Advertures with Kids -- Orlando and Montreal

Paul and I had the pleasure to accompany our grandchildren and a niece on two separate, kid-centered trips this August. The first excursion was to join our son, Mike and his wife, Deb and their four boys for part of their week-long, once-in-a-lifetime vacation to the Orlando area. The second was a belated bat mitzvah gift for our niece Olivia, taking her for a long weekend to Montreal, Canada. Here are some observations about these two disparate adventures.

Orlando and Its Environs

Mike and Deb chose a great alternative to staying in one of the zillions of expensive hotels in the area – a vacation home rental in Kissimmee. The house belongs to a former colleague of mine and is offered out for rental most of the year. It had 6 bedrooms, four baths, a well-stocked kitchen and, best of all, a screened in swimming pool.

We visited both The Magic Kingdom and Epcot with the kids. TMK has lost much of its sparkle and relevance (for me as well as the kids) since the days of my youth when I first visited Disneyland in California. The Disney of Cinderella is no longer, but the park still reflects that older era. Alas, the iconic “It’s a Small World” ride still exists but was closed for remodeling. My grandchildren , however, had never even heard of It’s a Small World (“--after all. It’s a small, small world”). So, they were not disappointed. In general the verdict of the grandkids was that the Disney rides (which never was what TMK was about) cannot compete with the thrills of Kings Dominion or Six Flags.

Epcot had more appeal, with plenty of hands-on activities and its focus on science, technology and the future. The kids very much enjoyed it and the Epcot rides, particularly the auto test track ride and the astronaut training ride – less like roller coasters and more like imitating the real experience. Epcot also features a sampling of cultures around the world – mini villages with restaurants, music and shops in the style of Germany, Mexico, Morocco, Japan, Italy, among others . Admittedly, this is a western, developed country view of the world so hardly representative, but the kids enjoyed it. They particularly grooved on the Japanese drummers. When polled, the grandkids voted that, they likely would not go back to TMK itself, but would go to Epcot again.

A couple of final notes on Disney:

• The food leaves a lot to be desired. The options are either cheap, unhealthy fast food or expensive, themed restaurants. In general, these higher end restaurants were not great value for the money. We ate at the Italian and Moroccan restaurants at Epcot. The food was modest to say the least, and our grandson Ryan spent the night barfing after the Moroccan meal.
• For what it is worth, the Florida TMK was much cleaner and more inviting than EuroDisney, which we visited just last year.

On our last day in Orlando we visited an outrageously expensive water park ($47 a head). All that to spend a day in the rain and stand around in long lines (typically ½ hr to 1 hr.) to ride the various water slides. Definitely a loser!

Some of the best experiences for Mike, Deb and the boys occurred before we joined them in Florida. The biggest hits of other the sights seen were reported to be Cape Canaveral and the Harry Potter theme park at Universal Studios. Despite hours and hours of lines, the boys, who grew up on Harry Potter, were ecstatic about Hogworts, Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. Their only complaint was that they wanted to make it less about rides and more about recreating the wizarding world experience so they could roam around in it, just living the life of Harry.

Montreal

We stayed with our niece in the Latin Quarter, which is in walking distance of the old section of Montreal, which dates back to the 1600s, and is conveniently accessible to the rest of the city by the subway. The Latin Quarter is funky, kind of like a slightly less-down-at-the-heels version of Adams Morgan (as a frame of reference for those familiar with DC). It had lots of restaurants, music, off-beat shops and late night activity, and it is frequented by new agers, goth-types and aging hippies, as well as by a cross section of typical Montrealites. Our hotel was Le Relais Lyonaise. It was a nice place, small (only 7 rooms/suites) with a very friendly and helpful staff. That said, it was hard to understand how the Lyonaise was ranked the No. 1 hotel for the city on Trip Advisor or how it rated the 4 stars granted to it by the Montreal Tourist Bureau. Says something about the competition, I guess.

Left to our own devices Paul and I would have shopped, visited old sites and museums and had leisurely dinners. There was plenty of all of that in the city. Our niece, is 14, however, and we were challenged to find activities that would interest her. Here is what we chose:

]- An air-boat ride on the St. Laurence River. The ride took us through some of the rapids upstream from the city in such a way that we were frequently swamped by large waves. It was a fun, but wet ride. Fortunately, they provided warm sweaters and water proof ponchos, shoes and coveralls. It was a hit, though pricey ($60 in Canadian loonies per person).

The Labyrinth. We were early for the boat ride so we killed and hour and a half going through a giant labyrinth in an old warehouse next to the boat dock. There were puzzles that we had to solve along the way. Great fun. Though, Paul and I proved less adept at navigating the maze and solving the puzzles than our niece, who finished 45 minutes ahead of us and got all the clues right (we only got half right). The Labyrinth (http://www.labyrintheduhangar16.com/en/) is apparently a perennial event from mid-May to Halloween and is different each year. Rates for a family of 3 were $34.50 loonies.

Festiblues. This is Montreal’s annual blues festival held at Ahuntsic Park. We went on Saturday, the penultimate day of the fest, and heard some interesting music from Nina Attal of France, Diunna Greenleaf from Texas and a Quebecois group that was slightly more rock, covering among other songs,” Johnny B Goode”. All in all, it was a great way to spend an evening, and it was a hit with the niece.

Drumming in the park. In yet another park every Sunday a group of musicians gather and, in ad hoc, volunteer fashion play drums – mostly “tom-toms” but also a flute and other percussion instruments. It was wild. The participants ranged from very aging hippies and new agers to the button-down types, but more of the former. Young women danced to the music for the crowd. This is a must see if you find yourself in Montreal in decent weather and have no plans for a Sunday afternoon.

Bikes. A cool feature of Montreal is that there are bikes available to rent from bike racks on the street every couple of blocks in the city. You can get a pass for 24 hours for a nominal sum ($5 US). That permits you take bikes in and out of any of the racks for use and, so long as you return them to another rack somewhere in the city within a half hour, there are no additional costs. Beyond the half hour there is a small charge per additional half hour. There are great bike lanes, separated from traffic, all over the core of the city. So, it was a great way to get around -- cheaper and more accessible than the rarely seen taxis. Two caveats: you will likely do this without the protection of a bike helmet unless you generally pack one; and you must be sure to really shove your bike into the return rack so that it registers the return or you will incur additional charges until someone else takes the bike out. (Something Katy learned when her credit card bill came.)

The bottom line – Paul and Katy would really love to return to this city on their own to do more eating and explore the non-kid stuff like art galleries and museums that we missed.