The Brain Freeze Incident

Don't get me wrong, I supremely enjoyed my recent vacation down at Disney World. It had been almost five full years since the last family trip down there and the long break had fine-tuned my appreciation for Mickey, Donald, and my own personal god, Goofy. The only real problem was that the reports we had read for months about nearly overwhelming crowds sizes at the parks were turning out to be true.

Yes, to many people Disney has always seemed overcrowded, but you can chalk that up to how varying individuals have different tolerances to the pleasantly ravaging masses of humanity. All whom are desperate to get every bang for their bucks on vacations that are too short and infrequent. But it seems different now since the management gods running Walt's creations have spent years building new resort hotels without a corresponding addition to the four existing theme parks. Compounding the issue, those same management gods have expanded existing theme parks drawing in even more people straining Disney staff and facilities.

For me and my family the increased park attendance were issues we largely worked around. First, we're Disney Vacation Club members which means we just jump on a Disney-supplied bus that picks us up at our resort and drops us off at whatever theme park we want to visit. Secondly, these buses allow people to hit the parks just as soon as they open, and if you plan ahead allowing visitors to hit the popular rides first before wait times get really long. The idea being once the crowds start getting too stifling you make a retreat back to the resort pool to actually rest and relax.

That was the plan the day we were going to hit Animal Kingdom Park and finally have our turn on the two Avatar-related attractions: “Flight of Passage” and the “Na'vi River Journey.”

We hit Flight of Passage first and even with a nearly two-hour wait in the queue, I had a great time. Imagine you're walking up a mountain on an alien planet with native vegetation all around the path. With my science-oriented mind these alien fake plants were fascinating with me wondering what hypothetical evolutionary pressures could produce such lifeforms.

The ride itself was as close to virtual reality as you can get without closing the actual line. Flight of Passage starts with the person mounting something that looks akin to a frame for a motorcycle. Various panels then move to secure the rider who is staring very closely at a huge, curved screen. The scenario for the attraction has you being linked to one of several avatars on the planet Pandora who are about to ride one of the flying banshees.

Once all the storeline hocus pocus is finished, you're on a banshee which takeoffs from the side of one of Pandora's flying mountains. Scenery flashes on and off the screen, which looks fully immersive since the person is so close to the images. Of course the frame you're riding adds to the visual effects because it tilts in all directions, but never enough that a person could fall off. After the ride is finished, cast members quickly usher everyone out the opposite door so the next group can enter.

Once my wife and I stepped back out into the bright Florida sun, a reward was in order for having successfully navigated the aerial wonders of Pandora. Which turned out to be a Avatar-themed frozen drink of two different flavors. I forgot the actual flavors, but they were colored purple and green with candy pearls mixed in as well.

That day in Florida was blistering hot and with its partner, stifling humidity teaming up to make every action as difficult as possible. (Yeah, First-world problems are the worst.) Luckily, my wife and I were able to snag a table under an awning to enjoy our pricey, frozen concoctions. Just as we sat down to enjoy our drinks my wife had to run off to the restroom. Not seeing any reason to wait for her, I began slurping down on my drink to get some relief from the heat. This is when the crowd began to reassert itself.

The one thing about crowds is that conversations naturally become harder. In the past, people tended to lower their voices when a sensitive subject had to be discussed in public. Not anymore, I've come to the idea that with “reality television” as thing now certain people seem to enjoy making outlandish statements in public.

Just one table over from me a forty-something mom was in a rather heated discussion with her twenty-something daughters about their activities the night before. Yes, I was listening because of the circumstances just mentioned. Not actively listening like someone attending a reality show, but when people are separated by just a few feet and speaking louder than usual certain details will get exposed.

While the mother/daughter conversation next me was steadily becoming louder my consumption of frozen fruity drink had reached a tipping point. The result was a massive brain freeze that felt like a megaton nuclear blast going off inside my head. At the same time apparently one or both of the daughters had said something so horrendous it shocked the mother along with silencing several other nearby tables. At that moment my brain was reeling from the cold with me nearly in spasms, so I missed the actual statement.

“You seem to have forgotten, I'm your mother not your friend.” The mother said as my ears reengaged with my recovering brain. Per my usual luck, the cold-related contortions cleared in time to hear the people at yet another table apparently snickering at the mom/daughter discussion. Truthfully, these other people could have been laughing at my brain freeze but the mother/daughter trio were giving them nasty looks and not me. I played innocent and went back to slurping on my drink as the mom stalked off with the two daughters soon following behind.

My wife soon reappeared with me working hard to push the envelope on another brain freeze. When it hit, I had enough time to think of the quote that says only the mad repeat the same process over hoping for a different result. All things considered, I really wish I had heard what had upset the mom.