Strolling Disney

Upon my very first visit to Disneyland, I was overwhelmed and amazed with delight; the beautiful landscaping, the themed areas, and all the kids running around in princess outfits. Wait, where are the little boys in costumes? There is a princess dress up place but nothing much for the little boys, in fact, I bought one of the three things that were boy oriented, Prince Phillip’s (Sleeping Beauty) sword. Not fair, what if said little boy wants to be a dashing prince with a red cape flying behind him or what if he wanted to be the BEAST? Where is Prince Charming? How can we teach our sons the value of being a great knight in shining armor if there is no armor for him to don. “Harumph!” I say as I cross my arms and sit back. Some severe oversight of Disney don’t you think?

Further through my explorations of the Magic Kingdom, I find the stroller parking situation quite mesmerizing. Army, I mean, just hundreds of strollers at various intervals full of all sorts of child quelling devices are parked like an army of foot soldiers awaiting command. I was almost fearful, as there was also not an attendant watching them. I thought to myself aren’t they afraid of theft? With all their possessions left out in the open like that? My friend informs me that there is just an unspoken rule about it, that in Disneyland, the happiest place on earth, no one steals. Then he added that there are so many video cameras that it would be impossible not to get caught, and the more I chugged away on this reasoning I also would assume that a person wouldn’t spend $70 bucks to come into a place in the hopes of stealing a stroller’s contents. My amazement soon dwindled. However, the teaming army of strollers still flipped me out. I suppose I can understand if you have a few older kids who can enjoy the ride and a younger toddler or baby that has to come. Yet, there were many people there that only had babies, and I cannot imagine the joy in toting around an infant in a theme park, where you can’t ride the rides anyway, and all you can do is stroll around the park.

However, to my chagrin, people and ride attendants did not seem to find issue with a woman carting her 2 maybe 3 month old in her arms to ride the tea cups. Not that I am an expert on infants, but I cannot imagine that a baby would get enjoyment out of spinning around incessantly for about 5 minutes. I could be wrong here but isn’t that something akin to shaken baby syndrome? I think the thing that most amazed me about the flagrant display of abuse was that she carried the kid like it really was a baby doll. You know the way a child holds it underneath the arms of the doll with one arm while the legs, arms, and head bob along carelessly.

Another baffling situation preceeded this one. As far as I remember, most men can’t stand the sound of a crying baby?! So standing in line with one should give guys the heebie jeebies and one would think that they would be quick to find any remedy to avoid having to sit and listen to one bawling in the line in front of them. Such an event happened where a grandparent was standing on the outskirts of a ride, tried to come in and save a mother from the excruciating pains of a crying kid; while three men stood before me and they were on the inside of the line maze in betwixt the screaming baby, and the outreached arms of the grandparent. Instead of trying to aid the situation by offering to pass the baby over to the grandmother, and in effect alleviating the screeches of said child, they stood there and rolled their eyes. Finally, a woman pushed through the assholes and grabbed the baby and passed him over. The boys, as I will now call them, stood there with “Thank God” expressions on their faces. Of course, I am not one to hold my tongue so I made them very uncomfortable the rest of our stay in row talking to my friend about what a great blog topic this situation was going to be. Another scenario of people being complete self-centered dipsticks!

So the last little blight on my Disneyland trip was the complete and utter lack of courtesy by adults as they charged through the immaculate fantasy world. Not being considerate to the tiny being next to me, I almost decked quite a few people for attempting to run over my tiny one. In the midst of this particular angst, I noticed one thing that I couldn’t understand. Why in this happiest place on earth, were the only smiles from me and my entourage, and older people? It really baffled me the worn out, and down trodden faces I saw. I, who am arguably one of the most serious minded people and moody to boot, had a consistent case of perma-grin from parking lot (minus the chartreuse color of Goofy level) back to the parking lot 12 hours later. Maybe it was because it was my first time, but I don’t think that is it. I was so happy to be there, even happier to see my little girl’s face light up over and over, and even more happy that I knew that I could actually come back again soon. Everything was amazing to me, I didn’t feel worn out or tired, no jadedness permeated my façade. I am still reeling over the fun! We sword fought in line, and sang Disney songs to the background music; we rested on steps and watched the people go by, we ate good food, and cotton candy! Fast rides, and slow meandering visits to the imagination. As I said to my friend after the fireworks show, “Who needs GOD when you have Walt Disney?”