A Park Hopper ticket allows you entry to all four Walt Disney World theme parks on the same day and costs $60 more, whether you by it to apply to a one day ticket or a ten day ticket it's a flat $60, once again making it a better value the longer you stay.

You can also add options that allow you entry to the two water parks and/or the DisneyQuest mega-arcade. This is really only a really good value if you plan to vist these places more than once on your trip, as entry to each is less than $60/day.

So, yes, Disney tickets are pricey, especially if you go for one day (as we are doing this fall), but come on, it's the very prototype of the theme park. It's another world, lots of other worlds, actually. Play your cards right and stay long enough to see and appreciate everything, and the tickets per day aren't so bad at all.

"Our Disney Experience" Began Tonight

So we did it. We took that step from finally, definitely planning to really and truly go to Disney World in November to making reservations. It was a pretty good week, I had a pretty big "win" at work yesterday and was pretty pleased with my bad self already, but this just put my Friday night over the top. It's real. I have the confirmation number and email with said confirmation number. And I've hooked my reservation into the My Disney Experience website and app.

I picked out my MagicBand color.

Red.

It's really happening. 

This isn't to be a big trip, it's another one of our "commando raids" on Walt Disney World. We are lucky enough to live an easy day's drive from The Dis and we aren't at all averse to long car rides, so nine hours is cake. We usually split it up anyhow, leaving the night before we plan to arrive and driving until I feel tired. This makes it easy for us to go for a long weekend.

This time we are (I just wrote "we plan to" and erased it to write "we are". Heh) leaving Thursday, November 20th after work and arriving at Disney on Friday the 21st, The Lovely Miss Lisa's Birthday. We'll stay at Port Orleans French Quarter, our very favorite resort. We have a strategic plan, because, well, you kinda need one to make a weekend trip to Disney from North Carolina worth it. In the past, we've just resort hopped and explored on arrival day of our commando raids, visited one park the next day, then hit Downtown Disney on our leaving day. This time, I really wanted to try to squeeze a bit more out of our time and I think I came up with a good plan.

We wanted to see the Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party because we never have and we loved the Halloween party so very much. I looked at the schedule from 2013 and made the leap that 2014 would be pretty similar. The plan depends on that. It looked to me that MVMCP was held on Fridays but not Saturdays. This works well for us. We'll arrive Friday at about lunchtime, get lunch, check in and be at the gates of the Magic Kingdom in plenty of time to enter as soon as they will let us. We will get from (at the worst) 4 pm until midnight in the Magic Kingdom, plenty of time to experience the party and see the New Fantasyland. Then it's back to our usual schedule and hit Epcot Saturday and Downtown Disney Sunday, leaving about lunchtime Sunday to drive home.

My theory is that this gives us two park days a little less expensively than buying a two-day ticket. MVMCP tickets ran about $65 last year and with park tickets going for about $100, that saves us quite a bit between three tickets. We also lucked out getting a room discount from a friend that saved us a bunch. We'll use those savings to eat very well. We have plans for dining that deserve their own post. There's a bit of a story there....

I like my plan. It's a good plan. And I'm hoping and praying that I can enjoy a little Disney Magic and  actually get us into the Magic Kingdom a couple hours before the official unoffical time of 4:00 pm, because........

Mary Poppins On Stage

Outside the DPAC before the show

We didn't make it to Broadway for this one, but the next best thing came to us. Or kinda sorta close to us. Ok, a 3 1/2 hour drive away from us that required a vacation day to make work, but it was totally worth it. A couple weekends ago the lovely and talented Miss Lisa and I made a weekend out of going to see Mary Poppins the musical at the Durham Performing Arts Center, and it was a spectacular experience. I'm not at all qualified to "review" a Broadway style show, but I can tell you about what an awesome experience the whole weekend turned out to be.

This whole adventure started on a whim, like many Stites activities tend to. Lisa bought me the DVD of Mary Poppins for my birthday and one of the extras was a documentary on the making of the musical. I started out watching it by myself, but before long all three of us were glued to it and talking about how much we were able to appreciate better what went into putting on a show after our family's experience in Oz over the summer. During the rooftop chimney sweep scene, the musical features a bit of technical wizardry that had all of us floored. Bert takes a walk up the side of the set, across the top upside down and back down the other side. It's a really impressive piece of work and after seeing that we all decided it would be really cool to go see this show. Lisa wandered off and came back a few minutes later with the news that as luck would have it, Mary Poppins was coming to Durham in February and tickets were still available, but only a very few. We found a few seats for a Sunday night show, the final show as it turned out, and ordered them up.

