Disney World (Abridged)
It was 1971, or at least that’s what I was told in later years. The first time my family went to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, on the very the first year it was open for business. Myself, my sister, and our parents all boarded a Greyhound bus bound for Walt Disney World (the moniker “Magic Kingdom” didn’t come around until later when they started adding more parks, I believe) since my mother was terrified of setting foot on an airplane, and off we went. The trip down was one of those times that even as a child, I realized wasn’t a whole lot of fun. The bus was loud, hot, and uncomfortable, and every time it stopped at a rest area we were terrified it would take off again without us if we weren’t back in exactly 10 minutes, as the bus driver repeatedly drilled into all our heads. I do remember the family behind us kept offering us fried chicken though, which in retrospect was very kind of them, but at the time was looked upon with great suspicion. We were from the city, and were suspect of any random offers of kindness coming from complete strangers. Besides, the chicken smelled pretty funky after sitting on that bus for half a day. The trip down was scarring enough that my mother actually cashed in the bus tickets immediately upon our arrival and bought us all plane tickets for the ride home.
Luckily, everything after that bus ride truly was magical. I was only 2-and-a-half years old so I remember what seem like random snippets from the trip rather than having coherent memories of it. But I do have very clear memories of the multiple subsequent trips we took after that. After that first trip, my Mom’s parents (who we lived with in a triple-decker) would come along every time as well. The six of us would pile into the family car, even on years when said family car was a 5-passenger model, and set out to make the monumental drive (or so it seemed as a kid) in three long days. We’d stop along the way in North Carolina and northern Georgia to spend a night at a roadside motor inn, which was all part of the adventure. Swimming in those pools, eating at McDonald’s or Cracker Barrel or, on a special day, a Howard Johnson’s (where you could play those fun peg board games they left on the table, in the hopes that you’d buy one at the gift shop on the way out the door), all those things added to the excitement that with every passing hour we were getting closer to the place we all wanted to be, every day of the year.
I don’t know exactly how many times we all went there, but it must be double digits easily. It was enough so that all these years later, I can tell you how to get anywhere you’d want to go in the Magic Kingdom or Epcot (which I still call EPCOT Center), and I’m the same guy who can’t find his way home half the time without a GPS. After my sister and I were grown and moved on, and after my grandparents were too old to make the trip, my parents continued. We lived in Boston yet they had season passes because they went often enough to make that a better financial choice. My Dad’s work took him to the area often, so whenever he went my Mom would buy a plane ticket (another magical thing about the Magic Kingdom – It was what finally convinced my Mom that it was worth getting over that fear of flying) and go along for the trip. I hadn’t actually been myself in a number of years, since 1992 I believe. I didn’t really have anything against it the way a lot of my friends seem to, it just seemed a natural part of growing up that I preferred to do things like actually see some of those countries which had sanitized versions of themselves in Epcot instead. So along I went, exploring more and more, while my parents continued their multiple-times-a-year Disney World vacations.
My Mom took my daughter and I to Disney World in January of 2007, but my daughter was young enough that she didn’t really remember it. In early 2011 I finally thought it was time to share the magic with my daughter, so I told her if she behaved we just might be able to go this Summer (I had the trip booked and paid for, but wanted to keep up a little bit of the fun & surprise). And today as I write this, it’s the day after having returned home from our trip. After having spent every second of every day with her I thought I’d be ready for a break (being a half-time Dad most of the time means I have built-in fun time), but instead I find myself really deeply missing her today. I spent the morning doing laundry and unpacking all the souvenirs and toys we bought on the trip, and they’re all lined up across the kitchen table and her bed, waiting for her next visit on Tuesday evening when we’ll pore through it all along with the 1,000 (yes, exactly 1,000) pictures we took on our 7-day trip.
So what did I find in Disney World? I found magic. I found it’s a place that still holds those happy feelings for me. I found myself thinking about my family often while we were there, and the memories brought with them overwhelming feelings of happiness. All the moments I shared with my daughter were truly amazing. The little things we shared, like her favorite breakfast table at the resort restaurant (which by some miracle we managed to snag, despite it being a prime window seat, every single morning except for one – but we still managed to find a window table that morning too). Our little routine of getting coffee and juice and pastries before walking to the bus that would take us to the theme park we were heading to that day. The pink “Princess” mouse ears she wore and the collectible pin lanyard she wore around her neck. The sheer excitement at going on the rides and seeing the shows, and the absolute glow on her face when we had dinner with the Princesses, one night at Cinderella’s Castle in the Magic Kingdom and one night at the Akershus Royal Dining Hall in Epcot. We even managed to branch out a little and take in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios’ Islands of Adventure, although we both found that particular outing way too crowded for comfort. And then it was time to come home.
On our last day we went back to the Magic Kingdom to go on a few of our favorite rides one last time, with The Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean being two particular favorites. Our last ride of the trip was It’s a Small World, which I thought a very fitting way to end the trip. As we were leaving the park the twinges started to come fast and furious. I didn’t want it to end, I wanted to stay in this place that held so many happy memories and that was helping my daughter build her own special memories while at the same time giving me a place to spend so much quality time with her, just the two of us, one-on-one. I didn’t want any of it to end, but I knew it had to. We took the bus back to our resort and got off at the stop near our room despite it being nowhere near the main entrance, where we’d catch the bus back to the airport. We both wanted to take our morning stroll from the room to the main lobby and restaurant one last time, where we planned to get a snack and a cold drink while we waited for our bus. We snapped a few pictures along the way, and I couldn’t resist getting a few of our room (from the outside, as we’d already checked out). My daughter kept saying how quickly the vacation seemed to go by and I couldn’t agree more. But on we went. It was at this point that I mentioned to her that maybe, just maybe, if she was a good girl all year in school in the Second Grade, we could do it all over again next year. I can still see the big goofy smile and the pink Princess mouse ears bobbing as she assured me she was going to be the best little girl in the world for the next year if that meant we could come back.
When we arrived back at the restaurant we stopped at the pastry counter where she got a cupcake and I got a yogurt parfait, and we each got a cold drink. She said she’d go get our table and she ran for it, and I was amazed when I got there that indeed, there it was, empty and waiting for us, the corner window seat in the little nook just as we’d left it that morning. We sat and had our snacks, and I booted up the computer to load the pictures from our trip onto it in order to make sure I had at least two copies, just to be safe. We found we had a total of 998 pictures, then decided to take two more right there to make it an even 1,000 (matching the number of ghosts the Ghost Host wanted in the Haunted Mansion, I noted). Once we had all 1,000 pictures loaded up we went through them quickly, looking at each and reliving the previous week in the span of the next 30 minutes or so. Then it was time to go and off we went.
On the plane home she slept on me for a little bit, and I was in heaven. It was the perfect way to end such a wonderful trip. I miss her terribly today and can’t wait for Tuesday when we’ll no doubt revisit the entire trip again. I miss my daughter, and I miss the place that brought us together and made so many magic moments and special memories possible. Until next time…