Its Thursday night and on the Eurostar direct from Disney to London St Pancras (I call it Saint Pancreas which is unoriginal and without humour yet sticks in my mind).
We had three full Disney days which the kids have rated the BEST thing they have EVER done EVER, no really it was AWESOMELY EPIC and BRILLIANT. I have rated it almost the same except close to the opposite.
So far I have started writing this blog too many times. Its conflicted and I feel guilty and small - to make a big thing of it is to take away your child's enjoyment. "Wasn't that a great ride Dad?", "No"! But where is the line? How is this "education" different from the stories and fiction that we indoctinate our children with in other parts of their life - even if the stories do have good message - turning water into wine, eating an apple and being punished by God, turning into salt for looking back etc etc. Is the only difference between Disney culture and religious culture that of history?
Not sure where to begin - the creepy statue of Walt with Mickey which greets you on arrival, the extraordinarily happy "cast" who greet you with delight as though you are the only person ever to grace Disney with your crammed full Visa Card and foreign accent. Maybe its the idea that we are somehow giving our kid the right to imagination (as owned by Disney Corp) whilst each ride / event is choreographed and boxed so as to be exactly the same every time it presents itself. Its Colourful McDonalds isn't it?
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| The Statue of Walt |
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| Disney McDonalds - push the picture, make your order, put in your money, get your burger at the next stop point. Super efficient. |
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| Its like art imitating life or the other way around......THE efficient awful world of Wall-E |
For me, Disney was not big fun. Not to say the rides didn't have enjoyment value, but more that the ride experience is tempered by the overall ride experience ie, line up in corrals with the other sheep / Disney Park visitors, get to front then get put in front of a numbered area from which you will enter the ride speedily at the correct point, do the ride and experience the requisite enjoyment, take many pictures of your kids having fun, get off ride through designated position and leave quickly so next group can ride. Its dehumanizing and cleanly ordered in a way that probably should be seen as good for all the visitors but seems creepily efficient and dehumanizing to me in the way of an abattoir or a prison camp but with too happy "cast members" - why are they so happy?
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| You can't see her face but i assure you she is happy! |
Why is it we see a picture of the Lion King and feel as though we know Simba?
Or maybe I should come at this from another tack? To reiterate, the kids LOVED Disney. They loved the colour, the ceremony, the trading of Disney pins on your Disney necklace with Disney cast members. They loved watching the Disney Castle light up with songs from movies they knew (Disney movies) and watching fireworks fly from projected Peter Pan. They loved walking for hours and hours each day in, at times quite hot weather, unprotected by shade, to line up for an hour or more (at times) for a ride that took maybe 5 minutes. They didn't complain when it was hot and when it poured with rain, they demanded we get on the bus from our hotel to Disney in case it cleared up (we did and it did).
Ree loved Disney - she loved the detail of each set. The way that evey little "Its a Small world character had their own set" or the way the Pirate of the Carribean ride showed off tiny details in the pirate caves or model cats or shadows on the walls.
A friend of mine who is much smarter and far more succinct wrote this to me after a brief sms exchange about the merits and meaning of his country's Disney experience.
When I was living in an international students dorm we had an international food fete, and the students from each country prepared and offered a national dish. The Indonesians made some intricate and delicious nasi goreng type thing, the chinese did those awesome duck pancakes, the middle eastern students did homemade falafel, etc. The American dipshit and I bought a big tub of vanilla ice cream, a coupla jugs of root beer, and let people plop some of the former into the latter to make the quintessential american 'float', and it was the hit of the party - people were lining up! America: the least common denominator! Elegant in math - elegant in globalisation as well apparently.
Can't add to that.
A few pics
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| Outside our hotel waiting for the #50 bus to Disney |
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| Getting on to the #50. Similar rules to Sorrento / Amalfi. Note that the "Dream of Disney" extends all sizes, colours and fashion senses. |
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| Strolling into Disney |
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| Main Street - Disney |
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| Map check - gotta be sure of the plan |
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| Adventure land also has a great shortcut to a toilet block not known to the masses |
I think this video sums up some of the differences between the views of our family with respect to the Disney experience. The kids loved this walk through ALices labyrinth (last few secs is at star tours). There are many cooler rides and exhibitions so maybe its a bit mean or edited to make a point? It's all about sopphistication but maybe all you need is the box and not the present though.
