Willie Trolove: Super-sized amusement parks more tragic than magic

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Orlando, Florida, is where Americans go to indulge themselves. And when Americans indulge themselves, they do it on the kind of scale that the rest of us can only gawp at with open mouths.

Somewhere in Orlando's endless sprawl is Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede, a multi-tiered restaurant arranged around a vast arena. Dixie Stampede is famous for its dinner and show. The dinner consists of whole tender rotisserie chickens being fed to enthusiastic patrons. Some of the diners have the kind of proportions usually associated with the manufacture of dirigibles.

The show includes racing ostriches, stampeding buffaloes, Starburst the famous quarter-horse stallion, and his rider, Greg the Australian Electric Cowboy (picture the Crocodile Hunter in white with light-bulbs wired to his shorts).

The show finale is a kind of mock civil war where Yankees on horseback and Confederates on horseback sing at each other while battling to get Dolly's breasts into a hammock. I am joking of course. Dolly's breasts would never fit into a hammock.

Just down the road from the Dixie Stampede is the Holy Land Experience, an authentic 6ha recreation of Palestine, where you can worship at Jerusalem's temple, take part in the crucifixion, and visit the cave where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Those who are not religious can socialise with real camels, some of whom aren't farting.

Visitors to the Holy Land Experience get to eat biblical fast food, such as the Goliath Burger, which is so big that just one of them could have sustained Egypt through all of its famines.

The Holy Land Experience cost US$24 million ($37 million) to build, but as Holy Lands go it lacks a bit of authenticity. There are no walls across disputed territory. There are no suicide bombers. There is a noticeable absence of attack helicopters.

But even if this artificial Palestine were more like the real one, it could never compete with Walt Disney World, which is a kind of Holy Land all of its own. Walt started Orlando's amusement park boom back in 1964 when he flew over the undeveloped land south of the city and said something like, "This is it. This is where people from all over the world will come to chow down on smoked turkey legs".

Today, Walt Disney World is four huge amusement parks, two water parks, a shopping centre and a sprawling suburban utopia called Celebration. Disney World is so big that it has its own motorway network, its own integrated public transport system and its own way of stating the blindingly obvious.

"Warning," the signs say, "supervise your children. Warning: this theatre has steps and slopes in it. Warning: ice cream contains frozen product. Warning: this haunted ghost ride has dark enclosed spaces that may frighten children," and my favourite, "Warning: if you suffer from motion sickness, this roller-coaster ride may not be advisable."

Most people ignore the warnings at the Magic Kingdom, the oldest and most traditional of Disney's amusement parks. They are too busy scrambling onto rides, shovelling down cheeseburgers, or having their photos taken with Tigger.

The Magic Kingdom has 50 rides and shows. The only way to get around them all is to turn the day into a 14-hour endurance race involving map-reading, speed-walking, steroids and about 4000 hours of queuing.

Actually, it doesn't involve steroids, but the smoked turkey legs are so big that they should be tested for them.

The endurance race is worth it, if only to watch people who have eaten way too many whole tender rotisserie chickens heaving their way across Tomorrowland in a kind of frenzied slow motion. Ah yes, few places in the world are as magical as this. Few places are so thick with joy. Few places are so alive with children smiling, laughing and throwing up in giant rotating teacups.

The winners of the 14-hour endurance race get around all of the Magic Kingdom's attractions in a single day and take home several armloads of valuable all-American Disney merchandise made in China. The losers collapse with chest pains.

Luckily, Disney is prepared for this. Back at the hotel there are automatic defibrillator machines on every floor. Defibrillators are the electric-shock devices that TV doctors use to revive patients who have collapsed from excessive overacting.

In Disney's Pop-Century Hotel, the defibrillators are installed within stumbling distance of the snack dispensers. They are a sure sign that Disney World can be more of a tragic kingdom than a magic one.