Back from AECT
Finally, I’m out of the hideous humidity of pre-hurricane Florida. Coronado Springs is just as Nate had described in July. I enjoyed the actual physical location less than I thought I would, which means that I expected to not like it, and I really hated it. It was really funny getting coffee with a colleague this morning who was very vocally expressing how much he hates Disney as the cashier at La Tienda looked at me skeptically. I have to agree, since the 12 oz coffee I was purchasing for $1.80 tasted like crap.
I actually only ate a couple of meals, surviving mostly on snacks from receptions. The reason was simple—the food was so overpriced and bland. The first night I was there, I skeptically (2nd time used, but appropriate for dealing with Disney–skepticism)…went to the Pepper Market which is humorously advertised as follows:
” Select the cuisine of your choice in this festive indoor food court. You’ll enjoy the street market atmosphere and tasty offerings from around the world.”
I really loved the concept—I pay 10% service charge (which goes back to the establishment…not the service), a 10% service charge which makes me wonder where the 10% markup for the cost of subpar food is going. Then I go to a station from “around the world” which is truly a joke and bastardization of any kind of ethnic cuisine. There is something wrong when the Mexican food tastes more or less the same as the Asian food. The Asian station doesn’t even get to be defined by which particular Asian cuisine it is—just Asian. Fantastic!
So I had a $12 chicken quesadilla (not even a whole one…half a quesadilla) and the next time I ate there I had the most bland cheeseburger imagineable. And it occurred to me when I asked if I could have bacon on my cheeseburger, and the guy at the grill looked at me blankly and had to search around before he could confirm I could choose a different kind of cheese…is that Disney has the best racket going ever—since they are offering the antithesis of choice, and marketing it as having an array of choices—and they are making a killing while serving the same piece of chicken up with a pair of mouse ears ten different ways.
At the same time, that night, I thought—how different is it really, from how we experience most locations of conferences? (And after 3 days trapped at the Coronado, it IS different, it’s the worst case scenario!!!!)…But to some extent, this homogenized culture, this commodified urban culture (shirts with the city symbol: crabs in Maryland, lobster in Boston, chili peppers in Phoenix and dinners out at the Ponderosa, Ruby Tuesdays, Olive Garden, TGIFridays in every city). Disney just happens to have removed every last shred of authenticity and with their fictional city. And people save all their pennies to bring their kids (or even just themselves) to this überhomogenized environment because it is a safe, pleasant, predictable, and moderately entertaining experience.
They go there because it offers itself as the un-experience. Though it is a fallacy, people travel there expecting safety, service with a smile, a seamless worry-free experience…without the mess of homeless people, garbage, bugs (although i did see one beetle outside), poor people, working people (the staff at disney are in fact not staff but “cast members”). (And better yet, at the Coronado, many of the cast members are of latino/a ethnicity, speaking to guests in English, while their culture has been inappropriately appropriated and so we buy food at La Tienda and a (presumably) white dude with a southern accent leaves me a voice mail greeting on the final night of my stay that begins with “buenos noches”…hope you enjoyed your stay…). Disney is our brave new world.
