chrissyb2411
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2008
just home from a week at disney and here's my thoughts. This was our third stay in 8 years, each time we stayed at a disney moderate. We are a family of 4, kids are 9 and 6. We are very mellow, quiet people, just sort of go with the flow. Our last 2 trips I had us booked solid. This time I booked our fp+ and that was it.
IMO, things have changed so much. Our time at the disney parks felt like we were being rushed along and herded, move move move. It was a bit much.
I put a lot of effort into making sure we had an Anna and elsa fast pass, dressing my daughter up, talking it up so she was so excited. And the whole experience was such a letdown. We arrived right at our fast pass time, we were the only people in the inner que, and the cast member came over and rather sternly told us we needed to make sure the autograph book was open, and the pen was ready before we met elsa. Twice. My daughter missed the instruction the first time since she was so enraptured with actually seeing the princess, and I was so busy taking photos of her amazed look I missed it. So he said it again, while reaching for the book in her hand to "help" her out. Once she met elsa she got less than a minute of her time before elsa was quite literally pushing her over to Anna to move her along. Another minute with Anna and the highlight of our trip was over. In less than 5 minutes total. It was a huge letdown.
Similar experience at the akerhaus princess meal. It wasn't terribly busy, but nobody really had time to stop really visit. I can remember our first ever character meal where we got probably a good 5 minutes with the characters to goof around and visit and take pictures. I mean for goodness sake, we paid a lot of money for the akerhaus meal to be rushed in and rushed out. The waiter was standing there wanting our drink and food order before we had even sat down. It was insane.
I wouldn't say I loved or hated the fast pass+. We got decent fast passes, since I stayed up til 2 in the morning to get them. It was hit or miss about how long we waited. Sometimes walked straight in, others we waited 20-30 minutes in line. We never hit the kiosks for more fast passes, because when we walked by them they all had lines. Stand in line to get a ticket to maybe not have to stand in line. No thanks. I tried a couple times to change things on the iPhone app, but it was really glitchy inside the parks. I never had trouble with it at home. Overall I liked the magic bands a lot. We didn't have any trouble with them.
We liked sdmt, my daughter and I liked it a lot. Toy story midway mania for us was meh. I wouldn't wait in line or scramble for a fast pass if we had it to do again. Buzz light years space ranger spin was just as good. My kids really loved the magic card game at magic kingdom (I don't remember what this was called) and the agent P adventure at Epcot. We discovered both of these by accident. If you have kids that like treasure hunt type games you should be sure to do these.
The food at disney has taken a big nosedive since our last visit. We didn't have anything all week that I would call good. Akerhaus was ok, everything else was mediocre at best.
I think we are probably done with disney for awhile. For us there was a lack of magic, and the magic is what always made the cost worth it for me. This time I felt it was more about moving us along, turning everything over quickly, quantity instead of quality. We vacation infrequently enough that I can't really consider spending significant money on a mediocre experience. It bums me out, but there it is.
IMO, things have changed so much. Our time at the disney parks felt like we were being rushed along and herded, move move move. It was a bit much.
I put a lot of effort into making sure we had an Anna and elsa fast pass, dressing my daughter up, talking it up so she was so excited. And the whole experience was such a letdown. We arrived right at our fast pass time, we were the only people in the inner que, and the cast member came over and rather sternly told us we needed to make sure the autograph book was open, and the pen was ready before we met elsa. Twice. My daughter missed the instruction the first time since she was so enraptured with actually seeing the princess, and I was so busy taking photos of her amazed look I missed it. So he said it again, while reaching for the book in her hand to "help" her out. Once she met elsa she got less than a minute of her time before elsa was quite literally pushing her over to Anna to move her along. Another minute with Anna and the highlight of our trip was over. In less than 5 minutes total. It was a huge letdown.
Similar experience at the akerhaus princess meal. It wasn't terribly busy, but nobody really had time to stop really visit. I can remember our first ever character meal where we got probably a good 5 minutes with the characters to goof around and visit and take pictures. I mean for goodness sake, we paid a lot of money for the akerhaus meal to be rushed in and rushed out. The waiter was standing there wanting our drink and food order before we had even sat down. It was insane.
I wouldn't say I loved or hated the fast pass+. We got decent fast passes, since I stayed up til 2 in the morning to get them. It was hit or miss about how long we waited. Sometimes walked straight in, others we waited 20-30 minutes in line. We never hit the kiosks for more fast passes, because when we walked by them they all had lines. Stand in line to get a ticket to maybe not have to stand in line. No thanks. I tried a couple times to change things on the iPhone app, but it was really glitchy inside the parks. I never had trouble with it at home. Overall I liked the magic bands a lot. We didn't have any trouble with them.
We liked sdmt, my daughter and I liked it a lot. Toy story midway mania for us was meh. I wouldn't wait in line or scramble for a fast pass if we had it to do again. Buzz light years space ranger spin was just as good. My kids really loved the magic card game at magic kingdom (I don't remember what this was called) and the agent P adventure at Epcot. We discovered both of these by accident. If you have kids that like treasure hunt type games you should be sure to do these.
The food at disney has taken a big nosedive since our last visit. We didn't have anything all week that I would call good. Akerhaus was ok, everything else was mediocre at best.
I think we are probably done with disney for awhile. For us there was a lack of magic, and the magic is what always made the cost worth it for me. This time I felt it was more about moving us along, turning everything over quickly, quantity instead of quality. We vacation infrequently enough that I can't really consider spending significant money on a mediocre experience. It bums me out, but there it is.
). 
