Jollywood Nights-Hearing Some Negative Feedback...

[Genie+]

We are frequent guests, but have gotten to the point where we don’t rely on Disney scheduling of anything - so I guess this makes for a less disappointing situation for us and a happy accident if it works out in timing.

As a mental exercise, I do like to consider the “why” of these types of things, but I suspect the root cause is shifting priorities - which again only just impacts the brand as you describe. Not a very satisfactory answer in your situation.

Yeah I probably would be less surprised/disappointed if not for my extended family asking to join us this trip. We helped get them a DVC room and shared details of what unique stuff is common this time of year that helps offset the higher crowds and high ticket cost ($800 for 5 day hopper). At no point did it dawn on me they could get less than 2 park EEHs.

We’re set on having a good time. This crew is a positive bunch. I’m optimistic there’s hope for JN. The sting is I feel they took away the EEHs to force these parties that also reduced available resources for EEH. There is some pressure on spending the extra $1k on JN just to have more than the one late evening together the reduced EEH now offers.

 

[john7994]

Yeah I probably would be less surprised/disappointed if not for my extended family asking to join us this trip. We helped get them a DVC room and shared details of what unique stuff is common this time of year that helps offset the higher crowds and high ticket cost ($800 for 5 day hopper). At no point did it dawn on me they could get less than 2 park EEHs.

We’re set on having a good time. This crew is a positive bunch. I’m optimistic there’s hope for JN. The sting is I feel they took away the EEHs to force these parties that also reduced available resources for EEH. There is some pressure on spending the extra $1k on JN just to have more than the one late evening together the reduced EEH now offers.

I think your suggestion may be one of the priorities I was speaking of earlier - but I have zero insights to anything on the inside tbh. I also respect it’s a big moving machine with lots of parts as well - so there may be reasons that we aren’t privy too.

I am sure you will have a good time - we are there the week after thanksgiving and again the week of January 1st. We have friends and family (around 12 of us) in January - which will include some golf, a cruise or two, and a 5K race to finish amongst other things.

 

[Genie+]

I think your suggestion may be one of the priorities I was speaking of earlier - but I have zero insights to anything on the inside tbh. I also respect it’s a big moving machine with lots of parts as well - so there may be reasons that we aren’t privy too.

I am sure you will have a good time - we are there the week after thanksgiving and again the week of January 1st. We have friends and family (around 12 of us) in January - which will include some golf, a cruise or two, and a 5K race to finish amongst other things.

Sounds awesome. Enjoy!

 

[Marthasor]

With all these people canceling and getting refunds, Jollywood Nights might become pretty great pretty soon.
Lower crowds!
I'm holding out hope that future events are a much better experience...

I was at the first night, so thought I would chime in with my thoughts. The first party was not crowded. The problem was everything anyone wanted to access required standing in a line and it will continue to be that way. The only thing that didn't require a line was any musical entertainment that was out in the open in the parks and, well, usually there was no one playing music at the designated stages.

I have heard overall pretty good things about the shows.

I agree, it sounds like HBD and the Tip Top Soiree need a lot of improvement. HBD may have been better if the initial seating situation hadn't been so f'd up.

HBD was snacks, drinks and one piano player. Unless they add more to the "Jazzy Club" portion of the program, it will not improve. Wait service was also incredibly slow. We sat for 20 minutes without getting anything but water and up and left as we wanted to try to experience other party offerings.

I don't find it surprising that there were issues on this first night.

This is a major event (when is the last time there was a brand new event like this) with lots of moving parts. Things don't always work out like you have them planned on paper when there are real people involved.

I think Disney will learn from the first night and make some tweaks. I'm looking forward to it, and feel like those who are rushing to cancel or switch to MVMCP may be doing themselves a disservice, and depriving themselves of experiencing something unique.

Unless they add a ton of extra musicians, decorations and manage the lines better, this party will not improve.

