Clever title, eh?
Yes, it’s me again. Didn’t think I’d come back but, well, you know:
So: let me catch you up.
Last time I was around these parts Calvin had just died, and that was very upsetting, and then within two weeks I got banned from TP for about six months, which was really understanding of the PTB and made my many years of contributions to these forums feel very profoundly appreciated.
Some months later I went to DLP with a well-known Liner and discovered what I had suspected for a while: I am so over Disney theme parks. I dunno, maybe it’s the fact that I made many, many trips between 2017 and 2024 and I’m just done now. Maybe it was my realisation that Disney is actually just a massive corporation which is laser-focussed on shareholder value and doesn’t actually care about me as a person at all. Maybe political changes in the world (careful now) made me see certain countries differently and caused me to fall out of love with them.
Despite that latter point, I am returning to the US next week. It will be Paul’s 40th birthday and there’s somewhere he’s always wanted to go and so we are going there. Such is love.
But I will be making a side-trip to Epic (told you the thread title was clever). Not because I want to go, but because I have a free ticket with Express Pass.
You may remember I flew to Orlando immediately after Calvin died (you know, shortly before I got banned from TP) and excitedly bagged a last-minute spot on an unconscionably expensive VIP tour which turned out to be catastrophically awful. Well, I complained to UOR about it and they wrote back and said “sucks to be you: we’re a huge corporation, too, and only care about shareholder value”. So I wrote back. More than once. And eventually they said, “if we give you a free one-day ticket to Epic with Express Pass will you shut up?” And I said “yes”. So they did.
So now I have this thing burning a hole in my pocket and as I have to come to the US next week I thought I may as well spend the thing and then I can be done with Orlando and that will be that.
Initially I booked Stella Nova for two nights because I thought Terra Luna was great, but SN has the walking path to the park and the TL buses were not great. But UOR kept dropping the prices because I guess the day I’m going isn’t a popular one (no, I’m not telling you when: I don’t trust you people any more) and a park-view room at Helios dipped below $400 and I thought I may as well book that instead. I will be checking in early enough to see the night-time show from my room, so that’s a plus. I don’t especially plan to take advantage of EPA but the option to return to the hotel easily at any time during my park day is very attractive.
I will be interested to see if Epic’s operations have improved and whether I can find some love for the park. I will be touring with a well-known Liner who hasn’t been there before, so that will add some value. (Paul is not coming. He wants to stay in the place that he’s wanted to visit his whole life.)
If I don’t get banned again before I return, I will write a trip report, with special focus on Helios.
Oh, yeah. I nearly forgot. JetBlue is the worst company in the entire world and it would be impossible to overstate how much I hate them. I desperately want them to go bust. Apparently they might. I will laugh, loudly and long, if they do.
The Paul trip was planned early this year and I added a side-trip to Orlando as part of that. I booked those flights on JetBlue. After the failed trip to Epic in June, I started having second thoughts. When JetBlue e-mailed to change the flight times adversely, I took that as a sign and decided to cancel. My understanding from the website was that I would get a refund minus a ridiculous $200 cancellation fee.
What I instead got was $400 or so dollars of flight credit. As well as a $200 cancellation fee. I was pretty furious about this. I complained to JetBlue and they said “we are a huge corporation and we only care about shareholder value: our customers mean nothing to us hahahahah”. So I made a claim with American Express who, in my experience, are amazing at this kind of thing. They said, “we are a huge corporation and we only care about shareholder value and helping other huge corporations screw over their customers”.
Some time passed and I decided I would take the trip to Orlando after all. So I booked a flight with JetBlue, using the travel credit. Except I didn’t because JetBlue froze my travel credit for six months as a punishment for filing a complaint against them with Amex. I complained to Amex about that and they said “hahahahah”.
So I ended up using some Delta miles I had to make the booking.
In other news, Paul and I bought a Mercedes in January to replace the Peugeot that was written off in an accident last year. After eight months the Mercedes started making odd noises so we took it to our local garage. They said “this car is too dangerous to drive: you should take it to a Mercedes dealership and they will repair it for free under their 30 year body warranty”. So we did. The Mercedes dealership said “this car is too dangerous to drive: we could repair bits of it, but basically you should throw it in the trash”. So we complained to the dealership who sold it to us. They said “sucks to be you: hahahaha”. So we made a claim to the credit card company (who in UK law are jointly liable). They said, “you and Paul are in a weird relationship and it grosses us out: no cash for you”. So we prepared ourselves to sue pretty much everyone in the world at this point. Meanwhile, we bought yet another car (a Ford) and stored the Mercedes off-road in someone’s private driveway. And then this happened:
Some idiot driver crashed their car into the fence and then into our car. So now we have that to deal with.
On the plus side, Paul has now been living with me for eight months and it’s going great. Although Calvin is gone, we now have Isis:
who somehow thinks it is acceptable to sit on my desk.
Well, I guess you’re all caught up. How’ve you been?
.
. We can just say that you’ve experienced enough to last a lifetime and leave it at that.