Followed the plans on here and no Elsa FP

[EvieBug]

its one thing to complain in general.
its another to basically blame the DIS because you "had" to stay at AKL and you "had" to stay up until midnight and you didn't get what you wanted.

and yes no one likes waiting in a long line but if your entire trip was planned to meet one single character then you should be able to wait 1 hour for that character and not care that it took 1 hour way from something else.

in my opinion OP took this thread to an extreme which is why there are the posts that that there are.

I don't precisely see it the way you do, clearly. I have read a ton of threads for "strategy" on getting this elusive FP. My TA even felt over the summer that A&E was getting easier as she got it for all her clients (of course now they no longer do the FP for their clients, but that is another issue) So I can see how, after reading all these "how to" type threads, one might wrongly assume it's fail safe and be disappointed. OP has been back and said she was not as destroyed as her original post, I think that should be enough to clarify.

 

[cakebaker]

Yet in any other system you could have control of what impacts you on a specific date. Unless you have been checked into a Disney hotel since some time in 2014 you are completely at the whims of Disney and other guests.

I'll gladly give up control when the gain is a chance of not having to fight the rope drop crowd- and in reality the only control I had before was to choose whether to fight it or stand in line.

I can control my odds of securing a FP. I can choose to stay onsite and book a trip of more than just a day or two.

But continue on with the complaining- I'm busy reveling in the great news coming out of d23!

Star Wars Land- finally official !

 

[disney world dreamer]

I'll gladly give up control when the gain is a chance of not having to fight the rope drop crowd- and in reality the only control I had before was to choose whether to fight it or stand in line.

I can control my odds of securing a FP. I can choose to stay onsite and book a trip of more than just a day or two.

But continue on with the complaining- I'm busy reveling in the great news coming out of d23!

Star Wars Land- finally official !

i agree. i prefer FP+.
i can now choose 3 FP+9 vs having to run at RD just to get one.
i still go for RD but n ow i can get more done during the first couple hours and i have my FP+ attractions all set for when the crowds really start building.

i'm not so thrilled about star wars land though lol.

 

[itchin2go]

i agree. i prefer FP+.
i can now choose 3 FP+9 vs having to run at RD just to get one.
i still go for RD but n ow i can get more done during the first couple hours and i have my FP+ attractions all set for when the crowds really start building.

i'm not so thrilled about star wars land though lol.

Who ran at rope drop to get a legacy FP? I never once ran ...

 

[alicat8]

Who ran at rope drop to get a legacy FP? I never once ran ...

People did it for TSMM...it's why I didn't ride it for years after it opened

 

[disney world dreamer]

People did it for TSMM...it's why I didn't ride it for years after it opened

exactly.
then the year we decided to try it my sister took everyone's tickets and literally went running with the rest of the crowd over to TSMM.
i mean everyone was literally running.
the rest of us walked leisurely down sunset blvd and my sister ran back to meet us to go on RNRC and TOT.

 

[Angel Ariel]

I can choose to stay onsite and book a trip of more than just a day or two.

From the update the OP gave, it sounds like there was a perfect storm of really crappy things that took that choice out of her hands.

 

[MainMom]

First off...thank you for taking the time to reply to my post. I needed help figuring out how to make the most of my situation and a lot of good help has come of it. I didn't realize the wait was an hour now. Last I heard it was 6 no matter what. I certainly can wait one hour. That's not a problem. I also didn't know people cancel so often and things open up daily.

I wasn't looking for sympathy or even a place to complain. I was just really frustrated with my circumstances and looking for a way to make them better. When we planned this trip we rented AKL DVC (paid and can't get money back), bought Halloween tickets (paid and can't cancel). We had saved up for our first vacation ever and were pumped- had a whole week planned and were so looking forward to it. Meanwhile, my husband suffered financial loss at work (unfortunately like many today), we also had to come up with a lump sum of money to help family, and my grandmother who raised me- is sick and there are bills I must pay. On top of all that, Our house was broken into and it was destroyed and everything was stolen. They even took our shower head and toilet seats...no really. We are currently fixing it all and putting it on the market to sell. This costs extreme money too. I realize these are no ones problems but our own, but we don't have much money at this point, even though we did when we reserved our trip.

At the time we planned our trip all was gravy. Now things aren't and we really shouldn't even be going to DIsney at this point, because we still have to pay for food, park tickets, and gas to drive down there..maybe hotel on the way down. But I said to him, look we already paid for the hotel and its nice and fun, can't we please just go down there and swim in the pool? With all we have going on it would be better than whats going on here. I heard Elsa might not be at the Halloween party- So we paid for one park day because we just wanted to get to see our little girl be happy, with so much sadness hurt around here. So we bought the tickets and its a stretch for us, then I wasn't able to get the ticket with Elsa and I felt crushed again. It maybe stupid to some of you on here. I read your writings and I see how much people vacation and love Disney. I looked for help and I got some and to those I am very thankful.

