Our Most Embarrassing Experiences at Disney World
Let’s face it, we all make mistakes at Walt Disney World. Whether it’s your first or fifteenth trip, you’re bound to have a few big blunders. We’ve all been there. This type of thing is so common that you shouldn’t turn red in the face, especially since the complicated and convoluted process WDW uses for literally everything makes mistakes and confusion inevitable.
Here is just a short list of embarrassing experiences at Walt Disney World, some of which may or may not have happened to us relatively recently:
- Misreading Disney’s cutesy signage and going into the wrong restroom
- Forgetting which finger you used at the tapstiles and backing up the line behind you at Early Entry
- Wearing Frogg Toggs and a bucket hat around to keep cool in the Florida heat
- Awkwardly making (very forced) small talk with a princess at a character meal
- Doing that dance where you and an oncoming stranger both try to avoid one another by moving in the same direction…repeatedly
- Briefly getting stuck on Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (stupid camera bag), Space Mountain, etc.
- Accidentally “stealing” someone’s lounge chair due to similar towel and sandals (probably happens all the time with ECVs and strollers, too)
- Assorted Genie+ goof ups
- Crying during Country Bear Jamboree
- Crying when meeting famous celebrity (Big Al)
- Tripping on Main Street trolley tracks or random curbs
- Fistfight with bird trying to steal Flame Tree BBQ feast
- Pooped on by bird
These are all pretty common experiences to the point that they barely bear mentioning. I mean, who among us hasn’t shed a single tear at the grace and majesty of Country Bear Jamboree (there’s a reason they made it a UNESCO World Heritage Site!) or perhaps gotten a little too excited after stumbling upon a rare character to the point that other guests gave a bit of side eye. C’mon, we’re all Walt Disney World fans here, we’re just built differently!
That’s not what this list is about, though. This is not a list of ‘cautionary tales’ that will help you avoid making similar mistakes and having similar embarrassing experiences. (Well, it sorta is–some of those bullet points above really do happen frequently.) Rather, this is us pulling back the curtain and sharing some of the dumb stuff we’ve done in the 15+ years we’ve been doing Walt Disney World together.
I would hazard a guess that almost all of these will be unique to us, and not a mistake that you could make. So this post really serves no practical purpose, save for giving you a laugh at our expense. And isn’t that truly the greatest gift of all?!
One of the (many) things we hate about social media is how everything is picture-perfect, romanticized and totally unrealistic. Influencers present only what they want you to see–the good of their lives, and seldom the bad. There are a ton of reasons why this is unhealthy, and creates aspirations for a reality that does not exist.
You’ll find none of that here. Although Sarah’s hair somehow and against all odds can beat the Florida heat and humidity, we’re real people, warts and all. We’ve make mistakes, have had our share of embarrassing experiences, and–as my grandma puts it–don’t always think with our heads.
(In actuality, the “we” on this list is mostly me. I’ve been told I have “middle age absent-minded professor energy,” which I can only assume is high praise since it means that I am literate and competent at teaching.)
Ghostface Killah – The whole idea for this post was prompted by my many mishaps this year and, I’m gonna be honest, these are 100% Sarah’s fault. Not to feed into a stereotype of anything, but she is basically the guardrails preventing me from doing or saying dumb things and making bad choices.
In this particular case, Sarah bought me new industrial strength sunscreen that is more like a thick paste or goo than it is a lotion. This “had to be done” because I kept forgetting to reapply regular strength sunscreen and was coming home sunburnt.
Anyway, like a total doofus, I apply this sunscreen like a normal lotion and go on with my business around Magic Kingdom. Fast-forward several hours later. I’m coming out of the restrooms near Space Mountain in Tomorrowland and catch a glimpse of myself, looking like I’ve just seen a ghost. I had talked to several people during the intervening hours and been all over the parks. I was mortified, which at least gave my face a nice red glow, I guess.
The worst part? This has happened more than once. Never nearly as extreme as that (it was really bad!), but there are actually several photos on the blog where I look paler than normal. This new sunscreen is the culprit.
