A Disney Birthday
Hello "Viewers". I'm back from my much-needed Florida vacation. It was my first travel vacation in almost 2 years (read: "true" vacation). My wife (Mrs. Hawkeye) found a great deal at Disney last November when tourism was not a major priority for most people. For under $750 each ($1500 for the two of us), they covered our air fare, transfers between the airport and hotel, 7 nights at the Pop Century Disney resort, admission to all the parks, and bus transportation between the hotel and the parks. Food was on us, but Disney also gave us a free $200 gift card which covered a good chunk of our meals and snacks.
Cinderella Castle
The Magic Kingdom was our first stop, and before entering the park I notified them that it was my birthday (another program my wife learned about). I was therefore eligible for a number of free gifts, so I chose the $75 gift certificate for merchandise (food and beverages were not included). I also got a big button saying "Happy Birthday Jim". Everywhere I went in the park, Disney employees were wishing me a "Happy Birthday". It got a little embarrassing when other guests at the park started doing it too.
Mrs. Hawkeye
For dinner, we went to the "Chef Mickey" restaurant in the Contemporary Resort. Naturally, all the Disney characters had to come over and share in my birthday celebrations...
Hawkeye and Mickey
Hawkeye and Donald
Mrs. Hawkeye and Pluto
The parks included: Magic Kingdom, Disney Studios (formerly MGM Studios), Animal Kingdom, Downtown Disney (formerly Lake Buena Vista), two water parks, and of course there was Epcot...
Epcot - Space Ship Earth
The weather was great: mid- to upper-50s for the low, mid- to upper-70s for the high. Low humidity and sunshine most days. It rained one morning while we were eating breakfast, but stopped before we left for the park. It also rained for about 10 minutes while we were at Epcot one afternoon.
Do you remember "The Monkees" from the 60s? Well, we saw Davy Jones perform at Epcot. At the moment, he's doing three shows a day on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. He has a great act. In between songs from the Monkees and others, he does a comedy routine which highlights his (and our) age. Here's some paraphrased examples...
Hi everybody! I'm Davy Jones' father... Davy will be out in a minute!
Back in the 60s, I used to be a heart throb... today I'm a coronary!
Some of the other 60s entertainers are coming out with new songs, like:
Hermans Hermits -- "Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Walker"
Righteous Bros. -- "You've Lost That Sense of Feeling"
Paul Simon -- "50 Ways to Leave Your Liver"
My favorite ride at Disney is 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. Especially the part where the pirate says: "ARRRR... It's Davy Jones!" So of course I say: "Hi!" Then he says: "Davy Jones... ARRRR!"
I found this on the net. What Davy Jones sounds like today...
Epcot - Lake scene (click to enlarge)
The Pop Century resort where we stayed was divided into different areas representing different decades (50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s). The theme of each area reflected that decade. And there were "larger than life" toys scattered throughout the grounds of the resort...
Hawkeye and Potato Heads (click to enlarge)
I just couldn't pass up the following picture...
Hawkeye Personified? (click to enlarge)
Although we had a good time, I became painfully aware of how liberal (and commercial) the Disney people are. Although the TV in our room provided something like 50 cable channels, about 10 of them were Disney channels (park-related, resort-related, vacation services, movie trailers, etc.) and on top of that, FoxNews was not one of them. I had to suffer through a week of CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC, CBS or ABC for my news. Keith Olbermann must still think Bush is President because he continues to blame all of our problems on Bush (in between his sophomoric rants against Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity). The only bright spot was when CNN's reporter hammered Obama about deficits at his press conference on Tuesday.
U.S. Pavillion, Fife & Drums (click to enlarge)
In the U.S. Pavillion at Epcot, they have a presentation about American history -- from a liberal perspective of course. FDR gets his own animatronics, as does JFK. Truman is not mentioned. Eisenhower and Reagan are barely mentioned in passing. Sandra Day O'Connor is featured. Bill Clinton is shown with Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Neither Bush is mentioned. There is a fleeting scene of Ground Zero in New York and what appears to be soldiers in either Afghanistan or Iraq as the word "Heroes" flashes by unconvincingly. All this before Dr. Martin Luther King is prominently honored for a minute or more. The presentation ends with an inspiring piece of music and the promise of future "progress" in America. Hmmmm. OK. And we couldn't even see the Hall of Presidents because it is currently being "Obamafied".
Mr. & Mrs. Hawkeye (click to enlarge)
Of course, what would liberal theology be without the "green" mantra. We must use less energy and stop global-warming. Even the restrooms are equipped with products from "EcoLab" (sounds eco-friendly if nothing else). Then there are the recurring themes of salvation: Save the Planet, Save the Land, Save the Seas, Save the Birds, Save the Animals, Save the Whales, etc. Oddly enough, I heard or saw no mention of human salvation. I heard nothing about saving souls, clothing the naked, healing the sick, or feeding the hungry (unless it is through research sponsored by a government grant to NASA). I heard nothing about saving humans who are forced to live under tyrannical dictators. I heard nothing about sharing the gift of freedom with others around the world. Oh well, I guess you can't have everything.
