Disney

I spent the past few days at a Disney World resort without my family.

I was attending a corporate boondoggle (more than just attending, my company was one of the sponsors), and despite the setting it was strictly business for me. I understand why the organizers want to go to a fun resort, but as far as I was concerned it would have been just as good in Des Moines, Iowa. Better, actually: Des Moines would have been a lot more comfortable (it was in the 90s and humid every day) and far far cheaper.

Disney is fascinating, though, in the same way Paris Hilton or a Pixar movie is fascinating: you know that everything you're looking at is fake, but you just can't tear your eyes from the brazen artifice of it all. It's actually more than fake, since you're not looking at a faithful simulation of the real thing, but an idealized representation trying to pass itself off as the real thing. Imagine if a cardboard cutout of Leonard Nimoy started talking and claiming to be an actual native of the planet Vulcan.

I stayed in Disney's Caribbean Resort, designed to look and feel like a tropical island, with buildings names "Aruba," "Trinidad," and so forth. Except that this island paradise has the advantage of having no poor people (none visible, anyway), and a guard checking IDs at the gate to keep out undesirables. Actually, I'm not sure exactly what the guard was checking for, since anyone who showed an ID was allowed in, and it's not like they give out special driver's licenses with TERRORIST stamped in red.

Our Caribbean Resort did have some things in common with the real thing: palm trees, sandy beaches, and water--though perversely, the Disney version is built around an island of water surrounded by land, rather than the other way around. Also, just like a real tropical island, this one stands an excellent chance of getting wiped out by rising sea levels or a major hurricane sometime in the next hundred years.

The conference itself was at Disney's Boardwalk resort, modeled after an idealized version of the Atlantic City, NJ boardwalk from the late 19th century (no poor people here, either). The entire complex, from the water to the shops to the dance hall, was just like the real thing, except with anything that might be remotely unpleasant or undesirable carefully removed or hidden from view.

Not everything is perfect. Travelers are cautioned to lock their cars and stay in well-lit areas at night. But you can rest assured that if you are mugged at Disney World, you will have been victimized by The Happiest Muggers on Earth (TM).