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Great Wolf Lodge

Our family and another family went to Great Wolf Lodge in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania for a weekend. This place is amazing. The resort is a chain, but the one we visited had to be pretty new. The room was brand new, the furniture, the carpeting, it was all brand new. The whole place is themed like the "American Wilderness", with wolves, bears, moose, deer, and beavers everywhere ... from the decorations in the lobby, to the logos on the literature, to the wallpaper in the rooms. The restaurants were named "Critter Cafe" and "Loose Moose", the theme was everywhere.

Even the furniture was impressive. Following the "wilderness" theme, the beds and dressers were made of heavy wood, the bedposts were huge logs easily 18 inches in diameter, even the mirrors were framed in knotty wood.

The place features an amazing indoor waterpark. I thought, "indoor waterpark, it's probably small". But this thing was huge. I counted about ten water slides, a huge wave pool, lazy river, the whole nine yards. One of the water slides goes UPhill in several spots (aided by jets of water which shoot up the slide!) Very impressive. And since it's the Pocono mountains, you get the juxtaposition of 18 inches of snow outside, 85 degree waterpark inside. I got some photos of my family in the water, and a window in the background showing off the snow. Messes with your mind.

Maybe this is a sign that I don't get out much, but much to my surprise they sold liquor in the waterpark. I don't recall being able to buy beer at other waterparks. And they had bottles of beer in both plastic and aluminum bottles! I've never seen a plastic bottle of beer before. It was the same size and shape, same brand (Bud), but it had a screwtop lid, and was recyclable plastic. Am I just a homebody or is this new?

And then there were some aluminum bottles. Not cans, but bottles. Again, same shape, but totally aluminum. And again, something I've never seen before.

So in the old days, when you check into a hotel, they gave you a key. You know, a real key, made of metal? Then came those card systems, where you swipe the card in the door slot to get into your room. Great Wolf has something new: a wristband. The wristband is your entry to the waterpark, but it also has an RFID chip in it. You wave it in front of your door, and the door opens. Pretty slick. You're stuck with the wristband for your whole stay, which can be annoying, but the cool factor outweighs it if you ask me.

And it doesn't stop there. Since the wristband has the RFID chip in it, you can use it all over the resort. Go to the cash machine, wave your wristband for cash. Pay your dinner bill with your wristband. Pay for gift shop stuff with your wristband. Buy arcade tokens with your wristband. Go to the "internet kiosk" to use their computers to send email, and use your wristband to gain access. Pretty wild.

By far the coolest thing was MagiQuest. You buy these magic wands, plastic things really. Inside the wand is an infrared transmitter, just like your TV remote is an infrared transmitter. You can see the little "electric eye" at the end of the wand. And there's no buttons on the wand. To activate the transmitter, you flick the wand, just like if you were using a real magic wannn..... no, there are no real magic wands.

Anyway, around the whole resort are about 60 ... I guess you'd call them "stations". You flick your wand at them to do things. Walking down the hallway to your room, there's a painting of a sword on the wall. Flick your wand at it, and it lights up and talks to you. There's about ten "treasure chests" placed throughout the resort, on end tables. You flick your wand at them, and they open up to reveal "gold" inside.

When you get your wand, you personalize it with a "character name". And then you begin one of about ten "quests". They start out easy, and get harder. All the quests are in a booklet, each quest is a poem. The poem leads you on a journey, you have to guess from the poem's clues which "stations" you have to visit, and in which order. The system knows which quest you've chosen, so if you flick your wand at the "green crystal" (for example), and the green crystal isn't on your quest, it says "come back later", or "your magic doesn't work here!".

If you do the right things, in the right order, you finish your quest, and you get points. Remember, there are about ten of these quests. We did two of them, and they took about an hour each. We sure got our exercise. Each "clue" leads you to the other end of the resort! So you crisscross the place, and the whole time you're running past kids going the other direction looking for other clues, flicking their wands at anything and everything. And you have to be sharp! Some of the "stations" are in the ceiling, and you can easily miss them. Some of the decorations in the lobby (ex: the carved wooden bear, the stuffed howling wolf) are "stations" and will animate when you flick your wand at them.

