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10/26/2003 Archived Entry: "fish, smoke and lines"

I am dead tired. It has been one long day. We were supposed to go to the aquarium this morning for their Halloween event, but last night I decided I didn't want to rush around all day. But when I got up this morning, the smoke and haze were just horrid. There was so much ash here that I left foot prints when I walked on the driveway to get the paper. I started coughing the minute I walked out the door. I figured we had to escape and decided we would go to the aquarium after all. Even though we went 40 miles southwest, the smoke and ash were just as thick there. We couldn't even touch the railings on the outside stairs because our hands would just be covered in black ash. It's really, really bad around here. The worst thing is how many homes have been lost. I haven't heard of any deaths and I sincerly hope there aren't any.
So, we couldn't escape the smoke or the ash. The supposed Halloween events were pretty scarce and nothing seemed to really start until 2 hours after the advertised time so I was rather disappointed. But, on the bright side, 9:00am on a Sunday morning means one empty aquarium. This place is always packed, so it was nice to get an hour of free-roaming time. We'll probably do it again on another Sunday some day.
We came home for lunch and then I dressed Tabitha in her costume so we could head to Downtown Disney for trick-or-treating. This is the first year theyv'e had this event and we were pretty excited. We got there a half hour early and the line was already completely outrageous. Let's put it this way, once the event started at 2:00pm and they let people in, it still took us 38 minutes in a moving line to get in. And by the time the event started, our spot was probably the middle of a very, very, long line. So, we finally got a treat bag and got inside the ropes. I don't even know where to start explaining it. We were handed a card with 16 villains' names. Each one represented a "treat station" inside Downtown Disney. We were supposed to go to each station, get a punch on the cooresponding name on our card and get a treat. In reality, each station was nothing more than another long line of people. Sure my kid eventually got her treats, but I could have saved us both a lot of time and bought a bag of candy and cheap dollar store toys myself. The lines were absurd. It took us 2.5 hours before we finally got in the last line. Now this particular station had to be last, they would only give the treat in exchange for a completely filled punch card. The reason was they were giving big things, like Harry Potter books, Disney passes, Rainforest Cafe passes and such. So everybody had to do this line last. Which means when we finally got in it (5 minutes after the event was supposed to end) it was beyond obscenely long. And then they ran out of all the good stuff and were just handing out $5.00 ESPN zone cards. We left at that point as I'm not waiting 45 minutes to save five bucks. The main problem was simply too many people. I don't think anything could have been done to make the event less hectic short of selling tickets to only 1000 people. Picture the smallest mall you know of, now pack about 7000 people in it. That's what we were in. Too many people in too small of an area. Who knows if they'll even have the event again next year, I wouldn't exactly call it a success.
So, that was my day. It smelled, it was dirty, it was crowded and my legs and back are now killing me. Is Halloween over yet?