Archive: July, 2025

One of the things I dislike from the conventional consultant approach to "Agile" is the anonymous retrospective. It's problematic for a lot of reasons, and I don't do it.

First off, if your team is right-sized, it's unlikely that any retro observation won't be associated with someone on the team. In fact, that's a reason that someone may not feel comfortable bringing it up at all. But if the team doesn't peg the source, then it lacks context. No one likes feedback that isn't associated with a source because it's hard to make it actionable if you don't have the context.

More importantly though, doing this anonymously says that you don't have the culture and environment for psychological safety. Feedback is not, in fact, welcome if you can't safely provide it without fear of retribution. It isn't team work.

I have my team post retro items on a board ahead of time, with their initials. When we reach that part of the routine, we go around the room and have people talk about what they wrote in the usual categories... what went well, what didn't, what we can do differently. This allows for conversation and clarity and gives every member of the team an opportunity to lead a discussion, which I happen to think is important for professional development.

If you do anon retros, try this. I think you'll find the results far more useful.

We somewhat unintentionally have fallen into a biennial tradition of staying at Walt Disney World on-property, despite living so close to it. In April, the resort was advertising discounted rooms for Florida residents, so with nothing else in mind for my birthday weekend, I booked three nights at Coronado Springs. This was our third time staying there, with previous visits to Art of Animation and Yacht Club. Coronado is a good spot because it has a bunch of solid pools, including the one with the pyramid, the Three Bridges restaurant, and two excellent venues in the tower. It's also relatively fast to get to all four parks, and using the transportation system is kind of fun.

I got the text that the room was ready at 2:30 on Thursday, a little later than I would have liked, but they guarantee 3. You can go straight to the room and open the door with any of your magic bands or phone. We were in the Ranchos section, and really most locations are reasonable to get around. With four bus stops, you're always close to one. We headed out to Epcot, to find a strangely not-busy park. Not quite pre-hurricane, but pretty close. I expected it to be busier the day before Independence Day.

With Simon being 15 now, we don't force him to hang out with us constantly. He immediately did his thing, while Diana and I headed to Mexico for a lap on Three Caballeros (because why not) and some chips and guac, plus margarita. We met back up with Simon to do Guardians of The Galaxy as a family, then bounced over to Soarin' for a ride in B2, the optical center of the ride. We walked all of the way to the split, so not a long wait at all. Considering that Test Track hasn't officially reopened, it was crazy how short waits were. Emerging from The Land, the radar was showing an incoming cell, so we made haste to get to Italy for a dinner reservation, while Simon headed off to Hollywood Studios.

I haven't been to Tutto Italia in a very long time, and it's possible that the last time I went was before they changed operators in 2007. I remember it being fairly elevated and delicious. Unfortunately, it's far from that now. The rain started just as we arrived, and the host stand was chaos. I could see two hosts yelling at each other in Italian. Once seated, our waiter brought some bread, including packaged bread sticks, but forgot the olive oil. Diana ordered lasagna, I ordered fettuccini with alfredo sauce. Mine was pretty bad. I don't cook much, but this is one dish I can do and make it great. It's not hard to combine butter, cream, cheese, garlic and a little pepper. It's such a straightforward dish. Well, what I got was bland and seemed like it was potentially from a can. It had no taste at all. No garlic, none of the saltiness you get from parm or asiago (or both). The chicken on top of it, similarly, tasted like nothing. I'm not usually one to send stuff back, but I did here. If you're gonna charge over thirty bucks, it can't suck like that. I got chicken parmesan, which was, at best, adequate. The service was still terrible, with the waiter not really showing up (the manager took care of the bland dish). Overall, yeah, not a fan, even with 20% off as passholders.

The drizzle persisted after dinner, but we really needed to course correct after that dinner. We went over to the patisserie in France, where the friendly folks there provided us some excellent desserts. By the time we got back to the bus stop at the front of the park, we were pretty wet. The dessert box was pretty wet, but the treats were fine. We showered and called it a day.

On actual Independence Day, Friday, I started by talking to the front desk. A towel hook in the bathroom fell of the wall, and our AC seemed to struggle to get to the target temperature. Also, Simon's charging privileges weren't working. They got it all resolved. Simon started at Magic Kingdom, while we went to Disney Springs for lunch. Because I was hangry and not in the mood for adventure, we landed at The Edison, a spot we've been to before. They have pretty great cocktails and food with a great steampunk theme. We sat at the bar, and the place was not busy. Springs overall was not packed. The weather continued to be suboptimal though, and just as we got back to the bus, it started to pour. Simon made his way to Studios again, and would eventually go back to Magic Kingdom to use his comp after getting evac'd on Tiana's.

