What is the biggest boo-boo you commit at Disney???

[arlsdimples]

These have been great, many I already knew but the ones I didn't were great to read.

Here are a couple I have.

If you get a balloon for one of your DC and you are staying in a resort with either a balcony or a patio tie the balloon to something in the room. If you have the outside door open and someone opens the door to the hallway the balloon can very easily be pulled outside and fly away. (This happened as we were packing up to leave after replacing the balloon once that was stolen while on a ride the night before from a stroller.)

If someone in your party who is an adult or teen would like to sleep in LET THEM! There is nothing worse than dragging someone out of bed early who in turn winds up being miserable and making everyone else's day miserable because they are tired. You can meet up with them later.
(this kind of goes along the lines of letting children nap but I can assure you that my DH is worse than the kids without enough sleep)

If you have younger children with you (younger than teens although this could also apply to young teens as well) who have their "own" money or gift cards... carry the money with you instead of letting them carry it in their own bag or purse. DD forgot her purse on stitch once and realized it as soon as we got out. We waited for the next group to come out and a cast member found her purse right where she left it however her money was all gone. Fortunately we had only let her carry a certain amount each day but still it was money gone.

 

[rosiep]

One:

Do not leave a show like Wishes for the end of your trip...it might get cancelled and you may not have a 2nd chance to see it.

Two: Or as I like to call it: The trip to never repeat.

My daughter was living in Los Angeles and taking online college classes one fine year. We had a WDW trip planned for February and she flew home first to Portland. She told me she felt bad leaving her boyfriend as he was not feeling well. Of course, she arrived home sick as a dog that Monday and we were flying out Friday. Naturally, I nursed her the entire week and prayed for her recovery...which she made by Thursday. Unfortunately, by that time I was puking. I puked all Thursday night, I puked Friday morning, I puked twice on the way to the airport, and twice once I got past security. It was then and only then that I decided to give up and admit defeat. Thank goodness the Delta rep saw how sick I was and rescheduled me for the following day. Soft in the belly but holding down food and no fever..we get on a plane. We decided to use that first day to recover (me) and to do homework (her)......only, her laptop will not turn on. Not no way, no how. She had to call her sister to log into the school site, and read her each daily assignment. Then, she had to compose the work and call her sister back and dictate her reply. All the while trying to catch my other daughter before and after work. We had to do this each day of our 7 day trip. And, no, our hotel did not have a business center.

The rub is: We tried the computer every single day to try to get it to work to no avail...but BEHOLD! We arrive back home and turn it on to show her father the error message and it turned on as if nothing was ever amiss!! *%#^$&!!

Our upcoming trip is before school starts this year and I am wearing a gas mask the entire month prior.

 

[Phatoomch]

Don't ever, ever think you're children don't need a stroller....
Don't ever, ever leave your sneakers home because your sandals are fine...
Don't ever, ever walk down the spiral stairway in the fort at Tom Sawyers Island carrying your baby after if had rained the night before.........

I'm like this reading your post .....

 

[emmabemmainc]

One:

Do not leave a show like Wishes for the end of your trip...it might get cancelled and you may not have a 2nd chance to see it.

Two: Or as I like to call it: The trip to never repeat.

My daughter was living in Los Angeles and taking online college classes one fine year. We had a WDW trip planned for February and she flew home first to Portland. She told me she felt bad leaving her boyfriend as he was not feeling well. Of course, she arrived home sick as a dog that Monday and we were flying out Friday. Naturally, I nursed her the entire week and prayed for her recovery...which she made by Thursday. Unfortunately, by that time I was puking. I puked all Thursday night, I puked Friday morning, I puked twice on the way to the airport, and twice once I got past security. It was then and only then that I decided to give up and admit defeat. Thank goodness the Delta rep saw how sick I was and rescheduled me for the following day. Soft in the belly but holding down food and no fever..we get on a plane. We decided to use that first day to recover (me) and to do homework (her)......only, her laptop will not turn on. Not no way, no how. She had to call her sister to log into the school site, and read her each daily assignment. Then, she had to compose the work and call her sister back and dictate her reply. All the while trying to catch my other daughter before and after work. We had to do this each day of our 7 day trip. And, no, our hotel did not have a business center.

The rub is: We tried the computer every single day to try to get it to work to no avail...but BEHOLD! We arrive back home and turn it on to show her father the error message and it turned on as if nothing was ever amiss!! *%#^$&!!

