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ShaunaIvoryEvans

Marceline, Molly, and Me

December 5, 1901. Chicago, Illinois. Undoubtedly wind gusted down streets, blowing a chill through the city. But the sun was shining bright on the Disney family that day as they welcomed a beautiful baby boy, Walter Elias, into the world. 


Walt Disney would go on to make his name synonymous with his brand. I don’t know when children learn that Walt was actually a man in addition to the name of a company that brings the joy of Mickey Mouse, princesses, animated films, and theme parks. I sometimes step back and think about that - Disney was a person, a last name. His specific brand of magic makes it so easy to forget that.


But before he created his mythical, mouse-based empire, his family moved to the small town of Marceline, Missouri. Walt was just four years old at the time, and five years later, the Disney family abandoned their small farm for more urban life in Kansas City. (They went about as far as they could go! [I’m sorry. I’m a theater nerd. I had to. It’s the rules.]) But forever and in perpetuity, Walt would credit his love for small-time Americana to his early years in Marceline. A “dreaming tree” on his family’s property was where the young boy would sit and create his own world in his imagination. He drew up stories and began sketching. 


A lot happened in between little Walt copying newspaper comics and his conception of Disney World, but this isn’t a biography of the man (though it’s something I’ve seriously considered writing). Besides, I take it that most of you are familiar with bits of this tale. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the Disney Brothers Studio, the creation of Mickey, the multiplane camera, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the many other full length animated features that followed. It seemed Walt never took no for an answer to his dreams, inventing many ways to ease and improve animation along the way to creating masterpieces. He is the quintessential dreamer, an inspirational magician in his own way. 


In the 50s, Walt’s gave birth to a new brainchild - Disneyland. He dreamed of a place children and their parents could go together and have equal amounts of fun. Parents wouldn’t be relegated to a bench while their kids rode plastic horses on a carousel. They’d ride through classic movies, thrill on roller coasters mild enough for most but thrilling enough to be fun, and meet their favorite Disney characters. Disneyland opened in 1955, with Walt’s heart and soul as the main ingredients. He spent copious amounts of well documented time in the park, taking in what guests thought and still dreaming of the future. Many didn’t know about his plans for “the Florida project” that would become Disney World, but that, specifically the Epcot part, was where his heart and mind were at the time of his far too early passing. He was reinventing the idea of theme parks as we knew them then. 


On December 8, 1985, a couple who had suffered through early iterations of fertility treatment had their own small magical miracle in the form of a baby girl, who they named Shauna Ivory Moroney. From an early age, she was showered with gifts of Mickey and Minnie Mouse and taken to Disney World. Her parents had both grown up watching Walt’s Wonderful World of Disney on TV, a series where he updated the public regularly on the progress of the building of both Disneyland and Disney World. They had attended the New York World’s Fair for which Disney had prepared many of the rides that eventually ended up in the theme parks. So Walt Disney World? Shauna went there when she was six months old. She went there on repeat in her childhood. She went on a Disney cruise with her parents before Disney even owned their own ships, and that concluded with some park days and a stay at the Grand Floridian.


Shauna – OK, me, I’m tired of speaking in the third person – must have adored these trips to Disney World. However, I also must have taken them for granted. There was never a time in my life when I wanted for a trip to Disney World. It didn’t occur to me that there are so many people who cannot afford to go. It was something we did so regularly that when I was around eight and my parents asked me if I would rather go to Disney World or go to our new favorite vacation spot in Florida, Marco Island, I opted for the West Coast and its beautiful beaches with lots of rare shell collecting. Seriously. I was tired of Disney World at the tender old age of eight.


And for about 10 years, we took a break from visiting everyone’s favorite mouse. I can’t believe the break was that long. I guess we just got used to more exotic locales. The habit had been broken. 


During my freshman year of college, my school’s choir took a trip to Disney World. I had to make up for a decade worth of trips in two days. Old rides like Mr. Toad had closed to make room for new ones like the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Animal Kingdom had come into existence. And oh my God. Did I fall in love with that Dinosaur ride! I park hopped, and rode, and had such an amazing time that even on no sleep, I called my parents from our hotel to tell them that we absolutely HAD to come back to Disney World that summer, no argument. 


