As crazy as it sounds, we went to Disney World last month. I know, COVID!! When we bought the tickets and made all the reservations things were improving. We thought the only thing we would have to worry about were hurricanes. It’s amazing how much can change in three months but cancelling would mean we were out quite a chunk of change. So we bought masks and stocked up on hand sanitizer and we made plans on how we can be safe. I’m sure some folks are curious about our trip to Disney and Galaxy’s Edge so that’s what I’m here to talk about.
But, but COVID!!
Yes, the cases of covid and delta variant are rising and Florida, apparently, is one of the bad states. All but one of us were vaccinated; Bee isn’t eligible yet so we made sure she wore a mask most frequently. We have masks that breath well in the heat and I’ll be honest, it really wasn’t that bad. It only really sucked for pictures but if my 7 year old can do it without complaining, then so can I. Strange that a child complains less than most adults about masks.
Disney does enforce that masks are worn while indoors, in line and on all attractions. We wore our masks the majority of the time in the parks, even outdoors in the open air. In fact the only time we ever took them off is if we weren’t around a lot of people, or eating. Magic Kingdom seems to have the largest crowd. It’s the most difficult park to find sufficient open space to take the mask off, even for just a minute.
We are now beyond two weeks since we visited the last park and nobody is sick. I guess our precautions paid off.
Which Parks Did We Visit?
We planned for 5 days at the parks. However, our budget and scheduling only allowed for us to visit 4 parks. Epcot was our first park and our primary objective there was the World Showcase. We thought it would be fun to try different foods from each of the countries represented. About a third of the way through it occurred to me, I should be drying beer at each world, provided beer was available. A choice I should have made much sooner (and one I think I will do again).
We spent two days at the Magic Kingdom. It’s the bigger park and the one our daughter would enjoy the most. We splurged and did the “Be Our Guest” lunch in Belle’s castle. The food is pretty damn good and the atmosphere is great (despite the covid restrictions).
This was also my first time visiting Animal Kingdom. I’ll admit, I’m not terribly impressed. The Pandora section of the park is about the only thing worth visiting. We went on both rides which were OK. I’m not sure why the line for “Flight of the Avatar” is so long. I feel like this ride would be better as an actual rollercoaster. As it is, it’s essentially Soarin 2.0.
We didn’t go to Universal Studios this time, but we did go to Hollywood Studios; home of Galaxy’s Edge! More on that in Part 2.
I’ve been lazy. Actually I’ve been busy with a few real life things and I’ve been learning a new programming language. When I start something new like that, I get a little obsessed and I lose track of my other hobbies and activities. I’ve also been rebuilding my NAS server. I will write more about that stuff at a later time. My birthday was a month ago and I’ll be honest, I haven’t completed a Bad Idea Birthday Challenge this year and I don’t know if I will do one.
This suffered the most from my mental state as a result of the shutdowns. I did not make a lot of progress on many of my technical goals. I didn’t touch the Smart Things and Raspberry Pi integration. Honestly, I don’t know if I will get to it this year or not. I have a higher priority to update the Gift List web application I wrote. While I didn’t make a lot of coding progress on the gift list revamp, I have spent a bit of time designing the changes and making a list of updates and new features. I hope to begin this development immediately.
I’m setting my reading challenge goal to 15 with the hope that I will exceed it. Last year I was 40% away from finishing my 15th book so with a little more diligence I think I can easily meet the goal, and surpass it. The Dresden Files will, again, be the books that help me reach my goal. I’ve started book 11 so it’s possible I may catch up this year (there are now 18 books).
In 2020 I was supposed to complete a 15K at the Flying Pig. Obviously that was cancelled but that didn’t stop me from setting some new goals. I tried to run as often as possible to keep in good health. The doctors were telling me that one of the best methods for staying healthy amid the virus was to keep exercising. I improved my daily running distance to 5+ miles a day. On my push days I am exceeding 8 miles but I have not reached 9 miles yet (a 15K is approximately 9.3 miles).