Here Now & Just Back - A Place To Share Your Recent Experiences

[Ricguz]

We’re here now. We are Disney vets, I had low expectations, but we came after 3 days at Universal with Express Unlimited passes and I can safely say this will be our last Disney trip. Transportation is much more difficult. The crowds here, while there are similar numbers of people to Universal, are so much more rude and aggressive. Everyone seems stressed and rushed, pushing and stepping on you to get somewhere. The need to schedule/reserve everything and then be unable to cancel or reschedule is incredibly frustrating - for dining and Genie+. We have MK reservations for today but no one wants to go back after last night. But because of the reservations and park hop rules we have to waste hours getting there to tap in before we can hop to another park.

I used to love WDW and was a pass holder at DL for years. I’ve realized that we much prefer to be able to go with the flow and the current mode of Disney is not suited for us at all. We’ve already decided to upgrade our Universal tix to passes and honestly if I can find a room at one of the premier hotels there tonight I’ll just check out of here and not come back. I am glad my daughter got to ride BTMRR because it’s her favorite.

I’m sorry to hear what you went through. I have been dreading this type of news. I hope Disney hears this but since all it is for the executives is a money grab, nothing is going to change. I am also a Disney Vet, next trip in December and I tell you my expectations are very low. So my saving grace is going to be its Christmas, go to the parks and enjoy the decorations and parades etc.. Staying at YC CL WV so we will enjoy the resort and the pool, boardwalk etc .. I will not drive myself crazy looking at my phone and getting Genie + and trying to stack rides. If at 7 am, I’m awake and decide to get something wonderful. If I don’t, I’m not going to be guided by my phone and miss everything else that going on. We will do the Candlelight procession, maybe depending on price Mickey Christmas parade, and HS laser light projections. I have been following everyone’s take on what is going on, on these boards and the bloggers on You Tube. If we are able to ride the rides we want, wonderful. If not so be it. I see on You Tube, the rush of the crowds, rudeness and can feel the tension. No thanks. Disney does not care until we stop spending the time and money. What I see is overcrowded parks and displeased guests. Pray that it plays itself out, and gets back to the place we love. Current management has to go.

 

[pens4821]

Was this for 10:00-12:00 EEH? Did you start right at 10:00?

EEH was 11-1 last night. So I asked right before it started.

 

[pens4821]

Thank you for coming back to report! Must have been a LONG night but sounds like it was worth it if everything was a walk on!!

You’re welcome! It was a late night. I’m not used to that. But we had a blast. It was awesome to have such small waits and so few people in the parks!! The alarm going off at 6 this morning for HS was tough. Relaxing back at the resort now.

 

[Laura+4]

Here now and just finished day 4 in the parks. I had low expectations and we are actually having a really good time. Genie+ is pretty terrible, but it is not really affecting my family’s touring style. We are a family of 7 - 2 adults, 3 teens, 2 toddlers. We were offsite for the first night and have been onsite since. We go to the parks for early entry, but do not get to the parks before the extra time starts (usually about 10 min in). We come back to the room for a nap and then go back for a couple hours (older kids stay later). A few thoughts…
I don’t think our party size is negatively affecting getting rides. I have had great success utilizing the 7:17 ILL drop to get an early time. The one time I tried right at 7, my noon “confirmed time” turned into 4:45 and I had to have it refunded. I’ve also found success getting genie+ drops 2 min past the half hour. We’ve ridden everything we want to ride. For instance today - older kids rope dropped millenium falcon while husband and I went to RNRC (child swapped), then we all rode toy story stand by, then used MMRR genie+, got slinky dog genie+ while on MMRR, went to Disney jr dance party, big kids went to ILL ROTR, we took toddlers to frozen, all rode slinky dog, then went back to hotel for late lunch.
I’ve had a lot of success because I am on my phone a lot. I don’t like this at all. I think genie+ has put a lot more work on the trip planner.
I haven’t found people to be rude and bathrooms have been clean, but we do leave from around 12:30-4 -!peak crowd time.
We stay in a MK resort and drive a car to HS and AK, so haven’t used buses. Monorail has been prompt. Most CMs have been nice and cheery (Epcot guest services lady was a notable exception).
In summary, the lines are crazy right now (at least by late morning), but we have completely avoided waits of 25+ min by, arriving early, prioritizing our must do rides, buying ILL and genie+, and stalking rides on my phone. Hope this is helpful!

