If this was towards my ‘Disney’ marketing stigma it still proves my point. Change it to “Disney Driving School” at Richard Petty’s Speedway and we might be talking. But then it sounds kinda weird, like something was childish about it.
Consider my ignorance fought on the Florida experience and how it differs from CA.
I’m pleased to hear they’ve loosened the leash on libations as well.
You’re thinking of Celebration, FL.
Heh, I love Disney World. Went for the first time in 1973 when all the cool kids were at Daytona Beach. Been going with my lover and our kids ever since.
Our first time staying on property really cemented the deal for me. We got same day spur of the moment reservations at the Contemporary but couldn’t check in til later that day. Mrsin and the sindaughter went off and did their thing. Sinkidson and I did our thing then went back to the hotel. I’m an idiot and left all my identity stuff in our luggage. Based on basically nothing (I had no ID) they gave me a card to charge up to $100 for food and gave me a key to our room.
I always feel that Disney wants to make things right. I may be deluded.
We talk about Disney vacations as no worries vacations. FTR we do other vacas also. Indonesia, singapore, uk, oz, hawaii lots’o’times, spain, canada, lots’o’national parks.
The answers to the OP will be a mixture of opinions and facts. Moved from GQ to IMHO,.
samclem, Moderator
Doubtless you’re thinking of the town of Celebration, Florida. You’ve got the general idea, but you’re also vastly overstating the Disney-ness of it all. Read the wikipedia article for a far better explanation than what I can provide.
I don’t know that’s it’s mostly women who are huge Disney fans. Maybe. I think quite often a couple will have special memories associated with some particular Disney movie and will go on from there (I have a friend whose front hall is decorated in special Lion King art, along with a wedding picture. It’s their movie.). Possibly the husband indulges the wife a lot of the time.
My favorite uncle was a big Disney collector of Mickey Mouse memorabilia and whatnot. He was also a lawyer, albeit a lawyer with a giant MM wristwatch on his office wall. But he died (tragically young) in the very early 80’s, so that was before Disney had become the behemoth it is today.
Hee now there’s an even better one if you’re a 1%er. Costs about a mil to even get in the door.
The Hidden Micky hunter should try to get a look at the Mickey Mouse suite in the Disneyland Hotel. Our conference occupied a big chunk of the hotel, so our chair got the Pirates of the Caribbean suite (the doorbell plays A Pirates Life for Me) and the vice chair got the Mickey suite. It had three different types of Mickey phones, Mickey images all over the walls, Mickey’s in glass cases, the Mickey image on the shower curtains. Even regular rooms have Mickey hands holding the lights around the bathroom sink. Quite amazing.
Disney will do anything to pull in people while keeping up the image, which is wholesome but not directly kid targeted. Like I said, we move our show there. I’ve sat through a lot of convention and visitor bureau spiels, but no one was more professional than Disney. Depending on how much you are willing to pay, they will do all kinds of things for you. We got one of the lead designers of World of Color for a talk, which was great, and we had our party in the park, with plenty of beer and wine.
When my wife and I went to Epcot we had dinner at the restaurant in the Mexican pavilion, which definitely served alcohol and was also clearly designed for adults - and that was a good 20 years ago or more.
Sadly, I had to buy that. It’ll be a Christmas present, I swear.
According to some history of Disney books that my Mom used to borrow from the library, Disney started Disneyland because he was bored when he took his daughters to amusement parks. The kids were happy to ride the carosel a dozen times, but he was stuck standing around with nothing particular to look at except the litter. Disneyland was meant to be Family entertainment, as in the adults won’t be bored stiff while entertaining the kids.
I know several people who go to Maui every year. From here (the Twin Cities) its about $1000 a plane ticket. Maui is expensive - its expensive to eat, its expensive to stay. Its also (we were there last year) wonderful. I know people who go to Cancun every year - its more reasonable than Hawaii, but its the same vacation every year.
We go to WDW about every other year. Its way cheaper for us than Hawaii. Its a different vacation (fewer lazy days at the beach, more lazy days at the pool), but its a wonderful vacation. Its an easy vacation for us (as a first timer, Disney is an overwhelming experience, when its your 12th trip and the change delta between trips in what is new is small, its easy). There is enough to keep the kids busy, decent food, nice hotels.
The last time I went to WDW, it was with my kids and parents: age spread 7 to 87—everyone had fun. Mom lost her prescription glasses “somewhere” the day before, and was disappointed she couldn’t appreciate the full visual impact of the Magic Kingdom, sans myoptic accommodation. Out of the blue, as we strolled down Main Street, I turned to mom and said, *“It’s a shame you lost your glasses, you’re missing a lot.” * Just as I said that, a middle aged couple was passing our group in the opposite direction. The wife cocked her head, turned to our direction and said, *“You weren’t, by chance, on the ferry boat at the Grand Floridian *(one of Disney’s Hotels) yesterday, where you?” I replied, “why, yes we were.” She said, “I found a pair of glasses left on the boat and turned them into the hotel’s lost & found; they were rose-colored, cat eye plastic frames.” “That’s them”, rejoiced mom, and she was reunited with her glasses later that day.
