For decades of my life, I traveled the globe. In the early years, I had no money and ended up doing crazy things like sleeping in bus stations and on trains... eating questionable food... going to "unsafe" places. And I loved all of it. So many amazing memories and fun stories to tell. I could write a book.

As I got older, I had a little more money and wasn't the daredevil I had been when I was young and immortal. I started staying in hostels and cheap hotels. Started eating in better-quality places. Started planning more. It didn't make travel any less fun, but it was a different kind of experience.

Then I started taking my mom on vacations, which felt like another world entirely. Nicer hotels. Nicer restaurants. Only safe, organized travel. It was still loads of fun. And though I still took trips on my own which had tighter budgets and were more adventurous, I was totally "playing it safe" compared to the travels I went on in my 20's and 30's.

Though there's still a part of me that has a deep desire to do something crazy out in the world.

And every once in a while I catch a travel video that has me thinking "How cool would THAT be??" Like this one...

Back in the day, I would have ignored my fear of heights and loved to do something like this. Except I probably couldn't have afforded to hire a guide and all paid for all the expenses that go into it. Which is why I never did something like this.

Now I could save the money to go, but am not in nearly good enough shape to make the hike. I'd have to hire two guides so they could drag me up the mountain.

Maybe something like this is more my speed?

Or maybe I've had enough adventure travel and staying at home is my ultimate vacation? It has been awful nice to not be haning around airports all the time and sleeping in my own bed.

So... probably.

I've been seeing a crazy number of YouTube videos about "Disney Adults." Most always in negative terms... IT'S A CULT! and DISNEY ADULTS ARE STEALING THE DISNEY PARKS FROM CHILDREN! and THESE PEOPLE VOTE! or whatever. To support their thesis, content creators are forever churning out these "in-depth analysis" videos which tries to apply psychology and scientific concepts to the idea that adult fans of Disney are delusional cultish freaks who need to be put down for the good of society. Rude!

I don't mind being called a "Disney Adult." There's nothing wrong with being an adult Disney fan. There's fun Disney things to be had as an adult (and some things definitely not to be had).

What I do mind is being accused of being in a "cult." Something that recently happened in the comments on my cruise post. Which I didn't read until Christmas Day. So Merry fucking Christmas to me.

I'm a massive geek for architecture and design of public spaces. Theme parks are a great expression of both, and I had dreams of becoming a Disney "Imagineer" for ages because of it. Studying how the attractions are made is actually more interesting to me than the attractions themselves. This lead to me having a consulting job piggybacked on Disney in Orlando for several years, and I ended up with friends there. Which is why I end up at Disney World so often, and spend time at their parks, resorts, ships, and whatever. At first it was a place to meet up with friends after work. Then, once my work there ended, it was to hang out with friends I met there. — If I had worked with Betty Crocker, I'd have been in Minnesota all the time and posting about the cakes I was eating while working or hanging out with my friends. But it wasn't Betty Crocker, it was Disney... so I'm in a cult?

I'm a graphic designer who's a huge fan of art, in general, and animation, specifically (there was a time I wanted to be an animator before it all went computer graphics). So, naturally, I watch all the Disney animated movies. But I also watch a ton of other animated stuff. Disney is such a small piece of what I'm interested in... but it's an important one (the news that Disney is toying with the idea of returning to hand-draw animated features definitely has me excited). And because of that... I'm in a cult?

As a fan of art, I have a lot of it hanging in my home. A chunk of it is Disney-related because that's where I've been so many times. I was there for work. I was there for the charity I worked with. I was there to meet up with the friends I made who live in the area. I was there three to five times a year for 17 years. I was given Disney art as gifts. I eventually ended up collecting prints by Disney-related artists like Dave Perillo and Jerrod Maruyama to remind me of my trips. But I also collect non-Disney prints by artists like Chris Ware and original comic book art by artists like Amanda Conner and Curt Swan which also hang in my home. I've also got art I bought from my travels around the world, but because Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is on my wall... I'm in a cult?