 

[Lsdolphin]

I’m sorry to hear what you went through. I have been dreading this type of news. I hope Disney hears this but since all it is for the executives is a money grab, nothing is going to change. I am also a Disney Vet, next trip in December and I tell you my expectations are very low. So my saving grace is going to be its Christmas, go to the parks and enjoy the decorations and parades etc.. Staying at YC CL WV so we will enjoy the resort and the pool, boardwalk etc .. I will not drive myself crazy looking at my phone and getting Genie + and trying to stack rides. If at 7 am, I’m awake and decide to get something wonderful. If I don’t, I’m not going to be guided by my phone and miss everything else that going on. We will do the Candlelight procession, maybe depending on price Mickey Christmas parade, and HS laser light projections. I have been following everyone’s take on what is going on, on these boards and the bloggers on You Tube. If we are able to ride the rides we want, wonderful. If not so be it. I see on You Tube, the rush of the crowds, rudeness and can feel the tension. No thanks. Disney does not care until we stop spending the time and money. What I see is overcrowded parks and displeased guests. Pray that it plays itself out, and gets back to the place we love. Current management has to go.

Well, the “current management “ just got a 94% approval rating I don’t think he is going anywhere...

 

[Kcgaido]

Here now. I don’t know if it is lowered expectations or what, but we’ve been having a really outstanding trip. Nothing that we read about - dirty bathrooms, rude cast members, poor food quality - has been present at all. People have been lovely, everything has been clean and everywhere we look managers are pitching in to clean tables and pick up any litter in the parks. Lots of smiling faces and kind words.

As for Genie+, we have found that it works well for us. I’ve been to Disney maybe a dozen times and this time felt fresh and new somehow. I tried food, drinks, attractions and places I never have before and it’s been a very nice change in how we tour this place. And maybe we’ve just been lucky, but we’ve been able to do almost everything we wanted. On a date night earlier this week I stacked LLs for Hollywood Studios and my husband and I did RotR, Smugglers Run, Slinky and Toy Story in 2 hours then had a drink at Oga’s. With the exception of not doing Kilimanjaro Safari, we’ve done everything we wanted.

We have a few more days and things could change (I’ll report if they do), but overall it’s been a really delightful time.

 

[DisneyFive]

I’ve also found success getting genie+ drops 2 min past the half hour.

Can you explain this? Are you saying that every half hour you are seeing drops for popular attractions?

Dan

 

[Mango7100]

Epcot 3/15…

We arrived at about 1030 and were only planning on doing some food booths and walking around looking at the topiary displays until early afternoon before pool time. Ride waits were very high…like 40 minutes for Living with the Land high. We did have a Genie problem today. We had purchased a ILL at 7 am for Remy and my confirmation page said return time of 145-245. Great, hit confirm and then received an email that we purchased a 630-730 time frame. Um no, will not be here this evening. I knew this had happened to others so got on the Chat with Us app feature. Someone finally answered at 9 am and said we had to go to guest services in the park. Went to guest services and the CM said all she could do was refund our money but couldn’t give us a different time. That was frustrating since I myself could not modify or get a refund and by the time we got to the park the rest of the times were gone. The CM was not super sympathetic and tried to say that I maybe wasn’t fast enough in the app when purchasing…she did not seem to care when I explained that my time on the confirmation page was different than what was given to me after I paid. So we got a refund and never did get an ILL. While it was irritating it wasn’t something that was going to ruin our day.

Sunshine Griddle and Farmers Fresh Market booths are fantastic.

 

[Mango7100]

MK 3/16..

We accomplished a ton by starting with early entry. We like to have 2 full days at MK to ride attractions multiple times. We did the following LLs…Small World, Pooh, Speedway, HM, Pirates, Little Mermaid, Big Thunder, Space, and PP. Space I found at 6 pm for a return time of 825 pm. Peter Pan I found a return time of 10 pm at 8 pm. We also watched the parade again and rode standby for Laugh Floor, People Mover, Teacups, Carousel, Dumbo x4 without getting off while watching the fireworks (a fantastic way to do it since we don’t like being stuck in the massive hub crowd and my daughter is boycotting projections since HEA is gone). Also took a 3 hour break to go to Wilderness Lodge and eat at Geyser Point.

