parktrotter

It was a series of minor problems that put me off Disneyland itself. After we arrived yesterday, we ate, as I noted, at Goofy’s Kitchen in the Disneyland Hotel. My wife’s older brother and his wife joined us. Her brother’s company had done some work for Disney, and he had a one-year pass for himself and any guests he cared to bring to enter any Disney park any time he might choose to enter, a kind of Disney skeleton key. So even though the kids were both overstimulated and exhausted, we queued up at the monorail station.

And we stood there for a half hour before they decided that the monorail was not working any more. We walked into Disneyland and took the train into its bowels. When we tried to get out later, the train was shut down for the fireworks show. Then they cancelled the fireworks show for “meteorological” reasons, even though there was no wind and the moon was out. Honestly, it was hard to understand. The Disney employees were, many of them, a little brusque. I have had some trying service sector jobs myself (Universal Studios cashier and valet guy, and Toys R Us for Christmas), so I understand the moral exhaustion and irritability that comes with this terrain. When I visit a place like this, I always expect it to have gone downhill in my absence, and I am certain that the managers of this operation are aware that their greatest challenge is to keep the employees smiling to the guests. But against brusqueness, even The Mouse contends in vain.

As I write this–in Word, to be posted later–we are getting ready for our second day. Lewis was so exhausted as to be completely incoherent. Literally: Jen put him on the bed, where he babbled like a madman for four minutes, then fell into the deepest imaginable sleep.

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