Because Disney is such a huge part of my childhood (and the years of work I had), I have a lot of Disney memorabilia displayed in my home. But I also have numerous other pieces of memorabilia from my life which has nothing to do with Disney that's on display. Concert programs, signed records, old tin signs, movie posters... not to mention hundreds of photos of my family friends from over the years. But because I framed the Disneyland map I got as a kid... I'm in a cult?

Alrighty then. Pass me the Kool-Aid, I guess...

The above is most of the souvenirs I have from my very first visit to Disneyland when I was ten years old. I kept it all these decades because my parents bought it for me and I couldn't throw it out. Some of what I had was in pretty rough shape, so I managed to find replacements on eBay in better condition...

You can click the photo to embiggen it... or click on this link right here.

The map, for example, hung in my bedroom for my entire childhood, getting faded and having the corners ripped out from the thumbtacks. It took me years to find a replacement. There's loads and loads of old Disneyland maps out there, but I wanted the one with Mickey, Goofy, and Donald dressed in 1776 fife & drum Americana, because that's what I had as a kid. Eventually eBay listed one from an estate sale and, once I bought it, I decided to get everything framed up. It's fun to look at as I walk into my home and remember back to that visit with my family. And it's interesting too. Because boy Disneyland sure was a very different place back then.

Still don't understand how any of this puts me into a cult.

Maybe I should watch more clickbait videos to find out for sure...

That last video is particularly hilarious, because her fucking SurfShark advertisement is more cringe than anything she's presenting as "cringe" in her "takedown"...

But anyway...

Do I think Disney Adults exist which are problematic? Oh hell yes. I run across them every time I'm anywhere Disney-related. Usually they are "social media influencers" and that's what makes them problematic. It's not that they love Disney, it's that they intrude on other people who are just there to have fun. They hold up lines and block traffic to get a selfie or shoot a video. They take over spaces and experience just to get likes at the expense of other people who are trying to enjoy themselves. People who likely spent a considerable amount of money to be there. It's annoying as hell, and dunking on these assholes is justifiable.

And, sure, there actually are people who build their lives around all things Disney and their entire existence revolves around their next trip to Disney World (or Disney-wherever). And good for them. People should be allowed to follow their bliss, be happy, and escape from the horrors of the world doing whatever is going to make life bearable. You do you. It doesn't affect anybody else. Spend the money you have and the time you have however you want.

Because, I gotta say, there are people building their lives around far worse things than Mickey Mouse.

Like spending their time trashing people who are enjoying their best life at zero cost to others as an "influencer.".

Today I was driving back home from my holiday across the mountains when I got a phone call that was a punch in the gut so unexpected that I had to pull off the road because driving a car became a foreign concept in my head.

And then, after ten minutes to mostly get my head on straight, I was off again...

Because this is the only major East-West route left across the state (flooding destroyed the other one) and it snowed last night, there was major congestion in places... which meant that a 2-1/2 hour trip took 3-1/2 hours to complete.

But at the end when I finally walked through the door to my home, the trip was worth it because it wasn't just Jake waiting for me... both Jake AND Jenny were waiting for me. Which is strange, because Jenny usually prefers to make sure it's safe before venturing downstairs when anybody walks in the house. Including me.

It was a repeat of when I got back from Florida...

...except this time I really needed it.

Not sure if it's in the news where you live, but my home state of Washington is in a bit of a serious pickle. Instead of precipitation taking the form of fluffy snow like we used to always get this time of year, it's instead coming down as rain. Way too much rain.

We've got serious flooding going on, and it's been so bad that sections of a vital East/West roadway via Highway 2 over the mountains has washed away. It's pretty bad, and I don't know if they will be able to reopen it for months. Which is to say that it may not reopen until Spring, at the earliest.