Threat Level Midnight – Long before this blog was even a mere flicker in my eye, I was active on Flickr (remember that?) trying to teach myself photography and improve my skills. We made a lot of great friends then, and ended up taking multiple long weekend photo-centric trips.
The first of those was weird, but not in a meeting-strangers-from-the-internet way (to the contrary, pretty much everyone we’ve met in real life from the Disney fandom has been awesome). Rather, it was due to two separate encounters with security.
The first of these was in Magic Kingdom, when a security guard questioned what we were doing with our photos, trying to tie tripods to terrorism. (I’m not even kidding.) It made zero sense whatsoever, as we were photographing the old Swan Boat dock and Plaza Rose Garden. I cannot believe terrorists have a keen interest in those things, although now that I think about it, maybe that’s why they were removed.
A night or two later, we were all questioned in front of Spaceship Earth while taking photos of the monorails. This one at least made more sense given that the monorails are infrastructure, and honestly spooked us a bit. It still didn’t completely check out, though. If we wanted to ‘document’ the monorails, why wait until we were the only guests left in the park? I’m guessing most bad actors are more discreet, and not drawing attention to themselves by taking long exposure photos in the exact same spot for minutes on end.
In fairness, this was “only” 7.5 years after 9/11 and tripods were pretty rare in the parks. But I don’t recall having any major issues in the years immediately before or after that, so it was embarrassing and unsettling to have two run-ins on the same trip. (Maybe security was heightened and on edge for some reason?)
Room Rave – Speaking of security, earlier this year I was returning to my room at the Grand Floridian after a long night of Extended Evening Hours followed by the exhilarating activity of photographing Easter eggs in the lobby. It was sometime after 1 am, and I’m just ready to crash–barely able to keep my eyes open.
I round the hallway corner to see a half-dozen or more Cast Members knocking on my door. I was instantly awake, my heart racing. I didn’t have time to fully process the possibilities or game out what was going on, but my immediate thought was that someone planted something in my bag. (That makes zero sense in hindsight, but I had just watched American Made.)
I feebly said something along the lines of, “uh…that’s my room.” This somehow immediately de-escalated the situation, with a Cast Member saying something like, “oh that makes sense.” Apparently they had received a noise complaint, and had just gotten security to enter because no one was responding (since no one was in there).
The kicker, though, was that I had only entered my room for about 5 minutes to drop off my luggage and had immediately gone to the parks. The noise was coming from the welcome melody on the television, which I hadn’t touched because it didn’t occur to me. I was incredibly apologetic for whatever reason, and based on the response from the Cast Members, this is not an uncommon occurrence.
Despite being utterly exhausted 5 minutes earlier, I couldn’t calm down and get to sleep for another couple of hours. Nevertheless, I was awoken bright and early the next morning by my neighbors talking in what sounded like normal indoor voices. Perhaps it was passive aggressive revenge, but I think the true villain here was the paper-thin walls of the Grand Floridian.
Tequila Sunset – During our Disneymoon almost 15 years ago, we set aside one day to drink around World Showcase at EPCOT, ending with the then-new La Cava Del Tequila. This wasn’t our first rodeo, we had drank around the World a few times before this, and had a pretty good idea of how to do so responsibly by pacing ourselves with snacking, attractions, hydration, and breaks. Or so we thought.
As it turns out, drinking around World Showcase as a college student is a lot different than drinking around World Showcase as sleep-deprived newly-weds who hadn’t had much alcohol for months while wedding planning and trying to get into shape. Funny how that works. Thankfully, we knew better than to get sloppy at Walt Disney World.
What the alcohol did do was diminish our judgment and reduce inhibitions, and we made fast friends with another couple at the bar. They were high rollers and tequila connoisseurs (at least, that was my impression at the time as someone who almost exclusively drank Busch Light), and ordered us a few shots and drinks. When it came time to settle up, they were happy to pay for the celebratory drinks.
However, I insisted that we pay for our own drinks. There was a back and forth, but I was pretty emphatic that we were going to pay for ourselves. To this day, I couldn’t tell you why. Then I was handed the bill, and my heart sank and my face turned bright red. But stubborn as I was, we paid even over their objections. Again, zero clue why. We had out after out that we didn’t take. Suffice to say, we’ve never drank around World Showcase at EPCOT again.
