When to go to Disney... or: why and when we go

We are very fortunate to be able to go to Disney Resorts as much as we do. When we lived in California we had Annual Passes and at one point only lived about a 15 minute (with no traffic) drive from Disneyland. We lived in a foothill area separating Orange County (where Disneyland is located) from the San Gabriel Valley (a suburban region east of downtown Los Angeles). Sometimes while crossing this hill we could catch the distant view of the nightly fireworks over Walt Disney’s original Magic Kingdom. So like a lot of Californians we felt a very strong  ownership over Disneyland.

When we relocated to the East Coast (originally to Washington, DC now Charlotte, NC) we got used to not going very often. In fact we went almost 6 years without visiting Disneyland. When we finally revisited Disneyland on a trip to California from North Carolina it awoke a very dormant Disney fandom! Opon returning to North Carolina we committed to finally making the trip down to Florida to visit Walt Disney World. That first trip for us to Walt Disney World was only 4 years ago. It was June 2015, our youngest son was on the way but would not be born until September so the trip was a swan song to our life as a family of 3. We figured we’d see what Disney World was like (while carrying a Disneyland chip on our shoulder) and probably not return for sometime, little did we know how much we would fall for Walt Disney World. Turned out we loved WDW and looked forward to returning. After our youngest son was born (around Labor Day 2015 how appropriate!) and once life returned somewhat to (our new) normal we started ruminating on returning to Disney World much sooner than we originally intended. Between work and school it can be tough to get all the way back to the West Coast for the holidays and since we don’t have family in North Carolina we ended up deciding to go to WDW for Thanksgiving 2015.  This ended up becoming the start of a tradition for us.

We associate Disneyland with California, that is to say with “home” so that when we can’t get back easily but we do have time for a road trip or a diversion then Walt Disney World in many ways feels like a bit of “home” here on the East Coast. Our feelings of ownership over Disneyland have expanded to include  WDW. We can not think of many other things as completely engaging for every member of our family than a visit to a Disney Resort.

There is a wonderful scene in the film “Pretty Woman” that comes to mind when thinking about Disney Parks Fandom. Richard Gere is talking about opera but the sentiment equally applies. The first exposure to (opera but for our purposes Disney-land/and or World) is very important, you either love it or you don’t, if you don’t you may learn to appreciate it, but it will never touch your soul. Needless to say we have always loved it and indeed it touches our souls. Often people with an intense passion for visiting the Disney Parks repeatedly can be asked why do you go so much and that seems as good an answer as any...because it touches the soul! So for us when is the time to go to, well we tend to go for birthdays, anniversaries, Thanksgiving, or whenever we get the chance!