Post #347719 by Son-of-Kelbo on Tue, Dec 4, 2007 10:05 AM

The last time Libby and I were there the day ended as a nightmare. The park was WAY oversold, and it was a human logjam everywhere (except for the far reaches of "ghettoized" Tomorrowland -- nice observation, that).

My favorite area in Disneyland has always been New Orleans Square. Expecially around sunset and through twilight, when the Mark Twain would cruise the Rivers with her winsome lights glittering on the water, a sprinkling of lights in the trees, the Haunted Mansion quietly looming in the soft glow beyond Tom Sawyer Island, a little Dixieland drifting in the breeze..., all of it. One of the most charming spots on the planet, ever.

Then they put in "Fantasmic" -- and New Orleans Square became akin to a common street parade, with people putting blankets on the ground in the late afternoon to start "dibbing" spots along the promenade, and by evening the mass of people jamming that once-charming area swelled to a claustrophobic mass of restless bodies. Nobody could move freely. Some folks could barely breath. If you didn't hog a table at one of the restaurants six hours in advance, you couldn't sit down anywhere.

It was awful, awful. We just wanted to get out, but we were herded -- like cattle -- by brusque Cast Members (not their fault; the sheer numbers of streaming bodies must've been ennervating to them), faceless in the dark, except for their swinging flashlights, ordering us to "Keep moving! Keep moving!" Nowhere to stop, roped-off areas themselves clogged with sardined-in Guests... "Keep moving!" -- all the way out of NOS, through Frontierland, through Main Street. Was this Disneyland!? Or "Soylent Green"?

I've been visiting Disneyland all my life, and I've never had so traumatic an experience as that. I'm not sure I'll ever go back, when I also acknowledge the other right-on beefs in this thread, particularly the parkwide "Disney Stor-ification" (I used to LIKE buying things themed to thier various lands) that the Management has horrifically homogenized throughout the park. (also a bullseye comment) I want to go back, can't really bear to think I never will again -- but not to repeat that experience again, ever.

I DON'T WANT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT DISNEYLAND. I never thought the day would come when I would regard this magnificent, special place with such heartbroken grief. I always thought, no matter how despoiled life in Southern California has become, and is becoming, that Disneyland would somehow always be alright. Well, it's not alright anymore. Its care and management has fallen into the hands of the Phillistines, and my great and only hope is that they'll eventually be ousted (to go apply their callous, dim-souled, imagination-deficit management style elsewhere). Until then the only thing that could help rescue Disneyland at the moment would be a Time Machine.

I'm not whining about Disneyland, I'm crying. I'm really crying, like I lost a dear friend, whom I once knew so well, and whose special warmth and magic I shared with other close friends. I pity those who never saw the place they way it was, and hope for them that some semblance of the wise love and artful stewardship that once protected the park's unique ambience will break free of the shackles of stifling corporatism, and real, courageous, creative leadership will once again make Disneyland the happiest place on Earth.

Damn avarice.