The Happiest Place on Earth
Disneyland. The holy grail of the family vacation. A Mecca for middle-America (and all points beyond). Chances are slim that I could tell anyone with more than a modicum of Disney knowledge something about the park that they didn’t already know. Nor am I likely to provide a comprehensive review of what to see and what to skip, filled with delightful tidbits of unknown Disney trivia. The best I can do is…I once had a fever dream when I was a child in which my brother, in the form of a disembodied torso, was offering me a bit of a very large cake. When I turned down the offer, he ate the entire cake in one bite by unhinging his jaw and stretching his mouth to engulf the cake. The unsettled and disturbed feeling I woke up with after that dream is the same feeling I get on It’s a Small World. If you value your peace of mind, you might want to skip that ride. And by the way, did you know that there’s a basketball court in the Matterhorn?
Somewhere in there lies a basketball court…
Aside from the notable exception of Small World, I find most of the rides enjoyable. There are a few on the must ride list. Pirates of the Caribbean - I want to live in one of the houses up in the swamp at the beginning of the ride, I would sit, rocking on the porch while the boats traveled by…yelling at the kids to get off my damn swamp. This visit was this first time I had seen it since they added Johnny Depp and I think he is out of place. He is too modern looking when compared to all the other animatronics. I prefer the classic ride. The Haunted Mansion is another must ride. In what seemed to be a visit of firsts, this was the first time I had seen it decked out in it’s Nightmare Before Christmas finery. Not bad, but I prefer the classic ride there as well.
Poor Mr. Toad, he has no idea what’s coming…
There are several rides that fall into my “what were they thinking” category. While I find Mr. Toad’s descent into the depths of hell amusing (though I couldn’t tell you what hell looks like since it immediately fogs up my glasses), one has to wonder how that really fits into the happiest place on earth. Not having been on the Winnie the Pooh ride before, I took a ride operator at his word when he was telling a frightened child that there was nothing scary in the ride. I beg to differ. I can see Pooh’s apparently drug fueled dream causing many a chill to run down the spine. If it weren’t for Small World I could see this start to creep into my fever dream subconscious. As it is, Small World really keeps all other contenders out. Snow White…I’m not sure, but I think there might be a poison apple in that story. Judging from the ride, that is all that is in the story. Heck, you only see Snow White once, but you see that apple approximately 257 times. But it’s okay, because the painted wall at the end tells me that they all lived happily ever after (I can only assume that they mean all the different versions of the apple).
Good ol’ Walt…
And then there are the rides where they get it just right, which on this trip was all about Peter Pan. Once on the ride, everything else just sort of disappeared, and I caught my first glimmer of the happiest place on earth. I had enjoyed everything else we had done, but this one stood out. Flying over London and the island, my adult mind knew what I was seeing, could analyze the inconsistencies (how could we be above the stars?), but it just didn’t care. Disneyland was never a destination for my family. I didn’t grow up knowing the sense of wonder and awe that is their bread and butter. The closest I can get to understanding the allure and draw of Disneyland is the Griswold family trek to Wally World. But soaring above London or standing in the middle of Main Street later that night watching the firework display, I caught a fleeting glimpse of that wonder. I wouldn’t trade the vacations that my family took when I was a child for anything in the world, but with fireworks lighting up the sky to the tune of “When You Wish Upon a Star”, I got just a taste of what enthralls the children and keeps the masses coming back. I still don’t need to visit Disneyland more than once every couple of years, but it was refreshing to glimpse that wonder and joy before stepping back into a world of bailouts and endless wars.
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