November 10, 2010

Disney World!

Oh, the taste of that name.

October, 1971. I am watching the opening of Disney World on TV together with my parents and my sister. There is a gigantic parade. There are lots of well known Disney characters, happy dancing people and smiling children. It is one of my first clear memories. I was just a little over 5 years old. I don´t know if the subject was brought up by my parents or if it was me, but I remember my mother telling me that, no, we were not going there. I remember the strong feeling of resignation and longing and unattainability. If there was one sure thing in this world, it was that I would never be able to visit this children´s paradise. To me, as a child, it was the symbol of everything that was great about the US.

3 years later my father was assigned to work in Alabama and Tennessee, an assignment that would last almost 2 years. The unobtainable dream was going to come true.

We went to Disney World and it was everything I had hoped it would be. For some reason the “Dumbo, the flying elephant” ride became the symbol of Disney World to me. I think it was the realization that I could control the elephant´s height myself that blew me away. I discovered it after the ride had started. I think my father shouted at me to use the joystick. I remember the feeling of deep happiness as I lifted the elephant into the sky.

So, dear reader, this is the backdrop you must know to understand what Disney World means to me. For all our 3 children we have given them a trip to Eurodisney with me (my mother has joined 2 of the times) as their 6th year birthday present. I have loved it every single time.

Sure it is superficial. Of course it is plastic fantastic. Yes, it is very American and focused on consumption and 2-dimesional and  the philosophy is that dreams come true and that either you are brave and good or you are cruel and mean. Who cares? It´s done with quality and it´s great fun.

So, this time we were the whole family. It took me a little bit, not much, but a little bit of time to convince Hélène to add Orlando to our itinerary.

We managed to catch the shuttle to the Magic Kingdom at 9:40 and then took the monorail to the park.



The monorail was a sensation of a technological wonder last time I was here. It was strange to once again take the “train that goes through a hotel.” I remember so well the monorail trip 35 years ago and the anticipation that went with it. Zipping though the hotel I was an 8 year old kid again.

The weather was fantastic. Not a cloud in sight and 27 degrees C (80F). Nice to be in shorts again after the cold spell in Atlanta. There were relatively few people and waiting times were pretty low (maximum around 20 minutes).

The Magic Kingdom here and the park in Paris are built almost identically. Navigation and selecting the best rides was no problem. It´s really a strange feeling to navigate through a place as big as this, and move around it at ease, when you know the detailed map in your head was actually made in a place on the other side of the Atlantic.

Racing cars was fun. Iseline in full concentration:



“It´s a small world” was a must. It was Iseline´s favorite ride in Paris, and we did it 5 times there:

And of course we did the elephants, they hadn´t changed a bit in 35 years:

We did Space Mountain, the indoor roller coaster in the dark. We´ve never been able to do it in Paris, since the kids haven´t been tall enough when we´ve been there. This time the whole family could do it.

We did lots of rides and shows, covering as much as we could.

Our ambition was to go back to the hotel early and do some school. However, 3pm soon became 4pm, and as we were about to leave at 4:15 Iseline discovered a prince and princess show. Bad parents as we are we gave in to her “But I came here only to see this!” screams and soon it was 5pm:



It had been a long day:

We had more than enough in gaining energy to have dinner and decided to do half a day of school tomorrow morning. We had had a great day at Disney World. The magic is still there.

Eirik

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