Describe your WORST travel companion.

[cassiez76]

i've only been on 2 trips where i wasn't with family...HS grad trip and college friends.

HS grad trip was the worst. i hadn't been to wdw in about 8 years at that point and my friends weren't interested in rides and wandering around MK. i ditched them early and did every ride that was open that night! sure i wanted to be with friends but my parents didn't bust their butts to save up for my trip for me not to ride anything. best and worst trip in one.

i just go with immediate family, i don't want to have to kill somebody on vacation at my fav. place!

 

[disnut8]

My husband's aunt. This woman had never been to Disney World so told her sister (my mother-in-law) that she wanted to go "before I die". The woman is only in her early 60s so that's not going to happen soon. My in-laws, the dear people they are, offered to pay for the aunt to go with them. I was to plan the whole thing but I wasn't going. So I planned and got the tickets and the hotel (Pop Century). At the time the three of them were going, I was unemployed so my mother-in-law offered for me to go along as well. I had an Annual Pass so no big deal on the cost since now it was four people.

The aunt had to have her own room (remember, she was paying for nothing) because she snored and didn't want to bother anyone else. My mother-in-law wanted all of us in one room because of the extra expense but the aunt insisted. Once we were there, this is what the aunt told me (after I had repeatedly asked her what she wanted to do so I could plan a bit and she never responded):

She didn't want to go on anything that was "for kids".
She didn't want to see any parades or fireworks because they were "boring"
She didn't want to walk that far
She didn't want to go on anything that involved water

While there, I found out that she did not like waiting for anything (buses included), that she absolutely thought preshows were "stupid" and that if we were admitted to an attraction, we should be able to go right in, she didn't want to be hot and she didn't want to be cold, she didn't like other people doing anything she didn't like and spoke rather loudly about it, and she would much rather be swimming than walking around anywhere.

Nothing seemed to please the woman so after the second day, I gave up and just followed her around. We didn't see all that much and only went to Magic Kingdom because my mother-in-law thought we should go at least for the aunt to see it. And we saw Illuminations only because my mother-in-law wanted to (it's her favorite nighttime show).

And the food cost too much but that didn't stop the aunt from eating the most expensive thing on the menu. She would just loudly say how much it cost (after taking the receipt from my father-in-law's hands to cluck over it) while chowing down on her bacon double cheeseburger.

After the trip, my father-in-law very politely said that Disney World was not for the aunt at all.

 

[kschafer]

I went with my parents, brothers, SIL's and neices/nephews (15 total)

Somehow between my older brother and his wife, they could only watch their infant child. their 2 older children were assumed to be with one of the rest of the group. More than once, our group got split up entering a theater show and my brother turned to me and said "is Carrie with Dad?".

Gee bro...I got my 2 kids, yours aren't my job!

 

[liamkelly]

my mom, evry half an hour she has to go to the bathroom. when we get in the parks she just walks around and has no clue what she is doing . walks slower than a turtle and has to stop and take a picture at evrything she see's

 

[Pixie Princess]

Best: My Momma, who cried every time she saw the castle. She would tear up and tell me Magic happened at Disney, and that Magic could happen anywhere if you just believed. My mother had incurable cancer and fought it for eight years before she passed. Mom died when I was 16, and I am so thankful for all those wonderful Disney memories she gave to me.

That is a beautiful story.. made me cry. Thank you for sharing.

 

[ksjayhawkfan]

My husband. Yes, you read that right. My husband of 15 years hates Disney and would prefer to never set foot in a Disney park ever again. But I still love him, and respect that he hates it and I dont ask him to go anymore. I just plan the trip with the kids and he has fun fishing and skiing with his buddies

 

[Orlando313]

My husband. Yes, you read that right. My husband of 15 years hates Disney and would prefer to never set foot in a Disney park ever again. But I still love him, and respect that he hates it and I dont ask him to go anymore. I just plan the trip with the kids and he has fun fishing and skiing with his buddies

Wow, that's sad. I'm feel sorry for your kids who are missing out on some great memories with their dad. It's selfish on your husbands part to not make an effort for his kids even if he does hate it. I'm glad I have those memories with my dad.

 

[cuethemusic]

Without a doubt, my Dad has been the worst person i've been with at Disney. He's a heavy smoker, so automatically he is against the place in general because he can't seem to get a grip on smoke-free places (honestly- you can't just manage not even an entire day without a cigarette? lame). Whenever we are waiting in line he complains of the wait (note, he doesn't say a word a Universal about the wait, this is mostly him just being a baby about the fact that he can't smoke). He literally has to stop at every place that serves food and THOROUGHLY inspect the menu...EVERY SINGLE PLACE! It's beyond annoying and time consuming. He gets pissed if we want to go on a ride that he doesn't want to go on or if we want to go on a ride more than once. Also, he had to take breaks a lot from walking around because "disney needs to do something about the sun being directly on the guests!" As though he expects to make WDW in it's entirety an indoor themepark. Fat chance sir, I will not be going with you again! Disney has become so much more enjoyable as I've gotten older and don't have my 'Danny-Downer' Dad tagging along.

