Spring Broke

It’s spring break this week for our three boys, which means they are not in school and their teachers are off somewhere getting drunk.

It’s also spring break this week for my wife, who is a high school teacher, which means she’s with us all week. And she’s getting drunk.

Since everyone else in the family is on break, that means I am too, so we decided – possibly while drunk – that we should go to Disneyland.

We logged onto the Disneyland website to buy tickets, chose five two-day park passes, added them to the cart, then opened a new browser tab and logged onto our bank’s website and applied for a second mortgage.

After that, we applied for six or seven new credit cards to get the total ticket price to fit in underneath our credit limits, and we were in business. We hit the checkout button and printed out our tickets to the happiest place on earth.

Then we logged onto a popular travel website and searched for hotel suites near the park that could sleep five. After reviewing our options, we logged back onto our bank’s website and applied for a third mortgage. Once that got approved, we booked our hotel and we were all set.

Two days ago, we headed out on the road for the long drive south. As it turns out, our Suburban will not make it all the way to Anaheim on one tank of gas, so after applying for a new Chevron Loyalty Program credit card, we filled up on gasoline and snacks a few times and made it to our surprisingly small hotel “suite.”

We woke up early and sent two of the boys down to the complimentary continental breakfast with an empty suitcase and very specific instructions. After a hearty meal in our room, we headed for the front gate lines.

Once inside the park, we were alerted to the handy new feature of being able to spend additional money on our pre-purchased tickets by purchasing an add-on called a “MaxPass.” As luck would have it, we needed a separate MaxPass for each person in our group. The MaxPass allows you to get the FastPass, which will in turn allow you to get on the ride you thought you were already allowed to get on when you bought the actual ticket to get into the park.

Apparently, nowadays at Disneyland, if you don’t have a FastPass, you are more than welcome to stand in front of the attractions and watch people go in and out, while Goofy consoles you with a gentle hug, but if you actually want to ride anything, you’ll need to pony up some more money for the MaxPass.

We went ahead and filled out a quick application for a Disney credit card, and then got the MaxPasses purchased.

After a fun-filled morning of waiting for our FastPass time window to occur, and riding that one ride, it was lunch time. We had exhausted the remaining supply of hotel bagels and powdered eggs during our morning wait, so we headed over to the buffet to see what else we could afford.

After surveying the menu, and realizing that many of our new credit cards were being systematically deactivated, we opted to splurge and get a banana to share between the five of us, and topped it off with some of the flavored ice cubes sitting on the drink dispenser drain grate under the soda nozzles. Then we headed out to wait for our next FastPass time window to arrive.

While my wife and kids waited patiently for ride number two, I caught the monorail back to the parking lot and sold the Suburban in an all-cash deal to a fast-talking gentleman named Stevie (for what turned out, unfortunately, to be well under blue book value), in order to have a remote chance of financing day two at the park.

I made it back in time to hear all about the second ride, and catch the amazing fireworks show, which, surprisingly, was no extra charge.

Day Two has been just as magical, and even started with another surprise realization that the MaxPasses are only good for one day. What fun!

Anyway, we are having the time of our lives here in line, and it would just be amazing if one of you could plan to pick us up at the main park entrance right after the fireworks show tonight.

And please bring food and water. Thanks a million.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2019 Marc Schmatjen

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Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

The 'Wildlife' of Discovery Kingdom

We were able to use our “free” tickets to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom this past weekend. I say “free” because my wife won four tickets, which didn’t include parking, and we also needed an additional ticket in order to get the whole family in. We didn’t feel like it would be fair -- or even legal -- to make one of the boys stay home, so we drained the checking account and headed for Vallejo.

When I was growing up, Six Flags was called Marine World Africa USA. I guess they felt like they needed to change the name when they started adding more roller coasters, or more flags. It’s now like a combination of Disneyland and SeaWorld, but with more Oakland Raiders fans, so it’s classier.

It’s really a great place. The roller coasters are world-class. Every one of them is guaranteed to loosen your bowels and help you find Jesus. And the animal shows are amazing. For the most part.

