Just because you’ve been going for years doesn’t mean your experience invalidates mine. Frequent visitors can have different perspectives, and no one should be expected to brush off legitimate concerns if something is off. If your assumption is that it’s primarily hotel guests contributing to the crowds, why was it so much worse this year? Wouldn’t that suggest a significantly higher occupancy rate?
Everyone has different expectations and tolerance levels. That doesn’t mean I need to lower mine simply because “it is what it is.”
Every poster will invariably apply their own experience and bias when commenting. That isn't meant to "invalidate" someone else's experience. In the case of the post I was responding to, a pretty specific picture was painted. One that I personally don't feel was completely outrageous for a holiday period.
At the same time, few of us are in a space like a resort lobby for more than a few minutes per day. Even as a resort guest or visitor, we don't know what things were like minutes or hours before/after our walk-through. So it's difficult for all of us to judge whether changes are warranted, much less what sort of effect they would have. Nobody is putting a number to it but the implication throughout this thread seems to be that some massive number of non-guests is visiting the Grand Floridian. We don't actually know if it's 80% of all guest traffic or 50% or 10%. And whatever the number is, if you're blocking people both coming and going, I'm skeptical that it would have any positive impact on boarding wait time when demand peaks.
Why is Thanksgiving 2024 different than other years? I've touched on the Poly walking path. There are undoubtedly a lot of guests from both the Poly and GF who would visit the other resort to browse or dine. Right now, all of that guest traffic is using the monorail. Twice. That will change in a few weeks.
The entire Thanksgiving holiday has grown in popularity. 10 years ago, it was an under appreciated time when families could visit without missing much work / school. More recently, Thanksgiving replaced Easter on the blockout list. (BTW, the photos posted on the Grand Floridian thread were from Sunday, December 1. This is the first day that Sorcerer pass holders could visit the parks after being blocked-out for 4 days.)
Over the last 2 years, I believe some portion of Grand Floridian guest rooms has been closed for refurbishment. So the resort was likely operating under maximum occupancy in 2022 and 2023. If this year really was so much different than others, it surely makes sense to wait and see if a pattern is developing.
To be clear, I'm not opposed to transportation tweaks. Disney should absolutely increase boat capacity and maybe even add some sort of bus service if warranted. I don't think we have enough information to judge whether monorail policy changes are practical or needed. One of the biggest challenges is communicating policy changes to guests. It's easier said than done to educate thousands of guests regarding a different queuing process for the monorail.
The idea that certain guests should be blocked from the resort to create more lobby elbow room is bunk.
