As the lights dim in Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, the famous Paul Frees narration begins.

“Welcome, foolish mortals, to the Haunted Mansion,” he intones. “I am your host your ghost host. Kindly step all the way in please, and make room for everyone. There’s no turning back now.”

If you are lucky, you can listen to Frees’ chilling voice as it was intended. But nine times out of 10, someone talks along, mimicking Frees’ iconic cadence. This isn’t a new phenomenon but we’re long past the point of calling out Disney guests who selfishly do this.

No one comes to Disneyland with a dream of hearing random strangers recite voice-overs. Just because you’ve been on a ride enough times to memorize the spiel doesn’t mean others have. It’s one thing to laugh, clap or otherwise quietly enjoy an attraction. It’s quite another to become a distraction.

For some, Disneyland could be a once-in-a-lifetime trip, so you may be tainting someone’s first and only opportunity to enjoy the theme park.

Talking on rides doesn’t just extend to mimicking voice-overs. It’s been years since I’ve enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean in silence. There’s always a party in one of the rows chatting about dinner plans or catching up on Sharon’s latest dating drama. First-timers are at the mercy of regulars who apparently view the experience as a moving park bench. If your conversation can’t wait 15 minutes, you shouldn’t be getting on a ride.

On a recent trip, the group behind me full-grown adults who had met up after work spent the bayou scene arguing about how loud they should scream on the ride’s upcoming drop. Later, on “it’s a small world,” a dad with his kids began aggressively shifting his weight back and forth to make the boat rock. Another adult in his party laughed along as he proceeded to ruin the ride for everyone else and model terrible behavior for the next generation of Disney guests sitting beside him.

This erosion of social niceties seems to have accelerated after the pandemic. A March Pew Research Center study found that nearly half of Americans believe people are ruder in public than they were before 2020. Perhaps part of the problem is that some people forgot that leaving your house means agreeing to a basic rule: What you enjoy in the privacy of your home may not be what I want to experience, too. I presume the people talking on rides are the same ones who have loud phone conversations on the train or look at their bright phone screens during movies.

So to those lucky enough to visit Disney parks on a regular basis, we have a request: Remember the first time you experienced a ride. Would you want that memory shaded by the incessant chattering of some thoughtless adults? Disneyland isn’t your living room. We’d all appreciate it if you stopped treating it that way.