Most of us have the reasonable expectation that a Disney vacation isn’t going to look like the commercials: a non-stop parade of magical thrills, shopping sprees, and pixie-dust sprinkled meals where the kids spend all day in giggles and glee while contented parents watch with starry eyes beneath mouse-ear crowns…
Yup, you’re not the only one who isn’t living that Instagram life.
Even the most amazing Walt Disney World vacations include some hiccups and uncomfortable moments. Kids might scream and hide from your favorite childhood character. Sticker shock can put a sour seasoning on your dream meal. Long queues, aloof crowds, and sweltering temperatures to match the surface of Venus can all sweat magic out of even the best Disney day.
Indeed, there are some truly uncomfortable moments that just seem inevitable in every Disney vacation. Seasoned visitors either learn to shrug them off or develop simmering pet peeves around them. It would be a challenge at best to build an exhaustive list of these, but if you’ve spent any amount of time at The Most Magical Place on Earth, you’ve probably experienced at least a few of these galactically awkward Disney moments…
1. The beep of shame
The beep of shame actually inspired the creation of this list… mainly because I have found myself sounding its ignominious call more times than I can count.
The scenario usually goes like this: you pull into the parking lot for your Disney day bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to hit the parks as soon as possible. Maybe you arrived early but cut it dangerously close if you hope to pass the turnstiles in time for rope drop. The pressure is even higher if your party is raring to go—more so if you have kids bursting at the seams with excitement. You park, grab your gear, and make a dash for the tram or the entrance.
In your excitement, you don’t realize you’ve set yourself up for a painfully awkward evening… because you didn’t pay attention in the slightest to where you parked.
I largely avoided this scenario in my younger years since we would usually visit Walt Disney World from abroad and relied on Disney transportation to get to and from the parks. That all changed when we moved to Florida and became Passholders. I don’t know what part of my brain leaks out of my ears the moment I pull into a Disney parking lot, but despite having literally written full guides on how to not-lose-your-car at Walt Disney World, I frequently forget to take note of where we parked.
Sometimes this is just due to haste or the fragile lightning bolts of my thoughts not making the jump from synapse to synapse in the face of a long-awaited Disney day. Other times, I’ve made actual efforts to prevent the scenario, like asking Google to remember where I parked or snapping a quick picture of a parking sign. On these latter occasions, Murphy’s Law periodically kicks in to make sure my efforts fall void: Google develops a sudden case of amnesia and thinks I’m parked in Tampa or the picture I thought I took turns out to be a figment of my imagination.
The end result is the beep of shame–joining the chorus of lost souls wandering Disney parking lots, haplessly raising key fobs to the sky (or pointing them at our chins to turn our skulls into signal boosters), clicking our panic buttons forlornly while we roam endless aisles of silver minivans and rental sedans. Our common bond is the distant echo of our car alarms, a siren call always so close and yet impossible to locate as we drift through the asphalt wastes, hoping some compassionate cast member might scoop us up in a golf cart before we all turn into pumpkins at midnight.
Don’t make our mistake. Take a breath when you get out of the car and take that picture of your parking row number… and the section sign… and log your GPS coordinates. Don’t leave your fate to the beep of shame.
2. The bag check blues
Maybe you avoid the beep of shame, but another gauntlet of potential complications lies ahead before you can pass those silvery gates into the park: the security check.
Humor aside, Disney actually does a fantastic job with their security stations. They made some excellent strides both before and after the pandemic closures to streamline security screening while ensuring the parks stay safe. In most cases when we’ve visited, the vast majority of our party isn’t even stopped thanks to the new scanning technologies in place.
Unless you’re that guy… or gal… or me…
I seem to have hit-or-miss luck being the one person in our party who is inevitably flagged for a thorough bag search at Disney security gates. This usually isn’t anyone’s fault—I’m often the member of our party who has a shoulder bag capable of carrying supplies needed for the day. I also tend to frequently draw the curiosity of security guards curiosity when I arrive at Disney’s Hollywood Studios dressed like an intergalactic smuggler ready to take the Millennium Falcon on another coaxium run for Hondo Ohnaka.
