As an avid Disney fan who has been to the parks hundreds of times, I’ve experienced my fair share of Disney disasters!
Disneyland
From losing my cell phone in the parks to extreme sunburn to literally stepping in someone else’s sick while wearing sandals (yes, that happened to me in EPCOT!), I’ve seen and been through quite a bit. But there’s one horrifying lesson I learned in a Disneyland bathroom, and I want to share it with you so you can learn from my mistakes!
During a recent trip out to the West Coast, I visited California Adventure on a particularly sunny day. Since it was bright outside, I opted to wear my favorite sunglasses to the park, hanging them on the front of my shirt whenever I walked indoors momentarily.
Disney California Adventure
However, I was also wearing a v-neck shirt, and that choice of storage for my sunglasses proved to be a major problem when I stepped into a bathroom stall, leaned over the toilet to grab a seat cover, and promptly watched my sunglasses complete the fall of doom into the bowl below. Fishing them out before the toilet automatically flushed was not an experience that I would like to repeat!
Restrooms in Lamplight Lounge
I learned a few things that day, the first being that the miniature pack of Clorox wipes I had stowed in my backpack were particularly useful! I’d already been using them to clean off sticky tables and wipe snack residue from my hands, but when my sunglasses took a nose-dive into potty water, I had never been so thankful for those wipes. (I also washed the sunglasses twice with soap and hot water, just in case!)
Clorox Wipes
Also, that disastrous visit to the bathroom made me realize that Disney park bathrooms are sorely lacking in storage space! It would be incredibly beneficial for them to have small shelves in the stalls for things like wallets, sunglasses, or your phone. As it is, most of the Disney World and Disneyland Resort public bathrooms only have hooks on the walls or doors. And that doesn’t help the people with smaller belongings!
Disney bathrooms need more storage!
Finally, I’ll let you know that it’s probably a bad idea to hang your sunglasses on your shirt while galavanting around the theme parks. (And yes, I do own a glasses case — I was just being lazy at the moment! 😂) Outside of this incident, I’ve also had my sunglasses fly off my shirt during a roller coaster (thankfully, the person behind me caught them in a SPECTACULAR display of reflexes!), so you’ll either want to keep a glasses case or a glasses chain on hand to prevent these problems.
Disney100 Ray-Ban sunglasses
Hopefully, you learned from my mistakes and you’ll join me in my dream of bathroom shelves for public restrooms — they would be so useful!
Stay tuned to DFB for more theme park tips and updates.
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So sorry! But this is a great excuse to buy a new pair.
Okay, this one is for the ladies only, but here goes. I (like you) used to hang my sunglasses on the front of my shirt when I would step inside for whatever reason, and have had several close calls in the past. But I’ve found that sliding one of the stems of the glasses under my bra strap at the shoulder holds them much more securely in place.
Like the front-of-shirt methodology, the glasses are still visible at the shoulder, so you don’t have to get fingerprints all over them when retrieving and putting them back on. I’ve ridden numerous coasters and other turbulent rides this way, and the glasses have held firmly in place. The only time you’ll run into problems with this is with overhead harnesses/restraints – then you need to stow your glasses properly.
Just thought I’d throw that one out there. Hope this helps someone!
One way to avoid that hazard (aside from putting them in the case, which is best) is turning them around with the full weight of the glasses inside your shirt so they’ll fall into your clothes rather than landing in a watery grave. This working does depend on the style of shirt, if it’s cropped I’m not sure how effective that would be. Though, even a short top might direct them to the floor instead of the bowl, not ideal, and still in need of a bath, but better than having to fish them out with lightning speed 😎