Your worst moment at a Disney park?

[chiefmickeymouse]

When I was a teenager we went to Epcot with my parents and grandparents. About an hour into the park, Grandad disappeared! Without a word to anyone he sneaked off to a bar in the World Showcase, I think it was China or Japan. We spent the entire day looking for him (this was before cell phones). When we finally found him he was feeling no pain and we were all furious, but I guess he had had enough of the "theme park experience".

 

[Court475]

It has to be when my 2yo and 4yo were sent through the Haunted Mansion alone. Yes, hands down, that was my worst moment, realizing the doombuggy was not going to open for me to climb in, and the old man running the ride was not going to stop the ride. I can still hear their screaming as they entered the dark tunnel without me in the car with them.
__________________

That is awful! I would have been a mess!

 

[DaniB]

It has to be when my 2yo and 4yo were sent through the Haunted Mansion alone. Yes, hands down, that was my worst moment, realizing the doombuggy was not going to open for me to climb in, and the old man running the ride was not going to stop the ride. I can still hear their screaming as they entered the dark tunnel without me in the car with them.

OMG! I would have totally freaked out on him! Seriously, they would have been calling for a manager and security on me!

What did you do? IMO, those ages are too young to be going alone on that kind of ride.. What the heck was he thinking?

 

[wtccheermom]

OMG! I would have totally freaked out on him! Seriously, they would have been calling for a manager and security on me!

What did you do? IMO, those ages are too young to be going alone on that kind of ride.. What the heck was he thinking?

ITA I am not one for causing a scene but that is far too young for two children to be left alone on a ride in the dark. They could have easily slipped out of the buggy and a serious accident could have occurred. I I definitely would have lost it as would my husband. I would love to know his reason for not stopping the ride.

 

[smw]

My worst moment was on a Disney bus. Our DD uses a wheelchair full time. We LOVE Disney because she can go on alot of rides in her chair and the bus can take her in her chair. It makes a great trip for us!

Anyway, we are never in a hurry. We are on vacation! We were leaving the MK after the fireworks. It was busy. We went to the line and waited for a bus to go to CBR. We waited in the HC line as marked. When the bus pulled up a lady in the line became VERY vocal. She started going on about wheelchairs. The bus driver waved us down and we went. Anyway we loaded as did the vocal lady. Well she never let up she went on and on and on about wheelchairs! When her stop at CBR came she got off and walked by my DD and said "bye wheelchair!" I was floored and it broke my heart. I looked at my DD and smiled and told her "We love you!" My DD was 16 at the time so she took in every word the lady said. I wanted to tell the lady off but decided to be the better person. I also wanted to tell her my DD has a proper name!
ok rants over.

This is absurd. There's no chance I wouldn't have said something to this woman, even if it wasn't my family or friend. There are some things people just should not be able to get away with. I wouldve let you take the high road for your daughter while I told this woman what everyone else was thinking.

 

[Jaybrad]

2 years ago at Hollywood Studios. On the about-to-pull-away tram heading to our car for the evening.

A foreign family (Indian,maybe) is about to get on. I don't know how much English they spoke to understand the "please, wait" spill. The parents have a daughter with Down's Syndrome who gets on, so they follow. One of the cast members went BALLISTIC, and that is absolutely no exaggeration.

He gets right in their faces and is literally screaming at them (even the girl who I really don't think knew any better) and saying, "Do you want to fall under the wheels and DIE! You're bones could be crushed! I told you to wait!" His face was red and the veins were popping out of his neck. My husband said it reminded him of an angry drunk. Everyone just stared at him. Magic gone. Awkward silence.

It really bothered us, sooooo my dad got back on the tram and found the guy. My dad, you have to understand is the nicest guy in the world, but when he pulls himself up to his 6'6" frame and uses his matt-of-fact-yet-I-mean-business voice, people pay attention. He told the cast member how horrible his behavior was and that he ruined the night for a lot of people. Then, he told him to wait and that he was going to get management to take care of the situation.

My dad went to guest services, found the person in charge, told them what happened. They were shocked, so they went with my dad to the guy who stayed where he was told. The cast member left with the management and hopefully was fired on the spot or at least demoted to cleaning horse poop. It was the most awful scene I have ever witnessed in all of my years at Disney.

The Cast Member may have been out of line, I do not know. But on all of the trams, when the operator says no more loading and wait for the next tram there should be no more loading! I have on many time seen people running from several yards away trying to get on the tram after they have been told not to and the tram being delayed several minutes because these nuts were seating in each others laps, hanging objects over the side and all possible infractions of the safety rules to try to save a couple of minutes. If the tram was "about to pull away" as you said, the guest should not have been allowed to board. The cast member had a problem either way. Someone report him/her for being rude or some one getting hurt and the cast member gets fired and Disney sued. I support the cast member doing his/her job. If some one got their feelings hurt, too bad. Thanks to all the cast members for doing a great job.

