Champagne Offer Was a Trick, Not a Treat, in Orlando

Central Florida has no mountains. It is covered by tropical vegetation and swamps. That’s all I know about central Florida.

We drove from Ft. Lauderdale to Orlando in our rented car, a distance of about 200 miles, then spent almost the same amount of time looking for our hotel.

I suppose that was my fault. I had a voucher for three nights at the Holiday Inn Lake Buena Vista. But I had forgotten the Holiday Inn part. We had checked out a Buena Vista Motel and Buena Vista Palace when I took another look at the voucher and found that it was a Holiday Inn. We had already passed the Holiday Inn twice.

My disposition was not improved when I gave the desk clerk a voucher entitling us to a kitchenette and “complimentary champagne.” She handed me two keys and a coupon that could be traded at the in-house variety store for one split of champagne. A split is about one glass.

I recalled the time we had stopped at the International in Geneva and emerged from our two showers to find a bottle of Taittinger in a bowl of ice on our dining room table.

“Don’t forget,” my wife said, “we paid $460 for that suite.”

I traded my coupon for the split and bought another one. My wife was thirsty too.

The next morning we set out for Disney World, a collection of amusement parks that is roughly the size of Lichtenstein. My wife wanted to see the Epcot Center.

One parks in a vast lot and rides a tram to the center. My wife was interested most in the exhibits of 10 nations--Mexico, Norway, China, Germany, Italy, America, Japan, Morocco, the United Kingdom and Canada--which surround a large lake in a circle. The shopping opportunities seemed limitless.

We trudged around the circle and visited every exhibit. Each was a replica of a street scene with souvenir shops and cafes. Musicians played and sang native songs. The sets were very realistic.

I liked France best. It looked like any neighborhood crossroads in Paris, complete with the inevitable boulangerie and patisserie. We bought two beers and croissant sandwiches and ate at an outdoor table under a scaled-down Eiffel Tower. Charming French airs, including the repertoire of Edith Piaf, filled the street. We were enchanted by a long film on Paris and the French countryside on a 180-degree screen. My wife was especially excited by scenes of balloon flights over Burgundy. She had always wanted to ride one, and I promised to take her back.

The Moroccan exhibit was so realistic that I could almost imagine myself back inside the walled city of Fez, with heavily laden donkeys plodding down the narrow streets. That was the time we paid $1,600 for three rinky-dink rugs. I was so claustrophobic that I would have done anything to escape the rug shop.

In the United Kingdom we had another beer and a meat pie in a genuine pub, the Rose and Crown. The pub is one of the world’s most civilized institutions. It was too early for tea.

In the Canada exhibit we walked through miniature Rocky Mountains to a theater where we saw a travelogue of Canada on a 360-degree screen. We were constantly swiveling around to see what was behind us. At one point we were completely surrounded by Mounties on horseback.

Having toured the world, we took the Journey Into Imagination, being escorted by a jolly old man, Dreamfinder, and his robot sidekick, Figment, on a tour of imagination--from that tiny first spark to the products of high technology.

It was this exhibition that gave my wife her idea. “I’m going to come back and bring the kids,” she said, meaning the younger four of our five grandchildren. My legs were already numb. I could not contemplate doing Epcot and the other Disney parks with four children in tow.

“Count me out,” I said.

“I already had,” she said.

I believe she actually means to do it. That’s what a little imagination will do.

That evening we had dinner in a restaurant called TGI Friday’s. It was Halloween night. The waiters and waitresses were in costume. It made me homesick. On Halloween night, one ought to be home to answer the door when trick-or-treaters knock. I couldn’t remember another Halloween when we weren’t at home.

The next day I was a basket case. I stayed in bed and had room service while my wife went shopping. At the hotel they had told us we couldn’t do it all in one day. They were right. We missed most of the scientific exhibits, which I am told are the best.

My wife can catch them when she goes back with the kids.