Our trip went from being a family adventure to a couple's getaway after John's church youth group retreat got rescheduled for the same weekend. We were disappointed but found we'd crossed some sort of threshold in the parenting world. The morning of our last day in Durham we admitted to each other that this time we really didn't find ourselves missing John. That sounds terrible, I know, but it isn't a bad thing at all really. We were in touch with him and he with us all weekend. We were sharing our experiences, though different ones. He was having a blast in the mountains and wasn't missing us one bit either. We are all growing up and I find that it actually feels good. We had a great time as a couple, just us two, and it was perfect that way. I guess it's nice to have it pointed out so clearly that we haven't turned into one of those marriages that stays together for the kids' sake. We'll be OK, more than OK, for a long long, long time, and that feels great.

All it needed was a monorail running through it

So on with our little couple's excursion. Our show was on Sunday night, but since we were without kid from Friday morning to Monday afternoon, we decided to make a weekend out of it. We didn't go nuts and get up early on Saturday or anything, we just left about lunchtime and headed North toward our one bedroom suite just outside Durham. Lisa found that deal as well, a huge suite with a king bed and kitchen for about $85 a night. The girl is good. It was a fun drive through a very rare North Carolina snowstorm. We arrived without incident and found that our hotel looked like the Contemporary Resort in Disney World, without the monorail. Strange, but it amused the Hell out of us. The room turned out to be great, the hotel very nice and situated near a rather large mall/outdoor shopping complex. Off we went in search of dinner and amusement. We found both and spent the night laughing and talking and exploring.

Our show wasn't until 6:30 Sunday evening, so we had plenty of time to explore that day, too. We started the day with a morning bubble in the hot tub, and decided once again that we REALLY need to get one for the house, then headed out to see what we could see. We ended up on the Duke University campus and took in the cathedral (beautiful), some geocaching (unsuccessful), and the gardens. We even tried to find a spot in the gardens to play Pooh Sticks, but there was a sad lack of water in the creek beds. Oh well. Then we headed "into town" for an early dinner.

Oh my. Let me just say that if you go to Durham and are anywhere near the DPAC and don't stop into Bull City Burger and Brewery you must simply hate yourself. The place is awesome. It's a brewpub and they have taken the "sustainable restaurant" thing to new heights. These folks make their own bacon out of pigs fed on the leftover barley mash used to brew the beer. Their website explains it well, and despite it all being very "hipster," I was pretty impressed. And the food is not only delicious, but creative. I had a "bowl of pickled stuff" as an appetizer. Yep. It was like they knew I was coming and designed a menu just for me. We also tried their Bull Nuts, peanuts cooked up with bacon and sugar and rosemary and who knows what else. If you invite us to a party and ask us to bring a munchy, we are going to try making this, just so you know. The burgers were great, using beef from cows raised on a farm just outside the city and served on homemade buns. They probably grew the wheat on the roof or something. The condiments were even homemade. And the beer. Wow. I love beer and this place made me a very happy Jeffrey. We tried barley wine, which is a highly alcoholic, very slowly crafted brew served in a snifter so you feel all fancy-like drinking it. Let me just say that Youngen Horny Barley Wine is one of God's great gifts to humanity.

Nosebleeds, baby! :)

After dinner we were in fine spirits and walked the few short blocks to the beautiful Durham Performing Arts Center. This place was really cool and run very well. It was a sold out show, but the number of people never intruded on our experience. That may just as well be because we were having such a great time with each other that nothing was going to intrude, but the place was run with great precision. Our seats were in the back, the second to the last row of the very top balcony to be exact. We could have had better seats, honestly, but we could have had worse. I didn't mind at all, as being so high gave me a great look at the technical aspects of the show. A bird's eye view, I guess. I helped move sets on and off stage during our production of Wizard of Oz and wondered if I would see little dudes dressed all in black running on and off stage. Lisa said, no, she thought not. But we did, once! And we were very happy.