Maybe a lot can be summed up by this it's a small world video. Watch it, form your opinion, see the good and the (maybe) not good and watch the kids opinion.
There were good rides and less good. the supposed best ride is called "Space Mountain" but as we found out when we got there, it was closed (no reason given) until Saturday (we leave on Thursday) - shame.
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| The Disney App - prpbably costme a million dollars as it only works when connectedto 3G or wi-fi (no wi-fi at Disney yet) |
The best time for rides turned out to be the second day.
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| Still quite excited I think |
We had been at Disney in the am and came back for the kids to do some Maths and PEAC work. The plan was to head back at 7 for "The Parade" and then stay until 11 for the great firework / light display.
Zoe and I headed into the mega-mall next door to use a computer at the Apple Store as she needed to do some work requiring flash enabled websites that ipads don't deal with. Whilst working we heard the loud sounds of the bass drummers walking through the mall which actually turned out to be the super loud thunder from the storm that had just hit.
Suddenly most of the Apple Store workers were at the front of the store staring out. The Mall was flooding.
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| The Mega Mall of puddles |
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| Zoe realizes that big storm = no parade |
We waited for the rain to become less than a storm and headed on back to Disney (kids insistence) to have some dinner, do some rides and hopefully see the fireworks (should the rain stop).
Turns out the rain did stop (for the most part) and MOST people had left Disney during the storm soooo the park was almost empty, the temperature was cool and the rides had no lines. We did more rides in those 2 hours than the rest of the trip. Would finish a ride and instead of being herded off the happy folk would ask us if we wanted to go again!
Disney became a theme park to do rides on - it became fun for me. See, I can have fun"ish"
We did
- Pirates of the Carribean
- Thunder Mountain the roller coaster (this was Zoe's second time - the first, she was white and looked sick to the core by the end. The second time, whe finished and wanted to go again.
- Phantom Manor
- Buzz light years laser attack
- Nemo's submarine
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| When you know where the camera is, open your mouth wide....forgot to tell Ree |
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| Zoe having fun 9compare wtih shot below from previous ride earlier in the day). Me trying to video a ride that occurs mostly in darkness on a rollercoaster at night in the rain on an iphone - high quality images??? |
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| Zoe's first rollercoaster ride of the day |
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| Buzz laser Zozo - she whipped the rest of us |
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| THe afore mentioned "BIg Thunder Mountain" |
The Eurostar, notes of groups and time to turn off
Not going to get to finish this today.
Have been fascinated by the difference of the train to London vs the other trains we have taken around Europe.
We have been qutie excited to get back to a country with native English speakers - its been 2 months now and life is definitely harder trying to make yourself understood in a different language or by using pictionary rules.
Keeping that in mind, the level of culture and manners has taken a MASSIVE dip as compared to other train rides. The kids are unruly and loud. Video games are on loud volume without much / any care for others on the train. The language is familiar but reminds me of that old TV show Grange Hill with inane discussions and wot ee sed to er and uvver stuff.
The French trains are quiet, the Swiss (of the regions we visited) wouldnt dream of anything other than taciturn / teutonic manners and the Italians seemed to us to have the right balance of Chatting and manners (at least on the trains).
As an aside, and fully understanding the dangers of typing by nationality (I'm not a racist but....), there are nationality groups that for whatever reason are much more likely to be free of deodorant or recent personal hygiene, groups that are much more likely to belch or fart, goups that are pretty much always the ones pushing in past patient walking fold, groups that cannot for the life of them work out what to order before they get to the front of the line and groups that have "poor walkway savvy" / ability to slowly push a stroller or walk with externally rotated feet in the middle of a path not letting anyone past or suddenly stopping or moving sideways. Australians are very hard to be around. I give you the example of the Norm like character in the small French souvenir shop on a rainy day - dressed in t-shirt and thongs with feet that could have been cleaner, he was loud, accented in a grating way and talked across the shop to his wife and 2 children in a way that you could see pushed the French shop assistants whole body back into the wall. For those few who read this, I have not included the English in any of the groups above - perhaps more on that lil culture in blogs to come.
Enough
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