All kinds of goings-on this week in Trumpville, what with firings, hirings, and highly-skilled (not) foreign policy expert Ivanka Trump meeting with South Korea’s foreign minister. If Ivanka screws up, The Donald will, as he does with everyone else working for him, dump her and appoint a new daughter (Stormy? Oprah?) to his family. And dear old Donny, Jr.’s wife hired a criminal attorney to represent her. What’s up with that? She’s apparently got more on the ball than others with Trump as part of their name.
But let us move on to less tawdry, but a far more important event affecting many of us. If you’ve been reading my column for many months, you obviously have nothing better to do. Take a break and ingest some random substances or remodel your bathroom. Anyway, you know that I’ve written about The Mouse, a.k.a. Disney World. I’ve passed along valuable information about the Magic Kingdom or maybe poked fun at it, all the while presenting myself a number of times at the headquarters of The Mouse in Orlando, Fla., where I contribute hard earned cash to keep his Viagra prescriptions coming. But this latest attempt by the rat boy may well cross the line. Not the Trump line, which changes hourly, but the Disney cash-grabbing line.
Starting at the end of this month, The Mouse will start charging his resort guests $19. to $25. per day for parking their vehicles while they stay at his mostly overpriced resorts and dining on overpriced edibles. Not content with charging $450. per day to stay at the Grand Floridian, you’ll have to pay an extra $25. to leave your car in the parking lot, although you will get a 10% discount if someone in your party gets a picture of Mickey tattooed on their forehead at the Dumbo Tattoo Parlor and Smoke Shoppe. I’m no marketing genius, but it seems to me it would have been smarter to jack up resort room rates by those amounts, thereby burying the parking fee, rather than broadcasting it to all sentient humanoids in our solar system within earshot as an additional cost. Disney still can remain in the black and keep character heads above water by charging $26. for a $5. T-shirt or $12. for a pair of $3. jockey shorts imprinted with free Disney advertising. But, hey, if you can afford $450. per day, what’s another $25.?
If you plan to visit Mouse Land, it seems to make more sense now to stay at one of the Lake Buena Vista hotels around Disney Springs, alias Downtown Disney, alias Disney Villages for sometimes half the price of even the cheapest Disney resort, free breakfast included. Then hop a bus into the World where you can absorb all the culture you can stand from various lands while being crushed and trampled by masses of guests drunk on $7. cups of beer during Epcot’s ever-expanding Food & Wine Festival, another big money-maker for Mickey & Company.
If The Mouse’s new plan works out, the next thing coming down the pike is a large vacuum hose connected to the wallets and purses of guests immediately upon check-in to suck out every bit of cash Mickey may have overlooked, thereby giving new meaning to the Disney Experience. Poor old Walt must be rolling in his grave at the Haunted Mansion, because he always wanted affordable parks families could enjoy. They still can if they don’t mind foregoing a college education for their children. One downer is, in spite of the huge influx of cash, Mouse employees only earn $8.25 to $10. per hour, even those wearing hot costumes with Toyota-sized heads under the blazing sun. In the spirit of full disclosure, The Voice is not owned by Disney, otherwise I’d be writing future posts on an outhouse wall somewhere west of Laramie.
• Finally this week, following the death of a little dog which was stuffed in an overhead compartment caused by a United Airlines “I thought it was a hot dog” flight attendant, bills are being presented and laws are getting passed to see this never happens again. Not to be left behind, the NRA is getting a bill pushed through Congress that will allow pets to carry assault rifles. Their argument is that if the puppy had an AK-47, it could have blasted its way out of the overhead. I’m a great animal lover, and you can call me crazy, but doesn’t it seem a little odd Congress can rush into action after the death of one small puppy in a United jet at the hands of an oatmeal-brained flight attendant, but can’t do anything after the death of 261 young people in schools since Columbine at the hands of gun-wielding psychos?