An Update!

Oh yeah, it was bad news. I can't really talk a whole lot about it right now but oh boy, eventually I am gonna have some stories to tell. I still have a job but at what cost?

Thanks for the well-wishes <3

Also, crypto-bros need to go and jump into a live volcano and deserve to be publically ridiculed :)

Disney World trip!

I meant to write about this earlier but *waves hand* life stuff happened.

Anyway, last month I went to Disney World for the first time! I went to Disneyland Tokyo back in 2005 (so... nearly 20 years ago, which is a horrifying thought) but that is my entire experience with Disney theme parks. I'd never really considered it before – I'm not a huge Disney fan and had kind of figured it would not really have much I would be interested in.

But it turned out me and a friend have birthdays close together, so another friend suggested we go to Disney World for a week over them and I figured at the very least, I would have a fun time hanging out with friends! My bosses both said Disney World as an adult is a fun time too so...

I had a really really good time. And I was honestly genuinely impressed by it.

We stayed onsite since we were doing one day at each park, with a rest day in between. The Swan Hotel was lovely – just had a normal room with 2 queen beds for the four of us, and the room was significantly bigger than I had expected it to be – I'm used to there barely being enough room for the beds XD But yeah, really nice, great pool, close to the boardwalk.

At some point, people high up at Disney for the parks definitely went 'actually, everyone should be able to come and spend money here, and feel satisfied about doing so'. It's absolutely a capitalistic decision, do not get me wrong! But a company as big as Disney could easily have cut corners and half-assed things and still been pretty sure that people would visit the parks. But they didn't.

One thing I really noticed was the care taken with food. I had expected it to be very overpriced, low quality food. But it wasn't. They had food for every kind of budget and I did not have a bad meal while I was there. And I think a lot of that was due to each place doing a very small number of dishes. So, one place we went to at Animal Kingdom just did like... 4 or 5 BBQ things. One place just did chicken wings. The deli on the boardwalk did a small number of sandwiches and a couple of soups (and pastries). And doing that instead of having 100 items on every menu means they could focus on making the food actually good.

Also every food place had extremely clear information about allergens and options for dietary needs. I have never seen this much clarity and accomodation for stuff like that anywhere else.

Even the merchandise was... Look, I have been to theme parks and attractions before – usually the merch is extremely expensive while also being extremely poor quality. I was expecting the same - but no, it all seemed really good quality stuff. I got a Star Wars rebel pilot jacket for my niece (which she will get in a few years! She's only about 14 months old right now XD) and it's a really nice heavy duty canvas, really nice details, and while it wasn't cheap (it was about $70) it also was a pretty reasonable price for what I was getting.

I also got myself a small Figment dragon toy and again, it's really good quality, all embroidered details, and it was $24. Again, not cheap, but a reasonable price for a good quality product.

And oh my god the rides...

I am not a ride person normally! But I had a wonderful time - going on them with friends makes things much more fun. Thankfully one of my friends is familiar with Disney World so she knew what was good/how long it was worth queuing for to get on each ride which was a massive help. I did not feel like any ride was a disappointment for the amount of time I queued (and we had a massive stroke of luck for Space Mountain - it had been closed all day, and then opened just as we were walking past the door so we got straight onto it!).

As someone who has done theatre, and worked in games, and has an interest in this kind of design, I was so impressed by all the design work done on the rides and on the queues. You can see the evolution of them too – from the pretty standard 'here is a line you will stand in' to the absolutely incredible Rise of the Resistance ride.

Disney Imagineers are genuinely masters of their craft - the way they disguise queues, the way they theme them to keep people feeling part of the ride and keep it as interesting as a queue can be, the use of pulse rooms to make queues feel like they are constantly moving...

Rise of the Resistance was particularly incredible with this. There's a normal-ish queue you go into, where you're walking through various Star Wars styled places. Then you get to the first pulse room, where a big group of you are put into a room where you're given a 'mission briefing' from Rey and BB8. You're then moved onto a space shuttle (pulse room 2!) where animatronics and video have the story of you being captured by the First Order. I got on the shuttle and was genuinely expecting to get off the opposite side to just move to another hallway, but no, that thing moved and we went out of the same door.

Then you're put into more queue - but the conceit is that you're being processed for interrogation - the people manning the lines are all in character as First Order officers. Then you're put into a holding cell (pulse room 3!) where more actors 'break in' to rescue you, and put you onto the ride itself.

The ride has free roaming cars which can take several routes through a 'space ship' with videos, animatronics, real actors (I think?), until you eventually escape.

It was amazing. From a craft perspective, it was mind-blowing. So many rides where, even knowing that we were basically inside a giant warehouse, it genuinely never felt like that. Like of course Disney has frankly unconscionable amounts of money to throw at things, it was impressive.

The only real problem I had was the Florida heat XD And the fact that I probably should not have gone from 0 to walking 80km in under a week! I had so many blisters. If we go again, we're going in winter goddam.

I will try to post some photos but yeah, I had a great time!