Hawkeye ready to flee Liberal-Land
posted by Hawkeye® -- Sunday, March 29, 2009
14 Comments
14 Comments:
Thanks for sharing your vacation with us!
It sounds like a wonderful time!
Unfortunately, I am unable to view any of the apparent photos on this page :-(
I've never had a problem with your site before...
For some reason not all the photos are coming through--but nonetheless it sounds like you fell on to a great deal--almost as good as the Scrapplefest--of which I don't think will ever be duplicated.
I never visited Disneyworld but we hauled wicker furniture to the Swan Hotel when they were building it.
I did go to Disneyland several times in the '90s while I lived on the left coast. The first time it was a dream come true for a (then) middle-aged gal who sat in front of the black and white every Sunday night praying for a Chip and Dale cartoon
Glad to have ya back.
I didn't get any pictures either ,except of Davy Jones.(Whine ,snivel) I thought I was finally going to get to see Mrs Hawkeye.
Maybe it is the program you are running them from . Oh, just ask MS RW she knows all that stuff.Sounds like a wonderful vacation.happy late Birthday.
Oh , I wasn't whining and sniveling about getting the picture of Davy, he's still cute,and Nobody sings the Monkees hits like he does.
You robbed the cradle.
Angus: nicky j says...
I got all the pictures except The Pirates, Matey!
ARRRGH
Angus says...
Avast there. Me wife asks where you found such a deal as we might be back there later in the summer.
It sounds like something a Pirate could use with his plundered treasure.
A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes,so my heart wished I cold see the pictures ...and there they were!!! You look like you two are having a ball, I just hope Mrs Hawkeye didn't try to run out of there at midnight.Great Hawkeye Picture.
I haven't anything nice to say about the Disney empire, sorry.
I'm glad you enjoyed yourself, though...
OK, I checked again and there they were: pictures!
You two looked like you were having a bunch o' fun!
Well well! Wot Hawkee did on his holidays! Let’s have a little look-see!
‘I became painfully aware of how liberal (and commercial) the Disney people are.’
If that’s the case then they must be making up for their anti-communist, anti-union, staunchly conservative, McCarthy-lovin’, not-quite-dead creator Walt – your kind of guy.
And ‘commercial’? Disney isn’t a charity or a not-for-profit, it’s as pugnacious a multinational corporation as the rest of them. Is commercaial a ‘bad’ thing to you now, is it? Gawd, you conservatives – it’s hard to keep up! Flippy-floppy, flippy-floppy, consistency is NOT your watch word, is it?
‘Although the TV in our room provided something like 50 cable channels, about 10 of them were Disney channels (park-related, resort-related, vacation services, movie trailers, etc.)’
Dur! You’re in a DISNEY theme park? What do you think they are going to advertise? The Universal tour?
‘…and on top of that, FoxNews was not one of them.’
Imagine! Shock horror! Oh, the humanity! Here’s why there was no FoxNews – Fox is a direct competitor. Why should Disne give Rupert a free kick?
Still, you whining that there was no Fox ‘News’ explains a lot about your world view and how you form it. Fox, you see, twist at best and lie at worst –it is positively cancerous. I know because I used to watch it, but I have had to give it up and the doctors say I’m coming along very well now.
News it ain’t – propaganda, yes, but not news – still, as I say, it’s good to know what I’m dealing with (and BTW, you don’t surround us – we surround you).
‘I had to suffer through a week of CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC, CBS or ABC for my news.’
Golly! News sources that weren’t Fox! They’re still not quite reality TV, but they’re a damn sight closer. So, how did you fare? Did all six lie simultaneously? Or does reality really have a liberal bias?
‘Keith Olbermann must still think Bush is President because he continues to blame all of our problems on Bush’
Because a lot of your problems are Bush’s fault. Conservatives really do have a funny concept of what ‘personal responsibility’ actually means as it seems that it should only be practiced with those they disagree with, hence everything is Obama’s fault because he’s been POTUS for all of three months as the biggest fiscal disaster this side of ’29 dropped on his head yet Clinton was responsible for Bush’s first recession, Carter was responsible for the Regan recession while Ford and Nixon had nothing at all to do with Carter’s ¬ interesting double standard.
‘In between his sophomoric rants against Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.’
Sophomoric? So Olbermann is ‘conceited and overconfident of knowledge but poorly informed and immature’? Sounds much more like Messers. O’Reilly, Hannity and Beck to me.
Seriously, O’Reilly just an old curmudgeon who has lucked onto a schtick and is going to ride it all the way to the retirement home – I have a sneaking suspicion that he knows Fox, and his on-air persona, are simply full of it but is past caring. At least he made it through college.
Hannity, by contrast, is a full-tilt Kool-aid swilling idiot. He can barely string a coherent sentence together and didn’t even manage to become a sophomore – twice! – but I don’t doubt his sincerity, however convoluted and selective.
