Stepping into Disneyland for the first time nearly a decade past half a century, I, Dana Jones, was met with more than just childhood nostalgia. The physical toll was a surprise contender for the most memorable aspect of my visit, as the extensive walking and lengthy queues easily rivaled the toughest moments from my half marathons and triathlons. Today, I candidly recount the adventure and the misadventures, from the challenge of park navigation to the unexpectedly large food portions that could feed a small army. My revelations and the honest advice I offer might just transform your perspective of the Happiest Place on Earth. If you're contemplating a family adventure of your own, tune in for an honest and heartfelt exploration of how to keep the magic alive without sidelining your well-being.
Podcast Disclaimer:
The Pain-Free Podcast is presented solely for general information, education, and entertainment purposes. Any information presented in this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional diagnosis. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. As always, users should not disregard or delay obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition that they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.
Stepping into Disneyland for the first time nearly a decade past half a century, I, Dana Jones, was met with more than just childhood nostalgia. The physical toll was a surprise contender for the most memorable aspect of my visit, as the extensive walking and lengthy queues easily rivaled the toughest moments from my half marathons and triathlons. Today, I candidly recount the adventure and the misadventures, from the challenge of park navigation to the unexpectedly large food portions that could feed a small army. My revelations and the honest advice I offer might just transform your perspective of the Happiest Place on Earth. If you're contemplating a family adventure of your own, tune in for an honest and heartfelt exploration of how to keep the magic alive without sidelining your well-being.
Podcast Disclaimer:
The Pain-Free Podcast is presented solely for general information, education, and entertainment purposes. Any information presented in this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional diagnosis. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. As always, users should not disregard or delay obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition that they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.
Welcome to the Pain Free Athlete Podcast. I'm your host, dana Jones. I am a certified personal trainer and I'm here to help you achieve your fitness goals without pain. In each episode, I'll share tips and strategies that will help you stay safe and pain free while you're working out. I'll also interview experts in the field of fitness and pain management. So if you're ready to learn how to stay active and pain free, then subscribe to the Pain Free Athlete Podcast today.
Speaker 1:
Hi everyone and welcome to the Pain Free Athlete Podcast. I'm your host, dana Jones, so I thought this week I would spend a little time talking about my trip to Disneyland. I have never gone to Disneyland and I'm almost 55 years old, and I know that is a sin, since I have been a resident of California for nearly 30 years, but I just always wanted to avoid it because I was never really a fan of amusement parks and you know, I don't know. There's a challenging history of the founder that I always was kind of stuck to and didn't want to mess with, but he's, as I've been reminded, he's long dead and a lot of the ideas behind Disney have changed and they're no longer the archaic beliefs that the founder once had. So if you're someone who may be slightly offended by this because you're a Disney person, I'm sorry in advance. I guess that's my disclaimer, right, my trigger warning If you're somebody who's a Disney person, you may be slightly insulted by what I may have to say. Anyway, so I've always avoided amusement parks because, as typical of a TMS personality, I'm very anxious, and amusement parks bring out everything about an anxious person. Right, you know, there's tons of people, there's tons of things that are out of control, there's things moving. So if you're somebody like me who gets motion sickness by just looking at the carousel, it's definitely not a place you want to go to. So there's just, you know, a bunch of different things. But I have finally relented and I went to Disneyland this past week and I just figured, you know, I had a couple of good, I guess, revelations and some advice that I wanted to share with you, because why not? You know, as an athlete, it's always interesting to see how these things kind of evolve.
Speaker 1:
Anyway, so I've heard rumors about the amount of walking and I've seen friends and they're like oh, I did 25,000 steps and all this other stuff, and I think that in reality I was not really prepared for the amount of walking that I was doing. Now I have done one half Iron man, which really requires a lot of foot time right being on your feet for all the things that you're doing, and physical discomfort and the seven miles a day that I spent walking at Disney, which was not a lot. But I'm also not chasing little people. So that has a lot to do with it too, because I noticed that my girlfriends, the ones that walk more, are the ones who have little ones that they're probably running after. Anyway, I have that's seven miles hurt. It hurt more than anything I've done half marathon that I've run. I haven't done a lot of half marathons, but anything that I've done where I've been on my feet, that seven miles was definitely something that was no joke for sure, and I think at the end of day two I thought my feet were on fire, or at least it felt like that. So that's something that I was not prepared for. So just you know, and I think the issue, or at least what I've deduced, is that it's not necessarily the walking, the seven miles, because I'm sure if I just went out and walked seven miles it probably would hurt, but not to the level that it hurt during this time. But it's also the standing and the waiting and I noticed, you know, the calves get tight and things like that. So it definitely requires a certain amount of physical effort.