Of the, I’m guessing 100,000+ people at WDW that day, I just happen to mention my mother’s lost glasses, just as the person who found them the day before, in an entirely different part of the resort from our present location, was passing in earshot. Amazing.
Later that day, still at the Magic Kingdom, my youngest daughter tugged my arm, pointed, and said, “that dad’s being mean to his son.” I turned to see a young boy being strong-armed and heartily spanked by an irritated looking fellow, who I assume to be the boy’s father. I barely had a chance to process the visual data in my brain before the man and child were converged upon and surrounded by Mickey, Goofy and the rest of the Disney Gang, completely blocking them from view. I couldn’t see what was going on inside the circle where Mickey had gone, but Goofy and the others started doing a little jig as they circled around. After about 30 seconds, the circle of characters disbanded and father and son emerged hand-in-hand. The boy bore an ear-to-ear grin. Dad’s face looked like that of a Stepford Wife.
Disney World is a magical place…and a little bit scary.
Yeah, there’s nothing Disney-branded about that place - it’s just a town. It was built by the Disney corporation on Disney-owned land and then they sold it off piece by piece. Now I don’t think they own anything, it’s an actual living, breathing town just like any other town. The difference is that it was meticulously designed and planned rather than organically grown (probably not unlike an extreme version of Columbia, MD). They have a lot of festivals that attract a great deal of fanfare and they do a lot of special things throughout the year - for instance, they make it “snow” in the winter downtown with artificial snow. That’s what happens when most of your town work in the creative department for Disney. I was there on Halloween two years ago and it was intense. One family paid to have their house dressed up to look like a pirate ship (not my pic, just found it online). It was pretty awesome.
My older brother lives there and I visit more or less annually, so I’m really familiar. If you want Disney, you have to go on-property. Celebration is like being in a slightly fanciful upscale Florida town with big houses and white-picket fences. It’s a little much but it’s certainly not Disney World-lite. Their schools are just schools, drug stores are just drug stores, and the like.
Ah, but they do, at least for Florida residents. The one I have (and have had, almost my entire life) is $286 this year – or, as I’m doing it, $85 down and $16ish a month.
WDW is a world unto itself. I literally never get tired of going there. The food is fantastic, and some of the restaurant experiences are like nowhere else, such as Boma and Jiko at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, 'Ohana at the Polynesian, and Victoria and Albert’s at the Grand Floridian. In addition, every year Epcot has the Food and Wine Festival for about six weeks. There’s nothing like small portions of food from 30 countries matched with wines enjoyed over the course of a lazy afternoon. When that isn’t going on, there’s still the fun of hanging out at one of Epcot’s multiple bars and restaurants.
When you have a pass, you don’t feel rushed. You can head over for a few hours, a day, or a weekend, and do what you want at your own pace. Bar hop at Epcot, ride the classics at Magic Kingdom, tour the property and enjoy the immersive theming at each hotel and park, whatever. I love the place and always will.
That chimes with my experiences with my friends who live in LA, and that’s a much smaller Disney. It would literally take less than two visits for their pass to be worthwhile, and then they would sometimes just go there for a specific ride that had changed, or for the fireworks, or for the really rather nice (for the price) restaurants.
The meal my daughter and I had at the Pirates of the Caribbean restaurant was one of the best I’ve ever had. The food was delicious (I can taste it now), the service top-table but without top-table prices, and all the time you were indoors in what appeared to be a starry night - a very realistic starry night; it was bizarre in a good way. It’d be a great place to take a date.
The artists’s workshops were actually really educational. Being Disney, they can hire the best, and I ended up drawing a Winnie-the-Pooh that actually looked like Winnie-the-Pooh. They change the subjects frequently, and my friend’s daughter goes to them a lot.
Because Downtown Disney allows alcohol, you can have a kind-of adult and kid day out. Doesn’t mean you want to get mashed while in charge of your children, but it does mean that you can have the occasional beer and it’s not just a kiddie thing.
hijack: Chimes with? You mean “jibes with”?
Personally, I like the term “chimes” as a synonym for “jibes”. Chimes are a musical instrument whose bars emit a clear, resonating tone. So, “that jibes” with me = “that resonates” with me…why not, “that chimes” with me? 
I thought maybe she left an “in” out of the sentence. Sort of an odd “That chimes in with my experiences.”
I’m sorry, but that explanation is a bit silly.
…Obviously, she was simply using what she thought to be the shortened form of “chimichangas”, which, according to Wikipedia, may have derived, circuitously, from the Spanish “change quemado”, meaning “boiled monkey”. Therefore, in this context, we may say conclusively that in SciFiSam’s experience, her friends in L.A. act like boiled monkeys when they visit Disneyland.
I stand corrected.
