This Is 50
Get Your Theme Park On
If you thought your amusement park days were behind you, think again. Park operators have added plenty of features to appeal to nostalgic empty nesters ... and just regular adults. Here are some of the offerings
DISNEY
Get Festive: Visit EPCOT in Central Florida for themed festivals. Celebrate arts and the holidays in the winter, flowers and gardens in the spring, and food and wine in the summer and fall. On the West Coast, check out Disneyland’s Sweethearts’ Nite.
UNIVERSAL
Take Fright: Enjoy a good scare? Check out Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights, with over-the-top haunted houses, masked actors with chainsaws, fire-wielding performers and more. Universal also has an immersive horror experience in Las Vegas.
SIX FLAGS
Off-Road It: Six Flags is known for its roller coasters, but its New Jersey location offers a different kind of wild ride. The Wild Safari experience features open-air vehicles that allow passengers to observe elephants, rhinos, giraffes, lions and other animals.
BUSCH GARDENS
Enjoy the Ride: For roller coaster enthusiasts, Busch Gardens offers a behind-the-scenes tour. Explore the control room that launches the coasters, learn about how the rides are maintained and get front-of-line access to experience them for yourself.
SEAWORLD AND DISCOVERY COVE
Take a Dip: Experience a 30-minute session with bottlenose dolphins in a shallow lagoon at Discovery Cove in Orlando, Florida. Or head to nearby SeaWorld for up-close tours with penguins, sea lions, beluga whales and other marine life. —Chris Morris
55% of Gen Xers who have the opportunity to work remotely say they are most productive when they’re not in the office. That’s the highest share of any generation.
SOURCE: MATHER INSTITUTE’S “THE GEN XPERIENCE” REPORT
NOSTALGIA
7 Things Gen Xers Got Away With
THE WORLD has changed—a lot of it in ways that feel less like progress and more like a software update nobody asked for but everyone had to install. Here are seven everyday things we used to get away with in the Before Times.
1. Roaming the neighborhood unsupervised The rules were simple: Be home when the streetlights came on. Between dawn and dusk, your adventures were your own.
2. Doing something incredibly stupid and then denying it happened You could make a fool of yourself in public, and it wouldn’t follow you for the rest of your life because the entire world wasn’t walking around with tiny cameras.
3. Driving without GPS and just sort of ... figuring it out You got lost. You asked for directions. Sometimes you never truly knew where you were, but you eventually arrived somewhere.
4. Making plans with no way to update them You said, “Meet you at the mall at 7,” and that was it. If someone was late, you just stood there, slowly aging.
5. Recording songs off the radio for your mixtape Half the track had a DJ talking over it, the timing was always slightly off, and you were still incredibly proud of it.
6. Letting the TV raise you after school You got home, turned on the television and stayed there until a parent appeared or hunger forced you into the kitchen.
7. Learning things from older kids who were often wrong This is how myths were born.
—Corey Levitan and Eric Spitznagel
Go to aarp.org/GenXkids for more ’80s and ’90s nostalgia.