The Magic of Disney

 A few weeks ago we flew to Disney from Jim to attend a conference at the Disney Yacht Club. This was his eighth year and I had never been, so I worked over spring break and decided to take the week off for a real vacation.  I was certainly looking forward to the pool, not doing laundry, and no cooking for a week, but I was not looking forward to the Disney hullabaloo. I was so skeptical that we planned to go to Legoland and the Orlando Science Center, in addition to Animal Kingdom (after being heavily persuaded by a friend who recently fell in love with the Magic). 

Then, we showed up for Minnie's Beach Breakfast at Cape May Cafe at the hotel and everything changed. Our daughter fell in love with Minnie and Donald, though she was quite scared of Goofy. "He is too big" she kept saying. When Goofy heard her, he took a giant step back with his hands crossed on his chest, as if to say, "I hear you, I see you. I respect you." I couldn't believe how well trained and thoughtful the characters are. 

Right after Goofy left our table, the manager brought my sweet girl a small Goofy toy. We watched him and saw how "peaceful and gentle" he was and used the toy to role play. As if that wasn't special enough, the managers had Minnie and Donald both bring her a small, stuffed version of themselves. Lucy loved them all, but that child did not release Minnie for the entirety of the trip. She shared those little toys with every character we saw after that and Doc McStuffins even gave Minnie a check-up. I have never experienced customer service like this in my life. I immediately decided we would go to Epcot on our last day instead of the science center. It helped that our hotel was within a 7 minute walk (or ten minute boat ride, which Lucy loved) of the park. But that’s the whole point of staying at a Disney resort. They make everything stupidly easy (and expensive). There is little to worry over, although a lot of planning should be done in advance for things to go smoothly.

The pool at the Yacht Club was outrageous. The whole pool takes up 2 acres, but about 1/8 of it was a maximum of two feet deep, which came precisely up to the bottom of Lucy’s chin. This particular section of pool was sand bottom with the most perfectly sized clean size I have ever seen. Lucy could walk in out of the water as she pleased as the sand created a gently slope out of the pool in multiple spots. They served lunch in a sand bucket with a shovel for sand structure building. A small water slide fed into a separate pool and Lucy must have gone done that thing at least 50 times during out stay. She was amazingly brave and unafraid of the wave created by the rush of the water at the end of the slide and she hiked up the staircase to the top of pool over and over. I looked at her doing that and said, “that baby is now a kid. We have ourselves a kid.” It was an absolute joy to watch her so happy with no distractions, not even lunch preparation. The pool was one of the highlights of the trip. It easily saved us hundreds of dollars by staying “in” and playing in the water.

The first day, we swam for a while and headed to the room for a nap when we heard a knock on the door. We opened it to find a delivery of a pre-signed autograph book sent to Lucy from her friends at the Cape May Cafe. I could hardly believe it. To my surprise, Lucy was very interested in meeting as many characters as possible (even hugging Goofy the next time we saw him) and she always gave them her book to sign. She is pretty into spelling her name right now and seemed to be making the connection with the characters writing their own names. The smile that stayed on Lucy's face made the cross-country flight and the high prices are, to my great surprise, worth it. We would never have dreamed of taking this trip if Jim’s company wasn’t paying the unbelievable price for the hotel. I really have no idea how the average middle or working class family can vacation there. Sure, you don’t have to stay on Disney’s resort, but it was the highlight and the main cause of ease for our trip.

As another example of the incredible treatment we received, I asked the front desk for any books we might be able to borrow for the week for bedtime stories. By the time we got off the plane, we were done with the four I fit in our luggage. That place seemed to have thought of it all, but it turns out they don’t get many requests for a Disney library of books. When we got back from dinner and exploring that boardwalk that evening, we arrived back to our room to find a 300 page Disney bedtime collection of stories on our bed with a card saying that it was ours to keep. I was blown away. We have read from that book literally every night since we got it. The stories are long a bit over Lucy’s head, but she listens and follows along for as many as three stories. She would like to read more, but at some point a kid has to go to sleep. Disney supports reading to babes. Bring me the kool-aid. Bring me a whole pitcher of it.

We went to Animal Kingdom after Jonana arrived on Wednesday morning. Our friend, Robyn, planned this whole day out for us. It was even more magical than the first. This park is perfect for kids Lucy’s age and I would highly recommend it. There is a certain level on being on your toes that needs to happen while you are in a park for things to go smoothly. Reserving fastpasses, using single rider lines and rider swap, and saving grown-up things for mandatory stroller naps are some things that  I learned. I wasn’t quite prepared enough for our last minute decision to visit Epcot and we were too tired to do that huge park on a whim. Although we still had a good time, I probably wouldn’t take such a young kid there again. It is perfect for older kids and adults.

Jim and I had been to Disney once before (well, besides his conference trips where he didn’t much touristing) with my family. We had no idea about the pre-planning that needs to happen and it was an overwhelming, expensive, and tiring trip. That was a big part of the reason for the sour taste in my mouth before we left. What I realized this time is that these parks are theme parks which can enjoyed whether you are obsessed with princesses or not. I also realized just how big of an impact Disney has had on my life. Lucy loves the soundtrack to Lion King and we had watched wuhb-a-way (The Lion Sleeps Tonight) on youtube because Jim and I like singing that song. I think the other reason I wanted to hate it is because if we can’t do that kind of extravagant thing for our kid, than I don’t have to feel guilty because I never wanted to do it any way. It sounds dramatic, but this trip broke down some of those walls. In fact, I can’t wait to take Lucy to Disneyland, the original Disney park, here in Anaheim. She is free to eat at buffets and get into parks until she is three. Of course, no one would be paying for the hotel and I want to stay at a Disney hotel. It’s the whole package that made the experience so magical. I don’t want to be a stay-at-home mom, but being Lucy’s mum mum is my favorite, most important job. I loved having an entire week to focus on her, to pack an airplane bag full of activities, to see the smile on her face and the amazement in her eyes. She gets this same joy out of hiking a small trail on campus, or finding an old, but loved pair of socks, and balancing on one foot to the tree pose. But during those moments I am often distracted and thinking about tutorees, or assignments, or how to bike to campus in the rain. There was none of that on this trip. I loved our Utah trip probably even more than this trip. I will always prefer to be in the great outdoors over commercialism (although it could be argued that National Parks are also getting a bit Disneyish). This summer should provide an opportunity to see lots of old friends, meet new additions to those friends lives, to get a lot of writing and work done, and to make plans for spend time with my kid and my family in the great outdoors that surrounds us. When I look back on my life, I never regret playing hard. I always regret working harder than I should have been and skipping out on fun for the practicalities of life.

Life in the Bay is expensive. And I can’t take lightly what I am here to do. Our trip to Disney reinforced that we should work as little as possible to get the most out of life we can. I have a spreadsheet made of all the places I want to visit and rock climb this summer. We need to connect back to play, get our kid outside, and make enough money in the middle to head “down south” to visit Disneyland while Lucy is still two. As she gets older and the talk of adding another small human to our family keeps coming up, I want to soak up our family of three as much as I can. And I want that to include a wide range of activities, much to my surprise, including the Magic of Disney.