Right inside the gate, our boys were holding parrots on their arms, and in true modern theme park fashion, we were offered the chance to buy pictures of our adorable boys holding the large colorful birds for $2000 each. We opted for the cell phone pictures with the park photographer’s head in the foreground blocking half the shot.

We bypassed the snack shack selling $15 sodas (Free refills all day! Come for the rides, stay for the diabetes!), and headed straight for the attractions.

We saw tigers.

We saw lions. (They were all sleeping, but still lions.)

We saw giraffes.

We rode massive, thrilling roller coasters.

We saw a walrus show where a 3000-pound walrus the size of a pickup truck harrumphed its way up onto land, waddled over, and kissed its trainer.

We saw an elephant demonstration where the elephants were rolling on the ground, sitting up like begging dogs, and lifting 300-pound logs with their trunks.

Then we went to the dolphin show, and sat down close to the water in “the splash zone.” Son Number Two was incredibly lucky and was one of only two kids picked out of the crowd to go and help the trainers during the show. The dolphins were shoving the trainers out of the water fifteen feet into the air and doing backflips. One trainer rode a dolphin like a surfboard, and another rode two at the same time like a chariot. Son Number Two really wanted to ride one also, but apparently that maneuver is reserved for the highly-trained adults in wetsuits. He did get to give them commands, feed them fish, pet them on the noses, and get royally soaked by their splashing tails. He was on cloud nine, and he and his brothers all decided they wanted to be dolphin trainers when they grow up.

Just when we thought the day couldn’t get any more exciting, we went to the Wildlife Theater Show. We were right.

The Wildlife Theater Show started out pretty well, I guess. A pig went trotting past us down the front aisle as a parrot came out and announced that the show was about to begin. Then the human announcer arrived. He was a little too animated for my taste, but he was tolerable. Next, one of the trainers walked out with a two-toed sloth draped over her like she was holding a small child. That was pretty cool.

Then they brought out a skunk. OK...

Then a North American porcupine. Alright, that’s pretty neat.

Then a white-nosed coati on a leash. A coati sort of looks like a raccoon and an aardvark had a high speed collision. He climbed up a wooden pole.

Then a bobcat on a leash. The bobcat just walked around.

Then they brought out a house cat. On a leash. Hmm…

The house cat jumped from a post onto the wooden pole. Wow, it has claws. So did my grandpa’s cat. Hmm… A house cat. In the Wildlife Theater. OK.

Then they got back on track and brought out a serval on a leash. A serval is a spotted and striped African cat that sort of looks like a cheetah mated with a house cat on stilts. It jumped eight feet straight up in the air to snag a fuzzy toy off an overhanging pole. Pretty impressive hops for a cat on a leash.

Then they brought out a milk snake. It was not on a leash.

For the grand finale of this incredible, fifteen-minute show that inexplicably included a house cat, they brought out…another house cat.

This was a completely different house cat than the first one, they assured us. This one also had claws and was able to climb the wooden pole while on a leash. And then, as if that was not enough entertainment to blow our minds, they told us the second house cat’s incredible back-story. He was from two towns over. They got him when he was young.

Wow, Six Flags, you really outdid yourself here at the Wildlife Theater. I’m glad we hit some of the other highlights prior to this, or we may have been too exhausted from all the excitement to continue on the rest of the day.

House cats? Really? If you are willing to try and wow me with house cats, I have a few other cost-cutting measures you might want to consider.

For instance, on our walk through the park we saw a few "roaring rapids"-type white water adventure rides. Maybe you should ixnay those and have the park-goers just stand in a line while one of your employees sprays them down with a garden hose.

You could also just replace all the roller coasters with a low-speed minivan ride to the Walmart to buy socks. Flash Pass holders could get to ride shotgun.

Instead of the big, impressive dolphin show, we could all just go up to a small glass bowl and look at a goldfish. The lucky spectators chosen from the crowd could get to feed it a tiny pinch of fish flakes.