How long is your actual trip? Can u use your park pass on a different day?

 

[3DisneyFanz]

I'll gladly give up control when the gain is a chance of not having to fight the rope drop crowd- and in reality the only control I had before was to choose whether to fight it or stand in line.

I can control my odds of securing a FP. I can choose to stay onsite and book a trip of more than just a day or two.

But continue on with the complaining- I'm busy reveling in the great news coming out of d23!

Star Wars Land- finally official !

I guess if you don't want to do rope drop you can just show up at park opening, watch the show and get in line before they get too long.

 

[larryz]

I can see a time coming where, for the low, low price of $199, you'll be able to buy an add-on hard ticket for the "Disney Character Experience," a speed-dating ritual in which you start at Micky and Minnie for 2 minutes, the whistle blows (or Tinkerbell tinkles) and you move on to the Donald and Daisy for two minutes, and then Goofy and Pluto, etc, etc until you've spent an hour meeting 60 of your favorite Disney characters (and some you don't like) with Photopass images of each transaction.

Tipping will be, of course, optional, depending on the depth of interaction with the character.

 

[Miskey]

who said staying at AKL was gonna secure you A&E FP+???
you could have stayed at all star sports and had the same 60 day out advantage.

if meeting else is the ONE thing you wanted to do and it the WHOLE POINT OF YOUR TRIP then i would think that waiting in the SB line would not be that big of an issue for you.
it won't be 6 hours. at most it would be 90 minutes and if you went at RD or later at night it would be maybe 30 minutes.

for my sister's upcoming trip i choose their MK FP+ for each individual person.
they have 4 people but one is under 3 so i had to make FP+ selections for 3 people.
i was able to easily coordinate their A&E FP+ times so that they overlapped.
the one thing you have to be aware of though is that it will not allow you to book FP+ separately for children under the age of 7 although it would have let me make my niece's age any age even if she was not already 7 which she is.

its one thing to complain in general.
its another to basically blame the DIS because you "had" to stay at AKL and you "had" to stay up until midnight and you didn't get what you wanted.

and yes no one likes waiting in a long line but if your entire trip was planned to meet one single character then you should be able to wait 1 hour for that character and not care that it took 1 hour way from something else.

in my opinion OP took this thread to an extreme which is why there are the posts that that there are.

Did you even read the OP's follow up post? It clearly put things into a much better perspective. Most people in their lives have been guilty of over-reacting a time or two

 

[Miskey]

I can see a time coming where, for the low, low price of $199, you'll be able to buy an add-on hard ticket for the "Disney Character Experience," a speed-dating ritual in which you start at Micky and Minnie for 2 minutes, the whistle blows (or Tinkerbell tinkles) and you move on to the Donald and Daisy for two minutes, and then Goofy and Pluto, etc, etc until you've spent an hour meeting 60 of your favorite Disney characters (and some you don't like) with Photopass images of each transaction.

Tipping will be, of course, optional, depending on the depth of interaction with the character.

Please don't give them any ideas!

 

[wdw4rfam]

A&E standby line was 50 minutes when we were there. I was kind of disappointed since I spent so much time stressing over getting fp for it ( which I did no problem). We are almost wishing we hadn't wasted the fp on it since BTMRR and SM were both 60 and the lines were OUTSIDE vs.waiting in air conditioning at A &E.

 

[wdw4rfam]

I'm hipping here, so sorry if this is redundant, but just a few thoughts:
1. The stand by lines will probably not be that long. We were there last August-when it was still a crazy house AND summer break, and at a few points, the wait was only an hour.
2. Keep checking, because FPs sometimes pop up.
3. You might not want to rest your ENTIRE trip on meeting a character. The meet n greets can really be hit or miss depending on who's working and their mood. I worked my butt off to get FPs for Anna and Elsa too, and when we met them I was really disappointed. They were barely in character and barely interacted at all with my daughter. It was defi itely our most boring character meet of the trip. I know they were overworked at that point, but still-I was glad I hadn't waited more than 10 minutes in the FP line! When we met them in CA last week, they were amazing. It's just too iffy to put too much into it! Plenty of other opportunities for a great day!

We were also very underwhelmed with A& E. They looked terrible and not too interactive. My DD is still talking about Merida and Ariel though.

 

[MainMom]

We were also very underwhelmed with A& E. They looked terrible and not too interactive. My DD is still talking about Merida and Ariel though.

