How do you get past a bad trip?

[alex9179]

You have to adjust expectations, depending on the individual or group, if choosing to include them. If my family were joined by another family, we'd do some things together (pool, a couple of meals, etc) and a lot of park touring separately. I think large groups are problematic, anyway! However, I've gone with my mom and am going with my cousin this month...leaving the spouses/kids at home. I LOVED the trip with my mom because it was so relaxing. She couldn't do a lot of rides because of motion sickness but we had a ton of fun and I was able to experience new things that kids my didn't have the patience to do. My cousin loves rides, gets up early, loves food and beer, and we're close is age/activity level so we mesh as far as park touring will go. I would never have tried it with our two families.

Just chalk it up to life experience and know that you're not in a place to adjust your vacation to accommodate people who can't get with the program!

 

[bumbershoot]

And even immediate family can be a bore sometimes...

So true. Solo trips are LIFE. Or at least they make the family, and extended family, trips better.

I snuck away to Polite Pig and ate by myself. The peace and quiet was amazing...as was the food.

See? Solo visits are in your future.


While many people are fine with trips with extended groups, the groups you took for Halloween and Xmas obviously don’t really work for you. So late it back to just your immediate family again.

It’s entirely possible the Xmas group loved the trip. I get so confused when I think the people I’m with are having a rotten time, meanwhile they are posting on FB about how awesome it is, or they tell me after how great it all was, etc. and I realize that maybe sometimes I don’t read people right.

But it sounds like you just didn’t tour the same as them, and it’s ok for it to just be you guys.

 

[Dumbo777]

Yeah, we tried that. They'd just text us or "bunk into us" after about an hour and we'd be back to square one.

Sadly enough, my favorite moment was when we went to Disney Springs. It was crowded and I tried to sell them on Polite Pig. The mother from the other family said "I don't care for this kind of food." Fair enough. We all went to WPE, but I was annoyed and not hungry at the moment. I just ordered a drink and sat with them. After, they all went shopping. I snuck away to Polite Pig and ate by myself. The peace and quiet was amazing...as was the food.

Glad you got a quiet happy moment to yourself. That is exactly why I volunteer to run to the store on the holidays. A quiet moment to myself.

 

[Deanie1]

I had planned our first trip for just DH, myself and our 3 kids for 1994. I had been saving and planning for several years as we travel from BC, Canada. My DH works very long hours, I worked shift work so I really wanted some “family time” to re-connect. Then the in-laws wanted to come along with the sister, SIL and 2 kids to come and I could see a nightmare in the making. We just vacation in completely different ways and 11 people together would be crazy. So, we just went with the 5 of us and had a really good time. Then went 2 more times. The more people on a vacation, the harder it is. There is so much compromising and trying to please others that the fun factor drops considerably.

 

[slpeters]

I honestly can't imagine making the sort of trip we had this last November work with other people--maybe if you go all the time or just don't have a lot mentally pegged on the trip, but otherwise can't imagine. I was constantly amazed that the two of us (just my husband and I) were able to work through our different notions of vacation to put together such an amazing experience. And I know full well that even that only worked the way it did because I desperately wanted him to have a great time and he felt the same way about me--and because he was genuinely tickled and a little perplexed by how much I was enjoying myself. I still honestly feel that the fact that the trip worked as well as it did was a real testament to the strength of our relationship. We've been together for twenty years, we're married, and I'm genuinely proud that we were able to Disney together. That's a tall order for cousins or neighbors or in-laws.

I wouldn't take it as indicative of Disney but just the traveling arrangement. Make a different traveling arrangement and get out there and have fun!

 

[ScrampShopper]

The only way to get over the bad trip is to have a do over trip! Go for Easter and plan things around your family's preferences.

WDW is the one place I do not compromise. I know what I want to do and what the kids want to do, and I'm not interested in anyone expecting me to change the way we do WDW. That means we even leave DH home most of the time, and he comes for the last few days. I have taken my parents and my sister, but I knew that they would do exactly what I say, and I knew they would love the trip no matter what. I would like my parents to come with us this Aug, but I don't think they can take the heat so I'll probably ask them to join us spring break next year. Other people have asked to do Disney together, but I have said no because I know that we are too different in how we do things.

Sometimes we get back from a trip, and I think we should take a year or two off, but then a month later, I'm planning my next trip.

 

[Shanti]

I think taking a break and vacationing elsewhere can help, even if the other vacation has a Disney theme, such as Disneyland in California or a Disney cruise. Doing the same thing over and over can get stale. Cinderella's Castle used to take my breath away the first time I saw it on a trip. Now, after several recent trips, it doesn't. Still enjoy WDW but I'm enjoying taking something of a break from it by focusing on Disney cruises now (which can easily be added to a trip to the parks, btw.) We also visited Disneyland for the first time this year, and were blown away. So keep changing it up to keep things fresh.

And I second all of the recommendations to keep trips to immediate family as much as possible, or at least not do all of your touring with others outside of your immediate family.

