Worst advice you got

[PhoenixWright]

Worst advice would be save MNSSHP for our last night of our trip. It poured rain the entire night, we all got sick afterwards and was a miserable evening.

Only silver lining is they still did Hallowishes, but it wasn't until way late and all the other shows were cancelled =/

 

[BugsDaddy]

Yes - yes - this - this - this - this - this.

When the best someone can offer me is to lower my expectations or tell me how their family did everything they ever wanted to do, but stayed 10 days to do it, I just ignore them. Either officially, or by using scroll on the mouse.
I used to be able to count on the DIS for incredibly helpful hints. Now I feel like I get a little bit of useful information, a lot of "you need to relax more, visit more resorts, people watch", and all kinds of threads about buying bags. I DO find that PMing helpful posters (and visiting other boards) still yields great strategies.

Not to turn this into a discussion about FP. That horse has been beat to death. However, almost every person I have seen that gave advice to "lower your expectations" have been those who do not like FP+. As far as people stating how they enjoyed their vacation using FP+, that is their own opinion of their own experience. It does not make it wrong just because you didn't have the same experience. I can read reviews on Trip Advisor all day long from the same resort from the same time frame. Some will love it, some will hate it.

 

[kathy884]

I love the unofficial guide. There is only one piece of advice that I took that back fired for me. "It's a Small World. Not scary at all for Toddlers". OMG I took my two year on this and he was totally freaked out by those dancing dolls and screamed during the entire ride. Boy -- that was the longest ride ever for me. A nice man in his 50s came up to us afterwards and said to my son, "I always feel like screaming on this ride too, but it's not socially acceptable at my age."

Here are three other suggestions (popular suggestions on DIS that I tried) that I wasn't impressed with:

Fantasmic dinner package on a crowed park day at Mama Melrose. / We had to wait about 40 minutes to be seated for our reservation for mediocre overpriced food. I might as well have stood in line for Fantasmic.

Dole Whips -- I just wasn't impressed. (not bad really, but give me my Mickey Bar)

That staying at POR is so delightful as you can ride to Downtown Disney and have all those choices for dinner. WRONG -- not without a reservation in the summer or a three hour wait. YUCK but we ended up having dinner at the POR food court. Part of that trip we were offsite at the Sheraton Vistana -- I liked staying there so much better than POR. And our two bedroom condo was less expensive that our moderate room for quite a bit (Well it was an owner rental, so not a retail to retail comparison).

 

[crostorfer]

Not to turn this into a discussion about FP. That horse has been beat to death. However, almost every person I have seen that gave advice to "lower your expectations" have been those who do not like FP+. As far as people stating how they enjoyed their vacation using FP+, that is their own opinion of their own experience. It does not make it wrong just because you didn't have the same experience. I can read reviews on Trip Advisor all day long from the same resort from the same time frame. Some will love it, some will hate it.

You missed the point. It's not about people giving opinions, that's fine. It's about people advising other people to change theirs.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

You missed the point. It's not about people giving opinions, that's fine. It's about people advising other people to change theirs.

We all make that mistake on occasion, believing that we are helping but failing to understand that what works for you might not work for someone else. This entire forum is filled with page after page of such advice. You have to be judicious in the advice that you accept, because there is so much, and much of it conflicts.

 

[BugsDaddy]

I think some good advice has been given on how to try to maximize your FP+ experience on these boards personally. Not all those methods will work for every family but it doesn't make it "bad" advice just bad for you. As Buckeye said, everyone needs to be discerning about the advice they accept and understand that it might not work for everyone.

 

[LilyWDW]

That I just HAD to go to Le Cellier and 'Ohana for the true Disney experience. Well, Le Cellier is horrible and overpriced (even all those years ago). 'Ohana was pretty decent, but nothing amazing to make it a must do. Sort of felt like I wasted my money.

More recently it was about how HORRIBLE FP+ is. I did not find it bad at all and I only used the 3 originally booked FPs. Everything else was standby and I never waited more then 15ish minutes.

 

[SmithSmith]

"If you see something you like, buy it! You can always return it at your resort's gift shop."

That piece of advice did not work out well for me. I couldn't decide on a few pieces of clothing at Mouse Gears, so I decided to get it all. I charged it the room, with the intent of possibly returning some of it to Fulton's General Store at POR. The CMs there were clueless on how to do a return, 3 of them tried and failed. After a half hour a manager finally took care of it rather easily. In the end, it wasn't a good way to finish our trip.

It's advice I read often, so maybe it was just a fluke, but either way, I'm going to be hesitant to try this again in the future.

