Anybody keep their Disney trips secret from friends and family? My immediate family, wife and two kids have vacationed in WDW and/or Disneyland 10 times since 2006. We got the bug on our 2006 trip when our daughter was 3.5 years old and have never looked back. My kids are now 13 and 15 and they love the Disney parks as much as me.
Currently, I have a 6 day trip planned just with the kids at the end of May/beginning June. My wife is doing an all girls trip to Vegas, so I decided to take the kids back to WDW while she was traveling.
Anyhow, I find that when I mentioned that we are going to Disney, many times it is greeted with derision by co-workers, family or friends. For this trip, I have kept quiet for the most part because I get tired of the comments.
Curious if anyone else has experienced this? The secret will get out eventually when we are on the trip though because I generally post vacation photos on my IG account.
Planned a surprise trip for my husband. We leave Thursday morning and he still has NO idea. We made a video for the big reveal, and thereâs clips of over 40 friends, family, coworkers, and classmates wishing him well, and we are showing it to him tomorrow night. Itâs to celebrate his finishing his first year of nursing school. Started the planning process at the end of last July! The anxiety is killing me, I canât wait til tomorrow when he finally knows!
Yep, it happens all the time. I am sad for them that their premade opinions are inhibiting them from having so much fun, but at the same time donât want to have that kind of people in the parks!
Disney isnât âcoolâ. Itâs for babies and little kids. Itâs prime customer is the soccer moms and their families or new parents with little kids. Why pay such a premium for rides when you can pop over to a 6 flags? Everything is more expensive at Disney.
Thatâs what the uninitiated think. Okay, maybe the last one is true. The problem is that Disney appeals to kids when all the âcool, adultâ stuff is not supposed to be for kids at all. Well, whatâs wrong with doing things your kids love? And whatâs wrong with loving things that kids love?
But the co-workers want to hear about how you backpacked through the Himalayas or went skiing in Colorado or maybe sat on a beach in Cancun getting wasted and partying every night. Thatâs âcoolâ.
No one should make you feel embarrassed about what you do with your private time. Itâs your business, your money and your vacation. And truth be told, half of them are probably envious that you can make those trips while they have to scrimp and save to pay off the cottage they thought would be a cool purchase, when really, itâs just another house with repairs and housework to take care of.
I completely understand what you are saying. I get tired of the eye rolling and âyouâre going to Disney again?!â It mostly comes from my parents. They just donât get Disney. Iâve stopped telling them about most of our trips. I donât need the judgement.
all the time and my kids are fully grown. Guess what⊠I donât care anymore (much) but I catch a bunch of grief every time I say I am going to WDW - annoying, so I get where you are coming from. WDWA (walt disney world anonymous)
YepâŠand it makes me sad. One of our friends has no issue telling us that for what we spend at WDW, we could go on several vacations (which she does) and says she just doesnât get it. This is only our second trip but DH and I are so excited to be going again!
Iâm finding that I donât talk much at all about our trip except with DH and on this site.
I actually posted about this earlier on another thread. My 19 year old son and I love Disney. My husband does not so most of our trips are with other friends and family. While my husband is fine with our trips, I feel like others donât âget itâ! I have booked a trip for September with free dining but told my son to keep it quiet for a while because I didnât want to have to explain why we were going again. Most of the time people say it in jest but it does get a little old. Most of the same people totally love the beach and would go there multiple times a year. To quote Miranda Lambert, âit takes all kinds of kindsâ! Iâm happy to be the Disney kind!!
It makes me feel better that there are others who have non Disney loving husbands. My husband hasnât been on a trip with us in years. He is fine me going with the kids or friends or family. I have twice the amount of vacation time so it works out. But I do get a little jealous of those who have spouses with an equal love for Disney.
Even the âDisney is so expensive!!â line is kind of a misnomer. You can just as easily spend as much or more with planning a vacation with full days of activities. Maybe spending so much time in Norway has skewed my perspective, but I think the amount of activities Disney provides is a decent value.
Ya we get comments like all of the above as well. I still defend Disney though.
My boss went to WDW a while back, he HATED it. I asked him why?
He said "4 lane highways, massive amount of cars in the parking lot, crowds of people even before you get past the gate, line ups like you would not believe, canât get into any good restaurants, too hot, rains everyday, yadda, yadda, yadda.
I asked him if they knew about Rope Drop, FPP+, ADR, Tourplans, (You get the idea)
He knew nothing about any of that.
I told him to quit bashing WDW, it was his own fault that they didnât have a fun time.
Everybody on THIS site will have a great time.(With the odd hic-up)
I donât get it Iâm spending $4200 for 7 days and 6 nights in WDW. That price includes my travel from NJ to FL and back by car 3 nights hotel stay between NJ and FL. DDP, MM, 5 day park hopper for 3 adults and 2 ECV rentals for 7 days. If I was going to take a 7 day cruise for three I would easily spend twice as much with out excursions, a room half the size. I have family that live 20 min. out side of Disney I could have stayed with them for free and they would feed us too for free. This is our big trip before DD finishes school and goes to college. We could have spent a lot less or we could have spent a lot more. Disney is only as expensive as you let it. Trust me I would love to stay at Polly, WL, FW, or AK but we can not afford that for the time we want to spend in the parks. So for us Disney is not too expensive compared to other vacation we could take for what we are getting.
