Sure, it’s a bit of a culty tagline, but that doesn’t stop anyone from going there, me included!

As part of this year’s Yuleish festivities (and in a shocking turnaround from the “watching movies in our jammies” traditions of yore), my family met up with some extended family in Orlando, so that we could visit with each other and/or thrill-seek as necessary.

Since I am the kind of person who is mostly thrilled when trying to play tennis (result: not as bad as I feared, but no prodigy I), I figured I’d only need one day at the park, and for research and reliving-childhood purposes, it was always going to be The Big D.

And so, like the Donner party, we bundled up on the day after Christmas to go to the park. (It went better for us than the Donners.)

Under the cut, I tackle two of their theme parks in 12 hours, on a day where the temperature never got above 35, and I had no coat with me and was instead wearing a bizarre collection of shirts under a blazer. WISDOM.

Please note that even though this is the day after Christmas, there is almost no one in any of these pictures, at any point, because it was so spectacularly windy and cold that most people just couldn’t face it. Because of this, I will forever remember Disney as that amazing theme park that opens JUST FOR YOU, which is pretty fun.

We began with Epcot. First up – a family concession to me, the nerd – was MISSION: SPACE.

Since I don’t like anything intense, because I may be a nerd but I’m also 85 years old, we went on the baby version of the ride, instead of the one that spins you around and gives you g-forces. (Perhaps as a result of the cold, my judgement would deteriorate throughout the day, but note that I started out making the right decisions.)

The line for the ride wasn’t bad at all, and one thing they do right at this park is give you stuff to look at while you’re in line. I’m not sure an artificial-gravity-space-station-slice would be enough to entertain you for a 60-minute wait, but it was certainly enough to look at for the 5 minutes until we boarded.

This ride is a flight simulator, and it works by dividing you into teams, giving you each assignments. I was the engineer, whose tasks were to hit the “Hypersleep” button and to extend the wings for landing. (I also took on the role of “Person Who is Constantly Quoting that Community Episode,” which is a thankless job but amused me to no end.)

Gary Sinise, trying hard not to look creepy and utterly failing, walks you through what will happen and warns you repeatedly that the mission is very dangerous and is not for those who are claustrophobic or prone to motion sickness. I am both those things, and yet I was so determined to be able to make a crack about the Buttermilk Nebula that I went on the ride anyway.

And it was not bad at all! It helps that we were on the Weenie Version, but it was not as claustrophobic as I feared (plus the ride’s only about three minutes, and I was nearest the exit, so I was fine), and I managed to hit the “Hypersleep” and “Wing Extend” buttons when they lit up – the only person in my entire capsule who hit their big blinking buttons on time and didn’t have to have “Computer override.” Why must my fellow astronauts always hold me back?!

After the trip to space, it was onto the Parade of Teeny Faux Countries, where you begin to realize that the attention paid to the artifice is actually sort of amazing. The UK recreation has a tea shop with three pre-patina-ed fire tongs hanging next to the recreation fireplace.

Another UK favorite is the legendary Olde English Ibisse:

He and his brethren perform their mythical task of staring balefully at you if you stop to eat fish and/or chips, and hopping on the chair next to you to give the longing cry often heard over the heath: “ARE YOU GOING TO FINISH THAT?”

I managed to come across several costumed characters while I was there, though I think the most adorable was Alice:

That kid in front was just TRANSPORTED. The brother did all the talking, because she was too starstruck.

The journey continued in Faux-France:

And Fauxrocco:

Other countries have been redacted for space saving. Know that there are 3/5 scale castles and pavilions scattered just everywhere, but you can still walk the whole thing in 20 minutes if you’re going at a decent clip. It was all very food-for-thought (which is for the best, because actual food is not easy to come by if you are vegetarian and don’t wish to sit down and pay a bucketload).

At this point our party fractured; the smart people with a sense of preservation decided to go the hell home, and some of us with park-hopper passes decided that since we were numb from the cold anyway, it was time to hit the late hours at the Magic Kingdom.

My mature, vaguely-detached, researchy amusement about Epcot lasted until this came into sight along the tram line, at which point I turned into a five-year-old girl for a second:

DAMN YOU, WALT, YOU GOT ME THAT TIME.

The whole place was pretty spiffed up for the holidays, actually.

And it was EMPTY, because by then it was 26 degrees outside and most people were smart enough to have gone home already and not try to hop the rides at 10 at night when it’s cold enough to freeze an egg on the sidewalk. Well, joke’s on the smart people!

Speaking of smart people, someone who shall go unnamed (but who is mostly my sister) talked me into Space Mountain by telling me 1) you never go upside down or have big intense drops, and 2) it’s sort of astronomy-themed.

In fairness to her, those things are both true! In every other respect, I will hate myself forever for agreeing to go on that ride, because it takes place in pitch darkness with a lot of jerky turns as if you are about to fly off your piddly little rail at any moment, and there is nothing around you but a few pinpoints of light and the echoing screams of those other hostages that you can’t see at all because it’s so effing dark in there oh my God.

