Yahoo Sports How I Hacked—and Survived—Disney World
Sometime last year my then four-year-old daughter was waking up every single night. I was desperate and very, very sleep deprived. My husband and I tried sticker charts, other kinds of rewards, even going as far as to pay her to stay in bed. (Did I mention we were desperate?)
But the only thing that really seemed to capture her imagination and harness her motivation was this bargain: stay in your bed for a month and I’ll take you to Walt Disney World. Since we struck that deal, I can count on one hand the number of times she has gotten out of bed in the last eight months. And that is how I—an amusement park loather who wrote her junior year English thesis on the portrayal of women in Disney movies (spoiler alert: it’s not good, even for the empowered female characters)—ended up at “the happiest place on earth” for three days in February.
What does someone like me do in a situation like this—admittedly one of my own making? (My husband, who is still scarred by his own childhood trip to Disney World, told me I’m on my own). Initially my plan was to go into Jane Goodall mode and observe these unusual species—adults who like Disney World—in their natural habitat. Perhaps I’d even find a way to enjoy the theme parks that didn’t offend every sensibility of mine. Namely, hordes of princesses and overpriced food in mediocre restaurants.
But for someone who doesn’t like rides and for whom the idea of going to “Mexico” or “Japan” by way of Epcot Center is a bit cringe, I wasn’t sure that adult Disney was for me. The clincher, though, was that I’d have to pay to $200 a person ($179 to be exact) just to enter the park. (Admissions fees at Disney are soaring.)
What that meant in practice was that if I wanted to take the recommendation of a frequent adult Disney goer to eat at the 50s Prime Time Café in Hollywood Studios where the waitresses dress similarly to Leave It to Beaver character June Cleaver, going as far as scolding guests (the diner was described to me as the place where “they used to yell at you like a mother would”), I’d have to pay hundreds of dollars before the lunch tab. If I was going to spend a small fortune, which is just part of the deal of going to Disney World, I wanted it to be on food and experiences I was going to enjoy.
Speaking of exorbitant amounts of money, I was warned by those who had made the pilgrimage before me that I could not just show up at Disney World without a guide. One friend suggested I hire one of those $600-an-hour guides that can cut all the lines, but I could offset the cost by splitting it with another family whose trip overlapped with ours. I am all for throwing money at a problem, but that just seemed absurd, on so many levels. For one thing, I wasn’t sure how I could allow my five-year-old and three-year-old to cut lines when I literally spend my entire life telling them to “wait their turn.” (For a mere $200 an hour you can get a guide without line-skipping privileges.)
There had to be some other Disney hack, or work around, for parents like me who didn’t want to go to their parks but were already ponying up thousands of dollars for a trip. Here’s the thing: Everything at Disney is a fortune (At the Ghirardelli’s in Disney Springs, an ice cream sundae costs $17.) The question then becomes: How do you want to allocate your funds? In my case, I couldn’t abide spending close to $800 for four people—me, my mom, and two kids–to go to a theme park for one day from which the adults would want to bolt after 10 minutes.
I figured it would be better for everyone to have an adult there who wanted to go to Disney World and send each kid for one day. I bit the bullet on two hotel rooms at The Four Seasons–which came out to around $6,000 for the trip–so we could bring our Gen Z, tech-savvy nanny, whom I’ll call A. She was excited about going to Disney World and was confident that she could navigate the parks without a guide. I realize most people do not come to Disney World for the luxury hotel experience, nor is the price tag particularly accessible. (Those three days at Disney World are probably the most expensive family vacation I’ll pay for this year.) I’m sure my kids would have been just as happy at Disney Animal Kingdom Lodge–which starts at around $530 per night and is probably the closest they would get to a safari for a very long time. The Grand Floridian, which, to me, feels the least “Disney” of the Disney World hotels, is meant to evoke “Palm Beach’s” golden era, where rooms start at $700, about half the price of The Four Seasons.
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Another reason why I chose The Four Seasons: Most die-hard Disney people told me to stay at a hotel on the monorail, where the Animal Kingdom Lodge and The Grand Floridian are located, so I did the opposite and opted for one a ten-minute drive from the parks but feels a world away. The Four Seasons has the distinction of having the sole adults-only pool in all of Disney World. Aptly named “the Oasis Pool,” it and the hotel’s sprawling spa were my personal Disney World.
Our amazing nanny, A, conducted her digital wizardry, figured out the Lightning Passes to cut down on wait times for popular rides (the passes cost around $20 a day per person), and she and my daughter set off for their day at Magic Kingdom. They did not eat at “Be My Guest,” which books out months in advance, or go on the most popular rides, or get a princess makeover. Maybe my daughter didn’t know what she was missing, but she declared it was “the best day ever.” The best part for me was that she seemed to have gotten Disney out of her system.
How do I know? When I asked her if she wanted to go to Animal Kingdom with her brother the next day, she opted to stay at the hotel where there’s a water park and a next-level kids’ club.
I only left The Four Seasons once. During my 72 hours on property, I read a third of The Age of Vice, had two massages, played tennis, and floated around in the Oasis Pool. I completely forgot that I was on a kid vacation the night my mom and I ate at Capa, the Michelin-starred restaurant on the top floor of the Four Seasons. We watched the fireworks over an exquisite Spanish cheese plate and Buena Vista cocktails (jalapeño-infused Corazon tequila with citrus). After two of those, I was in the happiest place on earth.
I discovered other places that were adult-friendly but in the Disney vicinity. One night we went out to Four Flamingos, Richard Blais’s restaurant in the Grand Hyatt that has a whimsical Florida vibe—think: inflatable flamingos floating in a pond outside the entrance. The food was mouth-watering and very adult, not a Mickey Mouse in sight. (We shared a crispy turmeric-rubbed fresh Florida catch with banana leaf grits and papaya salad.)
Earlier that evening, we took my daughter to Cirque du Soleil, where Disney animation is portrayed through acrobatics. That night on the town made me realize Disney World, or at least the adjacent parts, can be something other than a soul-crushing kiddie land.
Is what I did a replicable model for everyone? Maybe not. My kids were young enough that they didn’t know the full extent of what Disney World could offer them, but the idea of finding an adult you trust to take your children in your stead (or while you lounge at the pool) isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
In the era of overparenting and where going to Disney World has become a kind competitive sport, I found solace knowing that a slightly lazy under-achiever parent like myself, who didn’t book restaurants six months in advance or make spreadsheets planning out elaborate theme park itineraries, can still conjure a magical trip.
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