The Disney Zone, Part 2

I have just read your piece on the Disney Zone and have tears streaming
down my face because I know exactly what you mean.

I have so often tried to explain to others and yet it is difficult
to convey the emotion felt on visiting Disney World. I also leave
all my cares at the gate and become 10 years old again.

I have spent all my life in the UK so did not have the benefit
of Sunday night Disney when growing up in the ’50s and ’60s, I just
knew when I first walked through the gates into the Magic Kingdom
that I had found that very special place of sanctuary I had been
looking for all my life. I can’t explain it, but I just cried tears
of joy and knew that I would never again be completely happy when
away from it. If I see an advert on the TV I cry, I just need to
be there. I bought two houses 10 minutes from Disney so that I could
always be there in spirit when I could not be there in reality.
I am visiting again very soon and can’t wait to get to Disney and
feel that joy!

Yes, it happens to me too. When I walk under the train station
and come out on Main Street, I know I’m in my favorite place on
earth. The music, the sounds, the smells that flow over Main Street,
U.S.A. bring back the times when my parents brought me and my sisters
to Disney World.

When I married my wife seven years ago, we went to the World. She
was like, “I really don’t want to go.” We’ve been every
year that we’ve been married and have been taking my 15-year-old
stepson since he was 8 and our 5-year-old since he was 20 months
old. We go to all four parks but the Magic Kingdom will always be
my favorite. I know my wife has the Disney zone too. When we are
deciding to go back or not one year from the next, she always says,
“We are going back, no ands, ifs or buts about it.”

My Zone experience is when, on the first day of our visit to WDW,
we go to The Magic Kingdom. When I first walk into the park, stand
at the top of Main Street gazing at the Castle, somehow I become
part of the Magic and leave my other life back at the turnstiles.
It is a family tradition that we must visit The Magic Kingdom first
before any other park.

Jogging before dawn at WDW is something that I had not enjoyed
until our trip in October of last year. We were staying 1 night
at the Swan before moving over to The Beach Club Villa’s and as
usual for the first morning in WDW, just like a kid on Christmas
morning, I awoke at 5:00 a.m., one hour earlier than my normal time.
So I put on my running gear and ran around the lake. For the first
20 minutes of the run I was the only person out—not even a
cast member! It was like I had all of WDW to myself! Amazing. Like
being locked in the toy store overnight!

Your connection to early childhood Disney memories and the affinity
for WDW these memories nurture in adulthood is something that I
never quite made. Thanks for the insight.

Excellent article. I wish I had written it. That terrible feeling
of having to leave WDW used to do me in. Just driving off property
would bring on emotions that I had a hard time controlling. It would
take getting to the Georgia line, heading back to Indiana, for me
to focus on home.

What did help to get over this downer was to become a cast member
after I retired. Now my wife and I work on Main Street, U.S.A. for
a few weeks in the winter. After four seasonal tours we still can’t
believe ourselves. Just walking the tunnels after work is unbelievable.
On stage we are able to experience the magic as “insiders.”

Even though the intense emotions are no longer a delightful high
or dreadfully low the magical awe is still present. Helping sprinkle
pixie dust around is too much to be believed. We are both the receiver
and the deliverer of that most magical effervescence.

I appreciated your article because you went to the child in all
or us and of course that is exactly what Walt talked about and how
he designed his parks.

A few of his quotes:

“I do not make films primarily for children. I make them
for the child in all of us.”

“In my work I try to reach and speak to that innocence.”

“Why do we have to grow up? I know more adults who have
the children’s approach to life.” “You see them at Disneyland…”
“They are not afraid to be delighted with simple pleasures…”

“Too many people grow up. That’s the real trouble with the
world; too many people grow up. They forget. They don’t remember
what it is like being 12 years old.”

Walt was able to create and design the parks to bring out all those
childhood memories. The theming, story, and attention to detail
all play to that child.

