Depending on where you travel, you may come to realize that leaving home was a terrible mistake. That’s because every destination with a public relations budget endeavors to attract tourists and drive revenue. Yet every destination doesn’t deserve a visit from you.

A world of tacky, boring, bland, too hot, too rainy, and too cold destinations is eager to seize your vacation dollars. I’m here to expose five of them, although I acknowledge there are many, many, many more. You may not agree with the following selections; I acknowledge one person’s misery (mine) may be another person’s joy.

MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina

Freak Week

Everything crude, tacky and low-rent about America comes to spin its wheels in Myrtle Beach during Bike Week. Miles of fast-food joints and miniature golf courses lure tattooed grandpas on deafness-inducing hogs and their red-hot mamas straight off Walmart mobility scooters. Add in families with too many children under the age of ten, battalions of bleached blonde bimbos in Daisy Dukes, enough rebel flags to upholster every plantation from Fort Sumter to Jacksonville, and you’ll discover that for at least one week a year Myrtle Beach is a visual, auditory, and gustatory assault.

BERGEN, NORWAY

A Whale of a Bad Time

A coastal town with a pungent fish market, a harbor, and a row of historic, gable-roofed structures, Bergen is Norway’s second-largest city. What is there to do? Ride the funicular to the top of Mount Floyen… to look down at the fish market, the harbor, and the old buildings. If you get hungry, don’t try the whale meat. It will take hours to get rid of minke mouth taste. Alternative pescatarian picks await, as well as reindeer and (yes) moose meat. Fortunately, there is also a McDonald’s nearby. As for accommodations, avoid the trendy but terrifying Hotel Oleana. My room boasted a shower with a graphic evoking the famous scene in Psycho. Pining for the fjords? You can take a half-day roundtrip cruise from the port. Trust me: that’s long enough.

ARUBA

Bland Strand of Sand

If all you want on vacation is a beach, well, I have nothing more to say to you. If you like culture, variety, appealing cuisine, and activities other than picking sand out of your crevices, take Aruba off your bucket list. One redeeming aspect: Aruba has casinos. With a little luck, you can win enough money to pay for an earlier flight home to save yourself from dying of boredom.

ORLANDO

Family “Fun”

For any sentient childfree adult, hell is located in this desiccated patch of central Florida. Screaming childrens’ noxious and bacterial excrescences are expelled from every orifice, showering the innocent visitor drawn by exorbitant Disney prices and brain-dead attractions. One memory stands out. We were in Epcot, naively hoping to find something international that wasn’t ersatz. A tow-headed Opie tromped over our shoes and underscored the futility of our search by shrieking, “Maw! We already done France.”

CHINA

More a Poo-Poo than a Wu-Wu Experience

A vast nation with a complex history and culture that span millennia, China still belongs on the casual traveler’s skip-it list. The attractions for which it’s most famous — the Forbidden City, Great Wall, Terracotta Warriors, and the Yangtze River are each disappointing in their own way.

Spanning 180 acres and containing nearly a thousand buildings, the Forbidden City is crowded and overwhelming. Just try finding a clean bathroom, a place to sit for a few minutes, or a decent snack on the premises. Thanks, Communist Party.

And forget the city of Beijing. Until China gets its pollution under control, it’ll be a rare day when the entire gray city doesn’t look like it needs to repeatedly go through a car wash. The Yangtze River isn’t much cleaner. Plastic flotsam and Styrofoam jetsam are floating companions to ships that ply the dirty gray-green water.

The Great Wall? More like the Great Staircase. If you went on vacation to escape your Peleton, you’ve found an Asian equivalent. Unless you’re being chased by Mongol hordes advancing on the Badaling entrance, plant yourself in the adjacent café and use their bathroom rather than the public one, which has a long line and revulsion at the end.

As for China’s terracotta warriors, they’re assembled inside a square edifice the size of several airplane hangars and displayed on a sunken floor. Viewers are so far away that it’s difficult to discern their individual features. Fortunately, you can get a lot closer to the models in the gift shop and even pick up a palanquin, which is really the only way to travel.

And don’t get me started on the food. Your corner Chinese restaurant with a C rating cooks more appetizing fare. At least they de-bone fish before serving and keep the most disgusting pig parts off the menu.

The next time you start thinking about a vacation to one of these places, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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I’ve just returned from an immersive, topsy-turvy cocktail adventure. The Alice: An Immersive Cocktail Experience is the maddest tea party I’ve personally attended in Florida. I savored this theatrical, alternate reality experience that took me down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass.

This adults-only event, up and running in half a dozen cities, has found its way to the whimsical pop-up experience currently running at The Oliv Bar, located at 745 North Magnolia Avenue in Orlando. The experience will run at this location through mid-August. For those both curious and curiouser, this is the tea party to end all tea parties. This event has been a huge hit, selling out Sydney and Melbourne before beginning the US tour, then selling out in multiple cities such as Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Denver.

