Escape

We just returned from three-and-a-half days spent taking the Young One (age 8) to Orlando.  What a blast.  We stayed at a hotel on the Universal Studios property and spent all our time at Universal's two theme parks and visiting the elaborate swimming pools at the other Universal hotels (if you stay at one Universal hotel, you stay at them all, more or less.) 

 We never made it to Disney and never missed it.  To my mind, the Universal atmosphere, while equally outrageously commercial, is more fun, partly because it clearly takes pleasure in its own fake-ness.  Universal has a sort of ironic, humorous self-awareness that Disney lacks.  (One of my favorite little bits:  the "Shrek Ye Olde Souvenir Shoppe" has the "pe" on "Shoppe" x-ed out.)  It's as if they keep saying, "All this is fake, we know it's fake, we love that it's fake, and we know you love it, too.  Now spend some (real) money."

The parks look great.  I liked the "Islands of Adventure" more than the original theme park -- just the design itself is so cool.  Each of the five "islands" is beautifully imagined, from a whimsical Dr. Seuss world to an edgy superhero land.  Sure, it's all an elaborate attempt to separate you from your money while inviting you to forget how privileged you are, but I was happy to enter the fantasy for a few days.  We ate a lot, got soaked on the water rides, and bounced around on the thrill rides (my favorites were the indoor, graphics-heavy coasters, particularly the Mummy and Spiderman.  They're full of fog and fire and unexpected sprays of water and 3-D monster attacks.)

Our hotel was a never-land on the theme of "1930s American ex-pats somewhere in the South Pacific" (or some such; like a fairy-tale version of Bali)-- all palm trees, ceiling fans, elephant fountains, bamboo furniture, and drinks full of rum, pineapple, cocoanut, mango, etc.  I loved sitting at the meandering pool and having Mai Tais delivered to my deck chair.

One of the big problems with theme parks is the interminable lines to wait in.  But with our handy-dandy Universal hotel room card, we got to enter the "express" lanes.  Our longest wait was about 15 minutes; most were five or fewer.  I felt a bit bad for the people left waiting in the regular lines, but I spend so much of my life as a regular-liner that it was fun to play at first-class for once.  If you're not a hotel guest, you can purchase an "Express" pass (they must be expensive, though, since I never saw a posted price). Still, If I ever go back to Universal, I'll buy a pass, expensive or not.  It was really worth it; we probably saved ourselves a total of five hours of waiting, maybe more.

The weather?  Great -- sunny, breezy, not humid.  It got hot in the midday sun, but there were always shady places to sit.  Or the pools.  When we left NYC, it was chilly and gray and rainy, so the Florida contrast was even nicer.

And what, besides a lot of food and alcohol, did I buy?  A skull mug (on sale; a bargain at $2.95) and a t-shirt that says "Thing 1" on the front and "Thing 2" on the back (the nicely-androgynous "Things" are from The Cat in the Hat).  All three of us bought "Thing" shirts and wore them with dark sunglasses, looking like perfect goofs and enjoying it.

So now it's back to work and real life, but fantasy was fun while it lasted.