Disneyland vs. Disney World

That’s a popular topic – Disneyland vs. Disney World. For us it was also Orlando vs. Anaheim. Florida vs. California. East Cosat vs. West Coast.

For those of you who have read our blog or book, Two4Disney: the 10 Year Celebration (now retired), you already know this story. But for those just landing here, I thought I’d give a little recap of our California to Florida moving adventures.

I grew up 8 miles from Disneyland so when we first went to Walt Disney World in 1999 as a couple, we fell in love with WDW and the environs – at least the environs we imagined were just an extension of Disney. We made plans to one day move to Florida from our then home in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2003, we seized the opportunity. We moved to Orlando without jobs, but it soon became clear that the jobs were in Tampa Bay at that time, so after 7 weeks in Orlando we moved to Tampa.

As beach lovers, we adjusted quite well to Tampa Bay and Tampa is more of a cosmopolitan city with better services and all-around daily life than Orlando. But after traveling the 70 miles to WDW every 3 or 4 weeks, we still longed to live outside the gates of WDW. When Rich began telecommuting on a regular basis, he asked if he could telecommute from Orlando and his employer said yes.

A long-time California artist friend and Disney lover said, “So, you’re telecommuting from the Magic Kingdom” and little did we know how true that would be. We sold our house in Tampa and rented a townhouse just 2 miles from the Magic Kingdom. Unfortunately, we learned that was a little too close – if you can believe it. The nightly fireworks were like gunfire exploding overhead and the cats would hide under the bed and we learned not to go to bed until after the fireworks.

It was a jam-packed year. I not only blogged for the Orlando Sentinel, but I worked  in the I.T. Department at Team Disney as a consultant. While there I met interesting people, and had special tours and peeks into behind-the-scenes. They were impressed that I had seen Walt Disney at Disneyland when I was just a kid. But working for Disney was spoiling my enjoyment of WDW, and I decided to curtail the length of my contract.

Anyway, after a full year of that we realized we weren’t all that comfortable in Orlando and were homesick for the west. But every time we were on Disney property we couldn’t imagine ever leaving this magical place. But as soon as we drove off property, as soon as we turned the corner, we knew we didn’t want to stay there.

We’re now living in Las Vegas just 4 hours from Disneyland and we go to Disneyland often. But we miss having such access to Disney and we ponder whether we should move even closer – back to my childhood home town near Disneyland – or move back all the way across the country and live near Disney World again. Each choice has a big gotcha.

It all comes down to Orange County, California or Orange County, Florida. Disneyland or Disney World. Florida or California. Because in our hearts we want both. We are truly Califloridians.