Misunderstanding of things as a child.

[Oddysey]

I wanted to make a thread that identified an experience you or someone else may of had as a child when you went to the parks.

For example, when I was a small child I rode the TTA with my parents. In the Space Mountain section I saw two rockets full of people on each side of me going up the track and then heard them screaming as they went down. I did not realize that the other people were on a seperate ride. Being a rather nervous child I thought that they were just unlucky. I thought that they got on a different part of the TTA track that made you fall hard to the ground and possibly die. After riding it once I was deathly afraid of the TTA, and my parents could not convince me to ride it again. Until I got older of course.

A second example would be of my cousin Will. When Will was very small we rode PotC, and after the first drop the pirate captain (before he was transformed to Barbosa) screamed "fire at will!" Of course Will thought that the captain had ordered the cannons to fire at him and unconsolably cried the rest of the ride.

That being said, I know I am not the only one with experiences like this so feel free to share.

 

[PolynesianPrincess]

I wanted to make a thread that identified an experience you or someone else may of had as a child when you went to the parks.

For example, when I was a small child I rode the TTA with my parents. In the Space Mountain section I saw two rockets full of people on each side of me going up the track and then heard them screaming as they went down. I did not realize that the other people were on a seperate ride. Being a rather nervous child I thought that they were just unlucky. I thought that they got on a different part of the TTA track that made you fall hard to the ground and possibly die. After riding it once I was deathly afraid of the TTA, and my parents could not convince me to ride it again. Until I got older of course.

A second example would be of my cousin Will. When Will was very small we rode PotC, and after the first drop the pirate captain (before he was transformed to Barbosa) screamed "fire at will!" Of course Will thought that the captain had ordered the cannons to fire at him and unconsolably cried the rest of the ride.

That being said, I know I am not the only one with experiences like this so feel free to share.

Oh my gosh, I could not help but laugh outloud at that second one!! Fire at Will! I can see how this could scare a poor little kid!! lol

The only experience I have is being convinced that on Maelstrom, when you go backwards and stop just before the waterfall, I though every once in a while there would be a boat that wouldn't stop and you would go right back down over the waterfall. And I just knew it would be our boat it would happen to so I was very scared to ride. lol

I guess another one would be the burning house on Tom Sawyer's Island. I thought for the longest time that the house was really on fire and never understood how every time we were there, it was on fire again! Once I realized what it was, we took a picture of it every trip and every trip, that would be the one photo on the roll of film that would never come out. It was the most bizarre thing.

 

[openendedsky]

The first? times I went to EPCOT and MK, I thing I mixed up TTA and SSE a lot. Mostly because of the ride vehicle. I was also terrified my first time riding Splash, as I thought you were actually pummeling into a briar patch. My eyes were sealed, so I was confused as to how we made it out. (In my defense, I was like, four)

 

[jrogue]

I have two stories! One with a ride, one with an event (attraction? whichever!).

My parents love this story. Apparently when I was younger, I started hysterically crying when the gangster (or cowboy?) took over our car in the Great Movie Ride. I thought the whole situation was real and that we were being kidnapped. According to my mom, my crying lessened when we reached the Alien section of the ride. They thought we would be just passing through an area that looked like the Alien set, and nothing more was going to happen. At the time, we were sitting right in the middle of the cars. Right where the Alien drops down. Back then, the Alien would drop much lower than it does today. I had been seated in between my parents for protection, but this also meant I was in the middle of the middle car. The Alien dropped down right into my face and I screamed until we got to the Wizard of Oz scene.

It didn't stop there.

I was fine with the munchkins and my parents told me the rest of the ride would be cute, sunny, and wonderful like this scene. Then, the Wicked Witch showed up, and I resumed the screaming and crying. I didn't go on the Great Movie Ride for ten years after that.

I was also terrified of fireworks!! I love them now, of course. But when I was younger my parents had to sprint out of the parks right before any firework show started because of how terrified I was. Even as I grew from a toddler into a child I thought the fireworks were going to cause WDW to set on fire!

 

[Britt]

Oh my gosh, some of these are so funny!

Never went to WDW as a child, and don't remember our trip to DL when I was a kid (maybe 7 or so and only had 1 pic...lol)

 

[CP_alum08]

I have one about my GF's brother. When he was young (I'll say around 6) he went on PotC and his dad had him convinced that there was a second drop, a much bigger drop, so the poor kid spent the hole ride with his hands up in the air expecting the drop to be "right around the next corner"

 

[PRNCSAurora]

As a child I was afraid of EVERYTHING and my brother didn't really help. I was convinced that a ghost from Haunted Mansion really would follow me home. My brother definitely helped make me believe that.

My other story is really a misunderstanding my grandmother had. The first time I road GMR, I was petrified in the alien section and screamed bloody murder. My grandmother looked at my mom and said "Wow the sound effects are so realistic." She didn't realize it was me.

 

[openendedsky]

Not Disney, but the first time I ever rode Jurassic Park River Adventure, I cried at the end because I was so scared.

 

[stevehousse]

When my younger sister was 6 or 7, se loved roller coasters and went on rrc and she loved it! Next was tot, which we tol her she wouldn't like it and it would be too scary. She insisted on going on no matter what! Once we started the drops, she began to cry her eyes out she was so scared! Once we were off se told us how she didn't like the ride at all, it was too scary, and that they need to change te name of the ride to "the tower of tears"!!!!

We had a good laugh at that one!

