I spent so much money at Disney World waiting for the magic to happen. The magic happened in mundane moments, not by buying things.
Visiting Disney World is one of my core childhood memories.
I took my daughter when she was 9 years old, expecting her to love it.
I spent so much money, and it still felt like I wasn't doing anything right.
Visiting Disney World in Orlando was one of my most magical childhood memories, and I couldn't wait to share the experience with my 9-year-old daughter Ruby. So this past October, after countless hours spent scrolling Disney travel blogs riddled with pop-up ads and thousands of dollars invested in airfare, hotel, and park tickets, we entered the gates of the Magic Kingdom.
I knew I had made a mistake within an hour of being at the park.
I kept waiting for the magic to happen, hoping that my child would delight in the roaming characters or that we'd collectively gasp at the site of Cinderella's castle. Instead, we weaved through seemingly endless lines only to zip through animatronic dioramas, feeling sick of $15 fried pizza sticks in the 90-degree heat.
It seemed that despite our extensive research and massive monetary investment, I was still doing it all wrong. I didn't purchase the $40 plastic Disney MagicBands and was fumbling to find our tickets at each entry point. I failed to properly reserve Tiana's Bayou Adventure on the Lightning Lane app. The fireworks show I'd hyped would require us to buy three $180 tickets for "Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party." And to top it all off, I took my claustrophobic child on Space Mountain, forgetting that it simulates the feeling of plummeting into a dark abyss.
I'd hoped that this day would be full of snapshots from the montage of my life as a parent, but instead, I left the "most magical place on earth" feeling like a misfit mom who had been ripped off.
We spent the next two days pressing our sweaty faces against plexiglass to look at Animal Kingdom's sleeping pygmy hippos and waiting in line to "embark on a culinary adventure across six continents" at Epcot's Food and Wine Festival.
From photo packages to enchanted princess meet-and-greets, there was an opportunity to upgrade our experience at every stop. Turns out, I'm not alone in paying top dollar for nostalgia's sake. Parents are going into debt to take their kids to Disney parks.
Disney parks continue to be the most visited theme parks in the world, but their rising prices are out of reach for many families.
By the time we staggered out of Epcot wearing $35 sparkly mouse ears, I had thrown all of my boundaries in the garbage alongside our Mickey Premium Ice Cream Bar wrappers. I feel fortunate that I could take paid time off of work and go on a costly vacation, but the price of trying to fit in with a congregation of besotted Disney families in their customized t-shirts was greater than I'd anticipated.
On the last night of our trip, I called my mom from our hotel room to better understand her Disney parenting experience. "Isn't it great?" she asked wistfully when we got on the phone.
"I think it's changed quite a bit since I was a kid," I said, trying not to yuck her yum. "It feels really different than I thought it would, and we're all a little overwhelmed."
As I listened to her reminisce about my love for scoring character autographs as an 8-year-old and the way my dad would carry me across the park at the end of the night because my scrawny legs were too tired to walk, I realized that perhaps the magic looks different for everyone.
Watching my daughter chase lizards across the Wilderness Lodge lawn as a rainbow stretched across the sky and seeing my husband spin around in a fiberglass teacup are moments that I'll always treasure. Laughing deliriously over takeout on the hotel couch isn't a family memory featured on Disney blogs, and it doesn't require a VIP ticket, but it's where we found our spark.
The fantasy of parenting rarely matches reality. Disappointments like birthday tantrums and COVID-19 Christmas morning fevers happen, and I'm learning that this job requires the ability to humbly roll with the punches. I will forever cherish what Disney meant to me as a child, and I value the wisdom I have gained that our family doesn't need to spend a small fortune to experience true magic.
Katie Nave is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has been published in HuffPost, Newsweek, Elle, Business Insider, and Glamour, and she is the content lead of Bend Health, a company focused on the mental wellbeing of families.
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