Planning a single day in the American children’s paradise with military precision is the best way to experience the spectacle, finds Helen Raine, even if an adult’s cynical outlook can make it more hassle than heaven.
I can pinpoint when I first felt it, right after we were finally ushered into the presence of His Royal Winniess the Pooh.
Winnie was resplendent in plush, honey-coloured velvet. He gave my two-year-old, Maya, a sedate high five and posed politely for a photo.
Mission accomplished, we were moving on when, suddenly, she wheeled round, flung out her arms and nearly knocked His Poohness over with a desperate last hug.
Her face, pressed into his overstuffed side, was suffused with delight.
This is my child who routinely scowls at strangers. Perhaps it was because Winnie asked nothing of her (the characters don’t speak) but she had voluntarily turned back to embrace a 1.8-metre moving cuddly.
And right there, despite myself, I felt the Disney magic.
It wasn’t always there throughout the day. In fact, many things happen at Disneyland’s California park that are very far from magical: long queues; extricating tired children from the shops strategically placed at the end of the best rides; characters running away just as you reach the end of the queue to meet them; Space Mountain being closed.
But the rollercoaster ups outweighed the downs, especially as we started to get to grips with the Disney system.
With only one day in this strange world, we went armed with a strategy. At 8am sharp, we were there as the park opened
With only one day in this strange world, we went armed with a strategy. At 8am sharp, we were there as the park opened. Those first two hours were the most bewitching. We rode Star Tours (a Star Wars-inspired flight through space) three times, waltzed straight on to the revolving Astro Blasters, galloped round the carousel and got instant access to orbit on the high-flying rockets.
As the park started to fill up, the queues lengthened from five minutes’ wait to 15 and then an hour.
It was time to cash in a Fast Pass. At Splash Mountain, we inserted our tickets into the machine and got a free slip with a time period printed on it to return. That gave us enough time to ride the Pirates of the Caribbean.
Emerging from the dark, watery underworld of the pirates (populated by jerky animatronics of Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow and his crew) and brandishing our Fast Passes, we walked smugly past hundreds of people waiting in line, stepped straight into a log and fell down a lunch-losing drop to get saturated, all within about 15 minutes. Enchanting.
Now all we had to do was apply for the next Fast Pass (Autopia) while exploring the curiously thrill-free world of Iron Man.
By midday, the heat was rising and our gentle jog around the park was turning into a marathon.
We refuelled on smuggled Subway sandwiches (cheaper and better than most of the food on offer and mercifully queue-free), then it was time for my son to train at the Jedi Academy.
This is where the magic wore so thin that we could see a demonic mirror image underneath, because the Jedi can only pick a limited number of children from the audience.
We worked as a team to win. I secured a spot right in front of the stage, waiting for half an hour before the show began and guarding the space with jutting elbows.
My husband gave our first-born the pep talk: Look enthusiastic! Jump up and down! Bellow about The Force!
Unfortunately, the plan backfired horribly. By the time the Jedi swept on to the stage, brown cowls over their faces, lightsabres in hand, Callum was so over-stimulated that he burst into tears.
Once selection was underway, he was a blubbering, red-faced, snotty mess and, naturally, was overlooked in favour of children who weren’t having a complete meltdown.
My daughter voluntarily turned back to embrace a 1.8-metre moving cuddly. And despite myself, I felt the Disney magic
The worst part was that even as Darth Vader rose impressively up from an underground lair, flanked by two Storm Troopers, long after the chosen children had been kitted out in their own cloaks and were on stage, Callum still had his hopeful little hand in the air, as big, fat tears slid down his cheeks.
We had to buy him a double-ended lightsabre and promised to practise the moves at home to avoid long-term psychological damage.
From this low point, the only way was up. He fell asleep in the pushchair while we watched the extremely camp parade.
Tinkerbell’s kiss-blowing appearance was the finale, right after the troupe of dancing chimney sweeps: the performers put their hearts and souls into the routines, but the parade still felt like the place where their dreams of fame and fortune had come to die.
The brilliantly executed comic rendition of Beauty and the Beast in the Royal Theatre was less redolent of showbiz misery.
And in that very place, a princess, with real glittery hair and a shiny skirt of (almost) solid gold, actually bent over and spoke to Maya.
We still haven’t heard the end of it.
In order to persuade her to do anything from brushing her teeth to going to sleep, all I have to do is say that Princess Penelope (made-up name – she was actually more usher than princess) – would find it pleasing.
By 4pm, we had a second wind and were ready for battle with the throngs.
Pushing through the pain barrier, we explored the story neatly woven into Tarzan’s Treehouse, endured the agonisingly unfunny commentary on the Jungle Cruise, went through every crevice in Mickey’s House (my daughter was fascinated by his large white gloves in the Gaudi-esque washing machine) and had our photo taken with The Mouse himself, including yet more impromptu hugs.
Darkness fell like a trance and we staked out a place to watch Fantasmic.
The performers put their hearts and souls into the routines, but the parade route still felt like the place their dreams of fame and fortune had come to die
Now, Mickey Mouse and Co. clearly have enduring appeal but it was still slightly surprising to find that Disney seem to have been wheeling out essentially the same show for at least 20 years (I only know this because my parents visited in the 90s).
This comprises principally of projecting cartoons on to a spray of water, accompanied by loud snippets from just about every Disney musical they could scrape together, along with a spot of dancing by Mickey, while all the time an evil stepmother waves her arms about as a telescopic tower beneath her skirt inches her ever skywards.
No doubt this was quite awe-inspiring when it was first designed, but we’ve moved on technologically quite a bit since then, what with iPads and Wi-Fi and the like.
When you’re paying €70 a ticket, you don’t expect to be watching what looks like a dodgy version of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice from the 1940s. The less-than-fantastic Fantasmic is making Disney look cheap.
As we approached the witching hour, the last fireworks picked up the mood, bursting spectacularly over the Disney castle, before we trudged back to our cheap and cheerful Travelodge a few blocks away.
The magic got a bit trampled underfoot here, along with the rubbish, because our feet were drenched with other people’s fizzy drinks and stuck to the pavement as we walked.
But a little sparkle survived and, if we blow on it when we’re looking at the photos, it glows.