Recent major new events? All of the new after-hours parties, Boo Bash, the Christmas Bash. None of them had these kinds of issues. The problem isn’t that this thing needs some tweaks. The problem is that, even if everything ran perfectly, it still seems like it was extremely lackluster. Yeah, I agree they could solve some of the crowd issues by staffing up more (although that will cost them more money so they probably still won’t staff up enough), but at the end of the day, this isn’t close to what they marketed and sold. The “tip top club” which is on most of the marketing and gives the allure of a swanky 1920’s nightclub overlay somewhere in the tower of terror (or at least indoors somewhere so it looks like it), ended up being an outdoor drink cart. Come on.

I mean, they recycled a decades old fireworks show (with major pyro cutbacks compared to the original) to be the keynote of this event.

This is spot on. I could have hosted a better cocktail party in my backyard. The Tip Top Club was a joke.

Did anyone enjoy the Nightmare Before Christmas Singalong show? I'm wondering because I saw some of a video of it and it looked utterly awful. Very un-Disney.

It felt very, very out of place given the way this event was advertised, the brochure, decor, 20's-era vibe. I felt like I was walking into a haunted house and no one was singing along. The title of the show is "What's This?" - that kind of summed up the evening. At one point they sand "This is Halloween" and it may as well have been. The only redeeming aspect was the Jack puppet which was spectacular. If you were looking for an old-Hollywood vibe, this ain't it.

Last night someone posted party pics of Galaxy’s Edge desolate. After seeing all the issues and letdowns, it was the first time I had enough optimism to think there’s any hope not regretting buying 6 tickets for my family.

If we can:
Get magic shots, ride RotR together, explore a quiet GE, do ToT twice, maybe Slinky, see fireworks and 2 new shows?

That could be success for us. Especially if getting wristbands and food items is improved.

GE was completely empty - it was amazing. I think you can pull this off. I would recommend going to the Muppet show first (it starts on the 45's - 8:45/9:45, etc.) and ends in time for you to hightail it over to Nightmare before Christmas which starts on the 30's (if you do it the other way around, you will have a lot of lag time) We did the 9:45 pm Muppets and 10:30 pm Nightmare and the timing worked well. We did two of the magic shots around 11 pm and had little wait. We then walked around HS until midnight and every ride had about a 5 minute wait.

I wonder if they’ll offer some cheap freebie snacks via the carts as an ‘improvement’ next event…

If they do, I would be miffed as would others who paid full price for this event and got a lot of aggravation and no freebies.

It seems like all the issues have been with the party-exclusive events. I'm curious to hear how the lines were for the normal attractions, since this is replacing my Studios day on my next trip.

Very minimal waits for the rides on the first night.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

I watched reviews from about 20 reputable Orlando Youtubers on the weekend

When even allears is throwing shade at the end of their review video, Disney has a big problem.

 

[jimmymc]

I was mostly hoping to get on rides with no waits and watch Jingle Bell Jingle Bam, which I think I'll be able to accomplish. I'll see how the lines are for the shows and probably skip the lounges.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

Our preferred order is:

Magic Shot, Nightmare, Muppets, GE definitely and maybe RotR, SDD, ToT, Fireworks.

None of the rides are make or break for us. We have 2 other HS days this trip. We’ll only hit SDD and ToT if low lines while we are in the vicinity or if we find time towards end of party. Bolded are priorities.

We fully intend to last through the 12:30am fireworks and not keep our expectations low lol.

Party is four hours long. Based on reports, you’re going to experience something like this:

1. Magic Shot: 30 minutes;
2. Nightmare: 1 hour (if you don’t line up at least 30 minutes early your’e going to get shunted to the next show;
3. Muppets: 1 hour.
You’ve now got 1.5 hours left. The ROTR line (when it wasn’t down) was reportedly about an hour, so if you try to do ROTR as well, you’ve got 30 minutes of party time left. I think your plan is overly ambitious.
Edit: And I forgot to account for the ride time of ROTR, so, yeah, if you do this, I think all you’re riding is ROTR and maybe one more ride that you can jump on right before 12:30 AM, but then you’d maybe miss the fireworks.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

It seems like all the issues have been with the party-exclusive events. I'm curious to hear how the lines were for the normal attractions, since this is replacing my Studios day on my next trip.

