What to Do When EVERYTHING Goes Wrong in Disney World

As much as we love visiting Disney World, it goes without saying that not every moment spent in the parks is perfect.

Sometimes things go wrong on your trip — you lose a valuable item, a ride breaks down, you miss a dining reservation, the parks are more crowded than you expected. On our visit to Magic Kingdom today, we experienced several problems and it inspired us to share the story with our readers. Today, we’re giving you our best advice on how to have a great day in Disney World, even when everything is going wrong!

This morning, we headed to Magic Kingdom in the hopes of arriving early and knocking out a few rides before the park’s posted opening time of 8AM. We’ve been able to accomplish that goal at other parks, so we pulled up to the toll plaza around 7:10AM.

Our first snafu came during our wait for the bus. We decided to take a Disney bus over to Magic Kingdom from the TTC to avoid crowds, and we had to wait a bit longer than we usually do, finally making it into the park at 7:45. We were only 15 minutes early, but we were ready to accomplish whatever we could!

Magic Kingdom did not open their rides early as we’ve seen other parks do in the past. We decided to get in line for Splash Mountain anyway, waiting for 8AM to roll around. That’s when we hit our second problem — the popular boat ride was having some problems and delayed its opening. We abandoned that plan and went over to ride Pirates of the Caribbean instead.

We actually got the chance to ride Pirates with a really short wait, which gave us some encouragement. (Maybe this day is going to go well, after all!) However, things turned around yet again when we got in line for Jungle Cruise and it went down for technical difficulties while we were waiting.

At that point, we checked our My Disney Experience app and got some disheartening results. Most of our favorite rides were up to 60-minute waits only an hour after park opening. On top of that, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Haunted Mansion had joined the list of temporarily unavailable attractions.

We get to go to Disney World daily as part of our jobs, so for us this may not be a big deal. However, for our readers that only get a day in the park, we know it can be disheartening for your must-do rides to be unavailable, or at a long wait.

What Should You Do When Things Go Wrong?

The first step when things go wrong in Disney World is to stop and breathe. In our case, we headed over to Main Street, U.S.A. to pick up some coffee and relax for a few minutes. We got to watch the Dapper Dans on the trolley and chill while we evaluated what we wanted the rest of the day to look like.

After our coffee break, we decided to go hang out near Jungle Cruise again. If, at any point, a ride you want to experience breaks down or closes for the weather, try hanging out nearby for a bit. Once the ride reopens, you’ll have a very small window of time where you’ll be able to jump in line before the wait time skyrockets again.

Thanks to our careful watching, we were able to jump on and off Jungle Cruise rather quickly. We then took a moment to rethink our plans for the day. Our goal for today was to avoid long lines, so we decided to start knocking out some of the rides with shorter wait times. We’ve found that often, wait times decrease later in the evening, so we may be able to knock out a few big-ticket things then.

One of the most important things to remember when things aren’t going according to plan is to not panic. Every moment you spend stressing and lamenting is a moment that you don’t get to enjoy spending time in Disney World! After you paid the money and planned the trip, you’ll want to enjoy it as much as possible.

In the time that we starting visiting rides with shorter waits, the rides that had been temporarily closed started to open up again. Wait times began to redistribute more evenly across the park, which made us feel a lot better! Things can change rapidly at Disney World, especially when it comes to wait times.

If you stay positive and patient, you’ll likely be able to accomplish almost everything you want because you won’t be wasting time in distress. We know that there’s a lot of pressure for vacations to be perfect, but keep in mind that one of the goals of going on vacation is to enjoy yourself!

Stay tuned to AllEars for more theme park planning tips, as well as all of our advice on how to have an amazing trip! We’re here to give you the most up-to-date Disney news and we’re grateful that you follow along.

Click Here for a List of the Best Places to Start Your Day in Disney World!

Have you ever had a “bad day” in Disney World? Tell us about it in the comments!

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