A Documentation of the Foreign Land: Disneyland Paris.
“Are you heeppy?” was what our shuttle tour guide, Vivienne, repeatedly asked on our 45min ride from Paris city center to Disneyland Paris.
Disneyland Paris is the only Disneyland located on this side of the earth, therefore, you’ll find a nice international assortment of visitors at Parc Disney who come from different cultures and different walks of life. It was a nice cultural immersion for me. I learned a few things that I will share with you.
First, some cultures believe that cutting in line and physically shoving through is absolutely necessary to survive Disneyland. In fact, these cultures train their offsprings at an early age to squirm through any possible empty space to get to their target destination as effectively as possible. In some family units, I witnessed the maternal figure utilizing her spawns to advance forward faster by deploying them to the forefront first and retrieving them at the forefront shortly after. Forms of entertainment also differ among the foreigners. I have observed that it is a social norm for young children to tug and hang from a stranger’s purse straps. In addition, it is quite common for these juveniles to lean, grab, and ram random adults to pass the time during long line waits, if they chose not to skip the line.
Customer service was unique as well. The woman servicing a sundae booth was so amazed that she received a 100€ bill from one of her customers that she stopped all sundae production to call her co-workers to see this magical holy bill. This pause in service caused previously ordered items to be forgotten. Completely. The most notable part of our Disney Paris experience was when we were not allowed to use our pass purchased online because the date inputted on the pass was incorrect. “IT. IS. EXPIRED. AS. YESTERDAY.” said the customer service rep. How nice of her to enunciate because we clearly didn’t speak English. We were given the choice to either waste $135 each and go home. Or waste $225 each and go to Disneyland Paris.
Some visitors are quite friendly here and would like you to remember them forever. Several times individuals and families stop right next to or in front of us as we pose for pictures. There was always a fight to get to the perfect picture spot. Just like the ride lines. In one instance, a man with a stroller walked under my leg (that was in the air) as I am posing for a photo. I guess there was really no where else to walk on Main Street, USA.
Towards the end of the experience, I wanted to do at least one of the following:
1) Punch a baby.
2) Smack an ice cream cone out of a morbidly obese man’s sausage fingers.
3) Body check an old lady.
4) Piss on children’s playground equipment.
5) Spartan kick an iPhone out of the next happy mother's hands right before she snaps a photo of her pride and joy.
Should I succumb and adapt to these foreign ways, or be stubborn and stick to my pushover-ish overly considerate ways? In the end, the bravest thing I did was take my sweet time at the toilettes and let those bastards and their cubs wait. You want to piss? Too bad, I plan on taking 5 minutes to pull my pants up. Ha. I showed them.
So, Vivienne, the answer to your question is NON, je ne suis pas heureuse! And Disney will be hearing from me about those “expired” passes when I get back home.
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