A Disney Resort for the Military, Shades of Green

AS they enter through the Magic Kingdom gates, following signs with the familiar mouse ears, past the sighing of the monorail and the distant screams from Space Mountain, a few visitors take an unusual route, up a driveway just off the entrances to the Disney World golf courses.

FAMILY R & R Maj. Kurt O’Rourke, back from Iraq, with son, Andrew.

There they find, atop an artificial rock formation, the flags of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard flapping in the Florida breeze. Beyond that lies a resort where there are a lot of high-and-tight crew cuts in the lobby, not to mention more lean physiques than elsewhere in Disney World.

Shades of Green, a retreat for military personnel — of all ranks — their families and guests, sits within the expansive Disney World site outside Orlando, Fla. Officially called an Armed Forces Recreation Center, it is one of five retreats around the world that let servicemen and -women reconnect with their families in the precious time they have together.

Over a recent weekend at the resort, several guests had just returned from the deserts of Iraq or the mountains outside Kabul.

“This is a great way to repay them,” said Capt. Daniel T. Celotto, a marine communications officer back from his second Iraqi tour, referring to his wife and two sons. “What they go through is far more than anything I put up with,” he added, shooing his youngest away from the big Mickey-shaped pool and back into the wading one. “I signed up for this, they didn’t.”

Shades of Green — the name comes from the camouflage hues of the different services — was once a golf clubhouse, and then the Disney Inn, when it had a Snow White theme. The Army took out a 99-year lease in 1994, after a survey showed that Orlando was the top choice among military families for a rest-and-relaxation destination.

The five centers — the others are in Germany, South Korea, Hawaii and Virginia — are run by the Army’s Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command, a branch devoted to keeping up morale. Nowadays, according to a military spokesman, they are self-supporting through user fees and outside donations, and cost taxpayers nothing.

In most ways, Shades of Green is a typical resort: two swimming pools, tennis courts and ponds with golden koi, all clustered around 586 rooms for visitors set between two golf courses. But it has some unusual aspects.

The pond, for example, has radio-controlled toy boats with service insignia on them so the Coast Guard boat can ram the Navy one, for example. And where else would one see a resortgoer strolling comfortably around in a “Guantanamo Base Team” T-shirt?

It can be a relief, some visitors said, to be among others who understand firsthand what they’ve lived through.

“You can enjoy the esprit de corps of being with other military,” said Maj. Kurt O’Rourke, a burly Army military policeman who recently returned from a year in Iraq’s Diyala province. “Like a guy I talked to in the hot tub yesterday. He’s in the Massachusetts National Guard, and he has a brother deployed in Iraq — who’s 59. We talked about Fort Dix.”

Major O’Rourke was spending five days at the resort with his wife and children. Over breakfast in the Garden Gallery, his son Andrew, 9, said he liked “pretty much everything,” especially the food. He had just downed a double dose of waffles and still wanted his first ride at Disney’s Animal Kingdom to be the roller coaster. His sister, Amy, 6, said she liked the pools best.

Although Major O’Rourke’s Iraqi quarters were hardly spartan — he lived in an air-conditioned trailer with satellite TV — they didn’t rival his family’s here. Rooms are on a par with those of top-level Disney resorts charging 0 a night, but cost as little as .

The only element too reminiscent of Iraq, he said, was being woken up by the late-night fireworks in the Magic Kingdom. “I swear to god,” he said, “it was just like an artillery barrage.”

This was their third visit. “It’s just so convenient,” said his wife, Sylvia.

The main restaurant is a buffet, so families can move out quickly in the morning. Buses to all the Disney parks are free. The hotel sells discounted tickets to all Orlando attractions, and even the mouse ears and princess costumes in the PX are cheaper.

The ticket office told Captain Celotto that Sea World and Busch Gardens give four free tickets a year to members of the military, “so that saved us 0 right there,” he said. They also have special Heroes lines on popular rides.

Capt. Alberto J. Reynoso had just arrived on a two-week leave from his communications unit, which split its time between Qatar and Afghanistan. It was the second time he had seen his wife and daughter in a year, and they were on a special R & R package that offered a room with breakfast and dinner for all three of them for 0 a night.

“You can’t beat that price,” he said.

By Disney standards, the architecture is so subdued that it might as well be camouflage; it is painted military brown and green. But exposed roof beams and arches of hewn stone give it an American Craftsman air, and it has a hunting-lodge element unusual for Florida: a fire burns in the lobby hearth, even when it’s 90 degrees outside.

AND cellphone signals are spotty because the complex is built to Defense Department “force protection” standards: extra thick walls and blast-resistant windows.

The main staircase encircles a two-story-tall rock outcrop with waterfalls plunging through it.