Kren
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2005
After our experience at Epcot yesterday I'm starting to think that Disney is just not welcoming to one-day visitors anymore. If you don't have multiday passes at the very least, and preferably a long stay already booked in-park, you are gonna have a frustrating day.
But hear me out - yes, I'm criticizing Disney but I am a Disney FANATIC and have been going since the days of E-ticket rides when the Magic Kingdom first opened. I was a Florida resident through grad school but now live elsewhere. I have gone to Grad Night, visited at every possible time of the year, had an annual resident pass -- I went when I was an awestruck grade-schooler, a teenager looking for hidden places to, um, hide from adults, a brand-new parent taking advantage of the baby swap, and now, a creaky 50-something whose feet hurt too much. There is nobody more a fan of Disney World than me.
But it was always one day at a time. When you live nearby, it makes zero sense to do it any other way. That said, there have always been ways to avoid lines, whether by choosing low-crowd days, bad-weather days, using time-of-day strategies, geographical strategies (go to the back of the park first) and, when it first was introduced, Fast Pass.
But yesterday, we could not use Fast Pass. It was an EMH day, and we bought our one-day ticket at the park and were at the rope at 8:10 a.m. for a 9 a.m. opening. We were the first people to the Fast Pass kiosk. There were ZERO Fast Passes left for Test Track and Soarin'. My family was stationed at all the kiosks and each ticket was giving different results for the rides that were left, like Nemo - there was no way to actually get a FP for the same time for each ticket because they were blinking off like a Ticketmaster screen for a Twenty One Pilots show (welcome to my other world of teenage angst). We ended up not being able to get four FP for anything at the same time, so we used none of them when all was said and done.
So I guess my failure was in not buying tickets in advance, or in not downloading and using an app? Maybe I could've stood at the rope and opened the app and painstakingly entered our cards' info and maybe, just maybe, there would've been FP availability that way? I just don't know; I tend to think not. I think especially at Epcot, where the E-ticket rides are few, the FPs for Test Track and Soarin' are gone as soon as they open up 60 days in advance?
We don't plan that way, because we are day-trippers, not strategizing for our trip of a lifetime, or our annual assault on the mouse. We are there on the spur of the moment, or when a day opens up that wasn't expected. So we lose out on the advantages those folks have.
I am fine with the perks -- those folks have paid so much, the perks are legit. But it would really be nice if Disney would set aside some tiny reserve of some of the perks for one-day pass buyers. I mean, we're not trash - we pay more for our actual tickets than anyone else
Because we go every year, it's not a massive disappointment to us. We've seen everything, and some will say, OK, you want a top-notch experience, you have to pay. But if I really believed that, I'd be throwing hundred-dollar bills at Universal (I never have and never will).
In the past, I could grab the Fast Passes, work the early and late hours for the other rides, and have a great day. Yesterday, we did 40 minutes in line at Test Track at 9:10 a.m. -- in the single rider line --and I was DONE. We rode nothing else all day. We spent our day at the World Showcase and yes, had a nice day. At the end of the day, a cast member who saw my achy, painful limp gave my daughter a paper-ticket FP for Soarin' (still a 60-minute stand-by wait at 8 pm) and that eased my frustration. But there shouldn't have to be a bit of random Disney magic to save the day, nor can there be for everyone.
I've often looked in pity at the people standing in lines for 60 minutes or more, because it's the only time they'll ever be there, and they want their kids to see Insert-Character-Here, and thought, Gee, if they planned a bit better, they could've avoided this.
Yesterday either I was that person, or Disney has inexorably started removing the ability to ease such situations without paying more. Not sure yet which it is, but I'm thinking it's the latter.
But hear me out - yes, I'm criticizing Disney but I am a Disney FANATIC and have been going since the days of E-ticket rides when the Magic Kingdom first opened. I was a Florida resident through grad school but now live elsewhere. I have gone to Grad Night, visited at every possible time of the year, had an annual resident pass -- I went when I was an awestruck grade-schooler, a teenager looking for hidden places to, um, hide from adults, a brand-new parent taking advantage of the baby swap, and now, a creaky 50-something whose feet hurt too much. There is nobody more a fan of Disney World than me.
But it was always one day at a time. When you live nearby, it makes zero sense to do it any other way. That said, there have always been ways to avoid lines, whether by choosing low-crowd days, bad-weather days, using time-of-day strategies, geographical strategies (go to the back of the park first) and, when it first was introduced, Fast Pass.
But yesterday, we could not use Fast Pass. It was an EMH day, and we bought our one-day ticket at the park and were at the rope at 8:10 a.m. for a 9 a.m. opening. We were the first people to the Fast Pass kiosk. There were ZERO Fast Passes left for Test Track and Soarin'. My family was stationed at all the kiosks and each ticket was giving different results for the rides that were left, like Nemo - there was no way to actually get a FP for the same time for each ticket because they were blinking off like a Ticketmaster screen for a Twenty One Pilots show (welcome to my other world of teenage angst). We ended up not being able to get four FP for anything at the same time, so we used none of them when all was said and done.
So I guess my failure was in not buying tickets in advance, or in not downloading and using an app? Maybe I could've stood at the rope and opened the app and painstakingly entered our cards' info and maybe, just maybe, there would've been FP availability that way? I just don't know; I tend to think not. I think especially at Epcot, where the E-ticket rides are few, the FPs for Test Track and Soarin' are gone as soon as they open up 60 days in advance?
We don't plan that way, because we are day-trippers, not strategizing for our trip of a lifetime, or our annual assault on the mouse. We are there on the spur of the moment, or when a day opens up that wasn't expected. So we lose out on the advantages those folks have.
I am fine with the perks -- those folks have paid so much, the perks are legit. But it would really be nice if Disney would set aside some tiny reserve of some of the perks for one-day pass buyers. I mean, we're not trash - we pay more for our actual tickets than anyone else
Because we go every year, it's not a massive disappointment to us. We've seen everything, and some will say, OK, you want a top-notch experience, you have to pay. But if I really believed that, I'd be throwing hundred-dollar bills at Universal (I never have and never will).
In the past, I could grab the Fast Passes, work the early and late hours for the other rides, and have a great day. Yesterday, we did 40 minutes in line at Test Track at 9:10 a.m. -- in the single rider line --and I was DONE. We rode nothing else all day. We spent our day at the World Showcase and yes, had a nice day. At the end of the day, a cast member who saw my achy, painful limp gave my daughter a paper-ticket FP for Soarin' (still a 60-minute stand-by wait at 8 pm) and that eased my frustration. But there shouldn't have to be a bit of random Disney magic to save the day, nor can there be for everyone.
I've often looked in pity at the people standing in lines for 60 minutes or more, because it's the only time they'll ever be there, and they want their kids to see Insert-Character-Here, and thought, Gee, if they planned a bit better, they could've avoided this.
Yesterday either I was that person, or Disney has inexorably started removing the ability to ease such situations without paying more. Not sure yet which it is, but I'm thinking it's the latter.
