Hi,
We went in September, and just had a quick three day trip this week. A few things we noticed:
1) After the stretching room, in the Haunted Mansion, before you get in your doom buggy, there used to be an orderly roped queue. Now everyone is funneled in from a larger space into a smaller one until you get onto the ride. Why they would do this I don't know, but it was a bit crazy, people pushing, and I had to hold my kids hands very tightly to not get separated? We didn't like this change at all.
2) The hitchhiking ghosts have changed and the new ones are amazing!
3) We noticed a ton more CMs socializing. On our past visits, I never saw any CMs chit chatting among each other. I remember on our September trip we were looking to buy something in a store and no one was around and two CMs were chatting nearby, and that was shocking cause we hadn't seen it before. But this time we saw it a lot. Reminded me of the local amusement park. I'm surprised Disney doesn't crack down on that. Really in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter, but I just thought it was un-Disney like.
4) Downtown Disney was a bit of a disaster! Crazy lines to get into the parking garage and that was the only place you could park and then there were crowded walkways and a long walk to get over to where once upon a toy, christmas store, etc are.
5) Seems like waits in FastPass lines are longer than they were before. Are they giving out more fastpasses? In September it seemed that we waited 5-10 minutes or less in the fastpass line. This time, we often waited up to 20 minutes or more in the fastpass lines. Often quite long lines just at the point where you scan your cards/bands!
Overall we had a great trip, and rarely waited in lines with strategic ordering of rides and good use of fastpass plus. We did notice more people around though than September!
We went in September, and just had a quick three day trip this week. A few things we noticed:
1) After the stretching room, in the Haunted Mansion, before you get in your doom buggy, there used to be an orderly roped queue. Now everyone is funneled in from a larger space into a smaller one until you get onto the ride. Why they would do this I don't know, but it was a bit crazy, people pushing, and I had to hold my kids hands very tightly to not get separated? We didn't like this change at all.
2) The hitchhiking ghosts have changed and the new ones are amazing!
3) We noticed a ton more CMs socializing. On our past visits, I never saw any CMs chit chatting among each other. I remember on our September trip we were looking to buy something in a store and no one was around and two CMs were chatting nearby, and that was shocking cause we hadn't seen it before. But this time we saw it a lot. Reminded me of the local amusement park. I'm surprised Disney doesn't crack down on that. Really in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter, but I just thought it was un-Disney like.
4) Downtown Disney was a bit of a disaster! Crazy lines to get into the parking garage and that was the only place you could park and then there were crowded walkways and a long walk to get over to where once upon a toy, christmas store, etc are.
5) Seems like waits in FastPass lines are longer than they were before. Are they giving out more fastpasses? In September it seemed that we waited 5-10 minutes or less in the fastpass line. This time, we often waited up to 20 minutes or more in the fastpass lines. Often quite long lines just at the point where you scan your cards/bands!
Overall we had a great trip, and rarely waited in lines with strategic ordering of rides and good use of fastpass plus. We did notice more people around though than September!
