I started writing this yesterday morning, but didn't post it. Actually, Land Baron, I've thought about this before - but from a different angle than you are working from. Your basic point is that perspective is important, and that your level of past experience relates to your current perceptions.
I've noticed that there are some times when Melissa and I weren't having as much fun as we once did. I'm not talking about just when we were kids in the 70s, I mean currently - were were going two or three or four times a year, and some of the luster was rubbing off. Things weren't as exciting as they once were. Sometimes it didn't seem worth it to bother fighting a crowd to see an attraction. I'm thinking about those long week+ trips where you have all the time in the world and do everything multiple times. We were bored. We'll probably get bored again sometime. It wasn't just that some of the things that seemed lame before were seeming really lame now, it was that we didn't have that "fresh" view of things; imperfections that were already there were more visible now because we had seen things so many times. Oh please don't make me ride that back lot tour again, I'd say. Don't make me get on that raft to Tom Sawyer Island, Melissa would say. Now there's 45 minutes of our lives we'll never get back from Ellen. We had looked at the curtain enough that we could see through it. I mean, after you've ridden Pirates a few dozen times, the exit signs really start to stand out more. Familiarity sometimes bread contempt (but absence makes the heart grow fonder). And little things that most more casual visiters who don't have your experience would never notice begin to stand out to you. The more they stand out, then they really start to get irritating. I'll give you a werid example, those ship sails things on the bridge from swan and dolphin to the beach club. They have gotten to where they bug the hell out of me. I mean what are they supposed to be? What is this theming? Those dorky generic looking things. They look dumb, they are always in dis-repair. I'd cut those freaking things down. And then when I get started on that, my mind wonders over to the swan and dolphin. What are they doing there those ugly ubiqutous monstrosities? I'd like to see them demolished. It is at this point that the whole boardwalk/beach club/yacht club starts to bug me. What are those resorts doing over here, how does their theme relate to anything? What kind of "new" disney crap is this?
It is like my mother-in-law said one time "It is a lot better to be a guest than to be a cast member." That is because guests see the magic end of it, and aren't there day in and day out to see the reality of it. But after a certain number of park hours you start to pick up on that reality and see through the curtain.
Now, at that sort of point, you can do one of two things. We could have decided that things just weren't as good now as they were back in the 70s when we were kids. We could have pulled out those old memories that were full of more wonder, and were polished up a little by the nostalgia of time, and decided that things don't match the past. But I guess we both had enough memories from back then to know that not everything was perfect then. To realize, gosh, the country bears were always the country bears, if you see what I'm saying. So instead of thinking "gosh, this place isn't as good as I remember it," we accepted it for the reality of what it is (and was). It is like some people who go back stage can never believe the "magic" again, but me going back stage only gave me more of a complete picture. That kind of picture didn't make it better or worse, only more full. I can accept that "magic" for what it is. So we don't really get that burned out feeling, instead we enjoy interacting with cast members, we go do something that we've always loved, etc. There are a lot of new things that we love, and I think that being there together makes a certain newness to it, too. And along with those memories from our childhood we've added new ones, like getting married there, taking family and friends there, etc. Actually, we end up going with family and friends a lot, so that probably helps keep it fresh. LOL, last May we were there for 9 days and EVERY day we had to meet up with someone, somewhere; our schedule was like a commando schedule or something. When we have the kid to take that will add some new luster and perspective, too. So when I am ready to knock down the swan and dolphin I remember that we had a lot of fun at the dolphin with four of our friends, and the hot tub area really is nice, and we did have a couple of nice meals at Palio, and it is fun going to Kimonos after a hard day of drinking in epcot, and well, I guess they could stay (Melissa says to move Kimonos to the boardwalk, Palio to where Ariels used to be, and bring in the bulldozers anyway). Instead of hating that new fangled cheap looking and falsly themed epcot resort area, I know that it is nice to stay so close to epcot and the studios, I like storm along bay and breathless and flying fish and the storm door - holy cow, when did I get a whole new set of memories and nostalgia for this new side of the world?
