Maybe it's only in my crowd, but I've never known a mom or dad who was thrilled with the idea of going to Disney World. In that spirit, soon after our daughter was born I made a silent vow to shun that testament to unchecked greed, herd mentality, and corruptive myth. Oh, and all that childlike wonder, too.
Yet by the time our daughter hit 6, we had made Disney World plans, a consequence of my mother's desire to see it with her grandchild, plus my determination to avoid a forbidden fruit deprivation that might even more greatly distort my child's values.
So as a public service to you parents who one day will find yourselves (and, yes, you will) stunned, chagrined, and increasingly short of both patience and cash, trudging the streets of the Magic Kingdom, I offer these tips for surviving the ordeal:
Make the visit short. We went for one day. That way, if it's a disappointment, it's over soon. If it's a triumph, you go out on a positive note.
Make the visit long. That way, you can spread out the pain, flee to a place where they don't sign off on the phone with "Have a magical day!" and maybe avoid ending the day the way I did (see "Have a meltdown" below).
Feel superior, Part 1. Look at the couples who bring 2-year-olds (and younger). Contemplate this monumental waste of money. Remember, a 2-year-old is fascinated by escalator rides and the vague movement of Cheerios in a bowl of milk, both of which are cheap and local.
Think of everyone as a "character." Disney wants you to do this anyway, but extend it beyond the employees to the other customers, and to yourself. That huge woman yelling at her getting-huge 10-year-old son because he just rear-ended her motorized cart with his motorized cart, spilling a precious soft drink? They're that wacky duo, Motor Mom & Coke Kid (played by different employees at different times of the day). The rotund man who in great seriousness offers to explain in detail how to work the coin-stamping machine (it imprints a Disney picture on a penny -- how is that for symbolism?). Why, that's The Gregarious Man Without a Life.
Dress as a "character." For me, this meant donning a floppy safari hat and sunglasses, slinging a fanny pack over one shoulder, and tucking my polo shirt into my high-riding shorts (Did you guess? That's Dorky Tourist Dad). "I'm getting used to it," my wife says after 90 minutes in the park. The crowds? The prices? "No," she says. "That hat."
Show genuine love. Not for the park, but for your child -- and not by buying her or him fleetingly totemic items (though you will, of course, do that, too), but by comforting her through her own private hell when she becomes terrified by the evil faces, threatening sounds, and tunneled darkness on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride: "We never should have gone on this ride," and "Daddy, make them stop this, make them stop the ride!" all amid genuine screams, tears streaming from her beautiful, once-innocent eyes.
Recognize redemption. Enjoy the healing humor in her comment, one hour later and one minute into the "It's A Small World" ride: "Finally, something nice in a tunnel!"
Rewrite some fabled songs. One of my mother's first comments in the park is, "Look at all the crud these people are eating." (This from a Disney-phile; she had been to the place 22 times already.) I soon came to marvel at the girth, the adipose, the tons of blubber that surrounded me. My build isn't exactly svelte, but I am proud to say that I can see the tops of my shoes without using mirrors. I would gladly lead the singing of that new Disney tune, "It's a Fat World (After All)." Then there's the rampant greed: The Disney corporation took in more than $252 billion in revenue last year. Its boss has averaged about $127 million annually each of the last five years. All together now: "Who's the greedy CEO who runs this from afar? M-I-K-E-Y E-I-S-N-E-R!"
Feel superior, Part 2. Get a Fastpass and then breeze past long, snaking lines of customers on your way into a ride, thrilled that you've finally found greater suckers than yourself.
Contemplate the disturbing interplay of the false and the real. On an abstract level, consider how children latch onto the false (or fantastic, imagined, etc.), while adults are saddled with reality (the demands of money and time, not to mention embarrassment). On a concrete level, be both stunned and doubting (after several rides featuring mechanical animals) that actual, living (I believe) blackbirds are feeding on unseen morsels outside the Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn and Cafe (by far the culinary highlight of the day, though I don't think you'd find it in Zagat).
Deify the help. In a place where so many workers seem not to have been hired but sentenced (in the most outlandish prison uniforms I've ever seen), the rare cheerful soul stands out like a princess among mice. Seek out Rachel at Sunshine Tree Terrace, who waves us over with a modest smile, greets our daughter, prepares our frozen yogurt treats, and advises us on appropriate rides for our wary child. "She's the first worker here with a personality," I say to my wife. "You mean her own personality?" she replies.
Wonder where the next imaginative appearance of money-grubbing will appear. The exit of Pirates of the Caribbean dumps you into Trinket Hell. The exit of Splash Mountain directs you to pictures of yourself plummeting over the "mountain" and into the "splash." My expectation of exiting the men's room into a booth (manned by an unnaturally cheerful teenager) offering to sell me an 8-by-10 of me at a urinal is, surprisingly, unrealized.
Have a meltdown at the end of the day. Not your child -- you. After all, one of the Disney marketing schemes is rediscovering the kid in you. So, after three hours of driving, 20 minutes of checking in to our "resort" (a motel; see "the false and the real," above), 30 minutes of bus waiting and riding, and 11 hours of walking, devolve into an embittered rant. Exhausted and starving, you find your dining choices are overpriced high-priced restaurants and overpriced cheapo joints (one place serves hot dogs only; see "It's a fat world," above) and you end up in a place that calls itself "Plaza Pavilion: Terrace Dining" that feels like a roadside rest stop at 2 a.m. and whose "Galaxy of Entrees" totals three and includes midget pizza that tastes as if it had been made from biscuit dough. Believe me, it makes you feel young again, in the worst way.
Feel superior, Part 3: For weeks afterward, congratulate yourself on getting the trip over with relatively early in your child's life. And in your own. Until, one day, she begins a sentence: "The next time we go to Disney World . . ."
David Maloof is a freelance writer who lives in Belchertown.
