Disney Fanatics

I have been a fan of Disney for quite some time; my introduction was the animated film The Little Mermaid in 1989 and a trip with my family in February of 1990. Since then I was hooked. I’ve visited the Disney parks here in the states several times and have been to Disneyland Paris twice, my next goal is to visit the Tokyo Disney resort. I make it a point to see all of the animated films in the theater and buy the DVDs before they are locked away in the “Disney vault”. I am also an annual passholder for Walt Disney World and visit about one or two times a year. I had pretty much defined myself as a Disney fanatic until I met John and Stacey, in their presence I lowered myself from fanatic to fan.

Webster’s dictionary defines fanatic as, “marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion”. The one part that doesn’t apply to John and Stacey is that they can be very critical if they feel that Disney makes a bad decision, there latest film isn’t up to par, or their new attraction is just so-so.

I met Stacey at work when she was hired into my department, we went through the requisite introductions and she seemed like a nice person. It wasn’t until she started to bring in personal items from home to make her desk feel more personal that I thought we would get along well. She had pictures frames with family photos of visits to the parks, pieces of memorabilia, and a collection of small snow globes that surely cost quite a pretty penny. She always had something Disney on her person as well, be it Mickey Mouse silhouette earrings, a pin of one of the characters, or a necklace with Tinkerbell. I decided to strike up a conversation about Disney one day and the floodgates opened. From speaking with Stacey I found that she borders on the fanatic. It was our love and enjoyment of Disney that brought us together as friends. Eventually I would meet her husband John and find that he was just as obsessed as she was.

Their house is like any other that you would find in this area, a Cape Cod style house, four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and the requisite dining and living areas. When you enter their house you might think you have left Massachusetts and set foot in Orlando. Every room in their house has some type of Disney touch to it, whether it is pictures on the wall or park merchandise tucked carefully onto the shelves of a curio cabinet. John’s proudest room is his office; the walls are covered with posters of Disney films and ads for rides in the parks. There are models of ride vehicles on the shelves of his desk and vast array of framed pictures from varied trips taken over the years. He even has one corner of his office set up as a sort of shrine to his favorite attraction, “The Haunted Mansion”. Now I love “The Haunted Mansion”, it probably is my favorite attraction as well, I have a few collectibles but it seems that John has any item that has ever been released that has some relation to this classic attraction. I think I counted at least four snow globes, a few mock ups of show seems from the ride, some figurines, a coffee mug, the list goes on and on. Stacey’s pride and joy lies meanwhile, lies in the basement. Here she has all of her collectibles, posters, and even a replica of the Disney monorail system complete with hotels and models of rides that actually move when a sensor is triggered by the moving monorail. Stacey is an avid scrap booker and will gladly show you her fourteen scrap books dedicated to just their Disney trips, all you have to do is ask.

John and Stacey had invited me to their house before to meet other Disney fans; they hold informal meetings with other Disney fanatics once every few months. I never had the desire to go as I didn’t want to feel, for lack of a better word, inadequate to those whose obsession ran thicker in their blood then mine did. Once this paper was assigned I figured it would be the perfect opportunity so I accepted the invitation to their next meeting.

I went to the meeting not sure what to expect or the demographic of those that would be attending. The driveway and street in front of the house were lined with cars normally found in middle-class families, the people at the meeting were white and ranged in age from early 30’s to mid-50’s. Most of them had on some type of Disney apparel, mostly t-shirts that were stamped with a date. It almost seemed that the older the date stamp the more superiority the wearer felt. I attested this to what I call “the black dog” syndrome; the Black Dog started off as a tavern on Martha’s Vineyard but has blossomed into much more. Its signature are the year stamped clothing that they sell, the older the year stamp the “cooler” the individual is wearing it, or so that is the perception. I noticed that some people had t-shirts that not only had a date stamp but also displayed a special event, this people seemed to be held to an even higher regard. The main topic of the conversation was anything Disney, it centered on whatever was “new” with Disney. Smaller groups or couples would break off to talk about politics, current events, or what was going on in their lives. But everything would come back around to Disney. Most of these people have known each other for years, they are a very close group, and they even travel together to Disney. They mostly met through an internet forum board, Disboards.com, or “The Dis” as they call it. John and Stacey seem to be central to most of the people here so I assume this is why their house is used as a meeting location, either that or to show of the latest merchandise they bought from their last trip. This group tends to use a lot of abbreviations or as they call it, Disney slang. Being a fan of Disney myself I was familiar with some of the abbreviations as it pertained to some of the attractions and shows, yet there were some I questioned about. I knew that “ToT” meant Tower of Terror and “AK” and “MK” were for Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom respectively. I thought I had a grasp on most of the lingo but then “CS” and “BCV” started coming out and I found myself lost. For the record “CS” is counter service and “BCV” is Beach Club Villas. After asking Stacey what a few of the abbreviations mean I found myself being able to follow the conversation with more ease. And it isn’t just that certain parts of sentences are abbreviated, the whole sentence is abbreviated as much as it can be. Here is a sample conversation that I heard between a Bob, a man wearing a Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween party shirt and Debbie, a woman wearing more Disney inspired jewelry then I thought was possible:

Bob: Hey Deb, how was your last trip?

Deb: Oh it was fantastic; first we took the ME from MCO directly to AKV and checked in. CRO had made a mistake on our room so we got upgraded to a savannah view room.

Bob: That is awesome! How was MVMCP?

Deb: It was fun except that SM was closed and it was far too cold to do SM, but CoP was open which was great. The TTA was running so we got to see some of the work they were doing on SM, which was neat. And we had a great skipper on JC so we made it a point to mention the CM’s name at GR. We didn’t want to stay too late so took the monorail out to the TTC and drove back to AKV.

I’m not kidding, this was an actual conversation and it continued on in this manner for another fifteen minutes. For those that don’t speak Disney, allow me to translate:

ME = Magic Express

MCO = the airport

AKV = Animal Kingdom Villas

CRO = Central Reservation Office

MVMCP = Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party

SM = Space Mountain

SM also = Splash Mountain (confused yet?)

CoP = Carousel of Progress

TTA = Tomorrowland Transit Authority

JC = Jungle Cruise

CM = Cast Member

GR = Guest Relations

I was amazed that they had their own Disney language and everybody seemed to understand what the other was saying.

The other thing I was surprised about was the tenacity that many held to their opinions of Disney. I heard several discussions about what is the best ride on property, what is the best hotel, and what is the best-animated feature. Every individual in the room had a separate thought on it and a list of reasons why everyone should share their opinion.

Disney fanatics have even found a way to recognize one another when out on vacation, even if they aren’t in Disney. The color of Disney fanatics who post to the Disboards is lime green. So anything lime green from shoelaces, shirts, or bits of yarn adorn backpacks and baby strollers. It is common, I’m told by the group, that when you see someone with the lime green indicator it is common courtesy to introduce yourself with your real name and your handle on the website. When planning a visit to any of the Disney parks it is quite ordinary to go to Home Depot and take one of the lime green paint swatches, conveniently in the shape of Mickey’s head and write your Disboard handle on it. This is then proudly displayed for all to see and to precipitate interactions with other Disney fanatics.

As I said my goodbyes John and Stacey were busy planning another trip with another couple, they already have one lined up next month, this trip is for July, all the while speaking in their abbreviated language and deciding on dinner reservations. I hope that one day I will ascent to their level of fanatic and proudly display my Disboard user name on a lime green tag firmly attached to my Mickey Mouse backpack.