I’m not sure what sparked my desire to take Jon to Florida for the first time. We had been together for five years already when I decided that we would fly down and spend a few days in my parents condo in West Palm Beach. But the thing was Jon had never been to Disney World. It seemed scandalous to take your first trip to the sunshine state and not visit Cinderella Castle. It meant that we had to drive our rental car three hours north and get a cheap motel in Kissimmee for the night. When I say cheap, I mean cheap. I mean the kind of cheap where the hotel gives you the keys to a room that someone else is staying in. But I digress.


Jon was pretty skeptical about my insistence to go to Disney. He had been to Disneyland Paris about a decade earlier, and he didn’t remember it being as life-changing as I insisted Disney World would be. It didn’t matter because I was the one with a license at the time.


As we waited in line to go through security and enter the park, we spoke to an older couple who were as excited as small children. They were coming back to Disney for the first time as a couple SINCE having children. They hadn’t had a date-day in the park in years. They were excited for us to have our first Disney World couple’s day, and we were excited by their excitement.


It took a matter of seconds upon entrance into the park for Jon to catch Disney fever. He stood at the base of the Swiss Family Treehouse with a massive grin on his face, illustrating how childlike the immersive theming made him feel. We spent the perfect day darting from ride to ride, even taking advantage of one of the parades to go on Pirates of the Caribbean three consecutive times. We fell in love with expensive sweatshirts that we didn’t want to shell out for, but the much cooler than southern Florida weather twisted our arms into our purchases. (Sixteen years later and we still own those shirts, so worth it.)




The next morning over breakfast at the local Waffle House, we entertained the idea of buying cheap park tickets from an unofficial seller, but it seemed too risky to waste money on. We had had such a good time and wanted desperately to keep the magic going. Alas, it wasn’t to be - at least, not that day.


In 2009, a one day trip to Epcot introduced us to off-the-clock cast members who taught us about the concept of drinking around the world. Jon got to experience World Showcase for the first time, along with the wonders of Spaceship Earth, Living With the Land, and Soarin’. I believe there was a beer in Germany. There certainly weren’t enough snacks, but we would amend that another time.


We knew the magic Disney made us feel would be the perfect setting for our honeymoon, so in December of 2011, that was exactly where we went. We wore our bride and groom Minnie and Mickey ears around the park and were treated like true royalty, with free drinks, desserts, and Fast Passes. I would recommend a Disney honeymoon to anyone.


(Honeymoon dinner


It was six years before we returned to a Disney park. We did a lot of world traveling in the meantime, falling in love with other countries, and debating whether to visit Israel and Norway again, or whether to choose a new adventure.


But when we returned to Walt Disney World after so many years away, it was undoubtedly a homecoming. We thought we were experts, booking some of the best dining experiences on property and using that fast pass plus system to the best of our ability. I was even able to get us a fast pass for Flight of Passage, which had just opened that summer. Still one of the most triumphant moments of my life. That was also the only time we rode that one. We will get on it again someday.


After that trip came deep seeded dreams of growing our family, and we figured the next time we returned to a Disney park would be with a baby in tow. However, my mom gifted my aunt with an intended trip to Disney with a stay at her timeshare. My uncle decided to accompany her. Suddenly, in the nth hour of their impending drive to Orlando, my mom realized that they would have no idea how to best enjoy the parks. So she came up with the tremendously brilliant idea of Rhonda taking the best Disney tour guides she knew with her - Jon and me.


By the time we went, I was 7 1/2 months pregnant. It was mid July. It was hot. My parents, Jon, and I had been to Dollywood a few weeks earlier, and they wouldn’t let pregnant women on a single ride in the park, no matter how calm and slow it was. Disney, however, doesn’t stop you from riding anything. There are some signs outside of the more thrilling and bumpy attractions advising pregnant women not to ride, and, of course, I steered clear of those, but there was plenty I could do. The pregnancy didn’t slow me down at all, other than on our day in Animal Kingdom. I got one of Disney’s free First Visit buttons, wrote Lily’s already chosen name on it, and stuck it over my bellybutton. A cast member in Magic Kingdom approached me one day while I waited in a store for my party to finish their ride on Space Mountain with another button, this one an “I Am Celebrating.” In the blank space, he wrote “New Life.” Again, Jon and I got us wonderful reservations, including dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern on my aunt's birthday. I didn’t get them on Flight of Passage, but I did get everyone else pretty much all the fast passes they needed to make their trip as amazing as possible. They did Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, and Expedition Everest. I got to do my favorites, like Haunted Mansion, which I wrote a second time while they enjoyed a trip on Big Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Peter Pan’s Flight.


