Shark Encounter

The family and I headed to Disney World in June with the girls' dance studio. Our trip down was as awful and complicated as possible (the actual flight wasn't as bad as the hell flight into Mpls in May), but eventually we arrived in Orlando in one piece and with all of our luggage. While at Disney, the company dancers did a showcase of their competition dances on the performing arts stage in Downtown Disney.

As we toured the different parks, Sydney and Camille met every princess and character (except for Daisy Duck) that Disney had to offer. We went to Cinderella's Royal Table for dinner one night and had breakfast with the Princesses (highly recommend the later). We went on every ride the kids desired, and even a few they did not.

Which leads me to a story (and why wouldn't it?).

When I was eight years old or so my family took a vacation to California and we went to Universal Studios (or some place like that). We went on the Jaws ride. You know the one, cute little boat cruising through Nantucket into the mouth of one of the scariest Hollywood creatures ever. So there we are on the boat when I see "the" fin. I buried my head in my dad's lap. He tapped me on the shoulder to tell me Jaws was gone...except Jaws wasn't gone. Jaws was right freaking there, to my right, open jaws and all. I screamed like I had never screamed before. I'm quite sure my dad laughed, if I remember right the whole damn boat laughed.

Fast forward to the middle of June 2009. We are standing at the entrance of Jaws and I am not sure which way to go. Sydney asks "Is this a scary ride?". I said "I don't think so".

I'm now a liar.

Off we trot into the line, my poor kids not knowing what lies in wait. We had spent our day at Universal with another family from the studio so Sydney sat by her friends Emily and Megan in the front row of the ferry. We rounded the bend and there was "the" fin. I felt like I was 8 again. Damn it. Why did I get in this boat? The shark approaches, and Sydney flies around in her seat "YOU LIED!!!". The shark is now at our boat; mouth open. Kids are screaming, Camille has buried herself in my lap, I want to scream, but can't. The shark has pushed so much water into our boat that we are all soaked (we had seriously just dried out from a water ride earlier in the day). We float on through two more shark encounters, a couple of gun shots, and more screams from our kids.


Maybe I've started what will become a family tradition of torture on the "Jaws" ride, but only time will tell.