Rookie mistakes....

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jayhawkmickey

jayhawkmickey

Well-Known Member
Still have this burned into my memory. First trip, first night, been married for three days. We didn't know that once Wishes was done you didn't have to RUN to the buses to leave the park. We got into a line of around a million people heading to POR on the bus and sadly joined in. I looked over and saw the bus to French Quarter had maybe twenty people in line and tried in vain to convince my sweet, very tired, newlywed bride to grab that bus then we could take a relaxing boat to POR. She dressed me down like a marine corps drill Sargent for the stupid idea. After an eternity we finally made it back to riverside and sat down in the food court with only minutes to spare before they closed. We got talking to a nice couple next to us who obviously had a nice relaxing dinner. They told us how they had been at Magic Kingdom and hopped on that very same French Quarter bus and had been back long enough to shower and eat! Anytime we get in a disagreement at Disney all I have to do is say "should we take the French Quarter bus?" Usually buys me a fastpass to the end of the issue.
 
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Laura Kelly

Laura Kelly

Member
draybook said:
We knew about Epcot but we skipped it (only 5 days in the parks on first trip) because we thought the kids might not like it because it seemed too educational for a vacation. Boy were we wrong.....
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Oh no! We're planning our trip for April 2016 and thought we'd skip epcot too! I thought my kids wouldn't enjoy it and we only have 4 full park days. Now you have me second guessing :(
 
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draybook

draybook

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Laura Kelly said:
Oh no! We're planning our trip for April 2016 and thought we'd skip epcot too! I thought my kids wouldn't enjoy it and we only have 4 full park days. Now you have me second guessing :(
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Well, I won't say that my kids love the park, but we're sorry that we skipped it that first time. Personally, it's my favorite park. Your kids would probably like it but I wouldn't stress it if you miss it.
 
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SeanWM48

SeanWM48

Well-Known Member
great thread. enjoyed everybody's stories. something i think most of us can relate to. i think we all (or most) can agree that disney is bigger and more involved than you think when you head there for the first time.

i've been 3 times and looking at the first trip i made more than a few. some highlights
-no dining plan when there was free dining at the time. just had no clue.
-no dinner reservations. "how busy could a restaurant at a theme park really be?" lol
-way too short. like 3 days. again just ignorance on my part. "how many days can you really spend at theme parks?" now we go for a good 6-7 days

i could go on. overall i think i learn something new about planning, reservations, park layout etc every time i visit. you really can make it a completely different trip each time.
 
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DiSnEyF@n

DiSnEyF@n

Well-Known Member
Abby's Daddy said:
Not rookie but first trip back as adults we didn't plan a long enough trip thinking four days would be enough after all what adults would want more than four days in WDW. Needless to say we returned for five more days three months later and six years and eight trips later still havent had enough time there.
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It's never long enough!! lol However, we did 9 whole Disney days before and it was magical and relaxing (had a 6 month old so we had to nap in the afternoon)... We did everything we wanted to do sometimes 2 or 3 times lol
 
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DiSnEyF@n

DiSnEyF@n

Well-Known Member
Laura Kelly said:
Oh no! We're planning our trip for April 2016 and thought we'd skip epcot too! I thought my kids wouldn't enjoy it and we only have 4 full park days. Now you have me second guessing :(
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I highly recommend the park. It's amazing. You won't be disappointed and neither will your kiddos
 
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draybook

draybook

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
SeanWM48 said:
great thread. enjoyed everybody's stories. something i think most of us can relate to. i think we all (or most) can agree that disney is bigger and more involved than you think when you head there for the first time.

i've been 3 times and looking at the first trip i made more than a few. some highlights
-no dining plan when there was free dining at the time. just had no clue.
-no dinner reservations. "how busy could a restaurant at a theme park really be?" lol
-way too short. like 3 days. again just ignorance on my part. "how many days can you really spend at theme parks?" now we go for a good 6-7 days

i could go on. overall i think i learn something new about planning, reservations, park layout etc every time i visit. you really can make it a completely different trip each time.
Click to expand...