Our upcoming trip is before school starts this year and I am wearing a gas mask the entire month prior.

I know your hotel did not have a business center, but you could have went to the Contemporary and used their center. I stayed at POR one year and had to do some school work online and went over and while I had to pay a small fee, I was able to use a computer, even when I was not staying there. It sounds most definitely like a trip to never repeat!

 

[meggiebeth]

1) Always take a pack of tissues with you to the parks!

(The weather here is so cold and horrible, and constantly rainy. So the heat in Florida, and the humidity, gave my brother, age 6, an awful nosebleed- in the queue for test track. We were crammed in, couldn't get out and no tissues in sight. My brothers shirt and dads shirt ended up being covered in blood- luckily Disney fixed it and gave us two $30 vouchers to buy new shirts. )

2) Never fly into Miami Airport rather than Orlando!

(After a ten hour or so flight the four hour drive was not easy..... especially since it took us almost 24 hours for the whole journey from our home in Essex to SSR. Although I'll always remember the first real thing I saw in America was a petrol station selling some sort of disgusting 'trail mix' with all sorts of odd looking foods in them. Oh and my first corndog!)

3) Never attempt a whole day of out and about!

(One day we were up at 6:00am for our breakfast at Chef Mickey's and then up all day until our Cali Grill dinner and EMHs in MK until 2am

 

[rosiep]

I know your hotel did not have a business center, but you could have went to the Contemporary and used their center. I stayed at POR one year and had to do some school work online and went over and while I had to pay a small fee, I was able to use a computer, even when I was not staying there. It sounds most definitely like a trip to never repeat!

Thanks...I knew there were that had business centers but she had online postings for class to make everyday. We did not have a car and so getting back and forth between our resort and another would have taken it's toll.

 

[GoldieLocks5]

I should make this a separate post... and will on the family board- but always check every drawer in any hotel room you enter for the first time when traveling with kids.

A friend of a friend went to Disney a few months ago and on their last day they were packing up and checking all the drawers- and they found a loaded gun in the night stand!!!! It was from the guest who stayed before them. Thank GOD their daughter didn't find it during their stay!!!!

Always take a photo of your Photopass cards once you get them- so if you lose them, you still have the number adn haven't lost the photos. I entered mine every night online, as another precaution in case i lost my phone/camera with the photo of the photopass card

Don't potty train your kids right before a trip to Disney. We didn't, thankfuly, b/c it would ahve been miserable to run around trying to find potties super fast, lol.

 

[holden]

Warning: DO NOT let your child look out the windows in any restaurant/store near the door.

We were eating in the place across from Mouse Gears in Epcot. DH was in the bathroom and I was wrangling my 2 girls - the youngest was 15mos. She was looking out the window at our table with her hands on the window. I didn't think anything of it until someone walked into the restaurant and the automatic sliding doors opened. Her arm was stuck between the door and the window.

I screamed and tried to move the door closed but it wouldn't budge. A kind stranger came over and moved it for me. Immediately the manager came over and whisked us off to the medial center (not far away in Epcot - the old Horizons building?). Thankfully she was fine because her little arm was so skinny - just a few bruises. If she had been a little older or bigger, she could have been stuck or hurt.

Please don't do as I did. Stay away from those darn doors!

 

[Missytara]

Warning: DO NOT let your child look out the windows in any restaurant/store near the door.

We were eating in the place across from Mouse Gears in Epcot. DH was in the bathroom and I was wrangling my 2 girls - the youngest was 15mos. She was looking out the window at our table with her hands on the window. I didn't think anything of it until someone walked into the restaurant and the automatic sliding doors opened. Her arm was stuck between the door and the window.

I screamed and tried to move the door closed but it wouldn't budge. A kind stranger came over and moved it for me. Immediately the manager came over and whisked us off to the medial center (not far away in Epcot - the old Horizons building?). Thankfully she was fine because her little arm was so skinny - just a few bruises. If she had been a little older or bigger, she could have been stuck or hurt.

Please don't do as I did. Stay away from those darn doors!

Hopefully lightning won't strike twice, but anyone this might happen to - sliding glass doors have an extra feature that in case of fire, they push out. If there is not a fire, they are a bit more resistant and they are not always thrilled about putting them back in place, but it works.

