Barrett

Uber It to Disney World

This Mickey balloon experienced the joy of Uber travel from the Magic Kingdom back to our hotel room. How unusual is that?

Look, I know I’m probably the last to the party when it comes to realizing how disruptive Uber has become. Yes, I’ve recently discovered that it’s amazingly convenient and less expensive than traditional taxis or car services.

And yes, I love using the app… Tracking my Uber car on its way and having the driver’s phone number to confirm my pickup location.

Uber has quickly become another indispensable tech tool in our busy lives. But what does it say when other (competitive) industries still pretend to ignore its very existence…?

Mission 1 to Disney World
I just got back from a weekend family vacation to Walt Disney World.
I know… two days isn’t a whole lot of time to make a serious dent in exploring the Disney universe, not to mention all the other Orlando attractions. But it’s a beginning, and my son isn’t even six yet.

Honestly, I didn’t know what his experience would be like…
When he asked me if Disney World was located on another world other than Earth, I realized I was starting with a blank slate. I think that’s partly because he doesn’t currently have a strong connection to the original characters, although he does love “Captain Jake and the Never Land Pirates” on Disney Junior.

So I thought of this trip as reconnaissance and research for future exhibitions…

Disney Can Be Scary
And as it turned out, many of the attractions at both Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Animal Kingdom (our two choices for this first mission) were actually a wee bit scary and intense for him.

I had forgotten that early in the first act of many Disney stories is the introduction of the band of ‘bad or evil’ characters. They can certainly look intimidating on TV or an iPad, but onsite at Disney World… the intensity is magnified by infinity and beyond.

Why do it “big,” when you can do it Disney big?!

That usually involves lots of darkness, 3D glasses, water spritzing, wind effects, shaking, high-decibel crunching and crashing sound effects.

Even the pop-up, happy Magic Kingdom mash-up musical at Cinderella’s castle includes the spectacular introduction of the evil queen from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” complete with green and yellow pyrotechnic explosions and accompanying booms.
(That wicked queen really knows how to make an entrance!)

But my son was out of there faster than you can say Grumpy, Bashful, and Sneezy! He grabbed my wife’s hand and made a beeline through Main Street to safety faster than Elvis ever left the building…!

(Now, I’m sure some five year olds can handle this kind of visual and visceral blitz. All kids mature at different rates in their capacity to handle jarring stimuli, influenced in part, I think, by their cumulative multimedia ingestion.)

We regrouped by a smiling street vendor and picked up some floating Mickey Mouse balloon ears encased by a larger clear balloon like… magic.

All was good again.

As it was with the less intense experiences provided by other rides and shows such as the wonderful Kilimanjaro Safaris, Peter Pan’s Flight, Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor and the Tomorrowland Speedway.

But I digress…

The Price for the Last Five Miles to Disney
Since I didn’t rent a car on this trip, one question I immediately had for the concierge desk at our big-chain hotel was how to actually get to Disney World.

Was there a free shuttle bus?
Nope.
(What was I thinking?)
That kind of convenience is usually baked into a more inclusive Disney package.

My choices were taking a cab it or paying for a shuttle bus service that the hotel contracts with.

The cost?

$20 per person to take the shuttle-bus round trip.
That would make it $60 for the three of us.
As for a cab, the concierge told me that would range between $25-$35.
Let’s average that to $60 round trip.

Either way, you’ve got to hand over three Jacksons for a family of three to make it to Disney and back.

Or do you…?

Why Not Uber?
A friend of mine had recently mentioned that she used Uber the last time she went to Disney with her family and highly recommended I try it.

So I asked the concierge. But as soon as those two syllables came out of my mouth, his face froze.

He said that Uber wasn’t a recognized business partner of the hotel, and he couldn’t comment on it.

Huh?

So I walked away and made my decision.

The next morning, I summoned an uberX. The friendly driver greeted us a few minutes later, and we were quickly on our way. He drove us right to the regular cab drop-off location in front of Animal Kingdom, and our day at Disney effortlessly began.

The Uber cost?
(Wait for it.)

$11.85

The Math Doesn’t Lie
The following morning, the ride cost even less- $8.55.
(That said, the rest of the trips hovered closer to $12.)

So let’s average it at $11.
That’s makes it $22 round trip.

…Verses $60 round trip.

What?!
That’s such a dramatic difference!!
Who can possibly make an argument against picking Uber?

Dinosaur Fascination
That said, all is not always perfect with Uber…

On the first return trip from Animal Kingdom, I opened up the app and requested my Uber for four… my wife, me, our boy… and his new dinosaur hand puppet. (T-Rex)

By the way, the otherwise amazing Dinosaur ride at DinoLand U.S.A. in Animal Kingdom was definitely too scary for him.
(Actually, I think it would be wise for adults to stretch a bit before going through that time tunnel. Otherwise you might pull a muscle during the frequent ‘turbulence.’)

