Here now, broken MK

[xipotec]

Side note, had Wishes Dessert Party that night, only night available during our stay. Wishes is very important, but even with the higher crowds and extended waits, having every headliner off line for extended times is a failure of the system somewhere.

And this clearly broken the FP system. When SPM went down so long they should never have kept giving out FP for later that night. Same for Splash which was down for hours.....oh and add UTS which was down all day.....

FP was behaving as it should Friday for the most part, but I notices all FP were gone at about 12. We snagged a 5:30 HM and 3:30 POTC by stalking the system.

Wed they had alot of FP avaiable all day WAY into the early evening after the problem were already evident.....MDE should have cute those FO experiences down after those rides went off line for hours....

 

[TropicalDIS]

Today was jammed. Had morning fast passes booked through to 11 am for Pan, Splash, Pirates. Immediately tried to score a 4th. Best option Buzz at 245. Not much else left

7DMT was 60-120 mins all day.
Space was 60-70 mins
Splash was 60-75 mins
Pan was 60-70 mins
Pirates 40 mins

This a party day, on what shouldnt be that busy of a week in November.

Id been to parks all week and havent seen anything like today.

Am i missing something?

 

[miamimi]

Non-party day = very crowded. Not sure when people will figure this out.

For this week, according to Touring Plans, both non-party days at MK have been a 10. Other parks are all like a 2. PLAN SMARTER.

Today was jammed. Had morning fast passes booked through to 11 am for Pan, Splash, Pirates. Immediately tried to score a 4th. Best option Buzz at 245. Not much else left

7DMT was 60-120 mins all day.
Space was 60-70 mins
Splash was 60-75 mins
Pan was 60-70 mins
Pirates 40 mins

This a party day, on what shouldnt be that busy of a week in November.

Id been to parks all week and havent seen anything like today.

Am i missing something?

I guess the theory about attending MK on a party day for lighter crowds is officially de-bunked. Plan Smarter? Don't think it would help.

 

[Nancyg56]

I guess the theory about attending MK on a party day for lighter crowds is officially de-bunked. Plan Smarter? Don't think it would help.

It usually is great strategy. It always has worked for me.

 

[hiroMYhero]

I guess the theory about attending MK on a party day for lighter crowds is officially de-bunked. Plan Smarter? Don't think it would help.

I think the Friday crowd @ MK was due to the very short hours on Thursday due to the Cast Service Party.

The Party has been held at Studios in the past so this year MK was greatly affected. DISers reported very light MK crowds on Thursday. Those who avoided MK on Thursday, went in on Friday.

 

[Vernon Wolfe]

A lot of people were there yesterday for Mickey's Birthday. That's why our group went.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

Our Wednesday at mk was not bad at all. Got there around 10:30. Had dogs at caseys Fp for buzz. Little mermaid was down, so we did dumbo - 20 minute wait. Shopped around. Mermaid opened when we got out so did that. Ate at liberty tree. Muppets was on outside when we left. Then did hall of presidents. Hm had a 25 min wait. Dw got a dole whip. Tiki had zero wait. Fp for pirates. Dogs at casey took 15 minutes. Seats were difficult - carried to tommorrowland terrace. Dw did some shopping and we saw the parade.

Didn't stay for fireworks. I wasnt feeling well. Still nothing was tttoo horrible.

Maybe we just had lower expectations?

 

[mom2rtk]

Side note, had Wishes Dessert Party that night, only night available during our stay. Wishes is very important, but even with the higher crowds and extended waits, having every headliner off line for extended times is a failure of the system somewhere.

And this clearly broken the FP system. When SPM went down so long they should never have kept giving out FP for later that night. Same for Splash which was down for hours.....oh and add UTS which was down all day.....

FP was behaving as it should Friday for the most part, but I notices all FP were gone at about 12. We snagged a 5:30 HM and 3:30 POTC by stalking the system.

Wed they had alot of FP avaiable all day WAY into the early evening after the problem were already evident.....MDE should have cute those FO experiences down after those rides went off line for hours....

That's definitely one of the down sides of fp+. With legacy the machines stopped distributing when the ride was down. That minimized the backlog of FP returners when it came back online again. You can't do that when you distribute them 60 days out.

 

[miamimi]

I think the Friday crowd @ MK was due to the very short hours on Thursday due to the Cast Service Party.

The Party has been held at Studios in the past so this year MK was greatly affected. DISers reported very light MK crowds on Thursday. Those who avoided MK on Thursday, went in on Friday.

Makes sense, but how would the average guest know how to plan their visit to MK 6 months out if they were not aware of this? I just think there are times when "planning smarter" is impossible, since you don't have all of the information.

 

[hiroMYhero]

Makes sense, but how would the average guest know how to plan their visit to MK 6 months out if they were not aware of this? I just think there are times when "planning smarter" is impossible, since you don't have all of the information.

The Cast Party/MK Closing Early thread began in April meaning the hours were posted on Disney and blogger sites.

Guests who didn't check Park Hours were the ones who were affected - it wasn't that the info wasn't available.

 

[miamimi]

Our Wednesday at mk was not bad at all. Got there around 10:30. Had dogs at caseys Fp for buzz. Little mermaid was down, so we did dumbo - 20 minute wait. Shopped around. Mermaid opened when we got out so did that. Ate at liberty tree. Muppets was on outside when we left. Then did hall of presidents. Hm had a 25 min wait. Dw got a dole whip. Tiki had zero wait. Fp for pirates. Dogs at casey took 15 minutes. Seats were difficult - carried to tommorrowland terrace. Dw did some shopping and we saw the parade.

