This winter we made our first family trip to Disney World (just weeks before Covid ripped this away from everyone else), spending three days between the Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom and Universal Studios. We asked friends about it, read the blogs and advice and generally thought we had an understanding of the chaos that is the Disney Experience. What I thought I was prepared for however was quickly overshadowed by the immensity of the parks and the stress level of so many around us.

Everything (everything!) has a line. The rides, the princesses, the food, the bathrooms. Getting from any Point A to B is like shuffling along with a horde of zombies not really sure where the hell they are going. And the screaming, my God the screaming. Everywhere you look is a child crying their brains out or some parent incoherently yelling at their kid. It’s like you are in the middle of some medieval battle and you are just hoping to be standing at the end.

Most of the ‘Disney Pros’ who offer online advice strongly suggest to map out your day, have an agenda and know where you are going to go next. We had this ready for day one at the Magic Kingdom and attempted to stick to it for the first hour or two, and could feel our stress levels rise as we continually failed to ‘get to place X at Y time’. Then we stopped, took a breath and decided that this approach was insanity. We chose to begin following the day in whatever direction it took us and my viewpoint adjusted. After all, we decided, is the point to see everything on your plan or is the point to just have fun?

I went from trying to figure out a way to get around some dude pushing a quadruple wide stroller who just wouldn’t get out of the way to looking at Keelyn’s face light up at everything she passed while continually saying “look at that! Ooooh, look at that!” We removed our expectations of what we were going to do and simply focused on enjoying where we were and who we were with.

Since after all, isn’t that the whole point? Giving your little ones a fun and magical experience? And it became that. Watching the joy and happiness as Keelyn got a hug from Pluto, or the tongue tied awe as Kaia got an autograph from Merida filled our buckets to overflowing. At Universal Studios having Kai share my love of Star Wars and get pictures with Chewbacca made my cheeks hurt from smiling. And during the Little Mermaid show hearing Keelyn loudly whisper ‘She is real! She is really real!” brought genuine happy tears for the pure joy she was experiencing.

The crowds were still ridiculously big, the lines crazy long and the bathrooms still a roll of the dice whether you’d get inside before some catastrophe happened. But instead of annoyance I moved to a place where I looked at those stressed out parents with amused pity. So when I saw a mother dragging her crying kid by the hand, her angered face looking like something from a Stephen King novel while wearing a Disney t-shirt saying ‘This is my Happy Place’ what else could I do except laugh out loud.

After three days we still had some crabby kid moments along with parental eye rolling annoyance. But when they happened we’d simply take a break, eat a sandwich and watch other families run by to try and make it to the next must-do ride. And we left with happy thoughts, ready to return. So if you are going to Disney for the first time do yourself a favor: do some research, make plans and then toss all those plans in the garbage the second your kid catches a glimpse of Mickey Mouse. Cause its a battle, and to still be standing you need to follow the five year old leading the charge.