JustMattHenry.com: gossip, life and humor

so when i was nine and hating my family at disney world, we stayed at the Fort Wilderness Camp ground. except we weren’t really camping. oh sure there were plenty of places to pitch a tent, or hook up your trailer and use communal bathrooms half a mile away, but our family opted to stay in their ultra luxurious mobile homes. and i have to say that was the absolute coolest thing about the trip. it’s like, let’s go to disney world and pretend to be poor! so fun. we would get up every morning, catch a bus to the ferry, then ferry across the big lake to the magic kingdom, passing Disney’s Contemporary Resort (the one the monorail goes through) and that was everything Disney to me: trailer, bus, boat, magic kingdom. every day. oh and Fort Wilderness had this awesome water park which is now bone dry and fenced off and not in use and that made me sad cause i really wanted to go back and see if it was as fun as i remember.

anyway, one of the most popular things to do at Fort Wilderness is to attend the Hoop De Doo Revue down at Pioneer Hall. and my parents tortured us into going way back then and so of course, mikey makes me go now.

this is my view during the whole show:

and the show was fun and word for word exactly as i had seen it 22 years ago and it looked like they used the exact same costumes. so we got drunk.

we drank beer from jars. just like poor people.

near the end of show, the cast passes out washboards so everyone can play along which would be fine if everyone had rythm–they were white, they didn’t–and wasn’t a child. so it was basically just chaos and loud and awful and here’s mikey playing along:

he kind of looks like he’s going to murder it. melodically, he did.

once we hopped the bus back to the Lodge, we bought some beer in plastic bottles and headed out to the pool (which was open 24 hours).

before i forget and move on to epcot, hollywood studios and typhoon lagoon…there was this ride in future land at the magic kingdom where you join Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story in battling aliens and monster androids.  like, you’re in your own two person buggy armed with two ray guns and you just shoot everything in sight.  way fun.  my score 721,500 points.  mikey’s was 127, 000.  just sayin’. and i wanted to post this picture because:

if you look closely, it looks like goofy is consoling Donald for some reason or another and mickey and minnie are playing Mean Girls off to the right giggling at him. i think they are making fun of him because he wasn’t wearing any pants. stupid duck.

alright so epcot.  i like epcot because even though it feels a bit dated, i still feel like i’m learning things.  plus, all the rides are slow and it’s like going through a museum but not walking.  it’s what being pushed around a museum in a wheelchair must feel like.  and i like it.

no, mikey, there’s no gym at epcot either. you won’t find one on the map.

we ate lunch at this very nice restaurant called The Reef and our table was right next to the big aquarium so we didn’t have to talk to each other at all and i just stared at all the fish going by. then a giant sea turtle came and laid down on the floor of the tank right by our table which was cute and creepy because, yeah, he’s cute but he didn’t look like the turtles in Finding Nemo and  i expect all sea life to resemble that found in Finding Nemo.

we ended up being in a lot of other people’s photos too. which is cool.

one of the things i appreciate about disney is their ‘fastpass’ ticket thing. where you go get your ticket for a ride that tells you when to come back and it basically holds your place in line while you go do other things. even though lines weren’t a huge problem while we were there, it was nice to have the option cause sometimes there was a ten or fifteen minute wait and with the fast pass you would just come back at your designated time and cut to the front. it worked almost every time. almost.

fast pass my ass. we were there for like four hours! for a ride that takes you through a mock test course for cars with the big thrill being racing down the track outside at 50-60 mph. uh, yeah, i was doing 90 for eight hours on my way down here. kind of a let down. and it messed up my hair.

after strolling around all those countries on the other half of epcot, we ferried over to Hollywood Studios which had three things worth mentioning:

1. mikey’s favorite ride of all time is the Tower of Terror. he talks about it at least once everyday. and i was led to believe that on this ride, you go through a spooky, haunted hotel, then the ride takes you up up up then drops you down like 200 feet. straight down. which is fine. i can do that. but what had really happened was this: not only does it drop you, but it takes you up again, and drops you, then takes you up again part way, then drops you, then takes you up again, and then up again, then drops you, then up again, and then drops you. like a yo yo. i wanted to throw up. seriously. i may sound like a stick in the mud, but i can’t do yo yo-ing rides, spinning rides or moving rides that require 3D glasses. everything else i can do.

2. i could do Muppet Vision 3D because, yes, you wear glasses, but you are seated firmly on the ground and not moving. i loved this movie because it featured Bean Bunny, one of the most under appreciated Muppets aside from Boober Fraggle, from Tale of the Bunny Picnic.  you may also remember him from A Muppet Christmas Carol as the bunny outside Scrooge’s window on Christmas Morning.

3.  one of the last rides we went on at Hollywood Studios was their slow moving movie ride that takes you through various scenes from some classic films like Alien, Wizard the Oz, and um, i don’t remember what else.   but what made this ride such a treat was our Asian tour guide who had the best/worst accent of anyone we met at Disney..  instead of saying ‘favorite’, he would say something like “dis is one of mai fay-rut movie.  maybe it is one o’ your fay-ruts too!”    i died.  i know it’s mean, but i died from laughter.  i couldn’t even look at him when we exited the ride.

hm.  i’ve gone on for quite some time now so perhaps we will continue with Typhoon Lagoon and another night at the magic kingdom early next week!