Pokematic's Disney Christmas 2023 Adventure

Hello everyone, I just got back from a big trip to Disney World with my in-laws. Technically it was "moderately sized" because we only went to 2 of the parks, but since we live on the other side of the country every Disney World trip is a big trip. Mskate and her family left about a week prior to drive to a diabetes conference before the big event, and I had to fly just for the Micky's Christmas Party and other Disney festivities. I'll get to the fun events later, but first all the prepping. I bought many snacks for everyone to eat along the adventure, and they packed up most of them while I packed many others. We were also staying at the camp grounds where there was a camp fire thing and outdoor table, so we also brought some of our camping materials (mainly the table cloth and clips, and marshmallow sticks). Then since it was a 2 week trip for the in-laws I packed bags of powder laundry detergent so they could do laundry while we were there. For the week I was by myself I made my chili because I knew mskate doesn't really care for it. Just a simple at home time. Though there was something kind of crazy that happened, the Saturday before I left I had someone win an ebay auction I was running, and paying at 8:04 PM. This resulted in going to 2 different authorized USPS shipping locations trying to find someone that would still take it. I found someone though, so that was good because otherwise it would have had to wait until after the trip (or possibly finding someone in the airport).

Now it's time for the beginning of the adventure. I woke up at about 5AM Sunday morning with the car mostly packed already (just needing the last minute things like my mouth guard), and as I was vlogging my cold feelings I realized I forgot to get my mouth guard. Getting to the airport was nothing super crazy, but like with the New Mexico trip I found an abandoned luggage cart and loaded my carry on bag on it and wheeled it to security. .Unlike last time though I found the cart return and got my quarter. Yay. When I went through security my one bag got flagged, because we had a little smores making present for IRA and the tin set off the alarm. Thankfully no problem and it went through, so no harm no foul. I got to the terminal and started pulling out snacks. My breakfast consisted of Animal Crackers, Cheese Its, and Rice Crispy Treats; not very substantial but it got me through the trip (plus, I had a lot of snacks). The flight was pretty uneventful, though they did have to de-ice the wings (something that happened about 2 decades ago when I went to Disney as a child). I watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem and half of V for Vendetta. TMNT wasn't very good, I liked some of the things they did and I guess it is on brand considering the lingo from the 80s cartoon, but there was just too much "modern meme culture" for my liking (and I'm someone who likes memes). V for Vendetta was pretty good though, even though I only got to watch about half of it. I also was going to take video of the plane taking off and flying for creative commons uses, but unfortunately the people in my row were already against the window seat and I didn't feel like saying "please move, my ticket is for the window and I need to take creative commons video for my youtube channel." When I touched down in Orlando I wanted to explore the terminal some, but unfortunately with how it's laid out there wasn't much to explore, so I just went to the ride share place and got my uber. I did stop at the duty free shop to maybe pick up a couple dollar mini bottles of liquor (because I knew Disney would be super expensive and eventually I'd want a drink that week, and duty free is always kind of cool), but what normally costs $1 plus tax at the grocery store would have cost $5 tax free. I don't care what the tax rate on alcohol is, I know it's not 400%. While on the uber ride I did end up taking some video while driving that I'm uploading with creative commons attribution.

This video is uploaded with creative commons attribution, you can find the original video here (youtube rumble bitchute)

When we got to the resort the GPS took the driver to the bus entrance, which caused some problems in that we now had to drive around until we found the actual entrance. When I got there I was supposed to beat the in-laws there, drop off my suit case with bell services, and do my smashed penny exploration before they got there. Well they ended up beating me there and started getting the golf cart to drive around the resort (because everything is very spread out and the only way to get anywhere in a reasonable time is with the golf cart or internal bus). We were going to just go to the restaurant and get some lunch while we waited for the cabin to get ready, but I was the one driving and no one in the group was a good navigator, so we ended up going around the entire resort until we got back to the main lobby. Well by the time we made it back the cabin was ready, so we found the cabin and started unpacking. Mskate and I lived in the living room section on the pull out couch and the other in-laws were in the single bedroom. I unpacked my stuff into 3 drawers and made a little nook "mine." After the unpacking we found our way to the restaurant and shared a pizza. It was pretty good and had this fun box design.

With lunch over IRA and I went on the quest for the resort pressed pennies. With Disney celebrating their 100 years of animation there were special 100 year pennies available at various locations. I had gotten many on a previous trip and I just had about 15 left. The plan was to ride different modes of transportation from all the different locations, but I accidentally kept my pocket knife on me from when I was setting up the cabin, so I couldn't go on the transportations that require going through park security. Oh well, the busses still got me Pooh and Piglet, Pocahontas, Meilin, Raya, and Tiana and Naveen. After the adventuring we got back and unloaded. Now for dinner. We had hot dogs that we made at the cabin. We had a little charcoal park grill that I got all set-up, and then roasted using the marshmallow sticks we brought for the party since we didn't have any tin foil for the grill (and park grills are "never clean"). I did the cooking and all went well, and everyone else did the clean up.

After diner we went to the Contemporary Resort because everyone wanted to see the gingerbread house and decorations. This is when I made up for lost transportation fun. We rode the boat from the camp ground to Magic Kingdom, and then rode the monorail to the Contemporary. We did our viewing of the gingerbread house and the rest of the family did some shopping while I did pin trading at the various different shops and service desks at the resort. After they finished their shopping I saw them to the walking path while I waited for a bus to Hollywood Studios. Why'd I want to go to Hollywood Studios at 7PM without a park ticket? Because that's how I could get on the skyliner and ride that transportation. Then take the skyliner to one of the resorts on the rout, take the next bus to a park and then take the bus from the park back to Fort Wilderness. It was quite fun, please enjoy some video and pictures I took.

Then I just love this, it's a K9 unit for Disney security. I wonder if the K9's name is Pluto.

Now it is time for the first "Disney theme fun." We brought the marshmallow sticks because of the campfire sing along with Chip and Dale. The event is free and you can bring your own supplies, but if you don't have supplies Disney will provide them for what is likely an outrageous fee. Being prepared we brought our own. While many people were using the disposable wooden sticks, we were using our telescoping tongs with ergonomic grip, and since I'm quire familiar with proper roasting techniques having gone camping many times and growing up with a fire place in my childhood what we used quite often, I was showing everyone how it was done. One kid was having some trouble with his marshmallow catching on fire so I showed him where to put it. His dad was like "yeah he's the professional, just look at his equipment." The real fun started when Chip and Dale came out for the sing along. We were hoping to get pictures with them (specifically with the dog), but that wasn't part of their appearance (guess one needs a park ticket for that), but it was still fun dancing the Hokey Pokey with them.

Time for Monday, the start of the "real disney adventure." Monday is the day we were going to the Micky's Very Merry Christmas Party at Magic Kingdom from 4PM to midnight. That was going to be great, but it left us with about 8 hours of down time. What are we to do? We went to Disney Springs. IRA kept reminding me "don't bring your knife," and I didn't. The rest of the family really likes to go shopping, but not so much me. So while they were doing their shopping at all the big stores I did the Disney Springs Christmas Tree scavenger hunt. Throughout Disney springs there are various themed Christmas trees with corresponding stickers to line up on a map. If you line them all up, you get a button. I did them all and got myself and mskate a single button for our collection and IRA a button for his (2 total). This worked out quite well because, as I said, I don't really care for Disney shopping and IRA wouldn't have been patient enough to do the hunt even though he definitely would have wanted the button. At about the same time I finished the scavenger hunt they finished the shopping, and we decided to meet at Chicken Guy (the Guy Fiery restaurant). IRA likes the fried chicken, but I just wanted to try the sauces with fries. This time they had more than just ranch and mayonase based sauces, which was great because I don't like either of those. When we got back to the cabin I had one of my ramen bricks. Ramen is such a great hotel food, all you need is hot water and the ramen is very easy to transport, so it makes for a great travel meal. Here are some pictures and video from the scavenger hunt.

There was also this radio controlled talking tree, and it was saying things specific to the audience member it was talking to (like it said "oh you have one of those old school cameras" to me as I use using my camcorder). Pretty neat.

OK, now it's time for the main event, Micky's Very Merry Christmas Party. We drove our golf cart down to the boat dock, got on the boat, and road it to Magic Kingdom. We found our way to the line to get in and there was definitely a better way to queue us; we had to like circle back, stay to the left of the path to let the transportation people through but then cross over that path, things weren't very well defined with constantly having to be herded by cast members, and some other smaller things. Oh well, we eventually made it in and got our wrist bands. We were taken down an employees only corridor where we got our Christmas ornaments. We could have gotten our picture taken with the parade toy soldiers, but we don't care much for the parade characters and the line was kind of long, so definitely not worth it. Our first ride was the Jungle Cruise (or should I say "Jingle Cruise"). While on our way I saw a family with a great set of shifts ("most expensive Christmas ever"); I complimented them on their shirts. For those that don't know, the Jungle Cruise is a river ride through the rainforest with different sets of animatronic animals doing funny things, and during Christmas they give it a Christmas theme with wrapped presents and garland on different set pieces. It's pretty creative. After Jingle Cruse we got dinner at KC's Corner, a garment hot dog quick service. I got a chili cheese dog and it was good.

