It really IS a small world!

[madalex]

I unexpectedly run into people I know on almost every trip to WDW. We see them at the airport, in the parks, by the pool, on the buses and monorails, etc. The most surprising was running into a member of the Board of Directors of my then employer in the concierge lounge at the Yacht Club. It's gotten to the point where it is barely a surprise when I run into someone I know.

 

[sfbank]

Lat May I actually ran into some of my a couple of my teachers from high school as I was coming out of Splash Mountain! Turns out they were on a band trip and were chaperones. Could not believe it. I only live an hour from where I grew up and hardly ever see anyone from there, but it takes me going to Disney World to reunite with people

 

[omghidanielle]

an old 'regular' customer of mine from when I worked at Starbucks started randomly talking to me and my husband one night as we walked through Pop Century to our rooms. At first, he just randomly started talking to us, and then it kind of all fell into place once he started telling us his life story and said he was from Philadelphia. It gelled once I saw him the next day wearing a sombrero (he used to always come in wearing a big woman's floppy straw hat)

I never told him who I was, he thought my name was Cynthia, anyway, and after several attempts at correcting him, he never got it right.

 

[2binak]

We were on our way to Disney when two of my co-workers got on the plane and sat in the row in front of us. They were headed to Disney for a conference and I had no idea (it's a big company). On the way home from that same trip, another co-worker & his family sat in the row in front of us. They had stayed beyond the conference dates to take a mini-vacation.

 

[wdwishes1990]

We took a fried of our oldest son a few years back and he saw his Aunt and Uncle from California in the Orlando Airport Baggage Claim.

 

[nikki&petey]

Not at Disney but .....


When my family was vacationing in Washington DC we were walking through the downtown area on our way to the hotel. Well just as we passed an office building one of the son's of my mom's best friend walks out the door. We stopped and had a nice chat with him and then went on our way.

We still think it is amazing to this day that we happened to be walking past his office building when he walked out of it. What are the chances?

 

[Goofygirl17]

We had two "small world" experiences this last trip.

A few weeks before our trip we were at a party and our friend introduced us to another woman at the party who was going to Disney the same time as us. It turned out they would be on the same flight.

The night before our trip I checked in on SW at 24 hours and posted on the Transportation board our boarding pass numbers. I ended up "talking" on the board to someone going on the same flight and we said maybe we'd see each other.

At the airport it turned out the person I talked to on the boards was the woman I met at the party!

Also- we ran into a family that my daughter knows from school at the top of a slide at Blizzard beach and then another family at the bottom of the slide! We then met one of the families again a few days later by Thunder Mountain Railroad!

It's amazing that we can meet people we know considering how many parks there are and how many packed into them at any given time!

 

[CindyCharming]

We're in MI but several times now we've run into co-workers, former co-workers and/or customers of my husband's.

The two best run-ins we've had were seeing one my husband's former bosses at a gas station in TN on our way down to Disney. This particular boss gave my husband a really hard time about leaving work while I was in labor with our daughter, several years prior. So Former Boss introduces his wife to us and my husband says to her, "I'll never forget how nice your husband was to me when my wife went into labor with our daughter. He just said to me, 'Go! Dont' worry about a thing, that is much more important!' " Since my husband didn't tell me what really happened until we got back in the car, I stood there smiling and wondering why Former Boss had a weird look on his face.

The second also has to do with my husband's job. He won a trip to New York through a sales lead contest at work. We met lots of other people from around the US. Fast forward a year - after leaving our last attraction at Disney, Muppets 3D, on our last day my daughter says she left something behind. We're both grumbling at her, walk back in to the preview show and there was a couple we had met in NY one year prior. Muppets 3D was their first ride on the first day of their trip.

