Observations of a Vacation at Disneyland

A couple weekends ago my family and I went to Disneyland for my son's tenth birthday. We celebrate our boys' birthdays at Disneyland in five year increments and especially appreciated their current courtesy of allowing people to enjoy the park on their birthday for free.

While there among the masses of people, I observed several aspects about human dynamics as well as trivia commonalities among the Disneyland guests.

1. There were lots of people wearing USC and Abrocombie & Finch splashed across sweatshirts. Okay, so Disneyland is located among USC fans so that would bring them to sport their team's logo, but what surprised me was that there were so many locals visiting Disneyland. I would think the concept of this huge amusement park would be considered blase' in the midst of so many other cultured attractions. And as for Abrocombie and Finch, well aren't we going through an economic troubling times and isn't the store a bit on the expensive side of sweatshirts? Since there were so many locals who could afford to go to Disneyland anyway, maybe it was the store's marketing target and they all have enough money to go to the park and shop at the pricey store.

2. Disneyland is not the a happiest place on earth. There were a lot of families like ours and it was interesting to watch how they interacted. Young elementary aged kids hanging on the handrails trying to entertain themselves as they stood in an hour long line while the parents bickered about what they should do next. I also noticed a lot of parents who were not so nice to their kids. While we stood in line in the morning for Disneyland to open, I heard a father ask in a loud booming voice to his about four-year old daughter where was her ticket. She didn't know. "What!" he exclaimed for all to hear, "she lost it?!" Mom pikes in, "What you lost it! Now we can't go to Disneyland because you lost your ticket." Dad grabs the daughter's arm, mom grabs the older son's arm and drags them out of line to the exit exclaiming how they spent all that money and now the entire family can't go to Disneyland. The kid's are sobbing, weeping, as they are paraded in from of scores of people coming to escape their own family troubles. First of all, Hello, parents don't let your child take care of their own ticket. They are young children and children will be children and the adult must act like an adult and be responsible of their child's ticket. Second of all, it is never good to make your child feel guilty for being a child and assume the burden for the rest of their lives of ruining the family vacation. Our family was very saddened by the scene, but that was not the only escapade we witnessed.

3. People come in such a variety of sizes and shapes. I live in a community of well educated, active people and there is not one overweight child at the elemenatary school and parents show up to pick up their children in their tennis or golfing outfit. We are not familiar with the variety of people out there. We have heard about the rising child obesity rate in the United States, but we are just not surrounded among the majority. Our eyes were open at the obesity rate in among the public. I also noticed a lot of women taller than me! I am usually the tallest person around. I can be at a event of 300 women and I will be the tallest person. I am a little taller that 5'9" and I appear to be 6'0'' tall because I stand tall and can't seem to slouch. For some reason I just can't slouch. There among the crowds of normalcy, I was among many other tall women and I felt good. I also noticed that some were probably wearing a bigger size of pants and looked good. Made me feel at ease about my height and weight.

4. People go to Disneyland to escape and yet discover their dysfunctions and sadness still follows them to "the happiest place on earth," although as we stood in line for the Mad Hatter's Tea Cups, I watched the people in the cups smile. It was beautiful to see people smile. It was contagious so people in the lines started to smile and chuckle too. For all the efforts of Disneyland, I was thankful that we were able to escape our realities for a period of time and momentarily forget our troubles.

Have you had any observations on your trips to an amusement park?