A trip to Walt Disney World is a dream brought to life. It can also come with its fair share of aggravations. The Orlando campus covers nearly 40 square miles. If you’re anything like me, you don’t always remember why you got up and went to the kitchen. For the easily distracted, the massive scope of Disney is problematic. Here are several of the most confusing things at Walt Disney World.
Bus routes
Image: DisneyI’m somewhat convinced that Disney’s entire bus system is some sort of elaborate social experiment. They’re trying to push people to their limits by testing the patience of even the calmest individuals.
The worst part is that you have to take a bus at Walt Disney World. I don’t care whether you drive or which resort where you stay, you just can’t avoid a ride on the bus. Some of these experiences rival the worst dental appointment of your life in terms of discomfort. I’ve literally had a bus driver laugh at me as they refused to open the door, shouting through the door that they were doing a pickup elsewhere.
Annoyance is one thing. Confusion is altogether different. And park officials seem hell-bent on causing the most chaos with bus routes. The paths change regularly. Sometimes, you can’t go from the parks directly to Disney Springs or vice versa. At other times, you can ONLY reach the entertainment district from the parks.
Image: DisneyVisiting a water park via bus feels like an SAT question. You can’t even get there directly from the parks as I type this. When you read this, I have no way to predict whether that’s still accurate. The whole thing seems like a coin flip, a mood swing determined by who is in charge at Disney at that time.
For some guests, simply leaving a resort is a herculean effort. Some Disney hotels have as many as five different stops on the internal route. You could easily spend 20 minutes circling the hotel before you even make forward progress toward your destination.
Even worse, you may not know you’re part of the route until it’s too late. Guests at Disney’s Port Orleans – French Quarter sometimes share buses with Disney’s Port Orleans – Riverside, a much larger property with multiple stops. Disney doesn’t have obvious alerts in place about such situations, either. You don’t find out you’re screwed until you’re already on the bus.
Stroller sizes
Image: DisneyA recent controversy exemplifies the struggles that parents face when they visit Walt Disney World. I’m not talking about crying babies or dirty diapers, either. I’m referencing the innate frustrations of pushing a stroller around Disney theme parks.
The Great Stroller Wars are among the most combative at the parks. Guests without children war for pathways with exhausted parents. Walking lanes are the battlefields, and the struggle is constant. The race for space leads to a lot of dirty looks and sour moods.
In recent years, parents found a way to carve out more open paths. They rented oversized strollers that were the equivalent of 18-wheelers at theme parks. Nobody wanted a head-on collision with a stroller wagon. That’s a deep bruise waiting to happen.
In an unexpected turn of events, Disney weighed in on the subject. Park officials banned stroller wagons completely. Simultaneously, they introduced restrictions on standard strollers. The new rules say that strollers “must be 31” (79cm) wide and 52” (132cm) long or smaller.” Disney parents now need to use a ruler before they visit the parks. The rules change is equal parts annoying and confusing.
Walking around Animal Kingdom
Image: DisneyDisney’s Animal Kingdom is like the smaller version of the overall Walt Disney World navigation problem. The Orlando campus is massive enough that getting lost at times is unavoidable. Animal Kingdom is far and away the largest Disney theme park, and the same is true.
For geographical reasons and some involving animal habitats, Disney had to throw out its standard hub-and-spokes design. Animal Kingdom consists of six themed lands spread waaaaay apart. Since the park is environmentally focused, vegetation is everywhere. It’s lovely but reduces line-of-sight. Many of the pathways are difficult to find, especially during your first visit.
You’ll wander aimlessly around Animal Kingdom at times, trying to find your next attraction. Since the park is linear, you’ll eventually find what you’re looking for…unless you accidentally circle back to Discovery Island, the connecting themed land that has paths to every other section. Then, you’ll wander endlessly. Even when you don’t, you’ll needlessly walk extra miles as punishment for getting lost at a place where it’s far too easy to get lost.
Attraction entrances
Image: DisneySome Disney attractions have well-hidden entrances. Walking past them is like a rite of passage for inexperienced theme park tourists. You won’t feel like a veteran until you can laugh about their locations.
At Magic Kingdom, Tomorrowland has two rides that you can see from far away. The Astro Orbiter and PeopleMover are visible the entire time you’re in this themed land. Finding the ride entrance to either one is surprisingly difficult. Many guests circle beneath the PeopleMover trying to find the entrance to the escalator. Odds are decent that you’ll wind up in line for the Astro Orbiter instead, and the reverse is true.
Image: DisneyMagic Kingdom has a couple of other trouble spots. Reaching Tom Sawyer Island’s waiting area is difficult enough that park veterans are well-trained by now to spot and aid confused noobs. And the Splash Mountain/Big Thunder Mountain Railroad combo at Frontierland is only accessible from one side. The looks that guests get when try to find that on the map is akin to when they try to solve those maze puzzles on fast food restaurant children’s packaging.
At Epcot, Test Track and Mission: SPACE are both off the beaten path just enough to throw off first-timers. Meanwhile, Disney’s Hollywood Studios did Toy Story Land no favors by providing no direct path to the themed land. And I’ve already touched on the difficulties in navigating Animal Kingdom.
The Disney Dining Plan
Image: DisneyI’m a staunch advocate for the Disney Dining Plan (DDP). I love having a large number of my meals paid off prior to leaving for my trip. It gives me some cost control and the opportunity to pay early. Keeping up with my entitlements, on the other hand, is a huge pain.
The DDP relies on assumed knowledge. You have a set number of entitlements for every night of your trip. It seems simple enough, but it’s not. For starters, the program has two types of entitlements, Quick Service and Table Service credits. You can use Table Service credits at Quick Service restaurants; the reverse is not true. Quick Service entitlements are only good at Quick Service eateries.
The situation gets weirder from there. Some Disney meals are more refined. They’re called Signature Dining experiences. These meals cost two Table Service entitlements, which is annoying enough. Then, Disney chose to muddle the situation even more. They’ve turned a Table Service meal at Be Our Guest into a prix fixe meal that costs two Table Service entitlements. So, it should cost one entitlement and it used to cost one entitlement, but now it costs two entitlements. It makes perfect sense, right?
Image: DisneyThe worst part of the DDP is trying to figure out where you stand. Your meal receipts should come with updated totals for your remaining entitlements. Some servers aren’t great about providing receipts, though. And mistakes happen with the DDP all the time. On a recent trip to Disney, my wife and I had breakfast at a Table Service restaurant. It should have cost two entitlements. We were somehow charged for five. I won’t lie. I felt a bit sensitive about how much my waiter must have thought I ate.
The Disney Dining Plan is wonderful in theory. In execution, it’s Kafkaesque.
For that matter, so is a lot of stuff at Walt Disney World. It’s just an unavoidable part of operating a place of that scale.
