I'm avoiding the whole state of Florida, so I'm really glad that when my son was little, he never wanted to go to Disney.

Part of my problem with Florida is that when I was a kid, my dad had August off. So that's when we'd go on vacation. I've since heard that August isn't a really great time to be in Florida if you don't want to feel constantly miserable.

Moral of the story: no one wants to talk about Florida.

We'll just have to go back to Texas!

I've been to Six Flags Over Texas. That was fun. I drove across Dallas to get there, because it was just my siblings and cousins. My cousin was older and local, but wouldn't drive a van.

How is Schlitterbahn these days?

There was a random neighbor kid with us. He chatted up a girl running one of the rides and then stayed at the park to get a ride home from her.

Have you ever seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night? Can you even book a regular flight on a DC-9?

Cassandane has personal connections in California, including some within walking distance of Disneyland (technically walking distance - it's like eight tenths of a mile to walk from their house to the wall of the Disneyland parking lot, but actually getting to an entrance of the complex where they'll look at your tickets is something like a mile farther than that), so that makes it even easier to avoid Disneyworld. We went there in April. It was fun. I'm glad we had the FastPasses, but I'm not sure what kind of deal you'd have to make to get them for a family with four kids.

I was very much in this headspace, but we bit the bullet and went to Disneyland last year and it was surprisingly fun and not all that stressful. Yes, very expensive. We paid for the Lightning Pass, or whatever it's called, and were able to do pretty much the whole park in about a day and a half with very little advanced planning. You do need to book the popular restaurants well in advance (which we didn't do) and you'd need to be very disciplined to do everything in one day, or to plan a multi-park trip.

Disneyworld may be a whole different thing. I did that as a kid but haven't been back as an adult.

Because of younger siblings, I remember going to Disneyland when I was too old for it. But I was too young to leave in an airport lounge.

How is Schlitterbahn these days?

The local one is pretty much frozen in time! And fortunately no beheadings south of Kansas.

To be fair to Nebraska, none north of Kansas either.

11: Nice.

My colleague librarian absolutely loves Disney World. I just can't fathom this.

I've only been to Disneyland, and only once, whe I was 10, so I have no personal data to provide:

but They Say that it's an extremely different vibe than Disneyworld. More Schitterbahn than Six Flags.

Ben's dad arranged for us to go to Disneyland, which believe you me, I would never have done. It was fine! They enjoyed it more than I did, which is good because they had tickets for both days and I only went on one day. I mostly admired the engineering and design and landscaping of it all. I would never pay what it costs.

I think it'd be worth a lot to go on an off day (mid-week, some unpopular week).

Mostly it seems like Disneyland is now the second best option and Ben's classmates are going to Hawaii for the first best option, which is also ludicrous (as an expection for kids). It is so easy to be a curmudgeon these days.

And fortunately no beheadings south of Kansas.

Same as it ever was.

I think it'd be worth a lot to go on an off day (mid-week, some unpopular week).

The last time I went to Disney world was for my 10th birthday. It was a rainy day in February, and it was empty. We zipped around and went on all kinds of rides and just raced through the empty, roped off queue-guide rails. It was great.

I have complained here before about how much the premise of FastPasses piss me off. It's not just having a faster lane you can pay to go in; it's having a faster lane which then always has priority when it comes time to merge with the slow lane, and so if there are sufficiently many people in the fast lane, the slow lane can become 100% stationary. That's what makes me so irate.

I distinctly remember, before FastPasses were a thing, my friend was telling me that at Disney, you didn't have to wait in line anymore. You went up and took a number, and it was stamped with a time telling you when to show back up. That is the most humane thing in the world! That is the system that all amusement parks should aspire to! You then can have a stand-by line for no-shows, if anyone wants to try to jump on a free spot.

We went to the zoo once on a January day after a light snow. It was great because the animals were moving and there were no people. The boy was young then and got to watch a baby tiger play.

They do rate-limit the Fast Passes, so they can't actually freeze out the plebes.

rate-limit

turning a big dial taht says "Freeze Out the Plebes" on it and constantly looking back at the audience for approval like a contestant on the price is right

19 was my attitude towards TSA precheck, but Cassandane had it and I didn't, and I got tired of her exasperated sighs about carrying everything while also watching the kid around the time we were preparing for a trip to Spain.

Whatever happened to the simply decency of hiring a small child with a physical disability so you could get to the front of the line?

My sister took her kids and my mom and they had a blast but Disney still sounds like hell on earth to me.

I went to Kings Dominion once the day after a hurricane and it was practically empty and the best park experience I could possibly imagine. Hop off a ride and get right back on. I went to DisneyWorld a million times as a kid because my grandparents lived like 20 miles from it, but as an adult I find that level of crowdedness pretty unpleasant. Plus Florida so it's a million degrees and steamy.

