Pushing all the buttons

Image: DisneyWhen you’re young, no sane person wants to get on an elevator with/after you. Everyone knows that kids love pulling that one super-annoying prank. You know the one where some brat hits all of the buttons on the elevator and then leaves, forcing everyone else to wait while the lift stops at each floor. Yeah, nobody likes that kid.

At Disney, the situation is different. Imagineers want you to play with the buttons. When you’re participating in group-based attractions like Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run and Mission: SPACE, turn all of the knobs and switches.

Who knows what that lever is really meant to do? You may even discover a secretive left for the inquisitive. For example, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad’s line queue harbors a secret. You can blow something up! At Disney, you relish these child-like experiences that your parental figures told you not do. Mickey Mouse encourages you to be yourself and push all the buttons!

Rushing to the next ride

Image: DisneyThink back to when you were young and at a theme/amusement park or carnival. You wanted to do as much stuff as possible before your unforgettable day of adventure ended. That ticking clock felt like your mortal enemy, the thing stopping you from leaving out your heart’s desire.

When you're at Disney, you circle back to those days. You know that you have limited time during your vacation. You want to see and do everything while you're there because you never know when you'll be back. So, you're on the clock from the moment you arrive.

You rush between attractions – never running since that’s illegal at Disney – hoping to find something with that dream combination of short wait-time and maximum fun. You never run to that three o’clock conference call with accounting at work, but you will power walk all the way across Magic Kingdom if you know that Splash Mountain has a 15-minute wait.

Wearing Mouse Ears

Image: DisneyRaise ‘em up! You know that you want to rock the Mouse Ears!

The Mickey Mouse Ears Hat phenomenon dates back to the 1950s. Back then, the Mouseketeers from the Mickey Mouse Club all wore them, causing kids to want to mimic their role models. Amusingly, Roy Williams, the Mouseketeer who looked 45, was the one who invented them. And he really should have patented the concept.

Mickey Mouse Ears Hats are far and away the most popular consumer purchase in the history of the parks. While they were initially quite basic, they now come in all shapes and sizes, and many an Etsy store is predicated on original Mouse Ear designs. Whenever you wear these hats, you feel like you're a part of Disney. It's certainly not a hat you'd ever wear to work, and that's why it's such a satisfying form of apparel-based escapism.