Once upon a time in alt.atheism, dear sweet Robibnikoff
(witchypoo@broomstick.com) made the light shine upon us with this:

Hopefully it won't be too crowded as we're going 12/7 - 12/11. It's 3
days of yanking the kid out of school as well as 3 days of no pay for
me (damn new jobs before the vacation day kicks in), but at least I'll
be getting it over with and will never have to go back there again :)

I know what you mean about new jobs. When the job I have was new (nearly
22 years ago), I decided it was time to start a family. About 7 months in
we made the claim to the industry HMO only to discover I was yet to
qualify. I needed 600 hours by April, and I'd started in late February.
The birth was in the following qualifying period, so I wrote a sob story
to
Medi-Cal, a welfare-based org, and got most of it paid for - which turned
out to be a Cesarean Section to the tune of 5 grand. Not fun. The ironic
part is, on the very next qualifying period I had about 1200 hours.

Robibnikoff wrote:

Love it? Hate it? Recommendations? Only reason why I'm asking is
because
the husband and I are taking the witchling there next month, 2nd week in
December. I personally loathe Florida and am no big fan of Disney (or
theme
parks in general), but I have to put on a happy face for the kid. Might
as
well as a nice chunk of my severance package from Sony is paying for this
trip.

So, anyone have any stories, horror or otherwise, to share? :)

Boy howdy, I love Disneyland. And now my son loves Disneyworld.

Be prepared to do a LOT of walking; the various parks are a lot more
spread out, compared to Disneyland. Epcot seemed to have the greatest
distance between things, but I think they sell beer and wine, there, so
that might help with the happy face. Wear comfortable shoes, don't try
to carry too much stuff, and if you get tired, go rest.

I bought a hat and sunglasses while I was there, which was the end of
January. We also ended up having to buy rain suits, but on the plus
side there tends to be fewer people in the parks when it's raining.

We went into town to eat, as much as possible, and bought a lot of
groceries. Eating on property gets expensive, but the food we did get
there was top notch..

If it's anyone's birthday, make mention of it. I took my son for his
eighth birthday, and he got a button that said "It's my birthday"
(which lets the cast members know to say happy birthday) and a signed
picture from Mickey. At one of the restaurants, a bunch of Winnie the
Pooh characters came over to say happy birthday; they had a little
birthday conga line through the restaurant, but my boy didn't want to
join. I think he got a special pin, too, but that might have been just
for the package we booked.

We stayed at one of the mid-priced hotels on property, I think it was
All-Star Cartoons or something like that. At the time, if you bought a
thermos type mug in the cafeteria, you got free soda or hot chocolate
for the length of your stay, as long as you brought the mug to the
cafeteria. We drank a lot of hot chocolate, so it was a pretty good
deal.

There are special little things you can do if you just ask. We got to
sit up in front with the driver of the Monorail a couple of times. In
Disneyland last year, my son got to pilot the Mark Twain, which was
pretty cool. It used to be you could ride up with the engineer on the
steam train, but I don't think they let anyone do that anymore.

Mission: Space made my mom and me physically ill, although my son loved
it; it's probably the most intense ride there. He got freaked out at
the Rockin' Rollercoaster, though, and wouldn't get on.

The various parks close at different times on different days, so keep
that in mind. Schedules are easy to come by. My son's favorite park
was Epcot; mine's the Magic Kingdom, because it's most like the
original Disneyland. Animal Kingdom, at least at the time, seemed to
have the least to do; the safari thing was nice, but parts were
unneccessarily contrived.

Robibnikoff wrote:

Love it? Hate it? Recommendations? Only reason why I'm asking is
because
the husband and I are taking the witchling there next month, 2nd week in
December. I personally loathe Florida and am no big fan of Disney (or
theme
parks in general), but I have to put on a happy face for the kid. Might
as
well as a nice chunk of my severance package from Sony is paying for this
trip.

So, anyone have any stories, horror or otherwise, to share? :)

I found the place depressing and boring. I liked Sea World better, but
then I'm not a child. Disney is all about canned "fun,"
institutionalized crap that to me is about as exciting and fun as
kissing a mannequin.

City with my parents in the early 1950s, running on the board walk,
eating hot dogs and salt water taffy, and swimming in the ocean. It was
immensely more satisfying than entering the caged and controlled world
of artificial pleasure offered by Disney. And, of course, you met real
people who owned their own little businesses, who were engaging and
really friendly, not just professionally so.

The Disney "thing," the Cosa Disney, is a 24/7 wrap-around marketing
machine that tries to envelop your life in their junk. I find it
vaguely sinister, as if the Cosa Disney were trying to insinuate itself
into every human existence, to displace what's real and natural with
their own crap and to condition the world to identify pleasure with its
products. I wasn't a bit startled when GW Bush, with the wreck of the
World Trade Centers still smoking, told people not to let their lives
be upset, to go to Disney World, as if it were the center of American
civilization, the wellspring of the American spirit, the destination of
every right-thinking pilgrim.

I know some people like it. To me it's like imagining fascists in
love. I know such a thing must happen, but how and why -- the mental
and emotional dynamics -- are beyond me. The times as a child when I
had the most fun were far removed from Goofy-men with plastic heads, or
sad little fake princesses who pose for pictures, or endless lines to
get on to rides. I had real fun working beside my father, listening to
my grandmother tell stories about her long-departed demented brother,
playing in the woods with my friends, playing ball, or doing things
that were not cynically designed by marketers to create a lifelong
dependency on useless products.