I took a nap and just relaxed a bit in the room. I felt like I hadn't done that in awhile, and this was after all a vacation. As much as I say we get to play tourist on these trips, we're not rope-dropping or trying to do all of the things. Well, Simon did, as it turned out. He ended up getting a total of 17 rides across the two parks, because it just wasn't very busy. We made plans to spend the evening at Three Bridges, which is in middle of the lake between, as you might guess, three bridges.

Three Bridges is known for their sangria, and they have a daytime sangria university that we've did a few years ago. The food is Latin inspired, I guess, but the entrees are the usual things like a burger, rice bowls and such. It's all very good, and the service is also fantastic. We sat at the bar and watched the end of that day's Wimbledon coverage, which was followed by dog diving, also knowns as dock diving. Completely bizarre, but satisfying. We racked up a pretty good bill on food and drinks, and ended up being there for about five hours. We met some nice people from Wisconsin and made friends with one of the bartenders. We saw fireworks from three directions, sort of, but since we can see that from home, it was not a priority. Overall, great atmosphere, great food.

Simon got back from Magic Kingdom around 10:30, by which time we started watching Hamilton in the room, which is kind of a new thing I guess that people do on July 4.

On Saturday, our first full day, Simon was unbelievably awake early, and went out for pancakes and a doughnut before we were even up. He went back to Magic Kingdom while we took our time. Eventually, we went to the big counter service spot at Coronado. This, along with the sports bar, are operated by a concessionaire, and not Disney directly. That makes it a bit of a wildcard, like the restaurant in Italy. Fortunately, they have some decent food, including Tex-Mex rice bowls, which is what I had. Really well-seasoned chicken, very satisfying.

We caught up with Simon at Magic Kingdom, and it struck me that I can't even tell you the last time I was in that park. I don't care for visiting because it's always the most crowded, and the whole park-then-monorail/ferry-to-the-gate thing is tired. Fortunately, while still busy, it wasn't the worst I've seen. Our agenda was to ride Tron, which I've only been on once, during previews, and Tiana's Bayou Adventure, which I haven't been on since the re-theme.

I was underwhelmed by Tron on my first ride. I do like the way you enter the building and get the reveal as you are "digitized." But it's crazy how sparse the theme is after that. The station is just a big, black painted room with lights around the edges. In any case, Diana and Simon got front row, I was right behind them. It's amazing how people still climb over one bike to get to the other, despite the way there are signs and arrows and seeing the people before you board. Once off, you get right to the launch track. This is the best part of the ride, along with the big outside curve immediately after it. Once you get back into the building and cross through the block, it's just a series of meandering turns mostly in the dark. Being in the motorcycle position also isn't great. Having sat in one of those at IAAPA years ago, I was skeptical that it was a good idea. It's just not a comfortable profile.

Following a lap on the People Mover, which has updated audio since the last time I was on it, we went back to Tiana's. I'm not sure why the re-theme was controversial. Song of The South was problematic, and almost no one knew the IP in the first place. The first thing that looks great is the renovation of the queue. There are a ton of details that expand the story of Tiana, and it's really great stuff. The ride itself has a ton of new animatronic figures, and the lighting and video is subtle and immersive. The cherry on top is the big room at the end. It's really impressive.

The weather was following the same script as the previous days. Seeing the radar, we scored some Dolewhip and headed for the buses. Well, Simon headed to Haunted Mansion. And once again, we barely made it to the bus before the rain. The weather was really a drag, but mercifully, sub-90. There aren't even 90 days forecast for the next week.

We've been meaning to get up to the top of the tower at Coronado since the first time we were there. The Dahlia Lounge is a bar with an outdoor balcony, facing Hollywood Studios. Next to that is Toledo, the resort's premier restaurant. So on our last night, we had to make that happen. We had a 5:30 reservation for dinner, and we went up about 30 minutes prior to check out the bar. Great atmosphere, and they have all of the good stuff. They have warm churros, too, though we didn't have any this time. Toledo has windows facing both sides, and it's a really beautifully decorated space that ties into the motifs of the lobby, 16 floors below. But the star is the food. I had a Rioja-braised chicken dish that blew my mind. It was absolutely perfect. Diana had a filet of beef that she also thought was amazing. Meanwhile, the service was perfect, and just watching the staff move around, it was an incredibly well oiled machine. One of the best meals that I've had not on a cruise ship.

We were pretty spent after the eating and weather dodging, so we retreated to our room after dinner. Simon didn't get in until almost midnight. Overall, it was a really successful trip, and the change in scenery, even though it was so close, really helped me relax and unplug. Since we were already passholders, the biggest expenses were the room and food. We spent a fourth of what we would on a cruise, for an experience that I would estimate as 75% as good, for our tastes, anyway.