Hanging out in the rest rooms.....

I’m sitting on the loo going off into a reverie about how much better American loos are than British ones when a small voice pipes up from the next cubicle.
‘I need to see your feet.’
Eh? My head snaps round like the girl in The Exorcist. Why does a small child want to see my feet? Then, halleluyah, an older voice (obviously, hopefully, her mother) replies.
‘I’m right here.’
‘I need to see your feet,’ the child repeats firmly. Clearly the kind who won’t be fobbed off in any way.
‘But I’m here. I’ll never leave you.’
It’s said with a kind of almost scary intensity. What’s the story, you wonder.
‘I need to see your feet.’
Oh for Pete’s sake, stick your foot under the door, lady. But no, the discussion continues.
‘You are my life.’
‘I NEED to see your feet.’
‘You are the reason I wake up in the morning.’
What’s this got to do with the poor child seeing her mother’s foot under the cubicle?
‘But I woke up before you.’
You’ve got to hand it to the kid. I couldn’t really hang around all day eavesdropping in (however entertaining) so I got up and the loo obligingly flushed for me (SO much more hygienic).

The major reason people come to Walt Disney World apparently is because they want to see their children having fun. Forget the scary brides and the college student get-togethers and the anniversary celebrations, it all makes a lot more sense when you focus on the children. When you travel without your own child, you become hyper-aware of other people’s and, on the whole, children here do seem to be having a ball. Even my cynical soul couldn’t argue with a child’s face lighting up when they see a favourite film come to life. So, OK, hands up, this was the day when I smiled.

I hate rollercoasters but I’m charmed by sweet pretty rides. So Peter Pan’s flight, where you float over London (with a very weird-looking Tower Bridge) and Neverland was very cute. Ditto It’s a Small World. James would have loved the Buzz Lightyear shoot-out ride while I was totally entranced by the Haunted House ride with pretty incredible visual effects – at one point you’re looking down onto a huge ballroom with holographic dancers – mesmeric.

The entertainment outside is impressive too. I jigged a bit to the Move It, Shake It, Celebrate It! Street party (yeah, thanks a bunch littlemummy for catching that on video) and oohed and aahed over the Wishes firework display (a little girl next to me nearly fell off her chair when Tinkerbell flew down from the Magic Castle. But the loveliest moment came during the SpectroMagic Parade (a sort of carnival with lit-up floats) when a little girl couldn’t believe her eyes when Snow White rushed over to her and planted a kiss on her cheek.
Pint-sized princesses wander around with tiaras and frothy dresses, having been ‘bibbidi bobbidi booed’ with a mini-makeover.

The sane cynical part of me says that this is all too unreal. Is this how it starts? How children grow up to become teenagers who think that they will walk straight into a job as a pop star, a model, a TV ‘celebrity’? That they can have everything they want with a snap of the fingers (and the flexing of a credit card)? Part of me still worries about a holiday in which nothing goes wrong – where there is no duff day when everyone gets bored and irritable and shouts at each other. When there’s no nasty waitress or rude beach attendant to bond you together in family hatred solidarity? Is this reality? No, of course not. But then, is it wrong to have a perfect holiday? Is it just my puritanical Britishness that thinks that a bit of grot, a bit of grim and grime, is character-building and necessary? Dunno.

Still, there is hope for Disney. When my supper at the Magical Kingdom comes, the whole shebang is stone cold. Fantastic. Excellent. Just what I needed to bring me back down to earth (I really was floating off for a moment there). Hmm, maybe Disney has researched this too and it was all planned. A little imperfection to highlight the general perfection? Am I getting paranoid here?