I teach classes on visiting WDW and this subject is uppermost in
my mind, for in my thinking if one misses this point they have missed
what Disney is all about. I have methods and criteria that help
students understand the magic they should be experiencing.

Well this ended up being more than I thought it would. I enjoy
sitting down with a person like you who understands all of this.

Your article led me into my own Disney Zone. My parents could not
afford to take us to Disneyland in the ’50s, so we watched it on
TV as it was built, and we saw how much Walt wanted it to be “the
happiest place on earth.” I promised myself that someday I
would get there.

Then, in 1977, I traveled as a senior class chaperone to Walt Disney
World. I sat at the Main Street Train Station and cried for a long
time. You see, I had taken everyone else’s children to the Magic
Kingdom while my 2-year-old daughter stayed home with Daddy.

We scrimped and saved and three years later I led my daughter into
the sunlight and magic of Main Street, U.S.A. And I cried again.
Most all of our favorite memories for the last two decades have
been Disney memories.

I retired from teaching three years ago. We moved to Florida. My
husband and my daughter are cast members at Blizzard Beach and Animal
Kingdom. They make the magic happen everyday. Me? I am a personal
tour guide for my friends and relatives who come to visit. It is
my pleasure to help them discover their own Disney Zone. Yes, I
sometimes cry.

Walt was wrong. It may have all started with a mouse, but the dream
grew because a father loved his girls and wanted all of us to smile
right along with them. Thanks, Walt.

Boy, can I identify with your “Disney Zone” column of
March 19.

After years of planning and saving, we finally were able
to take our three kids (daughters, ages 10, 7, 2) to WDW last May
(third trip for wife and I; first trip with them). Our first day
in the Magic Kingdom, walking Main Street, watching their saucer-wide
eyes at finally being there, and listening to the Main Street
Singers welcome us in song—I surprised myself when my vision
of the castle doubled and then trembled in a watery wash. I was
crying. It was such a dream come true that my feeble, cynical, work-a-day,
21st-century brain couldn’t process it all. And so sheer emotion
took over. Tears of happiness dribbled down my cheek.

How many times does that happen in our rat-race world? If
you’re as overworked, overstressed, and overbooked, as we
seem to be, it isn’t many! So that’s a key to Disney magic, in my
estimation: the opportunity to give yourself over so totally to
an experience—immersing your very self in it—that your
heart once again has the capacity for tears of happiness to flow.

Later in our vacation, we witnessed Illuminations, and the
same thing happened to me. The power of the music, the heart-warming
emotion of the message (that we’re all citizens of the world), the
grandeur of the spectacle was enough to cause my waterworks to flow
again. I adored it.

I think that’s the reason some people ‘get’ the Zone and others
don’t. If you’re willing—eager, in fact—to give up total
control of yourself to the Disney experience, to get so into the
magic that you’re even able to let your emotions run away with you,
you can lose yourself in the WDW experience.

If not—and, hey, in this guarded, serious world we live in,
I understand that kind of desired insulation—that Disney just
doesn’t grab you the way it does us. No criticism there, just realization.

Before we left (it was our second-to-last day), we watched Illuminations
one more time, and again, my cheeks had large, fat tears crawling
down them. But I looked down at my 7-year-old, just as she looked
up at me. And she, too, had a trembling lip and damp eyes, moved
by the emotion, yes, but saddened by the knowledge that our trip
was coming to an end.

Thanks for the uplifting article. It’s a nice reminder about why
we are all “into” this, instead of just focusing on what
management has done wrong lately.

The Disney “Zone” to me has a few different layers. The
most striking thing to me, that I always think about is:
Walt “cared.” We all know everything is a business, but
Walt actually wanted people to have fun, to enjoy themselves & the
time with their friends and families. Walt would buy a hotdog and
count his footpaces, so he knew where to place a garbage can. Not
because he knew it would save him maintenance costs but because
it was the right thing to do & help keep you transported in the
fantasy world.