Lines were low to walk-on, with the exception of ROTR. Slinky never got up above 20 minutes at it’s peak.

 

[Marthasor]

Party is four hours long. Based on reports, you’re going to experience something like this:

1. Magic Shot: 30 minutes;
2. Nightmare: 1 hour (if you don’t line up at least 30 minutes early your’e going to get shunted to the next show;
3. Muppets: 1 hour.
You’ve now got 1.5 hours left. The ROTR line (when it wasn’t down) was reportedly about an hour, so if you try to do ROTR as well, you’ve got 30 minutes of party time left. I think your plan is overly ambitious.
Edit: And I forgot to account for the ride time of ROTR, so, yeah, if you do this, I think all you’re riding is ROTR and maybe one more ride that you can jump on right before 12:30 AM, but then you’d maybe miss the fireworks.

Nightmare - not true on the first night. We walked into the 10:30 pm show, right after seeing the 9:45 pm Muppet show (waited maybe 15 minutes for that one), with no wait. But the point is taken - it's unfortunate that you can't really game this night-by-night. It's the beauty of how MVMCP shows are set up - you just go into the hub to watch the major show, go to the second parade to find a spot with less wait or go to Tomorrowland and dance to the DJ tunes. If you can't get into Muppets or Nightmare at the times you have chosen, it will screw up the rest of your plans for the evening at Jollywood. The whole thing just wasn't well thought-out, IMHO.

 

[peteykirch]

We were there for the opening night, and it was an unmitigated disaster from nearly every POV with regards to Ops and what not.

For the price, how it was advertised it was borderline false advertisement. It's more expensive than regular Disney After Hours events, and offered less with the ticket price. Our experience getting in wasn't that bad we showed up around 7:45, and were able to get through the front gate without much hassle. Grabbed a VQ slot of RotR at 8PM, was called before the event even started so we didn't lose much time there. I guess I should have realized that if they were using a VQ for Rise during this event it couldn't obviously be as limited as a regular After Hours Event as those at the Studios just used a regular standby queue.

It was all down hill from there, every single food and "bar" had an insane line for the bulk of the night. Brown Derby was fully booked at 8:15 and you had to get lucky with timing if a spot opened up while you were on that side of the park. Really crappy job by Disney for not telling people ahead of time that you would need a VQ for a dining experience. With how it was advertised it seemed like you would be able to go around the park and taste and drink these limited time offerings with minimal waits.

Staffing and Ops was a complete mess. The rides were pretty much walk ons, and if you wanted to do that I'm sure you could've had a great time just doing that. I don't know why Star Tours needed 10 CMs standing around the front of the line...instead maybe Disney could've used a few more Food and Beverage CMs to help alleviate those lines.

There were two of us at this event, and we were able to try one of the funnel cakes from Epic Eats, the Gertie Cookie/Soft Serve, the Sugar Cookie Martini, and 2 items at ABC Commissary when the line didn't stretch down that back alley around 11:20 at night. The bar stand next to Epic Eats, I felt so bad the one bartender CM who was manning that booth solo.

I don't know how lines were as bad as they were for the Tip Top Club when they were utilizing pre made big batch cocktails that only required a simple garnish which they apparently ran out of before the end of the event. It should've been operating like a smooth running assembly line, yet it had insane waits nearly all night. Also they made it seem so grand and thematic and it turned out to be a mobile drink cart with minimal theming around it.

We only did the Muppets Show, and it was fine, the pre-event media stuff made it seem like it was going to be more Muppets orientated but it was fine, it was something that I don't think they needed to put behind a ridiculous upcharge pay wall.

If Disney cares about guest experience they should start the following changes for upcoming parties.