The next thing we did was some "for the family" attractions. IRA and I went to the Enchanted Tiki Room. This was one of my special needs uncle's favorite attractions. He just loved the singing birds, always singing "in the tiki tiki tiki tiki room, in the tiki tiki tiki tiki room." It was the first time IRA did that experience and was like "I love this, why didn't I do this before?" It's because mskate doesn't really believe in "do it all no matter what" and doesn't do a whole lot. IRA likes having me because now he has someone that says "we're going to do it all." After Tiki Room we went to Small World, my uncle's other favorite ride. Since he was in a wheel chair it was a big ordeal to get him in the boat, so when the ride was over the operator let him ride it as many times as he wanted. I told the operator the story and she thought it was so cool. Mom told me when she saw the wheel chair accessible boat how easier that would have made things 50 years ago. Small world is small world, it's a fun little song with simple animatronics. Since Peter Pan was right next door and was my brother's favorite ride, we rode that one next. It's a fun little dark ride that takes you through the story of Peter Pan. Then because it was right there, we rode the Winnie the Pooh ride. We were able to jump right onto the rides because during the transition period between Christmas party starting and kicking out the non Christmas party guests. What was really great about these is we were unable to do them mskate's and my honeymoon trip due to trouble planning, so that was great to finally do them. Some time around this time I got a picture at Gaston's Tavern. I wanted to get a picture with Gaston, but he wasn't there so I settled for his Tavern. Do you know the joke I'm showing here?

The next thing we did was the first "real Christmas party" attraction, and that is the Tea Cups. What made it "Christmas party" was the music and lights they did (red and green lights and Christmas music). I'm not the biggest fan of the tea cups (not super into spinning rides), but one has to do as much Christmas themed stuff as we can. The next thing we did was go to one of the dance parties at one of the restaurants in tomorrow land. This was a 4 fold thing. First the disability fast pass got screwed up so mskate had to go to guest relations up at the front of the park to sort it out and we needed to wait for her. Second mom-in-law needed to sit down and take a rest. Third, this was a place where we could get free cookies and cocoa because of the party. Fourth, this was my opportunity to meet a character since there was Timon and Doc McStuffin on the dance floor, and I danced with Timon. It was a fun little thing to do. After we had our fun IRA and I went to meet Santa Goofy. It was a bit of a hike and a wait, but nothing too big, we got to meet a Christmas character. I also tried to meet Alice and the White Rabbit, but the line was either long or they were leaving for 40 minutes, so I just missed out on them.

Now for some really fun stuff, tomorrow land Christmas theming. First thing we did was Space Mountain. What makes Space Mountain really cool is is they turn the lights on some, have projected snow flakes on the ceiling, and play Christmas rock music (for us it was Carol of the Bells). It was really fun. Mom-in-law didn't ride it so she just held onto our stuff. After Space Mountain we rode the people mover, mainly because we could get a good view of the inside of Space Mountain and it was right next to it. I took some video of it which was cool.

Now for the "crazy event." The newest ride was the Tron lightcycle roller coaster, where the rider gets in the light cycle and rides it like a pocket bike. This was kind of a crazy endeavor, because as the new ride they did the virtual queue thing, which is like everyone has a fast pass thing, but you can only get in line when they're calling your queue and it's a far narrower window than fast pass, and the ride kept breaking down so our queue kept getting pushed back, and when we got to the disability pass area they didn't have any signs saying what the queue number was so we had to keep checking the app, but then the app wasn't working very well so the only way we got in was because I asked "what are we on now" since it was stuck at 3 spaces before us for like 20 minutes. After that run-on sentence of an ordeal, we got in line and found our locations. Since nothing could be taken and mom-in-law doesn't like roller coasters, we left everything with her. They do have a pretty neat system though, where there are what seem to be free lockers that you drop your stuff in at the start of the ride and then pick-up from the opposite side of the wall on exit, all locked and unlocked with magic bands. There was also a pre-show thing where they "digitize" you. I decided to T-pose because that's how 3D character models are stored in video games, and the people that joined us T-posed as well thinking it was some kind of instruction they missed out on. That made me laugh. Light Cycle Run was OK, it was definitely a fun roller coaster but not worth the effort of getting on it in my opinion. Personally I say wait a year or so for it to no longer need the virtual queue and extra long lines. But as IRA said, it's great that Tron is finally getting some love from Disney. And some time around this time I got to dance with Nick Wild at a different dance party.

Now time for some "opportunity cost." IRA and I wanted to go on Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, but with all the resting mom-in-law needed and the Tron craziness we were cutting it close to the fireworks. Mskate was OK missing Laugh Floor so she and mom-in-law found their way to the fireworks, and IRA and I went to Laugh Floor because we wanted to see it and it was Christmas themed. The show was very similar to normal, but Roz was wearing a Christmas sweater and all the jokes were Christmas themed, and it was pretty fun. However, when we got in the fireworks started and mskate was freaking out wondering where we were, and IRA and I ended up missing the fireworks. Oh well, I was OK with missing them but mskate wasn't able to really enjoy them because she was worried we would be upset. After laugh floor I had enough time to ride Buzz Lightyear before the parade. So they went to find the viewing for the parade and I got to ride Buzz. I got a pretty high score I think, and it was a walk on since everyone was gathering for the parade. At the picture I did a Gene Simons, and then got my picture with Zerg. 

Now for the final event of the night, the Christmas parade. IRA found a perfect viewing spot right by the rout and unobstructed because that was a walking path, and mskate and mom-in-law found a nice place by The Plaza restaurant where they could see things from a table. IRA kept trying to get the ladies to join us, but they didn't want to. The parade was pretty fun, we saw everyone in their Christmas outfits and all sorts of fun things. After the parade we got back on the boat and went back to the cabin.

Now it's Tuesday, a "break day." Today was a day for us to hang out at the resort and do things at the resort. Since dad-in-law was an "Arizona born native cowboy man," we did the horseback riding experience. It was a fun little thing, even though it rained. My horse was Jack, and as I was sitting on him waiting at the stable to go down the trail he kept adjusting his stance. I told him "I know the feeling bud, it's not fun to just stand around waiting." It was kind of a perfect pairing since I also have some trouble standing still. Of everyone I was one of the very few people that didn't need one of the horse trainers to give me directions on how to correct my horse (we got along very well, and I was able to correct him very well). It was a fun hour long adventure. I was the first to get off my horse so I was able to take pictures of everyone as they got off their horses. After the adventure we went back to the cabin and warmed up (because we were all kind of soaked. We basically hung out at the cabin for the rest of the afternoon since it was all rainy (I had my other ramen, and mskate might have gone somewhere to do a little shopping).

Around 4PM mskate and I went out for our anniversary date night. For our special date we went to Beaches and Cream at the Beach Club resort. To get there we took a bus to Hollywood Studios, took the Skyliner to the back door of Epcot, and then walked to "the waterfront themed resorts" that have a walking path to the Epcot back door. The skyliner ride was fun, the Epcot stop is like the farthest stop and requires a long travel, and goes over the France section of the park so we got to see some of that. Before going to the restaurant, we went to the Yacht Club resort and saw their gingerbread lighthouse. I did some pin trading while we were there. After the Yacht Club we went to the Beach Club where the restaurant was. The theming is a beach side ice cream parlor, and their signature menu item is "The Kitchen Sink" (8 scoops of ice cream, every topping in the store, and a whole can of whipped cream *restaurant guests* a whole can!?, where every time someone orders it the lights go dark, the siren lights turn on, and the server announces it to the entire restaurant). It was really fun. I got a French Dip with a s'mores milkshake cocktail (which was quite good, though a little rich for me). Mskate got a fancy grilled cheese, and for desert got a milk shake. It was quite a fun thing.

After dinner we did a little more exploring of the Beach Club and Boardwalk. The main thing I wanted to do at Boardwalk was to get the remaining 100 year pennies I needed; Vanellope, Rapunzel, Bing Bong, Mr. Increadable and Elastigirl and Frozone, Edna Mode, and Joe Gardner. While on our walk we went to a photo booth and took a photo. It was a little expensive but it was an anniversary fun memory. Mskate was getting pretty done by the time we finished getting the pennies, so it was good that the boat dock was right by boardwalk. We rode the boat back to Hollywood Studios and then took the bus back to Fort Wilderness.

Now it's Wednesday, our Animal Kingdom day. In addition to being our park day, this was our character breakfast day. Unlike the 2 Micky waffles, 2 strips of bacon, and a half pint of milk, this was a big buffet at Tusker House with the characters. We got our pictures with Donald, Daisy, Goofy, and Micky.  I can do the voices a little bit and it's always fun when the characters react to me doing their voices. Then I had a giant breakfast of waffles, tater tots, potato wedges, bacon, sausage, a croissant, and a piece of sunrise Savana bread (plain white bread but food colored to look like the rising sun of the Savana). Since this was all you can eat and stupid expensive for what we get, I snuck some bags of waffles and potatoes to eat later (because the $50 continental breakfast isn't just the cost, I'm spending loads on the park tickets and hotels and all the other $8 milkshakes and $10 kids meals). It was quite good, and we had a lot of fun meeting the characters and getting autographs. One of the best things is one of the pennies I needed was at the restaurant, so I got it really easily. Then there was also someone else with the same last name as my wife and I (and that's rare because I have a very unusual last name in America).

