Going to Disneyland

This is kind of a new venture for me. I have thought about writing about Disney before, but I had not been there recently while working on the blog, and now I have. Also, there is so much to cover, and being able to do anything coherent with the material is worrisome, but I am going to try.

The first thing I want to do is go back to a saying that has been going around on social media in recent memory, that goes something like this: I don't care how big and tough you think you are; if a toddler hands you their ringing toy phone, you answer it!

The point is that there are times when it is wrong to be too cool. A trip to Disneyland is one of those times.

Yes, Disney is commercial and expensive. That is true. Yes, there are other opportunities that are more educational or adventurous or any other adjective you want to use, and I say that as someone who has traveled a lot of places and intends to travel a lot more. That being said, I really love Disneyland. You can decide you are above it, but you are missing out.

For my own family, there are probably two big factors that contribute to our love. One is that we love rides. Especially, I love rides. Yes, I love the fast shaky ones, but even the mild ones just make me happy. This came into stark relief on the Thursday of our trip, when we went several hours without going on any rides. (More on that when we get to Downtown Disney.) Once I got on one, it turned the day around.

If you have motion sickness, especially severe motion sickness, this could hamper your enjoyment of the parks. If it is just fast or twisty rides that will get you, there are a lot of rides that you can enjoy, and as we start going over the individual lands and the rides within them, I will cover that. If everything makes you sick, okay, maybe an amusement park is not for you, but this could still be a good place.

That brings us to the other thing that is important for my family. As much as I love being in motion, maybe even more, is how much my sisters love cuteness. I am not against cuteness, but they love it more. There is a lot of cuteness in Disneyland.

There are adorable characters walking around, and cute plush facsimiles, and treats made up to look like the characters, and murals and carvings and statues, and here we get to beyond cute, because there are details in the designs that are amazing. So, let me go over a few areas in which Disneyland is superior to other amusement parks, and why it's worth giving it a shot.

The first point I am going to make is that they do not want you to be bored:

Yes, they are popular, and this often leads to long lines (though we will talk about that more next week regarding when to go), but they try to make those lines interesting. So, as you wind through the line for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, there are plants, and heraldry, and curious architectural details, and statues, and little figurines of types of frogs, and all of these little touches where there is always something new to look at, no matter how many times you go through. That's not just Mr. Toad. This happens with all of the rides, and with the restaurants, and even the shops are a fun experience.

In addition, they are always changing and looking for new things to add. So around Halloween Space Mountain becomes haunted, or they change around which planets you visit on Star Tours, or they add some different animals to the Jungle Cruise. As someone who tends to shun change, I resist, but often these changes are good, and they find some way to pay homage to the original within.

For my second point, they are really good at making sure you have a good time.

Their customer service is unparalleled. We have tried some other parks, including a Great America, and Bonfante Gardens, and no one else does as good a job of getting their staff informed and helpful. You can ask any person in the park where something is, or how to get something done, and they will know.

They may have to refer you , and this actually leads to one of the most impressive stories. Being there around Mardi Gras, they were doing a thing from The Princess and the Frog in New Orleans Square, which worked well. Maria loves Louis, the trumpet playing alligator. She saw him, and she wanted a picture with him, so after the show, she asked one of the workers. Louis does not wander the park for photo opportunities, but she directed Maria to one of the "Ask me about character photos" people. (Yes, they have special people for this.)

Again, Louis does not do photo opportunities, but he told her to check at the show for the stage manager, who would be dressed in black and wearing a headset, and if anyone could make it happen, it would be the stage manager.

As they were gearing up for another performance, I saw the stage manager and  pointed him out to Maria. She demurred, saying that he would probably not be nice. Was she kidding? This was Disneyland! I was going to go over for her, and then she came and did the talking, and as he started to say that Louis didn't do photo opportunities, and she started to give up, he said "No, I want to make this happen." And he did.

Sadly, Maria insisted on having me use her phone, because she wanted to post it right away, and I got confused, so what we really have is a video, that I think we can grab a still from, but those are personal and technology issues. The park staff was flawless.

When we were standing in line to enter the park, there were some women talking about how awful it must be to work there, and my sisters had said earlier that they could not do it, because you would need to be so friendly. Maybe, and I'm sure the job would not be a good fit for everyone, but the staff does not seem miserable. A lot of the small talk that they make would not be required, and there wouldn't be a point in faking it. And I have two other stories.

Our Wednesday there was Julie and Maria's birthdays, so we went to City Hall to get buttons, and then the park staff is greeting you all over the place and wishing you a happy birthday. We rode Peter Pan that day, and then we rode it again on Friday, and the girl recognized us. "Oh, you were just here and it was their birthday!" Again, I don't think fakers would bother.

The other thing, and this isn't exactly park staff, but we were watching a video at Blue Sky Cellar about the upcoming Fantasy Faire area. This will be where you go to meet the princesses, and admittedly, this is not my thing. But listening to the different imagineers talking about their process is really interesting, and they all seem to have a strong sense of mission, which is how the little details get thought of and filled in.

The one that stuck with me the most was a new father, of a daughter, and he talked about seeing fathers with their daughters in the park, and how excited the girls get when they get to meet the princesses, and anticipating doing that with his daughter, and knowing that he played a part in that.

It was touching, yes, but also it reminded me of how Disneyland itself came out of Walt going out with his daughters, and not having a lot of great places to take them. Well, he took that and ran with it, and it does make money, but that is not all it does.

I have one more quote from the video, and it was the guiding principle for one of the imagineers. She said "There isn't much grown up in the average child but there's a lot of child left in the average adult."

Disneyland is a good place to let that kid loose.