While Disney offers plenty for the young-at-heart, there’s something uniquely magical about visiting the House of Mouse as a kid.
“Mickey remembered me! Did you see?!”
“We were going so fast I thought we were going to DIE!”
“R2-BEEPED-AT-ME-AND-WE-TALKED-ABOUT-LIGHTSABERS-AND-DARTH-VADER-AND-SPACESHIPS-AND-OUR-SECRET-BASE-AND-WE’RE-SPECIAL-FRIENDS-FOREVER-CAN-I-TAKE-HIM-HOME-NOW?!”
Kids don’t get snagged in the stresses that sour trips for so many adults—they just imagine. A trip to the Most Magical or Happiest Place on Earth is an invitation to dream, to actually live out our favorite tales as part of the story. For kids, a trip to Disney parks is one giant adventure, and its all amazingly, mind-bogglingly real.
Maybe you were a Disney kid yourself and have fond memories of these moments, or maybe you’ve had the pleasure of taking a child with you and getting to glimpse their unique perspective. Either way, you might recognize these ridiculous (but kind of adorable things) you totally believed as a Disney kid…
1. Everything was WAY bigger
If you grew up as a Disney kid, you may remember a pretty significant difference about the parks: everything seemed so much bigger! From castles to mountains to coasters, everything at Disney parks seems enormous to the eyes of a kid.
Now, some of this is to be expected (being children are, well… small), but there’s something more to our childhood memories of Disney parks as larger than life. Disney parks frequently use a pair of optical illusions to make things look bigger. The first one is forced perspective–by making objects far from the audience disproportionately small while those closer are unusually large, you create an effect of massive size. The second trick is tip of the iceberg effects, where we actually can only see part of extremely big objects (the rest might be hidden behind foliage, buildings, or other decorations), but our brains convince us we can see the whole thing.
These tricks are already impressive enough to leave adults goggling (think of the floating islands of Pandora or the mountains surrounding The Black Spire Outpost in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge), but for a kid, these illusions make Disney’s mountains, buildings, and landscapes appear absolutely staggeringly huge. Big Thunder Mountain is as big as a mountain. Expedition: Everest looks like a distant glimpse at the real thing. Cinderella Castle may as well be Neuschwanstein, and if you grew up in the 90’s-2000’s, don’t even get me started on the Honey I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure…
The one that really stands out to me for this effect is Sleeping Beauty castle in Disneyland. As an adult, I’ll admit a day came that I walked into the park and the castle seemed tiny—like a great big dollhouse compared to Cinderella Castle. I seriously wondered if it’d been rebuilt or if I was just looking at some sort of reverse-forced-perspective.
In truth, Sleeping Beauty castle is just really small compared to its Magic Kingdom counterpart… but for most kids, you just can’t tell!
2. You were certain you almost died on EVERY thrill ride
Reaching the age where you hit the minimum height restriction for Disney’s thrill rides is a huge milestone for many kids. That magical mark opens up a whole new world of adventures… and potential brushes with certain death.
I had a pretty active imagination as a kid, and I remember vastly overestimating the danger factors on the full gamut of Disney rides. I wondered more than once what would happen if the cannonballs actually hit our boat on Pirates of the Caribbean. The Tower of Terror really could kill you if you caught the wrong elevator, and Injun Joe’s cave was certainly hiding a serial killer somewhere in its brooding tunnels.
Sometimes these cases were just Disney doing their job really well—like the secret mechanism in the queue for the Indiana Jones Adventure that causes the spike ceiling to start lowering (it actually did use to move nearly a foot—I confirmed this was not just my imagination)—but other times, my assumptions bordered on hilarious. How many kids have you met who were convinced the Haunted Mansion was really haunted or that you actually did almost go off the tracks on Expedition: Everest?
This habit of overestimating the perils of rides remained a habit of mine throughout my entire childhood. I was convinced if I turned around on the Matterhorn, I would see the Yeti bearing down on our heels. I refused to enter the Maharajah Jungle Trek for years because I took Disney’s vivid descriptions of the area to mean guests were just sort of expected to fend for themselves amidst the tigers, Komodo dragons, and giant bats.