A&E talked quite a bit to our group, mostly about chocolate. I will say that Merida, Tiana, and Ariel were all fantastic! We also really enjoyed Rupunzel.

 

[oceanmarina]

There is a dedicated m&g building being built in epcot for A&e that is supposed to open around the same time as the ride, I believe. There are rumors, though, that they will remove a&e from MK when they move back to epcot, though. I sincerely hope those rumors are wrong.

I hope so too. Since Frozen is so popular why not keep the one in the Magic Kingdom as well as the new one in Epcot. That way moms who promise their daughters to see Elsa wont have to stress, with a choice of seeing them in two different parks, the waits would be more reasonable.

Regarding A&E in Epcot, yep - that will help, but I still don't know why they haven't already worked A&E into a character meal or added another M&G elsewhere. There must be a reason.

Regarding new attractions, yeah - I know that's the party line. I'm just not buying it at this point.

Don't get me wrong - I love DisneyWorld and I'm looking forward to our upcoming vacation. I'm just becoming disillusioned with current management. I see missed opportunities, problems that are easy to solve NOT being solved, and focus in the wrong areas. I see guests being asked to do more, while getting less. I'm not at my breaking point yet, but my enthusiasm is waning.

Regardless, I hope what you said above is dead-on, and I'll eat my words. But I'm pretty worried that I'm right.

BTW - have we really gotten to 5 pages with no one telling the OP to "Let It Go!" (kidding)

Yep to that! How much would it cost Disney to have more than one meet & greet - with what guests pay for admission prices i'm sure it would cover it!

 

[fbb]

I can see a time coming where, for the low, low price of $199, you'll be able to buy an add-on hard ticket for the "Disney Character Experience," a speed-dating ritual in which you start at Micky and Minnie for 2 minutes, the whistle blows (or Tinkerbell tinkles) and you move on to the Donald and Daisy for two minutes, and then Goofy and Pluto, etc, etc until you've spent an hour meeting 60 of your favorite Disney characters (and some you don't like) with Photopass images of each transaction.

Tipping will be, of course, optional, depending on the depth of interaction with the character.

Name doesn't work. Must contain at least two of the words "premium", "package", or "party".

 

[5kidsmommy]

We were also very underwhelmed with A& E. They looked terrible and not too interactive. My DD is still talking about Merida and Ariel though.

I'm glad then that we saw them back when they were first at Epcot. They were chatty and so sweet to my daughter. She was a little nervous because she was older (12 at that time) and she thought they might think she was too old. But they were really sweet. We did wait in line for 2 hours but that was nothing compared to what some people waited back then.

 

[magicmomms]

Hey thanks all for the replies, good and bad! I appreciate your time. The reason we stayed on site is because we had heard if you stay on site you get fast passes of your choice. I paid more to have that "privilege", because we wanted to get through as many rides as possible. We don't vacation normally and knew this would be the only one for a long time. We actually have 3 houses to stay, in the area, thanks to family. We turned them down to have an awesome vacation. (*Staying with family can be work sometimes you know!) And like I said at the time of planning things were really, really good. For the first time! We were pumped to have a vacation. So we went a bit "all out" and stayed at AKL to have a real experience with the animals/experience. Got it for a discount by renting DVC, which we learned about here.

Then, things went really bad, and you can imagine the shame I felt for putting my family in this position (paying for a vacation that we may not even be able to use) when we could have stayed with family and such, or saved our money and just gone to the beach for a day. I hyped it up big time. My reasoning for staying on site was, my 4 year old, would enjoy the trip more (therefore, we would enjoy the trip) if we played early, napped in the day, and went back to the parks at night. Staying off site- we couldn't relax like that- travel time is too long. Animal Kingdom was just an upgrade. I wasn't complaining that I was forced to pay that price. There must be confusion about this. I was however, saying Disney markets staying onsite as breezy because of transportation/location/ and ease of fastpasses and extra hours. But that wasn't the case.

Obviously, hindsight is 20/20 and all that. If we were able to do our original plan and have 7 days to work with I am sure, we would find a slot in there to see Elsa. But with one full day- I didn't want to take 6 hours of it for that mess. I know they are overrated, but it's important to her and she has been such a trooper through everything.

We have 7 days in the hotel, but we may show up late in order to save costs (since its expe

 

[magicmomms]

(since it's expensive to eat there) Sorry got cut off!

I know they have a small kitchen in the DVC room- but no oven I think. Not sure How I could cook meals for the fam like that. I tried all the other days but none. I keep checking the app...thanks for that! Didn't know the app could do fast pass. And it does work more smoothly. So if we stay for 5 days out of our 7- I don't want top park days (MK day and MNSSHP) to be back to back. I'd rather spread it out so the other days don't seem so boring.