Mary Poppins was simply breathtaking. The music is terrific and the sets are incredible and the actors sang and danced and acted their hearts out (see, I told you I was not qualified to write a theater review). The Banks house slid onto the stage and opened up like a dollhouse. It was amazing. We were convinced this touring company wouldn't do the Bert walking upside down thing because we didn't see the framework they used in the show we saw on the dvd. Boy, were we wrong. They didn't need a frame, this Bert just walked up the side of the stage and across the top, dancing and singing all the way. We were speechless. Lisa and I are still singing songs from this show all day long, they are that good. All around a lovely experience.

We had taken off work on Monday after the show which turned out to be a good idea as we'd have gotten home really very late. As it was, we just rolled back to the hotel a few miles away, slept a nice night away and headed home at our leisure Monday morning.

Perfect weekend :)

I Love Adventureland

You have to have a favorite "Land" in the Magic Kingdom, right? While I love them all and could really make a great argument for any one of them being the "best," my favorite is Adventureland. It always has been my favorite, and that's the way Disney should work, I think. The same things that made me love it when I was 5 still appeal to me today. First off, it's home to Pirates of the Caribbean, the bestest ride in Walt Disney World. And the Jungle Cruise. And the Tiki Room. Gotta love that.

I'm a traveler, physically as much as time and circumstances allow, but in my imagination I am a real vagabond. Adventureland feeds that aspect of my soul very well. In one small part of the Magic Kingdom you can visit the Caribbean, Arabia, Polynesia, darkest Africa and the Mekong Delta. You can be spit on by magical tiki drums and a camel without having to walk more than a few feet. You can buy a Hawaiian frozen treat and carry it up into a tree house with a view of a castle. You can leave one boat under attack by cannon fire only to enter another that must navigate hippos and tigers. Animatronic birds shower you with bad jokes across the walkway from the worst pun-spouting boat captains in the world.

Adventureland combines real world and fantasy, present day and history, in a way that just strikes my fancy and makes me feel like an adventurer myself. On our last trip, we walked into Adventureland through the castle hub during the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party and heard AC/DC's Back In Black pumping through the speakers. We all looked at each other and couldn't even talk for the pure fun and perfectness of the moment. Finally, we laughed and agreed we were truly in the best place ever.

Check out my album of Adventureland pics at Poohsticks on Facebook :)

Win Some Disney Time

Disney is giving away a trip a day each day in January. It's a 5 day/4 nighter, I believe and offers a choice of fun extras. Head over to the contest website and check it out! I know I'll be faithfully entering each and every day :)

Limited Time Magic

That's Walt Disney World's theme for this year. It means they will doing lots of short promotions, sometimes for a few weeks, sometimes for a few days. These can take the form of special events or celebrations or anything else they dream up. The first one starts January first and runs a couple weeks. It's a nightly New Year's Countdown dance party in Tomorrowland. It sounds fun, I'd go to it for sure if I were there, but it wouldn't make me want to plan a trip around it. This is going to be fun to watch, I think, to see what Disney comes up with throughout the year. The downside, as my friend pointed out, is that if they do something really cool, it will kill us to not be able to see it or participate. It will be kind of like Limited Time Torture for Disney Geeks.

Here's the link to the official Limited Time Magic web page, where the promos will be announced and explained. I know I'm going to be checking it out often. Even if that is torturing myself.

Our Sad Attempt To Find Hidden Mickeys

We aren't the best Hidden Mickey hunters in the world. We love the idea, love that the Imagineers stuck little hidden tributes to Mickey Mouse all over the parks and resorts. We got the Hidden Mickey Field Guide for our friends last Christmas and I had a hard time not reading the whole thing myself before I gave it to them. They were heading to Disney World early this year and I thought they might have fun looking for Hidden Mickeys together. When they got they got back, Jen reported that they hadn't really looked much at all, everything just sort of got in the way and they really didn't have the chance. I got my own copy of the field guide and was sure we would use it; we were only three, we weren't chasing a two-year-old, and we could do this! Why not? Wrong-o. Just like Jen and family, we brought the book along, but always forgot to pack it into the parks. Sometimes I'd read up on the places we were headed and try to remember where the Mickeys were, but I usually forgot to even look in all the excitement of whatever we were doing.