Speaker 1:
Then there's the navigating the park. And you know there's an app and the app has you know where you are and where you're going, and it's confusing and sometimes possibly having a printed map would have been a lot more beneficial, but I've also. This is a bad thing. So in the you could drop me in the middle of the city. I have been lost in San Francisco. I have been lost in New York City. I have found my way out without any issue. You give me a map and ask me to navigate my way out. I can't do it. I don't know what it is about it. It's just a funky you know thing in my brain that just doesn't allow me to read properly or whatever, and I just you know. So I was like, well, I'm just gonna keep walking and I think I recognize this. But even after three days of wandering around the park, I still didn't have any idea where I was going. So it was pretty entertaining to just kind of depend on other people and going okay, I'll meet you there and then actually using your phone as saying you know the find my friends option and like hunting people down. So that was you know. So you know it was pretty entertaining Food.
Speaker 1:
So I've heard a lot about Disney food being amazing. Eh, you know, I mean, I think that sometimes, when you're really hungry, things taste a lot better than they possibly are. I don't, I'm not a hundred percent sure, but the food portions were insane. And now I've learned that you know it's always best to probably ask for a child size portion or the kid's meal or whatever, because of the fact that they don't give. They probably give you what a normal portion wouldn't be for an adult. But the food portions were nuts.
Speaker 1:
And you know, it went to one place and they had pasta and I watched the woman spoon out the pasta and I thought I would eat that much pasta over probably three days and so she gave it to me and I was like I'm not gonna be able to eat this. So there was some conversation, internal conversation, about, you know, the whole cleaning the plate thing, which was not going to happen. And then there's the weirdness around oh shit, I have to throw this out and feeling bad about throwing out food and, you know, just dealing with that and wondering like how much waste, because I'm one person and you know if they have thousands and thousands of people rolling through this park, you know I can't be the only person throwing out food. So that was kind of nutty, you know, and it was a little challenging and it was kind of funny because I think it was the second to last night or the last night we were there.
Speaker 1:
We went to cafe Orleans and I just couldn't do a deep fried Monte Cristo sandwich. It just wasn't happening. And so I ordered a risotto and I thought, okay, well, you know, at least that's within the realm of staying healthy, and it was vegan. And the waiter was like Do you see the flower? You know the little plant next to the name? And I said yes, and he's like so that means it's vegan. And I said yes, I'm aware. And then he said the risotto is faro and I said okay, and he said so it's not going to taste like regular risotto. And I was like, yeah, I'm aware, and he kind of looked at me like he wasn't really sure and what I realized is that they don't deal and they probably deal with people that come from outside of California who aren't vegan, or I mean, I'm not vegan, but I'm aware of what it looks like on a menu and I'm aware of what a lot of things taste like. So it was definitely kind of funny that he was just like I need to be sure that you understand what you're buying and you know, like I'm okay and it was good. It was actually pretty good, and of course I didn't finish it because it was probably one of the more manageable servings and it was probably like close to normal, which I appreciate, because then, you know, I still didn't finish it, but at least I wasn't worried about, you know, throwing away a tremendous amount of food.
Speaker 1:
So anyway, you know, going back to you know, the self care, shall we say, and there's a couple of different aspects of this right. So one is like managing discomfort and one of the things that I realized was that the discomfort that I was feeling in my feet and then eventually your knees and your hips and your back and all that other stuff, like I haven't felt like that since basic training, and one of the particular areas of basic training where this occurred was, you know, toward the end of basic training, and I don't know if they still do this, but they used to have you do a 15 mile road march and you'd be in boots and you know, by the end of 15 miles you were totally toast. Your legs were killing you, everything was killing you, and that was like I think that was the last time I experienced that kind of discomfort and you get wonky, you know, you get a little crazy, right. You start thinking, oh no, you know, like somebody says you know, do you want a glass of water? Do you want a glass of soda? And you're like I don't know. You know, like your mental aspect kind of flies out the window when you're, you know, in physical discomfort. And it's been a long time since I've been in that kind of physical discomfort and I actually, I think I managed it well. I mean, you'll have to talk to my family and see how I did, but I didn't get any reports about me being really crappy or cranky or those kinds of things. But I did, you know, put a haul to a couple of things where I was like you know, I think I'm done.
Speaker 1:
And you know, like, especially the second night, I got to a point where I said, you know I had needed to advocate for my family. I said, you know, I could go ahead and walk across this park and, do you know, whatever everybody wants to do, or I can, you know, save whatever energy I have to make it to the hotel, because of course we didn't stay not of course, but we didn't stay on the Disneyland property, we stayed off property, which meant it was a mile walk at least. So that was one thing I was kind of proud of myself, because of the fact that you know, sometimes when you are a TMS personality, you're a people pleaser and you want to do things for the ease of your mental state, and the fact that I was able to say like no, I really would like to. You know, raster, go back and take care of myself. I was kind of impressed that I did that and I advocated for myself, because that was kind of surprising. I love the new me right where we're going.
