Misadventures at Disney World

We’ve all heard that Disney is the happiest place on Earth, am I right? I wanted to share my experience from this past weekend that disproves that theory. Don’t get me wrong, I know this place is full of magic, but it’s also full of stress and germs and bratty kids and thieves lol.

Let me start out by saying that I have anxiety that, for the most part, lies dormant until I have to drive on a highway or something. So in my 18 years of driving, I’ve never driven to Orlando for a trip to Disney. I spoke to my friend about this recently, so when her boyfriend asked if she wanted to go to Disney for her birthday weekend, she invited my niece and I to tag along. We’d be staying at different hotels and doing our own thing, and I took advantage of my first trip alone with the niece. Things didn’t turn out how I expected though…

My niece, Briana, didn’t have school the day we were leaving, so I requested time off from work so that we could leave early, get to Orlando early, and make it to the Mickey’s-Not-So-Scary-Halloween Party on time. We were already packed and ready to go, but we had to wait for my friend and her boyfriend to get out of work. While we were waiting, we decided to start watching Season 2 of Stranger Things (which is AMAZING, by the way). I thought we’d be in Orlando by about 7-8pm, but we ended up getting there at 9:50 and still had to check in at the hotel. Briana and I checked in, ran up to our room, changed our clothes and ran back down to the shuttle pick-up/drop-off. The shuttles are supposed to run every 30 minutes between the hotel and the parks, but we sat there for almost an hour with no pick-up. A shuttle finally arrived to drop some people off, so I asked the driver if he was heading back to Magic Kingdom. He said he wasn’t, but that he would take us anyway. He veered off-route to transport us to the park. We ran from the bus to the monorail and then ran from the monorail to the entrance only to discover that the parade was taking place. That meant that we couldn’t maneuver our way through the park because the streets and crosswalks were blocked off. We literally got to the park, waited for the parade to finish, rode the Haunted Mansion ride and then had to leave back to our hotel. By that time it was about 2am and all food options were closed. We had to try Uber Eats for the first time and the only option was McDonalds. What should have taken 15 minutes took an hour because the driver got lost on her way to our hotel.

Briana was so excited about going to Disney and I felt terrible that we were only able to spend about an hour there, so we got tickets to Magic Kingdom for the next day too.

On Saturday morning, we woke up and walked over to Disney Springs for some shopping and then went back to the hotel to get ready for Magic Kingdom. We took the shuttle and monorail (again) only to be greeted with cloudy skies and ridiculously long lines. Have you ever been on the magic teacup ride?? This was my first time and I was convinced that part of the fun was watching people stumble out of the teacups. My brain was spinning inside my head for way longer than it probably should have been. While we were waiting for the Winnie the Pooh ride we witnessed a kid bite his mom because she told him he couldn’t do something, and another kid throw a tantrum because he clearly didn’t want to go on a ride but his parents were insisting. When we got off the ride it was beginning to rain, so we decided to go back to the hotel for a few hours and then come back in time for the fireworks.

What should’ve taken about 10 minutes on the monorail took about 30 minutes because one of the kids kept leaning on the doors causing the monorail to stop. Then we had to wait to catch the shuttle back to the hotel and the driver decided to stop at almost every park imaginable to pick people up. What should’ve taken about 20 minutes on the shuttle took about an hour. We literally got to the hotel, used the restroom and then had to run back downstairs to catch the next shuttle to Magic Kingdom.

As we’re getting off of the monorail for what seemed like the hundredth time, we realized it was pouring. Of course, Briana and I had no ponchos or umbrellas because why would we? We live in Florida! It never rains! I hope you caught the sarcasm there. We stood in the pouring rain for three hours surrounded by thousands of people in ponchos. Our hair was dripping, our clothes were sticking to our bodies, our glasses were unusable and we were freezing. When the fireworks were over, we TRIED to rush to the monorail to get back to our hotel, but apparently every single person at the park was leaving at the same time. We had to wait almost an hour for the ride and then ran to the shuttle parking area. We waited there for another hour, in the pouring rain, for a shuttle that never came because it had broken down on another route. My friend had to call an Uber for us.

I’ll spare the details on how we had to defrost ourselves in our hotel room, but when we finally did, Briana found out that a band she likes was doing a meet and greet in Orlando the day after we were leaving. She missed them by one day. ONE DAY!!

As we were packing our things to leave, Briana realized that her little stuffed hippo, Minty, was missing. We undid all of our bags, shook out the sheets on the beds and lifted up chairs, but Minty was lost. We checked out, called lost and found…still no luck. Briana was devastated. I’d bought this thing for her before she was even born. She took it on every trip and had to have it in any room she slept in. It was MINTY!! Someone actually picked up a 13 year old stuffed animal from a hotel lobby and kept it. In Orlando. Where everyone is probably going to spend all their money on stuffed toys and keychains after visiting the parks anyway. OR, someone’s kid picked up this stuffed animal that could’ve belonged to a young child who drooled and wiped sticky hands all over it and allowed them to keep it. I have strong feelings about this, ladies and gentleman! It’s crazy how much sentimental value could lie within a silly, old stuffed animal that had been washed a hundred times! Here’s a picture of the stuffed animal that someone robbed us of:

Side note: Have you ever stood at one of these Disney parks and think about how much money is actually walking around it? There are literally thousands and thousands of people who have paid over one hundred dollars each to get in. Not to mention the souvenirs, food and drinks that are bought. So much money goes into these parks yet the prices keep rising. It’s insane!

Sounds like a disaster, doesn’t it?? Even though literally nothing went right on this trip, I still got to spend time with the niece and we had some crazy laughing fits. From the guy slamming his face into the plastic window on the bus as it took a wide turn, to the bratty kid’s mom’s reaction when her son bit her arm, to the missions we went on together. It was a beautiful disaster if you ask me!