Back in the before times I bought a ticket to MK After Hours. Worrying about the very late end to the event, and mindful of the journey back to the private home I was staying in, I booked a single night at the Poly. I paid $500 for that one night. I was given a terrible room and it rained most of the time I was there. I took no advantage of staying at the Poly itself, e.g. using the pool. I had assumed that I would at least be able to take the monorail back to the resort after the event. Nope: they were only running buses that late.
Hiring a car. Coming from the other side of the world with over 30hours of travel time (aka. been awake for nearly 48 hours straight), arriving around dusk when my vision is a mess for an hour or so and trying to drive on the wrong side of the road (not actually the biggest problem, more so that the indicator and wipers were in reverse locations) with the craziness of the insane driving that occurs around Disney… We didn’t use the car again after the first night.
TL Speedway. They really should rename it, it’s rather false advertising.
Doing TS at basically every meal because we had the dxddp
Not being able to hear the audio for illuminations
Not knowing the arcade at dinoland existed
Not having more time to explore the non-park area
Not getting to explore tom sawyer island properly due to partial closure
But above all, that I won’t be able to get back there for several years yet.
Thinking that I could find fireworks viewing for my party of 7 within an hour of fireworks. Yes, I was one of those people crying and not from joy. I had done all this planning and yet…
I’m sure we made a monetary blunder at some point or some kind of big time waster, but the one that stays with me the most: feeling some sprinkles on our first park day at DHS on our first big family visit and saying, “it’s light, we don’t need the ponchos.” They were right on me in the backpack
Cue us all being soaked to the bone for the rest of the day because by the time we realized we did in fact need the ponchos, the sky had already opened up.
Mine is essentially the same - the time we carried our ponchos with us for two weeks around UOR and WDW and never needed them once. Then left them in the stroller when we went to Tom Sawyer Island, unaware that by the time we were sailing back, it would be raining buckets on all of us with no choice but to take it. Followed by the most miserably cold and expensive dinner at BoG.
Nevertheless, it is one of the memories that sticks out and we laugh about it. And the kids really loved seeing Beast at the castle. So perhaps it was all worth it.
I didn’t join TP until our second trip, so on our first trip we were following advice from guide books.
One guide told me that the characters would still be in the train station after the welcome show and to go there first and to take a loop on the train to get your bearings in the park.
As you will know, that was all utter BS.
So anyway, our first ever time at MK and our first ever RD we went straight for the train where there were no characters and worst still, no fecking train for about 20 minutes
Hmm, no major ones but maybe trying to squeeze 4 parks into 2 days with small kids on one trip. We still had fun but it was exhausting.
Oh and choosing to stay at BC instead of Poly when both were an option. This might seem like a strange one, but BC had construction going on, our room request was not honored and we ended up as far from the lobby as possible, and altogether it just didn’t feel that magical. I think my expectations were just too high. Poly is our absolute favorite and for our relatively short and rare trips, being in the bubble is increasingly important.
There have been many rope drops where I have made the wrong choice, but where I couldn’t have know that upfront. Like when we decided to RD test track and it was closed so we proceeded to Frozen and it was also closed so we backtracked to … Soarin’? I think. Total waste of a rope drop.
And so many times where I have bailed from a line only for the ride to reopen immediately. Or where we chose to stay in line and it took like an hour for the ride to resume operation.
You got me thinking of 2022 at the Christmas party. We spent 30 minutes in line waiting for SM. Not a ride I typically do, but wanted to see the holiday layover. It broke down, so we went to the 20 minute line at 7DMT and it took an hour. Wasted valuable Christmas party time.
In December 2019, I had Trattoria al Forno and 1900 Park Fare booked for breakfast/brunch on our last day. Trattoria had characters at that time-Rapunzel and Flynn, Ariel and Prince Eric. I stupidly cancelled Trattoria and had breakfast at 1900 Park Fare instead. (We’d previously eating at 1900 two prior times). I’m still kicking myself for that decision since the characters never returned to Trattoria.
On our second trip we were there for Thanksgiving. I think we were staying at GDT. I booked Artist Point for dinner on Thanksgiving, followed by the dessert party at MK. Thought it would be great to park at WL and boat back and forth to MK instead of dealing with the TTC. Except on the way out of MK, I accidentally went the wrong way and we ended up on a boat to Ft. Wilderness. It was late and everything was shut down. The boat driver said there would probably be a resort boat coming. We sat there on the dock with 3 exhausted small children for 20 - 30 minutes before one finally came. I was genuinely starting to panic!
On the post Covid days I had made plans (and park reservations) for AK in the AM and hopping to DHS in the PM. I ended up staying at AK until almost midnight at an after hours event the night before, and decided to sleep in and skip AK in the AM and just go to DHS in the PM. I got to DHS and my MB wouldn’t work. I needed to at least swipe my band at AK to activate my PH ticket. I went to guest services and the rudest CM I’ve ever encountered did his computer magic and I didn’t have to go all the way to AK, but it was still a stupid mistake.
My first trip was in 1998, and the advice I got was that at rope drop, go to your left. Most people will go right or ride what is directly in front on them, but if you go left, you’ll find the shortest lines.
So on our first day, we went to EPCOT, and at rope drop I went left. Nearly everyone in line either went straight to Spaceship Earth or went right to whatever was there at the time (this was before Soarin’, so must have been Figment I guess), but I went left by myself and rope dropped…Ellen’s Universe of Energy.
I actually enjoyed the Universe of energy in its first 1980s iteration. I think adding Ellen and Bill Nye the Science Guy cheapened the experience. At the time it opened, the tech behind it was revolutionary and the middle section with the dinosaurs was a dream come true for a guy who has always loved dinosaurs. But it was more educational than entertainment, and God forbid there might be education in a 21st century Disney park…
Mine is general forgetfulness. Despite a dozen plus trips to WDW I still think I can flit to and fro wherever I wish with ease and speed. Particularly in Epcot which always leads to us speedwalking through the WS trying to make it to our ADR on time.
And I’m glad GotG replaced it. But it was fun for what it was.