Photography by Sean Cassidy
By Kim Mosher
Invariably I will get asked the million dollar question. It’s usually posed in the form of “What is your favorite Disney memory?” or “Which trip to Disney was your favorite?” I don’t like either one. I’m not sure if I’m alone on this but I’d venture to guess that anyone who has been to Disney multiple times finds it difficult to answer. Speaking for both the memories and the trips, they are ALL the best, for different reasons.
So I’m putting myself on the spot and here’s what I came up with. My first instinct is to tell you that it’s every single trip with my boys, seeing Disney through their eyes, watching the pure excitement on their faces. I want to say it’s the very first time we walked them into the Magic Kingdom and they saw Cinderella Castle. The look of disbelief mixed with joy in their eyes when they spotted it, their mouths open, pointing. It was amazing. I think this is the answer most people expect when they ask that question. Yes, this is one of my best Disney memories. I will never forget it. I feel guilty though when I say it wasn’t my absolute favorite. I feel like I’m doing my children an injustice, but if you back me into a corner, I’ll admit that it’s not my favorite trip or my favorite memory.
Vacations to Disney were a big part of my world growing up. My dad would’ve certainly been considered one of the biggest Disney World fans that ever lived. In later years, after he retired, he’d talk, only half joking, about living there. The first time we went was 1975, I was four years old. We fell in love with it. My mom enjoyed it too, but not like my dad. There, he was a kid again, it was like his second home. We returned every few years. The Polynesian was our “home” and strolling the grounds there was one of his favorite things to do and it became mine as well. We’d return from a day at the parks to spend the rest of the evening walking around the Polynesian, seeing everything we possibly could until it was time to watch Wishes from the beach. From 1975 until my high school graduation in 1989, my mom, dad and I went to Disney six times.
In 2000, as my dad approached his 80th birthday, his health was starting to fail. We hadn’t been to Disney since my high school graduation in 1989. We’d talk about it frequently, we’d look at pictures and reminisce. One day he said he wished he could see it one more time while he was still able and I told him I’d love to go back with him. He booked the trip that day.
My dad and I took one last trip to Disney World together in May of 2000. We stayed at the Polynesian, strolled the grounds, went to the parks and rode every ride that he could still ride safely. His all time favorite ride was It’s a Small World. He had originally ridden it at the New York World’s Fair in 1964 and had fallen in love with it. The fact that it was at Disney just amazed him. On Magic Kingdom days, it was always his first ride of the day and his last ride before leaving. I couldn’t even tell you how many times we went on it that year! We had an amazing vacation. I can still remember, like it was yesterday, my dad standing in the lobby of the Polynesian: he shook his head slowly and said to me, “I really never thought I’d see this place again!”
After many years of deteriorating health, he passed in 2009. I’ve since been back to Disney World several times in recent years with my husband and our own small boys. It’s still amazing and it’s so incredibly new and different experiencing the magic of Disney again through the eyes of my own children. There’s nothing like it in the world. But if I’m to be honest, that trip with my dad, that last memory made there with him…just the two of us…is still my favorite Disney memory.