Just back from a week at WDW. All in all it was, as always, a great trip. Enjoyed a week of 85 degree rain free weather.
Just want to make a few observations...
Due to a current medical condition my DW needed to rent a ECV (one of those electric little carts...I called it an "adult stroller"). Anyway, this was the first time we've had to do such a thing. What a different perspective you get. I swear people have absolutely NO perepheral vision, nor can they see below their necks. It was amazing how many people were totally oblivious to there being someone in a wheelchair or ECV attempting to navigate the park. They cut in front of you, attempt to get ahead of you; it was astounding how many people were of the apparent opinion that they were the only ones in the park.
If I ran WDW the ECV's would be equipped with 18-wheeler truck horns.
We had a bit of a fiasco as the BuzzSpin (what my DS calls it) ride in Tomorrowland. It was about 4:30 pm on a Tuesday and we saw that the standby time was 30 minutes. The FastPass return said 5:55. We got 4 FP's and decided to chance the 30 minute wait as most of the day we found the waits to be much less than what was posted. Well, once we wound our way to inside the building 45 minutes had passed. And the line was barely moving, yet the FP folks were streaming through. Certainly understandable. Another 20 minutes later we got closer and saw what was happening--- (we are now well into 90 minutes in line--remember, the posted time said 30)---the CM was only letting 4 people in the standby line through while there were people in the fast pass line. By now those in the standby line were very irate and started challenging the CM on her line managment skills. The only thing she could say was that she had to let 16 FP guests through for every 4 standby's!!! I'm thinking, this is stupid. There was really never more than 20-30 people in the FP line at any one time. If she alternated standby's with FP she could still keep the line moving and accomdate the FP folks. We finished the ride and flagged down a CM outsise the ride and expressed our concern. He repeated the policy of the 16:4 ratio. He also said the FP line could not have more than a 5 minute wait. I said that even if he alternated there would never be more than a 5 minute wait in the FP line as there was likely always going to be more people in the standby line than the FP line, unless they screwed up their FP distribution ratio. Moreover, I said, that 5 minute rule seemed somewhat arbitrary as that morning at AK we waited well over 20 minutes in the FP line for Primeval World and at Big Thunder Mountain we waited 10 in the FP line. The CM looked at me dumbfounded and said..."sorry, have a fast pass on me?". We entered and waited no more than the 2 minutes it took us to navigate the line snake. The standby line was on the verge of rioting because most had been waiting well over an hour. On the outside the standby time still said 30 min.
If I ran WDW the CM would alternate equally standby's with FP's
In addition, if I ran WDW the boards that listed wait times would also list the updated FP return times. It's all computerized so it would be simple to set up a "tote board" at the parks with wait times and FP return times. That way I could better map out my return time strategies. If a FP return time was late in the day I might not want to make the trek over to the ride.
Also, it would be nice to have the option of getting FP's for specific times of day even into the future. Say I planned to go to MK on a Friday and today was Tuesday. It would be nice if I could "order" FP's for rides a certain time of day. The computer would still manage it's standard FP allotment. If that block of time was full, well, tough for me. Also, these future FP's could only be used for that block of time. Miss it and you lose. It's the risk you take of scheduling into the future. It would be cool to have the option. Perhaps it's a perk for those in DVC or those staying on property?
At MGM we made priority seating reservations for dinner and Fantasmic. We thought we had ressies for the 50's Prime Time Diner. We got there and found out the hotel mistakenly made ressies at the Brown Derby. There was no way our kids would enjoy Brown Derby. We managed to get into the Prime Time Diner but were unable to get our passes for Fantasmic. We found a CM by the name of Jose. We were more than willing to pay for the package, it's just that dinner at the Brown Derby was out of the question. He listened to our predicament and got us our passes to Fantasmic. The epitome of a Disney CM.
Some other random "if I ran WDW..."
Only one stroller per person. I saw a number of people trying to push two strollers at once
The amount of skin that guests are allowed to show would be inversely proportional to their Body Mass Index and the amount of body hair you have
Just want to make a few observations...