Takeaways…

Yes, Genie is a pain to pay for. We decided beforehand that we would rather have Genie for some days for our party of 3 than have one table service at a restaurant like BOG or Topolinos. I wish you could modify or be able to select times for LL. But FP is not coming back. I could complain about it forever, but we bought it, used it, and had success. We got 8 LLs and 9 LLs at our 2 MK days. One HS evening I got 4 LLs to use in 3 1/2 hrs. I was on my phone less than I was with FP. After tapping in or after my 2 hr mark, I would look at next availability for 1-2 attractions we targeted next. If we didn’t see a great return time, I would refresh for 5 minutes. Sometimes when we clicked on a time it would pop up that it was gone, but about 80% of the time we eventually got something close. Then the phone went away until we tapped in or 2 hrs was up.

Based on reports, my expectations were very low about what we would be able to do. It was very crowded and 10/10 days. However, we did way more than I thought. As someone else posted above, we did not see any overflowing trash cans, bathrooms were clean, the park wasn’t trashed. CMs were cleaning quick service tables, picking up litter from the sidewalk, etc. CMs were all nice and some superb. We had the one CM at Epcot who was short with our Remy ILL issue, but we got our refund and it wasn’t that big of a deal. I think we have to remember that the CMs are not some super humans whose purpose is solely to make you have the most magical time ever. They are people working in customer service, one of the most thankless jobs I would suspect. We had a great trip and had tons of fun!

 

[DisneyFive]

Epcot 3/15…

We arrived at about 1030 and were only planning on doing some food booths and walking around looking at the topiary displays until early afternoon before pool time. Ride waits were very high…like 40 minutes for Living with the Land high. We did have a Genie problem today. We had purchased a ILL at 7 am for Remy and my confirmation page said return time of 145-245. Great, hit confirm and then received an email that we purchased a 630-730 time frame. Um no, will not be here this evening. I knew this had happened to others so got on the Chat with Us app feature. Someone finally answered at 9 am and said we had to go to guest services in the park. Went to guest services and the CM said all she could do was refund our money but couldn’t give us a different time. That was frustrating since I myself could not modify or get a refund and by the time we got to the park the rest of the times were gone. The CM was not super sympathetic and tried to say that I maybe wasn’t fast enough in the app when purchasing…she did not seem to care when I explained that my time on the confirmation page was different than what was given to me after I paid. So we got a refund and never did get an ILL. While it was irritating it wasn’t something that was going to ruin our day.

Sunshine Griddle and Farmers Fresh Market booths are fantastic.

This seems to be happening far too often and is totally unacceptable. This can totally be resolved properly. It baffles me that they haven't resolved this by now.

Dan

 

[CarolynFH]

Epcot 3/15…

We arrived at about 1030 and were only planning on doing some food booths and walking around looking at the topiary displays until early afternoon before pool time. Ride waits were very high…like 40 minutes for Living with the Land high. We did have a Genie problem today. We had purchased a ILL at 7 am for Remy and my confirmation page said return time of 145-245. Great, hit confirm and then received an email that we purchased a 630-730 time frame. Um no, will not be here this evening. I knew this had happened to others so got on the Chat with Us app feature. Someone finally answered at 9 am and said we had to go to guest services in the park. Went to guest services and the CM said all she could do was refund our money but couldn’t give us a different time. That was frustrating since I myself could not modify or get a refund and by the time we got to the park the rest of the times were gone. The CM was not super sympathetic and tried to say that I maybe wasn’t fast enough in the app when purchasing…she did not seem to care when I explained that my time on the confirmation page was different than what was given to me after I paid. So we got a refund and never did get an ILL. While it was irritating it wasn’t something that was going to ruin our day.

Sunshine Griddle and Farmers Fresh Market booths are fantastic.

I would send an email to wdw.guest.communications@disneyworld.com telling them what happened. They need to hear it.

 

[Mango7100]

This seems to be happening far too often and is totally unacceptable. This can totally be resolved properly. It baffles me that they haven't resolved this by now.

Dan

I did ask her if they are going to address this issue since I know it has happened to others. She said they have passed on guest feedback and they are ”working on it”

 

[Mango7100]

I would send an email to wdw.guest.communications@disneyworld.com telling them what happened. They need to hear it.

Thanks! I will. That was the only issue we had over our trip

 

[CarolynFH]

I did ask her if they are going to address this issue since I know it has happened to others. She said they have passed on guest feedback and they are ”working on it”

Yep, and the more guest feedback they get directly from the affected guests, the better.

