How often do we find ourselves engaged in small talk about our upcoming vacation plans? Whether we’re chatting with a fellow mom at a Pop Warner football game, a neighbor at the grocery store, or a friend at a cookout, travel is a reliable subject—not too personal and yet not too universal, informative, upbeat, and frequently just plain fascinating. Travel discourse can take us in a dozen creative directions, briefly quench our desire for adventure, and maybe even compel us to hurry home and search Orbitz for a deal. I don’t know about you, but I could listen to someone lay out every detail of their trip itinerary to anywhere and be entertained for hours.
But what happens when, after your fellow football mom or neighbor or soon-to-be-disappointing friend has described their plans, plans that you have appreciated with genuine ooos and aahhs, you reveal that you are going to Walt Disney World, and—
“Again?”
Your heart seizes and you can feel your expression darken. (Though of course you cannot actually see your own expression, you know that shame and rage have descended over your face, as purple and black and heavy as the Evil Queen’s cape.) Suddenly, one eyebrow arched with disdain from a Disney Doubter has rendered your very real passion for Walt Disney World childish and provincial.
How do you respond?
I can tell you how I respond. After I manage to bat the Evil Queen’s metaphorical cape from my face, I tend to laugh lightly—“Oh, yes! We just love Disney!”—and shrink into myself. Not only do I feel guilty for wanting to return to a place that makes me utterly happy, but I also sense a more threatening suggestion in the unfavorable reaction I’ve received: “You are doing a disservice to your children by taking them only to Disney.” Here is where the small talk about vacation planning gets too personal, and stops being universal enough.
We Disney Fans might have different upbringings, travel experiences, and outlooks on why we love returning to the Parks and Resorts of Bay Lake. But maybe we need to pool our ideas about how to react, firmly but respectfully, when people question our choice to worship Uncle Walt.
Disney Doubter: But don’t you want to see the rest of the world?
Disney Fan: I have been to Bermuda, Mexico, Canada, England, and France.
Just because I go to Walt Disney World a lot does not mean that I have been nowhere else.
The world is large and diverse and we should treat it with reverence and curiosity. My parents raised me to honor this philosophy, because they raised me to value travel. In addition to exposing me to international wonders when I was a child, they sent me to Paris when I was 20 years old to stay with my friend during her study abroad program. Having not attended a French class since graduating from high school years earlier, I re-learned some of the language as best I could. I devoured chocolate chip baguettes warm from the pâtisseries, walked reverently along the Seine, gasped at Notre Dame, marveled at the art of Montmartre, and rode the metro. On that same trip, I swallowed back tears as I climbed the steep wooden staircase of Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam, wondering how a persecuted young girl maintained her faith in humanity as the walls of war closed in.
So essentially, as a youngster, I was bargaining with merchants in Puerto Vallarta for a better price on a wooden toucan, touring the castles of royal rural England, and murmuring prayers as I passed through the Catacombs of Paris. (Add to my travel history The Bahamas, The Alamo, Monument Valley, Yosemite, the Las Vegas Strip, and Denali National Park, Alaska, among other places.) Walt Disney World is one of the many travel destinations that has enriched my life, and it happens to be my favorite at the moment, a place that piques my current passions, fits my current fancies, and eases my current worries.
Disney Doubter: Don’t you get bored vacationing in the same place all the time?
Disney Fan: No. Do you get bored going to your second property or vacation rental all the time?
Dearest Disney Doubter, think of a place that you love to visit every summer. Perhaps your grandparents purchased a beach house on The Cape when you were three, and now you associate that cottage with an escape every July. You cherish the scent of sea and sunscreen that is baked into the walls. You are convinced that you will beat your cousins at Boggle or Spit, even when you try not to win. You can’t wait to sit on the deck, sipping a beer from the local brewery, toasty from tanning and yet cool from your shower…a seamless irony.
Or perhaps you spend your weekends at the same Jay Peak condo every winter. You pack the Suburban with your skis and groceries and drive for hours over unpaved roads through a darkness so thick you almost lose yourself. Finally standing on the mountaintop, you revel in the heaviness of the ski boots on your feet and the light crunch of snow beneath their weight. You run your fingers over your frigid cheeks, awakening to the snap of the weather, nature’s unapologetic hello. Before launching from your crest, you thank the universe for this opportunity.