Due to a current medical condition my DW needed to rent a ECV (one of those electric little carts...I called it an "adult stroller"). Anyway, this was the first time we've had to do such a thing. What a different perspective you get. I swear people have absolutely NO perepheral vision, nor can they see below their necks. It was amazing how many people were totally oblivious to there being someone in a wheelchair or ECV attempting to navigate the park. They cut in front of you, attempt to get ahead of you; it was astounding how many people were of the apparent opinion that they were the only ones in the park.
If I ran WDW the ECV's would be equipped with 18-wheeler truck horns.
We had a bit of a fiasco as the BuzzSpin (what my DS calls it) ride in Tomorrowland. It was about 4:30 pm on a Tuesday and we saw that the standby time was 30 minutes. The FastPass return said 5:55. We got 4 FP's and decided to chance the 30 minute wait as most of the day we found the waits to be much less than what was posted. Well, once we wound our way to inside the building 45 minutes had passed. And the line was barely moving, yet the FP folks were streaming through. Certainly understandable. Another 20 minutes later we got closer and saw what was happening--- (we are now well into 90 minutes in line--remember, the posted time said 30)---the CM was only letting 4 people in the standby line through while there were people in the fast pass line. By now those in the standby line were very irate and started challenging the CM on her line managment skills. The only thing she could say was that she had to let 16 FP guests through for every 4 standby's!!! I'm thinking, this is stupid. There was really never more than 20-30 people in the FP line at any one time. If she alternated standby's with FP she could still keep the line moving and accomdate the FP folks. We finished the ride and flagged down a CM outsise the ride and expressed our concern. He repeated the policy of the 16:4 ratio. He also said the FP line could not have more than a 5 minute wait. I said that even if he alternated there would never be more than a 5 minute wait in the FP line as there was likely always going to be more people in the standby line than the FP line, unless they screwed up their FP distribution ratio. Moreover, I said, that 5 minute rule seemed somewhat arbitrary as that morning at AK we waited well over 20 minutes in the FP line for Primeval World and at Big Thunder Mountain we waited 10 in the FP line. The CM looked at me dumbfounded and said..."sorry, have a fast pass on me?". We entered and waited no more than the 2 minutes it took us to navigate the line snake. The standby line was on the verge of rioting because most had been waiting well over an hour. On the outside the standby time still said 30 min.
If I ran WDW the CM would alternate equally standby's with FP's
In addition, if I ran WDW the boards that listed wait times would also list the updated FP return times. It's all computerized so it would be simple to set up a "tote board" at the parks with wait times and FP return times. That way I could better map out my return time strategies. If a FP return time was late in the day I might not want to make the trek over to the ride.
Also, it would be nice to have the option of getting FP's for specific times of day even into the future. Say I planned to go to MK on a Friday and today was Tuesday. It would be nice if I could "order" FP's for rides a certain time of day. The computer would still manage it's standard FP allotment. If that block of time was full, well, tough for me. Also, these future FP's could only be used for that block of time. Miss it and you lose. It's the risk you take of scheduling into the future. It would be cool to have the option. Perhaps it's a perk for those in DVC or those staying on property?
At MGM we made priority seating reservations for dinner and Fantasmic. We thought we had ressies for the 50's Prime Time Diner. We got there and found out the hotel mistakenly made ressies at the Brown Derby. There was no way our kids would enjoy Brown Derby. We managed to get into the Prime Time Diner but were unable to get our passes for Fantasmic. We found a CM by the name of Jose. We were more than willing to pay for the package, it's just that dinner at the Brown Derby was out of the question. He listened to our predicament and got us our passes to Fantasmic. The epitome of a Disney CM.
Some other random "if I ran WDW..."
Only one stroller per person. I saw a number of people trying to push two strollers at once
The amount of skin that guests are allowed to show would be inversely proportional to their Body Mass Index and the amount of body hair you have