Speaker 1:
The other aspect of it is really like dealing with lots of people and lots of different levels of excitement. Right, you have little kids that are running around and, you know so excited, you have a couple that are kind of melting down. You're watching a lot of different personalities in play in terms of how parents deal with their breaking down children and also, you know, you know where you're going for rides, how you're doing, you know that kind of thing. And it's a psychological study for sure, when you're just like just sitting back and you're observing all these things and the other end of it is like you know there's a need for a bubble just to make sure that you stay in a positive mindset and that the things that you're observing are just observing, right, and you're not absorbing, right, observing versus absorbing, and that's important. And I was able to pretty much do that. You know, watched a few things kind of go on and I was like, ooh, you know, kind of glad that my kids aren't you know three and four and need to do that, or you know, and it was okay. So that was definitely something where I was like okay, but if you don't know about it, it surprises you.
Speaker 1:
And the thing is we arrived on Thursday and it was manageable, like behaviors, and the amount of people was not tremendous, but then it almost got to like a fever pitch. So Friday night it picked up and you can feel like the excitement kind of build where there's a lot more people. And then Saturday was like wall to wall people and there were times where I went like holy crap, you know I'm going to get knocked over or whatever, because there's just so many people trying to get to different places. And you know it's just, it's very interesting watching the evolution of you know, the weekend I guess would be the easiest thing, or what you would call it. So what did I learn?
Speaker 1:
Waiting in line sucks. If you are somebody who's anxious. It really sucks because of the fact that if you're having like kind of you know, iffy feelings about getting on a ride, the longer that you're sitting and you're waiting kind of freaks you out a little. You have a lot of time to kind of screw with your own head. So if you have the ability and you have the money, you know the lightning lane is the way to go, because then you just show up and then your ass is on the ride and then you're gone and before you even have a thought of like maybe this wasn't the best idea, you're already done with it. That's for sure. Because, like I tried to go on the the Ferris wheel and they have two different Ferris wheels. They have one that moves and one doesn't and the one that doesn't still moves. And I was standing there and we were waiting and waiting and waiting and finally I was just like no, I'm not going on it. You know, I didn't want to go on it.
Speaker 1:
The other thing to do you know another lesson, or whatever is start walking. You know, walk on concrete. You know, prepare your feet, because it is if you want to have a good time. You know, if you're paying this much money and you're doing this, you really want to make sure that your feet aren't destroyed and at least start walking around and getting used to it. And you know, just, I would treat it like an event. Right, disney is a marathon, not a sprint, and so there's a lot of, you know, feet time that's going to happen. So you want to make sure that you have a good time too, because you don't want to be in that situation Possibly. You know, always a good thing to be well rested, well hydrated, because you know, like I said, fatigue makes the simplest tasks seem absolutely unreasonable, and so you want to put yourself in a good situation and you know, just take care of it.
Speaker 1:
I have a girlfriend of mine who says that she goes with her family and she and her husband have a plan and they literally will go in the morning, they'll do all the rides or whatever, they tap out at 12, they go home or go back to the hotel, like have lunch or, you know, put the kids down, have a nap or do whatever and then show up later in the afternoon. So they break the day up and that's. I think that's reasonable. I think you know, obviously you're going to have to figure out what it works for you, for your family or whatever. But the whole idea of staying the whole time and torturing yourself or realizing, like you're not going back to your hotel, like you know, you're not going to win any awards for you know doing too much, and you know, but it's, I'll tell you, it's something, like you know, when you see, like, overall, right, I enjoyed my trip.
Speaker 1:
This was a good trip, it was, it was fun, it was, you know, and I think it was because I've been taking care of myself and because I've set, you know, the standards for myself and I appreciate that. I think five years ago it would have been a nightmare for me to go from the plane flight down there to, you know, the whole thing and I I have to give a shout out to our friends at HypnoBox because I did use the app before the flight and I had a flawless flight and I am really super excited about that. So, yeah, if you haven't tried the app, that is something that you need to work on. But anyway, I guess my point is that it was a good trip. Having knowledge, you know, getting asking friends that went before is always a good thing and, you know, going in with the right attitude definitely helps. So, all in all, I had a good time.
Speaker 1:
I know there's going to be some people who are super shocked that I did it and I went because I was like I'm never going there, you know, because, well, disney's, you know, racist and all those things, you know. But things change, times change. And I will tell you, there was it was like an LGBTQ plus parade down there, like, especially when you hit the Saturday, like it was. It was kind of fun just seeing all the different types of people that were purely comfortable being there and enjoying the space. So, again, just, you know, do what you need to do to take care of yourself. I'm happy with the results because again, there's, you know, no, no complaints, even as much as the physical discomfort. It wasn't a chronic pain situation. I didn't feel like I was doomed or any of that other stuff, so I think I'm heading in the right direction with my work on myself. Anyway, that's all I got for you today. Have a wonderful day and don't forget to rate and review, and I will catch you next time.