i do not farking get the love for Disney parks...not at their prices, anyway.

Would rather take the kids up to Story Land in New Hampshire for a third the price and a fifth the hassle.

Carth: Disney cartoons have been idolized for children for nearly 50 years. The parks are places where they come alive and kids can meet the characters they've watched and idolized. People who go as kids are more likely to go when they are older/adults for nostalgia and because it reminds them of the carefree days of being 7.

Bleh. My kids like the Disney stuff okay, but they idolize Ruff Ruffman.

nytmare: Mickey Mouse hasn't been relevant for 50 years, except by brute force from Disney Corporation. But they don't have a Sylvester and Tweety World, or a Transformers World, or a Monchhichi World so you're stuck with Disney.

Universal is closer to that than Disney. They have the Marvel super heroes, Jurassic Park, roller coasters that aren't 40 years old and although I'm not a fan of the films, the Harry Potter land is pretty cool. Although I heard they're getting rid of the Jaws ride, which pisses me off.

bravian: I had to look up "Story Land". Which I think is rather the point.

Story Land is fantastic. There's not a lot of amusement parks scaled for kids 2-9 any more...and even fewer that people on a middle-class budget can pay for and not think they're being royally farked.

Plus, Story Land (and Santa's Village) are up in the mountains and it's a shiatload cooler there in July than it is in Florida.

Also, there's no Mount Washington in Florida.

A winner is New Hampshire.

You do have to run the North Conway outlet gauntlet to get there, but that's not that bad a price to pay.

12349876: Seasonal theme park during the first/last midweeks. You'll be able to ride roller coasters until you're sick.

Uh, they closed all the Disney and Universal parks last week because they were filled to capacity.

AcneVulgaris: I went to Disneyland for the first time on Thanksgiving day in 1983. It was empty, there were no lines. I rode Space Mountain 12 times in the space of an hour, until they wouldn't let me on anymore because I was staggering, so I just ran over to the Matterhorn and rode that for a while. I thought Disneyland was farking awesome.

Then I went back on a random summer sunday. fark that place. Why does anybody every go back after an experience like that?

Similar experience here...I think the problem with Disneyland is that the quality of the experience varies wildly depending on when you go. My wife had always wanted to visit but never had, so we took a vacation to SoCal and bought three-day park passes. (The one nice thing is that they don't have to be consecutive days.)

The first day we went to Disney was the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. It was jam-packed for everything, lines out the ass, and some meth-head from the Inland Empire tried to randomly pick a fight with me while we were waiting for Space Mountain. And there was a heat wave so it was about 105 out to boot...just a shiatty experience all around.

We went back the Wednesday after Labor Day and the weather was nice, the park was half-deserted, and for much of the day you could pretty much jump off a ride and be back on it in 5-10 minutes at most if you so desired. I'm hardly a fan of Disney, but I had a blast.

So I guess the secret to an enjoyable family Disney trip is to be a bad parent: Lie to your kid's school and say they need to be gone for a week to go to Grandma's funeral, then take them to Disneyland when the park isn't full to the seams with other screaming brats.

I go to Disneyland in mid-October or mid-March. Usually the best time to go is on a Tuesday. I've been on the Indiana Jones ride and Space Mountain when we didn't even have to get off. They just let us go through the ride again. You can go nuts on the heavy rides all morning and then do the relaxing stuff in the afternoon... the kid rides and Pirates of the Caribbean.

12349876: Mugato: 12349876: Seasonal theme park during the first/last midweeks. You'll be able to ride roller coasters until you're sick.

Uh, they closed all the Disney and Universal parks last week because they were filled to capacity.

Disney and Universal aren't seasonal parks, dumbass..

I thought you meant any theme park during seasonal times. You don't have to be a prick about it.

IanMoone: Mugato: nytmare: Although I heard they're getting rid of the Jaws ride, which pisses me off.

It's gone as of this morning. Walled up. Rumor is that they are building another Harry Potter area.

Makes sense. The Harry Potter area is a lot smaller than it needed to be. There's a two hour line to buy $40 wands that look like twigs. Sort of like Disney having the Star Wars license and just made one ride and a merchandise store.

By the time we got to Disney World I was old enough to enjoy on an ironic level.

I highly recommend waiting until it's too late.

I know they have a gay day but do they have an ironic hipster day? They could really rake in the money if they did. Well, they'd really have to overcharge for the booze, but I don't think that would be a problem.

I have an idea for a theme park called Line World. You would get to experience the thrill of waiting in line through realistic simulations of:

1) the line for a Disney ride;
2) the line to get into an exclusive night club or popular restaurant
3) the line for the women's wash room at a busy mall
4) the line for soup at a soup kitchen
5) the unemployment line
6) the line at the DMV, complete with the wicket closing in your face for each and every person in line
7) the line to get into the Pearly Gates
8) the line to get into the Gates of Hell, etc.
9) waiting in the after-Christmas refund and return line at K-Mart.
10) waiting half-naked in the TSA line to be groped, insulted and scanned
11) working on an assembly line to make souvenirs
12) working on a cafeteria line
13) working on a chain gang (with live music such as a theme park band cover of "Chain Gang" by the pretenders).

The second phase would consist of World and Historical lines such as;

1) the dole line during the Great Depression
2) the draft line during World War II and the Vietnam War (something which many conservatives and liberals never got to experience since being drafted was not for "people like us" but only for minorities and poor people
3) the line for tickets to the Colossium on Lions vs. Christian Day
4) the line of Christians waiting for crucifixion to provide lighting for night games
5) the line for anything in the former USSR.
6) waiting to be shot by a firing squad
7) waiting in the wings for a chorus line.

Other rides would include sitting in your car waiting for a parking space an sitting in your car for take-away food at a fast food drive-through.

And you would also be able to wait in the line to demand a refund if not satisfied.

To make your line experience realistic, many of the people waiting in line would be employees of the park in correct costume, such as stinking rags.

Many of the rides would be "free", which is to say, hidden in the enormous price of your ticket or day pass.

I'm not saying my theme park line is original. IIRC, Simpsons did it. Or was it Duckman? Some yellow freaks or other, any way.

Some things never die... my eyes lit up at the overtime possibilities alone.

Took my 7 year old to WDW last year. He was all "meh" about the Magic Kingdom, but loved Blizzard Beach. I still don't get the fanatasism about Disney. Magic Kingdom is okay at best, can't see myself rushing to spend a day (or more???) there.

Two words:

Fast Pass.

/that is all

ecmoRandomNumbers: Usually the best time to go is on a Tuesday.

Disneyland used to be closed Mon-Tue about the same time in the '80s when they did away with individual ride coupons and went with the all day pass.

When I worked there '85-'94 you'd know who the old timers were as they still had Mon-Tue off.

Another fun fact: The weekly employee newsletter available at the "time shacks" (I was there when they still had stamped card time-clocks) was called "The Disneyland Line". Not kidding. It's now published twice a month instead of weekly. It's not available to the general public but supposedly parts of it are online via the cast member portal.