During the day you can go to the MagiQuest kiosks and check your status. You flick your wand at the screen, and it shows you who you are, what quests you've finished, what quests you haven't finished, what "stations" you need to visit to finish your current quest, and how much gold you have. At the end of the day you can go back to your room and compare your gold points against everyone else in the hotel on the television!

And the wands work at other hotels that have this system, although I don't know how many have it. You can bring your wand back forever, it will still work.

The downside is that they sock you in the pocketbook. About $20 for the wand, and that's just the basic wand. If you want to decorate your wand (arts and crafts paint), that's $5 more. If you want some frilly tassels, or a light-up gem, that's another $9. It's really slick the way they did this. The whole place is crawling with kids flicking wands everywhere, and of course your kid is going to want one. But I have to admit, deciphering the clues and muttering "now I know I saw a suit of armor around here, where was it?", that's pretty fun.

Another downside is that the quests take place any time you like. So even if you choose to go to bed at 9pm, you're going to have kids running past your room on quests. It got pretty bad both nights we were there. There was a lot of noise in the hallways and we had to call the front desk both nights. 11:30pm should be late enough for the kiddies, don't you think?

And the place is truly a resort, they really go out of their way to make it a total package. There's story time every night in the lobby. They have free arts and crafts each day in the Cub Club (we made St. Patrick's Day hats!). They had a free scavenger hunt too, even though it was all just a big marketing ploy (ex: How many games of skeeball are there? What animal watches over you in our huge buffet?)

The place got over a foot of snow the night we arrived ... I was impressed that the bellboys and maintenance actually dug patrons out the next day. Nice job.

St. Anger

I finally did it.

Metallica has had a very special place in my heart for almost 20 years now. They've gotten me through many key times in life, both high and low. Their music has reached me in a way that no other artist has. I've always been forgiving of their less-than-stellar material, I've always felt that their best work easily made up for some of the less phenomenal stuff.

And so, when St. Anger was released in 2003 ... I heard one track (Frantic) and went into seclusion. If their first single from the new album was this bad, I didn't want to ruin my opinion of them by listening to any more. And so I intentionally steered clear of that album, never hearing it, never even buying it.

Add to that the harsh criticism of the album by just about everyone, and my decision was sealed. I wasn't going to tarnish the of image "My Boys" which I held in my heart. And no, public criticism does NOT influence me. What other people think matters very little to me. Other albums and other projects have been panned before (Reload, S&M), and I stood right alongside Metallica, and still enjoyed their work tremendously.

I have no idea why, but I felt it was time to give St. Anger an honest listen. I actually bought it, instead of downloading it. They deserved my money and my loyalty just like any other artist that I enjoy.

Guys? You really laid a turkey this time. I tried to find SOMETHING redeemable within that album, I tried to find SOMETHING to like, something that caught my ear and made me want to hear the album more than once. I heard nothing.

It seems that Metallica took their formula and totally reversed it. All those noodly guitar solos by Kirk? Gone. Not a single guitar solo on the album. All those well-thought-out introspective lyrics by James? Gone. Nothing but grunting and repetetive senseless phrases. Even the drums ... how could anyone mess up drums? By adding some stainless steel snare that sounds out of tune with anything but a junkyard. And the new guy? Why does Trujillo get tons of audible bass on this album when Newstead got virtually NONE for YEARS?

It's not going to turn me against Metallica, but it has disappointed me. I should have left St. Anger under the rock where I found it.

Disney Tip - Character Photos

One of the "things to do" at Disney these days is get your photo taken with a character in costume. Most people also carry around autograph books, and the characters actually sign your book.

If you or your kids want photos like that, it's not as easy as it sounds.

It started out where a character would come out and stand at a certain spot in the park, and people would come up and pose with the character and get photographed. But then the number of people wanting to see the character got larger, and a line formed. And the poor guy inside the suit would end up standing there in the heat, in the suit, until the line was satisfied. Which was hardly ever, because people kept getting in line. This is an impromptu line, right out in the open. Not organized.

So Disney started limiting the time the character spends out there. A handler comes with the character, and makes sure the character is only out for ten minutes. So when it's time to go, the handler shuffles the character off, and apologizes to the people still in line.