 

[flipflopmom]

Hi All!
this trip has solidified my faith in humanity. People are kind and good, and it was awesome to see this at WDW.
And, if anyone has any advice about what I was doing wrong with Genie+, definitely

First of all-thank you, thank you. I have actually lost all faith in humanity in the last couple of years, and I really, really, really needed to hear that.
And secondly, hopefully someone will chime in with better knowledge than me, but it is my understanding that your second G+ can be booked 2 hours after the park opens OR a after tapping into the ride you most recently made a reservation for. If I’m correct, if your first G+ was for 8:30 you should have been eligible immediately after tapping both times. OR if your first is later in the day, you can book your second 2 hours after that park opens. So that could have made for the differing times, based on varying park opening?

 

[Laura+4]

Can you explain this? Are you saying that every half hour you are seeing drops for popular attractions?

Dan

Not every half hour - it isn’t that predictable, but it happens enough to warrant checking. Also, when it happens, it is a minute or two after the 1/2 hr. If you search genie+ drops online you should find a really helpful touring plans conversation about it.

 

[pens4821]

Went to Hollywood studios this morning and Epcot tonight. Wasn’t planning on purchasing genie+ but just decided to. It worked great for us going to MK earlier in the week. The parks are just too crowded now that I felt it was worth it. I’ll be getting it for HS tomorrow. That may be different. One thing is I hop and book the genie for the second park. So that helped us.

Our morning started at HS. My first LL I booked right at 7 for tot. Got a time of 1005. We got to the taps about 730 as they opened. Chose a bad line and ended up having to wait 20 minutes for sdd. We were on in 5 a couple days ago. From there we waited 15 for tsm, then 55 for rnrc (posted 80). By that time it was actually exactly 1005 so we used our LL.

We were switching resorts so we drove over to DS. Had some lunch at chicken guy (it was good) and went in a couple stores. Not big shoppers but wanted to see the 50th selection at world of Disney. Went to the super hero and Star Wars stores too.

After a little rest at resort two we went to ep. I had LL for se (down when we were there so came back on the way out), soarin, and ms. Booked nemo as we were walking by it after getting out of se line. I know people say it’s not necessary at ep but it saved us time. And we had the tot from HS in the morning too. The first time se was posted at 30, soarin 50, ms 60, nemo 25. So while I hate paying even more than the already expensive trip, it saved us a lot of time. I think next time I’ll just buy it for the week. We also did tt single rider. Took about 30. I do wish I could’ve got a tt or frozen LL. I did a lot of refreshing after tapping in to tot after 10 and for about 25 minutes in the room around 230. And a lot throughout the day. Twice in that I did have a time pop up but when I clicked it was gone.

Back at the resort. Heading to MK in the morning and HS in the evening. Then home over the weekend. This week has went by quickly. It’s been very busy, and frustrating at times, but we are still having a blast!

 

[Steve19842015]

I want to post my recap to our trip to help out others. Our park days were 6 days total starting with Wednesday ending this past Monday. Our group was 5 adults and 2 kids 6 and 11. We rope
Dropped and EMH every day since we stayed at a good neighbor hotel. Bought G+ for every day except Animal Kingdom Day. Doubled up on MK and HS. HS was the toughest to use the G+ but we ended up riding every ride and watched all of the shows. Longest wait was RNRC at 90 mins. Aside from that we only waited about 30 mins for most standby by. I would strongly suggest that everyone purchase the G+. OT sucked having to spend that extra money but you have to IMO to have a nice experience.

 

[DizneyMommy]

Here now, I was prepared for chaos and mayhem and have been pleasantly surprised! Yes, it is crowded. The lines are long at peak times but if you plan a little strategy it is possible to do everything! We have a DAS and have been using the lightning lane all week. I’ve noticed that there are hardly ever more than a couple of other people going into the lightning lane with us. Even on things like Remi, MMRR, FoP. These things are selling out first thing in the morning, but where are these people? Either they are hardly releasing any slots, or…? Except for rare rides where the LL merges really early, we’ve walked on, literally walked on. On rides that aren’t individually paid, there is rarely more than a few people in the LL with us. I feel like Genie+ is not the money maker that Disney hoped and not as widely purchased as they hoped. I’ll be honest, if we didn’t have DAS, we’d be skipping genie+ and just picking our ride times more strategically to avoid the 120+ minute waits. Not worth the money when you get maybe 3-4 rides out of it if that.

 

[zillayen]

The 7:17 drop for ILL does work well. I was on at 7 am sharp today to get RotR and everything was immediately gone. I booked a LL for RnRC at 11 am and just kept refreshing. Right around 7:18 am I was able to snag RotR for 9:50 am and actually got that time after I purchased.