The continuing diaries of an Englishman abroad visiting such exotic places as Spain, USA, Malta and heaven knows where. Tagging along are his wife Pauline and daughter Emma.

Everything you are about to read is based on true events and real people. It may have been embellished beyond recognition for a cheap laugh but everything happened to a greater or lesser degree. Apart from the bits I made up. OK, and apart from the jokes. And apart from the fantasy sequences. But all the characters are real, believe me.


Exciting isn't it?


Friday, 13 January 2012

USA 1998 - Day 10


Another early start today. This holiday's killing me. Today I decided to skip the sit down breakfast in the hotel and just have a cup of coffee and a roll. I was in the hotel shop pouring myself a small coffee when a complete stranger suddenly said, "Good morning and how are you today?"

By the way, they have three sizes of paper cup for the coffee, small which is roughly the size of a fruit bowl, medium about the size of a bucket and large which I calculated would hold the entire contents of Lake Michigan. So anyway, this complete stranger suddenly said, "Good morning and how are you today?"

I was just telling him how bad my back was when he turned to another person in the shop and said, "Good morning and how are you today?"

As I left the shop, the sounds of a repeated "Good morning and how are you today?" slowly receded into the distance.

What a nice man I thought. He must be a doctor.

While walking round these theme parks I've noticed that if you're disabled, your wheelchair and the people with you get ushered up to the front of any queue you happen to be in and you're then processed through the special facilities that they have set up for every ride and every show. Indeed, so successful is this for avoiding queuing for anything, I've been formulating a potential business venture in my mind.

Now this hasn't been patented yet so I'm trusting you not to pinch this idea if I tell you.

OK?

Basically, the company will be called 'Rent A Chair' and outside each theme park I'll have wheelchairs for hire. You'll be able to rent the chair by the hour, day or week and there will be a flexible number of options. If you want, you can just hire the wheelchair or you could hire the chair plus a disabled person to go with it or you can hire the chair, disabled person AND a person to push them around. I call this the executive service for those who are too bone idle or don't want to waste energy pushing the chair around. It costs a bit more but is highly recommended. As everyone in your party is given the same priority seating in prime locations in the theatres you can't go wrong.

I've already got my advertising campaign formulated for the American market and if all goes well, Alton Towers here I come. I think some ads in the local papers and on TV should do the trick.

Something like  

"Wanna queue jump but afraid of bein' punched inna mouth?"
"Queue jump with a sympathetic crowd behind ya by visiting Rent A Chair and taking up one of our many options for reducing Disney park visiting times by up to 50%.
See two parks in one day!"
What do you think?

Can't fail can it?

We spent a full day at Disney MGM but the ride I really wanted to go on was The Tower Of Terror but it always had massive queues so I would put it off until later only to return and find the queues were even longer.

Where's Rent A Chair when it's needed eh?

It was getting late, our last bus was due to leave at 9 p.m but it was still only 8 p.m so I decided to queue anyway.

The Tower of Terror is based on the idea that you're touring an old once famous Hollywood hotel now gone to ruin. The hotel is thirteen stories high and you can see the building from practically anywhere in the park it's so big. You pass through the hotel lobby and are escorted into the library where Rod Stirling, speaking on an old fashioned black and white television greets you and introduces the plot.

Basically the hotel was struck by lightning and numerous guests were killed while travelling in the lift at the height of the storm. The ride vehicle is supposed to be one of the hotel service lifts and it takes you on a tour of the haunted hotel.

As you ascend, the lift doors open at certain floors but by about the fifth floor you have entered the Twilight Zone and things start to get a bit spooky with lots of visual special effects and noises. The climax of the ride comes at the top floor (the thirteenth) when the lift cable snaps and you plummet straight down for a few seconds before being jolted to a halt, taken back up a short way and let go to plummet down again.

Just before you plummet for the first time, the lift doors open to reveal a view out onto the theme park from thirteen stories up.

It was all quite an experience and nothing like any other ride I've come across.

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