Just last month, December 22nd to be exact, I took my kids (19, 14, and 11) to Disneyland for the first time ever (as part of our Boston-based family’s winter vacation in Southern California).
I’m going to be blunt and say right now that I’ve always hated everything there is to hate about Disney, and their all-consuming world-conquering corporate strategy, but this experience nailed it for me.
It cost us nearly $400 to get four people into the park for ONE day. We were at the park for nearly seven hours. In that time, we were able to get onto TWO RIDES TOTAL - the Haunted Mansion (which was all crapped-up with “Nightmare Before Christmas” themed additions, to the point you couldn’t even see the classic ride underneath all of the Tim Burton whore makeup that’d been applied) and Pirates of the Caribbean, which should now more appropriately be called “A Musical Boat Ride with Johnny Depp”. We couldn’t get on a single other ride in the entire time we were there, because the lines were all two hours plus per ride.
Back to the point in question of this article, “The delight of the unexpected moment when your child comes upon a character…”, the entire time we were there (and we were looking CAREFULLY for this, because our oldest said she wanted to get a picture with one) we did not see a single, solitary costumed character. NOT A SINGLE ONE.
We saw two Stormtroopers, but not a single Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Snow White, Cinderella, or even damned Chip and Dale, all day.
Fuck you, Walt.