What this means is that if you're not one of the first people in line, you probably won't ever get to see a character. Mind you, a new character comes out in five minutes, the handler announces this before they leave ... but it ends up meaning you wait in line 20-30 minutes just to get your photo snapped with Stitch or Goofy.

So there are two ways around this.

(1) Go to Mickey's Toontown Fair

This is a section of the Magic Kingdom, just like Tomorrowland and Frontierland. In this section is the "Judge's Tent" (one of the attractions). It's a building. You go in, and get in one of three lines.

The day we went, one line was for Pooh characters (ex: Pooh, Eeyore, and Rabbit), another line was for princesses (ex: Jasmine, Belle, and Cinderella), and a third line was for the classic characters (ex: Minnie, Goofy, Donald). You pick a line, and wait in line. The characters in the lines vary by hour and by day.

In groups of eight or so, you get taken from the front of the line, into a room, where the three characters are arranged in a row. Each member in the group goes down the line and gets their photo taken. Then you all leave in a group. If you want to get in a different line, you can then do so.

The good thing about this is that it's out of the sun, indoors, and air conditioned. Another good thing is that secretly, there might be THREE rooms containing the same three characters. The rooms are all seperated and you have no idea that's going on. But the assembly line system moves along quite nicely, because there's three times the number of Poohs, for example. Each group of eight goes to a seperate room.

(2) Arrange a Character Meal

From what I've gathered, this is a rather new thing at Disney World. Cast members would ask us how we liked the meal, saying that they haven't had a chance to see how it works yet.

Basically, here's the deal: they take the sit-down restaurants in the park, and instead of first-come-first-served seating, where you place your name on a list and wait 10 minutes to be seated ... instead they set aside mealtimes (ex: 3:00pm-4:00pm, 5:00pm-6:00pm). And you make your reservation days (or months) in advance.

So you show up for your reservation, and get seated, along with a whole restaurant of folks arriving at the same time who also have reservations. You get your meal served. During the meal, characters come out and visit each table, every single table.

If people with reservations don't show, then they might take people who walk up expecting first-come-first-served seating, but most of the time, those people get turned away because the restaurant is full.

For one dinner we had, in Epcot in Norway, the characters who came to the table included five seperate princesses. Each one came to the table in turn. The five princesses roamed the room and made sure each one visited each table. During each visit, you stop, photograph whatever you want, and get your autograph book signed. Another character meal we attended had Chip & Dale, Minnie, Goofy, and Pluto.

There are a LOT of benefits to this approach. One is that you kill two birds with one stone. You gotta eat. And you want to get your photographs with characters. Why not do them at the same time. Also, it's indoors, out of the sun, air conditioned. But the best benefit is that you're guaranteed a photo opportunity with each character. Guaranteed. And the icing on the cake is that if you're not having dinner at that time, you can't just walk in and get a photo with the character. Those characters are there for you, and you only.

In fact, after every table is visited by every character, the characters then stay and make a second round if time permits.

Ocean City Observations

I just got back from a week long vacation in Ocean City, Maryland. Here are some observations I have made along the way.

Cars, Cars, Cars

The biggest problem facing tourists here, by far, is parking. Come to think of it, this problem is not limited to Ocean City. More on that later. Ocean City is a very long very narrow peninsula. Ten or twelve miles long, and only three streets wide at its widest. Upwards of 400,000 people come here each weekend. And parking is the worst problem. Of course, everyone drives here from wherever they live. There are no trains, no airports, and very limited public transportation. Don’t get me wrong, I am not faulting those modes of travel, nor am I faulting people for wanting to travel places by car. I prefer to travel by car myself. But it’s clear to me that parking is a major problem here.

Just about every available inch of space that is not beach or boardwalk or hotel or shop is set aside for parking. Two spots here, three spots there, one spot here. Signs everywhere saying when you can and cannot park, who can and cannot park here, where you will be towed, and so on. Oh, I don’t have a solution here, I am just noticing the problem.

Setting aside a large parking area and shuttling people in and out, that won’t work either. Because most of the time, people want the freedom of their own cars, myself included. To enjoy the boardwalk, the first thing one wants to do is not wait in a line to board buses. For those tourists who stay in condos or hotels on or near the boardwalk, they must be able to park nearby, and that simply is not possible in this town.

