If you missed Part One, and all the explanation as to why I wrote it, you can find it here
And then you can find Part Two here.
But for those of you who are up to date, here's Part Three
Chapter Six
“Shut up!” Casey shrieked at her best friend Tiffani who had just asked her if she had a thing for Corey from their psychology class; both girls giggled.
"I'm just repeating what Laura has been telling everyone;" Tiffani replied, "Besides, he is cute in a geeky kinda way."
"Maybe, but you know I'm more interested in someone on the football team." Casey took her mobile phone from her pocket and started frantically pressing keys.
"What are you doing?" Tiffani giggled.
"I'm texting Laura; telling her to stop spreading rumours; and send." Casey said as she pressed the last digit; however, then she started typing again.
"Now what are you doing?"
"Texting everyone in my phonebook that Laura slept with Tom Jenkins"
"From math class? Ewww!"
Casey couldn't help but laugh both at what she had done and Tiffani's reaction; both girls stood still as they enjoyed the moment.
For Casey and Tiffani, Disney World was their playground. They both lived in Celebration, an experimental town founded by Disney, where many of the parks employees and management lived; both girls’ parents came under the latter. Living practically on Disney property; having an annual pass to the parks was as normal to them as a video rental membership and they, and their friends, would pop in out at of the parks after school or at weekends as they pleased.
Finally Tiffani broke the laughter; "So what do ya want to do? We've got an hour till we've gotta be at Space Mountain to meet the others."
"I don't mind;" Casey replied, "just not Carousel of Progress, I don't need a nap."
"Stitch?"
"Yeah, fine; I haven't done Stitch in a couple of weeks." The girls took a right turn to cross the walkway that led to the controversial front avenue of Tomorrowland where both Stitch's Great Escape and Monsters Inc Laugh Floor are situated.
"I miss Alien Encounter," Tiffani said as the girls walked under the huge Stitch sign into the building that used to house the scary attraction, "I know it's essentially the same thing but it was better before."
"We all know that Tiff; you mention it like every time we walk past here."
"It could be worse;" Tiffani said in defence, "my Mom still goes on about when it was Mission to Mars, Monsters Inc was Timekeeper and Buzz was Dreamflight."
"My Dad's the same, he can't even look at Pooh's Playful Spot or Adventures without mentioning 20,000 Leagues and Mr Toad."
Both girls laughed at their parents stuck in the past attitude to attraction replacement. To Disney fans there would always be very different attitudes on how the park should be grown. All fans want new attractions, and sometimes the success of a movie will demand a new attraction, but with the parks borders being quite specific, a new attraction often means the demise or major change of an old one; and every old attraction is somebody’s favourite from when they were kids. Some attractions had planned and announced closures like Mr Toad’s Wild Ride, which had been running for 27 years. The announced closing sparked national campaigns to “Save Mr Toad” and in it’s final days hundreds of fans protested outside the ride, begging for it to be spared; some even going as far as to exit the ride vehicle and hide inside the attraction, an act that became known as a “Toad In”. Other rides just closed overnight with no warning like 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, which was temporarily closed for maintenance, but never reopened. It was a debate that would always run and on which people would often sit on different sides of the fence depending on what attraction would be going away and what attraction it would be making room for.
"So," Tiffani asked with a slightly shy bitten lip; "if you don't want Corey, can I have him?"
Casey rolled her eyes; "he's all yours."
***************************
Mike Ridgway stepped off the boat, a wide grin on his face. Having been turned away from the Haunted Mansion, Mike had decided to ride the new and improved Pirates of the Caribbean attraction; and was able to make the quick walk from Liberty Square down to Adventureland before the line hadn’t gotten too long.
With the attraction having been reopened for over a year now, much of the buzz over its improvements had died down but to Mike it had been a wonderful first time seeing them. The Davey Jones ghost and Barbossa and Sparrow animatronics were all excellent and the enhanced sound system made the whole experience so much more encapsulating than it had before. Inwardly Mike wondered if there would be any way to get to Disneyland on the west coast any time soon; however good this new version of Pirates was, the Disneyland version would be so much better.
