A few weeks ago, I told you something of our recent family vacation to Walt Disney World, in particular, the Epcot theme-park, which was the realization of a great dream of Walt Disney to have “someplace for the monorail to go.”
I am revisiting this topic to impart another important tip for travelers: You’re better off waiting in line.
Let’s say you’ve just waited thirty minutes in line only to find yourself actually walking up three flights of stairs to take yourself past two small rooms decorated to look like Tarzan’s home.
Understandably, your next move is to seek out a ride with no line.
Do not ride that ride. Believe me, there is a very good reason no one is standing in line for it. You may not know what that good reason is, yet, but trust me, there is definitely a good reason.
Think about it this way. Remember when DVDs first came out? This highly advanced video technology offered the chance to not only see movies, but to also see “bonus features.”
The most naughtily alluring of all these was the “deleted scenes.” Twitching with excitement, you arrow-keyed your way through the DVD menu and hit select to enter that forbidden realm.
Within minutes, in a moment of unparalleled mental clarity, you reached this startling epiphany:
“Oh. I can see why they deleted that.”
A Disney World ride with no line promises the exact same thing for you as deleted scenes. When you are done, you will be approximately three minutes closer to your death than you were when you started.
Don’t do it.
Time is not the only thing you have to lose. My family experienced the horror of a no-line ride first-hand. At the Imagination! pavilion in Epcot, we found a zero-minute wait-time attraction called Journey into Imagination. What we would see, hear, and experience over the next three minutes would scar us forever.
Here’s what happens once you are strapped into the ride-pod for Journey into Imagination: A conversation ensues between a purple dragon, called Figment, and an “imagination scientist,” played by a vaguely familiar English actor who obviously owed some very dangerous people some very large amount of money when he accepted this role. And when I am on vacation, I prefer not to be bummed out by thoughts like this.
On the ride, most of what you are forced to watch consists of foam-core poster board decorated with glitter and illuminated with black lights. In other words, it’s the equivalent of a ribbon-winning heavily-parent-assisted submission to your local junior high science fair.
Along the way, the pitiable English actor and Figment engage in a spate of strained dialogue. Then things get worse. Figment operates an “imagination device” and BLAM! – all riders are hit smack in the face with a unimaginable blast of skunk-smell.
The ride’s climax is just a rewarding. The lights go out. It is pitch black. There is a LOUD bang. A barrier drops down. Flood lights suddenly illuminate a scene containing – get this – a lot of foam-core poster-board and glitter.
I wanted to sue somebody.
Really.
I hadn’t even stepped outside of our ride-pod before I started to rant about how the skunk-smell blast could constitute an actionable battery.
And I still think I’m right. The yellow pages stocked in our Walt Disney World resort hotel room was curiously devoid of any ads by attorneys specializing in “theme-park indignancies” or “smell torts,” but I’m confident I have a plausible cause of action.
If you’re admitted to the Florida bar, and you want to work on a contingency, call me.
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