Por favor Mantegan Si Alejado de las Puertas (HOL 107)

HOL 107

I decided that when we went to Florida for Thanksgiving, Isaac and I were going to go to a theme park. No one with any sense would go with us knowing that all of the theme parks in central Florida would be at full capacity the day after Thanksgiving. I could not help myself. Isaac is at the perfect age, where a chance to meet Lightning McQueen, Spiderman, Brer Bear, or Darth Vader would not just be a photo-op with a sweaty teen in a filthy costume, but a chance for him to meet the heroes and villains from books, movies and his dreams in real life.

Saint Andrew (patron saint of theme parks) gave Isaac and I two parkhopper tickets to Disney. We drove down early Friday morning and hit Disney Studios right when it opened. It was not a good sign when I overheard one astonished cast member tell another, “I’ve never seen a line that long!” referring to ever growing queue for the Toy Story ride. Isaac and I got in line.

We waited and waited, but we were never bored. Isaac and I talked and looked at the scenery. He never once asked me to buy him anything or how much longer we were going to have to wait. It was easier than waiting in line with Nancy.

The boy and I had a blast on the new ride launching 3-D darts and pies at Buzz, Woody and the rest of Toy Story gang. We wandered down the street to the 3-D Muppetvision movie which was also a big hit with the boy. The crowd was really starting to get thick, so we retreated to the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground and Isaac found a slide made out of a giant roll of Kodak film (what the hell is film?) He climbed the hill and slid down the giant roll of film again and again. I started to round him up to leave, and realized, everywhere else in the park was going to be packed, and he was happy, and I was happy. Why bother?

We explored and ran around the playground until the Star Wars Jedi training show started. I had packed a light saber in my back pack just in case we saw Darth Vader. The show consists of pulling kids out of the audience, dressing them in Jedi robes, handing them a light saber, and giving them a chance to take a whack a guy in an extremely realistic Vader costume, while a Disney photographer snaps away. Isaac didn’t want to take part, but I did feel like Dad of the year with him sitting on my shoulder waving his light saber at the Darth Vader on stage. This went well until the bright red, horned, Darth Maul jumped down into the audience and wandered around sneering at tourists.

Isaac tapped me on the head and said, “Let’s go now!” He made sure he put the light saber away so Maul would not feel threatened. We then rode the flight simulator, Star Tours, which Isaac really enjoyed.

Our next stop was the Tower of Terror. We talked about what to expect in the creepy haunted tower while we waited in line. I kept reassuring him that it was going to be scary, but I would not let anything hurt him, and I would hold on to him tightly the whole time. I also promised after the ride, we would go and buy a Star Wars matchbox car. After 20 minutes in line, the little girl in front of us who had been listening to our conversation pulled her mom close and asked, “Are you going to hold on to ME while we ride?”.

The ride went well until the freefall portion. I looked over at Isaac and could see his leg trembling. My exact thoughts were,”He is either having a seizure or peeing himself, either way, I can’t stop this ride.” I told him to hold on, and that it would be just one more drop. When we arrived at the station, he had a glazed look on his face.

I told him, “It’s over. You did good.”

He shook his head a little bit and smiled.

We went to pick out his matchbox car and on the way to the store, we passed a photo op area with Mike Wazoski and James Sullivan from Monsters Inc. When I got to the display with the cars, I didn’t see Isaac anywhere. I immediately went into full on panic mode yelling at the top of my lungs “Isaac! Where are you?” I was so loud that people on the other side of busy open air plaza stopped and looked at me.

I was surprised how quickly I panicked. There was no gradual transition from mild concern to “Let’s stare at the crazy man.” I truly did not care if I looked like the biggest idiot in the world. Isaac had stopped just beyond my field of vision to watch Mike and Sully, but came running when he heard me call. When my heart rate settled back down, Isaac and I split a big bucket of Caramel corn and watched people. I felt sorry for the families who were clearly exhausted, but had an over eager parent forcing them to see everything, no matter how miserable everyone was.

There were Christmas decorations up already all over the park which made for some surreal sites like the blue Power Ranger posing in front of a Nativity Scene.

Isaac insisted on watching the Automobile stunt show, and then we drove over to The Kingdom to ride “Pirates”. Isaac has seen a Japanese copy of “Song of the South” and was excited to finally ride Splash Mountain. He made me pack rain ponchos, and I am glad that he did because it was so cold, that everything else in the park had an hour wait, except Splash Mountain, which you could walk right on.

We waited halfway through the line of Thunder Mountain and he said, “Dad, I’m tired, I want to go home.” We got out of line, and I asked if he wanted to do something else.
“Nope, I just want to go home”.

He was asleep before we officially left the Reedy Creek improvement district.

We had a remarkable day, which I will never forget. Hopefully next time, Darth Maul will be gone, and a shepherd will chase off the Power Ranger.

Strength and Honor,
Big Matt