He took a few pictures of the loading and unloading area before making his way through the caverns to the ride exit where a group of people were watching the new Pirate Tutorial show where Captain Jack Sparrow and a pirate stooge would lead the crowds through various pirate activities and of course a rousing rendition of Yo Ho, Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life For Me). Mike didn’t want to stray too far from the west side of the park so decided to watch the show, take a few pictures to post in his trip report, maybe ride the Jungle Cruise next as it was situated right besides Pirates before heading back to the Haunted Mansion and his date with the new bride.
***************************
Jonathan was in full flow. It was his first show of the day and the first part of it was going through a scripted routine called the Pirate Tutorial. Jonathan really enjoyed this part, it wasn’t like being in a character costume show where the voices were pre-recorded and played through the speakers while the actor made the motions and danced; this was completely live and allowed the actors to mix things up a little depending on their audience and stray from the script to get a few extra laughs. The two of them had been doing the show together for about four months now and they were able to bounce of each other a lot during the shows confident in each others ability to go with the flow; he and Ray were quite a team. Jonathan’s character of Jack Sparrow meant that he had to come across with a drunken flamboyance whereas Ray’s generic pirate named Mac was much straighter in his portrayal; this allowed for them to play the classic straight man angle in their banter.
The first show of the day was always the quiet one, most guests were getting in as many of their favourite attractions as possible while the park was not quite so full; but he had a decent audience and the fewer of them would mean he could connect with them more. Jonathan loved to be able to make guests walk away from the show thinking they got a special experience, that they themselves were special; it didn’t really matter that he would do the same thing for a dozen people each day, they didn’t know that. After the show portion of the appearance, he would sign autographs and pose for photos, and so often he would see those he had played to during the show at the front of the crowd and they would comment on how great the experience had been. To Jonathan this was the most pleasing part of his job, better than any applause he would receive.
This was one of his favourite parts of the show, he would pick certain members of the audience, usually children, and show them how to sword fight using small wooden sword props. They would then battle Mac while he cheered them on and told them which body parts to be aiming for; everyone got a laugh out of it and Jonathan could really lay on the flamboyance waving his arms around with the sword while giving commentary to the audience.
Following this they would lead the crowd in a sing-a-long version of Yo Ho, he and Ray taking a side of the audience each and seeing who’s newly initiated pirates could scream it loudest; and then it would be time for autographs and photos. They would be doing the show seven times today, once an hour, so they would only be getting twenty minutes rest in between shows for a quick snack, a drink and to reapply any make up that had smudged off in the heat. It was going to be an exhausting weekend but it would be a lot of fun.
Chapter Seven
Q’s opinion of humans pre World War III was dropping rapidly. While Q had berated Picard on their first meeting about how humans were savage creatures who destroyed themselves, the Eugenics War and WWIII pushed mankind forward massively on a technological basis. While the technologies had originally been researched and developed with warfare in mind, specifically to cause maximum damage, after the nuclear war had finished and the world started to rebuild it only took a little imagination for a crazy scientist to convert the technologies and create the first shuttle able to manage warp speed; and the rest was history.
But with the war starting in 19 years, the technology Q had just witnessed was a far cry from that, let alone where it would be in the half a century from now when the war ended.
Despite the lack of reaction to Q’s quip, the three Q had made their way to the attraction called “It’s A Small World” where they were met with a horde of people. The building they entered was adorned with large cut out shapes to create a colourful city skyline on the back wall. Because of the way it was laid out, Q could see all the people lined up behind one another following a snake formation that went back and forth as it worked it’s way down from the level at which they entered to the bottom where boat like vehicles were emerging from a hole in the wall, stopping to offload their passengers, moving forward, being filled with more passengers from the front of the line and then disappearing through a hole on the opposite end of the wall.
“Apparently we stand behind these people and make out way down to those boats;” Q said to Q and q.
“Gee, that sounds like a lot of fun;” Q replied with a sarcastic voice, “is this where the excitement begins?”
Q didn’t know how to answer that without risking further future revenge from Q so he stayed quiet. Thankfully for him though, q chose that moment to interject himself into the conversation.
“Well there are a lot of people here;” he said, “they must know what this is and be wanting to experience it, it must be good.”
And so they waited.
For almost an hour.
During the wait, Q, Q and q discussed the way humans would waste so much of their spare time waiting like this. For a Q, the hour, while boring, was nothing but a mere spec in time; and for a human an hour wasn’t very long either, but when you added all those hours together the total percentage of their short mortal lives the humans wasted like this was quite considerate. The three surmised that the experience must be pretty special in order to be worth the sacrifice of time in this manner.
