"Do-over" trip?

[marielynn724]

Ever felt like you needed a do-over trip after a trip that went poorly? I just got back on Friday and truly did have a wonderful time for the most part, but I can't stop thinking about how short-changed I feel. What happened is that I have a chronic health problem for about 20 years that flairs up from time to time. It's been acting up the last 2 months before my trip but was sort of under control - until I got there. My first day things got really bad and I was in pretty intense pain for the whole first half of my trip and pretty much recovering during the whole second half. It definitely held me back from doing a lot of what I wanted, and I was way too sick to eat much of anything. I had to cancel some dining reservations that I had been really looking forward to. I basically spent my entire first day and a half calling pharmacies in Orlando to try to find my very obscure medication, which no one had so I ended up waiting until I got home anyway.

This is such a first world problem - my vacation not being good enough. I feel guilty that I should be grateful I had the opportunity to go on vacation at all. But I waited 5 years to be able to take a trip and kind of can't help but feel disappointed and a little heartbroken. This trip was supposed to be me finally having something nice in my life after many years of..... let's just say having more than my fair share of "not nice" in my life.

Now I'm looking into making another reservation for maybe late this summer, but I don't know. Has anyone else had a similar experience? Maybe I just need to commiserate with others who've had their trips ruined too.

 

[Megan138]

I'm so sorry you had this experience and you have every right to be disappointed. I think it's a great idea to plan another trip for August - that way you can do some of the dining reservations you had to cancel and hopefully will be feeling better so you can truly enjoy your trip and have happy memories. I know if it were me that's what I would do so I could stop dwelling on the trip that didn't go well and have something to look forward to.

 

[Dulcee]

I'm sorry, its hard when it doesn't go as planned.

We had a trip a few years ago that I'd love a do-over on. Three days into our 7 day trip our youngest came down with norovirus. We ended up seeing the Orlando Children's hospital and then extended the trip by a day when I caught it and couldn't be more then a few feet from the bathroom. It was a long 9 hour drive home to North Carolina while I ruminated on our 4 days of unused, but soon to expire, park tickets.

I still joke with my daughter that she cost me my last chance to see Illuminations one more time

 

[ambula603]

I am so sorry this happened to you. I absolutely think you should book another trip, even if it is shorter or not ideally when you would go, if you can afford it. It will give you something to focus on instead of looking backward with disappointment.

I notice that I place a lot of pressure on myself to have a perfect trip. Especially when I love to plan and learn things on this board. So I am always telling myself that no trip is without issues or flaws. But it is hard when things go incredibly south!

 

[disneydreamer1980]

I feel for you. I’m sorry that happened. Plan your do over trip! In may of 2022 we went for a two week trip. We always go in the winter and weren’t prepared for the heat. It about killed us. On top of that we made 2 visits to a local urgent care center. My youngest had a cold when we arrived that developed into pneumonia and my oldest got swimmers ear the third day there that was excruciating for her. Luckily we had a two week trip because that first week was terrible. I hope you go again soon and have the most amazing trip ever!

 

[5kidsmommy]

We’ve had two bad trips over the years. Once when our youngest son was 16 and his anxiety was really bad. He’s autistic and this trip some new issues popped up and he thought he was dying, kept asking us to take him to the ER. We had our 18 year old with us and we ended up having one of us stay in the camper and the other enjoying the parks with our 18 year old.

When our youngest turned 18 he wanted to do a do over trip. Then the pandemic hit. So we did the trip in Sept 2020. Besides being a crazy Covid trip it was actually a better time for him. He still struggles and he went back this January and has decided that he can only go every five years. Although he did say it was fun to drink in Epcot since that was the first time he could do it.

The lesson I learned is do over trips are good but to just keep our expectations low especially when dealing with special needs. We also now build in lots of time for rest and relaxation. Best of luck to you.

 

[abbyandangel]

I’m sorry you had such a rough experience. About 10 years ago I fell down some stairs and really messed myself up the day before our trip. Spent that whole trip including MNSSHP in a wheelchair. Went back again in May. That was the only time we’ve had trips so close together because I needed a do-over. That was the only time we had trip insurance and I went anyway. Maybe the insurance jinxed me so haven’t bothered with insurance since.

 

[DisneyGuy]

Yes, we were there in September of 22’ during the hurricane at which we also all had Covid so had to make sure we could get to the pharmacy in time before they all started closing! Oh and the trip started off with a major flight delay, lost baggage (which we had to go pick up at 2:00am at MCO on our arrival day. After we got our luggage we thought all our troubles were behind us - we were wrong!

We took a do-over, albeit shorter trip a few months later and had a great time - re-did a few missed ADR’s, really had no expectations and went with the flow-our tickets for the missed days were honored and we did an after hours event (in place of the cancelled Halloween party) and we had Genie + still in our tickets since we were able to pre-buy at the time. A much better trip and well worth it!

 

[klmall]

We've actually done two "Do-Over" trips. The first was in 2005 after a totally disastrous week at AKL in 2002. I got our one and only Pin Code in the mail so I changed our reservation from WL to AKL. Everything that could have gone wrong did from a room at the farthest point from the lobby possible (before DVC) to screaming children on balconies around us to Boma losing our ADR and multiple bus issues. It ruined Disney so much for DH that he refused to go back until 2005. That trip was a success and we then went on three trips in three years. Yay!

Come 2014 and we drove down from Maryland bringing the Noro-Virus with us! Thank goodness for two bathrooms in our BLT rental; I don't think I have ever been so sick in all my life and we missed MVMCP and our day at AK. DH got so sick that we needed extra time driving home and it kept us away from WDW for three years again. Thankfully the 2017 trip was nearly perfect and we have returned since!