Squeal of joy, the kind that parents can pay for but not buy. "Oh, Daddy!" the five-year-old said, staring out at the magic monorail, "thank you so much for bringing me here!" The boy's father must have wondered what he or Walt Disney Co. could do for an encore. The family's vacationland adventure had just begun; in fact, they were still at Orlando International Airport, in transit from the arrivals lounge to baggage claim. It is the challenge of any parent accompanying a child to central Florida: making sure rapturous expectations are not soured by the long lines, infant attention spans and high technology on the fritz. Standing at the entrance to Orlando's Sea World, another father tried to tamp his daughter's restless anticipation: "Hyper down, honey--we're only gonna see a lot of fish."
Theme parks? No: dream parks. Fish never looked more adorably anthropomorphic than they do performing at the three Sea World parks in Orlando, San Diego, and Aurora, Ohio. Appalachian cabins never gleamed so spiffily as at Dolly Parton's new Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. Country music rarely sounded so all-fired wholesome as it does at Nashville's Opryland. No city zoo ever boasted rides like the Congo River Rapids, the Stanleyville Falls flume or the vertigo-inducing Scorpion--all to be found at Busch Gardens in Tampa. Early Christians never found accommodations as plush as the ones at the "21st century Christian campground" of Heritage USA near Fort Mill, S.C. As for the twin fountainheads of theme parks--Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., and the gigantic Walt Disney World outside Orlando--they offer nothing less than a dream of America as it once or never was: a homogenized, turn-of-the-century village propelled into the future by space- age science and the relentless optimism of its founding dreamer.
This summer America's theme parks expect their best season ever. Gas prices are stable in the U.S.; the dollar buys less abroad. The dark cloud radiating from Chernobyl is discouraging some tourists: "We postponed a trip to Scandinavia on account of the nuclear fallout," says Jack Arlitt, 66, who chose to see Opryland instead with his wife Oleis. Many others who might have planned a jaunt to Britain or the Continent are scared tripless by visions of Europe as a nightmare fantasyland filled with terrorists.
And so events have conspired to keep Americans at home, while European and Asian tourists can feel at home abroad visiting Disney World's ersatz Eiffel Tower, Piazza San Marco and Japanese pagoda. Between March and September, U.S. amusement parks and theme attractions will have lured 235 million visitors through the turnstiles (average admission: $10) for a robust brand of professional patriotism. During the show at Florida Cypress Gardens, 30 miles from Disney World, a stunt man gliding high above the crowd effuses, "One thing I can see from here--or from any height--is that America sure is beautiful."