parktrotter

Now, I’ll be a good travel correspondent, and do some travel reviewing. I’ll also be sure to note some negatives about each of the places we went, even though in balance, they were all better than I expected–except that big one at the end. So here are the corporate entities we dealt with during this very long day:

Southwest Airlines. Guinea Pig Hutch of the Skies: the aircraft was packed, and I spent my hour and a half aboard the plane with my elbows pinned to my sides, and nearly holding my breath. Is it an illusion that these value airlines pack the passengers in like shrink-wrapped food? But they were friendly, inexpensive, and on time. You cannot ask for more in an airline. Really, you can NOT.

The Enterprise car rental people at John Wayne airport. Friendly, inexpensive, on time–and they tried to sell us a larger vehicle, and insurance that we did not need, and something else, too. The people behind the desk are getting commissions for that stuff, right? Some car rental companies are better than others, where this sort of thing is concerned.

The Desert Palms Hotel and Suites. So far so good–indeed, I’m quite pleased. Everything works: shower, toilet, TV, refrigerator (as a friend said recently, “Yeah, those hotels next to Disneyland are all living off the park, and it’s just an unexpected bonus when something in the room actually works”). So far, thumbs are up. The bad news: the hotel is as close to the entrances to the parks as you can get in a hotel, literally, but the Disney Corporation has that wall of ivy between their property and the outside world, and it is arranged such that you have to walk about a mile to get around the fence and up to the gates. There are shuttles.

Goofy’s Kitchen at the Disneyland Hotel. Food was great–it was much better than what you’ll get in the park, which is often greasy and prefab, and we won’t mention the calories, which would power Anaheim, properly harnessed. It would have been more fun if I had been four years old, as I kept getting interrupted in mid meal by Chip and Dale both, who wanted attention from me. These were employees in costumes, of course. I had to get up and pretend to go to the restroom to get away from them.

Disneyland itself. A bit of a problem. More tomorrow.

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