 

[Scully12]

When I was doing my DHS tour at the very beginning of my College Program I heard someone calling my name. I looked around and saw my Aunt's sister and her husband. I stopped to talk to them briefly until my group was moving away and I had to run to catch up

 

[millie]

On our first trip during the week before Easter in 2005 a woman from my office and my husband's secretary were both going to Disney the same week as us. On the same day in MK we ran into his secretary during the afternoon parade and that same night I saw my coworkers son run past us on the bridge from Tomorrowland. I had never even met him but recognized him from the picture on her desk! She and the rest of the family were not far behind. It was so crowded we could not believe we saw them.

That same week the next year we saw my son's English teacher waiting for a fastpass at Soaring and the following year on New Years Day we saw the basketball coach and student activities officer from the university where we work.

Now we expect to see someone every time we go and we are from Philly.

 

[PiperPizzaz]

I have an Aunt my age and we grew up together. My Mom had mentioned she was going to WDW sometime that year but, we both about died when we ran into each other checking into POP! We had even been on the same plane and didn't know it, lol. We ran into each other several times around the World too.

 

[disneypofq05]

We ran into my first grade teacher on the monorail at the Contemporary when I was little.

 

[Amysita]

I just found out Monday that 2 other people from our small office staff of 9 are going to WDW just before me & will still be there when I arrive. We're now planning a meet at Jellyrolls while we're all still there.

 

[Chee Chick]

I ran into my next door neighbor at Hollywood Studios last year. She and her daughter were there for a cheerleading competition. We talk quite a bit, so it was funny that neither one of us had mentioned our trips beforehand.

 

[mtschopp]

I swear every year that I have gone there has been someone that my family runs into on a whim. Usually it's people from school or family friends or coworkers. Last year I ran into a friend of mine and then my family ran into our neighbors that live right behind us at home on the safari ride. They were sitting two rows in front of us.

 

[mrodgers]

(or anywhere else)?

What do you go on vacation for? You go to get away from life. From work, from neighbors, etc. When I was a kid, we went to Ocean City every year. We were sitting in traffic when someone who was crossing the road bumped into the corner of our car. It was our neighbor who bordered our yard.

When us kids got older, we started going to Myrtle Beach. My brother and I were walking down the sidewalk heading to the boardwalk when we passed one of our friends that lives in the neighborhood. It was great, we had someone else to hang out with every night. The very next day, we are now getting together with our friend when the 3 of us bump into yet another friend. This one was a very good friend of mine. The 4 of us had a blast hanging out at Myrtle Beach for about 5 of the 7 day trip.

 

[webbmom]

During our trip in April we ran in to a friend that we had not seen in a while. We have seen them several times since then.

One of the families from our scout group is going to WDW at the same time we are. We are planning on meeting to share a meal, and we told them we would meet them at the resturant, but now I am wondering if we will run into them other times during the trip.

 

[polineedyan]

Mine is kinda weird, and surrounds my experience with high school football..on a prior trip, i walked by this guy sitting on a bench with a tee shirt from a high school that is over 100 miles away from my home town, yet we used to play this school all the time...
then this past year, a kid from my school went to west virginia to play football, and the week during our trip, i watched him on tv against florida state.
went to the park and saw two strangers making conversation while wearing west virgina attire talking about the game..kinda weird, because we also live 100's of miles from west virginia.

 

[pixiechick]

We vacationed at a family resort in Vermont for a couple of years and became friendly with some other families who vacationed at the same time each year. We live in NJ and one in particular were from NY.

We were walking through Epcot one night a year after our last stay there and ran into the family. We had only met them while on vacation previously, and haven't seen them since. It was definitely "a small world" experience.

 

[scrapbookingmanda]

DH and I were high school sweethearts in a small school. Everyone knew everyones' business. Our senior year we had advanced biology together with the really weird girls basketball coach who made jokes about us all year long. Two years after graduation we got married and honeymooned at disney. We're waiting to get on a bus at CBR and a man gets off. DH says "that looked like Coach Jones". We decide he's imagining things and go on our way. The next day we are eating breakfast at the food court and hear "Well hello young people! What are you two up to?" Yep it was him. And being the small town it was, he knew exactly why we were there and what we were up to