Anyone else hate having to reserve dates, etc?

[JCornell]

Planning our trip always involved deciding which ADRs. For us, that always involved picking parks as well since we would choose dining in/near the park we're going to, and which forms of transportation and even which resort we stayed at was all part of that.

 

[HeatherC]

The "other things around Orlando" are going to be just as crowded.

Could be…but at least I don’t need to book things in advance. Flexibility is what makes a vacation a vacation for us. Disney has now taken a lot of that away in my opinion.

 

[LuvMyEAR]

Make a google voice account, call using a computer with a microphone.

Thank you!!!

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Could be…but at least I don’t need to book things in advance. Flexibility is what makes a vacation a vacation for us. Disney has now taken a lot of that away in my opinion.

I don't know where you vacation where that can possibly be the case. When I go on a cruise, I book excursions months ahead of time. When I go to New York, I buy show tickets months ahead of time. When I go to Boston, I buy Red Sox tickets months ahead of time. When I go to Hawaii, I book transportation and tours months ahead of time. If I want a dinner reservation on Valentine's Day or New Year's Eve, I book it months ahead of time.

I do not understand this insistence that Walt Disney World is somehow unique in this regard.

 

[Queuing4Disney]

I don't know where you vacation where that can possibly be the case. When I go on a cruise, I book excursions months ahead of time. When I go to New York, I buy show tickets months ahead of time. When I go to Boston, I buy Red Sox tickets months ahead of time. When I go to Hawaii, I book transportation and tours months ahead of time. If I want a dinner reservation on Valentine's Day or New Year's Eve, I book it months ahead of time.

I do not understand this insistence that Walt Disney World is somehow unique in this regard.

For the very examples you listed you have actually made it clear why Walt Disney World is (or at least, was) unique in this regard.
Your examples of how you have no problem with booking in advance: the cruise - well, a cruise is set with a specific number of passengers who can be on the cruise, be it 500 or 2000 passengers. So, yes you need to book in advance to be one of those passengers if you want to take that cruise. New York show tickets - likewise, the theatre can accommodate X number of attendees per show so once again, you need to book in advance to guarantee yourself a seat at the showing. Red Sox tickets for a game - check! Hawaii trip - transportation and a tour - also limited by seating or attendee count - check! Dinners on special occasions - there are only so many seats in a restaurant so booking is a must as you noted. But these things you listed are all individualized "events" that by necessity needs to be limited per event - no flexibility to really be found.

Disney World, on the other hand, has always (or used to be) advertised to potential visitors as a place where you can be flexible because there are 4 parks you can visit and "hop". So on a given day you used to be able to have the flexibility to run/hop around at will to enjoy the parks as you might see fit. You were able to start in MK and maybe decide it was getting too crowded so you hopped on that monorail and headed to Epcot whenever you wanted. Your kid woke up that morning and decided he wanted to eat at the Japanese hibachi place for lunch so instead of going to Animal Kingdom in the morning the family decides to go to Epcot instead. These things you were able to do with great flexibility before. So if someone is bemoaning the loss of the flexibility that was available in the past at Disney World it is understandable. At least to those of us who understand the difference between instant park hopping at Disney World as was allowed in the past versus the sort of "hard ticket" examples you listed which by their very nature have always allowed little to no flexibility.

 

[conandrob240]

Don’t like park reservations at all. And the fact that you can’t just swap them in MDE fir a different park is dumb. Why cancel then re-book? I HATE WDW without FP. We aren’t line people. Don’t wanna go back to rope dropping to get on stuff. And there’s just no way I’m paying for the new Genie services. I have resigned myself that I’m no longer a 4-5x a year person. In fact, even after missing it sooo much, a Fall 2020 and a Sept 2021 trip felt “too close together” for me now.

 

[PaladinButters]

Planning our trip always involved deciding which ADRs. For us, that always involved picking parks as well since we would choose dining in/near the park we're going to, and which forms of transportation and even which resort we stayed at was all part of that.

I'd go one further and say we had to decide which parks were half day / full day / two day / whatever just to know how many days of tickets and what kind of ticket to book the package long before our ADR date.
I feel like when people are saying they don't like the reservation system, they are actually saying they don't like the time restriction on park hopping. Everything else is just an extra button click that's easily changeable now that capacity isn't limited.

 

[conandrob240]

No. I hate making park reservations. We sometimes decide in the morning what we want to do. It’s a pain thinking in advance and having to worry about diff parks being “sold out” for your day. The hopper only after 2 sucks also as does the fact you have to tap in to” original park first.

 

[easyas123]

The flexibility and spontaneity is gone and replaced with a feeling of rigidity for us. WDW hasn't been our main vacation spot for many years, rather a place we go to for a few nights to relax and get away from schedules, computers and being on cell phones 24/7. We have a trip planned in early Feb. and I think that if it's more work that relaxing that might be the beginning of rethinking our location for a few nights to get away from it all trips.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

as long as there is availablity, you can cancel your park and book another on the same day if you want to. Or you can hold off making the park reservation until the same day. Usually they aren't sold out unless you're going at a very busy time. I do wish they would make park hopping at 12 instead of 2 if they have to limit it.

