dandaman

^^ I wanted to do the indoor mini-golf for something to do, but CAA (Canadian AAA, seriously) gave us vouchers for random stuff in Disney, a buy-one-get-one for one round among them. Funny about Festival Bay though! Dan "Never been to Sonic, but I do have a thing for 50's diners so I'm surprised I haven't!" Smith P.S. Oh, yeah... Magic Kingdom coming up shortly, as soon as I resize everything and come up with captions.

I'm 6'2", very thin and as a result, very easily bruised. I get the wonderful distinction of having my entire upper body as well as knees tormented on every single ride at CW save for Behemoth. Head: Flight Deck, Time Warp, Dragon Fire, Bat Neck: Both Arrows Shoulders: Both Arrows (OTSR's are not Dan-friendly) Knees: The Bat (Seriously, I hobbled for the next two hours.) Back: Vortex (My lankiness makes my spine bash against the fibreglass like it's a Bale family reunion.) Absolutely Everywhere: Wild Beast, Minebuster

Hey all! Just got back from another great Walt Disney World vacation, complete with free dining, tropical storm action, and three full days at Epcot! Our main intent was to drop my sister back off at college in the Tampa-St. Pete area, but this was also supposed to be regarding my college choice for next year as well. Unfortunately, both of my prospective schools (Florida Tech in Melbourne and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical in Daytona) were essentially under about a foot of water and above on our scheduled tour dates earlier in the trip. Disappointing obviously, but the irony is that I want to major in meteorology, so it's all good. I'll probably get the chance to go back in October or thereabouts, to boot! Anyway, after the long-winded opening paragraph comes an even longer prelude extravaganza of stuff around Orlando in the first few days of our visit. Because of our tour cancellations, we basically just toted around the Orlando area for a couple of days, so the aforementioned WDW pics will most certainly appear tomorrow afternoon. (I do have a job, folks.) So, without further adieu or complaints, I present to you in amazing RectangleVision format, the Dan Smith tourist extravaganza! "To the Mousemobile!" And, as for me, to bed. Catch up with y'all tomorrow afternoon. First stop, the Magic Kingdom! They were even giving away free stuff to everyone on the links! Considering everything that had gone wrong the past few days, Disney made up for it in the first hour on property! Sweet zombie Jesus! I actually somehow managed to kick a tropical storm's ass at mini-golf! That's like on page one of the Tourist's Guide to Asskickery. Liked all the little signs with directions that never worked. Good Tower backside porn Does that really look like a dolphin, Disney? REALLY? Well, they've got the "Gardens" part down cold... but where's the golf?! The Fairways course (i.e. less whimsical stuff but a lot more challenging) was really cool. I got two hole-in-ones in a row! Despite that, it was seriously the toughest mini-golf course I've ever played. Our final prelude to Disney... well, it IS Disney! I haven't been mini-golfing in ages in the Orlando area, so I thought I'd give Fantasia Gardens a go. ..."Walt's Revenge" Seriously, Disney, enough with the direct-to-tourist-destination sequels! Finally some blue sky! (To be immediately replaced by more wicked rain/wind.) Word. If you don't continue reading this TR tomorrow, you are WAKKIE NU NU!!! ...One of my greatest investments of the entire trip. Special shout-out to the resident Delorean owner(s)! OK, so I went into this store just to look at all the overpriced (but official) souvenirs, but instead I found... Fun Spot didn't look very fun today, even from a shopping mall a mile away. Hidden Mickey trip credit #1! This was officially the home of the best/worst souvenir towel EVER! The Florida map wanted me to visit such exotic places as Olala, Cocoa Bach, Gaineville and, the Happiest Misspelling on Earth, Wali Dinsey World! (I so should have taken a picture.) The damage from Fay was worse than I thought... Alas, my only remaining Orlando park credit. Ain't it a laugh, Ain't it a treat, Hobnobbin' here, Among the elite? No lie, Robb, when I took this, Beggars at the Feast came on ten minutes later! The next day (Friday the 22nd, for the record), we find ourselves in front of Hotel Royal Plaza. We stayed here for the night because the roads seemed nigh impassable out on the Gulf Coast to get to our originally intended hotel... smack dab on the A1A outside Cocoa Beach. Combine that with a MouseSavers deal here and we're set. (The ironic part is, I haven't stayed here since one of the 2004 storms wrecked about 90% of the place!) Indeed we are! (As much as I love the Simpsons, I love BTTF with a passion rivalled perhaps only by Ryan and that one guy who hand-built an exact Delorean time machine replica.) From what I recall, we ate at Olive Garden this night. Minestrone soup + breadsticks = Italian awesomeness. I finally see a calming sight. (This is totally the first fake park credit!) I only kept this because it very accurately describes our descent into Orlando. Just our luck that Tropical Storm Fay was unleashing her worst yet on the central Florida area the same night of our intended landing. I'm quite surprised that we managed to land at ALL... I mean, I love wild rides as much as the next guy, but I was damned scared of those crosswinds when we dropped like a rock onto the runway!) It even comes complete with its own ghost ship! The lighting scattered over the clouds made the sky look remarkably like a glassy lake with mist rising all across. We open this vacation with a special preview of Soarin' over Detroit! (Polluted rivers, construction and mayoral corruption can now be enjoyed from high altitudes.)