I grew up going to Disney World thanks to the FL residents pass, and later on I knew a few folks who worked there who were able to get me free tickets occasionally. I know this is super basic of me, but I actually really love it (without taking it to Disney Adult levels). The secret--besides just being willing to spend a ton of money in one go--is to use a Disney vacation planner. They work on commission from the park, so they're free for you, and they do all of that complicated planning for you once you give them your budget. If you want to bring your parents, they can get it much cheaper thanks to that residents' discount (which requires ID and is not transferable).

That is, their tickets will be cheaper but yours will not.

I've never been to Florida and Disneyworld is not likely to be on my list of destinations if I go, but I used to go to an amusement park in southern California just about every time we visited relatives in the summer. I remember lots of long lines in Disneyland until we stopped going there because we decided we preferred rides above all else and better rides for older kids were at Magic Mountain.

Not sure whether we ever tried this at Disneyland, but at some point my dad came up with the idea of showing up late to amusement parks and then leaving when they closed. Since "all day" realistically meant no more than 8 hours or so, we shifted our schedule to arrive at Magic Mountain around 4 and leave when they closed at midnight. By about 10 or 11 the park would be pretty empty and we could ride our favorite rides without any wait. Probably that won't work anymore but at the time parks generally cleared out after dinner.

Well that was a weird little diversion. Do they still fly the slaver flag?

Generally, Disney just sounds like hell on earth.

Unless they do the alligator show regularly?

I guess that's in bad taste. But if the kid had a resident's pass it would probably have become a Republican.

I was at Epcot Center for the turn of the millennium. We tried to make it all the way down to the Phish show down in the everglades but just couldn't make it past Orlando after an overnight drive from DC. So we tried the Magic Kingdom and got shut out so we went to Epcot instead.

30: it's weird to make a big show out of thr fact that your state is historically very easy to conquer and lots of people have done so.

30:probably, but I think in this case since they're also including France and Mexico, it's not demonstrating as much allegiance as it did when the high school one district over used to have it on their official letterhead.

Well sure, but by the same token they would be foreswearing allegiance to the United States.

Disneyland was fun. One day there, the other at California Adventure Park across the street, technically separate but back to back. Most Disneyland rides were aimed at kids younger than Atossa but Magic Mountain and Space Mountain were still exciting enough for us. I'd call them great days if we had left about 3 hours earlier but for some reason T. wanted us to see and do as much as we possibly could. I wouldn't want to go as often as annually even if money weren't an object, though.

I'm in land that used to be ruled by Connecticut. I think.

Connecticut used to claim Long Island, which probably makes some sense.

Fair trade if we can give Staten Island to New Jersey

Did someone die in Ohio?

No. The mounds focus energy and preserve residents forever.

The flag is at half mast.

This thread has I think demonstrated that Americans don't know how flags work.

The Kevin Smith library doesn't have any Jay and Silent Bob statute.

I know librarians like to think they can pass laws, but really they can't.

Stupid phone.

43: there's a rather famous song that goes on and on about a specific number of people dying in Ohio.

Not famous enough, apparently.

35: Be fair, sometimes it was just Texas being a secondary marker being traded around the board.

I had to Google it. The flags are for 9-11.

Anyway, that was a fast trip and now I'm back home.

34: I was at Universal's Islands of Adventure that night, so we probably saw some of the same fireworks.

The flags are for 9-11

The holiday season starts earlier and earlier every year.

Speaking of, happy Rosh Hashanah where applicable.

I went to Disneyworld once on a work junket - a reward for a good year, we worked in travel specifically - and spent the day wandering and kind of gawking at the spectacle but neglected to actually ride any rides. Still not sure if I missed anything.

We went to Six Flags several years running in the 60s. I think I last went in 1973. The rides were decent, and I don't think lines were any big deal. To this day, I can tell you that the French settled on the treacherous Lavaca River.

Disneyland in 1971. Disney World in 1990 -- haven't felt like going back. My parents lived in SPB, so Busch Gardens was close. Took my daughter and her friend to Kings Dominion on the day before the first day of school in late elementary early middle school. That was some fun.

I went to Disneyland as a child. Back then, they gave you a book of ride tickets, so I'm old enough to remember how great E-ticket rides were. I went back in 1979. I was at a computer trade show in Anaheim and Steve Jobs rented Disneyland for the evening to celebrate Apple's IPO. A friend of mine knew the back routes, so a group of us rode every last roller coaster. Since the park was only open to the computer nerds at the show and their families, there were no lines.

I've never been to Disneyworld, but a friend of mine was stuck writing up his doctoral thesis, so he checked into the main Disney hotel, absorbed energy in the park and cranked out a chapter a day. It took less than two weeks to get the whole thing done. I think he spent some time as an "imagineer" since.