Now the park fun begins. Since we were right by the Kilimanjaro Safari ride we rode that first. For those who don't know, it's a safari ride where we see all the different animals as they free roam the attraction. We ended up seeing a gazelle and zebra tussle after the zebra intruded on the gazelle's territory. That was really fun. We also had a giraffe come right up to our ride vehicle and was maybe 5 feet away from us. I've ridden this ride many times, and while I really miss the poacher plot this was really fun and one of the best experiences. Here are some of the pictures I took.

After the Safari we went on a little walking trail where we saw the gorillas from the Disney behind the attraction animal kingdom show on Disney plus. That was really fun. The gorillas were also right up close to the glass and interacting with the audience some. One of the small gorillas banged on the glass to get a little rise out of people. Not thinking anything of it I waved to one of the gorillas (for humans it's a friendly gesture, for most animals they think it's just a weird thing the human does). The cast member then told me and everyone else not to wave as the gorillas may interpret that as a sign of aggression. Yeah, that's always a challenge with humans and greater primates; we're not so dissimilar that gestures and actions are completely foreign to the other (it's REALLY fun to watch baby gorillas play because they play almost exactly like curious human toddlers, whereas with dogs we only know that nipping at the ears is playing after generations of observation), but we're also not similar enough that gestures and actions mean the same thing (take the smile for example, with humans it's a sign of happiness and joy, with chimps it's a gesture to intimidate). I apologized and didn't do it again, and that's also why you should never do a Tarzan chest drumming around them since that's a sign of "I want to fight." We walked the whole trail and it was pretty cool.

After the gorillas we road the Wildlife Express Train which took us to Rafiki's Planet Watch. While there IRA and I decided to do the Wilderness Explorer kids activity. Based on the movie Up, you get a Wilderness Explorer manual and go to different stations all around the park to get sticker badges, and if you get all of them you get a Wilderness Explorer ranger badge or something, and along the way you learn bits of trivia about nature. It's a really fun activity, I highly recommend it. During the tracking badge I was able to let my knowledge from taking the actual Boy Scout tracking merit badge shine, by answering all the questions and leading the discussion. I could tell the cast member was happy to have someone skilled help out, or maybe she thought I was some kind of "regular auditing plant." But I'm getting ahead of myself, there were 5 badges in the planet watch area, and there wasn't much there except for a "how to draw" class and a petting zoo. The petting zoo was pretty fun though; I love petting zoos, it's fun to pet the animals and they're always so friendly. The fun thing is the goats had a play structure that was basically the same kind of play structure found at a human park (just lower to the ground, kind of like what one might find for a small child). I can't believe I didn't think of this when I took the video; play structures, fun for kids of all species. Another fun thing was there was this one goat that was scratching it's neck against a bench, so I went up and said "hey little guy, let me get that for you," and scratched his neck. He was like "oh yeah, that's the spot." Then the rest of the family joined in and scratched his neck while I took video.

After the Planet Watch IRA and I picked up the badges that were around the restaurant and safari area we missed out on earlier (and I got another penny I needed). We had to go back to the exit of the safari and into the gorilla walk again, but no big deal, mskate and dad-in-law just waited for us to finish. This is when they went on Kali River Rapids while IRA and I did another walking trail to get more badges and see more animals. It was fun, we saw bats and tigers. When we got our bat badge I asked cast member which one was Dracula (just trying to make a joke, they were some kind of large fruit bats and not vampire bats so I wasn't expecting one to actually be named that). She said "he's in there somewhere, we also have a Vladimir." That caught me off guard, I was just making a joke about if the bat was actually a vampire, and didn't think that all the animals have names and of course the best name for a bat is a famous vampire. IRA asked what other famous vampires there might be, and all I could think of was Edward. The tigers were also pretty fun.

After our walking path and the rapids we watched the Finding Nemo show. It's a stage show where there are puppeteers with these probably 3 foot puppets doing and abridged musical version of Finding Nemo. It's a really good show, almost broadway quality (just not broadway length). A nice detail I picked up on was Dory's actress had mismatched socks to go with Dory's scatter brained personality. Then there's also the "big blue world" song Nemo sings that's also in the Finding Nemo ride at Epcot. It's a great 30 minute show that offers a great heat or rain break. After the show we went on Expedition Everest. Dad-in-law stayed behind because he's not into the big rides, so that was OK since he stayed with our stuff. Expedition Everest is a really fun coaster, it goes forward, then backward, then forward again (which I recently learned is a safety mechanism so they can run multiple trains on the track at once), and has some really cool theming with the yeti. After Expedition Everest we went to It's Tough to be a Bug, the Bugs Life show that's a little scary (the tarantula shoots stingers into the audience, the termite sprays you with acid, the stink bug stinks you, and then hopper tries to bug bomb you, has hornets sting your back, and drop black widows on you). I remember my brother got scared and had to leave once, and I got scared and had to leave another time, and my boss's kid had to leave once. They're supposedly replacing it with some Zootopioa thing that's probably going to be more tame. I still had a lot of fun. After it's tough to be a bug I got 2 of my last pennies in the discovery island area.

Now for a funny thing. The next stop was Dinosaurland where we road the Dinosaur ride (the ride where we're going back to right before the asteroid hit to get a dinosaur that was tagged as we ride over all sorts of off roading). I remember I watched a "how they do it" thing years ago and it's really cool. It's one of my favorite rides at Animal Kingdom. The interesting thing is I don't think most people know it's based off an animated movie of the same name (do you remember the Love Monkey?). Yeah, deep cut right there. Now for a funny thing. Dinosaur land is REALLY geared towards little kids, with a spinning flying dumbo type ride, midway games, 2 character meet and greets, and a play place. The Wilderness Explorer activity is also geared towards little kids (with IRA and I being the oldest people I saw doing it). Well Disney decided to put 2 of the badges inside the play area. It felt a little awkward being a group of 4 full grown adults walking around a playground with 2 doing a children's scavenger hunt, but Disney lets adults be kids so no harm no fowl. Anyway, this is also where I got my last smashed penny, yay.

Now for the last real location we had to go to, Pandora, the land of Avatar. First we rode Navi River Journey, a simple river ride through the land of Pandora at night. It's a really cool dark ride that really feels like another world. It uses a lot of practical effects and matt projections to really bring the world to life, and then there's a dancing Navi animatronic at the end that's pretty life like. I tried taking some pictures using the pro mode on my camera phone, but it wasn't working and I spent most of the ride fiddling around with it. After the river ride we rode Flight of Passage, a 3D simulator ride where it feels like flying on a Banchi. Last time I rode it I got motion sick, but this time I made sure to keep my head forward and did much better; still got dizzy, but didn't feel nauseous. We had a little dinner thing at the cantina restaurant where IRA had a cheeseburger pod, and I almost did as well but I decided $8 wasn't worth it just for a little food, especially when I still had breakfast left overs. Once all the food was eaten and rides rode IRA and I got our wilderness explorer badges from this area. Now onto the next thing, the Lion King Show.

Well, not quite. Mskate had the foresight to ask when the wilderness explorer thing closed, and it was in about 15 minutes, and we still had 2 badges to go. Mskate and dad-in-law went on their way to the lion king show while IRA and I hoofed it to the final badges near the opening of the park. Thankfully the last 2 were in the same stop, but we ended up cutting it close. The funny thing is the cast member doing that one saw us at one of the other badge stops, and remembered us because 2 grown men without kids doing a kid activity for real (we participated with all the things, not "just give me the sticker") is kind of unforgettable. We got our sticker and wilderness explorer certificate stickers with about 5 minutes to spare. OK good, now we just had to get to the other side of the park where the Lion King show was. IRA and I made it no problem, just had to hoof it. The Lion King show isn't much "Lion King," it's primarily a stunt show with acrobatics, fire juggling, and flying ballet among other things, all set to Lion King music. I'm not complaining, it's a really fun show, I'm just saying don't expect an abridged Lion King story like the Finding Nemo show.

Now's the time where we kind of went our separate ways. Since Animal Kingdom is the smallest park we had done everything by about 5:30 PM, with the park closing at 7PM. I wanted to stay for the Tree of Life night show at 6PM but everyone else wanted to go explore Animal Kingdom Lodge, the resort that's next to Animal Kingdom and can see some of the animals from certain rooms. It was also raining (had been since Dinosaur) so it wasn't the most comfortable even with the rain gear, so I don't blame them for wanting to leave. I saw them out and then went back in. I was going to get pizza from Pizzafari, but they had been closed for about 30 minutes at that point (no worries, I just ate the food I brought). I decided I was going to go back to the walking trails just to really enjoy them and maybe see some things I missed, but they had been closed for about an hour by then. I made my way back to Dinosaur land and decided "I'll just ride Dinosaur again, the app is saying it's a short line anyways." This is when something even better happened. When I got to Dinosaurland Chip and Dale were doing a meet and greet in their dinosaur costumes, and the line wasn't very long because a lot of people had already left (about half the park was closed by now). I barely had enough time to dig my autograph book out by the time I reached the front of the line. I got my pictures with them and did my best attempt at the voices, but they gestured "no you didn't really get it." Chip and Dale are hard to do, and I was pretty tired anyway so it was only that much harder. Then as I was going over to the ride there was a Donald and Daisy meet and greet in their Christmas outfits, also without a very long line. I decided to get them as well. I had a little more time to dig out the autograph book, and they had to take a break which gave me some more time to deal with that. When I got up I said "great weather for ducks" (an old joke about rain if you've never heard it), and they did the laugh gesture. I also did my best Donald Duck yell and they gestured "ok but not the best." It was a fun set of pictures.

