OzDisneyTourist
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2025
- Messages
- 1
Hey all, first time poster and long time Disney fan. We are a married couple visiting from Australia who did a Disney cruise then headed up from the (not so sunny) Bahamas for two weeks in Disneyworld.
We last visited about six years ago to celebrate our engagement (Covid and work in general - I’m a health professional) delayed both the wedding and the honeymoon. Anyway, the reason for the post is that we are about 2/3 of the way through and are a bit underwhelmed. When we visited six years ago we felt the place was magical, no one complained, everyone seemed very keen to make sure you had a good time and compared to other parks the staff seemed actually genuinely happy. The only other place that seemed like this was Dollywood (which we visited again before our cruise). We had a great cruise experience overall with a room person who took great lengths to make us feel special and both Remy and Palo were great, they made us feel super special at Remy as I got so seasick that I couldn’t eat and they actually rescheduled us half way through (after seeing me not eating).
Anyway, cut to day one of Disney and we had a pretty amazing day, fireworks dessert party and the staff went out of the way to congratulate us. Then it’s been super downhill from there. Two things that are totally down to luck, I got sick and couldn’t hit the parks for three days (well we tried one of them which was ugh) and the weather has been quite bad (cold, then now warm leading to hectic crowds). Still, Dollywood was the same (two days with almost no rides open) and we had a blast whereas we’ve found ourselves increasingly disillusioned. We’ve noticed how unhappy many of the cast members have been and how little they seem to want to assist you. I get why to, I’ve never heard so much complaining in a theme park - and there’s been plenty - the ride downtime (I’ve been to theme parks all over the world and this is my sixth visit to disneyworld) has been atrocious. Seven lines have ended in rides broken down (not just a vomit, or a panic attack but actual stuck for 30+ mins or told to actually exit the line). Seven dwarves was down for about 8.5 hours yesterday and at park open for several hours the other day we visited (and we didn’t buy a fast pass the first day as we had planned to rope drop it). This had the effect of blowing all other ride times way out (Tiana was also broken down/closed so that fast pass got converted to an any time pass which we hilariously tried to use on space mountain which also broke down and firemen were called in to get people out - and everyone was told to leave the line). Anyway, that plus buzz light year (I do remember that being an issue last time and it wasn’t too bad but I do think we rode with not everything 100% working eh).
It’s not just been the rides - the check in process was agony - we explained we’d been on a cruise and had bands but the person checking us in didn’t activate them for the rooms and we never thought to check as she mentioned oh you have your bands great (and my other half even specifically followed up by asking how they were activated and she was like they already are)! And then never put the card on (we figured it would carry over from the cruise - nope) - leading to twice needing to go back to the front desk to pay for the meal we had ordered (so embarrassing). On top of this, when we were sick we obviously had house keeping come twice - we actually removed our own trash and just took some clean towels once, and were so happy about 8 days in thinking they would change our sheets (about when we do it at our own house) and they never did. When I asked the front desk person seemed like I’d asked something super inconvenient and essentially didn’t guarantee it would be done (maybe this is normal but I thought Americans were usually super into this aspect of hotels). Full disclosure we stayed at all star movies in a preferred room because we generally spend all of our time in the parks - and we’ve only had good experiences there previously (yes it’s being renovated and it’s noisy and there’s groups but also ear plugs and you’re going to the parks or sleeping). Maybe it’s the time of year and there’s lots of trainees but to be honest those have actually been the nicest or friendliest at least people we have encountered.
Beyond that pin trading seems super inconsistent to non-existent with the same sort of likely rip-off pins on the pin boards and cast members frequently don’t seem to show their pins or have any (I gather this is semi Covid related).
We also loved all the congratulations and warmth we seemed to receive the first day or two but whether it’s the weather or the crowds but cast members seem more and more checked out (and some downright rude).
I guess it sucks that fast pass changed and become $ but we did factor that in and just paid (only a few days we didn’t get the one off passes ahead of time and regretted it) but going from a free system to paying quite a bit to effectively wait in line for 30 minutes (the lightning lane time on seven dwarves after it finally opened at 6ish) seems I dunno not great. Not to mention if we hadn’t had fast passes I’m not sure what sort of fun we would have had waiting in hectic lines. Even getting their early in the day hasn’t helped as both rise of resistance and smugglers run were down one day and rise was down the next, and by the time they opened the lines were 60+ minutes (and rapidly rose so even if we abandoned what we were doing it would have been longer). We did so much planning and stayed on property so we could book dining and lighting lanes and after so much money spent wondered about the decision (typing this all while waiting in the broken down expedition Everest, after having spent 30 minutes in the lightning lane for the clearly partially broken down flight of passage).
When I went to guest services about the twice broken down fast pass I practically had to beg to get them to move it to the only other day we allocated for magic kingdom and they didn’t even upgrade it to seven dwarves or TRON. Yes it’s not nothing but honestly last time we felt really special - they actually gave us multiple bonus fast passes and even a free garden grill breakfast. I remember even a cast member giving us a one off any ride pass (which we used for slinky dog) when the hotel bus broke down and we missed rope drop.