I'm not too disappointed, it's one more thing to try to concentrate on  more next time. We did find a few, though, on this trip. I got pictures of most of them, and here they are. It won't take long to see them all :)

This is by far my favorite. This wasn't in the guide book, we just stumbled upon him in Rafiki's Planet Watch's petting zoo. It kind of made up for there not being any llamas. Almost.

This was probably in the book, but we hadn't checked it this day. This is pretty obvious, but we still felt proud of ourselves for spotting it, and the next one, in The Living Seas aquarium in Epcot. I waited for a shark to swim by because as we all know, sharks make photos better.

The other Living Seas aquarium Mickey. Without the shark. See, it's not as cool.

This one was done "by the book." I knew we'd ride the Rockin' Roller Coaster this day and checked the guide and remembered where the Mickey was. We waited for everyone to clear out so we could get a good look and there he was!

Oh, The Places You'll Go

The Oak Island Geohound

We Stiteses are wanderers, goers, doers, seekers. One hobby we indulge in that plays to all those traits is Geocaching. If you've never heard of it, geocaching involves hiding and seeking containers of various sizes all over the world using a GPS enabled device and the geocaching.com web site. There is a great video right here explaining it all, if you are interested.

Geocaching has given us an excuse to wander more times than I can count, and when we are in new places, we always check for caches and often end up finding spots we would never have seen otherwise. I can go on and on about the joys and rewards of seeking tupperwares in the woods, but today I wanted to talk about my Geohound, who has been places I've never been even close to. Yet.

Not only do we geocachers travel from cache to cache ourselves, we also send proxies out to travel the world, called travel bugs. Soon after I found the hobby of geocaching, I ordered my first travel bug dog tag, that's the metal tag you see on the chain in the above picture. The tag has a number unique to itself that is used to track the item, in this case a Happy Meal toy my son gave me to keep me company in my car at work, as it is discovered by geocachers and moved by them from one cache to another. Cachers log the number on the geocaching web site and the tag's movements are recorded, along with comments and often pictures, on its very own web page (the Oak Island Geohound can be found here, complete with a map of his travels). Trackable items often disappear and get lost, it's just the nature of the game, but I really lucked out with the Geohound. I set him into the world on May 29, 2007 and he is still active and traveling today. I got an update on him just this morning, in fact, from Germany.

Skijorring outside Fairbanks

The Geohound was charmed from the start. His first trip was a long one, from Oak Island, North Carolina to Fairbanks, Alaska. He spent some time skijorring, which I had never heard of. Apparently, skijorring involves putting cross country skis on and tying yourself to a few sled dogs. It's like dog sledding without the sled. I can't wait to try it next time we get enough snow. Or not.

He went with the cacher who found him to St. Paul and then back to Alaska before being picked up and moved to Maine, where he traveled a bit before once again going cross-country and ending up in Washington State. He seemed to be having a fine time. He moved back and forth between Washington and Oregon for a bit then headed south for California. I started getting a few pictures from the beautiful Los Padres National Forest and watching him tour all over the greater Los Angeles area.

The North Fork in Los Padres NF

The Smallest Post Office in Wheeler, CA

This morning, I got word that my little Geohound had left the bounds of the good old US of A and landed himself in Germany, Niedersachsen, Germany to be exact. It's near Hannover. I think I have some extedned, in-law-type family there. 

In 5 1/2 years, this little stuffed dog has traveled 23,600 miles. I'm frankly shocked a Happy Meal toy has held up for that long. Following his travels, we've learned new things and been put in contact with new people from all over the country and now the world. I've checked out the places he's visited and added to my own "bucket list." Now I'm using Google translator to read the logs. As an educational experience, this really can't be beat. As a bit of arm chair globe-trotting, it is perfect. Even when we're sitting still, there's no reason to stay at home after all.

Goodbye, HMS Bounty

This is the Captain's cabin on the HMS Bounty and it's off limits to visitors. Just so happened the crew member watching the entrance wandered off. It took about half a second for Misty and I to decide to slip under the rope and enjoy the good life of Captains of the Ship.

This morning the HMS Bounty, a replica of the famous "Mutiny on the" ship, sank off the North Carolina coast while trying to sail around Hurricane Sandy. She carried 16 crew, 14 of whom are safe ashore as I write this. One crew member, Claudine Christian, died and her body was recovered. The ship's captain, Robin Walbridge, remains missing as of Monday night. I pray for the safety of Captain Walbridge and for the family and friends and memory of Claudine Christian. CNN has a good story with a bit of video that is the most up to date info I could find as I write this.