OK, now it's time for the reason I stayed, the tree of life video show. The lights went down and then the video got projected on the tree of life. This was pretty cool, there was a little story about a bunny and it was going through a winter story. It was a short 5 minute show, and then the lights went on. I'm like "oh, OK, I guess I could go watch ride something else, let me just figure this out" for 5 minutes, and then there was another scene. Once again the lights went down and a little video story started. I thought it might be the same thing as before but it wasn't, this one was about a fox in the winter. I'm like "oh nice, it's something different." I watched it and once again the lights went up after about 5 minutes and lasted about 5 minutes before the next show." I watched about half of it and then said "I'm not super interested, let's see what the lines are like" and the River ride was a 5 minute wait. I walked over to Pandora and was blown away by what it looked like at night. The river ride wasn't the only place that showed how Pandora comes to life at night; the walking path was all glowing with black light illuminance, there was all sorts of animal noises, the fake flowers were lighting up, really cool. Then I got to the ride and rode it again but kept my phone in my pocket and just enjoyed the ride. It was really fun, paying really close attention to everything and it was so cool. Then when I got to the dancing Navi lady, and teenage boys out there, she is anatomically correct. During her dancing her giant necklace thing swung out while I was in just the right angle and there was a blue booby with a blue nipple. I felt like Zeke at the museum of natural history in Bob's Burgers in that one episode. I was just admiring the animatronic work and boom, boobies. How about I change the subject and just show off some of the cool Pandora pictures I took.

Given how cool Pandora was I decided I was going to walk the entire park before they closed and see what the imagineers put together, or see how far I could get before I got shooed back to the front of the park. First thing, the path between Pandora and Africa at night with low crowds is very creepy; the path is dimly lit, there are animal noises pumped in from all around you, there is a single path with foliage on both sides, it was kind of rainy which in writing is a way to show bad things are going to happen, and there is no one around. It was activating my fight or flight reflex, but not too panicked. Then I got to Africa and there was a group of cast members walking in the opposite direction. I was expecting them to say "sir park is closing turn back," but they didn't, I walked by them without them even acknowledging me. OK, guess I'm free to explore the park at night. Africa was pretty much all closed; all the shops were tented, the restaurants locked up, the rides over, and the only people that were really around were the clean up crews. The kind of funny thing is they were wearing the same uniforms as everyone else there and not like "janitor jump suits," so Disney still keeps the magic going even when the magic is mostly gone. Oh, I was also like the only park guest around, which added to the weird vibe of the atmosphere since the place is normally full of people. Then when I went to Asia I stopped at "the market" (a collection of window service restaurants with a collection of tables) and had some snacks. There were 2 other people there that I'm pretty sure were also just finishing their day and having a snack. I got to Expedition Everest right at 7 PM when the park closed, but the queue line still seemed open with a posted 5 minute wait time and coasters still going. I might have been able to get on the last ride but I didn't want to push my luck and get kicked out. I did see that the tree of life show is projected on the entire tree of life since the bunny video was playing again, just from a different angle. I also saw some pretty cool light set pieces which was a detail I know most guests don't get to see. Even though the park was closed I got bold and walked through dinosaur land and it was also pretty cool seeing everything lit up and the midway closed. By the time I got out of the park it was like 7:15, and the tree of life show was still going on and people were still hanging around. I guess at Animal Kingdom they don't really kick you out, they just kind of turn off all the fun stuff and wait for people to leave on their own (or maybe they really kick you out after 8PM or so to say "no free loaders, get out," but I had to get back to the cabin and the Disney transportation only runs for like 1 hour after the park closes and I wasn't taking any chances, though next time I might try expedition Everest if given the chance, because I'm sure that's really cool at night). Anyways, I made it back no problem and did a lot of packing for the following day. They also got pizza for dinner and saved me some. After seeing what I did after everyone left mskate wished she stayed with me because they didn't do much exploring of the resort, but then again she wouldn't have been able to keep up with me and all my night time fun.

It's now Thursday, the go home day. The rest of the family packed up everything in their car and left about 30 minutes before me. I had some left over pizza from the previous night for breakfast lunch. I also had to take back the golf cart along with checking out. I almost forgot the magnet with our names on it that said it was our cart, but I got it before they threw it away. I also did the check out. I ordered my uber and waited outside after doing a little pin trading at the lobby. The uber driver got the wrong gate again, and it was a simple ride to the airport (finished watching The Poof Point). I got to the airport and got my ticket, and made it through security after having to take out all my gaming equipment which was kind of annoying. When I got on the people mover there was a woman with a wiener dog puppy that was visibly shaking. Then she started trying to get away so making some small talk I asked "nervous?" and the owner said "yeah, she's just a little puppy so this is very overstimulating." I got to the gate no problem, just opened up my bag and got some snacks while I waited for boarding. When it was my time I got on and got comfortable. I took some creative commons video and watched some movies (finished V for Vendetta and watched The Michaels VS The Machines, both pretty good). I did nod off a couple of times, but nothing crazy.

This video is uploaded with creative commons attribution, you can find the original video here (youtube rumble bitchute)

Then when we landed I found my way to the car, drove home, and that was basically it. I unloaded my stuff and got the mail). Then I lied down on the floor for about an hour because my back was sore after sitting in an uncomfortable chair on the plane, and nodded off. Then I just climbed into bed and slept for like 3 hours, and watched videos on my phone for about an hour because I was just exhausted. I got up and did some "normal relaxing" because I didn't want to fully throw off my sleep schedule, but still went to bed pretty early. It was a really fun trip. I might have been able to get a little more out of the Christmas party, but whatever. I managed to get all my smashed pennies for the 100th birthday of Disney animation. I managed to get some great creative commons video (even if I wasn't able to get any audio library samples because there was copyrighted music everywhere). I had a lot of fun at the parks riding the rides and meeting the characters. I also did a lot of pin trading and now we have a much larger and cooler pin collection, including some cool new buttons. My only regret is that I didn't clear off my memory cards and had to ration my video recording come Animal Kingdom. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic's Santa Fe New Mexico Adventure 2, Electric Boogaloo

Hello everyone, it's been less than a year and I'm returning to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Unfortunately Aunt P passed but it was a rather sweet departure. As you know (or can read here), Mskate, mom in law, and I went to see her over the 2023 new year, and about 1 month later her son (Cousin M) went to see her, and then a month or 2 later her sister and nephews went to see her, and then her other brother was there for her final breaths. She had at home hospice and her last expressed thought was a happy one, someone played flight of the bumblebee and she said "I used to play that." RIP Aunt P.

This time mskate and I flew alone since the in-laws were driving, and since they were driving (along with it being a short trip) we didn't have to pack much (2 backpacks and 2 small carry-ons). When we got to the airport I grabbed one of the abandoned luggage carts in the parking garage just to be my goofball self with the 2 easy carry-ons (super overkill) and hopefully pull a Tom Hanks and get the deposit for the cart. Unfortunately there wasn't a cart rental kiosk thing so I just left the cart by the TSA. The really crazy thing is I ran into a coworker while in line, which was fun introducing her to mskate. Once we got through we basically just hung out at the terminal. Since Paul Rubins (aka PeeWee Herman) died recently I watched PeeWee's Big Adventure on the plane, and it was quite entertaining. I see why people enjoy it and love to quote it. After that movie I watched a Pink Live In Concert thing, which was ok but wasn't great. I like her music and all, but the story of the concert was very sexually charged and I just don't associate Pink as a sex symbol. Like, if it was Madonna or Katy Perry I would understand since they are kind of "I'm sexy and I'm flaunting it," but Pink always struck me as "I'm attractive, but I'm more about the punk rock and roll" like Avril Lavigne. Whatever.

So here's a funny thing, we stopped in the same Utah airport we stopped in for mskate's grandma's funeral where we had to run through the terminal and barely made our connection. Thankfully this time we had an hour between, so it wasn't crazy this time. Unfortunately there still wasn't much time to explore the airport, but there wasn't a whole lot to explore anyway from what I could tell. Here's where it got frustrating, the flight was overbooked so they were offering people $500 to wait for the next flight 2 hours later. This wasn't "$500 flight voucher," it was "$500 visa gift card to use anywhere." I wanted to take it, but I couldn't because we had people waiting for us. Then it went up to $700, which was really hard to turn down but I had to go to see my family. As our flight was getting closer they announced it was $900 per person, which would have come out to $450 an hour for both of us but I had to hold strong. The flight is starting to board, and now they're offering $1000 per person to wait for the next flight. I look at mskate with the look of "this is REALLY hard to turn down," we could REALLY use that $2000, like pay off all the credit cards and put that to a house, but our family was worth it. Then someone stepped up and claimed it, so it wasn't even an option at this point. The flight was super basic and didn't have the TV, so I just watched videos I had downloaded on my phone the whole time, just pokemon and static shock episodes.

Just like last time, here is some stock footage of the plane flying I'm uploading with creative commons licenses.

