International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts

ICFA has some good evening programming to check out, but maybe you’re looking for something a bit different to do for one evening, something away from the hotel. Maybe you’re coming in a bit early or staying a bit late. Maybe you don’t usually stay for Saturday night’s banquet.

If so, you might want to check out Cirque du Soleil’s show La Nouba at Downtown Disney World. I saw it last year and am going to see it again this year, and I thought some of you might want to know how I’m going to get there on public transit.

I’ll let those of you with a car check out Google Maps for driving directions. If you’re not driving, you could certainly take a cab or get a group together for a shuttle, but if you want to save some cash, it really isn’t that difficult to get around Orlando by bus, especially if you are used to using public transit at home.

There are a couple of different routes you could take. Last year I tried transferring from the #42 Airport/International Drive (see last year’s post for using this bus to get to Florida Mall and the Outlet Malls) to the #50 Downtown Orlando/Magic Kingdom. It worked out well except that I didn’t like the looks of the transfer point near Sea World on the way home: by the side of a highway in the dark. Instead, I transferred to the #111 Airport/Downtown Disney and I think that bus will work much better.

Both the #42 and the #111 begin at the Airport, only minutes from the hotel. You can hop on the hotel shuttle to the Airport and walk down the bus/shuttle area to the public transit stop, or you could pick up the #42 in front of T.G.I.Friday’s on S. Semoran and be there in a few minutes.

The #111 leaves the Airport on the hour and half-hour all day, and takes about an hour to get to Downtown Disney. Or you could pick up the #42 across the street from T.G.I.Friday’s and transfer to the #111 at Florida Mall (the connection times look pretty good).

The #111 does not go into Downtown Disney itself, as the #50 does (at least, it didn’t last year; the schedule now suggests that it does). It runs down Buena vista Blvd, past Downtown Disney (clearly visible on your right, and the bus will announce it also), on its way to the Ticketing and Transportation Center for Walt Disney World. You can get off anywhere along Buena Vista Blvd in front of Downtown Disney, and walk through the area to the Cirque du Soleil on the west side.

To get back to the hotel, you’ll need to cross Buena Vista Blvd; there’s a crosswalk at the parking lot entrance, right near Planet Hollywood, and you just walk up the sidewalk until you come to a stop with #111 listed on it. The area is busy and brightly lit, so I didn’t feel at all worried last year waiting for a bus late in the evening. Take the #111 right to the airport and either call the hotel shuttle, or transfer to the #42 at Florida Mall (getting off in front of T.G.I.Friday’s and crossing S. Semoran) or at the Airport (getting off at the stop right after the intersection of S. Semoran with Lee Vista Blvd). Then it’s a short walk back to the hotel.

Last year I went to the 6pm show and was back at the hotel in lots of time to drop in on the Tuesday night party in the President’s suite.

Helpful links:

Orlando’s transit page, with maps and schedules.

Here’s a link to La Nouba. The show runs twice per evening, Tuesday through Saturday. You can buy tickets now to be held at the ‘will call’ or you can wait until you get there and hope there will still be some seats on sale at the box office (which did seem to be the case last year).

Here’s a link to Downtown Disney which is a shopping area (mostly Disney merchandise) on the outskirts of Walt Disney World. There are restaurants such as Planet Hollywood and House of Blues, and Fulton’s Crab Shack, and the theater for Cirque du Soleil, all bordering a nice little lake where ferries shuttle Disney World guests. So you can have a nice meal, walk around the lake, and then take in the show.

A Wikimapia view of Downtown Disney. I centered it on Planet Hollywood, and you can see the Cirque du Soleil tent on the left side of the page. Buena Vista Blvd is the road marked in yellow, curving along the bottom of the screen. You can see a crosswalk out of the parking lot at the center bottom and another one near what’s marked as Hess Station; the bus will stop every couple of blocks along Buena Vista. The schedule map shows it stopping at Downtown Disney West Side Transfer Center (timing point 3) but it didn’t do that last year, so I’m heading for a stop on Buena Vista just in case. But I’ve marked the location for the transfer center on the Wikimapia; it’s a very short walk from the Cirque du Soleil tent.

Of course, if you just want to do some shopping, check out last February’s entry on taking the bus to Florida Mall and the Outlet Malls. It’s in the archive under February 2009.

(Not a Definitive Guide, Being the Limited Experiences of one Chrissie Mains, Cosmetics Junkie)

Just in case anyone else is interested in doing some shopping during the conference and is wondering how to get around Orlando without a car, I thought I might as well post some of my own research into public transit and Orlando malls.

The public transit system in Orlando is called Lynx (links, get it?) and their website is GoLynx.com. There’s a useful transit map, as well as schedules and route maps to help you to plan your outing.

