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disney sea

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Today, inevitably, we wound up at Disney Sea. (Yes, that's as much of an endorsement as you're going to get out of me.) We had a good time. Mari said the highlight was when we were on The Nautilus ride and I sprinkled everyone with water from my bottle while exclaiming about water coming in the "submarine" (the submarine doesn't actually go below water).

For me, there was a decidedly terrifying experience: the freefall ride. After a 45 minute wait and a bit of a spiel about a cursed idol, we were elevated to some point in the "tower of terror" where we were greeted for a final time by the handler who'd been tending our group. Then we fell a storey, where the ride paused. "I guess we're do-" I said, at which point the freefall resumed. For 40m (at 60+kph).

During the wait, I had time to work out the economics of the queue and the special passes that you can obtain. Quite simply, it's all about transactional utility. First, they warn you that you've got a 110 wait from a certain point. Then you either join the normal queue like a schlub, or you go get a special pass which allows you to almost completely bypass the queue. If you're a schlub like Yaguchi-san and me, and you join the long queue, you're still done in less than half that time. You've come out ahead. If, however, you obtain a pass, you're done in about five-ten minutes. Now that's transactional utility! I bet there are quite a few people who tell that part of the story when they've taken the ride.

After the day out, I had dinner with Adrian - an old friend from my time at NikkoCiti. He picked a great izakaya near our crooked AirBNB place, and we talked about old times and about the business he's getting off the ground.