But the truth is, we had time to get "bored" as kids, too, I think. I mean, I really liked If you had wings - because it was air conditioned! Melissa just told me a story about how much her friends thought mission to mars when they were kids. Melissa said that as an older kid they skipped fatasyland altogether; we only went there to be goofy. I can remember as a kid playing "Guess the Tourist" where we'd try to guess where people were from based on what they looked like, how they dressed, how much they were sweating, and sort of bet on it, and somebody would have to go up and ask them. Stuff like that. I know Melissa tells me some of her favorite things to do was to play air hockey at the food and fun center. So we both had enough time as kids to take it easy. And we do that as adults too. We did the AP scaveneger hunt one day last year and we had so much fun! Collecting things for the WDW in our attic has given us new interest. I think a lot of AP holders and locals have fun with pin trading like this, we really don't get into it. The truth is, WDW is corny, campy and lame, and it always was, you go because it is fun and you can appreciate that campiness. People that have only been a couple of times, or who are only able to go every once in a while, may not realize that, and think it is cool because it looks new and shiny to them. That's why they are impressed by the big shiney's, but don't get things like Ft. Wilderness or the Polly.
I think that this view of wdw is probably more like how a lot of AP holders in So. Cal view
disneyland. Are there things that bug them? Sure. Do they take things personally? Probably more than they should. But ultimately, this is just there little park, a place to enjoy your families, a place to play, a place that is magical not because of the theming, but because every single person who comes there comes there to enjoy themselves, a place where our generation can re-live fond memories of youth that happened right there! It is a like going home again. It feels that comfortable and familiar. Some things make you mad, some things make you glad. It is a human endevor and it is not 100% wonderful or 100% blaw. We love it for what it is, that little slice of home.
But the other road that one can take when their eyes are a little more tired when they look at disney world is to focus on those flaws they are now able to see - I think that happened for three or four of you all and you found each other on the internet and reinforced to each other that your views weren't your own subjective perceptions, but were reality. Then that was coupled with a historical event, the drop in tourism after 9/11 and the economy, and you convinced each other that the rest of the world agreed with you. But you were tuning out those fresh eyes - those disney newbies - who were going and having wonderful times. They just don't know any better, right? Naw, they just haven't ran the place in to the ground for themselves yet. I know this probably sounds partronizing or condescending, sorry, but it really isn't any worse than the "your just not disney enough" stuff. So sorry if it is snotty. I think you are a little older than us, so your memories of back then are from a more adult perspective. I don't know. We all look through it from our own personal view, but I think Melissa and I are more able to see it through the views of other guests perspectives, I don't know. Land Baron, I also think that your kids are mostly grown up, and as they grew up and their perspectives grow more adult, yours probably change along with them - as they get older and don't get as excited about fantasyland or dumbo, Dad's perception may change along with them. A person can't admit or accept that campiness, they take it seriously, and then are disappointed because the serious things they are looking for and remembering aren't there.
I think I remember saying on here one time that when we went in the Fall of 1972 I was four, and it was before we moved to Florida, and we stayed in a hotel (motel?) off-property. One of the things that I remembered most about that trip was this amazing rocket ship. You could climb up it, it had a slide that came down. It was this gigantic amazing, shining thing. Years later when I was in high school I was driving over to disney with some friends and we went past some hotel (motel?) on the Kissimmee side, and holy cow. There was that amazing rocket slide. It was about 7 feet tall. Weeds were growing up through it, rusted looking. That's the kind of thing our nostalgic memories can be.
And yes, I can be here now in 2003 and actually love and be fond of Epcot and have a wonderful time there, and think it is beautiful and relaxing, even if I did think it was a hopelessly lame boring geek fest that I would just as soon go to as the dentist in the early 80s. That is a weird way that our perceptions can change also - we can begin to appreciate things we didn't like back then because we are older or are in different circumstances. At the same time, I can go to Ft. Wilderness and realize how hokey it might seem to newbies, but still have a wonderful time soaking in the old school disneyness.
Melissa says "If people are going to pull the "who is more disney crap, I'm going to go one step further. I'll say if somebody started going to walt disney world as an adult they will never get Disney really - if you think you have some trump card, that is the trump on you. If the first time you saw it was from an adult's eyes, you don't have a clue what Walt Disney World is. You had to grow up on it to really understand it - and I bet your kids don't have the same view that you do. Remind them I'm 30, so I'm not some late 80s bloomer or 90s person - I've been there every since I was 6 months old. I've only stayed off property for once in my life for one day (at the Dutch Inn) and my mom spent that day getting us moved over to the Polynesian, so I'm not some 'late comer.' I'm so Disney I think the Epcot resorts are new disney, so put that in your pipe and smoke it. That might sound crass but that's what y'all sound like to everybody else. It really is true tought that if you see it from when you are a kid, you see how wonderful it is a child, grow in to how lame it is a teen, then see how nostalgic it is as an adult. You have a more complete understanding."
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