What It’s Like to Revisit Walt Disney World as a Young Adult

The first time I visited Disney World, midway through the doldrums of elementary school in the mid-2000s, it looked very, very different. Countless rides and experiences were frozen in amber in my young mind, long before they would get updated or revamped altogether to reflect Disney’s ever-growing portfolio of movies and shows. The company’s acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars were still years away from becoming a reality, much less leading to new landmark attractions at the parks. Social media had not yet consumed so many facets of our lives, reshaping the way we immortalize and savor the special moments that could occur at a theme park. For years, I simply survived off of the memories of my first Disney World trip, subconsciously telling myself that I would experience all those differences for myself way down the line, most likely once I have a child of my own. Thanks to the Young Adults Magical Moments Event, a multi-day excursion hosted by Disney, I was able to remedy that much sooner — and it was nothing short of unbelievable.

Aimed at adults who had either never been to Disney World or hadn’t been for quite some time, the Young Adults Magical Moments Event took us across all four of Disney World’s parks, as well as the Disney Springs shopping center. With a mix of group events and free time, we were able to experience a pretty comprehensive portrait of what the park currently has to offer (while, of course, leaving a handful of rides or experiences for an inevitable “next time.”) Some of our trip’s itinerary — like a lavish lunch at Magic Kingdom’s Beauty and the Beast-themed Be Our Guest restaurant, a private photoshoot at EPCOT, or Animal Kingdom’s Caring for Giants elephant tour  — absolutely would not have crossed my mind if I had been planning this trip myself. We also had a handful of experiences that aren’t immediately possible for the average park attendee, like private viewings of each evening’s fireworks show and a photo op inside the front section of one of Disney’s iconic monorails. 

While I definitely highly recommend each of those events to a millennial Disney World attendee, if they are financially feasible and/or on your personal Disney bucket list, the variety presented on the trip made it clear that there is no one way to have a “perfect” experience at the park. The ideal Disney trip is going to look different for everybody — and depending on how much planning and money you want to put into it, it’s pretty easy to achieve something close to it. The two marquee highlights of my visit were my stints on Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance — two attractions that, if left to my own devices, I would have gladly curated my whole day around, even if that meant purchasing the ideal Lightning Lane pass or standing in line for an hour or more.

That freedom to program a Disney trip to your liking — without the bright-eyed frenzy of attending as a kid, or the sense of responsibility to create the perfect experience for your own kid — proved to be one of the standout qualities of attending as a young adult. You’re able to be attuned to your own tastes and preferences, knowing exactly what you want to prioritize, or which favorite character you desperately need to buy merchandise for. You’re able to experience all of the fun of the park while simultaneously listening to your body — whether that looks like hydrating at any available opportunity, eating around any dietary restrictions (it doesn’t hurt that the parks do have an ever-growing number of plant-based or dairy-free options), and pacing yourself through attempts to “drink around the world” at EPCOT. But at the same time, there’s an opportunity to embark with a sense of curiosity and absorb whatever parts of the park you want. As someone who loves history podcasts and YouTube explainers, the quieter attractions like Carousel of Progress and Spaceship Earth took on a new and informative meaning that never once felt like “homework.” Magic Kingdom’s PeopleMover proved to be a surprise MVP of our trip, both for the brief reprieve it could offer us from walking, and for the opportunity it gave us to people-watch and learn a bit more about Tomorrowland.

Amid the autonomy and exploration of being a young adult at Disney World, I also was surprised by how easy it was to tap back into a sense of childlike wonder. Even though my adult eyes can appreciate the architectural feats of Cinderella’s castle or Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, I could still be immersed in the sights and sounds without any hesitation. Both Cosmic Rewind and Rise of the Resistance, which brought to life unbelievably lifelike recreations of franchises I have loved my entire adult life, legitimately moved me to tears. On the flip side, I was equally affected by the nostalgia of all three fireworks shows (especially Magic Kingdom’s Happily Ever After), which gloriously incorporated Disney songs that I haven’t heard in decades. The concept of reconnecting with or healing your “inner child” has been in the social media vernacular for years now, and Disney World does feel like one of the last major cultural monoliths where that can freely happen. All weekend, the only time I felt an emotion akin to my anxiety-prone daily adult life was being nervous about my slight fear of heights while in the queue for Avatar: Flight of Passage. (A ride that was such an unprecedented technological feat, it proved to be well worth conquering my nerves.)

One of the core themes of the Young Adults Magical Moments Event was looking for “the moments between”: the memories that form out of quieter or unexpected parts of your Disney trip. Across our weekend-long event at Disney World, completing that task was both effortless and required a lot of intentionality — a balance that, arguably, can be best achieved by a young adult attendee. Whether it was spotting a child with the same exact Jesse doll from Toy Story 2 that I once had, or recommending an EPCOT drink to a passing park-goer on the monorail, the smaller instances of camaraderie were as impactful to me as the grandiose spectacle. It was not only a restorative and worthwhile vacation from everyday life, but it allowed me to appreciate just how much I, and Disney World itself, have grown for the better across the past few decades.