Signs of the (Disney) times

My husband's grandparents came for a visit last week. We took Nana and Pop-Pop to the Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World for a few hours. The kids love it there, there is a lot to see, and we get in for free. What's not to love?


While we were waiting in line for something (I have no idea what, I was keeping up with two elderly people and three children), I noticed a sign.

Poaching Alert - Please report any evidence of poaching to the nearest ranger post. Okie dokie, no problemo. Surely in this place full of wild animals, there will be poaching to report. It fits with the theme, right? But wait... where is the ranger post? There are signs for every entrance, exit, bathroom and stroller parking area in the park, but I have yet to see a sign for a ranger post. What to do, what to do? Perhaps the next sign will help us.

Indeed. Now I know what to do do in the event of a poacher sighting. I'll call TIME magazine, and they can write an article, tucking it neatly between "Science without Humanity" and "Worship without Sacrifice."

This sign still makes me chuckle a little, because I read it "Please ensure you have obtained your correct language." I don't know why that's so funny to me. It struck me as ironic (read the wrong way), because I was standing in the middle of a group of varied ethnicity, people from all over the world who were all in a huddled mass waiting to board a train to world peace via the Walt Disney World Express. I pictured my fellow passengers exiting the train, searching for their language in a huge pile of them and unable to find the correct dialect. I looked at a tiny Asian woman and pictured her singing "La Cucaracha" and dissolved into hysterics.

I think the heat was starting to get to me at this point.

Next up is a classic Disney sign, one that all past and present Disney-goers will recognize.

Always good for a laugh. Always.

Unrelated to the signage, I witnessed something else a little disturbing that day. This elephant was doing a little dance on the safari ride. Look closely. That's not his trunk.

The day was winding to an end, and I was hot and tired. We were in the petting zoo, and I was taking some cute pictures of the kids defiling their cleanliness with goat germs. My husband (who is not the Disney lover that I am and tends to make all of our lives miserable on Disney days) was having so much fun, I had to take his picture.

Time to go. The kids reek of goat, the grandparents are wiped out, and it's about to rain. Thank you, Disney, for making it easy to find the way out.

A wet welcome to the World Part 1

One of the advantages of living in Florida is our close proximity to Walt Disney World. That combined with the fact that we get the 100% cast member discount on admission (thank you, honey) means we hit up the parks fairly regularly.

This last week my mother-in-law was visiting. We struck up a discussion about the World. She was telling me how she had only been to WDW once, when she was a very young child. I scratched my head for a bit, doing some mental math.

"How young?" I asked.

"Two. I must not have liked it much, because I don't remember a single thing about it."

It didn't take rocket science for me to figure out that someone had been misleading her about her Disney experience. She could see it on my face.... I knew something that she didn't want to hear. She reluctantly asked me what I was thinking about.

"Well, it's not possible that you went to WDW here in Florida when you were two. It didn't open until 1971."

What followed was not pretty. I suppose realizing that your parents have not been quite honest about an experience like Disney is a bit shocking to the system. I instantly felt a great sense of remorse. Why, oh why, couldn't I have just let the delusion of childhood bliss continue? She was like a child who just realized that there is no happy puppy farm in the country. I've never felt so terrible.

I decided to fix the situation that I created. "Let's go to Disney. It's only noon. We have a good part of the day left to see things."

Oh. My. God. She was like a kid who had just heard about Santa for the first time. My middle-aged mother-in-law jumped up and down, squealing and clapping her hands wildly. I felt a huge sense of pride and accomplishment, that I had repaired the broken dreams of her childhood. Oh, if I had only looked out the window and before I made the suggestion. I would spend the rest of the day cursing my aversion to watching the news.

A wet welcome to the World, Part 2

In Florida, it rains a lot. Most of the rain is sporadic. We rarely get days where the rain lasts all day. My husband's favorite saying when discussing the weather here is, "If you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes."

Today, that would not be the case. We walked outside the hotel to pile in my husband's heap (my minivan is out of order) and drive to WDW, and were greeted with threatening skies. I stopped dead in my tracks and thought for a minute. "Eh, it will pass." Wrong-O, but I didn't know. We head out. About 5 minutes into our journey, the first telltale drops of water hit the windsheild. I reach for the wiper knob, and it's missing. I vaguely remember my husband mentioning using a pair of pliers to turn the little stick, so I begin a frantic search for the pliers while hurtling down the road at 50 mph in the rain. Yeah, I know, not smart, but never fear... my mother-in-laws frantic screams to pull over alerted me to that fact rather quickly. I found the pliers and continued on in the rain, expecting it to stop at any minute.

The biggest clue as to what was in store for us should have been when we entered the Magic Kingdom parking lot. We drove past empty lot after empty lot until we were directed into a space within eyeshot of the ticket and transportation center. We were so close to the front that we laughed at the sign alerting us that trams don't run in that part of the parking lot. It never crossed my mind that this was a bad sign, that perhaps all the other potential Disney-goers that day had watched the weather report and knew that we were in for a flood.

We ran through a sprinkle to get to the monorail, slipped and slid through a sprinkle to get to the entrance. We were happy and laughing. I stopped for a stroller, and as I was buckling the girls into it, I heard this whooshing sound that is unmistakable to anyone who has ever been rained on. I turned slowly to see - wait for it - rain. Buckets of rain, so much rain that we couldn't see down Main Street USA. No biggie. My MIL was clapping and squealing again, so I pulled the last bit of optimism from the depths of myself and trudged on.

One hour later, we were huddled under a covered area in Tomorrowland, trying to decide if it was worth the race toward Space Mountain. This is what we saw:



Not cool. We spent $30 on ponchos, which I have never done - I am the queen of preparedness, and a firm believer in the dollar store poncho. We spent about two hours in the park, did exactly three things, and decided we were too wet to stay.

Fast forward to the ticket and transportation center, where we were to return to the car. We came out and stood looking at the parking lot. "Do you remember where we parked?"

"Ummm, no, don't you?"

Oh, no.

I vaguely remembered the "no tram" sign, so I knew it had to be close. The path around back to the parking lot looked soooo long, so we decided on a shortcut. There was only one row of hedges between us and the parking lot, and we were going to brave it. We raced across to the bushes and located a sparse spot. It was slightly downhill, and covered with wet leaves. We were all in flip-flops. This should be fun. I grab Abby's hand and lead the way, shoving branches back and mucking up the wet leaf carpet. Abby stopped every six inches to look at something. Leaves, bugs, sticks, BIG bugs. I stopped, screamed, "This is NOT a nature trail! MOVE IT!" and continued on. We broke through the hedge, excited to see the parking lot.... on the other side of a green fence that was beautifully hidden behind the bushes.

Seriously? Okie dokie, then. We followed the fence to an opening, which led to a path. That path was about 6 inches underwater, so we swam waaaaayyyy down to the end of it until we found an opening. There was a huge sign that said "Cast members only" at the opening. MIL was concerned that we'd get in trouble, as if tearing apart the hedges wasn't something that we maybe shouldn't have done.

In spite of our crimes, we had finally reached the parking area. Wooohoooo! Unfortunately, we were about three lots from where the car was, and it took us another 20 minutes to locate it. I was more than a little unhappy. The kids were unhappy. My mother-in-law was glowing. "That was FUN!"

I love her, but I suspect that the woman might possibly need medication for her delusional disorder.