On the Town - Orlando
On the Town Orlando
© JAMES LEMASS/PHOTOLIBRARY
KINGDOM COME
How a family of Disney doubters learned to love the Mouse
BY AARON GELL
ILLUSTRATIONS BY DANIEL MACKIE
Ours has never been what you might call “a Disney family”—as anyone acquainted with my children’s pet albino rats, Lucky and Jazz, will have already guessed. My 12-year-old, Sophie, much prefers Zeppelin and the Sweeney Todd soundtrack to Miley and the Jonas Brothers, and her brother, Russell, 8, would sooner eat school lunch than sit through Dumbo. Ask our kindergartner, Nora, what she thinks of Mickey, and you’re guaranteed an indifferent shrug. “He’s boring,” she says.
It all sounds a bit un-American, I know. But we’re no culture snobs: The kids’ preferred breakfast—frozen waffles slathered in chocolate syrup and Reddi-wip—is proof enough of that (scoff if you will, but mornings are hard). Nor do we blame Walt & Co., as some conservatives do, for an erosion of traditional values. Essentially, we’re artsy types: I’m a writer, as is my wife, Amy, who also paints. Simply put, we’ve long considered Walt Disney World Resort a soulless plague on childhood itself (and don’t get me started on Barbie).
And yet, even we acknowledge the obvious: A pre-teen pilgrimage to the Magic Kingdom is a widespread rite of passage for American kids. So when Grandma Judy floated the idea of a Disney weekend in Orlando, Amy and I swallowed hard and gave our assent.
Neither of us realized how thoroughly Mouse-proofed our home actually was until the morning Grandma came to town to surprise the kids with the news. Within minutes, all three of them were weeping into their Reddi-wip. Amy and I were dumbfounded. What breed of monsters were we raising? The main issue, we soon learned, was that the trip would coincide with Halloween, their favorite holiday. Following hours of heated negotiations (poring over the theme park’s website, haggling over minimum candy requirements), the poor little darlings gave in.
As anyone who’s been to Disney World knows, such a trip is a daunting operation under the best of circumstances. There are essentially two approaches: Either you relax and enjoy yourself, or you try to conquer the place, mounting a full-scale operation with maps, provisions, walkie-talkies and a meticulous battle plan. Obviously, I embraced the latter strategy. If I had to go to Disney, I’d go fully loaded. I’d know the mission, the terrain and the exit strategy. I would beat the system.
For weeks, I studied the Disney obsessive’s bible, The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World With Kids, which didn’t exactly reassure me. One typical passage (which for some reason I imagine being read at full volume by the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket) says “you need to prepare yourself and your children mentally, emotionally, physically, organizationally and logistically.” The book warns of such potential pitfalls as family discord, blisters, terror-inducing “character encounters” and even financial ruin. Nonetheless, we’d made the reservations. There was no turning back.
A few weeks later, there we were, bouncing on the beds in a comfy suite at the Bay Lake Tower, a gleaming new development at Disney’s Contemporary Resort. My itinerary called for a pre-dawn reveille to take advantage of what Disney calls its “extra magic hours,” when the parks open early (and close late) for those staying at the company’s resort properties. With any luck, I figured, we could knock out the most popular rides before the rabble had strapped on their fanny packs. But like most kids, ours are obsessed with hotels, so even after I pointed out the alluring sight from the balcony of Space Mountain beckoning us and the spires of Cinderella’s Castle beyond, they took their sweet time. “Dad, you’re freaking out,” Sophie remarked, slipping the mini-bottles of shampoo and shower gel into her suitcase.
After we finally made it through the gates of our first stop, Disney’s Animal King-dom—a good two hours behind schedule—I adopted an emergency strategy: I’d ditch the rest of the family at the 3-D movie It’s Tough To Be a Bug, sacrificing my own fun for the greater good by making a frantic dash through the park to collect FASTPASSES (tickets that offer preferred status for those who return at an appointed hour) for all the most popular attractions. I quickly nabbed six passes for Expedition Everest in the Asia theme area, but when I tried the same trick at Dinosaur, a motion-simulated ride in Dinosaur USA, I was quickly shot down. Apparently, the Imagineers were a step ahead of me, decreeing from their secret lair deep within the fourth sub-basement of the Country Bear Jamboree that you can only get one FASTPASS every two hours. Oh, well.
I texted Amy and discovered everyone had stopped to buy a snack—nevermind the profusion of cereal bars and fruit leather I’d packed for just such a contingency—so I wandered around on my own, marveling at how much attention had been lavished on creating a realistic looking South Asian village (the hand-painted sign asking visitors to “please respect our temple area” was a nice touch). Spotting the peak of Everest looming in the distance, I actually felt chilly despite temperatures hovering in the 90s. I spent the next hour hitting a number of attractions, since my status as a “single rider” meant I could access shorter lines. But while riding the Kali River Rapids with a nice clan from Canada, it hit me: I missed my kids. From that point on, I stuck with my family, hopelessly slow-moving and disorganized as it was.
We stayed for three days, long enough to hit the four major parks—Animal Kingdom, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Epcot and the Magic Kingdom—and to come down with at least one case of the flu. (A week after our visit, the theme park wisely installed hand-sanitizing stations.) One by one, each of us came to appreciate the place in our own way. I became a convert after losing my cellphone on Expedition Everest and having it returned by a cheerful cast member not five minutes later. “A goatherd found it!” she announced with a smile. For Amy, it happened while waiting in line for the Haunted Mansion. “You really get a sense that this place was created by artists,” she said.
For Russell, the turning point was Epcot’s Mission: Space, a simulated trip to the moon so well designed he worried briefly that we might be about to blast off for real. “Disney World’s pretty good,” he said once we’d touched down on terra firma. “But the channel, no.”
Sophie was most impressed by the Rock ‘n’ Roll coaster at Hollywood Studios, in which visitors are invited on a “limo ride” to an Aerosmith concert. “Okay, I’ve got to give Disney some credit,” she said afterward as we stumbled, dazed, into the sunshine. “I mean, Aerosmith isn’t exactly the most child-friendly band.”
And Nora seemed to enjoy the whole experience, especially the Dumbo ride, the Kilimanjaro Safari and the relentlessly pink Princess Aurora dress her grandmother bought her while I was distracted at Splash Mountain.
“So, tell me something,” I asked her as we belted in for the flight home. “Do you still think Mickey Mouse is boring?”
“Well, no,” she allowed after some consideration. “I think he’s pretty good.”
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