Surprisingly, I’ve been missing Disney World a lot lately!
It’s surprising to me because it was expensive for us to go since we don’t live close to Florida, and I hated paying the $4,000 to $5,000 for the trip.
So I decided to ask my daughter (she’s 6 mind you), if she missed Disney. She shrugged her shoulders, which means not really. Thinking that she must not have understood, I asked her which vacation she preferred better, the one at Hilton Head, that we when to this past summer or Disney World. I posed this question to her believing she would say Disney World instantly. She didn’t! My daughter (also called pumpkin, princess, sweetie, sweetie-pie, etc) said she liked both vacations about the same!!! This little discovery was an amazing answer to me! I was a bit shocked, I thought Disney would be the winner, hands down.
My 6-year-old is very smart (she tests at an ending 3rd grade reading level, not bad for a beginning 1st grader), and already judges things much like an adult would, so I was thrown for a loop!
That’s when it hit me! She doesn’t have the same base background that I do with Disney! As a very young child, I use to get excited every Sunday night to watch the latest Disney special on TV (or were they reruns by then). I’ve seen all the classics, I know almost all of the characters (both older and newer ones). But to my daughter and son, Mickey at Disney World is just some person dressed in a costume. I don’t think they felt the magic that my wife and I did.
So, while the value of my investment in the Disney World experience may increase for my kids as time folds (nostalgia), currently Disney is a bit of a disappointment for me at the moment, at least for generating excitement from my daughter. This may change with time (nostalgia kicking in again).
I was sick the entire time I was down there (flu), and yet I still wish I could go back again! Could it be that my daughter is too smart to enjoy that magic of Disney? If so, that makes me a bit sad!
We’ll have to go again sometime, perhaps I can embellish the experience somehow! For me, now that a bit of time has passed, the money spent on the vacation seemed well worth it!
Do you find that sometimes kids enjoy a cheaper vacation more so than an expensive one?
-MR
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We went to Disneyland as a day trip when we were visiting Los Angeles when my son was almost but not quite 3 (so he was free, instead of $60). He had never seen anything Disney… but we were shocked when a week or two later, on the way to daycare he asked if we remembered when we went to Disneyland. We were shocked because it was the first one time trip he’d ever had long term memory about like that. So it made a big impression on him… or it just coincided with that point in brain development in a way that other trips have not.
But I think the experience he liked best is when our friends came down to visit with their kid his age. He still talks about her.
But hey, today we’re driving into the city to visit a museum. Hopefully he’ll enjoy that too.
We actually met friends down there too, they stayed at the Animal Kingdom Deluxe lodge, while we went to the French New Orleans resort.
We didn’t spend everyday with them, but if the kids had it their way… we would have!
Hope the museum was awesome! I keep debating whether to get an annual pass to that… It’s so far, we have to drive for an hour to get there. I like the Dinosaur bones 🙂
This is what I think about Disney World…
I think it is almost better to go when the kids are a little older. Whenever I am there, I see kids crying their faces off. They are tired, hot, and don’t have the stamina to handle all that stimulation. I don’t think my kids ‘loved’ Disney until they were at least 10.
Keep in mind, my kids don’t care about the characters. No character book signing for them. But they enjoy the ‘experience’ each ride provides. I think as my kids have gotten older, they just like the break from reality for a few days. No school, no sports, just enjoy. When we go, we don’t rush around. We know the parks well enough that we know exactly what to do, and it is just laid back. We don’t feel like we have to rush to get everything in. I know, it sounds kinda pathetic that we have been there more than a few times. But, we end up going to Florida every year, and usually make a stop at Disney.
Yeah, my 6 year old was constantly riding my shoulders. And she did get tired of it, they were long days!!!
I know a few people at work that do every year! They joined that Vacation Club, and love it!
Good call on the optimal age range to go to Disney!!!
I love Disney World as well. I would have thought that with the popularity of the Disney Channel (& its derivatives) that your children would have a similar connection to Disney. To echo the earlier comments and the post, I guess at six, it’s just a little too early to have that kind of attachment yet given their current engagement level with Disney.
My daughter is 6 going on 26… She’s already told me that she’s outgrown pricesses and tinker bell (which her room is done in , drat!).
While she still has a few very small stuffed animals that she sleeps with, she’s mainly into sports, she’s constantly practicing soccer and gymnastics… all the time!
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Money Reasons – we have something in common: we each have a smart young daughter. Mine is 7, and we’ve been talking about taking her to Disney.
It’s almost like a rite of passage, it seems, for kids to go to either Disney World or Disneyland. Many people take their kids there when very young, but the results are mixed. Some kids get fired up, others get tired and it’s too much for them. Maybe some of it is weather dependent?
At this point, I’m thinking about going down there next year or the year after, when she’s a bit older. Maybe at 8 or 9, she’ll be able to enjoy it even more.
Honestly, I’m really looking forward to going too! Mainly it’s to see her enjoy herself, but also to enjoy the Disney experience once again, this time as a parent 🙂
My daughter has learned to play it cool. I think she enjoyed it more than she leads on. We even went and had dinner at Cinderella’s castle! I was pretty impressed all the way around.
My daughter decided that she’s out of princesses and fairys, so maybe it was good that we went when she was 6.
I was pretty sick and I enjoyed it, so I’m pretty sure you wil too! 🙂
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