Going back to WDW after a little break

[rebelzrule]

For years, I used to be a daily reader of these forums, and kept up on every little thing going on at WDW. I haven't been on the boards in over a year and a half now. At the risk of being told "just search the forums", I wanted to ask a few things. There is simply just too much to search over a year and a half of forums, so hopefully someone can help me out.

We have booked our trip for September, and I am wondering if someone could give a quick recap of what may have changed at WDW over the past 2 years. I know ticket prices have increased, and stuff like that, and I'm not necessarily asking about new lands being announced or anything. Mainly just related to park strategy.

For example, last time we went, they were still in the transition phase to Magic Bands and FP+. So we were one of the lucky ones that got to use both FP+ and the old paper FPs at the same time (which was awesome). At that time, as well, there wasn't any kind of tiering system for FP+. I know now there are groups that you can pick your FP+'s from, and I also am up-to-date on being able to use all 3 and then get more at the park after that.

Have there been any other major changes, or are there any more "must-plan-in-advance" type things? I feel like since I used to be up to the minute on WDW news, and now I haven't been reading, that I may miss the next big development affecting our itinerary.

Thanks in advance

 

[Lucius Best]

We just got back from late April trip, first trip with new FP+. The big change is the Magicbands and FP+. We had lots of problems getting the app to work properly when planning, but once there everything went smoothly.

One change we were unprepared for was parks opening early. We were used to HS gates opening around 8:45am and everyone rushing to TSMM. Apparently now MK is the same way, gates were opening at 8:45am and mad dash to 7DMT. HS and Epcot were letting people in 5-10 minutes before 9am.

Other difference we noticed was the length of FP return lines. We often experienced loooong lines just to get into the FP return queue, particularly Safari/Thunder/RnRC/Splash. Some of it was people taking longer to swipe their Magicbands, but my assumption is that Disney is giving out more FP reservations than they used to give out via paper kiosks. By the end of the trip it was kind of a joke that it wasn't "Fast-pass", it was "Not-as-slow-pass".

The strategy we adopted was to reserve our first 3 FP before noon, so we could start getting additional FP as soon as possible. We needed to pay attention when we got to the parks, because the FP kiosk maps weren't always accurate, and sometimes kiosks inexplicably opened late or unexpectedly closed early. Surprisingly we found that the FP kiosk lines were longer when the park was less busy, maybe because there were more FP available, FP often had return times 5 minutes away. When the park was busy and return times were 2-4 hours away, the FP kiosk lines were shorter. We ended up getting lots of additional FP.

Also, if you care about Dole Whips, we discovered that Aloha Isle and Sunshine Tree Terrace switched locations in Adventureland, no idea why.