KIOSK HELLO

20 days and 4,100 miles driven inside Florida, we saw a lot of the state and there is still more to see. It was great. I think everyone needs to know. Do not be afraid…

Day 1:

Arrive in Orlando February 26th, both of us were surprised by the lack of green, the nature was quite brown. Thankfully very little Disney at the airport. We decided not to visit the M. MOUSE on this trip but as a concession we booked a room at the Walt Disney World Swan “Resort” within the magical zone. Designed by the architect Michael Graves in the 80’s and opened in 1990 the compound is described as “entertainment architecture”- interesting… I am not a fan of Graves even though I have always liked his teakettle, the one with the bird  from the 80’s not the knock-off he did for Target. I was hoping during the stay I would become more fond of his work,  however, the only thing I could think was, how does he keep producing such crap? Then I remembered Michael Eisner was behind this baby and I don’t have to wonder much more, but then again, what excuse does Princeton have? Jesus… the idea of “when it is 25 years old the building will look great, you will be nostalgic for that time” is totally out the window with his work. Paired with it’s sister hotel The Dolphin, I can’t say I remember much about the experience, beyond the scale being utterly massive, besides I was glad it was paid for with our Starwood Amex points and it was a pretty cool concept to sleep in “entertainment architecture”.  Anyway, was glad to get out of the mouse domain when we left even though the staff was hyper-nice the entire time. Out of the Disney compound and into the wilds of Florida. By the way, the reason for the compound being so huge was apparently because Walt was pissed hoteliers were opening their inns adjacent to the California location, Disneyland. Apparently he felt they were stealing from his glory, in a way WDW was kind-of the first gigantic gated community, you feel it right when you get there, which leads me to Celebration, Florida but we will come to that later. WDW is apparently in crisis now with 400+ employees being laid off last Friday and 600 executives recently being offered buy-outs.  That’s a lot of crying mice. Damn, will our government get involved in a Disney bail-out, imagine that imagineers! Mouse ears in the White House!