Tigers and lions? Too expensive to feed. You could go with little barky Chihuahua dogs and maybe a well-trained lab rat or two. The nice white ones, though. Not the giant, menacing black rats. No sense in scaring the children. And the elephants could easily be replaced by cows. Their poop is smaller and they eat less. Maybe even Texas longhorns if you wanted to get crazy. And you could always oust the giraffes in favor of the far easier to handle, guinea pig. Throw in a few old Labrador retrievers and you’re in business.

Also, if the six flags are getting too much for you to maintain, don’t be afraid to ratchet that number down. One Flag Discovery Kingdom still has a nice ring to it.

House cats aside, we really did have a fantastic day, and at the end of the “Wildlife” Theater Show, guess what animal all three of my boys waited in line to pet?

The house cat. Go figure.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Disneyland on Just $700 per Day

We just got back from a mini vacation at the happiest place on earth. No, not Wal-Mart. Disneyland! We spent three magical days at Mickey’s place, and I have the empty bank account to prove it.

Now, Disneyland probably isn’t the most expensive place you can go, but it has to be in the top three. You could go to Atlantic City or Vegas, but you’d have to be on one heck of a losing streak to match the wallet draining power of Anaheim, CA. “Let’s see…. Give me two hot dogs, three waters, and a box of popcorn. What’s that?? $84.50? That sounds reasonable. Why don’t we throw in some mouse ears and make it an even $200. Thanks!”

It really doesn’t matter how much it costs though, when you get to take your two year old on the Matterhorn Bobsleds to thwart the abominable snowman and you get to take your four year old down a 50-foot waterfall on Splash Mountain. Where else in the world can you do that? It’s all worth it when you hear “Daddy, I was pretty scared, but that was fun!” To see my little boys being brave as they got strapped in for the wild rides just melted my heart and made me proud!

I say it really doesn’t matter how much it costs only because my wife booked the whole package on Costco Travel and I really have no idea what admission to the park really was. It may be a total rip-off. You should look into it before you go. My boys probably could have had just as much fun if I dragged our mattress into the back yard and threw them off the roof.

One thing is for sure though. Old Walt really knew a thing or two about how to run an operation. In my opinion, every company in America should have corporate retreats at Disneyland. The customer service is second to none, the place runs like a Swiss watch, and the fact that my kids knew every character’s name speaks volumes about their marketing. (Or it means my kids watch way too much TV in the morning…)

And is there a more popular corporate brand out there? If you had to rank the most well known figures in the world, the list would probably go Jesus first and Mickey Mouse second. And if Jesus had charged people $9.75 for a diet Coke instead of giving away free wine who knows how that list might go.

Amid our reveling in all things Disney what ended up being one of the most entertaining parts of the trip was not the rides at all. It was the crowds. For two days, mixed in with all the other families like ours, were hordes of pale white face havin’, pitch black clothes wearin’, every available orifice piercin’ Goth freaks. They were having a convention somewhere in LA, and what appeared to be the entire convention felt the need to come to Disneyland. Two things about that surprised me. First, how are the socially disaffected, disenfranchised youth of America so organized that they can put together a convention? And second, why do the members of a super-weird, “I’m constantly unhappy and pale” death cult want to come to the happiest place on earth in the middle of the day?

I had never given the pale ones much thought, but seeing them all at Disneyland got me very curious, so I did some research. I always thought it was “Gothic” people, like the historical period. But that isn’t it at all. The entire club is based on a series of books about a fictional bat named Goth who talks and happens to be a cannibal. I’m not sure how that translates to the women dressing like Elvira the meth addict hooker, but I haven’t read any of the books.

After learning about the cannibal bat, I’m still unable to make the Disneyland connection, but go figure. Who am I to judge? Mickey rocks, and evidently everyone knows it! Even the frowning suburban see-through night creatures who are incapable of purchasing clothes in any hue other than black as coal.

Disneyland seemed to be making some of them smile though, but I’m thinking they might be a little happier if they looked up the first name on the popularity list. He has a Book also, just no theme park.

See you soon,
-Smidge


Copyright © 2008 Marc Schmatjen


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