Have you ever had a "It's a small world" experience at WDW?

[THEDISNEYTHREE]

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[dmband]

Our last wdw trip we were at boardwalk and another famly had a basketball they won with the local college logo on it.
My son mentioned we lived in that town and the other family said they did too.
Turns out the father owns a company that my wife has done advertising with many times.
They gave my son the basketball too

 

[xeris]

At the Adventurer's Club in 1996 we ran into someone we had went to college with two years earlier and had lost touch with shortly after so had no clue he was going to be there.

I forget the year for this one but it was the early 2000's. We were staying at CSR and heading out on the buses one morning and saw a bunch of those huge 10ft tall blow up mascots you sometimes see at sporting events and such. One of them was for the college my wife worked for at the time (Ohio University). When we got back we found out there had been a convention of college athletic administrators that coincided with our trip and her boss had been there.

 

[lllGurulll]

I love walking around the World with my Kansas Jayhawks gear and having people walk by going Rock Chalk all day long. LOVE THAT!!!

 

[asbyrneva]

Walking along Main street and I see a woman I used to work with everyday. We still know each other and work in the same place but are on different assignments different floors etc so only see each other in passing maybe once a quarter. But there she is with her Nephew and his son. We didnt know the other was going since we dont really see each other much in the "real world"

She see's me and says "It IS a small world"

 

[Rose DiVerona]

Twice. One trip, I ran into my eighth-grade literature teacher outside PotC. This was when I was still in his class, but neither of us had known the other was going to Disney for Spring Break. The second time, we ran into our next-door neighbors outside EE! Again, had no idea they were going to be there.

 

[ReluctantDisaholic]

Last year we were walking in AK and I turned around and 2 of the students in my class were there. The year before we were at MK and ran into a coworker and her family.

 

[tinkerbella16]

For us it's only 2 words... Jersey Week! We meet and chat with people the whole trip that are from our town or surrounding areas. Sat with a family at Teppan Edo from our town, and waited for the bus at Riverside and talked to a family from our town. It always happens that week since so many people come from NJ.

 

[Bluegrrl]

I was getting my son's haircut at harmony barbershop and talking to the barber about Oak Park IL ( my hometown). Someone heard me, and it turns out to be an old school friend of mine! We had even gone on a trip to Spain in high school together! She was also getting her son's haircut too!! So funny.

 

[DisneyMim]

This happens to us all the time. People we know come up to us like they are expecting us to be there and usually always ask us questions as if we are cast members. It's so funny. Guess this just shows how often we go and how really into Disney we are!!

Enjoy The Magic!!

 

[DisneyHoosier]

Several years ago, Tusker House. Our Photopass photographer looks up and screams (yes screams basically) and it's a former student from my days as an adjunct faculty member. We chatted and traded info and ended up visiting with him every trip until he left the cast last year. We bought him dinner every time, he gave us great stories and 'inside info' and my kids loved riding rides with an official cast member those days. He also got us in the AK parade that was discontinued recently. It is a small world, afterall!

 

[whitney250]

I ended up in a character line with a girl from my home town. It was crazy because our town is REALLY small, I believe I only had about 140 people in my graduating class lol

 

[Jennasis]

Every single trip we bump into someone we know...old school friends, my childhood pediatrician, neighbors, friends of my parents, SOMEONE. LOL. It's one of the things I most look forward to each trip!

 

[IrishNYC]

DH found out a few weeks ago that one of his bosses from work will be there the same time as us next week. I'm waiting to see how many times we run into him. (Although we've managed to be unplanned on a cruise ship with one of his coworkers and only crossed paths a couple of times in 9 days!) A friend of mine will be arriving in the middle of our trip as well. All unplanned.

 

[PollyannaMom]

We've had a few. Twice (two different trips) we ran into a friend of DS's and his family. The first time was in the middle of a walkway (at MK, I think?) and was a complete surprise. We had no idea they were going the same week. The second time, we knew they were going too, but didn't actually expect to see them, and still ran into each other in a ride line at Epcot. I took a pic of the kids and made a scrapbook page that said:
1,300 miles
130,000 people
and it's still A Small World After All!