And now we have one route left that's feasible... assuming you don't want to add 5+ hours to your journey by traveling South through the Columbia Basin, then West over to Portland, then North again to Puget Sound. And since I am assuming that's not time you have to waste, it's just the I-90 corridor that's viable. And heaven only knows what happens if that gets shut down.

I guess those of us East of the Cascade Mountains have to do what they did in pioneer times, and just hunker down for Winter and accept that Seattle is not accessible.

Or, you know, hop on a plane.

Something I haven't done in years and years because I was usually only doing that if I was connecting to a flight out of Seattle. But the connections have gone from bad... to worse... to abysmal, and so there's no real incentive given the additional cost.

Somebody really, really needs to invent transporters like they have on Star Trek so I'm not having to come up with worst-case scenarios so close to bedtime.

Your Disney adventure with me is not over just yet... because a very special, all new, all Disney Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Remy 2D! One of the attractions I was sure to ride was Remy's Ratatouille Adventure at the France Pavilion in Epcot. I've always liked it as a clever and fun ride that finally gave World Showcase an E-Ticket ride. Recently they took out the need for 3D glasses, and I wanted to see if it's as good. It isn't. The 3D immersion was very well done. It wasn't a gimmick, it really added to the attraction's experience. Now it's just looking at a flatter, less interesting visual on screens. Not only that, but it's more blurry... especially at the beginning. I wish they hadn't downgraded it, but I can see how it would be better for people who are missing an eye or have very poor eyesight since they won't need to wear 3D glasses over their regular glasses. I just wish that the ride was in 3D most of the time, but had a few 2D showings for people who need that.

   
• Track 3! Another attraction which got downgraded? Test Track. They tore out a lot of the ride to "update" them, but it's just not as fun and doesn't really make much sense now. On top of that, the very end has been completely redone where you drive through a very large domed screen showing the future of automobiles, which feels like an abrupt end to a ride that's been gutted. It's a bizarre choice, and kinda undercuts what made the attraction such a classic.

   
• Together! Not really an upgrade or a downgrade, the new Zootopia: Better Together ride which replaced A Bug's Life: It's Tough to Be a Bug in Animal Kingdom feels like a sidegrade. It seems like they just re-skinned the bugs into Zootopia characters and called it a day. Even though I really like both Zootopia movies, I'd probably give the edge to It's Tough to Be a Bug because it was an original instead of a re-theme and wasn't aging poorly at all. I suppose Disney probably did it do to the popularity of the newer films more than anything else.

   
• RoboLincoln! I haven't been to Disneyland since they installed the Walt Disney animatronic. Which is to say that I haven't seen it in person, only in photos. And every time I'm thinking two things... 1) This does not look like Walt Disney... and 2) I wonder what he looks like with all his skin removed? Because I've seen photos of other animatronics, and they always look so clunky. I was reminded of this when I saw Abe Lincoln while at Disney World...

And it's like... does a modern animatronic look like this underneath? I sure hope not. This is totally giving FemBot vibes...

Remember in The Bionic Woman where they suspected Oscar Goldman was a fembot so they dropped that pencil and Oscar stepped on it and crushed it and you were like "ZOMFG! OSCAR GOLDMAN IS A FEMBOT!!!" and your mind was blown because you thought fembots could only be lady robots and here we are with a man robot?? Yeah. Good times. I don't know why they can't successfully reboot The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. Such a great concept.

   
• Immersive! There's a lot of tossing around of the word "immersive" when it comes to theme parks. Disney used to be the absolute master of this. But that hasn't been true in a minute. Probably since Animal Kingdom opened. That was the last time that there was a coherent vision behind a project that wasn't just shitting out IP everywhere, even when it makes no sense. For example... just look at this sign for bathrooms that Animal Kingdom has...

It's brilliant. Everything from how they say it to how they write it (you can still see the guides they drew before painting the words!) looks like it belongs in an authentic setting. They could have just put up a regular "bathrooms" sign, but they wanted to maintain an illusion, so they did something to make that happen. Now-a-days Disney just slaps one of their characters on a sign and calls it good. No effort to build a narrative or show any imagination... just put Mickey on it and you're done. It's really sad.