 

[igrsod]

I hate the park reservation system. I hope it goes away. I thought that the excuse for Genie + was to make it more flexible, less advanced planning etc. If that's the case Disney, put your money where your mouth is and do away with this silly park reservation system.

 

[StageTek]

That's not really an option for us anymore, because I don't want to be stuck in MK until 2pm.

This is the most inconvenient for me, too. Like you, I loved getting breakfast in MK, going on a few rides and then heading to another park for lunch. I always made Fast Pass reservations a month in advance so I always had a specific park I had to go to first so making a park reservation isn't much different.

Yes, I hate it. Last trip, we had planned to do an AK day but went to HS last minute because DGD had not felt well on our HS day earlier in the trip and stayed at the hotel w/her dad.

I realize now, we won't be able to make these changes anymore.

If you go on an off-peak time you can cancel and rebook day of. I did that on my Sept. 2021 trip. Also because it was off-peak and park reservations weren't filling up I didn't have a park reservation for my last three days. I made them day of.

Granted that's not possible on the very busy days, but so far all four parks filling up on any given day has not happened often.

 

[jrsharp21]

Yes, do not like park reservations at all. I also am not a fan of how they tell AP's that there is no availability but plenty of availability for regular tickets. Was trying to change some things around for January (marathon weekend). I get it, that it's a busy weekend. I am the only one in the family with an AP. So the rest of my family put together their game plan for parks that weekend. I went to go to my reservations to modify them a little bit. Nope, no availability for the top level AP. Luckily I booked reservations about 6 weeks ago. So now my family has to modify their plans around my reservations.

 

[MrBellatrixLestrange]

It's really not something that bothers me though I understand others have different approaches to seeing the parks so I get why it would bother others. My only problem is the restaurants that have to be booked in advance, it's 11AM and I don't know what I'm in the mood for for lunch but I'm supposed to select my food for 60 days from now?

 

[ktlm]

I hate it for WDW, but I absolutely despise it at DLR, where hopping is easy and routine as the 2 parks are basically like going to one park and are only separated by a plaza. At DLR, we used to hop for lunch around 11:30 or 12 most days and it really impacted our trip last month that we couldn't do that. We also would hop if we realized we had started in the wrong park as the lines were a lot shorter in the other park. This trip we were stuck in long lines in DL one morning and could see how much shorter the lines were in CA, but couldn't hop. The whole thing was extremely frustrating. My DH doesn't want to go back until the reservation system or at least the hopping limitation is gone- and he is not pleased that it doesn't look like it is going away.

 

[Seeker615]

I don't know where you vacation where that can possibly be the case. When I go on a cruise, I book excursions months ahead of time. When I go to New York, I buy show tickets months ahead of time. When I go to Boston, I buy Red Sox tickets months ahead of time. When I go to Hawaii, I book transportation and tours months ahead of time. If I want a dinner reservation on Valentine's Day or New Year's Eve, I book it months ahead of time.

I do not understand this insistence that Walt Disney World is somehow unique in this regard.

The thing is Disney is an amusement park and in the past you did not have to reserve a time to ride. You got in line and you waited your turn. It is crazy to have to reserve a time to ride a particular ride and then spend a lot of time on your phone to see where you are going next. In the case of a Broadway Play or a baseball game - it is one reservation and you are done. You are not on your phone trying to plan a whole day in one park. The beauty of the past experiences in Disney World is that you had 4 parks to explore and if one was crowded you hopped to another or if you stayed at one park you either waited in line or went on your way and did a different ride. The old paper fast pass system was free and easily available to anyone and was easy to use. Now you have to plan your hotel, flights, meals and rides and be glued to your phone.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

The thing is Disney is an amusement park and in the past you did not have to reserve a time to ride. You got in line and you waited your turn.

That option is still available to you.

 

[Disney.Dreamin.Dee]

I don't mind it.

 

[ZellyB]

I don't think it's that big of a deal or really that different from how I felt that ADRs and FP+ pretty much locked me into a park. While there are some rare days that seem to fill up on park reservations, for the vast majority of days, it seems that availability is good enough that you can pretty easily cancel and rebook a park on any given day. It more seems that many people here are wishing that park hopping was like it used to be and not designated to a certain time and on THAT topic, I agree.

 

[lvdis]

No. I hate making park reservations. We sometimes decide in the morning what we want to do. It’s a pain thinking in advance and having to worry about diff parks being “sold out” for your day. The hopper only after 2 sucks also as does the fact you have to tap in to” original park first.

100% agree. On longer trips it was sometimes fun to just go to the resort bus stop and hop on whichever bus came first, that was the park we started our day at. Or on the final day we might hit all 4 parks to just get in one last favorite ride or treat before our trip is over.

That's the kind of spontaneity I want back!