Post #444326 by Cammo on Thu, Apr 2, 2009 7:29 AM

Went to Disneyland two days ago for my visiting Aunt's birthday.

Now I was all prepared to run the place down, smirk at the crazy changes they've made over the years and generally have a superior attitude about the whole experience.

But - we had a really great time! There were a lot of changes made that were new to us, and we LIKED them! I LIKE the Nemo ride, it's perfect for little kids. It's popular, its fun, the new sub costumes are cool, and the colors of the yellow and blue subs are perfect! It was FUN! Picking over details like the loss of the giant squid just seemed out of place.

The new bride at the top of the Haunted Mansion is freakin' scary!

So are the little dioramas/view boxes in the Pirate Island cave, the guy chained up at the end is really frightening and dead looking, when his face changes it scared the little kid in front of us so much he ran out screaming. Tht's gonna be one big emotional scar. He he heeee!

And the merch was really good. Well designed shirts are back. There was a pretty nice women's one with a 30's era Mickey and Minnie exiting a movie theater, Minnie gushing "I loved that movie! It was so romantic!" while Mickey just scowled at her. It was genuinely funny.

Somebody is doing everything he or she can to eradicate the Pressler Era at Disneyland, and it's working.

Our take on the whole park was so radically different, so upside down, that it really made me think and look at what the people working there were actually doing.

Most of the time they were cleaning up after people who litter.

And here's the very strong impression I got everywhere in that park; it was really made to make people happy. They try hard, they really do. Jeez, they've built a big pink and gold castle for you, there it is, right over there, and you can go up in it again. It's really cool. Here's a ride that takes you into outer space. Here's one that goes into deepest Africa. And it's all free once you get inside. If it's your birthday, heck, its all free anyway! And there's a big fireworks show at the end. What else ya want, ya bunch of bananas?

But are people happy? Do they go around smiling all day and having fun with their kids?

Mostly, nope.

I've never seen such bad parenting. It's disgusting. It's shameful. Kids scream for attention everywhere. They are yelled at, mostly ignored, yanked from one ride to another and I mean YANKED. Parents bring gigantic strollers so they won't have to carry their own children, and so they can strap them into a movable prison when they 'act up', meaning run around and have fun. I saw kids that were 8-10 years old who were banished to the stroller & locked in. Over and over and over, hundreds of kids. It was weird.

We saw kids screaming in restaurants for the entire time their parents ate lunch. At the end of the lunch the mom would give the kid the very last corner of her corn dog. The kid went dead silent while he'd eat it, then scream for more. He didn't get any. This would happen all day, everywhere.

Dogs are treated better.

And I can't tell you how many times I saw a parent shake a kid in furious anger. Or kids break into tears when they did it. Or parents promise kids that they were "... never ever coming back here!"

It was all way scarier than the Indiana Jones ride.

But .... we had fun anyway!