I don’t care what trip you are taking – whether it is to Disney, Australia, or a road trip somewhere for a weekend, no vacation is perfect. You will have issues that are beyond your control and you need to be able to look past the imperfections and accept that it is a lesson for the next trip. The trip I took to Disney in September 2017 was no different. I already had some factors working against me.

1. I had never planned a trip myself before. I had always gone with my family and my mother had done the majority (if not all) of the planning.
2. The last time I was there I was only 19. There had been no huge changes (well it was still Downtown Disney not Disney Springs at that point, but that is about it), however I had never been there over the age of 21. I am a firm believer that almost any destination can be a completely different visiting experience once you are of legal age. Now, to be fair, I am Irish and live up to my heritage. We enjoy drinking, but more than that we enjoy sampling drinking. Which leads me to issue number 3…
3. I had never participated in the Food & Wine Festival before. You can research and research, but until you see it first hand it is hard to really grasp just how huge this festival really is. There is so much to do, so much to drink, and soooooo much to eat.
4. My boyfriend had never been to Disney before. It was amazing seeing him experience everything for the first time, but in the planning stages he had little to no opinions about rides or dining since he hadn’t gone before.

I did my best to overcome these issues (albeit in comparison to issues you could have working against you, these are all very minor), but naturally there were still some things I would absolutely change the next time I visit.

Do Not Underestimate The Time Needed

I remembered the parks were huge and I knew we would be exhausted, so I planned for breaks and downtime. What I did not factor was just how far a part everything is inside each park. Sure I looked at maps, but seeing it on a piece of paper vs walking from end to end are very different tasks. This specific issue was the worst in Epcot. I had never really explored most of Epcot on my previous trips so I don’t think it ever occurred to me just how far away Soarin’ is from the Italy pavilion. I thought two full days in Epcot would be enough to see the festival and the park. Two full days might have been enough to do a deep dive into the park, but with everything the festival has to offer it was not nearly enough time.

Don’t Expect Your Room to be Ready

This one should seem like a no-brainer for someone who travels often, however, Disney will typically give you an earlier check-in time since people are constantly checking in and out. We were staying at Pop Century during the renovations and really wanted to try out one of the renovated rooms. Since they were doing their best to give us a renovated room, it also meant we had to wait a lot longer than normal. Check-in is normally 3pm and our room was ready at 2:55pm. Clearly not earth-shattering at all and still before the scheduled time. Every other trip I had done to Disney, we had always been able to check in early so I expected this to be the same. Our flight was at 6am (which means we were awake at 3:30am) and landed at 8:30am. I did not book any fast passes or reservations until later in the day in case something happened. My plan was to lie down for an hour or two before we had an early dinner in Magic Kingdom since we would clearly be exhausted but also starving. Dinner was at 4:30pm. If you have ever been to Disney before you know that unless you are in a monorail resort (or the Wilderness Lodge) the Magic Kingdom is the longest bus ride. If you are traveling anywhere in the parks allowing yourself an hour to get from point a to point b is a good rule of thumb. Clearly, with a 3pm check-in time, we no longer were able to get some sleep before dinner. Needless to say, we were exhausted by the end of Happily Ever After fireworks.

Don’t Sleep On Disney Springs

Like I said when I started this – I had never been to Disney being of legal age and the last time I visited Disney Springs was still Downtown Disney. I thought that seeing the parks and exploring the rides and lands would be more exciting for my boyfriend’s first time. I kept thinking that we would just find time to go to Disney Springs and see all of the additions. Wrong. I should have planned time for it. Not only is it much larger than I remember, but there is so much to do (and eat)! We finally made time to visit on our second to last day of vacation and I was shocked by how much was there. I immediately regretted the amount of time I had spent in the parks instead of allotting time for some exploring.

You Are On Vacation – You Can Miss The Game

Okay, so this might only pertain to people who love sports, more specifically football. I am an Eagles fan and my boyfriend is a Giants fan (pray for his soul) and it just so happened that during our vacation they would be playing each other. We thought perfect, we can go grab a bite and watch the game, not a big deal. Wrong. There are very few sports bars on Disney property that have all the games playing. We attempting ESPN Zone. I cannot stress this enough if you do not arrive at least an hour and a half before kickoff do not even think about it. We took time out of our day to get to the boardwalk area only to find a giant line outside with football fans like us waiting to get inside. By the time we decided to nix the idea we had wasted well over an hour in travel and wait time. You are on vacation, skip the game and get updates on your phone. If the game is that important you must watch it, head off property and save yourself a headache.

Really Think About Your Days

I’m not saying you need to plan out your time completely – actually never do that, ever. I am saying really think about what it means to go from one place to another and the amount of time and energy it will take to get there. If you absolutely can only see the fireworks show one day, try to sleep in that morning so you are not to tired to enjoy them. Are there rides you and your family 100% have to ride? Hit those first. I would much rather wait an hour for my favorite ride than ride three others I don’t particularly care for. Do you plan to drink around the world? Great! Just don’t expect to be at rope drop the next morning. My accidental planning was I forgot about our last day. I didn’t forget we would have a last day, but I forgot that it is clearly different than the others. I wanted to get as much in as possible so I planned a breakfast at 8am in Magic Kingdom before it opened. Our flight wasn’t until 8pm at night (do you see the problem here). We would have had to pack and check out around 6am and have nowhere to take a break. I had to cancel our last breakfast completely since I was unable to move it at all.

Like I said – nothing terrible happened and we still had an amazing trip, but these are just a few ways that I can try to improve the next trip down to the most magical place on earth. There are some things that we definitely did right though!

I know I am not alone here – what are some problems you ran into on your trip to Disney that you will be changing for the next trip?