I understand the human tragedy here and I guess some would think this terribly missing that point, but I'm going to write about losing the ship. If that bothers you, stop here, or bear with me and maybe you'll see where I'm going with this. The Bounty wasn't a person, she had no soul (in the religious sense) and no family (in the genetic sense) and she shouldn't be mourned as if she was a person. But it's not wrong to mourn her, I think, not wrong to feel a real sadness that she rests now at the bottom of the Atlantic, never to sail again. I do feel that sadness, a sense of loss. I think that woman next to me in the picture, our friend Misty, feels it too, and without assuming to speak for her, I'm going to try to explain why we do.

There's a reason ships are called "she" and not "it." Ships, especially sailing ships, evoke emotion in sailors and would be sailors. They represent much more than wood and hemp and canvas. They represent freedom. They represent escape. Or maybe it's more to the point to say that they represent......possibilities. That's the crux of it for me, I think. I already feel very free and I have nothing to escape from, my life being pretty damned good, and yet I'm drawn to a ship like the Bounty on a very basic level. Misty is as well. We HAD to go see her, and we HAD to go see her together. We did the same thing when the US Coast Guard's Eagle came to town. We walked around these ships not saying much but both thinking the same thing, "What if....?" What if I had her for my own? Where could I go? What could I do? How would it be to wake up in the morning to the sound of water running against a wooden hull and know I had the whole of the ocean open to me? We joked about stowing away, but neither of us wanted that and soon it turned to imaginings of flat out piracy. We didn't want to just be on the ship, we wanted to have the ship, to be a part of her and her of us and to go where we pleased. When I was on the Bounty, I could feel all of that inside of me. Possibility, pure, unadulterated possibility, seemed closer. Just being aboard her did it.

And now she's gone and I'm sad.

Getting It

We saw more "bad behavior" on this Disney trip than any before. We saw a physical fight over parade watching spots narrowly averted by a cast member our first night in the park. The next day we witnessed a man jump off the Walt Disney World Railroad train while it was going regular speed between two stops. He'd apparently dropped his cell phone. He was almost thrown from the park, saved, we assume, by his pre-school daughter wearing a princess costume. Groups of foreign tourists speaking loudly over the narration of attractions was the norm rather than the exception. We noticed an unusual number of parents screaming at kids, and often kids who seemed to be doing nothing wrong. We saw 8, 10, maybe even 12-year-olds attached to dads with leashes. I don't know if we were just more sensitive to this stuff because we ourselves were so relaxed and happy and paying a lot of attention to everything going on around us, but on this trip all three of us picked up on many people who just weren't getting it. It made us feel really lucky to not be one of "those families," and coming home, I've become very happy to be surrounded by people who really do "get it."

We are a Disney Geek family. We all three see the Disney Magic as something real and valuable and important. I'm not shy about my love for Disney, as evidenced by this blog and it's accompanying Facebook page, and neither is the lovely Miss Lisa. This has led us to some good natured ribbing, of course, but also to discover some other Disney Geeks in our daily lives. I've found that others in the salesman community are as enthusiastic about Disney as myself. We can go on for hours in the back room of a grocery store discussing the latest discounts, the pros and cons of renting Disney Vacation Club points, character meals, crowd levels and all other aspects of trip planning. We use so many acronyms, I doubt anyone else can understand what we're saying. Lisa works for our town government and has found a cadre of dedicated Disney Geeks in charge of our police force. One officer sent us down with pins to trade and when we brought him back a Mickey sheriff's badge pin, he went to brag to the Chief, who already had one of his own of course. They proceeded to try one-upping each other with Disney collectibles they owned. The pastor of our church is another Disney-phile who made a point to tell me how much joy he gets out of the pictures I post and assured me that the experience our son gets on a family trip to Disney World is worth much more than any money we spent. Disney Geekery is everywhere.

