Disney World

When my daugh­ter was the cutest lit­tle girl ever, she walked back to me after a cou­ple of min­utes talk­ing to San­ta Claus and, beck­on­ing me to lean down close, qui­et­ly said with much con­vic­tion “He’s a fake.”

I was remind­ed of this event when my wife and I recent­ly spent a few days at Dis­ney World. It’s a fake.

I have spent my entire life not going to Dis­ney World for that exact rea­son. I end­ed up there because it rep­re­sent­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to spend many hours with the grand­son while his par­ents attend­ed the Day­tona 500 (twice!).

We stayed at River­side in Port Orleans (and I believe there was a fur­ther sub­di­vi­sion of Riverside…but it seemed mean­ing­less and arbi­trary). The “riv­er” is real­ly a, I sus­pect man made, chan­nel. There is no cur­rent, one end is at a lake, the oth­er end is just an end.

At River­side is a large water wheel in the riv­er that does not flow. Water is pumped up into a sluice which runs sev­er­al feet and dumps the water on the wheel. The wheel, via a cou­ple of gears, turns a large axle that reach­es into the cen­ter of the din­ing hall and, again via a cou­ple of gears, turns an large umbrel­la that sets just beneath the ceil­ing. Much ado for noth­ing. But the turn­ing wheel is an impres­sive sight.

We spent time in Down­town Dis­ney, just an out­door mall real­ly; a day in the Ani­mal King­dom, which is a mediocre zoo; and a day in Epcot, most of which is also an out­door mall.

For much of my life var­i­ous peo­ple have told me that I had to go to Epcot Cen­ter. That I would like it. Well, not so much. The Space­ship Earth ride was inter­est­ing, but I would much more enjoy going through it with the lights on to see how it is laid out inside that golf ball.

Dis­ney is expen­sive, but at least one can see where a lot of the mon­ey is going. There are the free bus­es, the free water taxis, the fire­works, the exten­sive grounds, the numer­ous swim­ming pools, the end­less fake.

This is not to say that I did not have a great time. I was with great peo­ple that I love. Time in hell would have been pleas­ant. Dis­ney was a blast.