We spent a summer near Disneyland, when I was a little boy, and I think we went several times, but all I remember is the rollercoaster, and that mainly because my mom likes to tell the story of her great sacrifice agreeing to ride it with me, and how I calmed her fears and assured her it would be okay.

We went to both Disneyland and Disney World when I was a kid but I remember essentially nothing about either.

I think my sister wanted to go on Pirates of the Caribbean again after we finished it? That's all I've got.

Ooh I've got a bunch on this one:
- My grandparents lived in Orlando when I was a kid. My brother and I would visit them every Christmas break flying as unaccompanied minors. Usually on Piedmont changing in Charlotte which I guess was their hub. We'd see the new years fireworks- I think we stayed in the contemporary resort (the one with a monorail station in it) once or twice but usually left after the show. The best time for no lines was while everyone else was watching the fireworks every night.
- We had a few other hacks. We had figured out that you could ride in the nose of the monorail with the pilot if you asked. But if you only had a single park pass you couldn't ride the monorail. So we would ask people heading to their cars to leave if we could have their used up multi park passes because they wouldn't get you into the park without the corresponding hand stamp but would still get you onto the monorail.
- My brother is still a big Disney fan. For a while he was active on fan boards about finding all the hidden Easter eggs like Mickey ears hidden in various places.
- They've changed a lot of the rides especially at Epcot but some are still the same. I can still hear that little shit in Spaceship Earth yelling, "Extra extra New York daily!" Some rides were always broken- the World of Energy sponsored by Exxon was particularly bad. The revolving restaurant in the Land often failed to spin. We didn't go on many of the rides in World Showcase because they sucked, except one that was more of an adventure ride, I forget which. Communicore highlighted supposedly "modern" technology but even in the 80s it was a joke, kind of 50s view of what future tech would be, while having nothing about actually new things coming along in telecoms. I think the fanciest thing was they had video phones where you could talk to a concierge to make your dinner reservations. They updated it at some point in the 90s and hopefully again since.
- I went back twice in middle/high school for Disney Magic Music Days. High school bands would have the chance to play for the public. I went once in seventh grade even though it was a high school trip because they didn't have enough of my instrument and I guess I was good enough. On that trip I and a 9th grader from my section got separated from the group on the way to the bus. I was like, I got this, and navigated us from the Magic Kingdom entrance to the parking and transportation center via the ferry and found our bus. Unfortunately no one was there because they were still looking for us on the other side of the lagoon. Eventually a park staff member showed up at the bus and told the group we were there. I was all "we're not lost, we're exactly where we're supposed to go." The 9th grader was very embarrassed by this episode and was mad at me for the next few years.
-The last time I was back was about 10 years ago when my industry had a conference in Orlando at the Gaylord Palms resort or as we called it the biodome. One vendor had a party at Epcot so I went and drank a 1 liter beer at the German pavilion and bounced around to some rides. A lot more had changed mostly to incorporate Disney IP instead of focusing on the technology of the future (which is weird since they kept the Epcot acronym.) The undersea adventure was Finding Nemo. Captain Eo had been discontinued for obvious reasons, I think the 4D theater was Honey I Shrunk the Audience. Still that little shit yelling in Spaceship Earth though.
I never had any desire to bring our kids there. There are like 100 better places in the world to visit, several even in the same area. Also Florida. Our kids are probably the only Americans who have been to Efteling in the Netherlands, which was the inspiration for Disneyland, but never to a Disney park.

On that trip I and a 9th grader from my section got separated from the group on the way to the bus.

When I was in maybe 4th grade, my dad went to his 25th Harvard Reunion, which was a whole week long thing. They had a sort of kid's camp to go along with it, and one day we went to some nearby amusement park. We were in groups of 4-5 kids, paired with a college student.

At some point we discovered that the buses had left for the day, and we'd been left behind. I never felt the slightest bit upset about this - it wasn't my fault, and I never doubted someone would come retrieve us - but it did shape my understanding of the world. Kind of that moment you realize that the world is not a well-designed machine so much as a bunch of people haphazardly going in different directions and trying to call over their shoulder instructions for the next person who is loosely coordinating on the same project.

That's nothing. You should see how badly Harvard alumni fucked up the post-communism politics in Eastern Europe.

Maybe that was Yalies. I forget.

Harvard succeeded where Yale failed.

Is that where Putin went?

No doubt the Kennedy School is eagerly waiting for him to be available as an esteemed lecturer.

The last time I went to Disneyland was for my high school grad night, which was sad and traumatic for cliched high school reasons. I'll probably never go again. I have friends who are actual Disney Adults, and who have all kinds of Disney-maximizing strategies like those in the linked article, and it seems so stressful. I don't get it at all.

