An Evening with the Masses

I'm not sure which one I hate more - crowds or traffic.  It's not that I'm claustrophobic or anything, either. . . I just can't stomach large groups of people all crammed together.  It tends to bring out the stupid in the masses, and so it's little wonder as I grow older I notice my mood exponentially souring in relation to the amount of people packed in around me.

Take this evening, for example.

Disney?  Christmas?  Surely NOTHING can go wrong.

We've been slowly but surely preparing for the Holidays this weekend ('cause, after all, it's after Halloween and all, and that's just how society rolls these days), and Kris felt it might be fun to take the girls out to Downtown Disney for the evening to check out the lights they have up.

Sounds pleasant enough so far, right?

Yeah.

Well, it turns out reaching the parking lot at Downtown Disney is equatable to dropping off a magic ring in a volcano with Sean Astin - it takes for-f***ing-ever, and most of it along the way just plain sucks.
 

Sure, it was Saturday night and all, and that is historically the absolute crappiest time of the week to visit there, but usually you don't start hitting Disney traffic until you're, oh, within eyesight of the parking lot.

We turned off the main road onto the drive that leads to Downtown Disney and were stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic for over half an hour.  Thirty minutes.  For a four or five minute drive.  It was excruciating.  I managed to keep my self sane by observing a young couple pushing a stroller along the sidewalk next to use.  We almost caught up with them a few times, but ultimately they left our vehicle - and all the other retarded cars sitting motionless in the street - in their dust and disappeared down the sidewalk.

Cowabunga.

As it turns out, the congestion of people on this particular evening was due to the geniuses at Disney deciding to build a series of parking garages along the main drive.  I guess I shouldn't be too shocked at this, really - that whole complex has been under construction since we first moved down here in 2007.  Whenever they unveil a new attraction there - usually a shop, restaurant or nightspot - it quickly fizzles out and they end up having to tear it down and rebuild something else.  In the eight years we've been down there, I don't think I've seen it once without some kind of temporary construction wall set up.

But holy shit was I not prepared for this.

Bring on the sheeple.

Downtown Disney no longer resembles Downtown Disney.  After weeks and weeks of sitting in traffic, Kris finally fought her way into a parking lot and found a parking space.  Minutes later, we were entering the West Side of the complex, where hordes of stupid tourists bottlenecked in the street.  Then, inexplicably, the road ceased and a wall rose up to block our way forward.  The torrent of multi-national bodies broke against it like some idiotic sea, gushing right or left with little direction from signage.

See those walls?  They're all over the Goddamn place now.

Imagine a labyrinth designed by a kid with Down's Syndrome and you kinda get what I'm talking about.

We wandered around like idiots for about ten minutes, trying to find our way over to the Marketplace section of Downtown Disney, where all the Christmas decorations were set up (as you'll recall, our whole reason for going out for the evening.)  In the end, Kris stumbled across Planet Hollywood and asked a doorman (or whatever they're called) for directions. and we were led down a series of walkways along the man-made pond the complex sits upon.

Imagine this here, but surrounded by temporary construction walls and swarming with idiots.

Long story short, after a few more weeks of trekking along the waterfront - dodging in and out of foreign tourists who don't know how to walk in public - we finally reached the Marketplace, and were finally able to take a deep breath and let our kids loose.

So here's some pictures from the rest of the evening.  I'm getting a drink.

In the Lego Store, letting the kids work themselves up into a frenzy.

Alayna plays with Legos occasionally, but Abby's the one who's obsessed with them - specifically the Lego Friends sets.  She saw a Lego Friends Camper/Van/RV set we had to literally pry from her hands before leaving the store - she only put it down when we told her she could add it to her Christmas list.

Playing with mini-figures

A solid chunk of our evening at Downtown Disney was spent in that large, open area where they have water shooting up from the ground (in the Summer.)  At night they break out the club-ish lights and a DJ blasts obnoxious, shallow dance music.  Pure horribleness for someone like Yours Truly, but the kids took to it like straight-up crack.

Abby has turned into an all-out dancing fanatic.  Straight outta left field.  No idea who teaches her how to dance like she does.

Once they had danced some of their pent-up energy out of their system, Kris and I took them over to the Christmas store in order to smurf out some decorations for the tree.

(Pulled this off the ol' internet so you can see the inside of the store.)  The girls were hard to handle in a store like this, despite our 'look with your eyes, not with your hands' speech.  Not the most kid-friendly of spots.

Kris picked this up for me (as you'll remember, we buy each other an ornament every year for Christmas.)  I guess we've reached that point in our marriage after nearly ten years together where we just tell each other what we want and buy it.  The Haunted Mansion has always been one of our favorite attractions in Disney World (definitely in my top three.)

Of course, we had to put on a show for the kids, so I had to stand outside the store while Kris and the girls bought the ornament (you know, 'cause I didn't know at all what they were buying me.)  At least while I waited outside I got to people-watch tourists pose for an official Disney photographer in front of a giant Frozen mural.  I'm sure these night shots cost $19.95.

Chowin' down on some free Ghirardelli chocolates (Peppermint Bark. . . you know, 'cause it's Christmas.)  The girls had to hit that joint up on our way back through Marketplace.

They had a Santa set up nearby, but the line to sit on the dude's lap was ridiculous, so we picked up a couple of the cheap, Frozen sticker sheets/ornaments they were handing out for free in the line.  And, of course, snagged a picture with this handsome bloke.

Abby's flashing the Frozen ornament in her hand, there.  She was pretty proud of it.

Afterwards, we begun the not-quite-as-long-'cause-we-knew-where-we-were-going trek back to the West Side and our parking spot.

One last look at the clusterf*** that is Downtown Disney.

- Brian