linda sands

Gwinnett Daily Post                                                                                       Saturday, May 1, 2004        

Saying ‘ciao’ to amusement parks

               Spring break. The pressure was on — peer pressure, that is. All those other good Mommies and Daddies were doing it and now it was up to me. I told my kids, “My family never went to Disney World and look how I turned out.” My husband patted me on the back. “Honey, we need to take the kids to Disney World.”
     To me, Disney is The Great American Rip-off. Commercialism at its finest. The day of a thousand debts. The wait of a thousand hours. To my kids, it’s happy, smiling people riding fun rides and eating fun food with princesses and Dalmatians, and toys — lots of toys.
     My husband gets nauseous on the playground swings. I’m claustrophobic and suffer anxiety attacks when forced to wait in long lines. We aren’t amusement park people. But when my kids looked at me the way only your kids can look at you ... I gave in.
     I had fought for years. There were the lean years, the pregnant years, the moving-again years and the decorating years. Now, I’d run out of excuses. Plus, if we didn’t do it this year, one of those kids would be an adult before we did. So, I agreed to “look into it.”

    There were books to read, videos to watch, Web sites to browse, weather patterns to chart and horoscopes to consult. In the end, it came down to applying the three rules of shoe shopping: Quality, accessibility and quantity.
     We went to Universal-Orlando.
     Quality reigns at Portofino Bay. This Italian village replica made Condé Nast’s list of the “World’s Best Places to Stay.” The kids loved the pools and shops and bolted-down Vespas. We loved the restaurants and large rooms, the Mandara Spa and the complimentary Peroni beer.
     Accessibility is key. Universal is easy to find, easy to get into, easy to get around. We hopped a morning Airtran flight that had us at CityWalk before the mouse across town woke up.
     And quantity? Get the most bang for your buck when you stay on-site. Early entrance and Express passes to both Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure are included. We saved enough time beating the crowds and lines that we enjoyed one day at SeaWorld and another at the pool.
    

     So, we’ve done the family park thing. My husband didn’t puke, though he was pretty pale after the Cat in the Hat ride, and the 5-year-old would have been just as happy paddling in a Motel Six pool. And after all the high-tech, movie-oriented rides and shows, the 9-year-old only talks about how wet we got on the Ripsaw Falls and the way we all screamed when the Jurassic Park ride tipped us over the edge in the dark.
     Don’t remind me there’s more to Orlando — because we aren’t amusement park people. For the amount of money those four days cost us, we could have flown to the real Portofino, Italy, and stayed in a suite at the Hotel Splendido where the Vespas aren’t bolted down and the Gelateria never closes.