Ever Had A Spoiled Disney Trip?

[LVSWL]

Have you ever planned a very special family Disney trip and then someone else's expectations (family, friends, aquaintances) ruined it all? How did you handle it?

 

[newholidayx2]

yes and not very well

 

[WDWLVR]

Yes - we brought my in-laws for a week to a two-bedroom villa at the Boardwalk. We had traveled with them before and I do love them, but they drove me crazy on that trip. They wanted us to plan everything, but then they questioned every plan we had. The only day we all enjoyed was the day they took off to Port Canaveral to go on one of the casino boats and my DH and I went to Magic Kingdom without them. My DH and I actually had a fight about it all on the last night there. It really took some of the Magic out for me. This was in October of 2002.

Luckily I'm married to a wonderful man who suggest a few weeks after we got home that we should try and go back and find the Magic. We booked a quick weekend trip down in December of 2002. We were out of DVC points so booked at Coronado Springs. We had a great time and Magic was definately back.

Now we travel without them and enjoy the Magic of Disney. They just don't get it. Instead we send them to Vero for a week and they love it.

Worked out best for all of us.

 

[LVSWL]

Newholidayx2 I know how you feel but I feel that I did the best that I could in an extremely stressful situation and I am sure that you did too.

 

[LVSWL]

WDWLR, so glad you and your DH were able to go back and find the "magic". We have yet to do that, it may be a while for us. We still have the memories of previous trips though.

 

[SqueakyMouse]

Yes. At the last minute, the in-laws decided to accompany us on my older son's first trip to WDW. The contributed nothing to the planning of the trip. In addition, having them along raised the expense of this trip quite a bit because they would only eat at sit-down restuarants (not a problem for me now -- 10 years later) and kept drawing my son's attention to costly souvenirs. They didn't bother my dh, but they really got on my last nerve. Seeing this, my dh found ways to separate ourselves (and our ds, since they did NO babysitting for us either) from the pair and have some alone time.

 

[LVSWL]

SqueakyMouse, hope your future trips were more pleasant than the one you described. What is it with people who invite themselves along? I am sure it would be hard to say no, but I have learned the hard way that family time is very precious.

 

[CEDmom]

Our first trip to MK with DD was less than ideal. We went through Toon Town without any problems but after that she got completely overwhelmed and almost had a meltdown. DH and I decided to cut our losses and head back to WL. We used 2 adult admissions and 1 child admission for a total of 45 minutes of park time. I really thought our vacation was going to be a complete loss but once we got back to WL and had a little quiet time DD was fine. We hung out by the pool for the rest of the day. The margarita DH got me definitely helped cheer me up . After that we just decided to relax and not worry about whether we got a lot of park time in or not. It ended up DD LOVED Epcot and so did DH and I so that worked out great and we spent 2 days there. In the end it was a great vacation - we just had our expectations of what a 3 1/2 yo could handle a little to high.

 

[all4fun]

Yep, Almost a year ago, we went with MIL and SIL, who also contributed nothing to the planning and then didn't want to do what we wanted. (I'm kind of detecting a theme here). They wanted to get up late and turn in early every day and then had the nerve to complained about the lines when we we got to the parks late every day. We also had to stay off property that trip and stupidly only rented one car (stupid, stupid, stupid ) Nothing like sour-puss inlaws to suck the magic right out of the place! Anyway, we got through it because we knew it wasn't the "trip of a lifetime" and we would be back. As a matter of fact, we're looking forward to our third trip back in a little over a week now. I can't wait!

 

[DisneyaholicRaquel]

O brother this is a GREAT thread! Let's set the mood first....hmmmm.... My mother, DS3 & me. This was 4 years ago. My mom is my best friend but, DO NOT TRAVEL WITH HER! Firstly, she didn't want to stay onsite as she wanted to have freedom to see more of Orlando! Which was fine I backed down and said ok. Well, I could go on forever but, I will sum it up. We had a rental car which she had to have control over at every waken moment including keys! We didn't get to the parks until noon and was out of there before 8:00 in July when the parks stay open to atleast 11:00. She didn't want to ride and everything I mentioned I wanted to do was not acceptable. O boy...she is my best friend but, travel campanion NOOOOOOO!

 

[crazymomof4]

I got a few "tastes" of it and it taught me a lesson.
We have "met up with" friends and family who were on their own vacation, but in WDW at the same time as we were. So we said we'd hook up and spend a day together. No one could agree on what attractions to do next, where to eat, etc. So we spent 1/2 of our day doing things that we didn't really care to do.

This happened a few times and now we have a hard and fast rule:

ONLY DO WDW WITH OUR IMMEDIATE FAMILY......keeping 6 individuals happy is enough of a juggling act in itself! :thewave:

 

[LVSWL]

crazymomof4, learned that lesson too! Feel your pain!

 

[crazymomof4]

crazymomof4, learned that lesson too! Feel your pain!

I have had many friends since then say, "We should go to Disneyworld together!" I just skirt around and never give a definite answer. Usually they don't bring it up again!
Seriously, I don't want to damage any friendships and that's what can happen!

 

[PrincessTeddyBear]

Have you ever planned a very special family Disney trip and then someone else's expectations (family, friends, aquaintances) ruined it all? How did you handle it?

Yes. And it wasn't handled well at all. We wound up spending the last three days either at the resort or at seperate parks from the rest of the family.