We mail-order ourselves three king cakes every Mardi Gras. (My grandma's originally a Nola resident, so we're big Mardi Gras people.) So far we have a collection of at least 50 plastic cake babies... most pink... some gold... and one tye-dye! Dan "And 5 giant Tupperwares of official Mardi Gras parade merch to go around!" Smith

One of these things is not like the others... one of these things is a lanky Canadian in a bright-red bathing suit! Best part of the day besides ERT! It was like the coldest thing ever when the sun went below the horizon and riding the Toilet Bowl, but it totally rocked! That looks almost exactly like me riding an Arrow. For some reason I manage to get the full package of head-neck-shoulder-knee bashing. Awesome TR man. Congratulations on making us your first country credit! Dan "When a man tires of TPR, he is tired of life, for there is with TPR all that life can afford" Smith P.S. If I recall correctly, I rode with you on the Toilet Bowl, right? That was bloody hilarious.

^I'll pay for your BP meds if you keep posting as sensibly as you just did.

Could this be the beginnings of Jahan's personal "Picture A Day" video?

"...And John McCain has picked Sarah Palin, the Alaskan governor, as his running mate. Here's some things we've been able to find out about her: Her name is Sarah Palin." --Jay Leno

LOL! As soon as I saw the V for Vendetta-looking masks I knew it had to be Anonymous... it's about the only hilariously random thing that wasn't in the TR yet! Pictured: "Peaceful" Anonymous members loot from their own protest site.

True that. Been tracking it since last week and the NWS model looks like it'll affect places like Tallahassee more so than Gainesville, but as you well know, those rain bands can push winds something fierce. As for my hotel accommodations, we've actually switched them once again; we're now staying at Hotel Royal Plaza tonight (right near Downtown Disney) and heading out to Florida Tech/Melbourne/Floodtown U.S.A. in the morning. Ironically enough, the last time we stayed at Royal Plaza was just before one of the 2004 hurricanes (Charlie?) destroyed about 90% of the place!

Wonder if I can get a good picture of the eye when we fly over it today. How's Gainesville holding up so far, Erik? Apparently our hotel at Cocoa Beach is surrounded by about 2 feet of rainfall, so I'd really hope you have significantly less precip.

You just rendered all of Jer's hard work useless... congratulations.

LMAO at Tyler's dog face! "Wanna know how I got these scars? Neither do I."

^Actually it wasn't me who made that map... plus the results are from like 2003, but they do give a relatively accurate depiction by county.

I actually never liked poutine (gravy, even!) until I tried some at work one day, so I wouldn't even have had to ask for one in the States let alone anywhere. Nowadays I'm hooked on A&W "gravy/cheese/fries". Dan "Explaining poutine to Behemoth Bash people was like watching reactions to Beverly!" Smith

Usually when I hit the border I try switching my terminology; I've found that the same thing happens when you ask for a double-double at most places!

Awesomely epic TR. I can't believe you can do all this and still find yourself alive!

Oh, by the way, in regards to the soda-pop-Coke-carbonated sludge dealy, here's a map for U.S. residents to get a good representation of just how their county likes their drinks... Red: Obama Yellow: McCain Blue: PMW

^^ By the time they build the next Dragon Mountain addition, they'll all have been rescued and signed book deals! Also accurate for the reason that the deer will have to overtake the entire continent sometime within the next ten years... How do you think we feel over here? Literally as I'm typing this, the very same commercial is playing in the background behind me! Dan "Props for the new version, though!" Smith

^I gave it a 25% chance that our flight would be cancelled... which, like I said, our original one wasn't... but now that there's tornado warnings for Cocoa Beach, Melbourne et al. I'm a bit glad we decided to reschedule! Dan "OK, so secretly I wanted to be in the storm, but I'm glad for the rest of the family at least..." Smith

All right, technically the flight wasn't cancelled, but here's how it went down... Got up at 3:30 this morning, dressed, breakfast, etc... meanwhile my dad was here on the computer tracking just how close to Cocoa Beach Fay would come (see: very, apparently) when he got an e-mail saying that basically any Floridian flight could be rescheduled at no extra charge. "Hurricane Busters Insurance Policy", I think they called it. Anyway, because our Embry-Riddle tour was cancelled for tomorrow, we really didn't figure we'd be able to do much for the next two to three days as it was. (I'd be getting video footage of the entire storm, but I digress. ) So, at 4:00 in the morning, he decided to call up Spirit and change the flight. So now here I sit, about 60 hours before takeoff, moping around the house and doing absolutely nothing productive.

^That's awesome! Yeah, unfortunately like I said, our Wednesday tour was cancelled. Thankfully my dad took the initiative to rebook for Saturday. (We're touring Florida Tech in Melbourne the day before.) Well, gotta get at least one ounce of sleep, so good luck to all affected by Fay!

I'm actually (scheduled to be) flying down to Orlando in about 12 hours. As an armchair meteorologist, I've been tracking this since it was in front of Haiti... our flight is scheduled to land at 10 a.m. tomorrow in Orlando, but "subject to change" doesn't even begin to cover it. Of course, I'm currently reading the MSNBC article stating: "Many residents are worried as tourists catch the last flights out of town..." Flight delay potential aside, I'm actually pretty pumped for this storm. The irony is that I'm going down to tour a couple of schools on the Atlantic side, and I want to major in meteorology. Embry-Riddle in Daytona Beach closed campus and cancelled our tour for Wednesday because, quoting the e-mail, "The meteorologists on our campus have predicted that the Daytona area will be affected by Fay within the next 72 hours..." So here I sit, 12 hours before takeoff, ready for Fay to rock us all like... well, you know.

Yes! F&F Drift! Seriously the best arcade racing game I've ever played. Cameron and I tried finding one at Canada's Wonderland to no avail.

I see the "Big Bird Flu" scare is sweeping the nation once again. Awesome still, Erik. (I'm sorry, Cameron, but it honestly reminded me of Steve Irwin when you said, "Shark Infested Water?!" in the Waldameer dark ride. )