Yeah, we had no idea about Free Dining on our first trip either. If we had we probably would have stayed on site.
 
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LAKid53

LAKid53

Official Member of the Girly Girl Fan Club
Premium Member
Visited in August. Yeah, and I live in Florida, lol. Drove up from Miami after an AM business trip with my then 9-year old daughter, arrived around dusk, got lost - this was back in 1996 with construction on both WDW entrance and major roads AND before the days of Google maps and navigation software. Then let my daughter talk me into riding Space Mountain as our first ride at the Magic Kingdom. Me thinking, "ok, it's a two person seat, just like SM in Disneyland." And I was so very, very wrong. After standing in line in the August heat/sun for what seemed like an hour, we finally get on the ride (also before the days of fast passes), only to discover 1 person per seat and my daughter screams the entire ride that she's going to fall out. And she refused to ride anything that either left terra ferma or was a roller coaster. So no Thunder Mountain. Did convince her to ride Dumbo. But otherwise, we rode the People Mover a lot, visited Tom Sawyer, rode in the canoes, etc., until it started to pour around 3:00PM. And we had no ponchos. So back to the hotel room. All my daughter wanted to do was swim in the pool, but the cast on her broken wrist shot that idea down - I let her dangle her feet over the side. Was planning on returning for the fire works in the evening, but instead heard them from our resort (stayed in All Star) and then headed back home the next day.

And we had such an enjoyable trip that we didn't return for 14 years. She still doesn't like riding Space Mountain. lol
 
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maxime29

maxime29

Premium Member
Not necessarily a rookie mistake, but I sometimes tend to overpack with too many clothes when I can just go to the laundromat at our hotel, wash and wear again. Lets me bring a carry-on instead of a large suitcase.

Probably one legitimate rookie mistake recently is when the whole magic band thing came out I used a different e-mail to link up our hotel/dining/fastpass reservations than the one that was used to book the trip. Lot of things were messy using it this way. The following year I used the correct e-mail and had more flexibilty.
 
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JeffR73

JeffR73

Well-Known Member
Our 2nd trip was my DD's first time and her birthday. We bought the 2002 Passporter WDW Guide Book with Organizer, wrote everything in there, all reservation numbers, had all the parks that we were going to go to mapped out, everything planned to the T, well as best we could back 2002. Made the mistake of leaving this gem of a book on top of DD's stroller at Camp Minnie/Mickey while watching a show, came out of the show and it was gone!

3rd trip, I invited my Mother-in-law and my Sister-in-law and her rotten brats to our 2009 birthday trip. HUGE mistake, MIL had daily meltdowns, and my nieces were not happy with anything that we did. I am never inviting any in-law ever again.

Oh well, lesson learned.
 
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Beastly74

Beastly74

Well-Known Member
Really dumb mistake - I did not break in new shoes enough before going on our 2nd trip to Disney World - ended up with blisters on the bottom of my feet the 1st night there :in pain: and it was a 2 week trip. It definitely slowed me down but I didn't let it get me down. Went through a lot of bandages and pain killers though...thank goodness for 1st aid stations. I was super paranoid about wearing the right shoes on my 3rd trip...lesson learned the hard way :oops:.
 
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DiSnEyF@n

DiSnEyF@n

Well-Known Member
Beastly74 said:
Really dumb mistake - I did not break in new shoes enough before going on our 2nd trip to Disney World - ended up with blisters on the bottom of my feet the 1st night there :in pain: and it was a 2 week trip. It definitely slowed me down but I didn't let it get me down. Went through a lot of bandages and pain killers though...thank goodness for 1st aid stations. I was super paranoid about wearing the right shoes on my 3rd trip...lesson learned the hard way :oops:.
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You need to bring moleskin the next time you go. It will save you tremendously :)
 
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