A very useful Lynx route #42 runs from Orlando International Airport to the Premium Outlets Mall, passing through Prime Outlets Mall and the Florida Mall on its way. Since the hotel is so close to the airport, it’s easy for those staying at the hotel to catch this bus and visit not only those shopping destinations but also other places on International Drive as well as connections to other bus routes going to downtown Orlando and to Walt Disney World (it also passes by Sea World, but that’s not shopping, is it?).

To catch the #42 bus, leave the hotel’s front entrance, walk around the lovely water feature (apparently called Lake Lorri, according to Wikimapia), and north on Augusta National Drive to the first major intersection; turn left onto T. G. Lee Blvd, and continue west to the major intersection with S. Semorran Blvd. You’ll want to be on the north side of the intersection, so that when you cross S. Semorran, you end up at the bus stop across the street from T.G.I. Friday’s. For a visual aid, go to the following Wikimapia link, where I have outlined the Bus Stop:

Wikimapia TGIF and #42 Bus Stop

Here’s a link to the schedule and route map for #42, in pdf format:

#42 Schedule

Use the airport timing point, since it doesn’t take that long for the bus to get from the airport to this stop. The bus runs every 30 minutes. The fare is $2.00 each way, but you can apparently purchase a weekly pass for $16. The return #42, on its way to the airport, will turn the corner right in front of T.G.I. Friday’s, so you’ll only have to walk across the intersection to be on your way back to the hotel.

The Florida Mall is about 20 minutes from the stop. The bus will stop for about 5 minutes in a bus area right by the parking lot, so don’t worry about where to get on or off. The Florida Mall is a huge mall, with six department stores and a whole lot of other stores (including a Sephora!), with Target right across the parking lot. There are also a number of restaurants there, both food court and nice sit-down places. Here’s a link to the mall’s website:

Florida Mall

And here’s a Wikimapia view:

Wikimapia of Florida Mall

You can see the Target in the top right corner, and I’ve labelled the bus stop area to the left of the JC Penney’s.

If you just want a relatively stress-free shopping afternoon, Florida Mall is probably your best bet, as it’s not a long bus ride and there are no connections necessary.

If you stay on this bus for another 30 minutes, you’ll end up at Prime Outlets (I haven’t done that yet, but it’s on the books for this year). And if you take it to the end of the line, another 30 minutes or so, you’re at Chelsea Premium Outlets. I did do this last year, and while it’s nice enough, I’m not sure it’s worth ending up on a bus in rush hour traffic. But if you want to try it out, here are their websites:

Prime Outlets Orlando

Premium Outlets Orlando

I also plan to transfer to route #50 at Sea World, in order to get to the Cirque du Soleil show La Nouba at Downtown Disney World. This route also ends up at the Transportation and Ticketing Center for Walt Disney World, and it looks like it travels much of the route on I4 and thus doesn’t stop often; at any rate, the timetable claims it can travel between the downtown Orlando station and Downtown Disney World in about 45 minutes. If you really want to do Disney World, there are probably easier and faster ways to get there, of course.

From Chrissie Mains, First Vice-President:

After much sweating of palms and furrowing of brows, the program for ICFA 29, to be held in Orlando March 19-23, is available on the association’s website for your information and enjoyment. From the main page, click on the link for Conference Information, and scroll down until you see the link for this year’s program. Clicking on that link will open a page that lists the program schedule. Do remember that this program is preliminary and subject to change right up until the conference starts, so don’t use it as a basis for your travel plans!

I’d appreciate it if everyone who is participating on the program in any way could check to make sure that their names, their affiliations, and the titles of their papers are spelled properly; it’s especially important to check the formatting of titles, since some formatting information can be lost in transit in the long journey between your computer and mine. If you spot a typo, please contact me at cemains@shaw.ca and I’ll fix that right up. And it wouldn’t hurt to use the browser’s ‘find on this page’ function to look for your name, in case you’ve been scheduled on a panel or other event that you weren’t quite aware of (hey, it happens sometimes).

Do keep in mind that any requests for scheduling and A/V had to be included in the original proposal; such requests affect the grouping of papers into sessions and the scheduling of those sessions into the rooms we have available, and it’s extremely difficult to make changes at this stage. If you see a problem, then contact both your division head and me immediately, and we’ll do our best to resolve it.

However, there is a limited time in which to make any corrections to the program that will appear in print, so don’t put this on your to-do list for later. And I’ll say again: if you think you won’t be able to make the conference after all, now is the time to tell us.

We’ve got a wonderfully diverse program this year, and we think you’ll love the new hotel (the pool bar is really quite nice, and the room for our evening programming is beautiful). And remember, although the program officially ends with the Saturday night banquet, this year we do have a Sunday trip to Universal Studios theme park (more info on the website).

See you in March,
Chrissie