Disney on a weekend

A friend of mine just came back from her first visit to Disneyworld. She was there for a single day - and it was a Saturday.

I misunderstood her itinerary. She had been at a business conference in the Orlando area all last week and was able to extend her stay for a few days. I thought she was going to visit Disneyworld on Monday. Instead, she went on Saturday. If I had known, I would have warned her not to go. Never on a weekend. I love Disneyworld, but I have been there on a weekend, and I would never do that again.

During the week the parks are full of people from all over the country and all over the world, people who make visits to Disneyworld an annual ritual and people who have saved their nickels and dimes their whole lives just to go there once. They have travelled hundreds or thousands of miles and spent hundreds of dollars just to get through the gates of the Magic Kingdom.

On the weekend - starting on Friday night - many of these people are still there, but they are joined by scores of locals. People for whom the trip to Disney is no big deal, just a run of a few miles down the road. And as locals they get special year-round admissions at deep, deep discounts. They can go there anytime they like and it's little more significant to them than a trip to the movies would be for anyone else.

During the week there is a sort of enforced niceness among the crowds. There will be rudeness, and culture clashes, and squalling children and repulsive cigarettes from faraway places. But on the weekend it's a different story. Hordes of drunks and rowdy teens harass the tourists and curse in front of their kids, jump over fences and cut in lines. What do they care that you might have waited your whole life for this chance to visit the faroff land of Disneyworld? For them, it's either this or run around town stealing Stop signs and smashing mailboxes.

I know I'm not the only one who has experienced this. But there's very little record of it online. A Google search for "disneyworld on a weekend" yields 15 versions of a single article. Replacing "disneyworld" with "disney world" yields two unique results. The more generic "disney on a weekend" yields a whopping six unique results. Why is this? Do people who speak ill of Disneyworld in the blogosphere - or rather, of the bad behavior of some of its guests - soon hear from Disney's lawyers? I guess I'm about to find out.