Old Cognitive Dissonance

First a disclaimer: A lot of people will LOVE this place because it’s in DisneyWorld. I am not one of those people. I can’t afford to go early, nor stay late. I’m not allowed by University travel regulations to visit the attractions — even assuming I could afford to — while the conference is underway (this includes, btw, evenings when there are no programs running). I appreciate that other institutions lack the draconian levels of paranoia we have at my place, but that’s why this is a disclaimer.

This post is intended to help answer the question, “How can we get the most out of this experience?”

Layout:
This place is huge. You can’t really tell from the “virtual tour” just how big it is. I’m guessing that it’s a bit over 600m from the lobby to my room in building 7A — the most distant rooms on the grounds because it’s on the opposite side from the lobby. The resort is arranged in a large ovoid — about 500m wide and 1000m tall. (See Google maps for the resort — it’s by the tab marked C.) Here’s an online version of the resort map. Note that there are no scalar markings on it.

You will want to wear walking shoes and be prepared to leave your room for the day by carrying everything you’ll need when you leave in the morning. It’s not that it’s a difficult walk, but it eats time.

Restaurants:
There are two in the Conference area - The Pepper Market and the Maya Grill. There is a third, apparently, at The Dig Site (the large pool area) but I didn’t know about that one until I left and it’s not particularly convenient, unless you happen to be staying on that side of the lake.

The Pepper Market is a HUGE space with lots of tables. You get a ticket going in and the attendants at the various stations mark what you got. When you’re done eating, you take the ticket to the cashier. The price of breakfast is about $12 with coffee and something substantial — eggs etc. Lunch will run you closer to $15 and dinner closer to $20. The quality of the food is — arguably — as good as MacDonalds. I’m not particularly objective.

The Maya Grill is a small space with excellent staff. They have a breakfast buffet that is excellent at just a bit more than the Pepper Market. If I remember, it was around $15 but it includes coffee, juice, and all you can eat of a variety of solid breakfast fare. I never ate lunch there, but simple dinner is at least $25 and can easily top $50 per person if you have appetizers, desserts, and more festive beverages than coffee or water. The food is adequate.

The main bar is Francisco’s. All the drinks I saw were $6. Granted, I saw a limited variety — gin and tonics, margaritas, and corona’s. Your mileage, as they say, may vary. The place is TINY. We could easily overwhelm them so knowing that there’s an alternate bar out by the Dig Site may be useful. They do serve a nice basket of chips and salsa with the drinks.

There is a convenience store that sells boxed sandwiches ($5-$8) each and some very rudimentary stocks of beverage and fruit. None of it at supermarket prices.

Internet:
This is one of those things that really gets my attention. We had to pay $10/day for the “wireless hotspots” that were only available in selected places around the grounds. This service allowed me to do anything I wanted, including run a connection to my secure server and do all my email, skype, and other communications.

The rooms have wired internet that’s a different provider and costs an additional $10/day. Moreover, I had a dreadful time getting anything but a web browser to work reliably on that connection. Skype would not call out. IM was spotty. My email would receive, but the outgoing SMTP access was blocked. I couldn’t run a secure tunnel to my office to bypass the blocking because that was blocked as well.

On the upside, I understand that AECT is arranging for some kind of wireless blanket coverage for the conference. I don’t know what that’ll be like with all of us whacking on it, but it’s worth noting that we may have some options to the pay services that are there now.

Rooms:
Rooms are as advertised. They’re smallish, kinda rustic, and — for two people — comfortable. Don and I shared a room and it worked well. Each room has an empty fridge, but no way to heat up food. Each room has a 4cup coffee pot — which might make water hot enough for tea (I doubt it) or hot cocoa. As usual, they provide two envelopes of weak coffee and creamer/sugar for only one pot full. Each room has a small table, and only two chairs. This will make it difficult to get larger parties going in the rooms, which may be the intent.

That being said, the rooms all share an outside walkway that might well create a party space that’s sufficient to piss off hotel security. If we move our chairs out “into the hall” as it were, I can see some pretty decent get togethers perhaps developing. There’s also the possibility of “see you at the ‘Ranchos pool’ at 9pm” being a very viable alternative for the let’s get together and gab sessions in the evening. We could coordinate those using the calendar function in the Overlay.

Things I Intend To Do To Make Life Bearable While There:

• Take a box or two of granola bars/meal substitutes in my suitcase for lunch and snacks. Pack a box of Kashi in my suitcase along with some paper bowls. I can get milk at the convenience store and that alone would save me $35 a day on meals.
• Pack 4cup coffee filters (flat bottom style) and all the stuff I need (coffee, dry creamer, sugar) to make coffee in the room.
• Eat a lighter meal for dinner (soup and salad at the Maya perhaps) every other day. I’m not sure what the receptions will be like or what food might be available, but expect to see me there, too.
• Try to get somebody with a car — or maybe several of us can split the cost of a rental for a day — to take me shopping off campus to buy Fridge Stock like fruit, water, alternate beverages. A loaf of bread and some cold cuts would be VERY useful, but not something I can easily pack in a suitcase and carry from Denver to Orlando.
• Get a roommate to split the cost of the room ($75/night if I share. $150/night if I don’t).

That’s about all I can come up with right now. Anybody else have some ideas?

This entry was posted on Monday, July 25th, 2005 at 12:10 pm and is filed under AECT, AECT2005, Wanderings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.