 

[LilGMom]

The worst? That is easy since we are still stewing over wasting our vacation with them. DH, somehow, convinced a friend of his to go during the same time that we were going last year. We figured that it would be fine, our kids all get along great, they are foodies too and had never been to WDW. Wow, I'm still kicking myself for agreeing to it. The first day or two went fine but then every time that DH and DH's friend would laugh of have a good time the friend's wife (we'll call her "X") would have a fit. I got so tired of her yelling at him, insulting him, trying to put him down, complaining about him, and basically making an **** of herself that I tried for three more days to convince them to go off and explore by themselves. Never lucked out at that and it was very uncomfortable to be around.

A close second would be one trip with the ILs who bickered like little kids over the silliest things. With them though DH told them where to stick it and we walked off and left them. They've gotten better so now they are tolerable to deal with at WDW and we all know to just meet up occasionally.

 

[Pixie Princess]

My worst was with my mom. First I tried preparing her in advance as to the kind of shoes she needed, but she waited until she came to my house to buy shoes. We spent 2 hours at the Nike outlet for shoes! I love to shop, but not for 2 hours in the Nike store. On top of that she couldn't break them in properly, so you can imagine the resulting blisters. Then, I let the "inmates run the asylum" when it came to planning our days. HUGE mistake. My mom is very indecisive, and I should have known better. But some friends had given her guidebooks and I wanted her to get to do what she wanted. No decisions drove me crazy! There was an oppressive heatwave the week we went that, in looking back, I now realize completely drained her. Bless her heart she just kept pushing along, but she didn't seem like she was having fun which hurt my feelings and annoyed me. Compound that with the fact that the heat was doing nothing to improve my mood and the whole trip was pretty much a near disaster.

Well it is obvious that the actual problem was not her, but it was me. I ruined that trip. Driving home I realized it, and felt horrible for ruining her first (and probably only thanks to me) trip.

 

[seobaina]

Best: My Momma, who cried every time she saw the castle. She would tear up and tell me Magic happened at Disney, and that Magic could happen anywhere if you just believed. My mother had incurable cancer and fought it for eight years before she passed. Mom died when I was 16, and I am so thankful for all those wonderful Disney memories she gave to me.

Lovely story!

My worst - 2006, 6 adults (all friends) went. One of us did no research, made no plans, isn't a disney fan, hates crowds & hates heat but insisted on coming! Need I say more? The trip was so stressful I burst into tears on the last day and not because I was sad to leave. We are no longer friends...the friendship only lasted a year beyond that.

The best - my best friend of fourteen years! We pretty much like the same things and she is just as happy to get a character autograph as I am. If there's things we don't both wanna do, we compromise and support each other or we seperate off and meet back up. Fun!

 

[Brian_WDW74]

This thread really has little to do with theme parks attractions and strategies, so I've moved it to the Theme Parks Community board.

 

[DanMedix]

step-mother-in-law (who thankfully spent the majority of the trip in the hotel doing crossword puzzles), and sister-in-law (soon to be ex SIL) who proved to be the proverbial thorn in my backside during the thanksgiving '08 trip. (see prev trip report for more info on that one)

 

[jak07]

My BIL!! We have gone with him sooooo many times and we always leave there saying, "never again", but we always do!

We plan OUR trip that includes the my dh, myself and 2 kids, plus my MIL who lives close to Orlando. He always invites himself and his kids and we always have to rearrange dining plans. The few trips where we asked where he wanted to eat or stay, he gave the response, "Doesn't matter, whatever you choose is fine". Ok, so we do and then he complains and moans the ENTIRE trip. He doesn't like that restaurant, or this hotel, why are we going to the park this day, he and the kids want to go to another park. We tell him to go to the other park and we can meet up later. He never does! He refuses to get up for rope drop, but if we leave without him, we won't hear the end of it.
His kids are 11, 8. Ours are 7 and 1. He claims that his kids are: too old for characters and don't like them and they don't like parades either. He gets mad when we want to do younger rides too. His kids want to ride roller coasters. Ok, fine, go ride the roller coasters and we will meet at x time. Nope, doesn't happen. He walks beside us complaining the ENTIRE time!!
My dh and I just talked about this today. We just realized that we haven't done a parade in a long time, because they "don't like parades". What is funny is his kids have asked if they could visit characters and watch the parades. It is him, but he blames it on his kids!
My dh and I are trying to figure out when we can sneak down there and this time NOT tell him that we are going.