I get those comments. Especially as Iâm approaching 30 with no kids and go with my 63 year old mum. People donât get it. But it doesnât stop me from sharing bits about my plans (probably annoying the hell out of them). I know what I like and they can judge me for that all they want. I think itâs because Iâm so used to the judgement in other areas of my life (Donât date, donât want kids, live with my parents etc etc) that it no longer bothers me
We have just booked our Honeymoon for May 2019 and guess what itâs Disney again! We talked for ages about where we should go and in the end just realised we wanted to go back and having everything there in the resort just makes it a great choice for honeymoon in our eyes. Also we have the option to just lay by the pool in the sun if we want but also to have amazing park days. Fewer comments this time as people just know we are Disney nuts and proud! We feel like for the money itâs a great vacation and with free dining we donât expect to spend much when we are there so easy to budget for.
My husband and I went to WDW for our honeymoon 24 years ago and havenât looked back. We went, on average, every other year until 2007, when we bought DVC. Now we go at least once a year, sometimes twice. We combated the family members that judge by bringing them all on a trip a few years ago. We got 3 two bedroom suites with our DVC points so 30 of us could go to Disney together. Now none of them wonder âwhy we go every yearâ. They get it. Theyâre even planning the next Great Disney Adventure for when star wars land opens (although theyâre on their own for rooms). I donât care so much about co-irkers and other nay-sayers. Itâs the kind of thing that if you donât get it, you donât get it. I have a friend that went with her young daughter and hated it. I told her she did it wrong. So at the end of the day, Iâm judging them.
As for the costs of WDW, I agree with the other commenters, its certainly not cheap, but we go skiing in Colorado regularly as a family and that trip averages $2000 more than a Disney vacation. Lift tickets, equipment rental and the meals on the mountain are more than WDW park tickets and meals in the parks. The accommodations and airfare are a wash. Plus when we ski we rent a car, which I never do at Disney, which is an added expense. And in reality you get more entertainment for your dollar at Disney. There are four theme parks to choose from that are open regularly 8am to midnight with a multitude of things to do - rides or shows, dining. The ski mountain is only open from 8:30 to 4pm and there is only one thing to do - ski.
Anyone could plan a vacation that costs any amount. The trouble with Disney is that is really is IMPOSSIBLE to plan a Disney vacation that isnât expensive, relatively speaking. We have managed to reduce the overall cost of a Disney trip by staying off property (rental condos/homes, eating most meals at said condo, etc). But the fact is, even then, our Disney trips are more expensive than a comparable trip elsewhere.
For example, a few years ago, we did a 5 park, 6-day amusement park trip. That included Six Flags Great America, Six Flags Great Adventure, Kingâs Island, Hershey Park, and Cedar Point. We stayed in hotels and ate mostly in the parks. All told, the trip for 7 of us was about $1000 less than a 6-day trip to Disney where we, as I mentioned, stayed off property, etc. And the types of rides we got to experience were WAY more diverse than Disney.
So, I get it. We still love Disney. Always will. But I get the negativity some feel about it and the price. I donât blame them for that. That was hit perfectly clear when I was talking to a lady recently. She mentioned about how sheâs never been to Disney and doesnât ever see going. When I asked why, she brought up the price and the fact that if she wanted to take her grandkids to a amusement park, she could spend for the ENTIRE GROUP the same price as for a single PERSON at Disney. After doing some calculations, she was right. Disney is not meant for the masses. It is meant for the middle to upper class. So Iâve tried to become more sensitive to the fact that just by talking about a Disney trip may make you have a disconnect with people in a lesser socioeconomic status. I do volunteer work in Detroit, for example, where the average child will spend their entire lives inside the confines of the city and never set foot elsewhere. If they canât even get out of the city, there is no way they are ever getting to see Disney!
But arguing the other side (just to be the devilâs advocate), isnât your bossâs experience what WDW is designed to be? I mean, we all use touring plans and we know the little secrets of how to avoid all of the troubles, lines, and heat⊠but, and the big book discusses this very fact, the reason these tricks work for us, is because only a small minority of visitors to WDW actually use them.
Therefore, the overwhelming majority of WDW visitors, who donât belong to discussion groups, TP website, etc. are having that experience with WDW. I would think most people love WDW because it is so fun and has so much to offer, but I think some of that joy is tempered for the average guest because of those thingsâŠ
This is true. I had a coworker who had done Disney once before, and wasnât thrilled, but now that his kids were a little older, was contemplating a trip back after I was gushing about it. He wondered why, and so then I went through giving him an education about how to âdo Disneyâ. With this new information, he took his family and found the entire experience more enjoyable.
So, yeah. I think that (unfortunately) to guarantee the most enjoyable experience, you really have to be a major planner. Not that you canât/wonât enjoy it otherwiseâŠbut I think it makes it HARDER to enjoy unless you know all the ins and outs. Other amusement parks are far less like that.