So yeah - any thoughts? Is this a common feeling? Were we insane for not booking some other Disney experience? Has disneyworld changed? I’ve read that sometimes when people get sick they give you a partial voucher to use for your next booking but I don’t even know who or how I’d ask.
We last visited about six years ago to celebrate our engagement (Covid and work in general - I’m a health professional) delayed both the wedding and the honeymoon. Anyway, the reason for the post is that we are about 2/3 of the way through and are a bit underwhelmed. When we visited six years ago we felt the place was magical, no one complained, everyone seemed very keen to make sure you had a good time and compared to other parks the staff seemed actually genuinely happy. The only other place that seemed like this was Dollywood (which we visited again before our cruise). We had a great cruise experience overall with a room person who took great lengths to make us feel special and both Remy and Palo were great, they made us feel super special at Remy as I got so seasick that I couldn’t eat and they actually rescheduled us half way through (after seeing me not eating).
Anyway, cut to day one of Disney and we had a pretty amazing day, fireworks dessert party and the staff went out of the way to congratulate us. Then it’s been super downhill from there. Two things that are totally down to luck, I got sick and couldn’t hit the parks for three days (well we tried one of them which was ugh) and the weather has been quite bad (cold, then now warm leading to hectic crowds). Still, Dollywood was the same (two days with almost no rides open) and we had a blast whereas we’ve found ourselves increasingly disillusioned. We’ve noticed how unhappy many of the cast members have been and how little they seem to want to assist you. I get why to, I’ve never heard so much complaining in a theme park - and there’s been plenty - the ride downtime (I’ve been to theme parks all over the world and this is my sixth visit to disneyworld) has been atrocious. Seven lines have ended in rides broken down (not just a vomit, or a panic attack but actual stuck for 30+ mins or told to actually exit the line). Seven dwarves was down for about 8.5 hours yesterday and at park open for several hours the other day we visited (and we didn’t buy a fast pass the first day as we had planned to rope drop it). This had the effect of blowing all other ride times way out (Tiana was also broken down/closed so that fast pass got converted to an any time pass which we hilariously tried to use on space mountain which also broke down and firemen were called in to get people out - and everyone was told to leave the line). Anyway, that plus buzz light year (I do remember that being an issue last time and it wasn’t too bad but I do think we rode with not everything 100% working eh).
It’s not just been the rides - the check in process was agony - we explained we’d been on a cruise and had bands but the person checking us in didn’t activate them for the rooms and we never thought to check as she mentioned oh you have your bands great (and my other half even specifically followed up by asking how they were activated and she was like they already are)! And then never put the card on (we figured it would carry over from the cruise - nope) - leading to twice needing to go back to the front desk to pay for the meal we had ordered (so embarrassing). On top of this, when we were sick we obviously had house keeping come twice - we actually removed our own trash and just took some clean towels once, and were so happy about 8 days in thinking they would change our sheets (about when we do it at our own house) and they never did. When I asked the front desk person seemed like I’d asked something super inconvenient and essentially didn’t guarantee it would be done (maybe this is normal but I thought Americans were usually super into this aspect of hotels). Full disclosure we stayed at all star movies in a preferred room because we generally spend all of our time in the parks - and we’ve only had good experiences there previously (yes it’s being renovated and it’s noisy and there’s groups but also ear plugs and you’re going to the parks or sleeping). Maybe it’s the time of year and there’s lots of trainees but to be honest those have actually been the nicest or friendliest at least people we have encountered.
Beyond that pin trading seems super inconsistent to non-existent with the same sort of likely rip-off pins on the pin boards and cast members frequently don’t seem to show their pins or have any (I gather this is semi Covid related).
We also loved all the congratulations and warmth we seemed to receive the first day or two but whether it’s the weather or the crowds but cast members seem more and more checked out (and some downright rude).
I guess it sucks that fast pass changed and become $ but we did factor that in and just paid (only a few days we didn’t get the one off passes ahead of time and regretted it) but going from a free system to paying quite a bit to effectively wait in line for 30 minutes (the lightning lane time on seven dwarves after it finally opened at 6ish) seems I dunno not great. Not to mention if we hadn’t had fast passes I’m not sure what sort of fun we would have had waiting in hectic lines. Even getting their early in the day hasn’t helped as both rise of resistance and smugglers run were down one day and rise was down the next, and by the time they opened the lines were 60+ minutes (and rapidly rose so even if we abandoned what we were doing it would have been longer). We did so much planning and stayed on property so we could book dining and lighting lanes and after so much money spent wondered about the decision (typing this all while waiting in the broken down expedition Everest, after having spent 30 minutes in the lightning lane for the clearly partially broken down flight of passage).
When I went to guest services about the twice broken down fast pass I practically had to beg to get them to move it to the only other day we allocated for magic kingdom and they didn’t even upgrade it to seven dwarves or TRON. Yes it’s not nothing but honestly last time we felt really special - they actually gave us multiple bonus fast passes and even a free garden grill breakfast. I remember even a cast member giving us a one off any ride pass (which we used for slinky dog) when the hotel bus broke down and we missed rope drop.
So yeah - any thoughts? Is this a common feeling? Were we insane for not booking some other Disney experience? Has disneyworld changed? I’ve read that sometimes when people get sick they give you a partial voucher to use for your next booking but I don’t even know who or how I’d ask.
