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  2021-05-24

  Disney Escape - Tourism Story

  March 2020: a week before my twenty-first birthday. Working at a senior living community on my lunch break I was watching videos on YouTube preparing for an upcoming trip to Walt Disney World. The next day, I received a signed letter from my supervisor saying I was an essential worker and if I was pulled over to show it to the officer. Two days later, I had to leave home, because a family member was scared, because they are immunocompromised. Plans were cancelled, my birthday came and went, and I was unable to spend it with half my family worrying if I would give my remaining family this deadly, mysterious illness. Fast-forward to May 2021: my sister and I’s first trip to Disneyland since it’s reopening less than a month earlier. Disney runs deep in my family. My grandparents spent their honeymoon there. My parents got engaged there. I grew up going there bi-weekly. Even though I don’t remember it, my favorite photos are of my young family together with the castle in the background, on the carousel or train, or young me with Sleeping Beauty. I have over three hundred Disney pins and my sister almost that many. To say the least, Disney was the first place we planned to go once the world started to open again. As the theme park just reopened, Disneyland was still in its testing phases of what was compliant with CDC guidelines while trying to provide a streamline, enjoyable experience for guests. I remember wearing masks, hand sanitizer everywhere, plexiglass dividers in lines, restaurant windows, and cash registers. I remember how strict cast members were and how I sympathized with them trying to keep guests safe from each other. One experience that comes to mind was while in line for Pirates of the Caribbean. The line was quite long and it stretched over to the Haunted Mansion. A Haunted Mansion cast member directing traffic, while what seemed on repeat: “please keep your mask on” and “keep space between your party and others.” During this time, I was interviewing for a position at the Disneyland Hotel, and if I got the job (I did), I knew this would be something to look forward to. Anyways, a guest in front of my sister and I continued to lower her mask and become confrontational with this cast member. Seeing, my sister and I were siding with the cast member and not her even though we didn’t say anything, she started to become confrontational with us. It was an awkward incident, which led to my sister having a panic attack. We left the park soon after, cutting the day short. What was once a place of escape became the place we needed to escape from. Her anxiety stemmed from the crowds, the unruly guest, and the uncertainty of if this day of leisure would be worth it or cause us to become ill as neither of us had gotten sick with COVID-19 by that time. Years later, it is once again a place of comfort, but back then, I wish Disney would have stayed closed longer, trained cast members how to handle guest confrontations rather than throwing them out there, or that we didn’t jump into going so soon before proper guidelines and safety measures were enacted.