-bring something to read on your smartphone. I buy an iBook before a trip so I have something to do while waiting around for food. At first I used to browse my phone but news, family, etc was not very relaxing. I’m in a much better mood disappearing into a book as vacay for me when I travel solo is about disconnecting.
Yeah, I tend to use my phone to entertain myself while waiting in line or waiting to be served at a restaurant these days, but I realized partway through a solo trip that I need to be conscientious about what I browse on it. It's too easy to get pulled back into real world worries and frustrations if I browse the news or social media, and I don't want to fixate on something outside the parks when I'm meant to be enjoying myself. I have really liked the Play Disney Parks app; it has enough different games and trivia questions for different areas of the parks that it kept me pretty well occupied throughout a week-long solo trip. I'll play non-Disney games on my phone during a trip, too, but I do try to stick to games rather than wandering the internet. I played a ton of spider solitaire on my trip to
Disneyland Paris, to the point where whenever I open that app now I get a blast of nostalgia for those parks because I associate it so strongly with that trip.
While jerks can happen anywhere I will chime in as well that blessedly I haven’t run into any traveling as a solo female at bars at Disney hotels or parks. It’s one of the things I enjoy about traveling at Disney. I don’t doubt for a second people have run into jerks at Disney bars but I wouldn’t be scared off trying a bar at Disney out of that fear.
If you’re not looking to socialize at all definitely avoid bar sitting but if you’re content on your own or making general chit chat a bar at Disney* is one of the safer bars to do so.
*Disney parks or hotels. I have no experience at Disney Springs places
Yeah, I'm disappointed to hear people have had bad experiences at the bars, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. I have found that bars do tend to make for a more social experience, for better or for worse. I've often enjoyed that; Trader Sam's is the most fun if you can join in with the callouts and sitting right at the bar put me in the center of it. I was a solo woman sitting next to a solo man; we chatted but he didn't hit on me or anything; he was just there to enjoy the bar the same as I was. If that hadn't been the case, I suppose I would have had to leave if I felt unsafe. The general methods for staying safe still apply even though it's Disney; I don't leave my drinks unattended regardless of where I am.
For myself, I was always fine with going and sitting at a table alone--not a big deal. The first hump I really had to get over was going to more social dining experiences, like sitting at a bar or at a communal table (like at Biergarten), or going somewhere you're expected to interact more with your server (like Whispering Canyon, or to a lesser extent, Skipper Canteen). Shared spaces are always luck of the draw in terms of who you end up with, but so far I've had good experiences with it--I just know that it's going to be more social and less relaxing (I'm an introvert, so I do need alone time to recharge). The ones that still scare me a bit are character dining and buffets; I haven't been able to bring myself to book either. I can do family-style meals just fine, but getting up from my table to go get more food makes me worry my table's going to be cleared while I'm gone (good idea to make a card to put on the table--I would have thought leaving a jacket or hat would be enough!!). And then I'm nervous about getting attention from characters. But I've built myself up to other social experiences that had scared me, so I'm sure I'll get there eventually.