Disney Disappointments

I had one of those December weeks in 40s at Disney once. When you travel to Florida from a cold area, it is such a bummer.

Unfortunately it took me too long to cancel that subscription. Last week DD5 asked me who my girlfriends were before DW and why I didn’t marry them. That one was easy.

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Thank you for making it mentally easier to cancel WDW trips :slight_smile: That sounds awful!

My worst 2:

  1. My first trip as a kid a LOOONG time ago. MK fireworks. I was too short to see anything. Way too crowded. I was looking at everyone’s butt the entire time, with only a glimpse of a flash of light in the sky every few minutes. In turn, however, I made sure my younglings had prime views at dessert parties. Also, whenever trying to view a spectacle in a crowd, I will always watch out for kids that have that “I can’t see anything” look, and try to get them situated better, if I can. When I see adults standing in front of kids for no reason, I want to ask them who raised them. I honestly, to this day, STILL feel slighted because of that experience when I was a kid. (I’m the runt of the family, and I’m 6’.)

  2. Waiting for an Animal Kingdom bus for AM EMH. Don’t get me started on that one. Do NOT. Bus drivers should be allowed to issue Fastpasses when they KNOW they are way behind. I know it’s no guarantee on the bus times, but an HOUR is much different than 20 or 30 minutes. In my world it is, anyway.

Thankfully we’ve never gotten sick, or for that matter, really nothing too bad has happened to us in the grand scheme of life. Knock on wood…

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There would be too many FPs if this were permitted! Lots of late bus experiences.

Ha! That reminds me: we’re happily spending our week at WDW in the bubble when along about Thursday someone* throws out “are you concerned about that storm?” :hushed::flushed::unamused:

*no idea who. It might have been a person in line to someone else in line. But that question certainly prompted quick weather research and sure enough, ice storm thru northern Arkansas and right across our route home.

After much perusal of maps and routes and forecast discussions - leave early, get in front of the storm, stay extra days - we left as scheduled and went home to central Missouri by way of Texas and Oklahoma.

The extra day on the road wasn’t anything compared to that heart stopping moment when the bubble breaks and the other world rudely intrudes.

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2017 - DS came down with a fever while aboard the Disney Dream for our 4 day cruise. He and DH spend most of the trip in the room. My DH insisted my niece and I still go and do the sea lion experience we had booked at Nassau but it wasn’t the same. He felt better for our Disney portion and DH felt so bad that bought him a giant Stitch.

2019 - I started off the trip by spraining my big toe a few days before. Our flight was delayed by about 6 hours and we missed the Disney After Hours I had booked as a result. By the end of the trip, I was sick as a dog. I ended up calling the airline at 2am on the morning of our departure day trying to find a flight home asap. We hopped on the first flight out of MCO and my mom (who picked us up at the airport) dropped me off at Urgent Care on the way home - pneumonia.

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Some I can think of:

  1. Obviously cancelling a trip that would’ve been in a week from now…

  2. Back in around 2002-2003 (I think) we went to Pleasure Island for NYE with my wife (then girlfriend), it was basically a low crowd of middle aged people but still long lines for food and drinks. It wasn’t exactly for 20-somethings :joy:

  3. Not being able to ride Rise of the Resistance last december. I planned everything around it but the ride went down around noon, not too many boarding groups before mine. I had mistakenly left HS for our last day of a short trip, so I was out of luck…

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I’ve never told anyone this. I thought I’d take it to my grave.

In the summer of 2018 I stayed one night at the Poly. I paid $600. For one night. The room was cold and tatty with no view. And it rained the whole time I was there. I will never, ever forgive WDW for selling me such an unconscionably overpriced, shamefully inadequate product. And, no, I’m not joking. Not about this. (OK, my italicised intro was slightly humorous.)

My other disappointment was Christmas 2019. I booked MVMCP. And then I booked a second one as an insurance policy in case the first one was rained out. I’d attended MNSSHP in 2017 and it rained the whole time and the parade and fireworks were delayed and they cut the headless horseman. It was my last night and it was literally a damp squib.

So I made sure that wouldn’t happen again by booking two MVMCPs. Just as well I did: it rained during the first one. Not heavy rain — everything went on as planned, but it spoilt the atmosphere. Luckily I had my second one. The rain was so heavy during that one we ended up trapped in Cosmic Ray’s for two hours and WDW refunded our tickets without us even needing to ask.

I will never forgive Walt Disney for not buying land in Nevada.

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My first Disney disappointment was when I was 11 at Disneyland. We were there for like 5 days, and on the last day we were going to see the brand new Fantasmic show that I had been begging my parents to take us to (11-year olds are always tapped into marketing).