Another time, we picked DS up a bit early from school before the break, and there was another little girl in the office being signed out as well. Would you believe we saw each other just a couple of hours later at the airport restaurant? And then again during the week? - It turns out we were not only going on the same vacation, but staying at the same resort!

The funniest wasn't a "real" Small World experience at all, but we thought it was for a bit, and got the best laugh when we found out it wasn't. We were on a Disney bus, and DS and another little boy struck up a conversation. DS asked him where he was from, and he named a town, - a town that there happens to be one of right next to ours. DS answered back "Wow, I live in (name of our town)!", which the other boy recognized as near him as well. They had an entire conversation during which it finally dawned on them that they were not talking abut the same places. Apparently, the two town names occur near each other in both the U.S. and Canada! We actually live a lot farther apart than we thought.

 

[dfb]

After our 2012 fall trip, we were looking over our Photopass+ photos. My son had riden Exp. Everest via single rider line. I noticed from the photo a friend of mine from high school and her family were sitting in the seats all around my son on the Everest ride. We all still live in the same hometown and though I see her & her family often in town, my son did not know them nor did they know him. We did not even know they were at Disney at the same time. We shared the pic with them and had a good laugh.

 

[Tardisblue]

Fun thread. With social media it's easier to know when friends/coworkers/etc. are in the parks and meet up. This happened last year - a guy who lives in another state but works for the same company as I do saw on FB that we were at AK. He messaged me and we met for a few minutes near Kali River Rapids.

 

[VAB2013]

This morning we were sitting on the Magical Express bus to MK and the woman next to us was the niece of the paraprofessional from my son's kindergarten class. Small world!

 

[JustCallMeMommy]

On a trip in 1990, it seems like I ran into someone I knew every 10 minutes.

This past trip, my exH went to the 24 hour party. While he was there, he kept seeing a girl and thinking, "That person looks just like Suzanne." This was good friend from college until now. After the party, he went to the hotel in hopes of checking in early. While he was sitting there, the same girl walked past, and he thought, "Hey - there is the girl who looks just like Suzanne." followed by, "And there is Suzanne's husband." He had been seeing his friend over and over and thinking it was just too unlikely to be true until he saw her husband.

Also on this trip, I learned through Facebook that several other friends were in the World at the same time, but we didn't run into any of them.

 

[coloredimage]

I love these kind of threads, I find it so interesting to see who you'll run into!

On my second trip in 2001 my mother and I were in line at Kringla og Bakeri. The couple in front of us turns and says hi to us and my mother says hello back. I didn't know them, but my mother explained that they were former customers - when I was little, before my parents became teachers, my mother was a buyer for a Scandinavian import store and the couple were frequent customers and recognized my mother even 15 years later!

On another of our trips - 2009 I believe? - my mother and I were touring just the two of us again. One of her best friends had joined us for most of the week so the three of us were getting on to Everest with our FP. The girl collecting them? Was a girl we had all done theatre productions with! We knew she was working there we just didn't know she'd actually be there!

In 2011, we were getting to the end of the PotC line where the CM asks how many and puts you into the boat accordingly. There was an incredibly perky girl at the end of the line who looked suspiciously like a girl a few years younger than me who had would still be in undergrad at my undergrad college. I don't think she recognized me because I wasn't supposed to be living in the country (I had moved to England at the time, and was down in Florida while I was home visiting family) but my friends confirmed it WAS in fact the same girl I thought it was.

in 2012 my best friend and I were chaperoning my dad's select choir during their competition. We had shirts on with the name of the group, the name of the high school, and the name of the city we were from. The two of us had ended up staying longer in the park than everyone else maybe? I don't really remember but we were the only people on the bus from our group so we got into the back of the bus and sat on the long bench next to a couple only a little older than us. The girl glanced at our shirts and asked if we went to the high school and we explained that we were chaperoning but had gone to to a different local high school. I said my father was the choir director and she said his name. Turns out she was a former student of his and was staying at our same hotel!