   
• Hamm! To end this post, I want to point out that the Toy Story section of Disney Hollywood Studios puts out a giant Hamm frosted sugar cookie for decoration for the holidays...

This is so cute that they really should have many, many more characters as sugar-cookies for the holidays!

   
And, just like that, your Disney adventure is over just like mine!

Breakfast on the ship for my group was 6:45. Fortunately I didn't stay up late, so it wasn't a big deal. My suitcase was packed yesterday, so I pretty much just had my small backpack and a bag of souvenir mugs I bought.

And then there was disembarking the ship.

In all the many years of cruising with my mom, I have never experiences a total cluster-fuck like I did this morning on the Disney Wish. It was mind-boggling how there was no organization... no direction... and no crew members knowing what the heck to do. Somebody mentioned that they usually don't experience such a large number of people getting off the ship at the same time and didn't anticipate the mess we were in. And I'm like "shouldn't you though?"

Eventually disembarkation was acheived and I was ready to... GO BACK TO WALT DISNEY WORLD!

Just for a day. Because I never want to risk flying in or out on the same day I'm embarking or disembarking a cruise.

And here's where I am going to rant on Disney a bit.

As I mentioned, I bought some souvenir mugs at some of the Disney restaurants I ate at (including that very cool mug for my $46 drink at Beak and Barrel!). I thought it would be no big deal to go to the gift shop of my hotel, Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort, and have them mail the mugs home.

I was told "no."

But why?

Because the mugs were in a food environment.

But no food was ever in them! No drink was ever in them! They give you a freshly-boxed mug that's never been anywhere near food!

Doesn't matter. Open food was in the vicinity, and we can't insure products that come from a place that serves food.

Good Lord what a stupid fucking rule.

This meant I had to take an Über to a UPS Pack-and-Ship in order to send my mugs home (which is cheaper than purchasing an extra suitcase and checking one of my bags). And so... I cushioned the mug boxes the best I could with dirty clothes, handed it over to the UPS employee, and hoped for the best. Guess I'll know if my pricey souvenirs arrive in one piece in a week.

From there I Übered back to my hotel in order to ride the Skyliner to Epcot.

And here's where I am going to praise Disney a bit.

I mentioned to a cast member at guest services how we were rained out the last time it was an Epcot day, and all our Lightning Lanes were canceled. The cast member said "No problem!" then looked up the tickets and gave all three of them back! This was completely unexpected. And a nice surprise.

The only ride where I was standing in a long line was Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, but it's worth it because it's the best ride that Disney has. Something Epcot desperately needs, because the number of great rides there is pretty small. I'll save my attraction thoughts for Bullet Sunday.

But anyway... in-between rides it was mostly time to wander through the shops of World showcase where, oddly enough, I didn't actually end up buying anything. I was sorely tempted by the Sanrio potato chips at the Japan Pavillion...

They had Guedetama chips, which are salted egg yolk flavor (Gudetama being a very popular Sanrio character because he's just a tired egg yolk who is apathetic about the world around him)...

There was also Aggretsuko chips, which are pink salt flavor (Aggretsuko is a combination of "Aggressive Retsuko," another popular Sanrio character which is a red panda that has a normal life... except she can explode with rage when stressed out about the world around her, which is often)...

I swear that I was totally wanting to go all Aggretsuko when Disney wouldn't ship the mugs that they sold me!

Dinner was at the Nine Dragons restaurant in the China Pavillion. It was good food, as expected. What was not expected was the horrific mess that a table near ours left. These photos were taken as the table was being cleaned and don't even show the disaster it was before they started trying to clean up...

Yes, they had some kids at the table... but my God... I would have been mortified to leave such a mess! If this is how your kids eat, maybe feed them directly instead of giving them access to food? Or, at the very least, attempt to clean up the mess you made so that the workers don't have to deal with all this. I hope they tipped an extra $100.

