Mistakes We Made During Our Disney Vacation

Nobody’s perfect, and I am far from it. While I provide advice for a living, I’m definitely prone to messing up at times.

For example, I just visited Walt Disney World and had a magical time.

Still, as a perfectionist, I realize there are things I could have done better.

So, I’ll list a few things I wish we’d done in the hopes that you can avoid my errors and thereby have an even dreamier vacation.

Here are the worst mistakes I made during my Disney vacation.

I Forgot My Lightning Lane Window Opened

While I’m a terrible planner as a rule in life, I’m oddly meticulous as I prepare for a Disney trip.

As soon as my booking windows opened this time, I was ready to take care of everything…right until the end.

Sadly, I fumbled the ball at the goal line on this one, as my wife and I forgot that our Lightning Lane window had opened.

She’d been under the weather for a couple of days, and our booking window fell on a Saturday.

Had it occurred earlier in the week, we wouldn’t have made this mistake.

Alas, with her tearing through entire bags of cough drops, I knew that she needed her sleep. So, neither of us set our alarm clock.

Around 11 a.m. on the morning that our Lightning Lane window opened, we were getting dressed after showering.

At this point, I suddenly realized what day it was. I quickly grabbed my phone and purchased Lightning Lane.

The problem was that our first theme park day was at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the place where reservations go the fastest.

Also, I was trying to book for a Saturday…and the first one after the holiday decorations began.

Sure enough, by delaying only three hours, the best we could do was:

• Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – 1:20 p.m.
• Toy Story Mania – 6:30 p.m.
• Slinky Dog Dash – 7:35 p.m.

Since I write about Lightning Lane strategies for a living, I know what a disastrous outcome that is, it forced us to be at the park all day.

The point here is that whether you’re booking Advanced Dining Reservations, Lightning Lanes, or whatever, every second counts.

Merely by waiting three hours, we’d already messed up our day one itinerary.

We Didn’t Spend Enough Time at Magic Kingdom

As you’ll learn in the final section, we missed a park day at Magic Kingdom, which played a factor here.

Still, my other huge regret is that we didn’t spend more time at this park, the one with the most attractions.

The mistake was avoidable as well. Due to a scheduling snafu, we started our Disney trip what I’d describe as backwards.

We led with Disney’s Hollywood Studios, followed by an EPCOT day and a half-day at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

While we spent a lot of two different days at Magic Kingdom, we never had a full day per se, something I regret.

The thing about Magic Kingdom is that it’s the park where everyone agrees. We all love it.

On the internet, people debate which of the other three parks is best and worst, but most people have Magic Kingdom in the top two.

So, the way we scheduled our trip bordered on malfeasance in that I did two parks I like less, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom, before Magic Kingdom.

I’d strongly encourage you to learn from my mistake. You should always schedule Magic Kingdom for one of your first two days.

That way, no matter what happens during the rest of your trip, you’ll know that you got to experience many of Disney’s most iconic rides.

We were lucky enough to still do that, but it was almost by accident.

My wife purchased our Lightning Lane Multi Passes for Animal Kingdom that morning.

 

By 11 AM, we were scheduling experiences at Magic Kingdom with the same Lightning Lane purchase.

That’s something that wasn’t even possible three months ago, and we took full advantage.

Still, I’m kicking myself that we didn’t Rope Drop Magic Kingdom during our visit. That’s an unforced error.

Not Accounting for a runDisney Event

Since I write about Disney for a living, I’ve got no excuse here, but I didn’t check the schedule before our trip.

Having evaluated the previous week’s Walt Disney World Wait Times, I expected low crowds.

Then, we arrived late in the evening on the night of a race, and we could tell that something was up.

Disney had closed some roads due to the runDisney half-marathon.

So, we quickly did some calculations about previous events and realized that our first day at the park would get crowded around lunch.

Sure enough, that’s what happened, and it made us regret that we hadn’t waited an extra day for our trip.

The moral of the story: always check the Disney calendar to make sure no events are ongoing that could impact park crowds.