 

[pixiesteno]

When I was in third grade we did our first trip to WDW, Feb of '72 and there was a ride about going to the moon. It was where SGE is now. I was terrified that we were actually going to be blasted off to the moon. Screaming and crying for the majority of the ride and totally ing my mom off. I think about that everytime we go to SGE

 

[aosdesign]

I remember riding the Jungle Cruise as a child and thinking the animals were real. I was scared of the hippos.

 

[openendedsky]

I remember riding the Jungle Cruise as a child and thinking the animals were real. I was scared of the hippos.

Forgot about this, but yes. I concur.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Okay. I'll share a story that's not Disney but, to me, is the ultimate story of not understanding something as a kid. I have red hair. When I was liiiittle my redheaded pigtails & smattering of freckles must have charmed the pants off random people because I got asked a lot by people I didn't know, "Where did you get that pretty red hair from?" Not understanding what I was being asked I gave the most logical answer I could think of: "KMart." I never understood the roars if laughter but whatever. The person asking always enjoyed that answer so I always gave it. Made sense to me, tho. Everything came from KMart then! LOL! ((BTW, my mother, 2 of her 4 siblings, & my grandfather all had red hair so that's where I got it!))

 

[All Disney All The Time]

A lot of you were/are big scaredy-cats! Just kidding. WDW didn't open until I was in college so there wasn't much to "misunderstand". Except for not understanding why so many parents were literally dragging their kids around MK (the only park open during those years) and yelling at them to "Hurry up!" My parents never acted like that on family vacations when I was a little kid.

 

[maryszhi]

mine has to be when i was at disney two weeks ago i convinced my friend to go on dinosaur. the look of horror she had in the ride photo speaks volumes. I tried to warn her but she thought i was kidding.... also when i was little i really thought that if you misbehaved at disney you were put into the its a small world ride. Another funny one was my dad going on thrill rides.

 

[JillC LI]

I have 2 funny stories. On my only childhood trip to WDW, my sister was 4 and I was 8. We saw a statue of Brer Fox in Liberty Square, and our parents sent us over to take photos with the statue. No sooner had we placed ourselves next to the statue, than the "statue" sprung to life and put its arms around our shoulders. Scared the beegeesus out of us, and we were petrified of anything having to do with Brer Fox after that! Funny thing is that 30 years later, when I took my first WDW trip with my own children (then 5 and 7), we were sitting on the wooden platforms in Liberty Square waiting for the afternoon parade to begin, and Brer Fox sneaked up behind the kids to startle them! I got a kick out of it, but my kids were so scared they just wanted to get away from Brer Fox. I guess the fear of that naughty Brer Fox continued into the next generation! LOL

Another funny was on that same childhood trip of mine, at the end of the Haunted Mansion ride when you look in the mirror and the ghosts appear to be sitting with you. Well my 4 year old sister must have put her hand down on something sharp in our buggy at that moment because she screamed, "The ghost bit me!" And when we got off the ride, sure enough, she was bleeding slightly. For years she told people how the ghost had bitten her! LOL

 

[taz0162]

My grandpa tricked me into thinking that Max, Buff and Melvin, whose heads are mounted to the side wall at the Country Bear Jamboree were just sticking their heads through a hole and that their bodies were on the other side of the wall. To this day I still find myself turning to look as we exit the theatre.

I remember thinking that the Jungle Cruise captains were actually stearing the boats.

Pirates of the Caribbean:
Cannon Balls - I really thought they were being fired and splashing around us.
Water - I thought it was much deeper and that the boats were just drifting on their own not in a set path.

The Native American village beside the Railroad path around the park was really a small village in the past.

 

[taz0162]

.... also when i was little i really thought that if you misbehaved at disney you were put into the its a small world ride. Another funny one was my dad going on thrill rides.

My parents would tell my sister and I that IASW was where the bad kids were put to sing that song over and over to the people in the boats. It would be funny if "you" overheard my parents telling us that and you were forever fearful that it would happen to you.

 

[RandomPrincess]

We took my 4 year old cousin with us to DL and it was her first time going on Soarin' Over California and Star Tours. Both times she started getting upset in the waiting area. She thought we were really going on a trip and she didn't have her suitcase and her mom wouldn't know where she was. We kept having to tell her it was just pretend and we would come back to Disneyland when the ride was over. The pre ride videos of people with luggage getting on the rides didn't help.

 

[dkosdros]

I'll share a few. The first one is my most recent trip we brought our my fiancees daughter who is 5 and it was her and my fiancees first trip. We went on Space Mountain. All three of us in a car. I was in the front, fiancees daughter behind me and Fiancee in the back. We were worried that her daughter being so tiny was just going to slip right out and fall to her death. Well the ride starts and all three of us are having a good time. I got quiet to soak in the surroundings, her daughter was laughing and having a good time when she realized that she wasn't hearing anything from her mom. So she yells to the top of her lungs... "Moooom, are you ok back there?" with a panic in her voice. We really think she thought her mom fell out of the ride. The picture is priceless and shows that my fiancee was literally about to lose her lunch while the rest of us were smiles ear to ear.

And then when I was a kid I remember a sad moment. Everyone from my family getting on the People Mover. My grandfather said he would stay back and people watch. So we are riding around looking at everything and we look down to see my grandfather laying on a bench arms sprawled out. Head tilted awkwardly back and to the side. We panicked and started to scream down to him, but nothing. When got off the ride and made a mad dash to him. He hadn't moved an inch the entire time. After screaming and shaking him he woke from his nap. Boy did that really mess with your Disney vacation. That is all I remember from my first People Mover ride and we still laugh and joke about that day. Funny thing is I remember reading someone else's trip report and the same thing happened to them. They should name those benches something funny as a tribute to how many families that has probably happened to.