All this said, my five year old was almost giddy afterwards, talking about the scariest parts….
(During the moments his eyes were actually open.)
I think he’s just on the cusp of understanding the equation of how something scary in an entertainment-based, safe environment can also be fun.

But I digress again…

Uber, We Have a Problem
So I’ve got my Uber car booked, and I’m tracking it in real time on the Uber map.
(Always so cool)

Suddenly, the little car icon moves in the wrong direction. And the wait time increases by four minutes.

That’s not good.
So I click on the driver info and call him up.

He answers. I confirm that he’s on his way to Animal Kingdom.

He asks if I’m Brandon.

Uh oh.

After 30 seconds, we agree we’re not destined to meet.

So I cancel the Uber request, and immediately try again. This time there’s no problem.

I ask the next Uber driver about the glitch, and he admits that occasionally the app messes up.

Well, that’s not so great, is it?

But as I usually like to call the Uber driver to confirm my exact pickup location anyway, I don’t see it as such an obstacle. If there’s a problem, I’ll pick it up immediately.
(And that was the only time this particular Uber flat tire happened to me.)

Get with the Times!
So, I’ve taken my family to Disney World.
(Now, I can check that off my bucket list…)

But of course we’ll be back… there’s so much more for my son to see.
(Plus, I must master my FastPass+ technique!)

I have to admit I was in my own little Magic Kingdom zipping around using Uber.

And remember, this is not Tomorrowland. It’s not Fantasyland.

How can some hotels not acknowledge this new reality?
(Trying to protect the bottom line today by sticking with old school transportation models has got to be short sighted.)

They’d better get with the times, or they might soon find themselves as a brand new attraction… at DinoLand!

November 15, 2015

My Child Brought Home One of his School Teachers

I’ve just realized that student book bags don’t need to carry so much anymore thanks to learning websites out there that are assigned as homework.

There’s an early scene in 2009’s “Star Trek” movie that shows the boy Spock in school. While sitting in one of several dozen sub-floor pods, he’s rabidly bombarded with math and philosophy questions enveloped by a 360-degree virtual reality screen and cool computerized voice.
(A nifty homage to a similar scene from 1986’s “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”)

It’s a complete teaching and testing system without a teacher in sight.
A fantastic, sci-fi view on the future of our educational process…

Or is it?

Hello, Cyber School Teacher
My son has been experiencing kindergarten for the last few months. One day a few weeks back, I came home and found my son and wife at the dining room table looking intently at my wife’s MacBook Pro.
(It was like he had suddenly learned to read, found my blog and realized he’s a topic of this ongoing conversation!)

I walked closer and heard a new voice coming from the laptop. It was talking to my boy:

“What significant contribution to bioengineering was made on the Loonkerian outpost of Klendth?“

“The Universal Atmospheric Element Compensator.”

“Correct!”

…Okay, those are lines from the “Star Trek IV” scene between the adult Spock and the Vulcan computer.

What was actually happening was a word recognition quiz for my human boy from a website called Reading Eggs. It’s a subscription-based tool that teaches kids to read for $59/year.

I thought it was simply a new resource my wife had found and was trying out. But it wasn’t. In fact, our boy had brought the entire idea of it home, because he uses the website at school.

Huh.

Computer-Based Learning
In fact, his teacher had recommended that the students spend time with Reading Eggs at home.
(Part of their early homework regiment)

I know there are plenty of learning apps out there for kids, and we’ve used a number of them on our iPad over the past couple of years with our five year old. So computer-based teaching is certainly not new to us.

And of course I’m generally aware that computers have been completely integrated into all grade levels for many years.

But this was the first moment where I witnessed it up close and personal.
And in my home.

Of course, why wouldn’t the school suggest we use a good learning website, along with books, flashcards and sound charts that still involve letters and words on paper?

But I still stood there, trying to integrate this experience as a baby-boomer parent whose tech contact in grade school was limited to first-generation calculators and analog mimeo copy machines that created exam sheets reeking of alcohol-like ink no kid could resist from sniffing.

How Do You Feel?
I wasn’t upset. And I certainly shouldn’t have been surprised.
Maybe I just needed to have my little ‘Aha’ moment.

And acknowledge how ‘fascinating’ it all was… the similarity this scene had to the Vulcan learning process expressed in both “Star Trek” flicks.

I just had to recognize the presence of computers already so close to the center of my son’s formal education process.

And how do I really feel about all of this?
(pause)

To quote another line from “Star Trek IV”…

I feel fine.

