I Had a Mortifying Experience at Disney World, and I Haven’t Stopped Thinking About It for Years

JP here, ready to embarrass myself again for your entertainment and education!

The truth is, embarrassing things happen to people every single day, and being in Disney World doesn’t change that! If anything, it puts you at risk of being more embarrassed because you’re in an unfamiliar setting, eating food that you maybe aren’t used to, in the hot sun for hours on end, and walking more miles than most of the population is used to. And guess what? WE at AllEars have embarrassing stories too! I feel it’s important to share these with you because our mistakes and fumbles can help you make sure you don’t make the same ones. So, if you’ll join me, allow me to take you back to early 2015 when I took my first, and only, Disney World trip as a teenager with my 8th grade band.

Yep, you can already see where this may be going. I was 13 at the time and beyond thrilled to be heading to Disney World to participate in a Disney Performing Arts workshop with my 8th grade band, but not for the reason you’re thinking. The best part of the trip is that we would only have ONE 3-hour workshop, and the rest of the trip would be spent IN the parks — SCORE! (Listen, I wasn’t very passionate about band — I love performing, but acting and singing is more my forte — I just didn’t want to have to do PE that year!)

We got to visit every park but Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and I was determined to record every bit I could on my GoPro. Now remember, these aren’t the fancy GoPros that exist now — this thing was a BEAST. It was still only about the size of my palm, but there was no screen for me to see what I was recording, and I (am I really about to show this photo on the internet?) brought along my head strap so I could…strap the camera to my head while we rode rides.

THIS ISN’T EVEN THE EMBARRASSING PART. Well, it’s plenty embarrassing, but it’s not the point of this post. After we finished our workshop, we starting exploring EPCOT and got in line for Soarin’. I, like the others, was more than excited to ride, and planned on recording it like all the others so I could watch it back later (all of these videos are terrible quality, by the way. GoPros have come SO FAR in the last 8-9 years).

We got on the ride and just as it started, I clicked record on the GoPro. Now, remember when I said the thing was STRAPPED TO MY HEAD? I had no idea that when I hit record, a small little red light would click on THE FRONT to indicate it was recording. This hadn’t been an issue before, but on a screen-based ride? You see where this is going.

As we lift up, I see a red light on the screen. Someone comes on over the loudspeaker telling the person recording to stop because of the red light. I thought, “well, that can’t be me. This ride didn’t have any signs outside it saying I couldn’t record, and mine doesn’t have a red light.” So I did nothing.

A few seconds later, the Cast Member comes on the loudspeaker again, more firm this time, and I start getting frustrated, like why aren’t they turning it off? A moment later, I froze. OH MY GOD, WHAT IF IT IS ME? Just to be safe, I reached my hand up and tried to cover where the light could have been coming from, because again, I CAN’T SEE IT and I really wanted to record the ride to watch back at home!

My heart pounding, I hope this solves the issue, but IT DOESN’T. When the loudspeaker kicked on a third time, I had to face the unfortunate truth that it WAS me, and mortified that I hadn’t caught on sooner, I quickly turned the GoPro off, and the ride continued a few seconds later.

I was so embarrassed. Even though the whole ordeal maybe took 10 seconds, it’s stuck with me for nearly 10. YEARS. And I still won’t get on Soarin’ on my own accord. If I’m with someone and they want to, I’ll hop on, but I have a personal vendetta against it I don’t think I’ll ever get over.

So what can you learn from this? Well, even though I didn’t see any signs on before the ride saying not to film, if your camera has a LIGHT on a SCREEN RIDE, don’t even try turning it on. And always listen to Cast Members! While I wasn’t purposely not listening to them, I wish I had just turned it off at first just in case.

And there’s my soul, bared to you, complete with embarrassing photos of 13-year-old me (the awkward phase was REAL). But hey, we all have these kinds of stories, and eventually, they become funny stories we can tell others someday…I’m just choosing to tell the whole internet. 😂

AllEars is always here to help you plan for your next Disney World vacation and avoid as much embarrassment as possible, so stay tuned to the blog!

Speaking of embarrassing, I forgot my ID on my last Disney World trip — here’s what happened!

Please share an embarrassing Disney story with me in the comments so I don’t feel as alone!

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