On the other hand, I love Knott's Berry Farm. If you go on a mid-week day in January or February, the whole place is virtually deserted. You can get on any ride you like without waiting, and as soon as it ends, you can walk back to the start and get right back on. They have exhibits on Old West history, including people dressed up in costume making lace or spinning or playing the fiddle. Then you eat fried chicken and pie and jam. It's so great.

I went to Knott's Berry Farm once as a very young kid. We must have left because I'm not there now but I don't remember it at all.

I just now remembered that we used to go to Knott's every year when I was little, because my dad worked for the postal service, which held an annual event for their employees at the park. The event fell around my birthday, and my parents definitely encouraged me to believe that the postal service and Snoopy were all there to celebrate my special day. So maybe that's why I have such fond feelings about KBF.

72 is great.

||

However, the Russians were looking for deep stagnant water...In this way, they hoped to identify possible sites for the dumping of nuclear waste.

Safety first.

Whereas today you can't even dump seaweed in the sea without a three year study full of Germans.

Is there some new bullshit where US military are calling themselves 'guardians'?

That's just Space Force

or the Cleveland baseball team

77 I mean Space Force is pretty much bullshit already

I've never been to Cleveland

It's nice. Try the Kevin Smith library.

I've been to Cleveland twice now. I'm an expert.

There is a great local coffee shop with a line so long that I had to go to Starbucks instead.

At the high school football game last Friday, they screwed up the gate situation so badly that most people didn't get in until immediately before the halftime show, at which point they just opened up the gates and stopped scanning tickets. Relevant because it was a very long line to get in.

Also there was a true plague of crickets happening. They got in the dancers' cowboy hats and in people's bags and generally spent their time flying around the floodlights, dive bombing people's hair, or getting smushed on the ground.

Yay high school football games! It's still novel enough for my to find it fun, though.

My high school won a state championship the year before I started high school. It was a big deal.

That's what it's all about, Heebie.

Did you catch the crickets and cook them? Waste not want not.

We wanted not and wasted.

Tickets to a high school football game?! Two Americas.

Wait. What happens in the other America?

One America loves Pepsi Cola, the other America loves public over-the-clothing groping.

Which one charges $5 for high school football games?

Both. The difference is in concession stand prices.

It's all gravy, baby.

It's all baby gravy.

85: Also there was a true plague of crickets happening.

Ha! Saw pictures of them trying to sweep them up outside of the statehouse during the Paxton impeachment debacle.

90 was more about there being one America where high school football is something to be enjoyed on a warm-ish Friday autumn afternoon, and another America where it's something to be endured in the blackness of a Friday pre-winter.

at which point they just opened up the gates and stopped scanning tickets

Sounds dangerously close to loan forgiveness.

Heh.

Yay high school football games!

Some decades ago, I was a youngish* journalist and union activist working for a metropolitan daily newspaper. Management despised me, but couldn't fire me. (I mean, they literally couldn't do it. They tried, and the law intervened.) So they gave me -- a government reporter -- the shittiest possible assignment: They had me covering high school sports. The first high school football game I ever attended in my life, I covered for the newspaper.

And it was soooo much fun. I was also the motorsports reporter -- another beat that nobody wanted that was also huge fun. (If you have a high tolerance for Confederate flags, I recommend NASCAR superspeedway races.)

So yeah, Yay, high school football!

*It is only as a typed this comment that I realized that decades ago, I was an experienced, mid-career journalist, and only young in comparison to my current self. It turns out that I'm pretty old.

Speaking of unions, there's a big strike happening, right?

I went to Six Flags with my high school quiz bowl team. I don't remember much about the rides, but it turned out that Billy Idol was playing there that day, so we wandered into that and had a good old time. That was probably 1984. Only Disney park experience was Disneyland for a day during spring break in 1978. Apparently I don't care much about amusement parks.

Published after the OP: The scientific reason why you can't stop going to Disneyland.

Though research around "travel craving" is new and relatively sparse, behavioral psychologists and cognitive scientists believe a yearning for travel can fit the clinical understanding of craving as "a strong desire to modify ongoing cognitive experiences" in ways that don't only relate to addictions.

...

Such yearnings are fed by any number of factors, of course, but smells are high on the list because of how they trigger memories and positive emotions... Disney seems to understand this as it has filled its parks with machines called Smellitzers -- apparatuses carefully disguised or hidden away throughout attractions, shops and walkways, each pumping out soothing and familiar scents to passersby. In a 2017 interview, a 30-year Disney parks veteran said these machines release these familiar scents "on purpose" because the company is mindful that visitors "are using all their senses" when they're there. But beyond simply releasing the smells, Disney also uses carefully timed systems and fans to ensure those scents reach the nostrils of guests. One Disney attraction patent notes that the ride's Smellitzers' "nozzles may be provided to direct scent materials into proximity to the fans so that appropriate scents may be directed to the passenger."

Wow.

Disney has the technology to make the world's biggest fart.

Farting at Disneyland is praxis