And then it was time to ride the Skyliner back to the hotel. At which time fireworks were going off out the window...

What a lucky break! Quite a nice end to the night, actually.

And now it's time to say good bye to all things Disney, as I have to be up at 4:30am so I can get to the airport in time for my 7:00am flight back home.

When I was going on cruises all the time with my mom, I always picked the itineraries with the least amount of "sea days" because I much preferred to be doing cool stuff at the ports around the world instead of hanging around on a big boat all day with =shudder= loads of people.

But sea days are unavoidable, mostly, because port landings are an expensive ordeal for the cruise line. And Disney is no different (even though they owned the two ports this Very Merrytime Christmas cruise landed at). Ideally, you wouldn't have a sea day the last day of the cruise, but here we are.

My plan for the day was to relax and eat, since that was all that's really available that I wanted to do. I must say, I did a pretty good job of meeting my goals. Except I did have one moment of stress when I noticed that the garbage hole and the tea caddy didn't line up. Why wouldn't they split the difference and line them up?

It very nearly made me want to jump overboard, but it wouldn't have worked because the worst that would happen if I leapt from my cabin's veranda was that I'd break a leg...

I did do two things today, however. First of all, I packed my suitcase so it could be picked up and delivered to the cruise terminal (so I wouldn't be dragging it around at breakfast). And second of all, I watched the final live theater show, and adaptation of Aladdin (which was the best show of the cruise, in my humble opinion).

Other than that? Eat and drink mostly...

Disney has my favorite food than any other cruise line because it's geared for families with kids... and I eat like a kid. The Disney Wish has a "Mickey & Friends Festival of Foods" with various staple food stalls like Goofy's Grill for hamburgers and hotdogs, Donald's Cantina for tacos and burritos, Mickey’s Smokestack Barbecue for barbecue, Daisy’s Pizza Pies for pizza, and Sweet Minnie’s Ice Cream for soft serve bowls and cones. All of it great and all of it offering vegetarian options (the grill has vegetarian hamburgers and hotdogs, which was a pleasant surprise!).

The worst part of an all-inclusive cruise like this with unlimited food is that there's an insane amount of food waste. Because it's all included, people will order massive amounts of food, then just pick around all of it and leave the remainder to be cleaned off and thrown away. Incredibly wasteful. Happens at dinner too. People will order multiple entrees to "try them" but not actually eat them all. Drives me crazy.

Dinner in tonight's rotational dining was at 1923, which is the fanciest of the onboard restaurants on The Wish. I asked if I could have a kid's menu so I can frame it because it features Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, one of my most favorite Disney characters...

I had a great meal and even greater dessert...

The towel sculpture creature on my bed tonight was... a crab?? I'm guessing...

And there you have it, my final night onboard. It all blew by way too quickly. Now I'd better get what little sleep I can manage.

Today's port adventure was Disney's second private playground, Lighthouse Cay. I'm guessing they had to build a second one because they are adding a bunch of new ships to their fleet, and didn't have enough days available at Castaway Cay to service them all. Our cruise director told us that this Very Merrytime Christmas Cruise was rare because it stops at both places. Since I'd only ever been to Castaway, I was interested in seeing what Disney had going on at the new port adventure.

What's different about Lighthouse Cay is that there's a long, long walk from the ship to the shore...

They did this to protect the coral and wildlife in the area.

Then once you get to shore, you're immediately greeted by luxury cabanas available to people who want to pay hundreds of dollars to have their own private retreat and beach. For everybody else, you take a tram to the other side of the island.

The design of Lighthouse Cay is very much Caribbean-inspired with bright colors and festive art everywhere...

The weather was very much improved from previous days, which made for a nice time to have drinks on the adults-only beach...

After lunch I realized I had forgot my sunscreen and was getting pretty red. So it was time to head back to the ship...