Any place that has mobile ordering during regular park hours, put those items on the app as being able to be mobile ordered during the event this would help out at ABC, Fairfax Fare, Sunshine Market etc.

Invest in end of the line signs way too often lines spilled out of the limited queue space causing bottlenecks and causing people to keep questioning even what they were standing in line for.

You don't want to give out free ice cream like regular After Hours events? Fine, but still offer free bottled water, soda, and popcorn.

Every ticket should come with free preferred parking. We arrived at 7:45pm and were put in the rear of the Buzz lot. I'm sure Disney has the ability to scan your magic band at the parking booth, see the Jollywood ticket, then they could just give you the preferred parking pass and let you go on your way.

Disney is a multi billion dollar company and has been in this industry since 1955, people can't let them get by with the "first night" jitters excuse and they will fix it eventually rhetoric. I weep for the Guest Relations CMs who were most likely peppered all night with how inept the ops and planning of the event was. The Disney of old would've been handing out at least 50% off refunds automatically once they realized how much of a **** show it was. It wasn't like this was announced 3 days ago, and they only had 72 hours to figure out how to mobilize everything for optimum guest satisfaction.

 

[Genie+]

GE was completely empty - it was amazing. I think you can pull this off. I would recommend going to the Muppet show first (it starts on the 45's - 8:45/9:45, etc.) and ends in time for you to hightail it over to Nightmare before Christmas which starts on the 30's (if you do it the other way around, you will have a lot of lag time) We did the 9:45 pm Muppets and 10:30 pm Nightmare and the timing worked well. We did two of the magic shots around 11 pm and had little wait. We then walked around HS until midnight and every ride had about a 5 minute wait.

I greatly appreciate the tips. Thank you!

This is spot on. I could have hosted a better cocktail party in my backyard. The Tip Top Club was a joke.

Tip Top Last week I sent my family the text that Santa bought them tickets for JN on Sat Dec 16. They all text back thank you and individually remarked how exciting Tip Top Club looks. Same first reaction my immediate family had when news of JN dropped.

The band may be very cool but what else is there really? Small space long line drink cart. I think fans had imaginations alight with possibilities.

I’m still excited. We might have a fantastic night. It is possible

 

[john7994]

I greatly appreciate the tips. Thank you!



Tip Top Last week I sent my family the text that Santa bought them tickets for JN on Sat Dec 16. They all text back thank you and individually remarked how exciting Tip Top Club looks. Same first reaction my immediate family had when news of JN dropped.

The band may be very cool but what else is there really? Small space long line drink cart. I think fans had imaginations alight with possibilities.

I’m still excited. We might have a fantastic night. It is possible

You are making the magic happen regardless - enjoy it!

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

Being reported that Disney has tightened giving refunds due to the amount of refund requests. If you hadn’t already asked for a refund, you may be out of luck (or at best, getting a credit towards a future party).

 

[loves to dive]

My son and his SO are going, they didn't get a park ticket for that day and are using it as a park/date night. They are there for 6 nights 5 days, 4 park ticketed days so they do have another HS day and they have hoppers. I'm babysitting their daughter so at least they will get a night off. We are dealing with logistics with the babysitting thing. Originally I planned on staying at Dolphin or BW and they could just walk to and from HS from my room, but couldn't get a room so ended up at CSR, they are staying at one of the All Stars. I'm thinking we just exchange MB and I stay at All Stars that night and they stay at CSR. We will both have cars and I do have a lot of extra MBs so can make sure one is programmed to my room door so they can get in. I'm guessing they could get an old fashioned KTW card at the front desk for me to get into their room. I don't even mind taking a bus to a park then bussing it over to All Stars, all I'll need is a back pack with jammies and a toiletry bag. They plan on taking an Uber after the party to wherever they are staying.

 

[Marthasor]

Being reported that Disney has tightened giving refunds due to the amount of refund requests. If you hadn’t already asked for a refund, you may be out of luck (or at best, getting a credit towards a future party).

