Credit: I Heart HorsesWalt Disney World is known as the place where dreams come true, but not all dreams are about pirates, princesses, and animated mice. Sometimes they involve creepy hallways, random celebrity appearances, mysterious voices in the middle of the night. Needless to say, Disney isn’t excluded from these strange occurrences as well.
The Disney Parks are constructed as places outside the realms of reality, and the Disney Bubble goes to great lengths to ensure Guests make magical memories and have experiences that can only happen inside Park property.
However, that also means seeing some seriously strange events as well. A recent Reddit post had Guests sharing some of the odd-ball encounters they witnessed on their vacation, and they range from the cute to the outright bizarre.
The Disney World Pest Population
Although Disney goes into excruciating detail to keep Disney World separate from the rest of Orlando, there are simply some factors they can only partially control. Considering the entirety of the property sits on a wildlife reserve, it’s only a matter of time before something crawls into the Magic Kingdom.
u/Lionheart1827 shares a creepy tale of their resort stay when they add,
“In 2017, my wife and I stayed at the Poly and one morning I woke up with a lot of little red bites on my arm and leg, and it looked like a bunch of them were in a straight line. I wasn’t sure if it was bed bugs or something else so I called the desk. The manager of the resort came up with a paramedic team, completely up ended and sanitized our room and later the manager came back with some ointment and stuff and we’re really nice about it. I was super embarrassed when I remembered I sat outside on the patio for an hour and got mosquito bites the night before watching the parade floats and fireworks…”
Similarly, u/ruledbypets adds,
“A palmetto bug flew into my sisters hair, and she flung it into my face. My screaming caused my mom to scream. We were watching the fireworks at Epcot and a family seated near us turned to watch us the entire time instead of the fireworks.
Everybody Wants to Be a Cat
There is an urban legend about Disney unleashing an army of cats into the Parks to (ironically) take care of their resident rodents. While that sounds like a schoolyard rumor, u/CaptObviousUsername goes into great detail about a phantom feline they encountered on one of their trips.
“As I’m walking around the resort I see a cat! A cat with 5 kittens in tow, I thought that was odd because where the heck would a cat come from in the Disney bubble, it’s not like there are residential homes there, regardless, I excitedly took several pictures and made my way to our room to tell my folks and sister. They didn’t believe me, that’s okay, I have photographic proof – just have to wait to develop them when we got back home…”
“Fast forward to when we are home and I go to get my pictures developed… But there were none, no cat pictures. Instead within my many, many Disney pictures, there were several random pictures of some random man I have never seen before. One of him sitting on a couch, another couple of him in a graveyard with another person (nothing sinister just looked like they were visiting a grave site.) And another of him hugging a woman. I was like ‘wtf, where are the cats!?!'”
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While that might sound incredibly bizarre, this user isn’t the only one to encounter Disney’s cat population during a trip. u/tarbearjean confirms the suspicions when they write,
“I believe you. Not only does Disney have stray cats that keep the parks “clean” at night but cast member housing had lots of stray cats as well. I assume the whole bubble is just flooded with them.”
A Seeing-Eye… Pony?
Bugs, cats, exotic birds, and even alligators have been seen on Disney property, but that’s nowhere near the strangest animal encounter seen at the Walt Disney World Resort. u/East_Kaleidoscope995 shares their experience with one of the strangest service animals they’ve ever seen.
“About 10-15 years ago my wife and I ran into a woman with a seeing eye pony in Hollywood studios. It was tiny, maybe a little bigger than a Great Dane. But an actual pony. Wearing booties. The lady had a crowd around her like she was an attraction, all taking pictures. She explained that she was allergic to dogs and had gotten the pony instead, that they’re rare but they exist.”
Even stranger, other users confirm that the only seeing-eye service animals allowed in the Parks are dogs and ponies. Apparently, they are the best animals for seeing-eye training. Either way, that’s certainly one Disney experience no Guest could forget.
Have you seen any strange animal encounters at Walt Disney World? Tell us at Inside the Magic in the comments below!