Yay for Disney’s flexible Star Wars cosplay rules—boo for usually being the one to slow our whole party down while security thoroughly searches every inch of my bag and belt pouches.
This particular awkward, inevitable moment doesn’t usually bother me, but I know it’s a major pet peeve for some Disney regulars. It can get particularly uncomfortable if you’re the sole bearer of your party’s gear and the security attendant decides it’s necessary to remove and inspect every single item in your possession to ensure your power block isn’t an ammo clip or your baby bottle warmer a curiously whimsical bomb.
There are a number of tricks you can try to reduce your chance of getting flagged for a security screen, such as keeping any power blocks in your hand instead of in your bag and packing light, but for some of us, every trip through security is doomed to be a roll of the dice. In the end, I just do my best to smile and appreciate that the guy keeping me from getting into the park expediently is willing to endure far more awkwardness throughout his day to keep folks safe. A good trade in the end.
How about those accidental confrontations? They can get weird… really weird… like laser-beam-eye-contact weird…
3. “There can only be one!”
Crowds do weird things to the human psyche. It’s inevitable that in a place as busy as a theme park, some human-bumper-car moments are likely to occur. Shoulders get inadvertently clipped, umbrellas get a little too close to the nearest set of squishy eyeballs, chance encounters between random guests turn into psychological duels for dominance…
Wait, what?
Uncomfortable face-offs between total strangers in the midst of bustling crowds are a hallmark tradition of theme parks. Most of these encounters aren’t particularly intense—just a natural case of two people going opposite directions choosing the same trajectory to walk. Most cases end without incident, sometimes with some good-natured chuckling or in more extreme cases, with the participants attempting to waltz around each other like clumsy re-enactors performing an Elizabethan court dance.
On some occasions, however, these accidental confrontations get weird… really weird… like laser-beam-eye-contact weird.
I’m not sure what possesses some theme park visitors to treat potential brushes with another guest as the throwing of an unseen gauntlet. Instead of the usual polite shuffle left or right so you can go on your merry way, tensions suddenly thicken. It usually happens so fast, you can’t even process the signs—the shift to a combative stance, the razor-focus of competition glazing over their eyes, the subtle widening of the shoulders that says in no uncertain terms, “Wanna know why they call me the freight train?”
At that point, you realize you’re dealing with a genuine Disney parks Highlander planning to cut straight through you—for there can only be one…
Yeah, it’s weird. It happens often enough, I tend to just grimace and get out of the way, only muttering in annoyance or saying something if things get really aggressive. My husband has on occasion simply planted his feet and let the challenger plow into him, only to have the tension dissipate as the guest snaps out of their trance, hurriedly apologizing for looking like a goof in the midst of a busy crowd.
Whatever your tactic, know you’ll always find a few would-be Juggernauts waiting to prove themselves an unstoppable force in the midst of every Disney crowd
4. The anti-social distancer
The last few years following the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic brought a number of difficult changes to the world of theme parks. People have different opinions about these, but one I actually was a fan of was the institution of social distancing in lines. Sure, it was a pain that queues had to wind through the parks in serpentine patterns to keep people six feet apart, but the trade-off was the bliss of having some significant personal space while waiting in line.
The days of social distancing measures have pretty much passed (at least at the time of this writing), meaning Disney has returned to the old fashioned method of packing people tightly into queues to make maximum usage of space. While this has allowed for the removal of confusing positioning stickers and barriers, it meant the inevitable return of one of the most notorious perpetrators of uncomfortable moments in Disney parks.
The anti-social distancer.
I’m not talking about people who had mixed feelings about social distancing—I’m talking about that one guy/gal/party in line who has no concept of personal space. It’s the person who insists on standing uncomfortably close no matter how much space might be available, and no matter how far you shuffle, you end up feeling like you’re back on the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter with a not-Xenomorph breathing on your neck.