 

[ILoveMyDVC]

Anything that falls into the category that makes you believe your trip (and by extension, you) is/are a failure unless you are in an elite (read expensive) group: BOG reservations; fireworks cruise; Dessert party; Victoria and Albert's; the Poly; concierge; 1000 point club; signature restaurants 2 x day!

Just going on vacation is a magical treat! Another State (bonus!); WDW (outstanding!)

 

[amberjean15]

To try to see as much as you can, you can rest when you get home! Ya no thanks! We'll be back again, I'd much rather happy well rested children who didn't see everything this trip than over tired cranky kids who saw everything.

 

[soniam]

Don't go to WDW as an adult. It's for kids. Wait until you have kids. I like going with my son, but I get sad thinking about all of the fun trips I missed before him.

 

[Imaginique]

Don't go to WDW as an adult. It's for kids. Wait until you have kids. I like going with my son, but I get sad thinking about all of the fun trips I missed before him.

WDW was so much more fun for me before kids! Don't get me wrong, I enjoy those magical moments with the kid, but I was able to do so much more and not have to deal with a cranky overtired kid.

 

[over50visits]

Worst advice over the years has been to purchase the DDP. We convinced ourselves we "saved" money while buying more food and more expensive entrees then we would have ever considered. We spent more money and ate more food than we ever did before or since just paying OOP, taking snacks, sharing, etc.

Best advice we followed - go to a park without EMH!

 

[larryz]

Lesson Learned: Don't try to be early on EMH morning

I believe I've read that somewhere...

 

[White Rose]

...just wing it. No planning is needed...it's dead at Disney around the holidays...everyone stays home.

 

[3Gsandme]

I think the hard thing about advice is that it's personal. I would advise people to not eat at either Hollywood and Vine or Tony's, but plenty of people love those places. I liked FP+. It was great, but some people really dislike it. It's what makes all those "is this worth it" threads so useless. No one can tell you what you will like. It's nearly impossible.

Bad factual information is one thing (free shuttle to Universal? Hahaha. No) but opinions aren't advice and should be considered as such.

 

[Angel Ariel]

It is just like school busses being safer without car seats. Busses are designed to handle the impact of an accident differently than cars. And my kids are not free to move about the cabin in a bus, they must remain seated the whole time.

Interesting. My daughter will be taking a school bus to preschool with the local public school district in the fall. The district recommends her riding in a car seat. There are actually some buses in the district that have cut outs in the seatbacks that have 5 pt harnesses as well, basically a built in car seat. Sadly there aren't enough of those seats (only 4 of those harnesses per bus that has them) to transport every preschooler, so we'll be providing our own car seat as recommended.

 

[Angel Ariel]

I always brought car seats on the plane, because if I buckled my kids into their car seat on the plane (once the were too old for lap fare) then they were comfortable staying in their seat like in the car. No car seat and they felt they should be free to get up and move around. Do they not allow this anymore?

They do allow it. DD will be riding in her car seat on our trip next month.

 

[itchin2go]

That I just HAD to go to Le Cellier and 'Ohana for the true Disney experience. Well, Le Cellier is horrible and overpriced (even all those years ago). 'Ohana was pretty decent, but nothing amazing to make it a must do. Sort of felt like I wasted my money.

More recently it was about how HORRIBLE FP+ is. I did not find it bad at all and I only used the 3 originally booked FPs. Everything else was standby and I never waited more then 15ish minutes.

Advice on restaurants is tough for so many reasons. I did not enjoy Ohana, but I did like Le Cellier. However, I don't think I would ever tell anyone that they needed to go to any restaurant to get the "true Disney experience". I mostly tell people what I like, why I like it, and encourage them to look at menus. It's all SO subjective.

As to how horrible FP+ is, I still don't know how that's advice.

 

[Angel Ariel]

I think some good advice has been given on how to try to maximize your FP+ experience on these boards personally. Not all those methods will work for every family but it doesn't make it "bad" advice just bad for you. As Buckeye said, everyone needs to be discerning about the advice they accept and understand that it might not work for everyone.

Someone wisely stated earlier in this thread that someone's worst advice received is another person's best advice received. The poster you quoted was sharing her worst advice received, as that is what the OP of this thread asked. Of course it could be someone else's best advice...just as getting park hoppers was shown earlier in this thread to be someone's worst advice and someone else's best advice.

I honestly can't say I've received bad advice regarding Disney. Most of the times I've asked for personally on the DIS, the responses I've gotten have been sound advice. IRL,I'm not usually receiving Disney advice so much as giving it. I've read things here I agree and disagree with, of course, but I can't think of anything off the top of my head I'd call the worst advice I've received about Disney.