Overrated: Is the Magic Kingdom really all that magical?

Okay, I'll start by admitting that I've been to Walt Disney World a couple of times. Before our first visit, my sisters and I pored over pictures of the Hall of Presidents, the Haunted Mansion, the Disney Castle, and other attractions, plotting the perfect routes to every ride, the ideal sequence of events to maximize the power of our Disney vacation. To the park's credit, it managed to live up to even my incredibly high childhood expectations. In fact, the only down side was my parent's barely-concealed weariness after a few days of wandering around.

A few years later, with my sisters a little older and Epcot offering more mature attractions, my parents agreed to revisit the Magic Kingdom. After a couple of days, I began to understand why Mom and Dad had dragged their feet on our first trip. As my youngest sister led us on a death march tour of Mickey's gulag, I found myself asking if we really needed to take yet another whirl on the teacup ride, once again ride shotgun with Mr. Toad, and be reminded that it's a small world. Standing in line, baking under the brutal Florida sun, I found myself suffering from an existential crisis, doubting the promise that, indeed, Captain Nemo's submarine adventure was really the pinnacle of human experience.

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