 

[krichards]

When I was 6 years old my aunt left me in front of Cinderella's Castle during Spring Break. I was too busy watching the princesses that I didn't notice my aunt and cousin walked off. I started crying and this family came over to me and walked me to the lost and found station where they handed me a stuffed Mickey Mouse to keep me calm. After what felt like 5 hours my parents finally came to the rescue. I am 25 now and still give me aunt beef about leaving me in front of the castle. In her defense, she didn't know I followed behind her. She thought I stayed with my family! Nice excuse!

 

[MarieA]

Our worst moment at WDW was in the Magic Kingdom. My DH, DD (at the time 17), DS (14 at the time) and I were riding Splash Mountain. My DD was wearing flip flops and when we went down the last drop her foot slipped. She was sitting in the front of the car and her foot hit a bar. Her toe nail was ripped off and she was bleeding. When we exited the ride I told the CM what had happened and said I thought they needed to take the car out of service to clean it up. We figured we would walk over to the first aid station to have her toe taken care of. The CM immediately called the EMT's and they tended to my DD right where everyone was exiting the ride. She kept telling the CMs that she was okay but she was so embarrassed because everyone was looking at her. The EMTs were great. They told us that if we needed anything that night to give them a call (they gave us a phone number to get in touch with them).

We had ADRs at Kona that we were now going to be late for. The CM called Kona and had our ADR moved back by 1 hr. and offered to get us a car to the Polynesian. We thanked the CM but decided we would be fine taking the monorail. My daughter's toe was sore the rest of the trip but we were in WDW so she made the best of it.

 

[phinz]

after reading all the sickness stories I may need to bathe in anti-bacterial gel next time at WDW

There's a reason my wife and I call WDW "The Happiest Petri Dish on Earth."

 

[mollygirl13]

Jedi

Your story was the best!! I forwarded it to my sister and we have been talking it for 1/2 hour. SO funny!

 

[libraryfreak]

You go girl! I'm proud of you!

To my embarrassment I *did * let fly on a person like that once headed "home" to ASMovies. Leaving Epcot in the evening this extremely drunk, viscious woman noticed my sister in her wheelchair and started yelling at the top of her voice for people to "shove back and make room." Several people responded that there wasn't any more room and she should just wait for the next bus. That was all it took for her to completely come unhinged she screamed out "if you wouldn't let g.d. wheelchairs on this g.d. bus there would be more room for those of us that can stand."

I lost my mind! I yelled back that she needed to shut her mouth and wait for the next bus. She yelled more ugly things and I yelled right back. I simply refused to be cowed by this woman. I am not proud of my actions, and looking back I'm sure that I embarrassed my sister and the rest of the bus, but she was so hateful and nasty that I felt like I just had to yell back or knock her the hell out once I got off the bus. It took a lot of sitting around well after she had gotten off the bus to let my nerves calm down so that I didn't deck her. I don't know that I have ever been that angry in my whole life.

 

[Lyndria]

I have never had a bad day that was WDW's fault, but I have had migraines while at WDW. Talk about agony.

Me too! EPCOT last year. I felt it coming on, but thought I'd try and make it to the MK for evening fun. By the time we got there, I was barely mobile. I had to get to our camper at Fort Wilderness from MK. There is no direct bus. I had to take a bus from MK to Wilderness Lodge and then change busses to get to the Fort. I crawled in the camper, took my meds and passed out til DH came back. Yuck.

 

[Lyndria]

When I was a teenager we went to Epcot with my parents and grandparents. About an hour into the park, Grandad disappeared! Without a word to anyone he sneaked off to a bar in the World Showcase, I think it was China or Japan. We spent the entire day looking for him (this was before cell phones). When we finally found him he was feeling no pain and we were all furious, but I guess he had had enough of the "theme park experience".

Oh..I have thought about doing this before...

 

[Twinprincesses]

We were at rope drop for our first time at Disneyland and I dropped my camera and broke the lens I ended up buying a SUPER overpriced digital one inside the park.

My daughter had an accident in her underpants at an age she should not have. I had to search every store for new undies until we finally found some.

 

[Twinprincesses]

One more... We had reservations for the Hoop Dee Doo. My daughter had been sick all day but felt good enough to go to the show. Walking in she threw up said she felt better but then slept the entire show waking up once to throw up. DH finally took her back to the room but the poor thing was so sad she missed the show.