Restroom Regrets – Ah, who among us hasn’t had a bad (or good) feast at Chef Mickey’s that, uh, did some damage later. No? Me neither. So it’s a good thing that’s not actually what this is about.
My camera strap is a sling, which means the lens dangles at my waist (see above). Usually, I have one hand on the camera at all times because I’ve had the strap fail in the past and lost a lens this way. That’s not really doable in the restroom from a logistical perspective, so it bounces around. On one occasion, my telephoto lens was attached and the camera hit my hip in just the right (or rather, wrong) way, causing the camera to loudly fire a series of shutter bursts.
This was like a decade ago, but I still vividly remember the weight of every eye in that restroom turning towards me, and stuttering to get words to come out of my mouth in some stupid attempt to explain. Like a bad out of body experience. Thankfully, no one got confrontational–I think it was pretty obvious the lens was photographing the ground given the orientation of the camera–but suffice to say, I always check to make sure the camera is turned off and the lens cap is on before entering restrooms now.
Solo Roundup – I’ve made a lot of solo visits to Walt Disney World this year, as Sarah had been trying to mitigate risk while pregnant. I’ve done some meals with others, but oddly enough, none of my thirtysomething friends wanted to eat at Toy Story Roundup Rodeo BBQ. So, I opted to eat there alone.
I want to preface this by saying that I actually enjoy eating by myself sometimes. This was not one of those times. I was seated at the very front of the restaurant, at a table every party would pass on their way to be seated, and right next to a little prep station for servers. I was already slightly uncomfortable to be a solo adult male in a kids restaurant, and being on fully display exacerbated it.
What really put things over the top was that the kitchen couldn’t prepare smaller size portions, so I got a whole ton of food brought out to me. And of course, I’m photographing all of this food. (My own “fault,” so to speak, but did me no favors in making myself less conspicuous.) Even if Sarah were with me, this would’ve been way too much food–I’ll bet we could’ve only finished half of it.
By myself, I was only able to eat a little less than half of it, and that was only after going way too hard to minimize the waste. When my server arrived, I proactively commented on this and apologized for the food waste. To her credit, she completely unfazed and told me not to worry about it–that she had seen far, far worse and that Walt Disney World recycles all of the food (not to future patrons–this isn’t Chuck E. Cheese), so it didn’t matter.
Although I’m familiar with Walt Disney World’s commitment to reducing and diverting food waste, I’d still rather not be in that position in the first place. I haven’t done any family style meals by myself since Toy Story Roundup Rodeo BBQ.
Masks Off – This one barely registers now, but the world was a different place in Summer 2020. Having been largely confined to our home for the prior few months, we did a number of hotel stays as soon as Walt Disney World began its phased reopening. Rates were low, and availability was abundant via DVC.
One of those mornings, I raced out of the room to photograph the sunrise on Crescent Lake. As I was making my way through the lobby of Beach Club, I saw a Cast Member in a face mask. The next few seconds happened in slow motion, as I realized I wasn’t wearing a mask at the same time that they said something. I apologized profusely and began (over)explaining what happened, worried that security was going to get called or something, I guess?
Even at the time, it was a bigger deal in my head than anything. The Cast Member was understanding, security was not called, and I simply ran up to the room and grabbed my mask. It might seem like nothing in retrospect, but again, very different circumstances in July 2020. I was absolutely mortified.
Fake Fame – On occasion, readers come up to us in the parks and say hello or whatever. We generally like this. It’s nice to chat with people and get feedback about the highs and lows of their trip, how our itineraries and other planning advice worked (or didn’t), etc.
Sometimes, people are excited to meet us and, uh, audibly express that. I can somewhat understand this; I’d be excited to meet Sarah, too! This is not awkward in and of itself, but it can be when other guests in the general vicinity then follow up by asking, “are you famous?” That’s the kind of question that answers itself. Do I look famous in my bucket hat, athletic shirt, and Crocs?
