“Look at the carousel,” Jon muttered at me through gritted teeth over Lily’s head.
I glanced as surreptitiously as possible, and I saw them. Peter Pan and Wendy. They weren’t on the ride yet, but they were just inside, standing on a platform waving to guests.
“Argh,” I lamented. “They’ll never still be there when we’re done. Don’t say anything.”
Instead of rushing across Fantasyland for our chance at meeting the boy who won’t grow up, we waited as a slow, brightly colored train pulled in, and we sat in a monkey cage with another family for a slow trip around the Storybook Land Canals. The whole time, I couldn’t wait for it to be over. Because this was our chance.
We’d been watching videos of Disneyland more regularly since booking our trip in April, and we had seen this happen. The way characters interact with fans on the West Coast is vastly more personal than the long lines they build up on the East. They wander freely around the parks, and you never know when you’re going to exit Pixie Hollow and find Captain Hook just waiting for you or turn a corner and bump into Spiderman. (Both of these things happened on our trip.)
When the new live action Peter Pan and Wendy dropped on Disney + at the end of April, we showed it to Lily, and she was as enchanted by Peter, Tink, and the tales of Neverland as countless children have been for the past hundred and twenty years. (The enduring power of that story, amiright?) So seeing Peter and Wendy ride the carousel with Disney guests brought to our attention something we really wanted for Lily.
On our first day in Disneyland Park, we had spotted the characters on the carousel while we were ironically in line to ride Peter Pan’s Flight. Watching them kept Lily entertained for the half hour wait. We checked our watches - it was around 9:30 in the morning. We aimed to get back there the next day at about that time. The line for the carousel tripled once the characters got on, so we wanted to be ready to go before that. Could we do it?
Obviously not. We had headed to Fantasyland first that morning, and we had already met Pinocchio and Gepetto, Alice and the Mad Hatter. But now, after a quick breakfast, we stood in line for the Casey Junior Circus Train, saying prayers that Peter and Wendy would stay by that carousel after our painfully slow trip around the park.
When our train pulled back into the station, we hustled Lily out of the caged car and told her exactly what we needed to do - book it to the carousel to try to meet Wendy and Peter. She excitedly hurried alongside us, and by someone’s grace, the boy in green and the girl in blue were still there, still sitting on horses waving. They were near the carousel’s exit, which is where we decided to stand so we could easily catch them when they got off for pictures and autographs.
Second star to the right? You could see it sparkling in Lily’s eyes as she looked up at two of her heroes.
Peter and Wendy gave us big waves, and I called out, “We can’t wait to meet you!”
As we stood there, Lily climbing the short brick wall to get as good a view as she could, Peter pointed excitedly behind us. I turned around and saw a little boy dressed as Peter Pan. Peter was beside himself with excitement.
This was the moment where I felt a turning point, a shift in the wind.
Peter leaned forward and said to Wendy, “We’ll stay on for another round.”
I looked at Jon. “Go check how long the line is.”
He ran around and gestured to me. The line, somehow, despite what we had previously seen, hadn’t grown at all. I grabbed Lily’s hand and ran. Jon went back to the exit to text if the couple was going to get off. Which they didn’t.
I am from New Jersey. I have been on two Backstreet Boys cruises. I have practice being politely pushy to get what I want. So I scooped Lily up and waited until the ride gates slid open. And then I darted in a semicircle to get to the characters.
Strangely, no one else had made this mad dash. Other kids just wanted to sit on the first horses they saw. Maybe parents didn’t realize that they could go ahead and sit next to Peter or Wendy. But I knew how this worked. Thinking Peter was waiting for the little boy dressed like him, I looked up at Wendy and asked, “May we sit by you?”
She wasn’t listening, but mischievous Peter was. “You can sit here if you want.” He gestured towards the beautiful white horse next to him. “We would have come to meet you!” he continued graciously.
As I lifted Lily onto her steed, the look of shocked joy on her face created a look of triumph on mine. I had done one of those things that I set out to do on this trip, a thing I hadn’t thought was possible.
Lily is quiet and shy, and sitting next to Peter Pan himself was not going to change this. But we weren’t just going to sit there awkwardly. “Lily wanted you to see her shirt, Peter,” I told him.
“Oh yeah, it’s Goofy! He’s a great guy!”
“She was excited because it’s the same color as yours!”
“So it is! Hey!” His eyes lit up. “We could be twins. You could be my shadow for the day!”