I also feel eternally grateful knowing that the “intent”
of creating Disneyland/WDW was to make a million smiles, not
$$$$. What else in your life can you think of like that? Which brings
me to my second point—the community of your fellow man (or
woman).

How many of us have become annoyed at your fellow guest for holding
up a line or walking the wrong way down a path or just being in
your way? Heck, I let it get to me more than I should. It’s hot,
your feet hurt and you’re hungry.

That all goes away with a great fireworks show, parade or a ride
on your favorite attraction. It reminds you of the inherit good
in humanity and your fellow human being. You understand that they
are also here, like you, to have fun and enjoy themselves. Not merely
to get in your way or impede your progress.

It’s easy to fall prey to the notion that humans are inherently
bad (especially us as Americans) with the constant media
barrage these days. But every time I see the “American Adventure”
I well up with a sense of pride and break down (in a good way) during
“Golden Dreams.” It is a nice reminder that, yes,
the world can be a crazy place. But there are people out there who
care about their fellow man. Good will triumph evil and, yes, the
U.S.A. is a caring country that does things for the goodwill of
humanity (contrary to the popular belief that it is all politics).

I could go on and on with countless examples that demonstrate the
above. But that would still fail to accurately portray my true feelings.
This was probably the toughest email I have even written. I’ve reread
and retyped whole sections over and over, to hopefully give you
a look inside my head. But I realize that nothing I say will ever
be able to convey my deepest heartfelt emotions of: knowing that
I am having fun because someone cared enough to go to these lengths
to do it & people all over the world are here doing it with me.

I know I’m in the Disney Zone! I teared up just reading your column!

When I was younger I remember watching the opening day of Disneyland
on TV. I told my dad I was going there someday. He told me going
out to California was very expensive. I didn’t get to Walt Disney
World until my dad died and I used my inheritance money to take
my family to WDW. I was 40 but I was thrilled as a child. When we
walked down Main Street and I saw that castle, I started to tear
up. I know they were happy tears but I thought of my dad, too. Since
that first trip, I have been back many times now, and I think you
are so right that Disney is connected to childhood memories.

Thanks for the memories!

I, too, enter the Disney Zone every time I went to Disneyland (lived
near there for five years and went every weekend) and every time
I venture to WDW (about three times per year). It never ceases to
amaze me how we can leave all our cares behind and enjoy the “magic”
that is Disney.

Yes, I believe it relates directly to childhood, as I remember
three generations of my family sitting in front of the TV on Sunday
nights watching the Wonderful World of Disney and I would
just be so excited to see tinkerbell go across the television—it
was magic! Of course, we had to watch 60 minutes with that darn
stopwatch ticking and then the Sonny and Cher Show right
afterwards.

Going to Disney brings back great memories of my grandmother who
watched those shows with me and passed away when I was 12 leaving
a huge hole in my heart and I will forever miss her—but
I know she is with me all the time and when I see tinkerbell fly
from the castle before the fireworks—I especially think of
her and it brings tears to my eyes.

Wonderful article on the Disney Zone. I couldn’t agree more.

My wife and I took our 2-year-old daughter to Disney World in February
for her first trip to “Mickey’s House.” We were fortunate
enough to have my parents and my mother-in-law share in the experience.
In the weeks leading up to the trip, the excitement kept building.
I could not wait to introduce my daughter to such a special place.
Several weeks before the trip, I began singing different Disney
songs to her, including “When You Wish Upon a Star.”

One night while my daughter and I were in the pool together at
our Disney resort, she started singing “When You Wish Upon
a Star” to me (the first time she had ever done so). I began
to get tears in my eyes. I felt that she, even at two years of age,
was able to see that this was a magical place.

We have another child on the way, and we’ve already started planning
when it will be old enough to take to Disney World. Hopefully both
of our children will grow up with Disney holding a special place
in their hearts, as it does for us.