I am an architect and now work in facilities management. We have sliding doord in our courthouses because the attorneys normally have large cases and no patience for regular swing doors. We have double doors to provide a vestibule, so the second door does not open right away. They get very impatient and push the next set open. We reset them many times a day.

 

[Elmo9607]

Never, ever, EVER travel with someone (while staying offsite with only one mode of transportation to and from the parks) who doesn't have the same touring style as you...especially during Christmas time.

Don't try to eat counter service between 12-2 during busier times of the year

Don't forget a heavy coat if you go in the winter.

 

[bluezy]

I've made 2 major "boo-boo's" in the last few trips. The first one has already been covered -- I saw a souvenir I wanted and loved but didn't buy it right away and then never found it again the rest of the week. For me it was wine charms. In 2004 I saw a cute set at AK that had each of the major characters as a charm. I loved them. Figured I'd get them at DTD when we did the rest of our shopping. Got to DTD a few days later and couldn't find them anywhere. No time to run back to AK and get them so I went home disappointed. Anytime someone I knew was going to WDW, I asked them to look for those wine charms and get them for me. No one ever found them....and I had people looking for the next 7 years. And I searched high and low during our later trips as well. Then, in 2011, we checked in at Pop Century and there was a set of wine charms in the gift shop! I had given up on finding the exact same ones and was willing to take *any* set (except the Villains). These charms weren't the same as the old ones --these were all different colored "glass" Mickey head charms. There was a whole shelf full of wine charms there (all the same set) and we were heading to Epcot when I saw them so I figured I'd get them on the way back to the room that night. Well, I forgot that night. And the next day. And the next...see where this is heading? Then we were at DTD and I figured I'd pick them up there. Couldn't find any ANYWHERE. Went back to Pop and headed straight for the shelf...1 box left! Oh, but wait, two of the charms are broken. CM checks in the back room. None. Makes a phone call. No more coming in anytime in the next two weeks...if ever. UGH!!!! Apparently I didn't learn my lesson the first time. It was our last night there and we were planning on going to MK for a few hours. We decided to head over early and hit the gift shops at CR, GF, and Poly to see if there were wine charms. Thankfully, the Poly had a few sets left. Lesson learned. Buy it when you see it. You can always have it shipped back to your resort if you don't want to carry it around.

My second boo-boo was not taking a 2nd camera along on our trip in 2011. We have 2 good digital cameras but one is much smaller and "pocket friendly" than the other so we usually only take the smaller one on vacations. I don't know why I didn't pack the bigger one as a "back up"...we drive, so space isn't an issue. We were about 10 hours into our drive when DH said, "Did you bring both cameras or just the small one?" When I told him that I only brought the small one he was a little miffed -- I'm the queen of overpacking -- but figured it would be fine. Fast forward to our first day at MK and DH is getting the camera ready to take to the park. He -- without me knowing -- decides he doesn't want the protective case on it because it's a pain to take it out of the case every time he wants to take a picture plus the case feels bulky in his pocket (it could also be attached to his belt but that didn't interest him). We get off of splash mountain and he reaches in his pocket to get the camera out to take a picture of us and the screen of the camera is totally crushed...and there was no optical view finder on that camera. He thinks the lap bar must have come down on the screen in his pocket. I was livid. For the rest of the week, we had to rely on my DS's crappy digital camera (that took awful pictures), our phones (which didn't have good cameras), and the Photopass photographers (fortunately I had pre-ordered the CD). We will never head to WDW again without at least 2 good cameras.

 

[srferson]

I'm like this reading your post .....

Best description ever. I was exactly the same!

I should make this a separate post... and will on the family board- but always check every drawer in any hotel room you enter for the first time when traveling with kids.

A friend of a friend went to Disney a few months ago and on their last day they were packing up and checking all the drawers- and they found a loaded gun in the night stand!!!! It was from the guest who stayed before them. Thank GOD their daughter didn't find it during their stay!!!!

Oh my god...



Well, two come to my mind.

First, if you are doing anything you normally do not do (which is likely on a vacation) make sure that you are aware of all the possible side effects of any medication you take.

For instance, if you're a computer geek with a desk job and don't normally spend much time in the sun, you probably want to know that you're on a sun-sensitive medication. Otherwise you may lay awake all night feeling horribly itchy because of the weird rash you suddenly have.

