“You have to go at least once,” Sam tells me. He’s so worked up, that he’s pacing; through the kitchen, into the living room, behind the couch, and back again. “You’ll see! It’s clean!” He drops to his knees, and plunges his hands into Roz’s fur, “It’s so clean!”
We are on round nine of our annual argument about Disneyland. Sam is certain it’s a magical place full of wonder and hope. I am certain it’s an unsanitary theme park with long lines and expensive waters. We argue about Disneyland so often that our friends have begun to take sides. When this happens, I often lose. But that’s to be expected when you live in a city known for luring make-believers into its sticky grasp.
Most Angelinos either work for Disney or have worked there, know or are related to someone who works there, or grew up going multiple times a year. As per usual when it comes to arguing with Sam, the odds are stacked against me.
The closest I’ve ever gotten to winning the Disneyland argument is when, at a work party, a friend’s date, got a far-off look on her face and said, “It’s not all magic…” then went on to wax poetic about the dark underpinnings of the cheery fantasy land.
According to one legend, there have been many deaths on Disney properties, but the park goes to great lengths to cover them up or simply refuses to deem the no-longer breathing individual as “dead” whilst on their property. “When I was there,” the friend’s date continued, “a man died of a heart attack in the bathroom. We didn’t find him until we closed the park.” She may as well have had a flashlight under her chin while she told us the tale. I was thoroughly spooked.
When our neighbor, Winnie, told us she worked for Disney, Sam’s eyes lit up. “You know,” he said, setting up THE argument. “Even though we’ve been in California for 8 years, Marina’s never been to Disneyland.” He paused to watch the shock wash over Winnie’s face, before continuing, “And I told her she has to go at least once in her life, but she thinks it’s too dirty.” Stuck the landing, Sam. 10/10.
“I don’t think it’s dirty,” I responded, giving Sam a nudge, “I just don’t know that it’s a worthwhile excursion for adults. Like…I feel like it’d be more fun to go with a kid.” This response, I’ve found, is the most compelling counterargument to Sam’s nonsense. No one can dislike a happily married woman hinting at the potential for children and resulting Wholesome Family Events. However, my counterpoint did not work on Winnie, who gifted us free tickets to the park shortly thereafter.
“Okay,” I told Sam while clutching the tickets in one hand and bottle of Sake Winnie* brought over in the other, “I’ll go.” My aversion to crowded places is always usurped by my love of free things.
Following our receipt of Winnie’s generous gift, Sam and I would often wake up and say to each other: “We should go to Disneyland.” We did this about once a week for a year, until the very last weekend the tickets were eligible for use, at which point, we finally got our act together and reserved a time to go.
And that’s how I took my very first trip to Disneyland on September 11th, 2022. The happiest place on earth on the saddest day of the year.
We arrived in the morning when the sun was not yet cruel, but getting mean. After waiting in line to pass through the metal detectors, I met up with Sam in another line for the elongated golf carts that would transport us to the house of the mouse (fans may point out that Mickey technically lives in Mouseton, Calisota and to that, I respectfully say: get a life).
We climbed into the carts and crunched in across from a group of Italian 20something boys, covered in tattoos, many of them Star Wars related. I wrapped my arm tighter around Sam, and surveyed the motley crew, wondering when 20-year-old men started looking like boys to me.
“I want the ears,” I told Sam, as we drove through the methodically planted Southern California vegetation. “We can get you some ears,” he responded while his hairy knees kissed the hairy knees of the Italian kid in front of us.
As the carts slowed, I scanned our surroundings trying to absorb as much of my introduction to Disneyland as possible. Stepping out into the park for the first time, I immediately noted that it looked…
…exactly like the ads, and billboards, and photos, and fliers, and, and, and. It looked exactly like the place that’s been advertised to me my whole life. I felt like I had stepped into a commercial, but worse; instead of actors pretending to be families, it was families acting like animals. I hated it. Then immediately hated myself for hating it so quickly. Why can’t I simply enjoy fun things?
Standing on Mainstreet, U.S.A. I watched as hordes of cell phone clutching families ruined the photos of other cell phone clutching families. A merciful breeze cut through the building heat, bringing with it a lone straw wrapper. Sam was too distracted by looking for Mouse ears to notice the wrapper corkscrewing across the ground, past our toes, and into one of the 125,000 shrubs at the park. Not so clean, I thought. I began to point out the trash to Sam but quickly decided against it. This was his day and I wasn’t about to ruin it with my genetic disposition for Soviet cynicism.
It wasn’t all bad, honestly. As soon as I forbade myself from using the visit to disprove Sam’s theory about the magical powers of Disneyland, I began experiencing brief glimmers of joy. Like when we entered Fantasyland (that’s the literal name) to see some of the vintage little-kid rides.
“Oh!” Sam exclaimed while squeezing past strollers in front of the flying Dumbos, “This is where that photo was taken.” He was referring to a picture from 1989, his first visit to Disneyland. In it, Sam’s father who was the age we are now, warmly smiles at the camera as he clutches a one-year-old Sam on the slow-moving Dumbo ride. Sam’s eyes are cast downward and his little baby face is mid-scrunch, preparing for what was undoubtedly a terror-induced tantrum.
“Okay, stand right here,” I told Sam and dug into his pocket for his phone. I am a huge sucker for old family photos—most likely because many of mine were lost during immigration—and an even bigger sucker for recreating them. I cannot get enough. I will always find it charming and whimsical—no one will ever convince me otherwise.