One thing I had never done at sea was a waterslide, and The Wish has an "AquaMouse" that went around the ship's upper decks. Not as cleverly named as the "AquaDuck" that's on the Disney Dream and Disney Fantasy, but it was still pretty clever, with a story you watch as you climb up the tube for the slide down...

Unfortunately they don't allow cameras in the tube, so I wasn't able to video the experience. Instead I went to the adults-only upper deck and grabbed a drink from the Cove Bar so I could air-dry...

Dinner was at Arendelle again, but there wasn't any performances because it was Pirate Night. There also wasn't a show in the theater for some reason (the first day was some kind of Goofy stage show, the second was a weird re-telling of The Little Mermaid stage show which made no sense, and tomorrow is an adaptation of Aladdin). Instead it was movie-time, where everybody could watch Zootopia 2 which is just as entertaining as the first one. I'm fairly certain that this will be another billion-dollar blockbuster for Disney.

After the movie, the ship was eerily lacking in people. I guess most people have kids and are off to bed with them...

Tonights towel sculpture is an octopus? I think?

It's gotta be some kind of sea creature. Or maybe it's the head of one of the cursed pirates from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

Anyway... tomorrow is a day at sea as we head back to Florida.

Welcome to landfall!

This morning the ship docked at Disney's Castaway Cay, their private island which has all kinds of activities scattered about.

It's well-themed with Disney touches, which is the entire reason for going, I suppose...

Looking back at the ship, you can see that it was overcast the entire day, but never rained...

Before dinner it was time for a visit to Star Wars Hyperspace Lounge for drinks. Honestly, I thought it was going to be very tough to get in, but it actually wasn't. No wait at all. And only a short wait other times I popped in to see what's going on...

The interior feels very Star Wars, and that gives it a leg-up on the very similar Epcot lounge/restaurant, Space 220, which was nice enough but a bit of a letdown. The bar has a large "window" behind it which alternates between various planets, ships, and the like...

The big deal about the place is their bubble gun, which is used on some of the drinks they offer...

The rotational dining restaurant tonight was "Arendelle: A Frozen Dining Adventure" which features a live show built around the engagement of Anna and Kristof, but Elsa was there too...

As was Olaf, who is hilariously dragged around the restaurant on a serving cart along with shopkeeper Oaken. The robot snowman is slyly controlled by the cart-pusher who twists various knobs concealed as a pepper grinder and such...

And tonight's bed sculpture is a penguin...

At least I think that's what it is? Maybe a penguin in a blanket?

Today's the day! The real reason I'm here in Florida!

But not so fast, because it was essential to start the day with Tonga Toast at Disney's Polynesian Resort.

It's sublimely delicious... made with a thick piece of Sourdough French Toast which has been filled with sliced bananas then covered in sugar and cinnamon...

Then it was time for a Very Merrytime Cruise aboard the Disney Wish!

Some background...

I have cruised with Disney three times before... twice with my mom because she loved cruises. But they were their original two ships, The Magic and The Wonder, which are much smaller than The Wish. And less crowded. This is my second Christmas cruise, which Disney does very well...

Fast-forwarding to the most exciting thing on this first day, I happened across some paintings which I thought were by one of my favorite contemporary artists, Kehinde Wiley (probably most famous to many as the artist behind President Obama's portrait)...

But they were not. The biggest clue being that they were relatively small, and Wiley paintings are mostly quite large. And the cool patterns that Wiley adds to his works were absent. But even so, it was thrilling for a second to think that I got to see Kehinde Wiley's works by accident instead of flying to an exhibition somewhere!

More excitement was to be had at my first night of rotational dining at the Worlds of Marvel restaurant, featuring Ant-Man and The Wasp...

Like most of the Disney restaurants, there's cool stuff going on while you eat. In this case there's a "demonstration" of the technology playing on the screens which goes very, very wrong... and requires some help of other Marvel heroes to resolve.

Interesting that the "towel sculpture" on Disney cruises is not with towels any more, it's with the cover that goes along the foot of the bed. Tonight it was a turtle...

And tommorrow it's land-ho.