Needless to say, we referenced being Peter’s shadow for the rest of the day.
Then Peter started asking Lily what she might name the horse she was sitting on. “You could name it Treasure because it has those pretty jewels on it. Or Purple, because those are the colors of the jewels. What do you think?”
Lily cocked her head shyly. “I don’t know.”
“Do we like Treasure?” I asked her. “Because that’s what we steal from pirates!”
“Yeah!” Peter shouted as the carousel started to spin.
Lily had noticed before that frequently during the ride, Peter would put his arms out to mimic flying. This time, Lily got to fly right next to him.
We passed other characters on our ride, and Peter loved calling out to them. One of them was Merida, who he kept asking to say words and phrases so he could hear how ridiculous they sounded in her Scottish accent. Lily particularly liked when he asked her to say, “Captain Hook is a codfish!” Merida always complied until Peter got to, “Say, ‘Wendy Moira Angela Darling!’”
“No!” she cried back incredulously.
Wendy turned around on her horse and said, “You should have asked her to say chubby bunny.”
“Why?” Peter asked.
“It sounds funny.”
Suddenly, Peter started screaming, “Pinnochio! Pinnochio! You stole my feather! You stole the feather from my hat!”
His handler, or the woman in charge of managing him in the park, turned around and said, “No he didn’t, Peter. You have a feather in your hat.”
“Well I had two!” he retorted sharply. “He stole my other one!”
“Peter, you have to learn how to share.”
“No I don’t.”
Not only was this interaction hilarious and completely in character, but it was just for us. No one else was close enough to hear it. It made an already special moment even moreso.
When the ride ended, we thanked Peter. I scooped Lily down from her horse and approached Wendy to ask for a picture.
“I have to get off the carousel,” she informed us. “But I can walk with you.”
She went through the gate with us to pose. I didn’t realize Peter was behind me until he reached past
my head to snatch our autograph books from Jon. He signed while Wendy and Lily posed.
“My sister is named after you,” Jon told Wendy.
“Goodness!” she exclaimed. “Just the one name, I hope. Not all four.”
After she also signed our books, we thanked them for the amazing interaction. “Now we’re off to get pixie dust!” I told Wendy, knowing you could get a sprinkling at Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique.
“Pixie dust? Come on!”
I was already more than satisfied with the magic I had made happen for Lily that day. I wasn’t expecting what came next.
Wendy grabbed Lily by the hand and went skipping through Fantasyland with her. Jon and I ran behind them. They held out their arms and pretended to fly towards the Boutique. Wendy brought Lily in and caught the attention of a cast member.
“Excuse me,” she said. “We’d like some pixie dust, please.”
“Sure! I can help you with that!”
The woman grabbed a wand and escorted our party, including Wendy, outside. “I made sure to grab the happy thoughts wand,” she told us. “So if you think happy thoughts, you’ll be able to fly.”
Lily faced us as the woman sprinkled light glitter all over her. She couldn’t see that Peter snuck up behind her and stood next to Wendy. Together, they applauded the ordeal. Lily got a happy shock when she turned around and Peter was back in her sights!
“Now remember to think happy thoughts!” he instructed.
“Oh!” Wendy gestures to the cast member. “She used the happy thoughts wand.”
“Really? That’s great!”
Lily beamed and clasped her hands with excitement as the pair finally waved goodbye to us to head off towards story time at the wishing well.
We didn’t need to attend that event. All our wishes had come true.
Jon and I couldn’t stop talking about the truly enchanting experience for the rest of the day. In fact, as we waited to meet The Evil Queen a few hours later, Peter passed us and said, “Hello again!” They had spent that much time with us that they remembered who we were.
Once, when I was very young, Mary Poppins got on an elevator with my family at the Grand Floridian hotel in Disney World, and I still remember the flutter of excitement at the very personal interaction we had with her there. But that pales in comparison, holds no candles, and other platitudes when compared with our Peter and Wendy morning. They made us feel special, seen, and like we could fly to Neverland with them. It’s an experience none of us will ever forget.
Everyone who sees the pictures and video of us with Peter comments on how they didn’t know characters could do something like that. To them I say - that’s because you’ve never been to DisneyLAND.
As I watched Peter clap for Lily’s pixie dusting, I leaned over to the cast member who had sprinkled her and said, “They say Disney World is the most magical place on earth, but I disagree. I think this is.”
She laughed with a knowing smile. “I agree.”
If you know, you know.
Comments