Now, MIL is great. She doesn't care what we do or eat, she just enjoys being there. She even has a leg issue and keeps up with us anyway. (she refuses to use a wheelchair). She never complains and if she is tired, she takes a bus back to the hotel.

 

[Mortlives]

The worst for us was not too bad at all. We once went with SIL and her daughters. We had a great time. The only thing we found really frustrating was their sense of time. We are early risers, they are not. And for them, park-hopping entailed going back to the resort, showering, changing and re-doing makeup and hair. Huh? But that's the worst thing we can say. We still had a great time.

 

[Amanda_the_awesome]

Any time I have gone with friends.
First time when I took a friend she was not into the magic at all, everything was just oh that was cool, it wasn't even an exciting oh thats awesome! It just seemed like she didn't want to be there. She was on the phone with her parents most of the time and it just made me feel really sad that she seemed to be having an awful time.

Next time two years after that I had taken another friend. She was scared of EVERYTHING. EX she cried like a baby and left the park when we "forced" her to ride Spaceship Earth ( this girl was 18 at the time) . She threw a fit because we were not doing what she wanted us to do. Like on our first day we went to the MK and she just wanted to ride the Tea Cups and go back to the room and was crying and stomping her feet because that was not what we were doing. She also claimed that we forced her to go on HM. She was crying and stomping in that as well. I was really embarrassed and I do not get embarrassed easily. So finally after her being with us for two days and messing up our trip my mom told her just to stay back in the room and do what she wanted with a few choice words. She left and went home early. Not going to lie I was pretty happy. I just hate it when others don't seem to feel the magic.

 

[DisCopper]

I am proud to say that I'm going to ruin this thread by saying I've never really had a bad experience traveling with someone to Disney.

I've been too many times to count, and with a huge variety of people (friends, family, coworkers) and I've been insanely lucky that I haven't had to endure the horror stories I've heard on here.

The worst I had was a friend of a friend who joined us. He was a first-timer and basically just followed along- knowing that everyone else in the group had been multiple times. Unfortunately, he got aggravated when he found out things that we'd missed after the fact (for example, we didn't do the auto stunt show at DHS and didn't have time to go back). BUT... overall, he was a good sport about it and didn't really complain. He may be telling people it was a miserable trip, but he certainly didn't bug us.

Sorry to hear everyone's misery!

 

[mattkrass]

Wow, you guys have made me appreciate how non-demanding my travel partners have always been. I mean, my Dad always did drag us in to the Hall of Presidents, but that is all. My girlfriend and her family were also very accomodating, except her father also dragged us in to the Hall....

The only time my girlfriend's family and I/her had a confict, we just agreed to meet up later, problem solved!

Though I must admit, as not nice as it might be, I do enjoy reading this posts!

 

[xanphylus]

Hmmmm.... Two of my trips were great on certain levels and nightmares on others if that makes any sense. We had a great time, but there was that certain element of anger.

One trip, my honeymoon actually, my DH lost the keys to the car and the cast members were of no help whatsoever. They couldn't even tell me that my car would not be towed off the grounds that night! I was sobbing and crying and we were the LAST people to leave that parking lot (it was about 4 am) and we still didn't have our car. But that was just an accident and it wasn't really my hubby's fault, although I did ask him "want me to put the keys in my zipper wallet?" where he answered, "No, I got em!"

My next nightmare was 3 years later, when we took my mom with us to help with the kids. She broke her foot day 2 and was worse than the kids after that. She was horrible on crutches, couldn't push herself in a wheelchair and was super scary on the scooter. I don't blame her for being in a bad mood, but I was actually glad when she stayed behind the few times she didn't feel up to cruising the parks.

But the trips were great too! My DS turned one there and ate with Winnie the Pooh and loves every character. And on my honeymoon, we spent all the time we wanted just strolling around the park holding hands.

 

[cmusschoot]

I took my mother in law to Disney in September. We were there at F & W festival, and staying at the Boardwalk 1 bdrm. villa. Me and my 2 kids 2 and 4 years old.

I took her because I felt guilty as I always take my kids and my mom, so I thought it would be nice to invite my MIL....

My husband does not like to travel...so I usually vacation at Disney without him

I was 5 months pregnant (3rd baby), it was a great hotle, I had a double stroller...etc.

Having my MIL there was like having a teenager with me, she was capable of helping me...but didn't, not once did she help push the stroller, carry the diaper bag...help make meals etc. She complained of the heat and complained of a bad foot...

She walked SO slow that I had to slow down...that was slow down while I was pushing the stroller and carrying the bag...

I do love my mother in law, she is really good to my family!! I just won't be taking another Disney vacation with her...

Felt nice to vent!!