Disney Valuable Merchandise

    Two adult and two child tickets to Disney On Ice = $102.25.  Parking = $12.00.  Refreshments = $40.00.  Souvenirs = $30.00.  The excited, amazed, joyful looks on a 7- and 5-year-old faces -= $184.25!  Sorry, I just can't abide the "priceless" answer.

    We have been wanting to do something like this for some time, and finally took the plunge this past Saturday.  Now, don't get me wrong.  We thoroughly enjoyed being with these two grandchildren and are glad we were able to treat them to this special event.  Also, before I actually begin my tirade, let me say I am 100% behind free enterprise, capitalism, entrepreneurial ambition and profit-making in our glorious republic.  However, I do have something to say about the atmosphere created at this event and the resulting effect it has on me.

    Before we finished our walk from the parking lot to the door our young ones became aware of the first of many attempts to separate us from our money by appealing to the weaknesses of the small child's still-developing sense of value.  How could we not purchase a keepsake program that came with a pair of mouse ears?  Easy.  We just walked on by. 

    Between the door and our seats we were forced into a bottleneck formed by the temporary sales displays conveniently built with the first row of…valuable merchandise… just about at the normal height of an 8-year-old child.  The bottleneck grew narrower as people lined up in front of those sales areas to buy that merchandise.

    Arriving at our seats in the upper deck we were pleasantly surprised by two observations.  In spite of being in the upper deck, these were pretty good seats; facing the front of the ice area and free from visual obstacles.  But even more pleasing was our discovery that the roving hawkers of… valuable child merchandise… seemed to be abundant in the lower levels and quite sparse in the upper deck.  We surmised that they knew the people down there spent much more money for their tickets and might be more willing to spend even more on their…valuable merchandise.

    After a brief announcement concerning the upcoming moments of darkness that would last only a few seconds, the show began.  Through child eyes it was a spectacular sight!  Lights, costumes, lovely princesses!  There were handsome Disney characters lifting these luminous ladies high above their heads while effortlessly gliding across the ice.  But through adult eyes that have become accustomed to Disney perfection, the scene was quite different.   Where glitter and action abounded, perfection was absent.  Characters often began their lines in the relative darkness because the spotlight operators kept missing their assignments.  The choreography was planned well, but executed poorly.  I sat there wondering if these skater-actors were incompetent, bored or exhausted.  I imagined they all had aspired to Olympic competition, but fell short with inferior skills.  I also thought how easy it might be to become bored performing the same show day after day, week after week.  And I know how physically demanding all that skating is, and thought they might just need a few weeks off to regain their strength and their focus.

    Then it was back through the bottleneck, a condition I believe was deliberately created to force our young ones into even closer proximity to all that…valuable merchandise.   Have you ever been to a store where the salespeople acted like you were bothering them?  Well, they would never make it to the front line of…valuable merchandise…sales at a Disney event.  These guys were aggressively getting people's attention, getting the…valuable merchandise…right in front of the children's faces, excitedly appealing to the imaginations of the little underdeveloped minds staring longingly at the brightly colored, exciting…valuable merchandise…at their eye levels.

    In short, I was not impressed enough to want to go again very soon.

    Ah, the memories; wonderful, but not quite priceless.  

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