 

[perrytheplatypus]

My boyfriend and I were waiting for Wishes to start on our first day at the parks. We has already had a rough and tiring day so far (put on the wrong magical express bus..driver left us on the bus all alone for like a half hour and was incredibly rude about the mistake THEY made) A few minutes before it started some people stood in front of us with a balloon tied to their stroller blocking my view of the castle. For some reason I thought this was the worst thing to happen EVER and I started crying and pouting. I didn't even get to see the fireworks because of my bad mood! Looking back on it it's completely ridiculous.

 

[twinspluscade]

The Cast Member may have been out of line, I do not know. But on all of the trams, when the operator says no more loading and wait for the next tram there should be no more loading! I have on many time seen people running from several yards away trying to get on the tram after they have been told not to and the tram being delayed several minutes because these nuts were seating in each others laps, hanging objects over the side and all possible infractions of the safety rules to try to save a couple of minutes. If the tram was "about to pull away" as you said, the guest should not have been allowed to board. The cast member had a problem either way. Someone report him/her for being rude or some one getting hurt and the cast member gets fired and Disney sued. I support the cast member doing his/her job. If some one got their feelings hurt, too bad. Thanks to all the cast members for doing a great job.

No doubt, guests should not be trying to get on as a tram is ready to pull away. However, in this case the guest had Down Syndrome, which (IMO) makes the situation a bit different.

 

[starlionblue]

The Cast Member may have been out of line, I do not know. But on all of the trams, when the operator says no more loading and wait for the next tram there should be no more loading! I have on many time seen people running from several yards away trying to get on the tram after they have been told not to and the tram being delayed several minutes because these nuts were seating in each others laps, hanging objects over the side and all possible infractions of the safety rules to try to save a couple of minutes. If the tram was "about to pull away" as you said, the guest should not have been allowed to board. The cast member had a problem either way. Someone report him/her for being rude or some one getting hurt and the cast member gets fired and Disney sued. I support the cast member doing his/her job. If some one got their feelings hurt, too bad. Thanks to all the cast members for doing a great job.

It sounds like there's a detail or two that the poster isn't telling us. Sometimes, people pretend they can't understand in order to step around the rules. I've seen it happen more times than I can count. And I'm a minority and I've seen incidents where people use race as an excuse to scream at an amusement park attendant about why "rules don't apply to me". Sometimes they even hurl racial remarks back at the attendant.

 

[ajh88]

I'm glad we aren't the only ones these things happen to...I guess I have 3 "bad" memories from 2 different trips.

In 2003, it was only my 2nd trip as an adult and we weren't quite as well-versed as we are now. I'm usually pretty OK, but once in awhile I must get hypoglycemic or something because I need food/drink and I need it NOW (it is rare, but when it happens, there is no doing anything else until I get what I need!). We were in EPCOT sort of in between Future World and World Showcase. It was August (need I say more?). I *had* to have a snack, like immediately. We walked ALL THE WAY over to the Odyssey restaurant...um, hello! It isn't open anymore!?! I guess we had skipped that side of the park on our previous trip and DH didn't realize it was closed. I was literally in tears by the time we made it to a snack cart for fries and a soda. I'm sure I looked like a lunatic...I carry a snack with me at all times now.

On that same trip, at AK, (still August, still hot)...DH was running from Pizzafari to Kilimanjaro Safari (for some reason, I still don't remember why). He dropped our camera (a 35 mm), the back sprung open, and our roll of film was ruined. Thankfully the camera didn't break...we got a digital camera before the next trip...

In 2005, we took a big family trip for Christmas. On the drive down, my nephew was sick (as in throwing up). We all sort of knew it would make the rounds, but we held out hope for the best. My parents and sister got it early in the trip (first day or so). My DD got it sort of in the middle...she was about 4 years old and was sleeping with me. I woke up in the night with her throwing up...all over me. Yes, my kid threw up and a little bit got in my mouth. Thankfully, it only lasted about a day for her. I had the good fortune of having it on the drive home. I've gotten sick at every northbound rest-area between Orlando and the Georgia border on I-75.

Funny though, we can sort of laugh about those things now, even if they were making us crazy at the time!

 

[goofyernmost]

No doubt, guests should not be trying to get on as a tram is ready to pull away. However, in this case the guest had Down Syndrome, which (IMO) makes the situation a bit different.

Not really...Down's Syndrome does not make a person unable to respond to simple commands and my experience has been that most with the situation are far less inclined to deliberately break rules then the general public. Right is right...wrong is wrong... regardless of whatever syndrome one might possess. If the person was alone then they had already shown a much higher functional level then many others with Down's. Following directions should not have been an issue at all. Deliberate violation of rules deserves a calling out just as it would with any other human being.

If the degree of function is less, and companions are required then it is the companion that needs to be called out...either way for everyone's safety it needs to be enforced regardless.