Find your own Magic

There is a sign over the highway entrance into Walt Disney World (WDW) that proclaims it is “The Most Magical Place on Earth.”  I’d never been there, but I know there’s a certain amount of guilt put on American parents who deprive their kids of the Disney magic.

I acknowledged that early on.  When our kids (now 42 and 40) were young I told them I could take them each to a beautiful foreign country for what it would cost to take them to WDW.  And I did.  I took them each on an eye care mission to Guatemala when they were teenagers.  Did I really deprive them of the most magical place on earth?  I was about to find out.

My wife and I were at WDW to celebrate our granddaughter’s fifth birthday.  Birthdays at a resort are a new tradition her family started.  For three years we spent the birthday weekend at a sprawling indoor water park in Chicagoland, which was magical in its own way.  WDW, however, is on another level, magically speaking. 

Pundits say five is the perfect age for children to enjoy the Disney experience.  June would turn five on a trip that included her Mom and Dad, both grandmas, an aunt, two uncles, two cousins, and her Papa.  I think being with family provides its own magic.  But WDW is stiff competition.    

When I got home, I found that Walt Disney World is but one property of Walt Disney Company, a major independent and publicly traded multinational entertainment and media conglomerate.  It’s not a subsidiary or part of any larger company, but rather, the parent/holding company itself, owning brands such as Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, 20^th Century Studio, ESPN, ABC, Hulu, Disney Parks and more.  It’s total value as of February 2026 is approximately $186.5 billion USD.  A billion dollars is a 1 with 9 zeroes you know. $1,000,000,000.  Evidently, the execs there are of a mind that you can buy or produce a lot of magic with 186 or so of those.

But back to the trip.  Walt Disney Company’s property in Florida, Walt Disney World, occupies 45 square miles (26,000 acres) of low-lying land near Orlando.  The average number of daily guests is about 150,000.  The number of visitors to the Magic Kingdom alone often reaches 90,000.  And it feels like every one of them is ahead of you in line for the next ride.

WDW is one of America’s largest employers with over 80,000 “cast members” in the park each day.  I kept seeing doors by rest rooms marked “Cast Members Only.”  I assumed cast members were those people who paraded around in costumes with big heads representing iconic Disney figures like Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Turns out everyone is part of the cast - the maids, the servers, the food service staff, the gardeners, bus drivers, you name it. 

The stars of the cast though, are still the characters from the most famous Disney’s animated movies.  Those heads, including eyes and smiles, are way out of proportion to their bodies.  And they are locked into whatever expression the artist chose to create with plastic, fiber glass, and paint.  They play their roles without speaking, using only pantomime.  Each looks overjoyed.  Can unrelenting displays of joy day after day create magical overload?  You’d have to ask those cast members, and they won’t talk.

No American kid I know can feel magical 24 hours a day, day after day.  I know June couldn’t.  It was in the Animal Kingdom that June experienced her low point.  She failed to meet the height requirement for the “Avatar Flight of Passage’ ride. She broke down.  Some might describe it as melting down.  In any case, it was not a magical moment.  She pulled herself back together though.

I’m not sure what moment was June’s most magical.  But I know what mine was.  We were back at the rooms in the “Art of Animation” section of the park.  Low key.  Blocks of motel rooms built around a swimming pool with gaudy statues.  The largest was a gigantic fiberglass monument to “Ursula the Octopus” the famous sea witch from “The Little Mermaid.”   Our rooms were on an outside corner by a lake.  Thank God it was quiet and not crowded.  There was a lawn with trees and bushes.

On February 17, June’s birthday, we took tables and chairs from our room, put them outside, and ordered pizza.  We had a cake with candles for dessert.  It was just us.

As it started getting dark, June organized a game of sorts.  She was the cook and I was chosen as the server.  June and the I went to a big tree where she “baked” pretend cupcakes on a square ground drain. It looked like it could have been a grill. 

I held my hands together like a bowl and she filled them with sticks, some leaves from the bushes, grass, any stuff would do, and then June and her server delivered the cupcake to someone of her choice in the family, describing in detail the flavor of the cupcake.  There was a lot of pretend chocolate and cinnamon involved, with mint thrown in for good measure.

Then the person who received the cake became the next server, and everything was repeated.  It was good to see full-grown adults involved in an imaginary cooking show.    They were a little confused but played along nicely.  I spoke with my wife, known by June as Goggy, after her short-term stint as a server.

“How did you like June’s restaurant?”

“I complimented her right away.  Told her how much I liked her restaurant.  You know what she told me?”

“No idea.”

“It’s not a restaurant anymore, Goggy.  It’s a café.”

Evidently, June’s business model changed rapidly.

June was delighted at how the whole project was going, but then the last adult was served, and the café closed.

“What can we do next June?” I asked.

“Well,…”  June starts her sentences like that when she needs time to think.

“I know.  We can build a Fairy House!”

“A fairy house?  Are there fairies around here?”

“Well yeah Papa.  It’s my birthday.  Fairies always come see you on your birthday.  If you listen close when you go to sleep, you can hear them flying.”

She sounded so convincing.  I wanted to ask how she knew all this but held my tongue.

“Where do Fairies like to live?”

“Well…., they’re very small.  They like to be in bushes and out of the wind.  I know, we can make the house there.”

She pointed across the yard to a bush that looked as if a frost had hurt it.  The leaves were brown and dead looking halfway down. 

“We can break these branches and make a little hole in here, then make a floor.” 

June was the architect and I was the general contractor.  I broke out twigs to make a little pocket in the bush and tried my best to fashion a floor with them. 

“Now we have to make them a bed.”

June began gathering bedding material that bore a close resemblance to the cupcakes we had just baked.   We carefully laid sticks and leaves and grass on top of the stick floor.  Amazingly, it held.  June stood back and pronounced the fairy house done.

“All we need now is something to draw the Fairies attention to their house.  Something shiny or bright.  Look for something Papa.”

It was getting darker.  I wondered why the pizza was taking so long.  We struck off in different directions looking for the perfect thing to attract the Fairies.

Sometimes, you get lucky.  By the best-traveled sidewalk near our rooms, I came upon a plastic pink barrette pressed into the dirt.

“June, I got it!”  

June approved.  I laid it on the fairy bed.  The Fairy House was complete.

That was the kind of magic I hoped I’d find at Walt Disney World.  An idea from the mind of a five-year old that sprung to life on a warm night as darkness fell was pure magic to me.  You can have the rides.  I’ll take the Fairy House.