Renewed my Disney World annual pass the other day with no hesitation. Going back next month for a week of de-stressing. Here’s a blog post from Mad Magazine artist Tom Richmond about why he keeps going back with his family. Pay attention to point number 3 because that’s the critical difference. Disney is preternaturally good at hiring exactly their sort of person and it makes all the difference.

(Richmond, who has a severely handicapped daughter, also has a post worth reading about how some well-to-do people are hiring handicapped people to get them ahead of everyone else in the lines…)

Before I started going I thought all that relentless Have A Magical Day pixie dust they keep sprinkling on guests would get seriously on my nerves and it is just the opposite. Once you get inside it isn’t long before you realize that part of what the “Cast Members” are doing is keeping the stresses and troubles of the world outside the parks off your back while you are inside. And they’re not faking it, it’s the sort of people they are: cheerful, friendly, Disney people. So I actually didn’t get all the ostentatious forced cheerfulness I was afraid of getting soaked in. The sentimentality was genuine. But this was true of Walt Disney too.

You really begin to appreciate it very much. And then suddenly you are use to it and all the other tourist parks and recreation zones just don’t measure up. Yes you can have a good time in them, but not a Disney time.

There is a bar in Hollywood Studios, the Tune-In Lounge next to the 50s Prime Time Cafe’, I make a point of ending my day as often as practical in while I’m there. I could wish there was one of these here in Baltimore, but of course it wouldn’t be the same because Baltimore is definitely not Disney World. The sort of coarse rowdy drunken asshole you are likely to meet in most city bars don’t come to Disney World because they can’t stand all that Mickey Mouse stuff and so the bar is full of Disney people and the atmosphere is relaxed and friendly and cheerful and I love it.

There are other places I go to have a good time and de-stress. Key West being the other top destination on my list. But mostly all those other places are places I go to be alone. Walt Disney World is one of a very Very few places I go to be with other people. Other people who still believe somewhere deep down inside despite it all, that there’s a great big beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day. I know I can find them there.