The Mad Hatter, March Hare, and White Rabbit welcomed us. They adeptly hinted and ad-libbed to make our experience move efficiently. My companion and I enjoyed 90 minutes of madness, where the actors took us on a journey of clues, cupcakes, and curiosities.

We solved riddles and brewed teapot cocktails as we embarked on our very own mad adventure at The Alice. We created our concoctions under the watchful eye of The Mad Hatter. Each table solved riddles and challenges just like Alice and unlocked all the ingredients to create our own enchanted brews. The actors have created a cool, interactive event that is perfect for a date night, corporate event, or adult celebration.

The first drink arrived in a shot glass. The second was cleverly concocted by combining three small bottles of colored liquids which we earned by answering riddles. The liquids were emptied into a tea pot that erupts in smoke and is then poured over ice. The third cocktail arrives frothing with a contest.
It was all fun and games until someone stole the Queen of Hearts tarts and the room must decide who did it. I intentionally threw them for a loop by falsely confessing to the crime in front of the group. The cast said that was a first.

For guests who do not imbibe, fear not. The program’s imaginative mocktails are more than a mere afterthought. The drinks and Eat Me sugar cookie are well spaced in the 90 minutes.

The whimsical room consists of about eight tables with wonderful props such as half of Alice’s body hanging down through the ceiling, an enormous Cheshire Cat mouth and eyes, and giant playing cards. There are also cuckoo and office clocks, plastic flamingos, and playful faux flowers.

The guests in the room on our evening readily interacted with one another. For those who crave seclusion, the space can be leased privately for holiday parties and un-birthdays.

This 90-minute alternate reality experience in Wonderland costs $43 per person and includes a welcome shot, two cocktails, and an Eat Me cookie.

For more information, visit www.thealicecocktailexperience.com.

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Following weeks of expectation, Disney Cruise Line’s newest ship, the Wish, has finally arrived in Port Canaveral, Florida. Nearby, about two dozen local residents watched from the quay of Jetty Park. Several leatherback sea turtles and dolphins were seen romping in the cove as the ship approached. With Florida’s Patrick Space Force Base in the background, the ship was welcomed by Disney characters at a private ceremony shortly before daybreak on Monday.

When the Disney Wish sets sail on its official maiden voyage this July 14th, the ship will offer new experiences soaked in Disney storytelling including immersive dining experiences themed to Frozen and Marvel, and an upscale lounge set in the Star Wars galaxy. Each sailing’s itinerary will offer planned activities for children and young teens, including a completely reimagined Oceaneer Club that will have an entrance directly connected to the Grand Hall. A Marvel Superhero Academy pledges to train young recruits alongside some of their beloved superheroes.

The Wish is the first of three new Disney ships to be constructed at Germany’s Meyer Werft shipyard through 2025. The vessels will be powered by liquefied natural gas. The trio will be slightly bigger than the Disney Dream and Disney Fantasy, each weighing in at nearly 144,000 gross tons.

The Florida charity Give Kids the World recently revealed its eight winners for the maiden five-night voyage as part of a promotion offered with Disney. The Orlando nonprofit resort hosts families with children living with life-threatening health conditions. They will stay in the two-story Wish Tower Suite inspired by the Disney animated film Moana. After completing its maiden voyage, the Disney Wish will book three- and four-night itineraries from Port Canaveral to Nassau in the Bahamas and Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay.

Disney World employees assembled at the private reception at Port Canaveral to welcome the new ship to port. The ship’s official maiden voyage is slated for July 14 and will commence with a water salute.

“It is truly an emotional moment. Something special, not only for Walt Disney Cruise Line, but for the thousands that help make this all possible,” said Walt Disney ambassador Raevon Redding.

Walt Disney World ambassador Ali Manion predicts that young guests will appreciate the outdoor water coaster.

“The Wish has the AquaMouse, which is the first ever Disney attraction at sea. It will fully immerse you with lots of fun in the middle of a Mickey Mouse cartoon,” Manion explained.

Port Canaveral Director and CEO Captain John Murray attended the gathering.
“We have anticipated this homecoming of the Disney Wish for some time and know that our entire Port community is excited to have her sailing from our Port,” said Murray. “We are proud of the longstanding partnership we have with Disney Cruise Line, and the arrival of the Disney Wish adds to the growing number of impressive cruise ships providing high quality guest experiences from our Port.”

Port Canaveral hosts nearly five million revenue cruise passengers through its terminals and six million tons of cargo annually, including bulk, break-bulk, project, and containerized. The Port is tactically situated to service all Florida markets, as well as the Southeastern United States. In addition to cruise facilities and diverse cargo operations, Port Canaveral is home to an array of varied recreational vendors. For more information, visit www.PortCanaveral.com.

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