Like I said, I have no solution. It’s a shame we’ve evolved into a society that relies on personal vehicles so much, and that doesn’t even begin to get into the problems of fuel, pollution, and traffic.

Glasnost

Very early in our stay here we realized that just about all of the low-paying service staff were foreigners, mostly Russian! Waiters, waitresses, take-out window help, fast food help, boardwalk shop employees, almost all of them were Russian! This got the better of my curiosity and I had to ask. It turns out that they are all foreign exchange students spending a summer in the US earning some extra cash and enjoying the ocean atmosphere while doing it. They all come over in a group, and apparently this is a very organized operation. There is even an international student “association” located in town, which appears to handle all of it.

I find this a very interesting concept. For one, the kids get to travel where they normally would not have. The local people here are bound to rub elbows with them, and if they’re anything like me, they’ll come away with an appreciation for people they may not have had the chance to get to know otherwise.

I do not think this situation is 100% good for all involved, though. I am sure the local merchants get cheap help. But I have known of summer tourist spots “recruiting” at colleges and such for summer help, room and board included. And the conditions are often deplorable. Six people to a room that would normally sleep two. Six day weeks with eleven hour days. And a severe penalty if you miss work OR do not finish your tour of duty through the summer. Leave a week early, and you miss a significant bonus. Without that bonus, your hourly wages average less than minimum wage.

I’d love to learn more about the whole thing, to see if they bring in students from other locales, for example. Do some kids come back more than one summer? Do any ever defect and choose to stay, I wonder? That must be a touchy topic. What are the requirements and legal restrictions, background checks? Do they regret the decision by the end of the summer?

Here's a link: Click Me

The End of an Era

I finally got around to seeing Star Wars Episode III tonight. It took me a long time but I vowed to see it in a theater, and not wait till it came on DVD. I almost lost the chance, waiting this long.

Good or bad, well or poorly made, one thing hit me like a ton of bricks when the credits started rolling at the end: this is truly the end. There's no more to anticipate. It's all over. The final chapter is closed and there aren't going to be any more. And that's a very hard thing to swallow.

No, I don't worship the ground Lucas walks on, but you have to give him some credit for a few things over the years. Not the least of which is grabbing the imaginations and hearts of millions of guys like me who simply drank up his movies like sweet, sweet wine.

It was hard not to be caught up in the whole Star Wars frenzy. I was the ripe age of six when I saw the original Star Wars. In an actual theater, no less. Yes, first run. The imagery, story, and imagination had me by the throat for these past 28 years. Oh, I was never a "geek" about it, I never went to a convention nor did I become so involved that I learned how to speak Wookie. But still, I was thrilled when each new movie came out, and I found it hard to bash Lucas even when others did.

So tonight when the house lights came up, I actually shed a tear. In a way this signals the end of my childhood. The story that began when I was six has now completed. I can't tap into that feeling anymore, in anticipation of the next movie. There are none to anticipate.

Time to grow up.

I think it's hard for all the younger folks in the audience to feel what I am feeling tonight. There were a few other moviegoers, several of them teens or people in their early twenties. Not having seen all six, in theaters, first run ... I think they miss out on something. I can recall my father telling me when he saw The Wizard of Oz in the theater, and when Dorothy walked out of the house after it landed in Oz, the literal blast of color on the screen was dazzling. That was a distinct "you gotta be there" experience, and I think that I have one of those now, one that just cannot be put into words.

Notice I didn't say how good the movie was. Or whether it was accurate, or well acted. And I don't think I will. It doesn't matter anyway. I won't change anyone's opinion on the matter. And besides, it truly doesn't even matter to me. It's like an elegant meal with six courses well chosen to go with each other. Consider them as a whole, not as seperate parts. There are strong and weak points, but as a whole, they stand proud.

And now that the dessert has been savored, it is time to bid adieu to the restaurant, thank the chef, tip the waiter, and move on. As I push back from the table that was the Star Wars universe ... I am satisfied.

If you're here, you probably know me. That's all there is to it. Not sure what I am going to do with this blog right now. Just cybersquatting. In case.