Why do you return to these places? What keeps you coming back? You have already experienced what these locations have to offer. It’s time to move on, no?
But wait. You don’t necessarily go to these places for exposure to experiences you’ve never encountered. You go to these places to repeat choices that you’ve made before. You go to seek affirmation of what is already right with the world. In fact, throughout the year, you probably look forward to rituals at these locations. These places give you a much-needed separation from the tedium of work commutes and dentist appointments. Often these places enhance connection with family. They release tension, open your lungs, let you breathe. And because here you can indulge in every moment with depth that “regular” life does not allow, these places provide perfect environments for cultivating traditions and memories with your loved ones.
Well, Disney Doubter, Walt Disney World can serve this purpose, and more. The Parks and Resorts help to simultaneously halt time and transcend it. The Parks and Resorts grant both a respite from everyday pressures and a cure for adventurous yearning. But whether we are craving comfort or a more richly-animated life, we fanatics feel that Walt Disney World is where we are meant to be, and where we blossom into our best selves. This is the reason why, when we arrive at our resort and descend from the Magical Express, Cast Members exclaim, Welcome home.
Disney Doubter: Aren’t you essentially taking your kids to an overrated, obscenely expensive amusement park?
Disney Fan: I am taking my kids to a vibrant, stimulating learning environment that uses the art of storytelling to teach autonomy and empathy.
As a fiction writer, I inhabit unfamiliar perspectives in order to grow my empathy for others. The characters I’ve invented over the years have led me through research on medieval Europe, colonial Boston, and the Japanese internment camps during World War II, as well as through battles with terminal illness, poverty, and family dysfunction. The job of storytellers is to enlighten us to the narratives that other people are living, whether those narratives align with ours and validate our experiences, or differ from ours and shake us awake.
In its books, films, theme parks, and resorts, The Walt Disney Company promotes the necessity of storytelling in improving humanity. This fact alone is enough for me to justify bringing my children back to the Parks, year after year. Recently, my eighth-grade daughter and I spent an afternoon watching The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Hercules. My chest burned with sorrow for the deformed but talented carver Quasimodo, mentally manipulated by his cruel master, and the powerful, earnest, but graceless teenager Hercules, wrestling with his peers’ teasing and the news that he is adopted (…the adopted part hits a personal note for me). My daughter and I kept catching one another’s eye, mouths trembling. Our souls were aching for these characters, these boys, shunned for the qualities that make them the gifted, kind individuals they are. Both my daughter and son (sixth grade) are entrenched in those emotionally-challenging adolescent years right now. They are encountering physical changes, friendship instability, bullying, social media pressures, and self-doubt. I will gladly call in Uncle Walt and his storytelling powers for back-up if I have to.
I can’t imagine that any of us would contest the statement that stories are not only relevant, but integral, to everyone’s lives, even if we rely on them primarily for amusement and diversion. So if going to Walt Disney World helps my children to learn, among countless other lessons, that they should “just keep swimming” through adversity (Finding Nemo), think twice about the effects of human greed on our natural resources (Kali River Rapids and Big Thunder Mountain), and exercise compassion when considering that everyone has flaws and obstacles to overcome, then I’m willing to keep buying flights to Orlando.
How do YOU react to Disney Doubters (respectfully, of course)? I’d love to know!
I agree. We say, we’re ‘Disney People’. I personally love the planning part and it lets me escape thinking about the trip the 180+ days prior.
When it comes to the kids – I actually think we’re teaching them have to navigate a safe and manageable ‘world’ before releasing them from the nest to a real world. There’s maps, phone apps, transit systems, dining out, crowds, and controlled risks for them to learn how to negotiate; things they are not exposed to in our small town 😉 – I think the is a service to the kids.
PS. Nice job Liz
Oh, my gosh, Mike — I LOVE your reasoning that taking our kids to Disney helps them to learn independence and self-advocacy skills. In fact, even as an adult, one whose sense of direction is…um…less than intuitive, I appreciate having this sense of safety in such a friendly controlled environment, as well. On top of it all, the Cast Members are there almost purely to ensure our happiness, to reassure us that everything is okay, and if need be, to help us find our way home.
P.S. Thank you!!