We land in the Albuquerque airport no problem. We were getting picked up by Uncle J (the brother who was with Aunt P when she died), and this was kind of funny. Mskate hadn't seen him in close to 20 years, so she didn't really know what he looks like anymore, just that he's a man in his 60s and the car he was driving, so we're just waiting at the ride share pickup location looking for an older man driving a black Nisan SUV. We saw a lot of people driving the same car he was driving, but they all were the wrong age or already had people with him. This is when it got wild, there was a single older man driving a black Nisan SUV that was pulling up to where we were standing (he knew the pillar we were standing at), and we thought that he was Uncle J, but then he started shooing us away as we approached mouthing "no the other guy." Not too much longer Uncle J showed up and it was a good ride. I sat in the back seat taking b-roll of the scenery while mskate caught up with her uncle. This was good for them because it was an hour long drive from the airport to the house.

I didn't have anything to offer to the conversation, so here's a bunch of video I took of the drive and landscape, also uploaded with creative commons licensing.

So here's the "extra sad thing" that happened. The reason the in-laws drove is because they were bringing the dogs, including Duke the really old dog who we kept thinking might leave us any day now. We told dad-in-law to leave the dogs home and this would do Duke in, but he wouldn't listen. Unfortunately we were right, and this was it and they had to put him to sleep. Someone that knew Aunt P knew a traveling vet that was able to take care of Duke. When mom-in-law went to get the door she knew it was the vet and brought the younger dog Delilah to greet the vet, and the was thrown off saying "this isn't the patient, right?" We're told it was a good little service since it happened while we were flying, but it definitely was weird having Delilah sniff me without having Duke jump on me.

After we unpacked it was time to go to The Video Library with IRA. Quick refresher, The Video Library is more than just a video rental store that is managing to stay open in 2023, it is the oldest video rental store in the United States and the second oldest in the world with hundreds if not thousands of titles, and the original owner is still running it 42 years later and gave me a little interview last visit. IRA wasn't much of a "rental store kid," so he didn't REALLY get it, but still enjoyed seeing all the titles. That's OK though, because I was having a great time. About a week prior I asked some people around different discord servers I'm on if they have any questions they want asked if I can interview the owner and this is when I got my interview with those questions. She remembered me from last time and was happy to see me again and do another interview. I'm really glad she has a giant store that kept IRA busy for finding movies to rent because I spent probably 30 minutes just interviewing her and having some conversation. I also didn't leave empty handed, because I rented The Adventures of Prince Achmed (the oldest surviving animated film) and Disaster The Movie 2021 (not to be confused with Disaster Movie 2009 or whatever).

After the video store we went to dinner. It was a pizza and Mexican place. I think I ended up having a burger because that was like all they had for me (didn't really want more tacos), and it had something special like brisket or friend jalapenos or something like that. One of the things that was weird was like a methane vent, so I pulled out the book of matches I had with my camera that I picked up somewhere and lit a match. It helped make the place not smell for a moment, which was good. The main thing that I need to point out is the bathroom wallpaper. It was a rather awkward pee.

The rest of the night was pretty calm. I remember I primarily watched Disaster The Movie. I'll give a quick little review, think Celebrity Death Match and Robot Chicken made a movie about the end of the world and they could do things they couldn't do on TV (namely nudity and strong profanity). It was quite funny, and really used the whole stop motion animation to it's advantage with really wild scenarios that were still somewhat grounded in reality (like gruesome deaths that are played for laughs). The even wilder thing is at least at the time of writing there isn't an IMDB or Wikipedia page, and it had some decent size actors and director as part of the production (like they have IMDB and Wikipedia articles, but no mention of their work on Disaster The Movie). Really wild.

It's now Saturday and the big day. Mskate and her dad walked down to the cafe to get breakfast for everyone, which mainly consisted of chocolate croissants. Before the family arrived we went to Kakawa's Chocolate House and got some specialty chocolates for everyone. I had to get my spicy Aztec chocolate, this time in both ice cream and brownie form; ice cream to share with the family and get their reactions, brownie to take home.

I watched the Adventures of Prince Achmed until the cousins showed up. When they did we all visited for some hours. We then played bananagrams. It was pretty interesting, though I'm not super good considering I'm not the best speller. After a lot of visiting we went to the cemetery where they did the memorial ceremony. The chappel was very interesting, because on the ground they had the symbols of the 4 elements (water, earth, fire, and air), and they were all the same as found in Avatar The Last Airbener.

There were also pictures of the zodiac constellations. I thought I had some pictures, but I guess I don't; here's a small part.

It was definitely unusual, especially in the very "Mexican Catholic" area we were in. There was also a quartz fountain that was pumping chlorinated water that made our fingers smell when we touched it, which was something "us boys" were having some fun with. The ceremony was pretty good. Most of it was stories told by loved ones; family, close friends, and business partners. Aunt P knew a very many people and was very accomplished, and had a lot of different perspectives and stories which was very interesting to mskate. Speaking of mskate, she didn't think she would get up and tell a story, but she did and did well. After the ceremony we had the luncheon, which was mostly hour d'eurves (or however it's spelled, the appetizer things served at parties), with a lot of things I didn't care for, but whatever, not my celebration. Then this happened, I was tasked with helping the male in-laws with packing up things to take home and mom-in-law said "get the water." The funeral service provided little bottles of water that were everywhere so we gathered those up and was getting ready to leave. Mom-in-law then chases us down "not THOSE waters, THESE waters" (as she holds up a package of grocery store mini-water bottles). We brought them back and one of the directors (who definitely had "the mortician vibes") said "you could have taken them, it's part of the service we provide." Whatever.

When we got back to the house we set-up for the party. There wasn't much that needed to be done, but we also had to relieve the dog sitter, and the funeral luncheon was winding down already so it wasn't like we were there for a long time. This is when I told the one care taker about Aunt P not letting me join her in her own world (one time she was spacing out and her care taker that day asked "[Aunt P] are you in your own world?" and she said a drawn out "yeeeessss," then I asked "can I join you?" and she said "nnnnooooo"), and that got a good laugh with "she had a way of speaking her mind." The main fun thing from the party was getting all the cousins to to try the Aztec chocolate ice cream. One took a spoon full and was "mmmmm, it's good ice cream but I don't see - WOAH now I can feel it." The other cousin was "wow, that's hot and unexpected, my son would really like this, too bad he wasn't able to make it." Cousin M thought "this is not my thing," and IRA was reluctant to try it but then was like "it's OK I guess but not for me." I think one of the "adults" (the generation of our parents) tried some and thought it was OK, but it was really my thing and I finished it the following day. Then the rest of the party I basically spent it talking with Cousin M's friend who flew from like Chicago about videogames. It ended up being really good for both of us because we were both "outsiders" since we were like the only non-blood family members there at this point and it was more of a family reunion than it was a funeral. Near the end of the night we did group pictures since this was like the first time in decades everyone was together, and probably will be the last time for another many years. After everyone left I finished my movie.

It's Sunday now, and that means it's the sabbath and time to go to mass. We went to the Basilica like we did last time, but there wasn't a memorial for the Pope and fallen officers nor was there a special blessing for the governor this time (again, I don't think I will ever go to a more interesting mass than that one). It still was pretty neat though since it was in both English and Spanish, with some of the hymns having English and Spanish verses in the same song. After mass we walked back to the house and took an alternate route that saw other things. There were some cool gift shops and street vendors (one with some REALLY funny hot sauce), and we walked by what is labeled as the oldest still standing church in the United States. I thought that was Our Lady of La Leche, but I guess Saint Augustine is just the oldest settlement and the original church building wasn't still standing. Whatever, it's still pretty cool.

The rest of the day was kind of do our own thing, and after some rest I returned some of the movies and spent more time at the Video Library. I wrote many more questions and further interviewed the owner. I think I have at least 1.5 hours of material now, and hopefully soon I'll edit it into a feature length documentary interview thing. She expressed interest in carrying any movie I end up making, which would be really cool. Hopefully I can find the time after some life commitments to get it done. After all the time she gave me I ordered her a copy of Rewind This since she never saw it and since it's a documentary about the VHS format that has a section dedicated to video rental stores (2 things that interest her) I know she'd enjoy it. I also bought a cool T-shirt and got this great picture with her. Again, if you're ever in the Santa Fe area I highly recommend checking it out.

After that I went over to The Drurry Inn and got some video with The Meem Room, a conference room that was made by the architect who's last name was Meem. One of the concierge saw what I was doing and said "yeah we get a lot of people taking pictures with The Meem Room, it's where all the memes come from," and then told me how it's actually named after one of the architect who designed the hotel. Here's the video.

After that I walked back, and I just kind of relaxed for some hours. At some point I had lunch, which was left overs I think. Part of the relaxing was watching Nickelodeon on Aunt P's TV since they still had the cable set-up. There was this really interesting thing where the TV remote had accelerometers to select the options while pointing at the TV, kind of like a Wii but for comcast digital cable (or whatever it was). After relaxing we went out to dinner at a restaurant where Cousin M got catering from for some kind of fund raiser thing, and they have an outdoor patio where we could bring dogs (where Delilah made a bit of a friend, or tried to since the family wasn't letting her see the other dog, but I'm getting ahead of myself). Since the restaurant was in the downtown area I decided to explore some parts of the city I hadn't explored yet while the rest of the family waited for the table. I wasn't avoiding them, I offered for others to join me but no one else wanted to see what Santa Fe had to offer. I walked by the city's historical museum and would have really enjoyed seeing it, but unfortunately I wasn't going to have the time to do it, so instead I just enjoyed the adobe architecture and found a neat toy store. Unfortunately they didn't have the kind of toys I'm interested in (such as Pokemon and pop culture puzzles), but it was still pretty cool to see. I didn't have a lot of time there because the table was ready.

