Pardon me if you’ve heard this story before (as some of you have), but
it bears repeating in this forum. We made our first pilgrimage to Disneyland this
past year (after scoring an incredible
deal on airfare for five – which I will share in another post so you can score,
too.). We arrived early our first day and jumped right in the very short line
for Star Tours. Hurray! One of my favorite rides from my childhood!
Our five year old loved it! He wanted to go again 20 times (and did by
the end of the trip). But perhaps we should have taken a quick minute to think
through how our four-year-old twin daughters might feel about riding a flight
simulator in a dark room with robots.
Yeah, that reads back pretty clearly….
And while one of our daughters seemed to shake it off when we promised
she wouldn’t have to go again, the other had no good opinion of Disneyland
after Star Tours. Trying to sooth her anxious soul, we rushed right over to the
ride based on her favorite movie, Finding
Nemo, and immediately put her in a dark submarine simulator with sharks.
Yeah.
Needless to say, she spent the next three days at Disneyland riding the
carousels and It’s a Small World and hanging out in ToonTown. My son and my
husband had a blast on every fun ride they could get on (despite my husband’s
propensity for motion sickness). At almost six years old, my son seemed to be
the perfect age and perfect disposition to eat up Disneyland. His favorite
part? Being selected to become a true
Jedi Knight and battle the real Darth
Vader.
The girls and I, on the other hand, spent a lot of time in line to meet
princesses, and I spent a lot of time assuring one of our girls that the next
ride was not dark and scary inside. (And when I was very wrong on the Little
Mermaid ride, I heard about it during the whole ride and for quite some time
afterwards.)
So here’s my tip from this trip:
Take two minutes to stop and assess your
children and their personalities and how they might respond to the adventure
you are planning.
For me, as for many of us, Disneyland is the source of cherished
childhood memories. We didn’t live too close and we didn’t have too much money,
so the few times I went as a child were extreme treats. I first went when I was
five with my aunt and uncle who won a trip through a contest. I lost my very first tooth sitting next to my
uncle waiting for the Monorail. I remember going as a teenager while on an epic
road trip from Colorado, through Utah and Nevada, and down the California Coast
in a barely functioning yellow Buick boat of a car. We stopped in Reno, Nevada,
to visit old friends and talked them into joining us. Then we met my sister and
her young kids who joined us from Phoenix, Arizona. We stayed in the park from
opening until closing! It was a blast!
But my kids don’t have those memories. They are not coming to Disneyland
with happy nostalgic feelings like me. They don’t remember the first time they
went on Star Tours, and they aren’t having giddy feelings waiting in line to
“experience it again.” This is their first
time! This will be their memory!
Sure, they might know Disney characters and the Disney Channel. But they
just don’t yet have a frame of reference for Disneyland. I wish I would have
stopped to plan out their experience a little more thoughtfully. This was,
after all, their first time there and will serve as the basis for all future Disneyland
memories. I could have helped that unfold a little better if I had been less
anxious about beating the crowds (which came from the right place, I assure you
– realizing that my four year olds and my five year old were not going to stand
patiently in long lines), and if I had been more anxious about wowing them with
the things that would actually wow them – like the castle or ToonTown or
meeting princesses or becoming a Jedi.
We eventually got there on this trip, but it was completely unnecessary
to scare the Disney out of one of them to begin with. A little more thought
about the memories I was hoping to create and a little less thought about the
memories I already had might have gone a long way during our first Disneyland
adventure.
You can bet our second Disneyland adventure will be different.
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