 

[kimwim8]

Been there, done that. Our trip last October was with my Dsis & her family, my Dmom and other Dsis. What a downer. 11 of us total. DH and I did all of the planning, and created info sheets for each park (but didn't force them on anyone). We knew going into this trip that they aren't "into" Disney like we are but we didn't expect to have such a bad time. We spent WAY to much time saying...we're gonna do this next, anyone coming? And waiting for them to decide. NEVER AGAIN.

Here's a specific example...the day we arrived, we went to MK. It was Sunday of Columbus Day weekend, and it was PACKED. Around 5pm we all decided to stop for dinner (didn't have PS's) and DH & I were going to do Columbia Harbor House Counter Service. Well, Dsises didn't like that idea. They wanted a sit down dinner. No matter how many times I told them that wouldn't happen on a "normal" day without PS's, they insisted we walk all over MK to ask at all of them. So we did...we trecked all over the place only to hear no, or there was at least a 2 hour wait. DUH!!! Guess where we ate.....Columbia Harbor House.....only about 1 1/2 later than when we first suggested it.

Our next trip in December is with my inlaws. This will be a totally different trip. They are "into" Disney...and we've already discussed when we will definitely stick together...outside of those times, DH & I will take the kids wherever we've planned, and they can join in if they like.

It was just a major bummer to come home from WDW and not have seen even 1/2 of what we wanted to, just b/c of waiting on other people in our group.

Thanks for letting me vent! Good idea for a thread.

 

[btass]

A lot of people on this thread has had a horrible time with their in-laws coming on their vaca.

I had a horrible experience with my DH. The trip was me, DH and DS (then 4) for seven days at the All Star Sports. The whole planning process went great, me and DH planned together, we were on the same waivelength about almost everything and the things we weren't we compromised on. I was very excited about going to WDW and so was DH. Then we arrived.

My DH did not get off of his cell phone the whole time we were there. It was like me and DS were there and then there was a guy in front of us on his cell phone that we followed around. I wanted to throw that phone out! I didn't say anything to him for the first day and a half, then DS (4 years old remember) said "Daddy aren't you going to spend time with us instead of on the phone?" DH looked at DS with a funny look on his face, turned around and kept dialing the phone. It was the worst seven days of our marrige. DS and I felt completely neglected just because we could not detach DH from his cell phone. We wanted to enjoy disney with DH but he had no interest in us at all. To add to it, he was calling his friends to talk to them, he never uses his cell phone for work, he has no reason to.

Me and DS went last September by ourselves and we had a great time, we even got to go to MNSSHP and trick or treated all night!

 

[mommykds]

We lost alot of magic during out December 2002 trip...oh where to start?

Well the first day we were having breakfast at the Poly & a kid came by & threw up right in front of our table. We got our 3 kids outta there fast but there just must have been a "bug" at the Poly then (possibly Norwalk virus my dr said). Anyway (you guessed it) a day later we were at AK. I had just diapered my little one, picked her up & she threw up all over me ...I had to buy new clothes at Ak it was so bad. We tried to make the best out of it because she was in good spirits. The next day my DS threw up in the GF lobby (yea that was a site, we got alot of snobby looks). It was right after dinner with pooh & friends...10 minutes before & it would have been all over piglet!

He also got sick in several other places including our room at the Poly. I called mousekeeping requesting lysol or some disinfectant so I could clean the mess but they said they didn't have any? They also didn't have a thermometer & told us to go to the clinic nearby if we wanted help. I really didn't care for the attitude there..anyway, we all ended up sick & had to take a whole day just to sleep in the room to manage the 20 hour trip back home to NY in the car.

It rained the entire time we were there..we stood on the Poly balcony & it looked like we were under a waterfall. The locals said they hadn't seen rain like this in a long time & it was the worst in years..it was also 60-50's every day..so wet & cold was not my idea of ideal FL weather.

My kids are beautiful little troopers & wanted to stay at WDW so badly. It was just all rotten luck..but we did manage to try to have fun anyway. We did come back to WDW in Nov 2003 which was our "do-over trip"

 

[fantavet]

Oh yeah.....Magical Gatherings

It is very tough to vacation with many people family or friends. You think it will work but all the reasons mentioned above ruin it.

Here is one simple rule to make it work next time.

DO YOUR OWN THING

A few years ago I told my family that I was taking my wife and kids on a Disney Cruise. Next thing I know I inherit 10 more relatives and my mother has 40 brochures in her hand the next day. So I could see the writing on the wall. It would be a big pow wow about what we were ALL going to do the next day. I put a stop to that.

Sat all my relatives down said since we are going to see each other everynight at dinner (had no choice, prearranged seating times but that was fine) there was no need to spend every moment of the day together. If I run into you I run into you. Amazingly they all bought the idea and we all had a great vacation.

Disney World with family? Do your own thing, maybe make some PS dinner arrangements together for a couple of nights and a Pleasure Island night together (if possible) but that is it. You can't have a trail of families trying to do a park together. Doesn't work.

 

[LVSWL]

mommykds, I was there that December with my family, what a nightmare! We stayed wet constantly! I have never seen such rain and we go in December every year. I'm so glad you got to go back a make the kind of memories that you really wanted.

 

[LVSWL]

fantavet, you are stonger than me. Most of us don't see the writing on the wall, or are too afraid we will hurt someone's feelings or commit ourselves to more than we would like if we open discussions so we do nothing and end up with a big mess. You are my hero!