The second is actually for a Disney Cruise. Your KTTW cards are not the same as a room key at some normal hotel. You cannot just leave them behind in the room at the end of the cruise. Not if you want to disembark anyway.
(There should be a *facepalm* smilie on here.)

 

[ditsypixie]

This may have been posted earlier but this is one thing I did 2 years ago. While purchasing things for our trip, I picked up new packages of socks for all of my family. I made the mistake of picking up ankle length socks for my DD. Well, she had never worn this brand before and realized during our very first day in the parks...that the socks slid down into the shoes constantly!! Or as we call it in our family "my shoes are eating my socks!" It was awful! We were stopping every little bit for my DD to pull the socks up and she ended up getting a blister on one foot. Eventually, I had to spend WAY too much money on some Mickey and Minnie socks to replace those! Never again...what was I thinking?!?

 

[bytheblood]

not me but my best friend (but it affected me)

We were on our first day at Caribbean Beach and walked from our hotel room (Trinidad South) to the food court.

Prior to the trip my best friend bought the cutest sandals and thoght it would be a good idea to wear them./ You know what'[s coming right? Well she got such blisters from that walk alone we sepnd the entire first day in Downtown Disney looking for good sneakers.

She's learned her lesson now though (this was in 1994) and now wears broken in sneakers ONLY for the trip. She is very picky about what she gets LOL

Some of us very successfully wear sandals/flip-flops during our entire trip. I think it all depends on what you are used to at home, how much walking you normally do and how you walk.

 

[suzimar57]

our biggest "boo boo" USED to be upon arrival, hitting the ground "running" (straight to a park) - after having been up obscenely early for a 630am flight, not having slept the night before, stressed out (you get the idea....)

after years of seeing how "well" it worked (migraines, yelling, tears) we now plan nothing for arrival day beyond eating something in the resort food court after checking in (and storing luggage, if room isn't ready) then lounging poolside if the room isn't ready (and even if it is)

arrival day is a non-park day tradition now for us!

(and an early-to-bed sleepytime that first night, too!)

 

[GraceMonica]

I learned this the hard way...

Always lift up your foot high enough when exiting a ride vehicle.

A couple years ago I was getting out of test track and I didn't raise my short legs high enough and my foot didn't clear the platform and I face planted. So embarrassing! ALSO if you have long hair and you keep it down on this ride, it will likely retract with the seat belt and essentially making you look like a fool when trying to exit. I love riding test track, but my sister still makes fun of me for the falling incident, so I always get nervous when exiting this ride!! ARG! oh well!

 

[KatieKat]

My DH left a bag full of souvineers on seat at the poolside bar at POR when we went to the bathroom. Surprise, surprise it was gone when he got back.

 

[ZoZo]

Two months before you leave grab those pair of tennis shoes you love and flip them over. Take a good long hard look at the threads. If you can no longer see all of it go to the local running store get a new pair and some running socks (they make it easier to break shoes in I swear) and toss the old pair. Thread bare shoes can lead to more than one injury. If they are a bit worn but not extremely bad still go get a back up pair and break them in. Cause who knows how worn the first pair will be by the trip.

No offense, but I disagree with this. I would recommend bringing your oldest, crummiest tennis shoes on a WDW trip. One trip several years ago, I brought my regular workout shoes. Wore them about 45 minutes per day, several days a week for several months. Well, I got my worst blister ever on that trip! luckily, I had also brought my old, decrepit tennies, too, which I wore for the rest of the trip. Remember that you walk several miles per day on a WDW vacation; very different than a short daily workout!

So I recommend bringing several different pairs/types of shoes (sneakers, flip flops, Crocs) and see what works for you. Use Bodyglide and/or moleskin, and change shoes often!

 

[rosiep]

Some of us very successfully wear sandals/flip-flops during our entire trip. I think it all depends on what you are used to at home, how much walking you normally do and how you walk.

My daughter swore by her Candies flip flops. I was very skeptical to say the least...but she was right, she had no problem in those shoes.

 

[jenjifer]

Biggest boo-boo? I'd say it was not giving in and buying the ponchos at the first sign of rain. We thought we could get by with the disposable ones I bought for the water rides. Big mistake.

Another boo-boo? Believing that it would only rain for half an hour in the afternoon. We "suffered" through a monsoon. In all reality, though, it was the best thing that could have happened. Big Rain = Uncrowded Parks = 6 rides on TSMM in about 90 minutes.