Orlando 2008
by Wes Clark
I was at a business conference in Orlando, Florida in June 2008, and took the opportunity to check out some of the sights in the evenings. Naturally, I brought a camera.
I ate dinner at the Planet Hollywood restaurant at Downtown Disney. (It looks far better at night than during the day.) I thought Herbie the Love Bug juxtaposed with Georges Melies’ Man in the Moon was interesting. The evil cinematic doll Chuckie doesn’t look too terrifying. Were his looks toned down a bit for a family venue? Best of all the Hollywood artifacts on display for me, however, were the chariot wheel from Ben-Hur and Kenneth Branaugh’s coat from Henry V.
I also went to see Iron Man, which was playing at Downtown Disney; an excellent film. Along with the first Spider Man flick, it may be the best realization of a comic book character in a movie, ever. I posed with the Incredible Hulk in the foyer as I imagine did hundreds of others.
Being a Disney attraction, there are all sorts of fascinating things to see in Downtown Disney. Take the Lego store, for example. This can be seen behind the cash register. What are they? Hundreds of little Lego guys in great variety – how cool! More Lego. I also liked the Lego sea serpent.
There’s the big Disney store, of course. You have to go in there as it’s a part of the whole When-You-Wish-Upon-A-Star vibe of the place. It is singular that, thanks to the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Disney, the nation’s biggest producer of family media, has managed to make the sight of rotting, decomposed corpses common and presumably not scary for children. This is what greets you near one entrance. Even better, the corpses move and shake. Can you imagine that while Walt was alive?
Now, I like firemen as much as anyone, but I find this kind of thing incredibly mawkish. (I have long maintained that another reason to hate terrorists is that they’re responsible for tacky art like this.) People go nuts over Disney pins, but I find this new Baby Mickey design freakish. When I got home and loaded my photos onto the PC, my wife asked, “What’s this?” It’s something we should be grateful wasn’t around when our girls were little: the Bibbidy-Bobbity Salon, where little girls’ fashion needs are attended to by costumed princesses. I have to admit, as a marketing scheme to separate parents from their money, it’s brilliant. Evil, but brilliant.
Being a convulsive shutterbug I have to admit being pleased with Disney for putting up photo-op attractions like this. (There were also a couple of plaster princesses for girls.) These types of photos look good in a scrapbook. The other great thing about Downtown Disney is the liberal use of neon tubes. Here’s a sign I liked, above a store selling nothing but refrigerator magnets!
The following evening, I visited Universal’s CityWalk – an inferior attraction. (I did find some interesting artsy neon, however.) I ate at a colossal Hard Rock Cafe. I’ve noticed that the waiters there all affect a sort of casual, rock and roll informality, often sitting at your table while taking the order. I don’t mind (as long as the food and service are good), but I find it amusing that their studied informality is a part of their corporate culture. What happens if somebody works there and insists upon business dress and/or grooming? Would he be fired, for instance, for wearing a buttoned down collar and tie? Rock and Roll! Anyway, among their various bits of rock and roll arcana on display was this baroque trumpet. But it isn’t just any baroque trumpet, no. It’s the one played in that famous little instrumental break in the Beatles’ Penny Lane. I had seen it years ago in the Hard Rock in D.C.; it got moved to the store in Orlando, obviously. Also behind glass is a 1964 suit used by Paul McCartney on stage. My son is a Pink Floyd fan, so I had to include this photo of various Pink Floyd artifacts. The pink mask from The Wall movie is a bit obscene, frankly. (Would a waiter get fired for wearing one?) Rock and Roll!
One of the burning questions for me while in Orlando was how to see the fireworks display at the Magic Kingdom for free. I love fireworks, you see, and so it was an irresistible attraction. But pulling over on a road shoulder is just crass – and besides, Disney Orlando is huge, and filled with fireworks-obscuring trees and plantings alongside the roads. After some inquiries on the Internet I determined that I could park for free at one of the nearby Disney Magic Kingdom area resort hotels, so I chose the Polynesian, being a 1960’s tiki kind of guy, like my Dad. Everyone there greets you with a big “Aloha!” The Polynesian, like the other themed resort hotels, is amazingly designed and a real treat to see. At the Polynesian, I got a kick out of the funny tiki gods. (Tiki one, tiki two, tiki three, tiki four.) The Grand Floridian via monorail is aptly named. (Exterior shot from a monorail.) The lobby of the Wilderness Lodge is also epic; you find yourself just staring upwards. I have to give it to the Disney designers – they do great work.
The Disney transportation system is wonderfully efficient – and free! You can take a lagoon boat or a monorail to the Floridian, the Magic Kingdom, the Contemporary (found therein – I liked this design) or transfer to a monorail to circle Epcot. Or take another boat to the Wilderness Lodge. A pleasant way, in fact, to while away a few hours. I quite enjoyed it. Anyway, I discovered that the best place to see the fireworks was at the pier of the Floridian, where you catch the lagoon boat – or the pier or sandy “beach” of the Polynesian would be good, too. I got a few good shots of the fireworks (one, two, three), using the built-in “fireworks” setting on my little Nikon S200 point and shoot. Obviously a tripod would have been a good idea, but who wants to lug one of those? I put the camera on a log piling and tried to stabilize as best I could. One location I DON’T recommend is the pier of the Magic Kingdom – it’s way too close, too well-lit and too noisy. Get back to one of the resort hotels and see the fireworks in the sky reflected in the lagoon.
So… you can while away a few hours quite pleasantly for free on a photo safari touring the resort hotels, riding the lagoon boats and the monorail and watching the fireworks. The $3.08? That’s how much a Dole whipped pineapple soft serve costs at the Captain Cook café at the Polynesian. Mmmmm. Highly recommended. I also got away at the Victoria and Albert restaurant in the Grand Floridian for under $20 (French onion soup and a Caesar salad, plus a diet coke).