I love how the title of this post makes it sound like this is such a Grand Vacation. As if I'm some tourist from a faraway locale having spent thousands of dollars to come all the way to Orlando, Florida for two weeks to frolic in the sunshine and visit two heavily sought after attractions. Eh, not so much. It really amounted to two quick day trips albeit with me being too lazy to have to travel back and forth on 27 and I-4, I spent two nights in an Orlando hotel.
It was kind of spur the moment since I was kind of thinking that I wasn't going to go back to Orlando until at least October but I saw a YouTube video come up in my feed about an old school Orlando condominium hotel resort which I think I had heard about back in the day. Parc Corniche is located roughly in the same neighborhood as the Hilton Resort I stayed at a few months back for that timeshare deal and at pretty much the same price but without having to sit for any sales pitch. Like the Hilton place, it was a suite but it was much bigger layout with a full kitchen, dining / living area and separate bedroom. Now the furnishings were dated but that didn't bother me one bit. That's what kept the price at a relatively cheap hundred bucks a night. The place was clean and quiet, I have nothing but compliments about it. And had I chosen to avail myself of it for the low low price of just two bucks a ride, I could have taken the I-Drive Trolley bus to the very close by SeaWorld.
I started out for this 2-day-2-night trip Monday morning getting to Disney Springs under relatively smooth traffic just before noon time. I hadn't been to this shopping and eating enclave located on the southern edge of Disney property in Lake Buena Vista since it was called Downtown Disney back in the Halcyon Days. So I'm not really sure, but my guess would be around the year 2000 or so when Jay and I used to use the trick of driving to Downtown Disney, parking in the parking lot there (they had no parking garages back then) and walking to the nearby Disney Bus Transportation Center where you could hop on a bus to any of the resorts or theme parks for free. Nowadays, Disney having caught on to that trick, the buses only go to the resorts. Of course, for the diehards, you could always take a bus to a resort and then from there hop on a bus to a theme park but man that's a lot of work.
The last time I would have utilized any of the shops or conveniences of Downtown Disney though would actually have been back in 1999 when I went to the AMC theater to see Sixth Sense. So Monday, after browsing around the new eateries and peeking through the windows of the shops mostly on the Westside, enjoying a tiny $8 cup of ice cream, I went to see a movie here at this AMC theater for the first time in 25 years.
And the movie was appropriately a sequel to its predecessor that's even a decade older than that time frame: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Opinion: Alright.
A fair enough homage to the original. Goodly number of Easter eggs. Keaton and Ryder did a great job. I like how Burton kept the special effects real using physical props and stop motion like in the 80s rather than opting to go with CGI. A little talky in parts and the intertwining concepts of Beetlejuice's ex-wife hunting him down, him again wanting to marry Winona, Winona's manager wanting to marry her for money, the teen boy murderer ghost wanting to steal Winona's daughter's soul... It didn't need to be this complex, it would have been better to be simpler. Also the whole bit about Jeffrey Jones' character getting killed just before the start of the movie by a shark after his plane crashed only for the writers to kind of put his character still in the movie through animation, stop motion claymation, voice over acting, photos on a tombstone... I know they didn't want him in the movie...he's persona non grata after the whole pedophilia thing, but I hope they paid him nevertheless and got his permission, otherwise they're going to go down the route Zemeckis went with Back to the Future II and Crispin Glover.
After the movie it was a quick drive an exit or two up I-4 to the condo hotel resort.
Here's a look at the condo hotel suite. Yes the 90s live on here.
So last time I came to Orlando and went to see Sweeney Todd then stayed at that Hilton Resort and went to SeaWorld, that first night I bought food items to enjoy a little homage dinner to the show I had just seen. So I decided to kind of do the same thing here. I stopped over at the Williamsburg Publix and got a small shrimp cocktail platter harkening back to the first movie and the famous shrimp cocktail scene, also, some assorted candy to symbolize Halloween and I got some Creme de Coconut for Pina Coladas since I was going to make them instead of Banana Daiquiri's (the banana being the "tally me bananas" in the "Day-O" song from the original film) but I also bought a six of Guinness and only drank a couple of them each night rather than go through the trouble of mixing up Pina Coladas. Yes I'm still on the "pretty much two drinks and I'm good" kick, even on vacation.
Tuesday morning I got to SeaWorld around 11:00 and had pretty good energy even though I had little sleep. It wasn't for lack of comfort, the room was very quiet and the bed was extremely comfortable. My only slight gripe was the fact that even though the central AC kept the place nice and chill, there were no fans, ceiling or otherwise, so the air was kind of still. I had skipped a few afternoon doses of Gabby this weekend by accident so maybe my Gabby levels were low, who knows?
On my previous visits this year I had already seen the sea lion and dolphin shows so the only one left was what I headed straight for, the orca show, or as we used to call them back in my day, killer whales. Although, I got to say, their current show does have some video that explains some of the behavior of orcas in the wild including how orcas will gang up to encircle their sea lion prey on ice drifts and try to dislodge them using the tailfin technique that they now use in the stadium to splash the audience. As the close-up cam showed kids in the Splash Zone gleefully, for the most part, getting doused with whale toilet water, one kid was soaking wet from head to toe, his mother by his side laughing her head off, while he was bawling his head off. All I could think of is he understood the implication of the educational video and he thought that the whales would soon be munching on him as if he were some Pepperidge Farm Goldfish cracker.
After the show I glanced at some of the newer coasters and even tried the test seat of the newest, Penguin Trek... Diagnosis: they had to squeeze these coasters into this relatively small park somehow. I can tell you how... They made sure fat people wouldn't be able to fit on them.
But I rode Journey to Atlantis with no problem and got nicely wet on a hot day riding behind two little kids who we're having a blast on their first ride of this fantastic part flume part roller coaster icon of SeaWorld. It's always nice to see that the grin on my face, one of awe and familiarity with the joys of this ride after countless times on it over multiple decades, is matched by the grins of others who are becoming acquainted with its fascination for the very first time.
And achievement of all achievements, on a lark, I thought I'd give the test seat to Kraken a try. With the helpful push-down of another park goer, I got the double seat belt clasped. It was a tight fit to be sure and it was the same on the ride itself, but it was oh so lovely to be in the throes of this wild creature of the deep blue sea whipping me through the air as she has done so many times in the past. Last time I rode Kraken, I think it was during that fiasco year of that absolutely dumb concept of putting virtual reality goggles on the ride, so it was great to ride my baby raw and bareback. And, a rarity indeed, totally sober.
But I'd take care of that soon enough. They do have one drink special at the park. At the good old Flamecraft Bar it's a buy one get one free premixed Frozen Strawberry Daiquiri or Pina Colada or blend them together for a Miami Vice if you like. I started with a daiquiri, went to a Pina Colada and realized that the last time I had a Miami Vice here at this park, it was this premixed Pina Colada that was the culprit of what made this really taste nasty. Luckily my bartender obliged me by swapping that out for a substitute of another strawberry daiquiri and after my two drinks I bid my farewell to the park and my fun day at SeaWorld.
