Amusement Park Snob

Let me just start this out by saying that I LOVE Disney World. I LOVE IT. I'll be the first to tell you that my affection for the place borders on obsession. I have researched and studied the place with more detail to accuracy than I did any of my college or graduate courses. I know how to move throughout the 40 some square miles of property so well that I can easily tell someone mulitple routes and modes of transportation to get from place to place. I know which restaurants to eat at, which stores carry which toys, and the features and price points of most hotels. That's not including the information I know about the four main theme parks. I feel more comfortable there than in my own town.

I've often told people that if they wanted help or information on planning their Disney World trip, I'd be glad to pitch in. Sadly, besides a few dinin reccomendation and a hotel critique, I've never been given the opportunity to help someone else with their planning. What I do get to do a lot of is listening to people talk about what was wrong with their vacation. I'll always say, "You should have..." and give them the way to eleviate the problem. Most people ask why I didn't tell them this a long time ago. I always say, "You never asked."

I love Disney World. I love it so much that my school bio says that someday I want to retire to Cinderella's Castle. Also, once while playing a game of Questions, someone asked me where I wanted to be buried and I said somewhere on the property of Disney World, in a flying Dumbo. It's sick I know.

Drew is beginning to love Disney just as much as I do. In fact, every night before he goes to bed, he makes me retell one of the rides that we were on during out March/April trip. (I wasn't there for a whole month. We went on that overlapping week. But Holy Cow would I love to stay there for a month!) Since the land of the mouse is so far away--and costly I might add--we decided to take Drew to a different park--Hershey Park.

Let me say that I had a great time. Any time with Drew is usually a great time, but in this circumstance, I think I was expecting a lot more than what we actually got. And it's not that Hershey isn't a great place, I was just holding them to a reall high standard--and it started as soon as we pulled the car onto the property.

Parking at Hershey was a wild goose chase. Nothing is marked well. We kind of just followed the cars ahead of us. There is no marked path to get into the park. Once again, we followed others to the sidewalk and then found our way to the front gates.

Since the park wasn't opened yet, everyone was standing around. It was one big massive blob of humanity. There were no roped of ques. There was no suggestion of lines. Let me tell you, at Disney World, no group is EVER allowed to become a mob. Mobs of people breed mob mentality. That was super evident by the pushing and the shoving when the gates opened. For the life of me, I don't know of any ride that is important enough to run over a three year old. I mean, correct me if I am wrong, but no one inside Hershey Park is handing out anything for free other than chocolate. There's no money, there's no jewels. That means that there's no reason to run like a herd of buffalo.

There was also the aroma of good ole Hershey. Everyone I've ever talked to has told me that you can smell chocolate. It wafts through the air like a magic elixer. Not so. From the moment we got inside the gates, Mark turned his nose up. I did too. It smelled like piss. I might be mistaken but urine and chocolate are not even close on the smell o meter. UGH!

The last big thing on my nit picky list of problems was the Hershey Park employees. At Disney, they are called cast members and every single one of them is inviting and happy--even if it's fake. They smile and go out of their ways to make you feel wanted.

If Disney World is the happiest place on Earth, then Hershey Park must be HELL. No one smiled. Everyone was scowling--a guy at the food court had his head down and was half asleep. At one point, we needed directions on how to get to a ride. We asked an employee who told us she had no clue what we were talking about. HELLO?!? Isn't that her job?

Early on in the day, Drew wanted to go on this little kiddie train. It kind of reminded me of the Silver Spoons train and was driven by one of the employees. The guy looked like someone had sentenced him to lethal injection. He crossed his arms and scowled the whole time. In turn, all of the kids on the ride scowled right along with him.

I turned to Mark and said, "My God, it looks this is the train to Hell. What is wrong with these people?"

I think that's right around the point when Mark said, "Honey, this isn't Disney World."

And I have to agree with him. It wasn't Disney World and I wasn't expecting it to be--really. But would it kill someone to smile at me or to mop up the piss? Really people. I mean, their little jingle is "Hershey Park Happy" right? Shouldn't it start with the employees? They were just Hershey Park sad.

In the end, we had a good time. Drew got chocolate all over his face. We laughed and had fun.

But I can't help counting down until the next time I get to go back to my home away from home. Disney World, here I come.