JUST SAYING.

There’s a point in the ride at which they take your picture; in our shuttle, you can see me with one hand splayed to the side of my face to hold my glasses on, wearing the frozen skeleton-smile of someone juuuuust beginning a panic attack.

In conclusion: eff you, Space Mountain, and also eff you me for ever thinking that was a viable life option.

After Space Mountain, we hit the carousel, which is muuuuch more my speed, and found places to huddle out of the worst of the wind to watch the fireworks and stare at the castle, which is pretty even if you are a cynical jerk with frostbite.

We ended up spending nearly 12 hours at the park, some of it for my own ends, and some enjoying the time with family.

Time it took me to remember I had been there before as a child: until the Japan pavilion at Epcot. (It is amazing how much of my life is just a haze in my utterly faulty memory! Also, people I have met at cons, if I ever blank out on where we have met before, I swear it is not you. There is apparently nothing I cannot sufficiently forget!)

The difference between then and now: I have a camera.

Usually, traveling home for Christmas means one train. This time, the family decided to make it a bigger event and gather everyone in Florida. (Obligatory Disney pictures to follow.)

That was an awesome and fun idea! Until the storm hit, and Delta completely shut down their phone lines (literally, you got a message saying, “Due to extreme weather conditions, we are unable to answer calls at this time,” and then a hangup, as if the snow had knocked down the single telegraph line that Delta uses for communications). Their site crashed repeatedly, and when I finally got a chance to reschedule online, it told me no flights were available through the end of this week. Helpful!

So, several attempts to contact Delta and one carefully-worded email to their customer service department later, I spent 15 hours yesterday in a van with my family, was at their house long enough to shower and change, and then got on an extremely early train this morning, which rolled me into New York only a few minutes late for work.

It was a little brutal, but it seemed a better prospect than standing in an airport for hours and hoping for the best; given what the news was showing about the Orlando airport when we finally got home in the wee hours, I am happy with the call I made. I got to spend an extra day with my extended family, the car trip afterwards was uneventful, and I never had to stand in line for anything.

That said, when I walked outside Penn Station and looked at the snowbanks as tall as I am, and the three-feet-deep puddles of ice water, and the honking, clomping crowds, I could have pulled a Costner-Robin-Hood and dropped to my knees to kiss the pavement and scoop up triumphant handfuls of slush. New York is my home soil by now, and it’s always good to be back.

I have fallen far off the grid in the past few days; I intend to remedy that today, and then have a nice travelogue post with pictures! Until then, I will be mainlining coffee like you cannot even imagine.

The traditional Yuletide jellyfish wishes you a happy holiday season!

(It would work, right? It stings naughty boys and girl and sneaks up through the shower drain to deliver presents?)

I’m actually having a very nontraditional Christmas with my family, which I hope to write up in more detail when I have a minute to spare, but whatever time isn’t taken up with family and book edits is taken up with things like playing tennis (I didn’t kill anyone!), so it’s clearly the sort of strangeness in which one must immerse onself, and then write blog posts about it only after the fact.

(There are stars where I am! I am going stargazing tonight; the sandhill cranes will just have to deal with me. They are not the only members of the animal kingdom willing to flap around and run awkwardly for a chance at personal space!)

I hope all of you are enjoying the day in whatever form makes you happiest! (Hopefully one of those forms is cookie form, because man, cookies are awesome.)

Accidentally-holiday-timed writing update:

My story in Way of the Wizard, “So Deep that the Bottom Could Not Be Seen,” is now live as a free read on the anthology’s website!

Up next, the holidays! I might be updating sporadically from the road, but in that case Twitter might be the best place to find me. Usually I spend the holidays watching bad movies with family, which is a perfectly awesome way to spend the holidays, but this year I have Plans. I have so many Plans, I can’t even tell you. (Actually, I probably will tell you eventually, since hopefully I will be taking some pictures! By which I mean my sister will take pictures, and later I will steal them for blog purposes. Photo-filcher be not proud.)

And now, to go home and pretend I put some thought into my packing, which will last until my family realizes I brought five sweaters…and nothing else. (I can pack a decent suitcase; I just have to really, really concentrate.)

Yes, just in time for the holidays, my article “Five Upcoming Plagues (We’re Doomed)” is live at Lightspeed Magazine!

It’s a heartwarming wintertime tale about togetherness, sharing, and then more than likely dying from a nasty case of Pseudomonas aeruginosa as modern medicine stands by helplessly, wringing its hands and crying, “If only people stopped taking antibiotics as soon as they thought maybe they had a scratchy throat!”

(Please note that the five diseases in the article are just the tip of the nasty, disgusting iceberg made of eensy little microbes that will devour us all, and narrowing them down took some doing. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be heading to my tailor to get one of these dapper plague-doctor suits made out of teflon or something.)