 

[Mrs Geek]

I definitely agree that a trip with just your little family will be enough to bring the spark back- but there is definitely something to be said for spreading out your Disney trips. We honeymooned in Disney and promised ourselves to go to a Disney park once every 5 years to celebrate our anniversary; we just got back from anniversary trip #1, 5 years after the honeymoon. Prior to the honeymoon, I had visited once in high school, and my husband had visited twice as a child. Conceivably, we won't return to anything Disney until 5 years from now, when we try out Disneyland for the first time. Our anniversary trip was the most fun we'd ever had on vacation, ever. It was incredible. Even the minor annoyances (rides breaking down, waiting for buses to the resort at the end of a long day) were just no big deal because OMG WE WERE IN DISNEY. We've been home for a little over a month and it's all our daughter will talk about. Knowing that we have 5 more years until our next visit with The Mouse, Disney commercials bring tears to my eyes and I gobble up the News and Rumors thread on the DIS; Hubby and I are even joking about moving to FL and getting FL resident APs so we can go "every weekend". I think that if we really did go every weekend, however, some of the magic might wear off. We might not be this incredibly giddy thinking about shelling out all this money to go to an amusement park instead of traveling the actual world, if this wasn't such a rare occurrence for us.

That being said, we were already talking about moving farther south, and I could see myself living in Florida, so...

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

Step 1)

My first step would be to stop traveling with others outside my immediate family.

Step 2)

I go again...

 

[gypsy_at_heart]

I have been going to Disney (Land in my case) all my life. It had always been with my parents and my brother, and being a close family we always had a blast with each other. Then when I was 25 I was on a road trip with my lifelong best friend and, surprise surprise, we were traveling through California and to me, California meant Disney. She'd never been, we always had a good time together and so I thought 'how could this not be amazing??'

Oh how wrong I was...

She was unimpressed, bored, and just plain not into it. Where I saw magic, she saw kids stuff or cheesey decor or a million other unfavourable things. Long story short we ended up leaving at 2:00pm after only about 5 hours in park and I ended up crying on the phone to my parents back in Vancouver. My best friend was upset because I was upset and really it was all in all a horrible experience. I think the worst part of it was that, for me, Disney was a cherished family memory. It was a place my whole family loved, I had amazing experiences and I wanted to share that with someone - but she didn't have those same fond memories. It wasn't her fault, or mine really, it just was. When she was bored or saying something was corny, I found myself taking it as some sort of personal slight toward my childhood. And the more I tried to show her special things and 'make it fun' for her, the worse it was. She tried, but I could tell she wasn't thrilled and I felt the need to justify this amazing experience I'd been going on and on about since we were both kids.

To be honest, after that trip, I was really down about Disney. I just didn't know if I could see in it the same light again after the horrible time I'd had. So I waited a year, then I went back with just my family. It was a wonderful trip and they helped me see that it was still the same place for us, it just might not be for everyone else, and that's ok. I've been on other trips with people outside my family since and I've adopted a new method - I tell them my plans, give them a lot of Disney info, and tell them all the things they can do. Then I tell them that they are welcome to join me in any of what I'm doing, just let me know, but it's fine if they are interested in other plans since there is so much to do. I also tend to start with a disclaimer when they talk about Disney, saying I love it and so does my family, but it's not for everyone and they should look into it to see if it's something they'd enjoy doing. With that, the onus isn't on me to make things fun for them or make sure they feel it's worthwhile, it's their experience, their plan and their vacation. They're always welcome to join me in my plans but if they want to completely abandon the park, sleep in and stay at the pool, that's fine. I'm not upset, I'm just not going to do the same, and they know I have plans from the start so they aren't expecting me to. It also takes the pressure off them because they don't feel like they need to do things with me or to my plans, even if it doesn't appeal to them.

I also make sure that it's not just one person I'm bringing along, unless it's a member of my immediate family. Not everyone is comfortable solo (though I am) so I'd rather they have their own group to cling to and not have my options be their only option is they don't want to be alone.

I think you just need to focus on what has always been the best parts of wdw for you and your family on the next trip and refresh yourselves with that feeling.

I do also like the point of exploring other Disney options - recently I've transitioned to going to WDW instead of DL and it has freshened things up. It's still familiar, still Disney, but there are new and interesting things to explore. In March I'm doing Shanghai Disney, so we shall see how that park is, I'm sure it will have it's own special magic

 

[tams0375]

Just remember that every experience will be different.

 

[belledreamer]

Gotta echo everyone else's comments here too. Some of the best trips I've ever taken have been with myself or with my parents, especially when we would agree to split up and meet later in the afternoon. I did take my best friend with me once and had a great time as she was very much a go with the flow kind of person. But our next trip is just me and my folks and I'm planning on spending some of the time on my own doing exactly what I want to do without having to come to an agreement of where we go next.

Still dreaming of that solo trip one day though...

 

[friedela]

I think if you are going to be travelling with others just state beforehand that there is no pressure to go with your ideas and plans everyday, that they can feel free to branch out on their own as well and that is totally ok! It's a conversation of expectations that needs to take place before you leave IMO. Maybe they stuck close to you guys because they felt they had to, whereas if it was established before you left that you guys didn't HAVE to do the entire trip together then the pressure would have been off a bit. We are taking my mom with us for our very first trip and when I worry about her not being able to keep up, not getting up early with us, etc my husband just tells me that it's not my job to make sure she has an amazing trip. It's my job to enjoy myself with my immediate family (me, my hubby and 2 kids) and she is welcome to come along, but we aren't going to cater the entire thing around her either. If she doesn't want to come one day and just hang out at the condo then I am determined not to feel guilty about that and just let her do her thing. It sounds selfish, but disney is just TOO MUCH freaking money to burden yourself with making sure everyone in your group is catered to and happy. IMO it was THEIR job to make sure they had an amazing trip, not yours And yeah... to get over it I think you just need to go back! Make the trip all about your family and what you all want to do and enjoy not having the pressure of other people with you. I'm sure a day in the parks will refresh that love of Disney