That’s ridiculous. We were all at the same party and had, essentially, the same experience. If they are going to refund tickets, they should refund to all who request them or offer the same guest recovery option, similar to what they do on DCL when something, ship-wide, goes awry. Thanks for the update.

 

[peteykirch]

That’s ridiculous. We were all at the same party and had, essentially, the same experience. If they are going to refund tickets, they should refund to all who request them or offer the same guest recovery option, similar to what they do on DCL when something, ship-wide, goes awry. Thanks for the update.

Bingo, it shouldn't be the first 500 people to complain get their money back. There are life reasons as to why someone may not have been able to request the refund the night of or even the next day.

 

[Genie+]

My son and his SO are going, they didn't get a park ticket for that day and are using it as a park/date night. They are there for 6 nights 5 days, 4 park ticketed days so they do have another HS day and they have hoppers. I'm babysitting their daughter so at least they will get a night off. We are dealing with logistics with the babysitting thing. Originally I planned on staying at Dolphin or BW and they could just walk to and from HS from my room, but couldn't get a room so ended up at CSR, they are staying at one of the All Stars. I'm thinking we just exchange MB and I stay at All Stars that night and they stay at CSR. We will both have cars and I do have a lot of extra MBs so can make sure one is programmed to my room door so they can get in. I'm guessing they could get an old fashioned KTW card at the front desk for me to get into their room. I don't even mind taking a bus to a park then bussing it over to All Stars, all I'll need is a back pack with jammies and a toiletry bag. They plan on taking an Uber after the party to wherever they are staying.

We are trying to figure out logistic too with us staying in 2 different resorts. We might end up driving family back to their resort, and rideshare is another option for them if we are too tired.

 

[Genie+]

Any live brass going on?

 

[peteykirch]

View attachment 810493

Any live brass going on?

There was a saxophonist at the Tip Top Club, what is even more disappointing was they used a backing track. You could hear a trumpet despite no trumpet being played in person.

Top bad they sacked the GF Orchestra, they would've been amazing at the Brown Derby Jazz Club.

 

[TCRAIG]

I was at the first night, so thought I would chime in with my thoughts. The first party was not crowded. The problem was everything anyone wanted to access required standing in a line and it will continue to be that way. The only thing that didn't require a line was any musical entertainment that was out in the open in the parks and, well, usually there was no one playing music at the designated stages.

HBD was snacks, drinks and one piano player. Unless they add more to the "Jazzy Club" portion of the program, it will not improve. Wait service was also incredibly slow. We sat for 20 minutes without getting anything but water and up and left as we wanted to try to experience other party offerings.

Unless they add a ton of extra musicians, decorations and manage the lines better, this party will not improve.

This is spot on. I could have hosted a better cocktail party in my backyard. The Tip Top Club was a joke.

It felt very, very out of place given the way this event was advertised, the brochure, decor, 20's-era vibe. I felt like I was walking into a haunted house and no one was singing along. The title of the show is "What's This?" - that kind of summed up the evening. At one point they sand "This is Halloween" and it may as well have been. The only redeeming aspect was the Jack puppet which was spectacular. If you were looking for an old-Hollywood vibe, this ain't it.

GE was completely empty - it was amazing. I think you can pull this off. I would recommend going to the Muppet show first (it starts on the 45's - 8:45/9:45, etc.) and ends in time for you to hightail it over to Nightmare before Christmas which starts on the 30's (if you do it the other way around, you will have a lot of lag time) We did the 9:45 pm Muppets and 10:30 pm Nightmare and the timing worked well. We did two of the magic shots around 11 pm and had little wait. We then walked around HS until midnight and every ride had about a 5 minute wait.

If they do, I would be miffed as would others who paid full price for this event and got a lot of aggravation and no freebies.


Very minimal waits for the rides on the first night.

Sounds like a lot of those who attended first night are already miffed - plus - as I understand it - are eligible for a refund…I wouldn’t think adding a free little bag of popcorn going forward would make anyone ‘miffter’…