I don't think it is overcrowding, I think it is FP+. At the times we go, for years we were used to walking on POTC, Small World, Figment, Buzz, Living with the Land, Nemo etc, even in the middle of the afternoon. Now, we find lines for each of those often at 30 to 40 minutes. We feel like we run back and forth with FP+. It was actually a little better this last trip since they have given you the ability to book your 4th FP+ on the app. It is frustrating to deal with lines significantly longer than what you have been used to for years, and for the rides that were traditionally FP, to be unable to use FP for them in the tiering parks or even in the other parks with the 3 day limit. (the old days we would FP Soarin and Test Track each once and nothing else- ocassionally 2 for Soarin). Our trip a couple of weeks ago we really felt at the recent cut backs too. Although people have been complaining about it for years and we have gone to WDW every year for the last 9 years, last year was the first year we felt any impact at all, and this year we really felt it. If you still love Disney, I would suggest giving DLR a try. We LOVE DLR. If it wasn't for EPCOT, I'm not sure any of us would feel the need to go back to WDW and we would all be perfectly happy at DLR. EPCOT is the only thing we miss when we are at DLR. We typically stay at DLH and with the walk to the park from there being through DTD, we still feel like we are in the Disney bubble. Of course, there is also a whole big wide world out there to explore!
Oh, and count me in with the no Carnival group. Cruised them one time. It was part of our Honeymoon- we did a split Carnival cruise/WDW trip. We were trapped on a boat with 838 high school seniors on their senior trip- who at age 18 were legal to drink at sea. Carnival did not warn us ahead of time- we did not find out until we were on the boat and had left the dock. It was a few days of listening to kids screaming up and down the halls all night long (they typically quieted down about 4:30 or 5:00 a.m.), drunk kids everywhere day and night, every place that we thought would be fun packed with drunk kids etc. We found my suitcase lying in the middle of the hall around the corner and down the hall from our room because apparently it had fallen off the luggage cart when they were bringing the luggage around and no one noticed. DH got his in the room--but apparently they didn't even realize that they didn't have mine. There was other stuff too - like things that we were supposed to get and didn't and a bad shore excursion. It pretty much ruined me on cruises- I haven't set foot on one since. I'm glad others have had better experiences with them. I'm just glad we at least had WDW for part of our Honeymoon too--- although come to think of it, we stayed at WL (which I love), but they put us in a room over the trash/service area so we got to wake up at 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. every morning to the back up beeps of trucks. That also was not fun- but the rest of WL and WDW was fun! Good thing the honeymoon wasn't a predictor of the marriage!
