Travel Nightmare: Disney Edition

Every child dreams of going to Disney World at some point in time. For some reason, the magical quality of a talking mouse and an expensive theme park attracts the masses. Even though this dream is widespread among most kids, adults know of the struggles caused by travelling in general — and sometimes a trip to Disney World is more hassle than fun.

Whenever I was younger, Disney World was not number one on my to-do list, however, I was a die-hard fan of Disney anything and if the opportunity came around, I wouldn’t say no. But this trip had more speedbumps than expected, that now looking back, seem more important than the actual destination.

During this time, I was auditioning for one of my middle school musical productions -specifically it was the musical Annie — which is now one of my least favorite musicals, ironically. I was casted in the ensemble and Christmas was coming around, so I was ready to be a part of the musical but more important things were down the road.

On Christmas my family surprised me with a trip to Disney World by hiding a ticket in a stocking. My whole family couldn’t come so instead my older sister, her husband and I were to go on the trip — my sister was in her late 20s at the time, so it was acceptable for her to be my supervision.

After I received this information, I decided to drop the musical and skip some school in March to go to Disney.

On the first day of the trip, I was completely packed and ready to go board my plane. However, there were a lot of obstacles along the way, including bad weather, technical delays, etc. So, our trip to Disney was interrupted.

Instead of our one way to Florida, we had to fly to Cleveland and then Cleveland to Atlanta, stay in Atlanta and go to the Miami airport to arrive in Orlando a day and half later than planned.

This was my first time travelling on a plane, so I was nervous. But despite the fact that I was placed in the back of a plane on the way to Cleveland and had been offered travel sized bottles of whiskey and vodka by a flight attendant at the age of 11, this trip has more positive memories than negative.

One memory that will always stick with me is when we stayed in Atlanta, Georgia for one night. We decided that we wanted to go out to eat after our flight, so we got a cab to take us to the local Applebee’s. During this car ride, we watched the meter and price go up and up. This small 2-mile trip was going to cost around 27 dollars. Once the cab fare was paid and we arrived at our destination, all was good. However, my sister had another plan. She decided that another cab trip back to the hotel would not be wise, so we walked back to the hotel — along a busy, 4-lane highway in the middle of the night. Not only did we walk along side of the moving traffic, we ran across the highway, dodging cars as they come. Now, this may have seemed like a dangerous idea, but for some reason it was one of my favorite moments out of this trip — sadly, Disney itself wasn’t the highlight.

This trip had great lessons and gave me experiences I will not forget — even if it was only a trip to Disney World. First, I got to travel somewhere outside Pennsylvania. Secondly, I traveled with family — which is always fun considering that we all get along so well and we all make strange, long-lasting memories together — including one, that in the long-run, seem a bit dangerous.