I haven’t paid attention to every marketing campaign from Disney, but I don’t think they have anything about facing your fears, but that is what came to my mind on our recent trip with my son. I doubt we will ever watch TV and see an ad saying come to Disney to face your fears and build character since I’m guessing that is not the type of character, they normally talk about but there is more to a trip than just meeting Mickey.
When we were planning our trip, I didn’t really know how our son Rhys would do with the rides. In our previous trip with him, he did go on some rides like Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Runway Railway, and Rise of the Resistance but he was also worried about going on Navi River Journey, which is far from a thrill ride.
I tried to sit with him and watch some ride-through videos on YouTube and sometimes he said he would go and other times he would say he didn’t want to when we looked at various rides so when it was time to go on our trip, I didn’t know what to what he would decide to actually go on but I was just going to go with the flow as much as I could.
The big change came from an unexpected source. On arrival day, I was in one of the quiet pools at our resort with him and we started talking with a kid who was there with his dad. I asked the kid what some of his favorite rides were and one of the ones he listed was the Haunted Mansion. That one of the rides I figured we wouldn’t be going on during our trip but after we found out the kid we were talking with was two years younger than Rhys, he had some motivation to go on the ride.
Just the fact that Rhys was interacting with this kid was impressive by itself since he can be very shy around new people, so it was nice to see. Just as an example, months earlier, when I was talking with a neighbor while walking the dog, Rhys was trying to get my attention while hiding behind a tree.
Back in our hotel room, I was telling Sarah about the interaction, and she told Rhys that the Haunted Mansion was one of her favorite rides and that she went on it for the first time when she was about his age so after that he said he wanted to go on it.
Our last day of a trip was our Magic Kingdom Day and by that time he had already gone on some more intense rides so when we got in line for Haunted Mansion, I figured he would be ok but I still wondered if he would back out at the last moment, but he got on the ride and made it without any issues. After we were done, he wanted to go on Pirates of the Caribbean, another ride that didn’t want to go on before the trip and he liked that one as well.
The funny thing is that I had a history with the Haunted Mansion myself. Growing up, I remember going to a few haunted houses with my brother and cousins and it was never something I enjoyed doing. I even remember walking right behind my brother griping the back of his shirt, just to make sure I didn’t get lost, which he found it pretty annoying.
When we made our trip to Disneyland, I impressed myself for going on Space Mountain and the Matterhorn but that ended when my parents and brother wanted to go on the haunted mansion. I decided I would skip that one and I ended up sitting on a park bench while they went on the ride,
The sad part is I was 14 years old.
I don’t remember quite how I was feeling at the time, but I think part of it was a lack of interest and part being a little scared, but either way I missed out on a great ride. As the years passed, I did go to other amusement parks and started going on some pretty intense roller coasters but the thought of sitting on the bench by myself has never left me
It doesn’t matter how old we are, we all have fears in our life that we must face. For some, it’s flying on an airplane, growing old, or public speaking just to name a few and we have them with us but they are usually in the background and we don’t always have them staring us in the face and we don’t have to wait in line to think about what we are about to experience
It’s easy to look at our kids and see that they are not the best at judging risks. I thought it was ironic that my daughter had no fear of escaping our house when I was watching them when they were four and going on an adventure with her brother Xander and playing in a neighbor’s yard but was too scared to go on it’s a small World since there was a “creepy” clock.
When I think about it, it’s not just kids who have a broken fear-o-meter. I don’t think anything about driving 70 miles in a car but there are times I can get worried about some low-risk social interactions and that I need to keep working on facing my fears as much as the kids do.
Going on a vacation is the perfect time to start working on conquering our fears, it’s a time to get out of our comfort zone and try something that scares us, whether that is going to the Tower of Terror, interacting with strangers, or trying new food when you are in a controlled environment and there really aren’t many real things to really be scared about. So next time you go on your trip, have fun and look for new ways to vanquish some of your own ghosts.