Q later kicked himself for not realising then that the number of humans in attendance or their willingness to stand in line wasting their lives should not have been used as a guide for the quality of the experience for which they were waiting.
It hadn’t been an acknowledgement of the patheticness of mankind and their tiny planet as Q had surmised, it was a instead a showing of global unity and love; a joke if ever there were one. And the way it had been done, it were enough to make Q sick; if Q could get sick that was. Little mechanical dolls singing, dancing and spinning while dressed up in front of backgrounds supposed to represent the countries of the world, and this terribly annoying song that was supposedly being sung over and over and over; “no wonder this place was levelled during the war” Q thought. And to make matters worse, now it was over and the three of them were outside again, Q wouldn’t stop singing the wretched song.
“Its a small world after all, its a small world after all, its a small world after all, its a small, small, world. It's a world of laughter, a world of tears, its a world of hopes…”
Q had to end this. He didn’t know for sure whether Q had lost her mind or was just singing the song to annoy him, he suspected the latter, but it had to come to and end. Q’s first instinct was to just shut her up through use of power, but that would tip her off and who only knew the trouble he would be in then. So instead he decided to go the persuasive route; “Q darling,” he began in his smoothest voice, “as much as I love to hear your beautiful voice, as I am sure everyone else here does too, would you mind singing something a little less asinine?”
Q cut off her singing and gave Q a look that confirmed his thoughts that she was doing it on purpose to annoy him. “Great”, he thought, “she’s going to pull that one out whenever she wants to annoy me.”
q, however, didn’t seem anywhere near as put off as Q and was looking at the map. “Maybe I let him spend too long with Kathy,” Q thought, “Paris and Kim and rubbed off on him a little too much.
“So what do we want to do next?” q said in what sounded like genuine interest.
“I don’t care but I’m not doing one of those line things again any time soon, Q dragged us here to escape boredom not experience it as part of a crowd.” Q answered, with total indifference.
“Well, that ride hasn’t got a line,” q said pointing to a canopy covered area not far from their current location; “apparently they are the Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups.”
“Excellent idea my boy!” Q exclaimed pretending to be thrilled and trying to get away with the situation he had put them in, “lead on.”
“Shut up!” Casey shrieked at her best friend Tiffani who had just asked her if she had a thing for Corey from their psychology class; both girls giggled.
"I'm just repeating what Laura has been telling everyone;" Tiffani replied, "Besides, he is cute in a geeky kinda way."
"Maybe, but you know I'm more interested in someone on the football team." Casey took her mobile phone from her pocket and started frantically pressing keys.
"What are you doing?" Tiffani giggled.
"I'm texting Laura; telling her to stop spreading rumours; and send." Casey said as she pressed the last digit; however, then she started typing again.
"Now what are you doing?"
"Texting everyone in my phonebook that Laura slept with Tom Jenkins"
"From math class? Ewww!"
Casey couldn't help but laugh both at what she had done and Tiffani's reaction; both girls stood still as they enjoyed the moment.
For Casey and Tiffani, Disney World was their playground. They both lived in Celebration, an experimental town founded by Disney, where many of the parks employees and management lived; both girls’ parents came under the latter. Living practically on Disney property; having an annual pass to the parks was as normal to them as a video rental membership and they, and their friends, would pop in out at of the parks after school or at weekends as they pleased.
Finally Tiffani broke the laughter; "So what do ya want to do? We've got an hour till we've gotta be at Space Mountain to meet the others."
"I don't mind;" Casey replied, "just not Carousel of Progress, I don't need a nap."
"Stitch?"
"Yeah, fine; I haven't done Stitch in a couple of weeks." The girls took a right turn to cross the walkway that led to the controversial front avenue of Tomorrowland where both Stitch's Great Escape and Monsters Inc Laugh Floor are situated.
"I miss Alien Encounter," Tiffani said as the girls walked under the huge Stitch sign into the building that used to house the scary attraction, "I know it's essentially the same thing but it was better before."
"We all know that Tiff; you mention it like every time we walk past here."
"It could be worse;" Tiffani said in defence, "my Mom still goes on about when it was Mission to Mars, Monsters Inc was Timekeeper and Buzz was Dreamflight."
