Dec 19, 2025
Too many ghosts
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Spain
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from France
seen from China
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Georgia
seen from Germany
seen from France
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Japan
seen from Germany
seen from Malaysia
seen from Georgia
seen from France
seen from Japan
Too many ghosts
We rode it twice, and Adam screamed the whole time while I laughed at him.
I mean, it only spins you 50mph over 230 feet in the air.
Gods and Monsters - Orlando, Florida
Gods and Monsters – Orlando, Florida
Date: 12/29/16 Time: mid-afternoon (after our stop at Soupa Saiyan) Where: Gods and Monsters in the Artegon Mall Address: 5250 International Drive STE E8, Orlando, Fl 32819 Their website: Gods and Monsters Rating: 5 out of 5 skulls We initially planned to go jump at the indoor trampoline place in the Artegon Marketplace. We had just eaten and decided to walk around first. We saw many neat and…
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People look at Orlando and assume that life must be easy for everyone who lives here.
They see the portraits of smiling families in and around the attractions. Kids having their pictures taken with Mickey Mouse. Fireworks at light shows at Magic Kingdom. Parents and other adults enjoying themselves at places like the Universal Studios, Sea World, and Downtown Disney.
They see the colorful buses that take visitors to Lake Buena Vista, down International Drive, down US 192. They see boulevards lined with palm trees, the glistening golf courses, the hours upon days upon weeks upon months of sunshine.
They see the luxury shops lining Park Ave in Winter Park. The millionaires' row in Isleworth. The man-made canals on every street in Lake Nona. The boat docks on every lakeside house in Belle Isle, Maitland, and Windermere.
They see the massive retirement communities that dot the landscape around Central Florida. They see the lifestyles -- and the occasional headlines -- that are part and parcel of places like The Villages.
They see the spotless blue skies on their drives over to Daytona, to the Space Coast, toward the Gulf Coast, toward South Florida. They see everyone wearing t-shirts, shorts, and flip flops walking along the beaches that stretch as far as the eyes can see.
They see pamphlets, online ads, news segments, and TikToks highlighting the festive imagery and the jovial atmosphere. They see all of the brighter sides of life that every major tourist destination wants to, needs to, and has an obligation to, showcase about itself.
Now: there's very little about the presentation, or even the actual experiences, that's false or inauthentic for those who visit here for a few days or weeks. By and large, the impressions of Orlando that people come with when they enter are reinforced all the way up until it's time to leave.
But here's the thing…
The industry that defines this city, and is a massive pillar of the local economy, is held together in part by housekeepers and custodians who keep things tidy at all of the places where the visitors stay. By valets and bellhops who do their part to make the visitors' stays just a little more comfortable.
It's held together by bus and shuttle drivers taking people to and from the airports to the hotels to the attractions — frequently on call, and frequently through the day and night.
It's held together by golf caddies and groundskeepers, who spend hours each day, often in sweltering conditions, making sure the courses and the outing itself are as pristine as can be for their often flush clientele.
It's held together by servers and bartenders who manage all of the mouths that need to be fed at restaurants and diners that have to accommodate more people than ever before, and by line cooks who do the legwork of feeding more people than ever before.
It's held together by lifeguards and first responders at all of the beaches and hotel pools, who need to stand guard and respond immediately to any signs of trouble at these increasingly crowded locations.
It's held together by construction workers, electricians, and plumbers; after all, somebody has to build all of the hotels and the structures and the theme park rides. It's held together by mechanics and operators of those rides, who make sure that every maneuver passes without incident.
It's held together by character actors who entertain theme parks full of visitors — also often in sweltering conditions and under heavy gear. By the stagehands and costumers maneuvering behind the scenes to make sure those actors are best equipped to keep the massive crowds happy every single day.
All of which is to say: Orlando, like all places built on tourism, is a hard-working, labor-intensive city with a carefully-crafted, highly-curated, and meticulously-manicured presentation. Underneath the glitz and glamour, the appeals and the adverts, is a town full of honest workers who not only keep all of the shows running during the day, but also put in multiple shifts overnight to get them set up again the next day.
There's a tendency among Americans to view Florida solely through everything I outlined at the beginning of this write-up, then summarily dismiss the entire state as being totally and terminally devoid of strength, toughness, endurance, and industry (both literally and figuratively).
There's another, more insidious tendency in America to deem service-sector jobs, and service-sector workers, to be inherently unworthy of respect or dignity, to be of a lesser status than the "real" workers at plants and factories, and even to deem these occupations and careers to not be a legitimate life's work at all.
In an era where even the traditionally blue-collar cities of the Midwest and the Northeast are starting to scale down their industrial roots and shift toward more business-oriented presentations, Orlando — and Las Vegas, and Miami, and all of the "destination" spots in the US and around the world — should make everyone rethink their ideas of what a hard-working city looks like.
They gotta pay me to go for a spin on this thing 😱
4️⃣0️⃣7️⃣
8pm