Disney blogging may seem like a cool thing to like 3.5% of you, but I can assure you that it is a cool thing to 0.0% of the non-Disney-blog-consuming public. Explaining to a stranger why someone is excited to meet me, a Disney blogger, as they give me a dead-eyed stare is excruciating for all involved. Next time I’m just saying I’m an astronaut.
While we’re on the topic, please say hello if you see us in the park! We really enjoy chatting. But also, please don’t get too excited about it. Trust me, if you are overly enthusiastic, you might be setting up disappointment for yourself…and others around you. I’m about the furthest thing from a celebrity as you can conceivably imagine. Sarah is cool, though.
Contemporary Shoes – I have this problem, you might even call it a condition, where I don’t fully think through decisions to their logical endpoint. I take decisive action. Sometimes, that’s a good thing. In this scenario, it very much was not.
Sarah and I had just checked into the Contemporary, and she had to go pick up a package or something. It had been raining, and my shoes were a bit wet, so I decided to rapidly accelerate the dehumidifying process: I stuck a blow dryer inside one of them. Now, my feet always smell something awful when we’re at Walt Disney World. I guess this alone is low-level embarrassing–but unlike a lot of DVC members in the Imagination Lounge, I don’t take my shoes off in the parks, so it doesn’t matter.
What’s high-level embarrassing is how badly our room…and the hallway…smelled after only a few minutes of the rapidly accelerated dehumidification process. It was like a proprietary blend of burnt funguses. Sarah had a few choice words for me when she returned (thankfully, we had been married for several years at this point), wondering how I managed to stink up the room so efficiently in the few minutes that she was gone.
I can’t watch the scene in Community where Troy enters the fire-filled room without picturing Sarah’s reaction. Same goes for the scene in The Office where Kevin gets his shoes incinerated by the hotel staff due to them being a safety issue, which makes me think back to finding an out of the way trash can at the Contemporary to ditch my kicks. On the plus side, both scenes are especially funny as reminders of this ‘fun’ memory.
Fulton’s Feast – There were probably a number of times I was embarrassed during my childhood trips to Walt Disney World, especially the visits that bled into my teenage years, that awkward time when everything your parents do agitates you. I know my mom has her own list of things my dad–a military man without a filter–said. But I don’t actually remember any of that; I remember hearing the stories over the years.
What I do vividly remember is eating at Fulton’s Crab House aboard the elegant Empress Lilly (now known as Paddlefish) in the mid to late 1990s. This was quite a extravagant meal for us country folk, and was easily the nicest meal I had ever eaten in my life up until that point. We were seated upstairs, in a bit of a quiet corner, and my parents told me to order whatever I wanted. I was so excited. I felt like royalty.
I’m not sure I had ever had crab (spelled with a “c” instead of a “k”) before in my life, so I ordered that. It was delicious. It was tender, buttery, succulent, buttery, flavorful, and did I mention buttery? Unfortunately, the reason this meal is probably so memorable for me is because it’s one of the few meals in my life that caused me to get…let’s just say “sick.”
I swore off seafood for several years after that (thankfully, it didn’t stick) and at the time, it was not just embarrassing–but disappointing that this special experience turned negative. But there’s a decent chance I wouldn’t remember it at all but for that. Most importantly, I remember my parents being gracious and caring when they could’ve been angry or annoyed that their boneheaded son dousing his seafood in like a pound of butter. I guess that sort of speaks to the silver lining in almost all of this–every indelible experience shapes us a little, even the embarrassing and bad ones.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Anyone else care to share you or your family’s embarrassing experiences at Walt Disney World? Do your most mortifying moments in the parks beat ours? Have you had any similar experiences to the ones on this list? Thoughts on our/my dumb mistakes at Walt Disney World? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback—even when you disagree with us—is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
I’ve been holding onto this one since 1996…my 2-1/2 year old sister, still in diapers, got into my stepmom’s bag and ate the entire value pack of Trident gum hours before our flight to Orlando. The pediatrician recommended a “wait and see” approach. By the third day of gobbling up WDW treats with no bowel movements, the doctor called in a laxative. Later that day, in the middle of our meal in the dining room of Chefs de France (back in a time when this restaurant was about as elegant as Epcot offered), my sister stood on the banquette and yelled “SOMETHING IS HAPPENING!” She leaned forward, hands on the table and moaned, grunted, and whimpered, “It’s scary…” My teenaged friends and I were all soothingly murmuring, “It’s ok, Katie. You can poop now.” The entire dining room was spellbound. Luckily, my stepmom came to her senses and whisked my sister into the restroom just in the nick of time. Even luckier, she had a change of clothes in the diaper bag. You can imagine how much we enjoy pulling that story out at opportune moments in my sister’s life.
