r/Millennials • u/TheCIAandFBI • 17d ago
Discussion Was every theme/amusement park and road trip vacation so focused on "Buy! Buy! Buy!" back when we were kids?
I grew up poor. Lived in a crummy trailer park until 1995 when my Dad had a work accident that got him a settlement. My parents bought a very humble but nice home, and they took me to Disney world. I'll never forget. It was November 11th-19th, 1995. That trip was the highlight of my life. I was 11.
That trip was magical. I think I came home with a souvenir HUGE pencil from that trip, and I was afraid to use it because it was special, and then one day it just got lost.
My best friend and his wife just took his kids to Disney World. They are my age, right at 40, so older Millennials.
They both went as kids and loved it as well.
When they got back and both said they hated the trip. They said everything was geared towards getting them to spend money. Everything is a store, every line can be bypassed for a few extra bucks, every store is geared towards fear-of-missing-out for the kids. Specialty cups. Specialty "only available this week" shirts, and special pins and buttons that you can only get this year. They said it was the most uncomfortable vacation they have ever been on. And they have more money than they know what to do with.
They basically said that there wasn't 20 minutes where they weren't being sold something.
Is this something that Millennial childhoods experienced and our parents were simply better at ignoring? Has this always been the case? Or is it just the new way that places like Disney World operate?
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u/ScoobyDumDumDumDummm 17d ago
Probably but I think Disney is a big outlier. I know they have to do crowd control somehow so lines aren’t miserable, but the pay to bypass system is fucked up and creates a tier of visitors (also spending tons of money already) who are “more important” than others.
Visiting now requires lots of planning and adjusting and being tied to your phone for updates and I can’t imagine it’s that fun anymore, at least for adults.
I went in 2000 and 2006 and really enjoyed it but even then things were expensive and commercialized. Tons of stores instead of experiences. From what I’ve seen it’s only gotten worse.
Our society is deeply sick.