November 8, 2015

Star Trek is Returning to Television?

Incoming message from Starfleet: Cancel all of your plans for the beginning of 2017. There’s a new starship traveling at warp speed to a TV near you.

I’m not really sure how to react… I stumbled across the news last week that
a new “Star Trek” series is coming to television in January 2017.

Well, actually only the first episode is coming to conventional television. The rest of the series will only be available on CBS All Access, CBS’s digital video-on-demand streaming platform.

You’ll have to pay $5.99/month to be able to access to this new Trek.
(Unless you’re a personal friend of the “Q”)

The series will not be connected to the current movie universe, though the new show will be executive produced by Alex Kurtzman, who co-wrote and produced both of the current generation “Star Trek” films directed by J.J. Abrams.

Red Alert!
I am a life-long “Star Trek” fan.

I started watching the first reruns on WPIX TV in my parents’ bedroom when I was seven years old while my parents ate dinner. My father wasn’t too happy about that arrangement, but my mother allowed it, I think because she saw how connected I was to the series.

I know I should be jumping up and down for joy at this week’s revelation. My inner nerd entirely sated. What could be better than the return to a weekly “Star Trek” experience?

It’s been a decade since the last “Star Trek” series (“Enterprise”) limped off the air. And the last “Next Gen” movie “Nemesis” crashed and imploded back in 2002.

The entire franchise withered, because not enough humanoids on this planet simply cared to watch anymore.

“Star Trek” was in trouble.

Two Mr. Spocks Were Better than One
Then, J.J. Abrams revived the Federation in 2009 with his early-days version of “Star Trek.” And though his two movies were relatively faithful to the original… in so many ways, it’s totally an alternate universe.

Amazingly, he successfully created another “Star Trek” without alienating the old fan base. He made it his own and yet kept all the important foundational elements. In fact, he brazenly stole iconic moments and old plot points, smartly reengineered them and then placed them front and center.

Those are insane risks… and he pulled them off flawlessly.
He boldly made “Star Trek” his own.

Which is why the known universe is nervously wondering what he’s done with Luke Skywalker, who is noticeably absent from any of the new trailers for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

But I digress…

Fresh Dilithium Crystals
Make no mistake; the “Star Trek” you grew up with is long gone.

That said, I’m quite satisfied with the current iteration of “Star Trek.”
The third movie installment, “Star Trek Beyond” comes out next summer.

It’s been something of a journey for Trekkies but that’s where we’ve happily landed.
(If I may speak for all of us…)

Now, there’s yet another disturbance in the Force.
(I know… mixing movie metaphors)

And I’m not sure I’m ready for it…

I am Expressing Multiple Attitudes Simultaneously
A new TV Star Trek is coming out six months after the hopeful positive glow of “Star Trek Beyond?”

I’ve got so many unanswered questions:

Which timeline does this series live in…?
(The original, the one Abrams reengineered or perhaps a new one?)
When in the future is this one set?
(Circa Kirk? Pre Archer? Post Picard?)
Why isn’t this one ‘related’ to the current movie series?

So this Trek lives on its own without the benefit of being a part of the overall whole? That could be a huge limitation. “Star Trek” has always benefited from its own mythology that’s developed through almost fifty years of storytelling.

But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself.

I’m just a little nervous trying to process this sudden news with practically no details other than ‘January 2017’ and ‘Alex Kurtzman.’

And the idea of having to pay to watch the new series…. that’s also a little unsettling.
(Of course you wouldn’t think twice if HBO picked the show up.)

And CBS will point to the thousands of hours of other programming you can also watch with your monthly subscription, including all of the other “Star Trek” series.

Okay… so what’s my problem?

Live Long and Prosper
Successful science fiction television has proven hard to do. For every hit like the newer “Battlestar Galactica,” “Babylon 5” and “Farscape,” there were also plenty of big duds like “The Starlost,” and “seaQuest DSV.”

Both “Voyager” and “Enterprise” were weaker Trek efforts, though I must admit I stuck with both of them.

Creating yet another “Star Trek” reboot is not going to be a slam dunk…
And not to be attempted just to cash in on the success of the current Abrams’ movies.

I’m just saying…
This new series had better be good!
(I’m not going to rummage through my attic to unbox my toy phaser, tricorder and old model starship collection for nothing.)

Yes, I’m a little anxious, like doting parents watching their child perform in the school play. As a Trekkie (or Trekker), that’s the level of connection I irrationally feel.

Of course, I want this new “Star Trek” to be great!

So Mr. Kurtzman… Let’s get to it!

At Home with Tech

November 22, 2015

Uber It to Disney World

November 15, 2015

My Child Brought Home One of his School Teachers

November 8, 2015

Star Trek is Returning to Television?

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