We ate breakfast at Denny’s and when we got to the park, I was feeling sick. I threw up off the edge of the Disneyland Railroad before it even left the station. The janitor who cleaned it up said “usually people throw up after the ride starts moving.”

I threw up again at the bathroom outside the Beauty and the Beast stage show between Fantasyland and Toontown. My sister stayed with me at the hotel the rest of the day. I missed Fantasmic, which everyone told me was the best thing since sliced bread. “I told you so!” I replied, resentful that we hadn’t gone earlier in the trip. I didn’t see it for a couple years after that.

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We actually didn’t like Fantasmic at Disneyland. I think it is because we stood very near the smoking section the first time we saw it! We enjoyed it more at WDW.

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I’ve had several disappointments regarding WDW:

  1. we went to WDW for Christmas 2004. On the day before Christmas Eve, we rode all kinds of rides at different parks: Teacups, Kali River Rapids (3 times); Star Tours; and a few others. Well, the next day I woke up so dizzy that I couldn’t sit up at all. My whole family stayed in with me on Christmas Eve, but I did make DH take the two older kids to MK on Christmas Day. We ended up getting a doctor to the room. He gave me some med that helped get me back up and in the parks, but it was some time before I felt normal again. I was able to go to MK on the 26th for our little one’s 3rd birthday breakfast at Crystal Palace, but I ended up going back to the resort with DD3. DH took the other two back to MK. I missed two good days in the parks, missed seeing the Living Seas completely, and it started a horrible precedent of vertigo which has only gotten worse with age. Sigh.

  2. we had a trip planned for 2006 that we had to cancel fir some reason.

  3. DH and I had a trip schedule in July 2019 that we had to cancel. :frowning:

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Maybe that’s it. The smoking.
I strongly preferred it at DLR. We felt so close.
We did each PM entertainment once (WOC was dark) and had our last night to repeat and the family chose F!

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On my first trip to WDW on New Years 1990 we never got to ride Space Mountain. I was 13 and an big reader so before the trip I read my mom’s unofficial guide from cover to cover. I know that the line for Space Mountain built quickly and stayed long. This was before any sort of fast passes. We plan to skip it on our first MK day since that was New Year’s Day and ride on our second day at MK later that week. Of course that never happened because unknown to us, SM went down for annual refurbishment the day we planned to ride. That was the big ride I wanted to do because the unofficial guide (plus probably commercials) made it sound so cool. It was 19 years later before I finally got to ride.

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This is mine as well, but substitute January at Disneyland for December at Disney World. I had an AP which was set to expire about 10 days after ROTR opened at DLR. I planned this last minute trip with just one day in the park (Sunday a week after it opened). We were staying near DD20’s college campus so had to get up absurdly early to drive down to DLR. We got there and were waiting for the parking garage to open. Our lane was the only lane that didn’t split into several lanes as it entered the garage. We were there by 6:00. We didn’t get out of the car until after 7:00. Then we got to the esplanade and lines were so long they snaked from DL to DCA and back and back again. We started pushing toward the center and hopping into shorter lines, but we still were unable to get into the park by 8:00 AM and the BG drop. I was on the point of tears. (Found out later they did not open the turnstiles as early as they had been. Lots of us were left out in the cold.) We were in about 8:05 and immediately tried for a BG and got a backup one! I was back in good spirits! I can’t remember exactly which number we had, but based on recent days, I was fairly confident we would ride. We kept checking the BG’s called as the day progressed, all was well, until about 1:00 PM when the ride went down. And mostly stayed down for the entire afternoon. They did eventually get through all of the regular BG’s, but no backup groups were called. I was devastated. What a first world problem, eh? We scheduled a backup trip for April to try again. Um … you know how that turned out. But then in August, we decided to throw caution to the wind and booked a week at WDW. We rode three times. So even my disappointment is not that disappointing any more.

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How are you feeling?

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I’m doing okay but definitely feel sick still. I think Monday was the worst day, though. My younger daughter tested negative so we’ve been trying to keep her separated from me and DD20. That’s the hardest part. Thanks for asking. :blush:

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We’ve had a few. Two stand out.

DH got pneumonia before a trip. He would not let me cancel. I only agreed to go if he agreed to nap with the baby each day. He and DS took 4 hour naps every day we were there. But otherwise he did really well!

A few trips back my DD (then 18 or 19) broke her foot the first day of the trip jumping off a bunk bed. She was in a wheelchair the entire trip. Pushing her in June heat was not fun when we were not used to pushing a wheelchair.

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Welcome to the forum and for jumping in to share a story!

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Oh, I’ve been lurking for over 6 years, lol.

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