I wrote before we left for our trip about how much fun I expected to have sharing our memories upon our return. What makes that sharing fun, and rewarding, is having people who "get it" to share with. Going through the Disney parks with Lisa and John is pure heaven for me because we all three appreciate it, nothing is forced, no one is just going along to see the others have fun. When Walt spoke in the movie shown at the end of "One Man's Dream" about wanting to build a park where parents and children could enjoy a place completely together because that's what he wanted for himself and his daughters, Lisa teared up. She understands what makes the magic. It's love, pure and simple. Behind all the corporatism and licensing and money, is the love one man had for his family and the world at large. That's why Disney works, why it's different. It's enough to move anyone to tears, anyone who get's it anyway.

Lisa's doorknob pic

my doorknob pic

My family is lucky to have another family who sees Disney in exactly the same way. Adrian and Jen and their boys Max and Milo are exactly the same kind of Disney Family as we are. They recently returned from a trip to Disneyland and the sharing of our two experiences has been a true joy. The similarities in the way we take in the parks is uncanny. We all try to capture the magic on camera, we have several thousand pictures between us, but I was amazed at how we all saw the same things as interesting or noteworthy. I've gotten used to pretty much sharing a brain with Lisa, so when we found we'd taken pictures of the same doorknob we weren't the least bit surprised. We shot lots of "detail" picture, ones we laughed about no one seeing us knowing what the heck we could be taking a picture of. Well, Jen would have known. While I took a picture of the light fixture on the ceiling of the WDW Railroad passenger car, Jen took one of the light in her room. Lisa took tons of door pictures, Jen has several of the inside of an elevator. Jen and I both took pictures of the entrance to Adventureland that aside from being from opposite ends of the country, could be the same shot. It's just really funny to me, and heartwarming. It's nice to have kindred spirits out there.

light on the train

A door in Norway

Elevator in the Disneyland Hotel

A faucet in Disneyland Hotel

Disneyland Hotel light

 It's not just the pictures, though. I mean how many people take the time to set down in a blog the joys of waiting in line? Back in February, I did, and here's a part of it:

"We aren't opposed to waiting in line, though, for something we all really want to do. Two hours is a bit much, but even for an hour and a half we have been known to suck it up and wait. It's really not the end of the world. There's lots to do in line. Disney has spent a tremendous amount of time and imagination and money making even the queuing areas of its attractions interesting. That's not even to mention the people watching opportunities. I pity the people who never wait in line and as a result miss out on mocking the other Disney guests' dress, hairstyle, accent, mannerisms and child-rearing skills. What do you people talk about at dinner? Even if you are sickeningly nice and don't get snarky and mean about strangers, you could spend time in line talking to your family. Imagine that! You are on vacation and the children, if not the adults, are probably close to sensory over-load. Talking about what you've done and seen and what adventures are yet to come make passing the time in line rather enjoyable."

Jen wrote on her personal blog yesterday all about waiting in the Radiator Springs Racers queue in Cars Land at Disneyland for two hours while they got the ride working again. She wasn't complaining, she was celebrating one of the best parts of her trip. Not only did she and Max take the time together to just be together, she experienced the joy of seeing her son get it while he pointed out Imagineering details to her. I couldn't have expressed it better myself, though I did express the  very same experience from our trip. Here's a bit from Jen's blog:

 "It didn't really matter....because even though, all told, Max and I stood on that queue for almost two hours, it was so very enjoyable.  At no point did he whine or complain (that would have made me get out of the line immediately, and he probably knew that!), and he tried his best to entertain the people in line around us (yeah, you know he did).  Even better, HE kept pointing out all these amazing Imagineered details to ME, and I loved how observant and interested he was.  We talked and we laughed and we shared an overpriced water bottle that a costumed cast member wisely started hawking to his captive audience, and we giggled over the texted photos of Milo enjoying A Bug's Land, and we imagined and we planned and we enjoyed each other.  There was no laundry to be done, there were no emails distracting me, there was no need to do school work, there was no Milo hanging on me....just two hours of Max and Mom time, doing something purely for fun."

That's what I mean by "getting it." It's what made Lisa get emotional at a movie. It's what makes me write this blog. It's magic, the real thing.

Just after we got home from Disney and a day or so before they left for their trip, I was dropping something off at Jen and Adrian's house. As I was leaving, Max came over to give me a hug and said, "I can't wait to get back so we can get together and share our stories!"  A seven year old looking forward to getting home so he could relive his experience with his friends. He gets it. That's what keeps the Disney Magic alive.

Walt Disney World's Adventureland entrance

Disneyland's Adventureland entrance