The patio was pretty cool, it was like "the back yard" of the restaurant, with wood fences and such. There was another patron with a dog and Delilah wanted to meet him because she's a very friendly dog, but dad-in-law and the other people didn't want the dogs to see each other probably because strange dogs could be best friends or they could get too rough and hurt one or the other, or just start fighting. Oh well. Dinner was pretty good. I think I had a beef enchilada. There was a problem our waiter, getting things wrong and taking a while, where I think the manager stepped in and took care of us. Since it was an authentic Mexican place I sad "gracias" when he brought me my food, and he just smiled and said "de nada." Then when we left we saw the dog in a dog house that was probably the owner's. The dog saw us but I think this one was a little more aggressive and probably wouldn't have gotten along with Delilah.

Later that night when IRA finished all his movies I walked them back to the Video Library. While on my walk I took some ambient sounds for the audio library I'm putting together (specifically flowing water on some fountains and crickets chirping). I also explored some of the art at dusk, which was pretty cool. While there I took a bunch of video and pictures of the Video Library for whatever use I might need. I spent probably a bit too much time just admiring the store because eventually mom-in-law called me and asked where I was. That was basically it for the night.

Now it's Monday and fly home day. We didn't need Ron to the Rescue this time because the in-laws had their van and took us to the airport. We packed up everything and loaded it up no problem, making sure I got my brownie. We said bye to Cousin M and IRA and set out on our hour long drive to Albuquerque. Delilah joined us on the drive, because she likes to drive. Since we see them all the time it wasn't a big thing like when we saw mskate's uncle, but I still got a lot good b-roll footage. We got through security no problem and we explored what small amount of the airport there was. I wanted panda express but unfortunately they wouldn't open until our plane started boarding, and that wasn't going to be OK. I had some kind breakfast, but I don't remember what specifically. While on the plane I watched "the man who saved pinball," a biopic about a man in the 1970s that proved that pinball is a game of skill and isn't gambling in the sate of New York. It was pretty cool, especially since I had a vague knowledge of the story already since I'm a pinball fan; I knew some places thought it was gambling and regulated it as such, until some big court case where an expert player called every skill shot and made the score counter roll over due to it being a game of skill.

This took us to a Georgia airport where I was able to get Sabarro's pizza (or something like that with the big slice). There wasn't a ton of time to explore the airport, but we still had our fun. Unfortunately I didn't find a candy store where I could get a Spongebob Finders Keepers egg, oh well. We got on the plane no problem, and I watched Ravenfield, the "Nick Cage is Dracula movie." It wasn't very good, mainly because there wasn't nearly enough "Nick Cage as Dracula." I was expecting super wacky Nick Cage doing a weird Dracula all the time, but it was primarily about his underling which was OK but I came here for "wild Nick Cage." Oh well. When we landed it was quite late, but no big deal. We left pretty close to where we came in on Friday, and when we walked by the TSA we saw the cart that I had left there 3 days prior. Pretty funny.

Overall it was a really good trip. It was sad of course, but it was the first time all the siblings had been together in decades and we were all able to be there for each other, and Santa Fe is such a cool city. Hopefully you can find The Video Librarian at the Video Library sometime soon. Since Aunt P was cremated she's going to be scattered in some very special gardens; her best friend's garden in Santa Fe and the church garden her mom is scattered in. There's probably going to be another little ceremony in Tuscan that mskate and dad-in-law are going to go to, but it's not going to be a big thing for everyone. I'd definitely like to go back to Santa Fe in a year or 2 just for purely leisure, but we'll see. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic's 2023 Cedar Point Adventure 2, Let's Finish This

Hey everyone, 2 weeks ago my mom and I went to Cedar Point, and while we had a lot of fun there was a lot we weren't able to do. Well we went back last Friday after I took a half day to try to do what we couldn't do the first time. We bought another all day meal deal and since it wasn't Halloweekend Saturday I was able to get her a discount bring a friend ticket. After work we drove the 150 minute drive and this time we took the toll road, and it went much faster than it did last time. We now remembered why we did the toll road when we were younger. What was great is that since it was a Friday the park wasn't super crowded, and more things were open. We still had some trouble finding parking, but no big deal. We also had our jackets in case it got too cold but didn't want to bring them around the park and so we left them in the car.

I was quite hungry so we wanted to get food first, and the restaurant we wanted to try was kind of in the park from the main entrance. I looked up where it was and the cable car sky ride would take us pretty close to it. This was great because we weren't able to ride that last time. We got in line and our first ride of the day was taking us to a new restaurant. It was pretty cool because it's so high up and we got to see all the things from a different vantage point. Once we got to the destination I realized I made a mistake in my map reading, because the restaurant was not actually that close. Whatever, we just walked over to the place. The restaurant we wanted to try was Derby Dog, a gourmet hot dog place, and unfortunately it was closed. That sucked, but thankfully another place we wanted to try was close by, the Coral. Mom looked it up and they supposedly had a Texas sandwich we thought would be like brisket, but unfortunately the website wasn't updated and it was chicken fingers and pizza, so we got the pizza. It wasn't very good pizza though, but the fries it came with were good so there's that.

After eating we made our way over to the boardwalk area to ride max air and windseaker, 2 rides we wanted to do last time but couldn't due to the wind. Since max air was closest we did it first. Max Air is this swinging ride that spins you around while swinging you back and forth really high up. It's quite a fun ride, and we didn't have to wait very long because it holds 50 people and the park wasn't that busy. It was really fun. After that we made our way to windseaker, the swing ride that spins you around like 300 feet in the air. As I said last time, it doesn't seem like it would be very thrilling but when you get up that high it's pretty wild. We had to wait for 1 ride and then it was our turn. We got our seat number, we got in the seat, we got fastened in, and then they had to close it down because of wind. So close, but no. Oh well. Because I wanted to see the arcade we went back to the Derby Dogs area so I could go to the Coliseum Arcade. I didn't want to play anything, just walk around, and it was pretty cool. It didn't have the video games and pinball machines I remember from when I was young, but it did have skeeball and basketball games, and many claw games and coin pushers. There was even a 9 hole minigolf course, which was pretty cool. Mom even thought it was pretty cool, but that was basically it. At this point we decided to make our way to the back of the park where it gets scary at night, We did the power tower on our walk back because it was a walk on and is a fun one, and where we sat we got a good view of the top thrill 2 construction. That was pretty cool. As we walked by we saw that camp snoopy wasn't running, which was too bad for the kids because it has a lot of fun rides. It also meant we weren't able to do the pipe scream, but that was OK. We went by the Gemini and it was closed, not sure why but it was. No matter, our plan was to ride the Maverick, a roller coaster with a 95 degree drop.

When we got to the back it was time for our next meal, and we went to the farmhouse kitchen and grill where we got steak and fried smashed potatoes. The steak was pretty good and the potatoes were really interesting. How to describe them? They were kind of like the red skin potato wedges that are pretty common at a barbecue place, only instead of roasted and sautéed they were deep fried, and were quite yummy. Before Maverick we rode skyhawk, a big swinging ride that just swings you back and forth really high up. That was also a walk on, and was really fun. OK, now it's time for the big one, the Maverick. We knew this would be a long wait considering the last time we were there the fast pass line was 45 minute, but this time it only took about an hour for us to get on it. Boy was it fun, the 95 degree drop, the speed, the minor story with the western mine scene, and so smooth, and we ended up sitting in row 1 just by chance. Really fun, worth the hour it took to wait. When we got off it was time to eat again, and we went to sagebrush Sue's a corndog and fried cheese place. We decided to get the fried cheese on a stick, mozzarella cheese fried in corn dog batter. It was good, and we sent a picture to our Evansville relatives who were having their fall festival at that time. It's a southern city, they have a lot of fried food, and they appreciated seeing what we did.

The next ride we were going to ride is the only other ride of note in the back there, Steel Vengeance. For some reason it won't allow you to have metal on you and you have to go through metal detectors and store all your stuff in a locker. We were ready to get the locker but since it had a visibly long line and my pants had metal rivets in it I said "better to check to make sure this is OK." Turns out the line wasn't all that long, it was just that people were waiting for it to open, because it was closed, again. That was frustrating, but we said "at least we didn't get a locker," and after a little research I found it used to be the mean streak (the ride that was too rough on Mom when she was young) and it used a lot of the old track, so it was probably for the best. With nothing else to really do we got on the train and road it to the next stop. This was a really popular ride when we were little, because my brother loved trains as a kid. On the train there's this scene of skeletons in an old west kind of town, and it's always there year round and has been the same show for at least 25 years (probably longer). The train took us to where the Millennium Force and Rougarou were, which was great because we didn't ride those the last time. The Rougarou was a pretty new roller coaster so we expected a kind of long wait, but it was basically a walk on, which was great. As a hanging coaster I couldn't wear my loose fitting crocks, and the ride said "no loose articles, you will need a locker," so we spent the $3 to get a locker. I put my shoes in because we already had the locker and might as well use it to it's full extent, and while it wasn't that bad walking on the cement it was kind of painful on the grated steel steps. That wasn't fun. We were put in the back row this time and it was a really fun coaster. Once we got back the ride operator asked mom and I if we wanted to go again since there wasn't a line, and we said sure. Twice was enough though. Next we were going to try Millennium Force, a ride that was going to be a 1.25 hour wait, but since Mom had trouble once with the seat we made sure she could fit in it. Unfortunately she couldn't so we didn't. Since we were close to the Panda Express of the park and it was about time to eat again, we went there. We got the platter of orange chicken, beef and broccoli, fried rice, and cow main. When I went to scan my band I had to wait another 30 seconds because it hadn't been 90 minutes yet, but then the cashier rescanned after 30 seconds and all was good. It was Panda Express, decent quality fast Chinese food.

