25 July 2006
Nostalgia

Filed under Life

As a few of you might know, I’ve been on a Disney kick lately, listening to music from around the theme parks in Florida. Yes, such things exist. Call it what you want (weird, sappy, an attempt at seeking escape to a dreamworld of fantasy that’s enabling me to rationalize working in a cubicle) but for me, this is the music I more or less grew up on.

Living in Florida has a few perks, hurricanes, poor drivers, and poorer voters be damned. One of them is great discounts at theme parks. Another is proximity to aforementioned parks. I’d estimate that my family probably went to Disney World somewhere between 30-40 times between first grade (1991) and 2001. Throw in another 8-10 times for school related stuff, and maybe another handful of times post 9/11, and I would say it’s not unrealistic to guess I’ve been to Disney World on the order of 50-60 times.

That may seem like a lot, but you have to remember a few things. That’s 50-60 over the course of a decade and a half, which is only 3-4 times a year. And none of those trips was longer than four or five days, and most were a pattern like this: leave after school Friday afternoon, hit Epcot Friday night, go to Magic Kingdom Saturday, go to MGM Sunday Morning, and leave no later than Two PM Sunday afternoon. (That’s essentially the perfect 3 park schedule by the way.)

Still, I agree, that’s a tremendous amount of Disney for one kid to ingest, regardless of timespan length. And when you consider my family also owned every Disney animated movie (except Pete’s Dragon) in their gigantic clamshell cases, owned Disney stuffed characters, read books about those characters, and so on, you see that we’ve got a pretty Disnified house.

I am lucky to know that this same time was a sort of golden age for theme parks, especially Disney World. The growth that the Orlando resort has experienced in my lifetime is astounding: adding two new theme parks, opening a dozen hotels, adding shopping centers, attractions, water parks. I know that this unparalleled expansion was offset by the loss of attractions I loved. I realize that change is, for the most part, good.

Why? That’s an excellent question. Part of it was the escape that WDW provided then (and we’ll get to why it doesn’t now in a second). Part of it was the physical location: just 90 minutes up I-4 from my house. Part of it was the cost, which didn’t hurt so badly back then. But I think most of it was my grandfather (my mom will inevitably read and correct this if I’m wrong) also liked Disney and took his family often. There’s a whole back story here that involves this company, my grandfather, the opening of Space Mountain, and the oil crisis of the 70s. I might write that book some day.

I know there’s a term for people further down the scale than me: DisneyFreak. I know there are people who travel to all eleven theme parks around the world, post trivia online, compare rides in Anaheim and Orlando. I know that I am not quite one of these people: I only read the trivia posted online.

But I also know that it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or anyone from Tomorrowland) to figure out that Disney World has lost its way. I’m listening to this music from dismantled attractions now sold on eBay, stories once told in the half-light that will never entertain again.

Maybe the magic is gone for me: maybe time, that evil villian, has robbed me of my innocence. But when I listen to the in-ride audio and music (and yes, such things are easily had online) only some of what I feel is my own personal nostalgia: the memories of trips past. The other part of what I feel is confusion, from an engineering and business perspective, wondering *why* Disney’s made some of the decisions they have, especially at the parks.

Of course, this problem is multi-faceted. Universal, just up I-4 even farther, is directly competing for the same market. The overall travel market suffered, perhaps irrecoverably, after 9/11. Gas prices are soaring. But my personal opinion is people will still pay, and pay handsomely, for happiness, for peace of mind and pieces of future nostalgia. People will always pay if you can simultaneously take their cares away and give them happy memories at the same time. Why else would movies be so popular?

Disney’s problems lie somewhere else then, beyond competition, rising costs and prices. I think the Disney problem is they’re just not as good as they used to be at manufacturing the product. I know that it’s always been about making money from the Disney side, but I feel like what they’re selling is no longer what it once was. The Disney empire has gotten so large and expansive, WDW has simply become a grand Disney store: an outdoor arena for advertising and selling.

Back in my high school days, when I was involved in television production, we had a oft-repeated motto: “All we do here is tell stories. Your success is determined by how well you share them.” So too, should this be the motto of the company founded by Walt Disney.

Technorati Tags: Disney, Walt Disney World, Nostalgia

 ::  Adam