Disneyland is often called “The Happiest Place on Earth”. When you break it down, this claim has a lot of validity. Magic comes to life when your favorite childhood characters begin dancing in front of you. Suddenly Belle, Prince Charming and Mickey Mouse come alive in one location, forcing you to discover your pupils aren’t big enough to take in the entire scene all at once.
You can fly around in a pirate ship over Neverland and sit (trying not to barf) in spinning teacups next to a giant snow-covered mountain. Let’s just call a spade a spade here and agree Disneyland is an acid trip for toddlers.
The best part is that it doesn’t lose its magic when you get older. Sure, you realize Minnie’s head is removable, lines for 30-second rides are about two hours long and when Disneyland feet eventually set in (you know what I’m talking about. There is nothing in this world quite like the hurt your feet feel after 13 hours of walking from land to land) you can no longer collapse into the $15 stroller your parents rented.
I was lucky enough to spend quite a bit of time at Disneyland when I was a kid. And it didn’t stop when I hit adolescence. Having so much experience at the park, I have grown to learn there are good ways and bad ways to do Disneyland. I’ve gone with friends, both sides of my family (child of divorce, holler!) and everyone in between. Therefore, I’ve compiled a list of dos and don’ts for the perfect Disneyland trip.
Do
Make sure you go with a manageably sized group of people. Don’t be the guy who brings his mom, dad, brother, sister and 19 of their closest friends because I promise you, trying to get five people to agree on whether to go to the Matterhorn or Space Mountain first is hard enough. Keep it below 10. And 10 is pushing it. Make it 10 if everyone is pretty go-with-the-flow.
If you have to go with a group of one zillion people, make sure you’re OK with splitting up. If not, grab your least annoying cousin, make a beeline for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and meet up at City Hall with your parents at the end of the day. Trust me. You’ll save yourself a lot of arguments, a lot of awkward standing around and a lot more time beating the crap out of each other on Astro Blasters.
Do
Play the points game. Don’t worry about keeping track of exact points, because at the end of the day they’re totally useless. But you want to make sure you get as many as you can. It’s a game of wit, a game of talent, a game of cunning strength and endurance. Actually, it’s none of these things. It’s just a game that can be played if you have eyeballs. Ten points if you see a family in matching shirts. I’m talking like, 15 people walking around in hot pink shirts that say “Klornsburger Family Reuinion 2012” on the front and “We’re Wacky! We’re Zany! We’re the Klornsburgers!” on the back. Five points for bad hair, 12 points for obvious tourists, 20 points for comical hairstyles and 50 points for kids on leashes. Which brings me to my first “don’t.”
Don’t
Put your kid on a leash. I know Disneyland is huge and there are too many people on even the least-crowded days, but do not degrade your toddler to the likes of your Chihuahua. If you can’t keep tabs on your kid, don’t bring your kid to Disneyland (actually, if you can’t keep tabs on your kid, maybe you should have questioned bringing life into this world in the first place, period). And let me clarify; just because the kid-end of the leash is a cute monkey doesn’t make it OK. Watch your kid. Put them in a stroller. But don’t walk them around like some sort of precious accessory. Speaking of accessories …
Don’t
Be the only person to bring a backpack. Make sure you only think about yourself when packing for the day. Throw out all notions of thinking about others. You can try to be proactive like I was last week and bring a cute backpack to carry around your bulky SDSU sweatshirt. Maybe even throw in a couple of water bottles and snacks, because inflation at Disneyland is a sick joke.
It’ll seem like a great idea as you’re walking in but then, as everyone is getting ready to go rent a locker, they’ll notice you have a backpack and say, “Oh Hayley, can I throw my phone in there?” What follows will be a reenactment of the book “If You Give A Mouse a Cookie” as the next person says, “Oh well if you’re gonna hold her phone, would you hold my wallet?” followed by, “Oh well if you’re holding his wallet, can I just give you my sweater too?” and, “Oh well if you’re holding his sweater, would you mind holding on to my sunglasses?”
Pretty soon, someone will be tugging at your back every 10 minutes to retrieve the junk they threw in at the beginning of the day. As for your water, drink it privately because pretty soon Disneyland will become a deserted island. If just one person sees you have a water bottle, pretty soon you’ll go from having two deliciously crisp, cold bottles of liquid sustenance to having two dry, warm bottles of plastic nothingness, out of which you took one sip, total.
Then, while your park mates rummage through your bag, depleting every resource you had the forethought to bring on your own, they will see your sweatshirt and make sure to grab it when the sun goes down. Thus, by the end of the day, you are left cold, thirsty and with a heavy backpack full of the stuff everyone else was too lazy to carry themselves.
If you can get past the monumental crowds, the overwhelming sensory overload and the sheer idiocy of the people around you as they forget they can’t just walk through a group of strangers to catch up with their friends, Disneyland can be a fun and enjoyable experience.
But only when done right. So, next time you’re ready to pay $105 for admission to the Happiest Place on Earth, remember: Places like this are only as happy as the company you bring and the backpacks you don’t.
-Hayley Rafner is a media studies junior.