I Was Sloppy with Lyft

This one was 100 percent on me, and I own that. On our first morning, we wanted to be at the park early.

We needed to activate our annual passes and hoped to perform Rope Drop at Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.

That’s always a gamble anyway since the Star Wars ride frequently fails to open at the start of Early Theme Park Entry.

However, what happened next was genuinely Vaudevillian.

I ordered a Lyft at my hotel room. There were several entries, all of which stated Hollywood Studios.

Believe it or not, one of those didn’t take us to Hollywood Studios.

No, there’s apparently a photography studio with the same name.

Since there was the runDisney event, we thought the driver was taking a backroad to the park to avoid traffic.

After about 20 minutes, my wife realized something was wrong.

Our five-star driver was absolutely wonderful and a credit to Lyft. However, he was new to Orlando and didn’t know the path was wrong.

We had to pull into a gas station, check with Lyft, and then turn around.

Our 15-minute trip turned into a 45-minute trip, all because I was an idiot while using the Lyft app.

Please be smarter than me and pay attention when you’re planning a pickup.

Staying Too Far from the Parks

We spent six lovely days at Disney’s Old Key West, where the staff was incredible throughout our visit.

Sure, we had the occasional hiccup with our rooms, but that happens with 30-year-old facilities.

Whenever we had issues like a clogged bathtub, the staff resolved them in a matter of hours.

Also, I’d derelict if I failed to mention that the women working at the general store were incredible to us.

We arrived just in time to sneak some Halloween merchandise before it switched to Christmas the next morning.

We would have missed that if not for the wisdom of the lovely Cast Member, who happily relayed that it was now or never.

Overall, I highly recommend Old Key West, even though the internal bus system is a bit confusing.

Still, we’ve moved away from Old Key West in recent years, and I wish we had this time as well.

At this point, we vastly prefer a resort with the best possible logistics so as to avoid the bus system as much as possible.

We took a chance this time, and while it worked out well, it wasn’t the optimal solution.

My wife and I know what we like at Disney hotels, and we prefer places like Disney’s Beach Club Resort or Disney’s BoardWalk Inn.

These properties reside right by the back entrance to EPCOT and the Disney Skyliner to Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

As people who ride the Skyliner just for fun, we would happily choose it over a bus anytime.

Similarly, I’m almost childlike in my devotion to monorails. So, the monorail resorts fit my needs better.

Generally speaking, while I had a lovely time at Old Key West, it’s just too far away from the action for us.

That’s something I will remember during future visits.

Not Moving on the Bus

Okay, this is one I feel strongly that you should consider.

However, I’ll readily acknowledge that it’s rude, which is why we made this mistake in the first place.

The first five days of our trip went perfectly. In truth, everything went as well as it could have.

On the fifth day, I made a decision in that moment that I deeply regretted on day six.

My wife and I sat at the back of the bus on that row lining the wall.

If you’re familiar with Disney buses, you know that other seats sit perpendicular to the people in that row.

As we took our place, an older woman was already sitting down in one of the perpendicular seats.

She began to cough. A LOT. Like, a worrisome amount. And she made no effort to cover her mouth.

We could see the germs fly through the air, which forced my wife and I to exchange a look.

At that moment, we both considered switching seats on the bus, which was only about 60 percent full.

Instead, we remained where we were and smiled politely at the clearly sick woman.

By the following morning, I was throwing up everything in my stomach, and my wife had the kind of cough you’d only expect on your deathbed.

We were too polite. We should have moved. If you know someone is going to get you sick, don’t be courteous like us. Switch seats instead!

In case you think I’m being dramatic, I’ll throw in that we’ve been home five days, and we’re both still sick.

We even had to wear masks at the doctor’s office!

Final Thoughts

Here’s what’s so remarkable about Disney. Six months from now, we won’t remember any of these negatives.

Instead, all we’ll recall are those magical moments on Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, our walk through of Journey of Water | Inspired by Moana, and the laughter of children.

Disney is legitimately one of the few places on this planet where even when you have problems, they wash away almost instantly after you enter the park.

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