What’s a person to do when this happens, especially if the issue isn’t a simple cultural difference? Subtly elbow the neck-breather? Turn and stare disapprovingly? Crop dust them with a silent poot? In some cases, an opportunity can arise to just politely ask for a little more space, but these moments are tricky to navigate on the best days. Sometimes the best you can do is just position yourself to minimize the weirdness and address it directly if things get just too creepy.
There is surely nothing worse than accidentally bulldozing a kid!…
5. The moment you almost bulldoze someone’s kid
Kids really play a wonderful role making the Most Magical Place on Earth magical. Everything is new and exciting to them, from rides to characters to their first Mickey Ice Cream bar.
Unfortunately, kids are also, by nature, small, squirrelly, and often aloof of the movements of the big folk around them. Like Tolkien’s hobbits, they can go completely unseen if they wish. Usually, it’s possible to spot a little one wandering through the crowd in time to change course…
…but then the day arrives that you’re walking through Epcot only to be distracted by Pooh bear romping through a garden catching butterflies. In the midst of your childlike wonder (and the uncontrollable urge to shout “BEAR!”), you lose track of your surroundings and nearly squash some poor kid.
Yup—you’re not alone if you’ve accidentally ended up in this most embarrassing of Disney scenarios.
I recognize anything involving kids is a touchy subject. There is a sense of community responsibility to ensure kids are kept safe. It’s important to stay attentive to your surroundings at theme parks, particularly since little ones can wander into awkward places in crowds. As a parent, I would definitely be upset if someone callously plowed into my kid (particularly if we’re talking about Mr. Juggernaut from #3), but often these incidents are total accidents.
A particularly forgiving parent who realizes Junior wandered off might be willing to let the incident slide, but these moments can get particularly awkward if the little one was startled enough to panic or cry. Profuse apologies with a heavy dose of kindness and courtesy are usually the best remedy, but don’t feel too bad if you’ve ended up in this situation despite the best of intentions. Just do your best to keep your eyes open and alert for the next little one who dashes through the crowd directly in the path of your lumbering knees.
6. The stroller derby
If you’re a Disney regular, you knew this one was coming.
I will admit, I once held deep wells of frustration when it came to strollers at Walt Disney World. It seemed like every vacation, someone decided to use their little bundle of joy as a battering ram to mow through a crowd, shove their way into the final spot on the monorail, or plow their way through my person into an ideal parade spot. Stroller shenanigans became a significant pet peeve, one only worsened every time I heard a report of guests actually being injured by overzealous stroller (or scooter) drivers.
It didn’t take long into my time writing for Theme Park Tourist for my attitude to soften towards stroller families—I quickly came to realize the issue was double-edged, just as awkward for parents trying to enjoy the parks with their youngest little ones without crashing into anyone as it was for those who found themselves bumped by rogue strollers. Indeed, for the first time, we are getting ready to join the ranks of new parents likely to need a stroller for Disney jaunts, and I’ve total respect for the plight of moms and dads who have to keep their calm when guests repeatedly cut them off.
It is true that there are some parents who absolutely go mad with power when harnessing the power of a fully armed and operational baby stroller. The Fury Road instinct takes over, and in the throes of adrenaline, they go full Thunderdome on fellow guests, your ankles be darned. My experience is these enigmatic Nutter-Butters fall in the minority, but their aggressive instincts end up giving all stroller and scooter drivers a bad name.
In most cases, the stroller dance occurs due to no particular fault of either parents or pedestrians. It’s extremely hard to stop some strollers fast enough to avoid a collision when someone in front of you comes to a sudden halt or cuts you off. The repeated near-clashes can wear even the most patient parents’ nerves thin. At the same time, no one likes having an aluminum toddler-carriage plow into their shins—particularly if Mr. and Mrs. Juggernaut are at the helm with the hunger for martial combat in their eyes.
What other awkward (and inevitable) moments do you seem to experience every Disney vacation? Let us know in the comments or on Facebook! Thanks for reading!