Beck, however, is a completely bonkers. He really is a dangerous man, a maelstrom of right-wing populist demagoguery who blows, hard, any way the day might go. Another sub-educated goon who is really needs not a national TV show but medication, he vacillates between extreme paranoia and delusions of grandeur and I wonder about the wisdom of taking advise from a college drop-out who believes in the power of magic underpants.
Still, while the torch ‘n’ pitchfork crowd might drool at his every sob I wonder when he will cross the line and be arrested for inciting violence.
Actually, I just read Beck’s ‘9/12 project’ statement, and while some of it is quite reasonable I find it hard to reconcile what he is saying with the usual rhetoric of the right – y’all do seem very confused – so either I am a closet conservative or conservatives do not have a stranglehold on morality.
‘The only bright spot was when CNN's reporter hammered Obama about deficits at his press conference on Tuesday.’
Ah yes, tell me Hawkeye, when was it exactly that conservatives starte to worry about deficits? Just when, exactly, between Bush’s No Billionaire Left Behind tax cuts (a disaster, just like Reagan’s) and the 20th of January did y’all start to worry about balancing the books? Was it before or after Cheney declared ‘Reagan proved deficits don’t matter’ in 2005?
Are you challenging Cheney? Are you, shock horror, challenging Reagan? At what point did deficits start mattering again? When the GOP lost power?
‘FDR gets his own animatronics, as does JFK.’
As well they should. Momentous presidents, both of them. Well, JFK would have been had not the…oh, never mind.
‘Truman is not mentioned.’
Truman. Hmm. The only guy to drop an atomic bomb on actual people. Started the Korean war. Nice. Came up with the Truman Doctrine and hence the Cold War. Lowest approval ratings apart from W.
‘Eisenhower and Reagan are barely mentioned in passing.
Probably for the best, particularly the latter. Eisenhower did recognize the dangers of the MIC and had a top tax rate of 96%, no bad thing IMHO, but apart from that…
Reagan, on the other hand, slashed that tax rate and helped set the course for the current fiscal nightmare, so…
‘Sandra Day O'Connor is featured. Bill Clinton is shown with Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg.’
Ah, Bill and the Peace & Prosperity scare of the ‘90s! It all seems so long, long ago.
‘Neither Bush is mentioned.’
And why do we think this is? After all, itt’s a family show.
‘There is a fleeting scene of Ground Zero in New York…’
They are wise, the Disney bunch. See, they know that when the truth comes out…oh, never mind.
‘and what appears to be soldiers in either Afghanistan or Iraq as the word "Heroes" flashes by unconvincingly.’
I know – Disney is so ‘war’, isn’t it? How could an enterprise focused on wholesome family fun and escapism miss such an opportunity to display some blood n’ guts! Are you sure you went on the right holiday?
‘All this before Dr. Martin Luther King is prominently honored for a minute or more. The presentation ends with an inspiring piece of music and the promise of future "progress" in America. Hmmmm. OK.’
Grr! Stoopid MLK! How dare he try to get equal rights for African-Americans! What kind of message does that send the young ‘uns?
‘And we couldn't even see the Hall of Presidents because it is currently being "Obamafied".’
Oh, you mean the new president is being added? What, do you tink he should be left out?
‘Of course, what would liberal theology be without the "green" mantra.’
Yeah, stooped planet! Who needs it?
‘We must use less energy and stop global-warming.’
Got any better suggestions?
‘Then there are the recurring themes of salvation: Save the Planet, Save the Land, Save the Seas, Save the Birds, Save the Animals, Save the Whales, etc. Oddly enough, I heard or saw no mention of human salvation.’
Umm, you’ll have trouble saving people if you don’t save the planet, the land, the seas, the animals etc as well, if not first.
‘I heard nothing about saving souls, clothing the naked, healing the sick, or feeding the hungry (unless it is through research sponsored by a government grant to NASA).’
So you are all for clothing the naked, healing the sick and feeding te hungry? Glad to hear it. Where? Africa? Or Detroit?
‘I heard nothing about saving humans who are forced to live under tyrannical dictators.’
Probably because said dictators are backed by the US.
‘I heard nothing about sharing the gift of freedom with others around the world.’
And what ‘freedom’ would that be? The sort of Freedom™ shared in Iraq and Afghanistan? Some call it freedom – some call it colonization. Bet you didn’t hear much about that, either.
Cheers
Elroy
Elroy,
Thank you for your comment. Thorough (and thoroughly biased) as usual. I'd love to debate you point-by-point, but I have more important things to do. Besides, so much of this has already been hashed about between us. However, I will admit that you are correct on at least one point: It was probably not the "right" holiday to go on.
(:D) Best regards...
No no, it's YOU that's biased – I merely observe reality.
Cheers
Elroy
Elroy,
No one merely "observes reality" without categorizing what they see into their own world view. We have opposite world views. Mine is "right". Yours is "left"... and "wrong".
(:D) Best regards...
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