Okay you win.
(Not sure this is the type of topic that you want to “win,” but you win, nevertheless.)
Currently on the way back from our first DCL experience. I went into the ladies restroom in the adult area last night by accident (because of those cutesy signs). There was no one in there, and I shrugged off the lack of urinals as a feature. Had a totally embarrassing experience while washing my hands….great list!
A couple of years ago my wife and I had one of our few days ‘off’ from parks and spent a wonderful afternoon lounging aside one of the semi-crowded pools at Magnolia Bend (Port Orleans Riverside). A child of maybe 5-6 years old was splashing around quite vigorously in the water. His mother persistently called his name from where she was lounging, I suppose with the hope her son would calm it down a bit, but made no attempt to rise from her chair and confront the situation a little closer at hand. The son was either deaf or completely unphased by his mother’s repeated hollering (probably happens all the time) since the rigorous flailing did not diminish one bit. “Marco! Marco! Marco!” No response. After what seemed like about ten minutes, my wife shouted rather loudly, “Polo!”. The entire poolside full of guests erupted with uncontrollably laughter (I even witnessed a Cast Member making futile attempts to hide her amusement). The shouting mother was clueless as to what was so funny. I, for one, was mortified. It’s funny now.
Embarrassing?! Your wife deserves a medal for injecting some humor into a situation that, I assume, was pretty annoying for everyone else at the pool. That’s absolutely hilarious.
We were in the pool at Caribbean Beach in 2016. My 4 year old daughter was making friends with a young British girl the same age. I was having a great conversation with her dad, and we had both of the kids on our respective shoulders. Apparently the lifeguard yelled at us to get the kids down – he heard it, I didn’t. He put his daughter down and I must have put mine down by chance at the same time.
We kept talking, and 5 minutes later I picked my daughter up again. The lifeguard started yelling at me – I didn’t hear it, but the British guy did, and you could tell the whole situation was getting super awkward for him. He finally said “You’re a bit of a rule breaker, aren’t you” in typical dry British fashion and swam away. I finally heard the lifeguard and pieced together the whole situation. Then I went back to my room and never showed my face in the pool for the rest of the trip.
Note to bar patrons: WDW doesn’t offer complimentary nuts/bar snacks. I helped myself to a handful at Victoria Falls and the guy next to me seemed pretty shocked that I had just eaten out of his bowl.
I saw the Mandalorian letting people take photos and ran up to him only to politely be told by a cast member to please wait in line. I’m 73 and cut a line of children
This was a fun article! Our family and I have had our share of embarrassing moments too! If only I had a Fastpass for every time I’ve stumbled off the side walk on Main Street USA.
Thank you for sharing as we all have a story.
My daughter in broke her foot the night before we left for Disney. Got her casted, crutches, and a wheelchair and heading on vacation.
Everything was going smoothly until we rode Buzz Lightyear… trying to be the good mom I put the crutches in the ride vehicle and thought we were fine.
A few spins later while blasting Zorg… out went the crutches and could not catch them fast enough. Daughter now in tears … mom embarrassed
Cast members were wonderful. They found the crutches. One slightly bent but usable. And they help a little girl in tears back on the ride to fight Zorg again.
“…to the contrary, pretty much everyone we’ve met in real life from the Disney fandom has been awesome”
I’m the reason Tom had to qualify that with “pretty much”.