(Having these Disney memories with my aunt and uncle gives me all the feels.)



There was something about our last two visits to the park that increased our love for it. It became a place we wanted to spend more and more time, we wanted to know more and more about. Of course, we thought we were experts. But we would soon learn that we had a lot more knowledge to gain.


On December 4, 1988 in Atlanta, Georgia, a family welcomed what must’ve been a joyful little girl to their brood. I don’t know Molly McCormack personally, I don’t know what her childhood was like, but the amount of joy she brings people today and her ebullient personality indicate that she must’ve been a fun little girl. Her family did take several (maybe frequent?) trips to Disney World in her childhood, and they must have done something special to her. In college, she participated in the Disney college program, which I incidentally was admitted to, but decided not to participate in. I wonder what my life would’ve been like had I done the college program, because so many who do, Molly included, end up moving to Florida, and getting full-time employment with the main mouse. Molly made many friends, while working for Disney, and she met the man she would go on to marry.


I don’t know when Molly stopped working at Disney, or what she decided to do, but at some point, she got a job with a website called AllEars.net. I believe she originally wrote articles for the site, but as the nature of media changed, she began to make videos of herself in the various Disney parks, offering insider tips and tricks to viewers in a manner that showcased her bubbly, fast talking, sometimes snarky, often fun loving personality. In fact, Molly became so popular that she left AllEars and started her own company with her husband Allan and best friend Max. The three of them now create their own content about parks and other Disney-related type stuff. Look up Mammoth Club on YouTube for a truly outstanding channel.





And, my friends, this is where these stories meet.


After our visit in 2019, Jon and I spent quite a lot of time sitting on our couch as my stomach bubbled out and we prepared to welcome our daughter into the world. Sometimes we went out and walked around the mall or went apple picking or went to a Backstreet Boys concert four days before my due date, and sometimes we sat on the couch with our feet up. It was in these moments that we decided we needed some new thing to watch that would not require paying a lot of attention or any sort of viewer involvement. We knew we would soon have an attention drawing baby to contend with, so we didn’t want to get into anything high concept.


We started trolling YouTube, and I don’t know how we found what we did, but somehow we happened upon AllEars’s YouTube channel, largely featuring Molly McCormack. We became absolutely 100% addicted to Molly‘s videos of her flouncing around Disney World with glowing eyes and lipstick that never budged, dancing uncontrollably on It’s a Small World and laughing hysterically at every dip and turn on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. She spoke at a rate similar to that of Lorelei Gilmore as she went. She constantly spit out theme park trivia and though we had considered ourselves Disney experts before, Molly’s insider knowledge taught us a wealth of new Disney nuggets.


Some of these facts were about how to best navigate the park. We learned that we had been using Fast Pass incorrectly for years, and that you could indeed have more than three Fast Passes in a day after you used your first three up. Unfortunately, Covid knocked Fast Pass out of reality before we got to utilize this tremendously helpful tip. We learned strange trivia, like how the brown bricks that flow like a river design through the red in Liberty Square represent poop that would have flown through the rivers of America in colonial times. We learned about low rider capacity on Peter Pan’s Flight and other rides, which results in consistently long wait times. We got ideas about which rides are the most useful to rope drop, which rides will more than likely drop their wait times later in the day, and which rides just look pretty to ride at night.


We learned the term “luxuriate,” a word Molly loves to use, particularly when she speaks of her (and my) beloved Animal Kingdom. She taught us about Nomad Lounge, where one can enjoy house made, gluten free churros, an Indian inspired bread service with amazing dips, and tremendously crafted cocktails all while sitting on a deck overlooking the river that flows through the park. 


Molly opened our eyes to a wealth of Disney drinks and snacks that we had no clue existed. We knew about the popularity of Dole whips and Mickey Premium Bars, but without Molly, I wouldn’t have known about a giant pretzel with beer cheese that can be obtained at Hollywood Studios Baseline 

Taphouse. I wouldn’t even know that Baseline existed.


