I’m going to Disney World

Jerry Brito
June 7th, 2010
Culture

Starting tonight, I’ll be in Disney World for a week. My father-in-law is turning 60 and he’s taking the whole family (not least his three-year-old grandson) to Florida. I’m very much looking forward to it, especially seeing my wife’s great family.

That said I have to admit that Disney World would not be my first choice of vacation destination. The reason, I tell myself, is that I don’t care for artificial experiences. At Disney World, “cast members” are never allowed to frown, for example. The smell of fresh-baked cookies is pumped into the air around “Main Street.” In fact, the very idea of a long lost American main street is fake.

But then I think, isn’t immersing ourselves in fantasy exactly what we do when we go to the theatre or read a book? Disney World is just intensely more immersive, that’s all. Why not just enjoy the ride? That’s true, and that’s what I intend to do. And I’ll make sure to report back here on what I learn.

Let me briefly tackle another objection to Disney World. One can conceive of two types of travel–for escapism and for enlightenment. Two me, these don’t have to be mutually exclusive. They are probably on a spectrum. An all-inclusive beach resort is way to the escapist end, but you can learn something if you try, and while tooling around souks in Turkey may be enlightening, there’s certainly an element of escapism or it wouldn’t be a vacation. So while I don’t think there’s anything wrong with escapism (quite the opposite) I’m thinking I’ll be able to learn a lot about America at this most escapist of destinations.

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