I too have sworn off family style solo. Though I am, shall we say, capacious, it was too much even for me. I was at DCA one day and decided I wanted to do a solo buffet at Storyteller’s Café, I’m not proud of it, but I was hungry. However, this was post-reopening when they were doing family style instead of the buffet. My first clue should’ve been when they handed me a menu, but I kept looking around wondering when they would bring out the clean plates. They kept bringing me stuff and I kept saying, “I didn’t order this,” and they had to patiently repeat, “It comes with it.” Anyway, I left with a big shopping bag full of cartons that security had to paw through for several minutes (they told me it looks tasty).
People shouldn’t make this mistake either, but I play pranks intentionally. Also not proud of this. For example, I might stand in the entrance of a restroom as if there is a line just around the corner even though there is no line, just to see how many people I can accumulate (this is how I met Tom). Or I might leave the Palm Breeze Bar through the DVC lobby of the Disneyland Hotel and exclaim loudly, “I wish there was some kind of timeshare, but just for Disney,” and then start running. And speaking of the worst security gates to go through in any theme park, I like to bring incredibly random and incongruous items in a bag through security to brighten their dreary days. One dirty sock, masking tape, a GoBot toy from the 80s, a block of Parmesan-Reggiano. Also I bought the “snake in a can” gag from the Main Street Magic Shop, and that delights them as well. Just make sure that when they ask what’s in the can, you shift your eyes around nervously and say, “Says right there on the can. Mixed nuts.”
You, Darren, are hilarious. I wish I could witness some of those pranks, and may even try a few myself!
Our two most embarrassing moments at WDW both involved…blowouts…from our infant children.
Child A’s was so bad we had to *call maintenance* to try to get our stroller hosed down (they sent a guy with a special cleaning solution who would not accept a tip and may or may not have been an actual Saint sent from above).
Child B’s happened in Tambu Lounge and let me tell you, Disney lost more than a few black cloth napkins as we tried to clean up and race to the bathroom nearby.
Point is – I predict you and Sarah will be adding at least one more, uh, “memorable” moment with young Megatron in the next few months!
Also I burst into tears when we went to meet Mickey. A grown woman, yup. I get emotional because I loved going to Disneyland, as a child, with my late mother. She was the only family member who would go with me because everybody else lived in Los Angeles and liked, 😮 Knotts Berry Farm better and was Disneyed out.
My worst Disney moment was when my purse hit my hip for the umpteenth time and my sciatic nerve went “YOU CANNOT WALK NOW” as we were leaving Magic Kingdom. OMG it was awful and my boyfriend went to find a wheelchair to get me to the bus and then back to the hotel.
I’ve tripped over the train tracks, fell of a curb or two, or maybe even three through the years, dropped food on myself, spilled drinks on myself, almost wet my pants (okay, I wet my pants, not going into details. Oh yeah, it has happened twice actually). Cast Members have been really nice about getting me an ice bag when I sprained my ankle, and got cut in weird ways and needed bandaids.
Yep, I am a major klutz who should not drink huge sodas and run around a lot without hitting a bathroom on a regular basis.
p.s. OMG I just remember the time I accidentally photo bombed a marriage proposal at Be Our Guest. I was incredibly embarrassed when my boyfriend said, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? He’s proposing!”
They do always leave that welcome TV channel on too loud! On a recent trip I was staying at Carribbean Beach and trying to work on my computer in the room, which proved impossible since the connecting room’s television was SO LOUD. After looking at the room configuration just a little bit I realized that the door itself angles right at the television…and in a fit of desperation to save my sanity I stuck the remote right up to their eye-hole and put their television on mute! Nothing embarrassing in this story, though…I just can’t believe it worked.
I do have some guilty moments though. There was one time I was on the Liberty Belle and a family came up and started doing…something…which annoyed me. I started talking to my friend about it just loud enough for them to maybe hear and stop doing it. They came up to me a few minutes later and I was ready for a confrontation…but they just wanted to tell me their daughter really liked my dress. They probably never heard me complaining and I can’t even recall what I had been annoyed about in the first place, but it reminded me that we’re all at Disney just trying to have fun and to not get so worked up about trivial things.
Your eye-hole trick was genius!
