Why do people love going to Disneyland?

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Can someone break this down for me, aspie-intellectual style? I've never bothered to notice this until now: a lot of people freaking LOVE going to Disneyland and I just don't get it. It's a novel experience, sure, but I notice many people seem to regard going there the same way an alcoholic looks at getting drunk, like it's a womblike and restorative experience.

Even if crowds didn't make me nervous, I still wouldn't get it. I don't like having all these "stores and restaurants" full of junk I don't need manned by people who are probably told in their orientation to damn well act like it's the happiest place on earth. The rides are okay, I guess, but not worth the travel expense. I do not understand the all-consuming affection people have for the place, and it's annoying.

Can anyone explain?

The majority of people think it's fun.

I do too. Standing in line is tolerable when I wear my iPod and dark shades.

Meh, I didn't have very much fun there. Sure, it was all right... but definitely not "magical" or anything.

Not "magical" for me, either, but certainly a solid distraction from the cares of the world outside.

... 'cept for the crying babies ...

For a vacation that's a little out of the ordinary.

Disneyland was designed to appeal to an adult's sense of never having TRULY been a kid. When my family was at Disneyland in 2001, my dad found a coffee-table book about the "history of Disneyland" in one of the stores and purchased a copy. It made for intriguing reading, and I say this as a history buff.

Walt Disney built a berm around the entire park so people couldn't see the outside world when they were inside the berm, and thus could revel in the "kid experience". The room above the "fire station" at the entrance contains a little studio apartment where Walt lived during the park's construction, so NOTHING would be left to chance. EVERYTHING was as Walt wanted, he was VERY involved in the planning and design.

The little "Disneyland USA" village at the entrance, where all the stupid kitsch shops are, was based on Walt's hometown in Missouri. Keep in mind that in 1955, most adults who visited Disneyland were from such small towns, and they had been through the Great Depression and WW2, so they were adults before they had the chance to be kids. The whole park is designed to push the "nostalgia buttons" of NTs. All of it is VERY deliberate, and as we all know NTs are very easy to manipulate.

In the beginning, Walt had a TV show called "Disneyland" made and placed on TV, and in 1955 the whole country was just discovering TV, so the carefully crafted show was designed as a big ad for the park. Disneyland was created and promoted in a very modern fashion, intended more for adults than kids. Walt intended Disneyland to be his magnum opus.

The reason that Disney WORLD exists is that land that Disney execs thought they would be able to use for expansion was quickly filled with suburbia, and the park was in a sense "trapped". So Disney World was built. (California Adventure, the new companion park, was built on the old parking lot, and a multistory parking structure built to replace the lot.)

Looking at Disneyland now, a theme park surrounded by rotting suburbs peopled with illegal immigrants, makes one wonder if Walt's dream didn't contain the seeds of its eventual doom. If you ever go to Disneyland, and my parents REFUSED to do this when I was young, try driving in some of the surrounding suburbs. Old motels that once served Disneyland customers now serve as semi-permanent housing for people down on their luck. The houses surrounding the park, well it might as well be Mexico because that's what everybody speaks. Disney built a special exit off Interstate 5 to hide this deterioration, so people don't have to drive in Anaheim to get to the park.

I went there once and it was loud and annoying, some of the rides were cool and it was hard finding places to smoke cigarettes. Oh and there was a ride that was almost more scary than a bad mushroom trip I regrettably got on as well my cousin and siblings also hated it.

Maybe its more fun if you're 5-10 years old.

I actually live in the suburbs surrounding Disneyland, and it is nothing like the way you described. There is nothing "rotting", and English is still the primary language, although Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Spanish, and Vietnamese can all be heard in nearly every Anaheim neighborhood. I like being able to sample a variety of cultures within a few minute's drive of my home, as well as within my own neighborhood.

I suggest that from now on, you stay away from Anaheim, so as to not offend your upper-class Anglo-centric sensibilities.

Last edited by Fnord on 03 Mar 2012, 7:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It doesn't require socializing, and it's fun. I have been two times in my life and don't think it qualifies as an addiction.

I should have noted that my impressions were formed by various newspaper articles, and that, yes, I was wrong. If you search Google Earth for "Harbor Blvd and Lampson Ave, Garden Grove, CA" you'll find that somebody named "Paul Ku" has helpfully taken photos of his Korean American neighborhood, and that it is nothing like the newspapers described it. The homes are well taken care of, and the Koreans like to trim their yards in the Asian custom (meaning plenty of work). The little shopping center he photographed looks well tended, and is called "American European Center" (some Slavs there too, I guess?). I hope you accept my apology. My parents refused my offer to drive around the Disneyland area in 2001, "but but the LA Times says it's filthy and dangerous!". Not the first time the Times was wrong. My parents are abjectly afraid of LA-all the relatives live in Norwalk, Fullerton, and Buena Park, and my dad's childhood haunts are now slums. They think it's all like that. I also found some photos from 1958 somebody uploaded to Google Earth, showing the construction of the houses.

The rides are fun to go on and they think all those long lines are worth it. I have been there twice in 1995 because you will have no time to go on all the rides in one day and you stay until closing. There are no lines by then when it's late at night. Sometimes I would like to go back but the tickets are expensive. They have gone up a lot in the last 16 years.

I just goes to show you that there is a whole world of people who are really screwed up:) (More than us)

I find vacations very very difficult. I don't like to change my routine because that is out of my comfort zone. I have been to Disney, done the cruise ship thing, traveled all over Europe which I like the best of all. Because in Europe I understood what I saw, think of it as living history.

Most vacations I travel to see my parents, it is safe and I can assume a routine there.

B

I'd love to go to Disneyland. I've always wanted to go there. If I win the Lotto Max 50 Million Dollar Jackpot, I'll take anyone who wants to go.

My brother got to go to Disneyland in high school for his show choir trip. He got to ride on that Indiana Jones ride he couldn't go on when he was five because he was an inch too short. My parents tried putting these cups in his shoes to make him taller and it didn't work. One of my uncles sacrificed going on the ride to sit with him while the rest of us got on the ride.

I think most people like Disneyland because they can behave like a child there without feeling odd. They can scream and get freaky and express their joy in ways they cannot in daily life.

I don't really enjoy theme parks, Disneyland, whatever. I cannot express joy because I'm not feeling any joy.. i find it annoying. Too many screaming and happy people, too crowded and too many children. I went to Disneyland twice, once when I was 9 years old and once again when I was 21. I liked it somehow when I was a child because it was exciting and it was great to see the characters from the movies and comics. When I went there again at age 21 I just felt bored and I couldn't really understand why my friends would get so excited about roller coasters and space mountain. Perhaps because anything that moves fast and in any kind of loops around is just scaring me and I'm not an outgoing person at all.

i like amusement park rides, but the made-up all-encompassing experience of Disneyland/world is abhorrent to me. i find the idea surreal and uncomfortable.