"My Dad's the same, he can't even look at Pooh's Playful Spot or Adventures without mentioning 20,000 Leagues and Mr Toad."
Both girls laughed at their parents stuck in the past attitude to attraction replacement. To Disney fans there would always be very different attitudes on how the park should be grown. All fans want new attractions, and sometimes the success of a movie will demand a new attraction, but with the parks borders being quite specific, a new attraction often means the demise or major change of an old one; and every old attraction is somebody’s favourite from when they were kids. Some attractions had planned and announced closures like Mr Toad’s Wild Ride, which had been running for 27 years. The announced closing sparked national campaigns to “Save Mr Toad” and in it’s final days hundreds of fans protested outside the ride, begging for it to be spared; some even going as far as to exit the ride vehicle and hide inside the attraction, an act that became known as a “Toad In”. Other rides just closed overnight with no warning like 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, which was temporarily closed for maintenance, but never reopened. It was a debate that would always run and on which people would often sit on different sides of the fence depending on what attraction would be going away and what attraction it would be making room for.
"So," Tiffani asked with a slightly shy bitten lip; "if you don't want Corey, can I have him?"
Casey rolled her eyes; "he's all yours."
***************************
Mike Ridgway stepped off the boat, a wide grin on his face. Having been turned away from the Haunted Mansion, Mike had decided to ride the new and improved Pirates of the Caribbean attraction; and was able to make the quick walk from Liberty Square down to Adventureland before the line hadn’t gotten too long.
With the attraction having been reopened for over a year now, much of the buzz over its improvements had died down but to Mike it had been a wonderful first time seeing them. The Davey Jones ghost and Barbossa and Sparrow animatronics were all excellent and the enhanced sound system made the whole experience so much more encapsulating than it had before. Inwardly Mike wondered if there would be any way to get to Disneyland on the west coast any time soon; however good this new version of Pirates was, the Disneyland version would be so much better.
He took a few pictures of the loading and unloading area before making his way through the caverns to the ride exit where a group of people were watching the new Pirate Tutorial show where Captain Jack Sparrow and a pirate stooge would lead the crowds through various pirate activities and of course a rousing rendition of Yo Ho, Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life For Me). Mike didn’t want to stray too far from the west side of the park so decided to watch the show, take a few pictures to post in his trip report, maybe ride the Jungle Cruise next as it was situated right besides Pirates before heading back to the Haunted Mansion and his date with the new bride.
***************************
Jonathan was in full flow. It was his first show of the day and the first part of it was going through a scripted routine called the Pirate Tutorial. Jonathan really enjoyed this part, it wasn’t like being in a character costume show where the voices were pre-recorded and played through the speakers while the actor made the motions and danced; this was completely live and allowed the actors to mix things up a little depending on their audience and stray from the script to get a few extra laughs. The two of them had been doing the show together for about four months now and they were able to bounce of each other a lot during the shows confident in each others ability to go with the flow; he and Ray were quite a team. Jonathan’s character of Jack Sparrow meant that he had to come across with a drunken flamboyance whereas Ray’s generic pirate named Mac was much straighter in his portrayal; this allowed for them to play the classic straight man angle in their banter.
The first show of the day was always the quiet one, most guests were getting in as many of their favourite attractions as possible while the park was not quite so full; but he had a decent audience and the fewer of them would mean he could connect with them more. Jonathan loved to be able to make guests walk away from the show thinking they got a special experience, that they themselves were special; it didn’t really matter that he would do the same thing for a dozen people each day, they didn’t know that. After the show portion of the appearance, he would sign autographs and pose for photos, and so often he would see those he had played to during the show at the front of the crowd and they would comment on how great the experience had been. To Jonathan this was the most pleasing part of his job, better than any applause he would receive.
This was one of his favourite parts of the show, he would pick certain members of the audience, usually children, and show them how to sword fight using small wooden sword props. They would then battle Mac while he cheered them on and told them which body parts to be aiming for; everyone got a laugh out of it and Jonathan could really lay on the flamboyance waving his arms around with the sword while giving commentary to the audience.
Following this they would lead the crowd in a sing-a-long version of Yo Ho, he and Ray taking a side of the audience each and seeing who’s newly initiated pirates could scream it loudest; and then it would be time for autographs and photos. They would be doing the show seven times today, once an hour, so they would only be getting twenty minutes rest in between shows for a quick snack, a drink and to reapply any make up that had smudged off in the heat. It was going to be an exhausting weekend but it would be a lot of fun.
