In this month’s hot take, we catch up with a former Disney employee about the spectrum of tourists who never want to grow up (a.k.a. Disney adults).
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Before working at Disney HQ I’d last set foot on a Disney resort when I was nine years old. At that age, I didn’t care how much plastic or sugar I consumed. All I wanted was to be in Ariel and Simba’s worlds. Could I be tempted by Southeast Asian street food or coming face-to-face with a world wonder? Absolutely not. I wanted to sit in a giant teacup.
In my late 20s, I unexpectedly found myself back in that childhood fantasy. I was there multiple times a year thanks to a corporate “Silver Pass,” giving me and my guests unlimited free entry to the parks and discounts in their outlets. Many employees consider this the ultimate perk, but rather than think “lucky me,” I spent hours of idle queue time thinking how I’d rather just be paid more.
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Over the years, I have encountered throngs of Disney adults, a.k.a. lifelong devotees of The Walt Disney Company. According to one outlet, “a Disney adult is a childless, self-infantilized, and overly excitable millennial; someone who lacks both self- and social awareness,” while another reported they are the “most hated group on the internet.”
Disney adults have even received backlash from posting videos of themselves crying when meeting characters. While I don’t condone trolling, I do think there’s a serious psychological issue when a grown adult is reduced to tears over the sight of someone in an animal costume. Perhaps it’s because I’ve met the characters off-duty, and let me tell you, it’s far from magical.
Peter Pan Syndrome
I have a Disney adult within my own family. Let’s call her Rapunzel. Every year, Rapunzel throws down $2,000 to $3,000 on a Disney Florida vacation. She, along with 142 million annual park visitors, comes out with bags of products from Main Street. There are no mom-and-pop businesses there. Every dime of their hard-earned cash is poured directly into one of the world’s largest corporations. The result of Rapunzel’s fierce brand loyalty? She’s never been able to afford travel outside America. That is, until December 2024.
We were all ecstatic that she was finally convinced to get a passport and forgo one Disney holiday to travel Europe with us. However, the excitement soon wore off when Rapunzel realized London and Paris were far from a familiar plastic kingdom. She struggled with foods beyond the ultra-processed, animal-shaped favorites served around Disney parks and, at one point, had a full-on tantrum because of a mild headache. In a crying fit akin to that of a five-year-old, she screamed, “I need AMERICAN medicine, I want to go home!!” Let me pause here to say that the U.K.’s Panadol and America’s Tylenol have the same main ingredient.
Being homesick is one thing, but a 47-year-old woman on a one-week Christmas vacation in the company of close relatives should not have reacted so extreme. During a quaint afternoon tea of all times! I wondered what on earth had Disney done to her.
“Peter Pan syndrome” is a common term used by psychologists to describe one’s difficulty in adapting to adulthood. This wasn’t the first time Rapunzel had behaved like a toddler…but as far as she’s concerned, being a Disney adult is totally “Hakuna Matata.” Since there are so many others just like her, this addiction is often normalized.
Every brand knows the lifelong customer is their most valued, and no brand more so than Disney. The average Disney kid is a hardcore consumer for a couple of years, and then they grow up. But Disney adults never grow up. I don’t know the exact retention strategy for the cash cow, as I was only one part of an unimaginably huge machine, but I know Disney has 360-degree methods of building long-term brand loyalty, ensuring success among their most profitable demographic. Somehow, it’s all publicly acceptable, too. Meanwhile, if you saw a single 40-year-old man dressed head to toe in Peppa Pig, joining (unrelated) children at a Build-a-Bear workshop every weekend, there’d be questions and concerns galore.
That European trip was probably the last time my family will ever see Rapunzel outside of her Texas home and the Disney Park turnstiles. Like me at nine, the Louvre and Big Ben are no match for a Dumbo carousel. Rapunzel is forever nine and has no plans to enter puberty.
Why Disney Adults Make for Bad Travelers
In the travel sphere, I notice Disney adults are used to help illustrate disrespectful tourists. When interviewing a contact in Japan about the impact of over-tourism, they used the term to describe visitors who visit Tokyo, mainly for Disneyland. These theme park tourists may tack on a few extra days to ‘explore’ but have no desire to learn about or respect a new culture, contributing little to the local community. For example, they often choose to spend their pre-Disneyland yen at Starbucks or McDonald’s over a Japanese-run and operated property.
That’s not all Disney adults, but I can say with confidence that it’s a significant portion of them. Travel priorities really speak volumes when people are willing to wait in line for 5.5 hours just to board a four-minute ride.
Nerdwallet suggests the average one-week Disney World trip for a family of four costs $6,000, but it’s common for some to spend more than $15,000. That’s a lot to stand in line half the day, obtain merch that essentially turns you into a walking billboard, and eat pretty junk food. I’m not saying parents with kids avoid Disney resorts completely—I had a wonderful once-in-a-childhood memory of Disneyland Paris back when I was a single-digit age—but richer travel memories can be made elsewhere after checking Disney off. Six thousand dollars buys your family an unforgettable safari adventure, two weeks eating your way through the fairytale Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, or an entire summer along the dreamy Vietnamese coast.
Since leaving my job at Disney, I have realized that being part of the fandom by way of my work was a bit like being stuck in the theme park itself. It’s easy to forget there’s a whole other world out there where collecting animal ears and plushies as an adult is normalized. I’ve since donated my swag to age-appropriate humans, but I doubt much of the annual $62 billion worth of retail products sold gets such a second lease of life. Unfortunately, it winds up in a landfill.
I’d love to see the Disney adult stereotypes be shaken. Sure, escapism is bliss, but outside of that, I hope Disney adults like Rapunzel can accept growing up as a part of life. I hope they travel with more of an open mind, treating the rest of the earth and its real-life magical spots with fairness and kindness. If not, there’s a danger that all we’ll have left are plastic mega-cities with humans dressed up as animals, which would be a real crying shame.
