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I share my birthday with an important part of Southern California, if not world, history. Yes, sadly dating myself, Disneyland and I were born in the same year. We have grown up together here in the Southland and to be honest, I don’t think either one of us are going anywhere for a long time to come. Well that is until I jettison from this mortal plane or a giant tsunami makes Arizona beachfront property. We were both born here and have no plans to leave despite the changes that have come and continue to do so.
In our efforts to stay young we have both adapted to the times.
My first trip to Disneyland was when I was five years old and from the first moment I passed through those big gates it was my favorite place to be. I could count on future trips there when my sisters or myself would click by that magic 5-year marker. My parents had adopted a policy of every five years of life as the time frame for going. Even in the days of its youth Disneyland was always considered a high priced day for the family.
Granted, back in the early days you were still on the ticket as you go plan. For those of you too young to remember, it used to be when you went to the box office it was like going to a carnival. You would buy a book of tickets with varying values depending on what rides you wanted to go on. They were lettered “A” through “E” with “E” getting you and the best and most desirable rides. So well known and popular was this system that the term “That was an E ticket Ride” became part of the national vernacular.
Of course, when you would leave after a full day at “The Happiest Place on Earth” there were no “E” tickets left, as they were always the first to go, but you could be sure that you would have some, if not all, of your “A” and “B” tickets left. You would always take them home and store them for the next trip there, as if you were really going to use them the next time.
Nope. Through the years most of us had enough “A” and “B” tickets to fill a shoebox. I am positive that somewhere buried in my garage there are still some of them floating around. You never know, someday maybe they will return to that system or be worth something on Ebay.
Yeah right, like that’s going to happen. Nowadays the Magic Kingdom is letter-ticket free and offers a range of prices based on how much of a Disneyland fanatic you are. For a single day, one park, adult admission it will set you back $63.00. That’s right I forgot to mention about the two-park thing. You see Disneyland, just like most people of our generation, has, well, swollen.
In addition to the park that I grew up with, they now have a new park called California Adventure. Not a new “land” mind you, that would be a tad too generous on Disney’s part, a new park that of course you have to pay extra to get into. If you want to visit both parks on the same day tack on an additional twenty bucks on to the aforementioned 63.
Back in the late sixties the house that the mouse built had a stricter code of ethics, something at the time I disagreed with. Those were the days of men with hair past their shoulders, knee high moccasins, leather vests, and women in halter-tops not wearing bras, not being allowed in. Even if you weren’t part of the hippie movement, if you wanted to look “cool” you attempted to dress that way.
For quite a while, even well into the seventies, if you looked even remotely like a hippie you could forget about riding Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Unfortunately for me those were my years in exile from “The Happiest Place on Earth”, as I was one those hippie looking types.
But times changed and so did Disneyland, and as the “look” became more acceptable everyone was once again welcomed back into the land of the rodent. Even though the clientele looked a little scruffier, the standards for those working as “characters”, as Disney likes to refer to their employees, was still held very high.
No facial hair for men, or women for that matter. You were to have a perpetual smile on your face and at all costs maintain the highest form of customer service. The park visitors were always right and your appearance had to be flawless. If you went to the park in the late seventies and early eighties I dare you to recall anything less than a perfectly scrubbed and clean ride operator or service personnel.
Their perfection in appearance was only matched by the painstaking detail and upkeep of the park itself. If you compared it to other amusement parks, like Magic Mountain or Knotts Berry Farm, there was no comparison. They have always been the gold standard by which all others were measured.
Lately I have been fortunate enough to go to the park a few times in the last couple of months and began to notice things that I found a bit different. For lack of a better explanation, a lowering of standards if you will, in the areas of both personnel and upkeep.
This last week while celebrating our 52nd birthdays I visited my favorite place again and was kind of shocked at some of the things I noticed. The first thing I noticed was that not everybody working there was maintaining the same Disney façade that I had become used to over the years. Part of what I was assuming I was paying for with my admission.
First we ran into the caustic Rosemarie in a shop in Frontierland. Oh sure she was all decked out in her Frontier attire looking kind of like a high plains Aunt Bea, but in talking to her you wanted to reach out and strangle her. With her rude tone and condescending attitude she could have been working anywhere. Anywhere that is, but the “Happiest Place On Earth”.
Then there was the worker; I forget her name, who was working in the “Taste Pilots Grill” in California Adventure. It was obvious by Rosemarie’s presence in the park that the standards for hiring had been lowered, but this woman didn’t look as though she should have been in the park, even as a guest.
She looked as though she had just rolled out of bed, forgot to put in her dentures, and unless the blue cheese on my burger was tainted, forgot to bathe. Her attempts to engage in small talk while we were waiting for our food, left little doubt that she didn’t graduate from high school.
I haven’t read the book pertaining to the current hiring criteria for Disneyland but either this woman was a relative of someone doing the hiring or slipped through the cracks somewhere along the line. That is unless the character description for her part in the restaurant was “unkempt, stinky, hanger dweller”.
Then next door to the restaurant is the ride “Soarin’ Over California”, my favorite new ride at the park. As usual, with all of the rides, the entrance leading in is decorated to the hilt. If you haven’t ridden it yet the motif is that of entering a large elaborate hanger, and as always, with those special little touches that make it a Disneyland ride.
Unfortunately, as we were waiting our turn to go “Soarin’” I noticed something that was definitely not part of the planned decoration, graffiti. And not just some scrawling on the wall with a Sharpie marker, the graffiti was carved in the metal edging that highlighted the wall, obviously with a knife. For me this is the ultimate sacrilege, a kin to defacing a church.
I guess the crack team at the front entrances checking purses need to be replaced with metal detectors, and the after hour personnel, or whoever is doing the repairs, need to get a bit more through. As far as I am concerned their sole purpose is to make sure every aspect of the park is as pristine as the day before. Not doing so is cheating all of us who pay to experience the fantasy. I know that Walt is gone and the park and I are getting on in years, but don’t let us down by cutting corners.
There are very few places in this world where you can go for less than $100.00 to make your dreams come to life.
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