Chapter Seven
Q’s opinion of humans pre World War III was dropping rapidly. While Q had berated Picard on their first meeting about how humans were savage creatures who destroyed themselves, the Eugenics War and WWIII pushed mankind forward massively on a technological basis. While the technologies had originally been researched and developed with warfare in mind, specifically to cause maximum damage, after the nuclear war had finished and the world started to rebuild it only took a little imagination for a crazy scientist to convert the technologies and create the first shuttle able to manage warp speed; and the rest was history.
But with the war starting in 19 years, the technology Q had just witnessed was a far cry from that, let alone where it would be in the half a century from now when the war ended.
Despite the lack of reaction to Q’s quip, the three Q had made their way to the attraction called “It’s A Small World” where they were met with a horde of people. The building they entered was adorned with large cut out shapes to create a colourful city skyline on the back wall. Because of the way it was laid out, Q could see all the people lined up behind one another following a snake formation that went back and forth as it worked it’s way down from the level at which they entered to the bottom where boat like vehicles were emerging from a hole in the wall, stopping to offload their passengers, moving forward, being filled with more passengers from the front of the line and then disappearing through a hole on the opposite end of the wall.
“Apparently we stand behind these people and make out way down to those boats;” Q said to Q and q.
“Gee, that sounds like a lot of fun;” Q replied with a sarcastic voice, “is this where the excitement begins?”
Q didn’t know how to answer that without risking further future revenge from Q so he stayed quiet. Thankfully for him though, q chose that moment to interject himself into the conversation.
“Well there are a lot of people here;” he said, “they must know what this is and be wanting to experience it, it must be good.”
And so they waited.
For almost an hour.
During the wait, Q, Q and q discussed the way humans would waste so much of their spare time waiting like this. For a Q, the hour, while boring, was nothing but a mere spec in time; and for a human an hour wasn’t very long either, but when you added all those hours together the total percentage of their short mortal lives the humans wasted like this was quite considerate. The three surmised that the experience must be pretty special in order to be worth the sacrifice of time in this manner.
Q later kicked himself for not realising then that the number of humans in attendance or their willingness to stand in line wasting their lives should not have been used as a guide for the quality of the experience for which they were waiting.
It hadn’t been an acknowledgement of the patheticness of mankind and their tiny planet as Q had surmised, it was a instead a showing of global unity and love; a joke if ever there were one. And the way it had been done, it were enough to make Q sick; if Q could get sick that was. Little mechanical dolls singing, dancing and spinning while dressed up in front of backgrounds supposed to represent the countries of the world, and this terribly annoying song that was supposedly being sung over and over and over; “no wonder this place was levelled during the war” Q thought. And to make matters worse, now it was over and the three of them were outside again, Q wouldn’t stop singing the wretched song.
“Its a small world after all, its a small world after all, its a small world after all, its a small, small, world. It's a world of laughter, a world of tears, its a world of hopes…”
Q had to end this. He didn’t know for sure whether Q had lost her mind or was just singing the song to annoy him, he suspected the latter, but it had to come to and end. Q’s first instinct was to just shut her up through use of power, but that would tip her off and who only knew the trouble he would be in then. So instead he decided to go the persuasive route; “Q darling,” he began in his smoothest voice, “as much as I love to hear your beautiful voice, as I am sure everyone else here does too, would you mind singing something a little less asinine?”
Q cut off her singing and gave Q a look that confirmed his thoughts that she was doing it on purpose to annoy him. “Great”, he thought, “she’s going to pull that one out whenever she wants to annoy me.”
q, however, didn’t seem anywhere near as put off as Q and was looking at the map. “Maybe I let him spend too long with Kathy,” Q thought, “Paris and Kim and rubbed off on him a little too much.
“So what do we want to do next?” q said in what sounded like genuine interest.
“I don’t care but I’m not doing one of those line things again any time soon, Q dragged us here to escape boredom not experience it as part of a crowd.” Q answered, with total indifference.
“Well, that ride hasn’t got a line,” q said pointing to a canopy covered area not far from their current location; “apparently they are the Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups.”
“Excellent idea my boy!” Q exclaimed pretending to be thrilled and trying to get away with the situation he had put them in, “lead on.”
...........To Be Continued
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