We were in Animal Kingdom outside of Tusker House after a wonderful meal when our son for absolutely no reason at all decided to take his Magic Band off and ‘feed’ it to one of the many masks on the wall. Those masks are nailed to the wall, the band was gone. We were in a state of panic, not realizing how easy it was to replace the bands, thinking it was some expensive long process because of all the trip information stored in it. Good times.
This article was a great, funny read. Well done.
Thank you for sharing! These crack me up! Just love your writing, photos, honesty and love for Sarah. Thank you both for sharing Megatron with us and your fur babies too. I would be so excited to see you guys in the park and tell all the people around you how awesome you guys are and how lucky they should feel to be in line with Disney celebs. Lol. Our first Disney trip I was 5yrs old with 2 older sisters. I vividly remember many family flubs. Like crying in my stroller bc my sisters got to see Tigger walking around but I couldn’t get out of the stroller fast enough. Another incident I got separated from my family due to staring at a sign of a map when they walked away causing me to cry hysterically, making my parents look irresponsible. I left my jelly shoes in the car in the Florida heat which left them piles of pretty melted glitter. Finally, my Dad pulled away from the resort with everything loaded in except half of my little body. Thankfully I pulled myself out without getting run over. LOL. As traumatic as all of this could have been, that trip sparked a lifetime of Disney enthusiasm. My next trip would be with my Dad at 18 years old, not realizing he would be diagnosed with cancer that same year and gone just a year later. Point being the flubs make some of the best memories that keep your family smiling through life’s hard times. Thank you for keeping us Disney enthusiasts smiling Bricker Family!
Oh gosh, these are great. The camera going off in the bathroom … WOW. Brutal. Thank you for sharing these excuses to laugh out loud.
I think the occasions that haunt me are when I’m a LITTLE TOO EXCITED (as a grown adult with teenagers, no less), and accidentally (I swear!) thrust my autograph book at a character before they’re done with the previous guest. Or cut someone off who’s going “too slowly” (I’m getting better at this one now that I’m in my 50s myself). I live in a high-density area; I should know better. And yet, the thrill of being at Disney can overwhelm my normally mostly good sense sometimes.
I’m sorry to say, Tom, that if I ever see you and/or Sarah at a park, you will definitely have some ‘splaining to do afterward. I’ll do my best to play it cool, though.
Very very minor, but on our first trip to WDW as a kid, my dad walked up to a vendor and, completely sincerely, said, “Gimme some of them rat ears.” We still laugh about it to this day that he committed such a terrible faux pas in Mickey’s HOME!
We got a Cars suite at Art of Animation because we were traveling with 2 dogs. After checking in , we left the dogs in the room to fetch more luggage from the car. When we returned one of the dogs – a Chihuahua/Peke mix – was gone. This was very alarming, knowing the disobedient nature of this dog. I exited the room – rapidly – to minimize the feasible search radius, wondering where to start looking for him, thinking we might soon be asked to leave the resort, due to this mongrel’s disdain for – sanitation. I got no further than the Cozy Cone pool, when I spotted a cast member walking my way from building 3 ( by Hourglass Lake ) CARRYING the mutt in his arms. I tried to fabricate an innocent explanation to offer for the dog’s escape, but couldn’t come up with one. He surrendered the dog to me without any problems as I tried my best to prove that I was a responsible dog owner, and that such a thing would NEVER happen, again, but I had already proven I was a bad guest. The Cast Member couldn’t have been nicer, and I felt sorry making him deal with the dog. I just hope the dog didn’t try to bite him.
We had spent a long day at Typhoon Lagoon. When my husband tried to start the rental car, it wouldn’t turn over. Hmm. Then he remembered that the electronic key had spent the day securely in the velcroed pocket of his swimsuit as he went in the wave pool, down Humunga Cowabunga more times than he could remember, etc. We called and about an hour later a guy showed up with a new key. That was a $150 (in 2009 dollars) experience, but provided a family story we all still laugh about.
Disney Springs was closing and we were exhausted. We saw our bus sitting there and made a mad dash to catch it before it left. We made it! – only to realize moments later after an unfamiliar turn that while we caught A bus, it definitely wasn’t ours. Fortunately the driver was looping right back, but we had to endure an excruciating drive of shame, alone, filled with dark, dead silence and regret.