It's on the must-see list for most travelers and anyone living with kids outside of North Korea. Disney has been called "The Happiest Place on Earth." At least it's marketed that way by the Walt Disney Corporation. We saw a lot of miserable people there on our last trip, however. My most visceral memory is of a father telling his young son "I spent a lot of money on this. You're damn well going to enjoy it!" We seemed to be the only happy people there then. And, a Disney career seems to pave a sure path to hell for wholesome young actors. What would our experience hold this time at the Walt Disney World resort? We had been to the Florida site before with young children, and later visited Hong Kong Disney with a mix of ages. Now we had teenagers in tow with a six-year-old.
The taxi arrived in our snowy driveway at 2 pm sharp for our pilgrimage. Five minutes from home Stacey realized we'd left our wad of American cash in the kitchen. Not wanting a friend who was checking the house to think this was a generous tip, we made a u-turn. We needed the bills for gratuities and tolls, and we had a tremendous commute buffer--learned from my recent debacle to Detroit--that could withstand a short detour. We were going against the flow of afternoon traffic, and we arrived at Pearson International in good time.
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| Magic Kingdom is worth at least one family pilgrimage if you can. |
My Elite 35K status was sufficient to get the whole family into the Air Canada lounge after check-in, so the soup and cold buffet made a bargain meal for five while we waited out a couple hours in an enclosed family room. Our eldest helped himself to a few complimentary colas and was twitching from caffeine by boarding time. "We should fly like this all the time," he said. To be young with no financial sense.
