First week of June - Thoughts/observations from our trip

[apicozzi]

I'm one of the people who probably had you worried about your trip, even though that's silly because a million negative reviews on here wouldn't change my opinion of WDW one bit.

I didn't say that it changed my opinion of WDW - I just prefer it when there are less crowds and I certainly wasn't calling out any reviews specifically - it just seemed (and as others on this thread have confirmed) that a large number of reviews in the weeks prior to my trip said that crowds and wait times were outrageous. This is what had me nervous that I was in for packed walkways, long queues and packed transportation.

But I have to say there is a line that stands out to me from your otherwise sparkling review...

"Attractions like HM and POTC had longer wait times than I’m used to (usually in the 25-35m range), but I had FP+ those in advance simply to skip the lines. "

This is exactly the type of thing that has some people worried and you have only confirmed suspicions. I leave in 10 days and have booked FP+ for HM and PotC for this specific reason. Sure, it was easy to pick A&E and the 7DMT for the FP+. But when it came to picking others for my 2 days at MK, while in the past I would have said "Eh, who needs a FP for PotC or HM...there's almost never any wait for them" I now read many reviews...even glowing ones like yours...that explain how PotC and HM have SB wait times half an hour or more. Is that "negative" of me to say? or is it just plain helpful?

I originally booked the FP+ for HM and POTC because of reading the reviews - as a matter of convenience (and also because I also had FP+ for the other attractions I wanted to see at MK). The wait times did typically say 25-35 minutes for POTC or HM (keep in mind that I was at MK usually late morning/mid-day), but do I think that people in the standby lines really waited that long? Most likely not. We waited in a few lines at Epcot that said 20/25 minutes and I timed it - it was more like 8/10 minutes.

I don't think it's "negative" of you to say. I don't think I said that the reviews that I read were negative (apologize if I did), but more that they made me nervous because of what they had me expecting when I showed up at the park. At the end of the day, it's WDW - If it's busy or not I still would have an amazing time. It's just always nice when it's less busy.

 

[maryj11]

I'm one of the people who probably had you worried about your trip, even though that's silly because a million negative reviews on here wouldn't change my opinion of WDW one bit. But I have to say there is a line that stands out to me from your otherwise sparkling review...

"Attractions like HM and POTC had longer wait times than I’m used to (usually in the 25-35m range), but I had FP+ those in advance simply to skip the lines. "

This is exactly the type of thing that has some people worried and you have only confirmed suspicions. I leave in 10 days and have booked FP+ for HM and PotC for this specific reason. Sure, it was easy to pick A&E and the 7DMT for the FP+. But when it came to picking others for my 2 days at MK, while in the past I would have said "Eh, who needs a FP for PotC or HM...there's almost never any wait for them" I now read many reviews...even glowing ones like yours...that explain how PotC and HM have SB wait times half an hour or more. Is that "negative" of me to say? or is it just plain helpful?

We did have a longer wait at POTC this past trip. We didnt have fastpass and SB was 30 minutes for POTC and SB was 20 minutes for HM. I didnt time it but POTC seemed around 20 minutes and HM maybe 10 minutes.

 

[Jules123]

We just returned too and I loved FP+! We scheduled our FP for the mountains, SDMT, and A&E between 10:30-1:00 each day and then were able to schedule our additional ones for HM, POTC, Buzz and others. The final day we were there HM standby was an hour in the afternoon but we were able to schedule FP for it right away. I think a lot of people still aren't familiar with the whole FP system. I explained the process to several people in lines during the week. I think we were able to do 8 FP on our final day!