"Swish"bucklin': An Unfantastical Voyage into the Dinner/Theatre Realm

what the hell.

as a teacher, i'm pretty much screwed in terms of salary. granted, i make enough money to live comfortably on, but not nearly as much as i should for the work that i do. this is, in itself, an old (and rather cliche) argument, and one that i'm going to avoid (for the time being); the only reason i bring up teaching at all, dear readers, is because occasionally, while the Great Salary God might forsake us with terribly fury, the God of Random Discounts and Coupons seems to smile upon we poor, humble instructional heroes and heroines.

for the month of june, all teachers in orange and osceola county (and up to one guest!) recieved $10 tickets to the infamous 'pirates dinner adventure,' a staple in orlando's sprawling dinner-and-a-show industry that preys on tourists and idiots. shows like these generally cost $65 per adult, and you're given a lackluster meal, a corn-dog stage show of some sort, and limitless opportunities to buy worthless crap over the course of two, tourist-friendly hours.

for $10, though, we figured 'why the hell not.'

our first mistake in all of this was assuming that 'complimentary drinks' meant free beer. well, that was true and it wasn't true: 'complimentary drinks' meant you were allowed two free beers, but the server was allowed to bring you one before the show, and one an hour later following the meal. in both cases, the beer was stale, watered-down, and served in a plastic, 10 oz. 'mug.'

i'm a man of simple tastes, folks. it doesn't take much to impress me. i knew going into this whole, wretched affair that the show was going to be horrible, and that the food was going to be bland at best. it was my own ignorance, i guess, that led me to believe that, heck, for $65 you might actually receive 'complimentary drinks.'

with free beer, i need nothing else to enjoy an evening out with the missus.

i did not enjoy my free beer at pirates dinner adventure. it was awful. so was the service, so was the performance, so was the food. for the love of all that is holy, stay the hell away from this place. if you take away one, single, solitary thing from all of my idiotic ramblings, it is this one point of empirical wisdom from yours truly:

stay at home and avoid this attraction like the plague.

- brian