So now we're kind of back at the middle front, and now for some other rides. I wanted to ride on Magnum XL but mom didn't since it was made in 1989, and with a 30 minute wait she decided to just sit it out and let me do it. Since I was by myself on this one I just watched some videos I had on my phone and basically just waited for the ride. It was a pretty fun ride, though mom was right, it was kind of jerky and wouldn't have been good for her. The exit to the ride was kind of far from the entrance and where mom was waiting, so she was starting to wonder where I was. Since we were close to back beat que we went to it for our next meal. We got pulled pork and potato wedges. It was pretty good, nothing special but still good and would recommend.

It's getting late at this point so we're starting to get tired. Our next ride was Raptor, one of the older rides from at least around when I was really little. Last time it was a long wait, but since this was a not super busy day it was only like a 20 minute wait. While we were waiting there was a maintenance room with a roof that had a bunch of live strong bands and hair bands shot onto it. Oh man, live strong bands were so crazy to see; those were probably close to 20 years old now. So wild to see. When we road on the ride it had the ride pictures. I tried to do a Gene Simmons (tongue out), but I missed the photo so it was just me smiling. After Raptor we went to the grand pavilion and had steak and lobster bisque, and just rested for about 30 minutes in the warm restaurant. After that we went on Wild Mouse, one of those roller coasters that has like 4 people per car. Mom said she never road one because it's such a slow loader. Mom really enjoyed it, but it was kind of jerky. The next ride was the Atomic Scrambler. It's a fun spinning ride, and was quite fun. We also did the dodgem cars, and I forgot how much fun they are, Since we were right by max air and it was a walk on we decided to ride it again, and I took my shoes off to make sure they didn't fall off and it was cold. Someone else who was wearing crocks did the same thing and after the ride said "bro your feet must be freezing, I know because mine are." At this point we had rode pretty much every ride we could have except for the carousels. We decided we were just going to do the Cedar Downs Racing Derby, a carousel that goes really fast and is meant to feel like a race track. Mom was like "you need to help me get on and off." She sat on one of the inner horses and I sat on one of the outer horses (because that would be the fastest one). It was kind of crazy since it isn't that much unlike a normal carousel, and by that I mean "you're just sitting on it without any safety restraints." Since we were getting tired it was kind of wild, like we felt "make sure to hold on and don't fall off," and there were some times where I felt like I was going to fall off. Mom was like "wow that was crazy, and all the while I was thinking 'I've made it this far, don't get hurt by falling off a horse on a carousel.'" At this point we were done, we got one more meal at Hugo's Italian Kitchen where we got pizza and a Caesar salad.

OK, it's like 11 at night, we are tired and cold, we found our way to the car and just sat in it with the heat on for some minutes. Mom put in the directions for the motel and we made it there before midnight. Mom checked us in and got our room. As we were unpacking I realized I forgot my overnight bag at home, meaning I wasn't going to be able to change my clothes or brush my teeth. I finger scrubbed my teeth the best I could, but it didn't do a whole lot (my teeth felt really dirty the following day). I slept pretty long, long enough for Mom to go for a swim at the motel pool. After I woke up and Mom went swimming we packed up our stuff and went to McDonalds for breakfast. This is when I learned there's a pokemon promotion going on right now and now I need to get all the toys. We drove for a while and stopped at the turn pike rest stop mostly for old times sakes. I played one of the games and won a bouncy ball (because playing the games was a big thing when I was a kid).

Once we got home I said my goodbyes to mom, saw where the bag was, and showered and changed my clothes and really brushed my teeth. It felt good to not feel so gross. In terms of food we saved $95.43, though it might be less because I now realize I have the all season pass instead of just the all day pass. I might have to go back one more time just to make sure I get all the food. Maybe mskate and I can go one day since there's a lot of food she would be able to eat, but if not maybe I'll just go by myself. It was really fun, and highly recommend. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic's 2023 Cedar Point Adventure

Hey everyone, so because I grew up within a reasonable driving distance to Cedar Point in Sandusky Ohio, and that meant that I went to Cedar Point rather frequently for special events; my mom's side of the family would go once a year with everyone (Aunt, Uncle, Tanman, Grandpa, Grandma, Mom, Dad, and VikingPolak), my school would go there for special field trips (I went there with mskate for a physics class trip and I went there with my band class), and some times I went with the boy scouts. Since I was able to get a decent deal on a season pass I decided to get one for the 2023 year and not just for the summer. I'm very glad I did because I was very busy over the summer and only was able to get there at the end of September. I asked my mom if she wanted to go and we went over the weekend. I thought I could get a reduced ticket due to my season pass, but because it's special Halloween Saturday events (called "Halloweekend"), mom had to get a full price ticket, but that was OK because we got a special bundle of "all day dining, ticket, and parking" (my pass already had parking, but it was cheaper to get this bundle than to get the 2 separately, like "all day dining and a day ticket was $110" while "ticket and parking and dining bundle was $100"). Whatever, we were going to have 13 hours in the park for food and fun.

Mom got to our condo so we could get to the park right when it opened, and we got going almost right when she got there. We ended up having a problem because traffic put us like 30 minutes later than expected. That sucked, not just because it was less time for rides but also meant the all day meal was going to be less than we could fully maximize (we can get another meal 90 minutes after the previous meal), and while there is 1 hour of leeway for max use that gets eaten up by the lines. Oh well, we got to the island and scanned my QR code for the parking. We parked at row 33 section C, kind of far from the entrance but it was OK. As we were going in there was a marching band that was parading around the parking lot. It was kind of interesting. As we were going in I saw some people in costumes and I didn't really connect that people were going to be wearing costumes, then mom told me and it made sense.

Once we got in we got some pictures with the 150 year sign and other memories, and I made a dash to the first restaurant, Hugo's Italian Kitchen. I got a slice of pepperoni pizza and cheese bread and we split it. Since this was kind of close to the entrance we'd come in from the Breakers (the on property hotel), our first ride like always was the Ocean Motion (or "Ocean Potion" because it was Halloween themed). This is the ride where you get on a ship and it swings you back and forth. It was a pretty short wait, only had to wait about 10 minutes which was pretty great. The next ride we wanted to go on was the Sky Ride (cable cars), but unfortunately it was closed (get used to this statement). Oh well. After the ride we found our way to what used to be Bearenstain Bear Land and is now Peanuts Land. When I was little this was THE place, and my favorite think was the sandbox backhoe thing (or as we called it, "the digger"). I apparently spent hours playing on it, because I wanted to make as big a hole as possible, and my uncle tried to bribe me to go do something else. Unfortunately the sandbox (or maybe it was a gravel box) wasn't there anymore, so mom and I spent time an appropriate amount of time looking for it but unsuccessfully. We did get to meet Sally from the Peanuts, which was fun.

After the bust with the digger we went over to what is kind of "the pier area," where it has a bunch of rides that are reminiscent of pier rides and carnival games. The funway arcade was in the area and while I didn't have any a lot of desire to spend the day playing arcade games, I might have wanted to play a round of pinball since I love pinball and it's not exactly easy to find anymore, and I remember it having a pretty good selection of games. Unfortunately they downsized A LOT and was more a mirror maze now. Oh well. The main things we did was ride "scrambler type" rides; troika and calypso. Troika is basically the normal scrambler but also goes up in the air in a fun way of the 3rd dimension. Calypso is also like the normal scrambler only it's on an angle and can only hold one person. It's pretty cool. We were going to ride MaxxAir, but unfortunately it was closed. After the rides it was time to eat again, and since we were close to the new Cedar Point Grand Pavilion Restaurant and Bar, and we had unlimited food, we decided to give that a try if we could. It presents itself as a high end restaurant and we were unsure if it was going to work for us, but it did support the meal plan and it was really high quality food. This time we got the steak and lobster bisque; I had the steak and mom had the lobster bisque. It was really good, and not just for amusement park food. We both thought "Gog and Pop (the grandparents on mom's side) would love this place."

