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I have talked for years about my eventual Disney park trip. I never got to go as a child, so it’s something I assume I definitely want to do in my adulthood. I figure that I’m an avid Disney fan, so of course I will want to go to a Disney park.
When I mention this to my husband, his first question is “yeah, but what would you do there?” As an adult I might want very different things out of a Disney park trip, and my youthful enthusiasm is also tempered by a rational need for practicality and frugality. Is a Disney park trip really what I want or a holdover from a childhood desire?
It seems the only thing I know for certain about my Disney trip is that it will almost definitely be to Disney World. I live on the East Coast, so although there is the possibility I could go to Disneyland, I’m much more likely to end up in Orlando.
But that still leaves me to determine whether or not going to Disney World is something I want to do as an adult. I know that no matter how hard I try, many of the experiences like walking around Fantasyland and seeing the characters and their homes for my favorite movies just won’t seem as magical as it would have when I was a child. I know that’s inevitable; when I was in seventh grade we went to the local Renaissance Faire for a field trip. I absolutely loved it, and thought it was the most fantastical experience I’d ever had.
That feeling managed to stay with me, just a bit, all through growing up. At college I found myself near the same Renaissance Faire, so my boyfriend (now husband) took me there one weekend. Despite my utter excitement, it seems that all I could see were the glaring anachronisms and exorbitant prices. I still enjoyed myself, but my childhood felt a little robbed.
Maybe because I’ve never been to Disney World I’ll be able to preserve some of the fantasy on my trip there. But I’m worried I won’t, and that I think takes away one of my main reasons for wanting to go: finally getting to experience a little bit of that supposed magic I never got to in my childhood.
Next we come to my husband’s objection: “but what would you do there?” He definitely doesn’t think that Disney World doesn’t have anything for adults; my husband refers to my dislike for most theme park rides. I get sick on all but the tamest coasters, and just about any other ride that goes fast or whips around. I don’t have enough interest in the rides I do enjoy to wait around in line for them for hours.
Ah, but Disney World has plenty to do that doesn’t involve rides, so that shouldn’t be an issue, right? Wrong. If I’m dragging my husband all the way down to Disney World, he will definitely want to go on a lot of rides. I know we would find some experiences we’d both want to do together, like a trip to the Animal Kingdom, but it seems that there will be a lot more negotiation in my Disney vacation than I originally thought.
But marriage is all about compromise and I know we would make it work so we can still both enjoy ourselves. However, part of me is thinking that maybe we ought to just postpone the trip until we have children.
Watching them experience Disney World for the first time might just be the closest I’ll come as an adult to claiming that magical feeling from my childhood. Besides, I’d wanted to wait until after the 2012 Fantasyland expansion to make my trip to Disney anyway.
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*(This image by Vox_Efx is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)