I snapped the picture and then immediately frowned at the image. “It’d be better if you were on the actual ride,” I told Sam.
He peeked at the long line of weepy toddlers. “Maybe next time,” he said, expertly throwing his arm over my shoulders and steering me back toward the churro vendor.
Just three months earlier, Sam and I, along with our graciously patient friends, Colin and Ellen, did a similar old family photo recreation in Vienna. Colin made multiple calls to HIAS, the refugee organization that facilitated my family’s disentanglement, in an attempt to unearth more information about our time in Austria. Unfortunately, HIAS had even less intel than my parents, who only remembered that we lived in “a former brothel, located above an ALDI and next to a luggage shop.” There are currently 540 ALDIs in Austria.
Luckily, my aunt had precisely three photos from our time in Vienna, and one of them was located in front of an ornate and enormous building Colin and Ellen immediately recognized as The Schloss Belvedere. I was thrilled for the chance to revisit a place so meaningful to my origin story—a rarity for immigrants, and to do it on the 4th of July no less. The date felt oddly symbolic. Look how far we’ve come, I thought while weaving through tourists.
As I crouched in the Viennese gravel, Sam and Colin snapped photos, while Ellen checked the original image for accuracy. When all four of us were satisfied with the photo shoot, I stood up and texted the snap to my family. “Great photo, lots of memories,” My dad responded.
At the same moment my dad was typing out his response, in a house down the street, a kid filled with anguish and adrenaline was loading up his high-powered rifle to spend his 4th of July hunting neighbors and friends.
I smiled at my dad’s response, dropped my phone into my pocket, and proclaimed that I couldn’t walk another step without ice cream in my belly. “That can be arranged,” Colin said with his signature mischievous smirk.
Within thirty minutes, I had two scoops of organic honey melon coating the insides of my gullet, feeling like This is the life. Within a few hours, I’d be walking around feeling like Is this real life? Within a few months, I wouldn’t be feeling anything at all.
At Disneyland, I vowed to not show any desire to leave until Sam decided he had had enough of the park. And so, we shared that churro, rode eight rides, scoffed at Mickey Ear prices, posed for photos with the Millennium Falcon, spotted Mark Hoppus with his family, ate mediocre skewers, talked about the future, screamed on Space Mountain, experienced every toddler in the park meltdown at precisely 2:30 PM, followed and got admonished by a Storm Trooper, cringed at a 9-11 themed Patriot’s jersey, watched EMTs treat a woman who had fainted from heat exhaustion, scouted for marriage proposals at the castle, asked questions at a customer service desk, kissed on the Pirates of the Caribbean Ride, took an old-timey car driven by a man named Van to get coffee at the Disney Café (which turned out to just be a Starbucks where everything was $2 more expensive), after which Sam turned to me and said, “You ready to head out?”
“Only if you are,” I responded.
That night, after we washed off the sunscreen, and tucked into the couch, Sam sheepishly asked me the question I was dreading all evening, “What’d you think?”
I turned over all the possible responses in my head, before resigning myself to a simple, “It was so fun!” Sam’s shoulders slouched. He knew I was lying. He always knows when I’m lying because I am very bad at lying. Or, according to Sam, I wear my emotions on my face, making it impossible to lie.
“Well, thanks for giving it try,” he told me, “I realize, now, that there’s probably a big nostalgia factor that plays into one’s love of Disneyland.” I nodded, happy to have a truce in our Disneyland battle.
Earlier this week, Sam and I were walking Roz when out of the blue he said, “I kind of wish we had a chance to go on some of the rides in Fantasyland.” He pulled Roz off the sidewalk where someone had broken a glass bottle, the shards of glass not yet crushed into harmless pieces. I stepped through the glass and waited for Sam to join me back on the sidewalk. “Yeah?” I responded holding out my arm to wrap around his waist. “Yeah,” he said, watching Roz squat and pee over a pile of dog shit.
“Well, we’ll just have to go back now won’t we?” I said. Because even though the water was over-priced and there were long lines, even though my heart was hurting and my mind was elsewhere; I’d do it all over again if it meant I got to Fantasyland and live in Sam’s version of the world for a bit.
* Endlessly grateful to have moved next door to Winnie, my whisky-drinking, dog-loving, fast-talking angel.
I took my wife and kids to Disney in Orlando for the first time when the kids were actually already adults. A fascinating side story: I don't wear shorts (just don't like 'em), and because I wore jeans and a black t-shirt at Disney meant I got pulled out of every security line to get patted down and questioned. At first I thought it was just a coincidence, but eventually I played "which of these things is different than the others," and I realized every other person was wearing shorts (cargo shorts, running shorts, yoga shorts, short shorts, even denim shorts). I was statistically a risk at Disney because of my jeans. Rude. I mean, it was only 98 degrees.
Appreciate seeing Disneyland through your eyes as a first time, adult visitor, and your openness to returning to the park at some point. I lived in Orlando for 15 years, so I vacillate between your and Sam's perspectives when I think about how prevalent Disney World was in our lives. Coincidentally, after 8 years of staying away, I finally returned to Disney World for the first time this year and then went to California Adventure for the first time a few months later. I've been procrastinating on writing something about how my views of the parks evolved after that hiatus, but after reading your piece, I'm inspired to finally get started on it. Thanks!