A great thing about Walt Disney World is that it’s always changing. That is what Walt Disney wanted after all. He wanted a park that would change with the seasons, trends, and simply with time. Not only throughout the years but from moment to moment. His dream comes true every day.
What about the guests? Do they change too? Of course, they do. Here are 4 ways some guests are different at the start of the day compared to the end of it.
1. Family “bonding”
Image: Disney
When a park opens you will see thousands of families who can’t wait to spend the day together. They want to see every show together, ride every ride as a family and eat every meal as one single unit. This is incredibly sweet, and very hard to do in Walt Disney World. Especially riding every ride together.
Leaving the park, you will sometimes see a very different scene. When you look at that same family the parents are fighting about how much money they spent on souvenirs. Sisters are throwing popcorn at their brothers, and babies are screaming because they don’t want to be in their strollers. The family wants nothing else, but to be far away from each other. Do they really mean it? No of course not. They love each other, but after 10 hours in the hot Florida sun anything can seem awful. People take out their frustrations on the people they love, and there is no better time to see that then after the final fireworks.
2. A different kind of bus trip
Image: Disney
Each morning outside of every resort you will see hundreds of families happily waiting for the buses They have a coffee in one day, bagel in the other, and can’t wait to start the day. They are excited to begin the day and have no problem waiting in the transportation line. This is a good moment. Lineups of guests daydreaming about the fun they will have at the parks. They know magic will happen after riding that spectacular Disney bus.
On their way back to the resort is a very different story. Outside every park at Walt Disney World would be crowds of tired parents, cranky kids, and people becoming irrationally angry at having to wait. Their feet hurt, they stink and just want to get a good night sleep. We have all been there.
3. Wardrobe change
Image: Disney
Buying new clothes for your vacation is a fun activity that a lot of people look forward to. It’s that excuse to splurge a little and buy something you wouldn’t normally buy. When you finally get to pull it out of your suitcase you feel like a million bucks with it on. All fancy and looking like a style superstar. You strut out of that room ready to show off your new threads.
Except by the time you get back you now have a serious hatred for your new outfit. Those shiny new shoes have given you blisters you aren’t sure will ever heal. You can’t stand because those fancy shorts have given you serious chafing that might need medical attention and that trendy shirt stuck to you all day in the heat. It didn’t even try to breathe in the sun; it just glued itself to you like a groupie to a rockstar. You then realized maybe you should have gone for comfy rather a than cutting edge.
4. Hope and Faith
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With all the negative transformations, there are some incredible ones too. The best is the worried parents in the morning. They are scared the vacation won’t be worth the money. They are terrified they didn’t plan enough, even though they have a book the size of Texas with planning materials. Mostly they are worried their kids won’t love Disney as much as they want them to. There is a lot of pressure from sites like Pinterest to capture the perfect family vacation.
By the end of the day, none of those things are a concern anymore. All the worrying floated away when they saw the smiles on their kid’s faces. They realize their family trip is perfect not because they had the best dining reservation, but because they were all together. They are having the trip of a lifetime and memories that will last even longer. That is a great transformation.
There are a million other ways guests change. For example, children are clean in the morning and are covered in mystery stains by the afternoon. Or how guests love seeing their fellow Disney fanatics when heading to the parks. It shows a mutual obsession in the World of Disney. Yet that changes and they don’t love their fellow guests as much at the end of the night when they are fighting them down Main Street USA.
Image: Disney
The biggest and our favorite change is when you can tell someone is feeling the Disney Magic. You see their face change and you just know. They have left the complicated world behind and are blissfully happy. That’s the best change of all. That is the one we love to see every day in the parks.
What’s the biggest change in guests you notice?
