The Daily BuzzHow sharing my love for Disney with my family just made me a bigger fan
My mum is making a high-pitched hooooooo noise that’s part-owl, part 19th-century train. She’s a soft-spoken 68-year-old and these sounds are seriously freaking me out. We’re hang-gliding above the snowy Sierra Nevada Mountains in Lake Tahoe and whoosh! Suddenly, we’re in Redwood National Park in California. My mother shrieks. She doesn’t have much experience with – or fondness for – theme park rides and this attraction, Soarin’ in Epcot at Walt Disney World, simulates flying over California’s coast, desert, and inland regions. I can’t tell if she’s about to barf or worse, faint.
I knew the risks. My septuagenarian dad might tire of walking through the 47-square-mile resort; Walt Disney World is the size of Ottawa. Plus, he’s more of an attend-university-lectures kind of fellow. And he carries earplugs to muffle the click-clack of roller coasters. My eight-year-old son might meltdown at any time. But none of that deterred me from bringing my family along on this vacation, as I possess a certain unbridled enthusiasm for all things Disney. Like millions of Earthlings, I am a Mouse House addict.
As a former California resident I’ve been to the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim countless times; however, in nearly 11 years on the West Coast, not once did I take my parents. They only know Disney through my endless stream of Facebook photos and video, so their Disneyfication is overdue. What better way to do so than with a family trip to Disney World in Orlando, somewhere even I haven’t been before?
No stranger to the Disney experience
Disneyland is special to me because of the vibrant park experiences that revolve around my son. He was two when we first took him. There was curiosity in my toddler’s face as Lilo & Stitch, Minnie and Mickey made their way to our breakfast table at the Paradise Pier Hotel. When the characters towered above us, he clutched my leg and said, uppy-down meaning, “Pick me up, I need a closer look!” I imagine his baby brain was processing how the four-inch Mickey he’d seen on TV was now six-feet tall. That night as fireworks lit up Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, I soaked up my son’s wide-eyed wonder. His pudgy hands clapped until they were pink. We went trick-or-treating every year. Later, my son and I visited Courage and Carolina, two National Thanksgiving Turkeys that President Obama pardoned, who were living out their days in Disneyland. “Are you sure no-one is allowed to eat them?” he wondered.
And now, we have four days to explore and make new memories in Animal Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Magic Kingdom – as well as the newly built Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney). Disney properties are safe, clean, organized, and there’s a hallucinatory amount of detail in decorations, foliage, costumes, the churro- and popcorn-scented air, rides, the songs, the costumes and even the trash cans – you get the picture.
Never too old for candy and costumes
The first evening, we attend Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. Mum’s cheek is painted with cobwebs and she’s dressed as a Black Widow Spider. Dad, a mad scientist, wears a lab coat and an enormous red, yellow, green dotted tie.
We’re all dressed up tonight to go from ride to ride to collect candy. Waiting in line for sweet treats outside Peter Pan’s Flight, mum’s voice lilts and she has a wide smile for dad: “In our entire lives we’ve never gone trick-or-treating and we’re starting now?”
When I was a kid, they never stopped my siblings and I, but they felt trick-or-treating was akin to begging. So, it’s particularly poignant to me that they’re having a blast in costume. “I waited 74 years to come here,” my dad says, and I could just cry. “It really is magical.”
My son’s face is a skeleton and he’s dressed like the Grim Reaper. He rolls his big, black ghoulish eyes, exasperated. “Can we just get more candy? Now? And go on another ride?” He’s not getting the significance of this moment. Oh well. We head towards Pirates of the Caribbean and score more treats under a massive glowing Mickey Mouse pumpkin head.
Needing more sugar we head to the Tiki Juice Bar and devour Dole Whip Floats, fresh pineapple juice with a spear of pineapple and a scoop of creamy pineapple ice cream. After all, the best way to know a place is to eat your way through it.
Around the world in 80 (or more) bites
The next day, we have lunch at Morimoto Asia in Disney Springs. Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto opened his Pan-Asian restaurant three weeks ago and already, business is brisk. The main dining area has a soaring ceiling and chandeliers that look like sparkling crystal jellyfish. They’re made of fishing traps cloaked with beaded glass ropes. Our meal is equally lustrous: tuna pizza with divine sashimi and jalapeno; crispy Peking duck and steamed flour pancakes with apricot sweet chili dip.
For dessert the mochi mochi resembles a Matisse painting; there’s vivid yellow coconut mango soup and lime-green fruit boba all decorated with pink and red edible flowers. We also indulge in a decadent parfait with layers of chocolate creampuffs, vanilla gelato, and hazelnut chocolate crunchies.
I watch my parents coax my son to finish his orange chicken. Alas, he’s read the kid’s dessert menu. Five minutes later I hear him say “yum, yum” between bites of churro smothered in chocolate sauce.
That night, we head to the annual International Food & Wine Festival at Epcot. There are endless pop-up food pavilions offering taster’s plates starting at $5. Our bellies are full from lunch but we have big eyes. “I think we need a week here,” my mom sighs. “And takeaway boxes.” With the festival running until November 16, we’ll come back on a day when we’re hungrier. I opt for fresh strawberry granite and we get chocolate croissants to battle the midnight munchies.
You can’t help but get that Disney feeling
The last theme park we visit is theAnimal Kingdom. We head to the Festival of the Lion King, a song-and-dance show featuring aerial acrobats and enormous puppets. Unfortunately we’re late and are funneled to different areas; mum and I end up in the ‘giraffe’ section, while dad and my son land in ‘warthog’. It’s an interactive show and cast members tell us to embrace our animal instincts. The ‘giraffe’ section is encouraged to say baa baa. (Who knew giraffe sound like sheep?) My mum cannot stop laughing between bleats. As the show ends, a cast member hands my son a tiny drum and pulls him into the parade. As he marches his smile is so bright it could power a city. Talk about magic.
It’s in that moment I realize that being a Disney addict isn’t about taking a thousand photos or collecting Disney T-shirts (check), pins (got them), Mickey Mouse-ear hats (many), and getting a commemorative tile with our names on it in Disneyland’s Walk of Magical Memories (oh, yes!); it’s a desire to seek out simple moments of joy. Like the way my mom surprises me after Soarin’, running a hand over her mussed hair she whispers, “We could go again…”
Amber Nasrulla was a guest of Disney Parks Canada. It did not review or approve this story. For more information and to help plan your Walt Disney World, visit, including hotels, packages, & theme park tickets, visit Expedia.Ca/Disney. WestJet flies direct from Toronto to Orlando.
