My Year With The Mouse

As commenter and former cast member Jamie pointed out, the South Seas Traders store is located in between the Middle East (Bazaar) and Africa (Indy), which makes Disneyland’s conceptual geography even more…creative.

Fake apartments up there, too! They're everywhere!

So I’ll admit it, I didn’t really have a grasp on where the South Seas supposedly are. I mean, I thought they were in the Pacific and obviously south of here, but that was about as far as I got. So I used my Standard Research Methodology (3 minutes on Google) and found the following definition on the always-reliable Wikipedia:

South Sea or South Seas may refer to:

Geographic region of the Pacific

• The Pacific Ocean south of Panama
• South Sea Islands (Polynesia)
• Oceania, east of Australia

On a side note, I’m currently working on my critical thesis for my graduate program and I’m really trying to use as much Wikipedia material as humanly possible, since it’s such a reliable, fact-based source. What could possibly go wrong with that approach?

Kidding.

Anyway, so it looks like the definition of “South Seas” is, um, very large. I mean, there’s a whole lot of “Pacific ocean south of Panama.” That’s like saying “Yeah, I’m going to tour the Southern Hemisphere.” Confusing things even more is the “South Seas Island Resort” located in the Pacific ocean south of Panama  South Sea Islands (Polynesia)  Oceania, east of Australia  Captiva, Florida.

Hunh.

Well, the Disneyland version also seems to have a bit of a geographical identity crisis in addition to being situated between the Middle East and Africa. Some of the decor hints at vaguely Polynesian-themed items:

The sign for "assorted tropical fruit" is a lie. They do not sell assorted tropical fruit in this store.

The cash register area seems to suggest some sort of aboriginal flair???

Aboriginal where?

I have no idea why I took this picture:

This doesn't even really SHOW anything except a rather awkward angle of a cast member

There’s a fake boat rental window, which is probably good because I’m just not sure I’d want to hit the Pacific Ocean south of Panama in a boat that came from here:

Are there any schooners available? No? Damn.

Disneyland all but admits their difficulty in pinning down where exactly the South Seas are by decorations like this:

What is this even supposed to be?

Oh, wait a minute…hold the phone! So it looks like in the back of this inexplicable display there’s a sign for a ferry to Antigua, Barbados, and Curaco, as well as what looks like “Caribe” (the Caribbean) at the top.

I mean really Disney, geography was never my strong suit, but I’m pretty sure that the Caribbean Islands are located in the Caribbean Sea, which is definitely NOT in the Pacific Ocean, nor is it on or near the South Seas Islands aka Polynesia, or anywhere NEAR Oceania and/or Australia. And they are certainly not south of Panama.

I’m so confused.