A while back, I was invited to give a keynote at StarWest 2007 which is very conveniently held at Disneyland. They wanted somebody from Google to come give a talk about Testing on the Toilet, which has gotten lots of press and outside recognition including the Washington Post and the San Jose Mercury News (not to mention the New York Times). Antoine Picard and I answered the call and headed on down to Anaheim. Here’s a podcast introduction to our talk, and here’s abstract for our talk.
Jen and I figured that this was a good opportunity to take the kids to DisneyLand for the first time so we headed down on Tuesday evening and stayed until Saturday morning. The convention gave us a cut rate on rooms, covered two nights, my airfare and gave me an honorarium so essentially we could take a nice family vacation very cheaply. The downside was that the Disneyland Hotel was totally full so we couldn’t get a suite however, when I asked at the front desk if there was any way that we could get an extra room for the kids, they upgraded us for free into two adjoining rooms.
The room for Jen and I was pretty standard. But the room for the kids was amazing. The theme was Princesses and they each got a twin sized bed with princesse sheets. In a completely pink room with princess wall paper, a princess TV, princess lamps, princess princess princess. Ally was in heaven. Cole was pretty excited too.
We spent Wednesday and Thursday touring the park, going on rides and generally having a great time. Our preparation for this trip was to buy
Unofficial Guide to Disneyland, a tip from Anne Murguia. I read the book on the plane and in the hotel room on Tuesday evening and was amazed at the lengths that the authors had gone to in order to figure out the most efficient way to see the park. They have it down to a science.. if you’re going, you should definitely get a copy of this book (borrow ours if you want). At the back of the book they offer touring guides which (they say) reduces the average wait time by 3+ hours. Jen and I were skeptical at first, but by about halfway through the first day we were believers.
The kids had never been on a roller coaster before and the very first ride we took them on was Splash Mountain. Exactly as the book said, if you get to the park a little early and go directly to this ride, there’s no line at all. We walked right through the line maze, got onto a our little log boat and took off. I sat behind Cole (who was sitting in the very front) and Jen sat behind Ally. The kids had no idea what they were in for and since there was no line, there was no suspenseful screaming to tip them off. After the first little drop of 5-10 feet in the semi-darkness of the inside of Splash Mountain, I could hear Ally crying behind me and Cole in front of me saying “I want to get off!”. By the 3rd little drop they had calmed down a little bit (after watching the animatronic little song and dance routine they have in the middle of the mountain), but we were building up the big finale which is a 50 foot drop straight down. The picture they took just after we went over the cliff (that we should have saved, but didn’t — doh) shows Ally crying and Cole just barely holding it together. By the time we got to the bottom Cole was shaken, but ok. Ally had made a miraculous transformation halfway down from fear to joy and I heard her yelling “wheeeeee!”
Splash Mountain became the acid test for all the other rides that we went on. By the end of two days in the park and countless other rides, they were excited for the prospect of going on it again.. but not on this trip. 
If we take them back next year, they’ll be ready.
On Friday, Antoine and I gave our keynote and it went very well. We got lots of laughs, and were invited to reprise our performance at StarEast. Apparently in 15 years they have never invite keynote speakers to return, but this talk was such a hit that they’d like us to come back. So we may be going to Disneyworld (Florida) in May sometime. They recorded the talk, I’ll post a link to it when it’s available. The rest of the day we spent at the Neverland Pool near the hotel where Ally made about 10 new friends and Cole went down their gigantic water slide about 50 times. Good times!
Update: It’s official — Antoine and I have been invited to attend StarEast, May 5-9 in 2008. Giddyap!