Didn't stay for fireworks. I wasnt feeling well. Still nothing was tttoo horrible.

Maybe we just had lower expectations?

Based on the activities you listed, I think your expectations were probably spot on. You didn't try to ride any major attractions. That's great for some people, but we visit to ride as many attractions as possible so your type of day would be a fail for our family.

 

[miamimi]

The Cast Party/MK Closing Early thread began in April meaning the hours were posted on Disney and blogger sites.

Guests who didn't check Park Hours were the ones who were affected - it wasn't that the info wasn't available.

Oh. thanks for the clarification.

 

[MommaBerd]

This is in NO WAY intended to contradict @xipotec's experience, but rather to provide a DIFFERENT experience on a DIFFERENT night for anyone who may be reading this in the future.

Last night (Saturday), we had FPs for Space Mtn. We walked up around 9:15 and the Standby line was 105 min and the FP line was almost to Astro Orbiter. @xipotec 's post was ringing in my mind, but it was our last night and DS 8 had finally worked up the courage to ride it. So, we got into the FP line. I don't know what caused the backlog, but it took only a few short minutes to get through the line to scan our bands, and then there was virtually no line inside once we reached the loading area.

We actually experienced this at 7DMT on 24 Hour Disney Day last year, too. So, just because the FP line is backed up doesn't necessarily mean you'll have a long wait. If the line to scan our bands had moved slowly I would have asked a CM how long it would taken from there and WHY because obviously the system can and will break down. But don't be intimidated by a long line prior to scanning your band.

 

[JZCubed]

Hahahah! Now we are stuck on the People mover inside Buzz......

Like most people here, we've experienced broken rides and the like, but nothing like what you've outlined.

Being asked in my funniest tone, "Please, next time you are going to Disney, let me know, so I can avoid the bad luck with rides...."

 

[JAG107]

Asked as cast member they said they had more FP than stand by , so asked why post a 50 min standby.....they didnt have an answer for that....

Don't know if this is still the rule, but when I worked attractions, they would
make" us "pulse" the standby line, meaning stop the fp line to let some standby through once in a while. That way the standby line doesn't just sit there unmoving forever. I always hated this, because the whole point of FP is that you get a 5 minute or less wait. I have experienced similar things on Space on previous trips, where the standby line would be about the same length as FP, and it didn't save much time at all to use FP. They really need to use technology to their advantage and figure out a solution to this problem. I know you can't control when everyone will show up within their FP window, but they have to be able to control it better.

 

[adisneyaunt]

All those broken down rides, long waits and frustrated people make for a bad day, feeling of being Ripped off monetarily and time wise.
Seems like a lose-lose to me.

Hope it gets better for all those that are dealing with this.

I think if it were me and there were all those rides down , plus waiting in line and Then it breaks down.., I'd go to guest services and let them know how very disappointed I was. Whether they'd do anything , who knows...
I just think IF More people Spoke Up..perhaps they d be spending time/money on ride maintenance issues versus putting up $650. Rental Tents In MK.. ugh!

 

[Pacolovestacos]

For ride break-downs, it happens and is largely out of Disney's control on a day-to-day basis. Yes they could do more regular maintenance but that means more down time for refurbs, which no one likes. It's a balance and you can't expect all rides to have 99.9% up time.

Don't want to be rude but that's one of the craziest things I've ever read. Ride break-downs are absolutely within Disney's control. I mean, if they're not within Disney's control, who's control would they be within? God's perhaps. That would be like claiming that mechanical failures on a plane are not within Southwest's control.

 

[fla4fun]

Don't want to be rude but that's one of the craziest things I've ever read. Ride break-downs are absolutely within Disney's control. I mean, if they're not within Disney's control, who's control would they be within? God's perhaps. That would be like claiming that mechanical failures on a plane are not within Southwest's control.

The way I took the post was that Disney doesn't always have control over when a spontaneous breakdown occurs, similar to you maintaining your car but suddenly something breaks and the car quits in the middle of the road. I have had some very obscure parts quit on my cars in the past, things that stumped independent mechanics and dealer service centers. Things that in the history of my make and model had never been replaced before on anyone else's car according to the manufacturer. Stuff happens that is out of your control. Sometimes things just break down and have to be fixed, no matter how well maintained they are. I think Disney walks a fine line between taking attractions offline for deep maintenance and keeping them running to appease the guests. Too much of either one causes an issue for someone. As someone who pretty much always travels during the "off" season when lots of attractions are down for refurbishment, I think Disney does a decent job of trying to prevent spontaneous breakdowns. They just can't prevent them all.

I would hazard a guess though that a lot of the intermittent ups and downs are caused by guests more often than by malfunctioning equipment. It seems like over the past year or so I have personally seen many more people doing things they should not be doing (especially standing on rides, or trying to move from one ride vehicle to another - big safety concerns) and when a ride shuts down for that reason it takes time for the ride to be re-set. It's not always as simple as just flipping a switch. If the guests were better behaved, we might cut the down time in half.

 

[Mac30188]

Interesting enough we went MK on Thursday and Epcot on Friday and both were light. We were disappointed that the Mexican ride was down, but otherwise not bad. I think we waited about 15 minutes for Anna and Elsa. Looks like we got lucky on what park on what day.

 

[mom2rtk]

Interesting enough we went MK on Thursday and Epcot on Friday and both were light. We were disappointed that the Mexican ride was down, but otherwise not bad. I think we waited about 15 minutes for Anna and Elsa. Looks like we got lucky on what park on what day.

If you were there on the cast party day, then it's no shock the crowds were light. I would have chosen the MK expecting the day to be like that. Glad you had a couple of great days!