This week, I’m thinking about Disney World. Since the last time I wrote, two long weeks ago, I’ve visited the happiest place on Earth.

We were not a Disney family growing up. I have a hazy memory of a day spent at Magic Kingdom, my sister getting sun poisoning, and the Small World ride, but not much else. And it’s never been a top priority to go back despite the fact that I am a nerd and the Star Wars stuff looks really incredible. In the fall, Zu started talking matter of factly about going to Disney World and meeting Te Fiti, her very best, imaginary friend. But. . .there was no Te Fiti at Disney. I was not going to be the one to tell her that! Then, I saw that a Moana experience was opening at the end of 2023, and it felt like a sign.

My day job is producing - I know how to plan and coordinate all sorts of things. Wild complex stuff! I’ve done it! And somehow this was the single most complicated experience I’ve encountered. The basic booking of the trip was intimidating - do I book plane tickets first and then hope I can get park tickets? Can I book a hotel without knowing if I can get park reservations? HOW DOES THIS WORK?!?!

So I found an expert aka a Disney specialist (aka a travel agent who books Disney trips) and she sent me a list of questions, some which I did not even know how to answer. Bless this poor patient woman. Once the flights, hotels, and park tickets were booked, I was faced with new questions. What the hell is Genie+? What are Lightning Lanes? Are they worth it? How do I use them? What rides will Zu like? How can she meet the princesses? How the hell do I plan this?

I spoke with so many people: parents with the same age kids who’ve been to Disney in the last year (the specificity!), Disney adults, travel writers who specialize in Disney, the specialist who answered lots and lots of repetitive emails. My brain was overflowing with information and details. Aaaaaaand I kept going. . .

I read blogs, went down rabbit holes on YouTube, listened to podcasts, followed many instagram accounts (could not wait to unfollow them all the moment we returned), watched so many TikToks that my algorithm is (hopefully only temporarily) destroyed.

And that was all before even getting there. Once we arrived, I set an alarm to sign us up for Genie+ in the mornings and booked us onto the Lightning Lanes. Did we ever really figure out the bus schedule between the hotel and the parks or were we running to catch it/missing it by a minute every time? Did I drain the battery on my phone looking at the map to make sure we were going in the right direction and not wandering into a completely wrong area? And then set alarms so that when I was eligible I could book us another Lightning Lane ride? Yes, yes I did.

But wait! Was it also the most exhausting experience on a physical level? Even with midday rest breaks, walking around hovering near 20k steps a day, carrying around a nearly 5-year-old (very happily, this was not my responsibility) and hauling all the things was HARD. I am old! I have aches and pains! Did my already precarious plantar fasciitis situation become nearly unbearable? You bet.

And yet. . .

Occasionally, I wish that I felt comfortable sharing her face with the internet - she is the cutest child (not that I’m biased). But the photo I captured the moment she saw Te Fiti? She was positively GLOWING, sparkling from the inside. I nearly cried seeing how happy she was. (Motherhood has made me so. soft.) Sorry I can’t share it with you, internet friends!

There were so many special moments: when we turned the corner and she saw the Magic Kingdom castle and stood in shock, the gasp she let out when she saw Belle twirl into the dining room; when Ariel hugged her, walking into a store called "Zuri’s Sweet Shop” where she was treated like royalty, when she was completely overwhelmed by meeting Moana and burst into tears, when Aurora asked her to twirl with her, when Tiana called her a princess, when we went “underwater” on the Under the Sea ride, when she ran around with her own camera taking her own photos, when the EPCOT sphere lit up with pink lights, realizing that there were Minnie-shaped waffles available every morning, when we got her the Minnie ears of her dreams.

(Not to paint a false portrait because also: she got tired, she wept over the fireworks, she was absolutely unhinged when it came to wanting everything princess-themed from the billion gift shops, she ate half a bite of a single vegetable over five days, she did not nap on two of the three park days)

I said to several people that this trip was not for the faint of heart. I joked to my sister in a text that Disney made me realize the true meaning of parental sacrifice. It was expensive, physically demanding, mentally draining, but it was worth it? Would I recommend it? Not especially and only very specifically! But if you’re going to do it, boy do I have tips!

She’s a generally happy kid and so many simple things bring her delight, but I couldn’t have imagined this level of glee, this level of full body contentedness. That sort of absolute pure joy, the way she was vibrating with happiness, the way she skipped from location to location. It was MAGIC. If you could bottle it, you could power the Earth.

Next week: photos from Disney by Zu.

​This week in reading. . .
Tia Williams is always a must read and so I read her latest, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde, without even reading a summary. I was taken aback, but not in a bad way, by the unusual premise. I finished Ross Gay’s Book of (More) Delights which was. . .delightful (sorry, not sorry). I read a draft of a friend’s book and a book for a forthcoming project. Quietly destroyed myself reading Loved and Missed.

​This week in TV. . .
I am much too invested in the latest adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender. The bar for it to be better than the terrible M. Night Shyamalan version was deep deep below the ground, so in that way it is already astronomically better. I wish it skewed more HBO than CW, but overall, I’ve been so happy to be in this world again with excellent casting (Uncle Iroh is PERFECTION)

This week in a gif. . .

This week in movies. . .
Even if it had been good, the ick I get from Gina Rodriguez would’ve made it nearly impossible for me to like the very mediocre Players.

Wesley Morris on the J. Lo debacle, but the documentary! The documentary was soooooo entertaining.

​This week in a newsletter. . .
Rubi McGrory’s newsletter is such a delight. I love the concept of a crappy drawing a day (cause let me be clear I cannot draw so this is what mine would be)

Anna Fusco on her period (among other things)

This week in Disney-related google searches before and after. . .

This week in a quote. . .
“We are in a society where with certain things, we’re very eager to pay for quality, but with other things we’re hesitant. Especially with Black and brown food, they expect quality for very little money. The same folks that will pay over $200 for a pasta dinner, when it comes to Caribbean food, African food, South Asian and Southeast Asian food, they expect to get more for so much less. And why is that?” - Kwasi Kwaa

​This week in artsy stuff and photo things. . .
A full year calendar in one single page.

Elizabeth Donnelly on the Amelie movie poster.

The commitment behind these daily purchase drawings by Kate Bingaman-Burt!

Spectacularly good graphic on wealth inequity.

​This week on the internet. . .
While I love the idea of gameifying food prep, also, no.

Yes, I think I agree that red is a neutral.

The Monica Lewinsky Reformation campaign is so great.

The tiniest hint of an idea of what might occur in the moments before we die.

ProPublica reported on a year in the life of a woman after being denied an abortion.

Brandon Tensley of Capital B on battling AI and misinformation within the Black community.

Dan Kois on Michiko Kakutani.

me, happily always having an old lady name,
Leonor

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