I could handle seeing the rodents or reptiles on the outside or at one of the parks in water BUT what I am afraid of is finding a snake in the hotel room or the hotel pool. I hate to tell y'all this but I have come across a good bit of pictures & videos on the internet of snake incidents at Disney World. It's a little concerning to me. I understand that it is Florida and that DW was built on swamp land but it does seem like there's one too many now. I would think the park management would lay down bait or repellent to keep them at bay but I don't know if they have this for snakes. Do they? Also the stories run the gamut, from a woman who had a snake in her room on the 4th floor of the Contemporary resort, there have been people bitten by snakes--a kid who dropped his toy and bent down to pick it up and the snake was right there, kinda blending in with the scenery, and it was a poisonous snake. There's a lawsuit right now from a guy claiming he was bitten while swimming in a pool at one of the resorts, another lawsuit was about that family where the boy was bitten and the grandmother had a heart attack from seeing it happen, a man is claiming he got bit while watching his son play sports at Wide World Of Sports, you've got the video of a snake a year or so ago at one of the park gift shops and it just goes on & on.
I've read and seen it all--there's video of a snake eating a rat or mouse at AK that was just there alongside one of the sidewalks, video of people trying to fish out a moccasin at one of the resort pools, there is a picture of a baby alligator walking in the parking lot of GF at night, the numerous posts of alligators everywhere and also the numerous posts of snakes that try to hang out around the pools at the hotels and at the water parks. There's also a lot of stories of people seeing snakes in the water at both water parks. There's even a report of a man who said he rode Splash Mountain with a snake that he saw in the bottom of the boat. There was a report of someone saying a snake was hanging out at the front during one of those "garden" concerts Epcot has in the spring. Also some stories of people seeing snakes when they're getting onto the boats heading over to MK or the resort area and then you have the constant stories of snakes at Pop Century. Heck over at Beach Club the saying was that if you have one of the villas that is on the first floor, when you go out to the patio, don't leave your door open because apparently snakes have gone into people's rooms that way. And don't get me started on Lane Graves--I can't imagine what his family has been going through since and I know both are at fault--his dad should not have let him in the water; they did have signs but also Disney knew about the gators since this place opened and there should have always been a barrier everywhere at all resorts that had water.
It just seems like some of this could be avoided and has me concerned that Disney is not doing as much to combat the wildlife. A lot of these reports make it seem as if they need some wildlife handlers out there 24/7 to watch out for these critters (mainly the snakes & gators) and pick 'em up when they can catch one--send it off to a zoo or the Everglades. Y'all understand where I'm going with this? There's just been too many incidents reported in this decade and I have read that other regular Disney World patrons noticed as well and are also wondering what's going on. Some of the older ones who've been going for decades say it's been bad in the past few years and some have made that comment that Disney's not doing enough to keep it at bay. I remember one website--the poster pretty much said it's gotten overrun and it's not good and that yes they understood it's FL and there's gonna be wildlife, but you're also supposed to be keeping everything at a safe distance to keep guests safe. So even though I love DW, all of these critter sightings are getting to me some and I think they're going to have to do more than what's been doing currently to combat this stuff. I think it is getting out of hand now.