Next ride I wanted to do was windseaker; the amusement park swing ride that goes up 300 feet in the air. Like, the amusement park swing ride is kind of "a step up from the carousel" where it lifts you up like 20 feet in the air and swings you around in seats on a chain, and while it's fun it's a very calm ride. Windseaker on the other hand is that, but they strap you in like a thrill ride, then it lifts you up 300 feet and swings you around high above everything else in the park. Like, it's scary because the only thing between you and death is a heavy metal cable. It's not even that fast, it's just "I am actually hanging high above the ground, this isn't an illusion like a roller coaster." Oh well, maybe next time. Since this is Halloweekends and we don't like getting scared, we worked our way to the "scary section" before it got scary. The "scary section" was in the back of the park so we started going back there with the plan that if there was a walk on we would ride it. While walking to the back in true Halloween fashion there was a graveyard decoration set-up, but the headstones were very creative. Instead of puns or famous people, it was rides that are no longer there. I got my picture with my favorite gone ride, the Demon Drop. It's a ride that puts you in a cage, drops you in a free fall that then angles into a slope, and then brings you back. When they were selling it a friend wanted to buy it and put it in his backyard. His backyard was really big (like a triple lot), so it's possible it could have fit, but there were probably zoning laws that would prohibit it, plus, it is probably a major power consumer and expensive. Here's my picture with the tomb stone.

On our way we road Iron Dragon, the smoothest and easiest roller coaster in the park probably. It's a fun hanging boat cart roller coaster, and it didn't take very long for us to get on. After Iron Dragon we found our way into frontier land (the start of the scary part), and while there wasn't much there we did find a fun family joke with pony rides (my my, aunt, and her cousins were at some place with pony rides and my one aunt didn't want to ride the pony, and it's been something everyone has teased her about for 50 years). There was also a peting zoo, and I petted a camel and a llama. One of the llamas had an underbite and I tried to do an impression of it.

We didn't find much else in frontier land, but we did find the wave swinger; the amusement park swings. Sure, it wasn't super great, but it was still a fun little ride. After that it was time to eat again, and we went to the Frontier Inn where we got pizza on a half role and a salad cup of grapes. It was good to have some fruit and split pretty well. After eating we went to the cedar creek mine ride; a mine cart themed roller coaster. It was a 20 or so minute wait, and it's an old ride that didn't really work for "modern American bodies" where we weren't really able to fit (mom couldn't get in and I barely got in and was rather uncomfortable the entire time). Oh well, wouldn't recommend. After that we made our way to the back of the park and there wasn't much for us. There were only 3 rides, Maverick, the train, and Steel Vengeance (Maverick and Steel Vengeance are both roller coasters). Maverick is a pretty new ride (12 years now) and has a 95 degree drop, but the fast pass line was a 45 minute wait and the stand by line was like 2 hours. Uhh no. Then Steel Vengeance was closed, and the train had to wait for the ride to get there and was just a train, so this area was kind of a bust.

We made our way over to the Camp Snoopy area where they have Gemini, Soring Eagles, Monster, and the Happy Fryer. We walked around Camp Snoopy because Camp Snoopy is great, a place for slightly older kids. We almost met Lucy in her witch costume, but it was right as she was leaving. I did get a picture with the therapy desk.

Camp Snoopy is mostly kids rides that we wouldn't be able to get on (camp bus, woodstock express, red baron airplane ride), but then there was Linus's Beetle Bug which is just the tilt-a-whirl. Mom was like "we don't have a kid" and said "it's just the tilt-a-whirl, they'll let us on," and they did let us on. I got kind of dizzy and remembered "I don't really like the tilt-a-whirl." After the ride we went to the Happy Fryer, a restaurant that specializes in French fries and corn dogs. I always wanted to try it since the mascot looks so friendly, but could never justify spending that much on fries. However, since we had the all day meal deal, we got the mini-corn dogs and fries. I'm not a big fan of corn dogs (if I eat a hot dog I want some char), but these were pretty good, and the fries were amazing. We each ate about half of the mini corndogs and half the fries.

After food we went to the pipe scream. It's a ride where it spins you around and goes on a half pipe back and forth. The other time we went on one of these rides was at Universal Studios in the Nickelodeon section. I remember my cousin didn't want to go on it because "it was in the little kid section," but we managed to convince him that it was an actual ride for big kids (because it is). It was quite fun. After that we went to the eagles ride, a kind of swing ride but where you control the beak and control how high and low you go. We were going to go on Gemini but it was closed. While waiting for the eagles we saw them test Gemini, and mom heard someone saying that the Gemini was opening up, and since I wanted to go on it I decided to get out of line and wait for it to open since it would be a walk on. Unfortunately it was just a rumor, and I waited around for about 20 minutes for it to not open. Oh well. After giving up on Gemini it was time to eat again and we went to BackBeatQue, a barbecue place. We got brisket and a salad. While I was getting the food Mom met a nice family and started dancing with them. It was the kind of fun thing that her recently deceased friend would have done, and she made a good temporary friend with the mom. The food was pretty good, a decent "normal restaurant quality." Cedar point is doing REALLY good with the restaurants and having "real food."

With this we're now out of the scary part of the park, back sweet dreams. There were some pretty cool pumpkin art pieces, and no more "scary clowns" things. There wasn't much in terms of rides on our walk for a while, but there was a lot of cool decorations, like the pumpkin art. The first ride we road was another classic, the Corkscrew. It's a really simple roller coaster, a hill and dip, a loop, and a cork screw that goes over the walking path. Can't say for certain, but it was likely one of the earliest looping rides in the park. After the corkscrew we went on the Super Himalaya. It's a ride that spins around going up and down while playing a vintage pop song. Really fun ride. Then we next ride was the Power Tower, a ride that drops you or shoots you up. It's also one of the few rides that can be seen from the Breakers, I remember watching it from our hotel room when I was little. Years ago I did the "shoots you up" one and didn't like it, so we did the "drop you" one. Since mom and I were 2 riders, we got pulled ahead of the line because there was an opening for 2 people. As we were riding it I regretted keeping my crocks on, they didn't fall off and if they did they would just fall down where there weren't any people (because safety zone for falling objects), but they didn't fall off so I was good. After Power Tower we went to Coasters, a diner themed restaurant that sells hamburgers, fries, onion rings, and some other things I don't remember. Mom and I got the cheeseburger and frings (half fries, half onion rings), and a pile of pickles from the condiment bar. Quite good. After dinner we watched a little bit of the live show just to say we did. In the past it was a laser light show and I really enjoyed it, but because Halloween it was a live stage concert. It was pretty good, the music was Halloween themed I think, and if it wasn't the costumes sure were.

Now we made our way over to the first "really big ride" of the day, Valravn. I think the story of this ride is it's like Norse or something, but whatever. It had a posted hour wait, but we were OK with that since we were kind of getting to the end of the rides we haven't done anyway, and the queue line time estimate didn't seem like it was getting updated. The wait was shorter than that, maybe like 45 minutes, so that was a bonus. However, even if it was an hour it was worth it. It's kind of an "open train" ride, where your seat is isn't in a ride car and there isn't much of a floor. But the real thing is that there's a 90 degree drop and multiple spins and loops. REALLY fun. After that I road the Blue Streak, probably the oldest roller coaster in the park and maybe one of the original ones. It's a very basic wooden one, big drop with some bumps and turns, but it's history and I had to ride it. Mom didn't join me though because the old rides hurt her, and I wasn't feeling the best afterwards either, but still fun. Since it was time to eat again we made our way back to Cedar Point Grand Pavilion so Mom could get the funnel cake shrimp, and I got the baked sweet potatoes because I like sweet potatoes some and wanted to see what these were like. They were a nice sweet side, but I'm not sure I'd get them again (texture was kind of weird for me). Once again, real food with the meal plan.

This is when things got pretty lucky. GateKeeper, one of the newer roller coasters which is another "open train" coaster with a left and right view of either Lake Erie or the park depending on which side you're on, had a 5 minute wait. Earlier in the day this had like a 1 hour wait, but now it was basically a walk on. We road on the one side that gave us a view of the park, and then we road on the side that gave us a view of the lake. It was really cool. After that we had maybe 1 ride left in us (it was like 11 PM now), and so we ended the day by riding the Giant Wheel (generic name for Ferris Wheel). Since it's a nice calm ride and everything would be lit up, we wanted to do this as our last event. It ended up being a good way to end the day since we were right, there was a lot to see. Because of science and balance we ended up riding around multiple times, but that was OK, gave us a lot of time to see things. After the wheel we went to wild mouse to see if it was a walk on but it wasn't and we were done. I got one last meal for the night back at the same restaurant we started at, Hugo's Italian Kitchen. I got a pizza pocket thing and a Caesar salad with the intention of eating it the following day. However when we got to our hotel I'm like "I want to see what this is like," and so I ate the pizza pocket thing and it was great, and then after showering I passed out because I was so tired.

The following day we had some continental breakfast and headed home. I was still really sleepy so I mom drove home while I slept. The only thing of interest is we didn't think about checking our gas so we had the fuel light come on and had to find gas quickly. Thankfully there was a gas station within eyeline of where we were and made it. Once we got home we said our goodbyes and went about our Sunday. It was a really fun day trip. We rode a fair amount of rides and gorged ourselves. I kept track of how much we saved using the dining plan, $109. Considering the meal plan was $33, we ate $142 retail worth of amusement park food. Granted, ever meal was like $16.50 or $21, and "not captive customer" prices would probably be $10 or $15 for what we got, but it's still an amazing deal. Multiple times I asked mom "I wonder what the high score is." And the Sunday after our fun I had like 1 actual meal because I was so full. Definitely worth it if you ever go to a Cedar Fair amusement park, but only get 1 band for 2 people. Even if you don't split everything like Mom and I did, alternating works well too. We basically paid for the hotel with what we saved in food, yay. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.