I even remember panicking and bailing out the exit door right after the pre-show during of the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter because I’d become convinced I would be strapped to my seat with a bloodthirsty alien running loose in the room, breathing on my neck, slobbering on my head, and ripping unseen victims into bloody shreds in pitch darkness…
Oh, wait…
3. You expected characters to show up on rides
Video: YouTube, User: HBVideos, From A Day at Disneyland
This one was likely shared by kids who repeat-watched Disney’s various promotional videos—who are these lucky kids who keep getting to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad with Disney characters?!
This mystery boggled me for years… Did it only happen during the summers? Perhaps it was sort of secret lottery. Did it have to be your birthday? What was the secret to these magical scenarios where Mickey, Goofy, Donald, and friends hopped onto rides with kids?
Now, ironically, this apparently is something that happens from time to time. Guests have reported Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the March Hare riding the teacups, Lady Tremaine and her daughters riding the carousel, and even Darth Vader and Stormtroopers (gaaaasp!) showing up on Star Tours, but this is extremely rare. It’s sort of something that only happens when the stars align and a character handler thinks it’s a good idea. I’ve been visiting Disney parks for over thirty years and have never seen this happen once.
Still, as a kid, you just couldn’t help but think you might be the chosen one who might get to fly down Splash Mountain with a flume full of Disney princesses…
4. You expected characters to remember you
Speaking of characters, there’s another adorable belief you probably had as a Disney kid. This is one I’ve actually read a few parents sharing, and it’s so true.
Kids 100% will walk up to Mickey Mouse and ask if he remembers them from a trip years ago—and they will leave that encounter convinced that he does.
The characters play this scenario so well because it’s so common. Disney already does an excellent job making sure characters only appear at one place at a time, so as not to break the illusion (“But Merida, dinnae you remember?! I became yer wee squire a’fore lunch! Did ye’ crack yer noggin’?”), but they really go a step further in making every kid feel like they’re being remembered personally. Kids leave these encounters so excited that you’re likely to hear about it for weeks.
Oh, and on a side note, how many of you were certain that the animatronics looked right at you?…
5. You wondered what was hidden over there
While some budding young Disneyphiles might know about Magic Kingdom’s utilidors, that’s not what I’m talking about. Rather, as a kid, you genuinely wondered, “How do I get over there?”
Over there could have been just about any area in the park—onto the banks of the Pirates of the Caribbean town, into locked off rooms of Fort Langhorn, onto the top of Spaceship Earth. Kids spot things that adults just don’t, and I remember imagining many times just what Disney might be hiding behind closed doors. From Toontown to Horizons to The Great Movie Ride, kids can’t help but wonder what’s hiding behind the curtain, and some of the ideas they come up with are just amazing. Moments like Mickey Mouse climbing the Matterhorn made this speculation even more tantalizing.
After all, some of those dark corners in Spaceship Earth would make for an epic ninja battle…
6. You thought everything was free
You know you were thinking it…
We must tip our hats to the parents who year after year decide to make the investment to give kids a trip to Disneyland or Walt Disney World. Magic can be expensive, and for many families, planning a Disney trip is a complicated affair that involves careful budgeting, deal hunting, long hours on the computer or phone, and years of saving.
And the kids just have no idea sometimes.
As kids, the reason you get to have a nice Disney trip is because Mickey is just such a nice guy. There’s a precious assumption that Disney princesses simply throw banquets for merry subjects, that Savi chose you with the Force to build a lightsaber, and that hotel rooms are paid for with pirate gold. While it is good to teach kids about money management as they grow, there is something sort of sweet about kids’ naivete in this area.
It’s the magic of being young, care-free, and still seeing the best in humanity… While it may pain parents whose kids have moments where they just don’t get it, to the parents who ride this out with quiet patience, waiting for that day in years ahead where the kids will remember the magical vacation you helped make happen, we salute you.
Enjoy this article? Keep reading to check out our Ultimate Book Lover’s Guide to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge…