We knew about Disney Springs, but I don’t think I would’ve known about Gideon’s Bakehouse (and oh, sweet Lord, what a sad life I’d be leading without having experienced those half pound cookies and the best iced coffee in existence). And Jock Lindsey‘s Hanger Bar! Who doesn't want to go to an Indiana Jones themed bar where you can obtain a charcuterie board placed in the holes of a massive pretzel? 




Molly introduced us to the concept of a monorail crawl. It involves getting to monorail station and taking the train to the Contemporary, the Polynesian, and the Grand Floridian, stopping for drinks and snacks along the way. We did this on our 2022 trip, having lots of coffee, a delicious Contempo lunch, and a fun cocktail and stroll at the Poly. It was a great inexpensive activity on a non-park day.



Thanks to Molly, our eyes were opened to so many new possibilities. Disney Food Blog was another that helped us hone our snack game. We discovered other fun Disney YouTubers. Paging Mr. Morrow, with his eternal optimism, is a delight. He happily visits the parks, riding, snacking, reviewing, and greeting fans.  Other YouTubers present more on the history of the parks, such as Disney Dan, OffhandDisney, and Defunctland. (Want some long documentaries on some truly quiet Disney tidbits? Defunctland is your jam. The special on Halyx, a Star Wars-inspired rock band that cultivated quite the following in a mere few months at Disneyland is riveting.) This side of things, the history side, the nerdy side, the fact gathering side, may be the answer to the question,  “Why Disney?” 


This is a question we get all the time. We are world travelers. Why have we turned into giant Disnerds who would rather revisit a theme park they’ve been to multiple times than explore a new country they’ve never seen? There are a lot of answers to this question.


For me, there is a huge sense of nostalgia involved in visiting Disney World. I don’t have extremely vivid childhood memories of walking down Main Street, but it still feels like coming home. It is familiar and never changing even though there is always something new to see. 


Another huge factor in my love of Disney is the rides. I am not a thrill rider and do not enjoy extremely fast roller coasters with large drops and loops. There is no theme park I have ever been to that executes the dark ride with the skill and quantity of a Disney theme park. It has always been a place I can go and ride as many rides as a roller coaster lover can at Six Flags. My money never feels wasted, I never feel like I’m waiting for everyone else to enjoy their twists and turns. I will just go on Haunted Mansion again while you guys enjoy Space Mountain. 


As a child, I loved meeting princesses, Mickey and friends, and other characters at Disney. I collected their autographs and took pictures with them. Of course I went through a phase where they weren’t my priority, but Lily ADORES characters. Meetings have become one of our major priorities when we visit. These interactions have been so personal they’ve made us feel like we’re part of a movie ourselves. Jon and I have geeked out about meeting Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Pete. Lily’s carousel ride with Peter Pan and having Wendy take her for pixie dust is our favorite Disney memory hands down ever. It seems impossible that any memory will ever replace it, but with Disney Magic, you just never know. 



A lot of people knock theme park food, but the best, most informed Disney goers know how tremendous the food in a Disney park is. Sure, the hamburgers may be standard and overcooked, and the pizza will never compare to what you can get at a Jersey pizzeria. But there are some specialty snacks out there that are among the best in the world. You cannot deny this until you have done all of the proper research and taste tests. And new treats are being created all the time for various holidays, celebrations, and food festivals. In our last few park visits, we spent weeks reviewing what food was currently available and listing what were the must haves in each park. Very little has disappointed. 


But I believe what really pushed us over the edge of the Disney Parks fandom cliff was the history and trivia. Jon and I both take pride in our education and niche knowledge, and knowing just how much of this comes with Disney increased our love for it exponentially. We are constantly consuming books about the most influential imagineers, YouTube videos on both past and future projects, and even magazines about Disney World and Disneyland. (Yes, we have two subscriptions.) We cannot get enough information about this place that makes us absolutely happier than any on earth. 


For its own magical past brings our pasts to life, making us feel like children again. Its constant evolution, inventing technology and improving existing ways of life, reminds us that all people are ever changing and have the potential to be better. 


Thank you, Marceline, for inspiring such magic. Thank you, Molly, for being such a wonderful teacher. And thank you, friends, who now come to me to help plan a Disney trip. You’re always welcome. 





 


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