Just back...kinda disappointed

[cakebaker]

My view is, if you are using FP for a show or parade you shouldnt have to wait that long or race with the crowds to get a good seat. For example, we had FP for the Lion King Festival show. We lined up and waited and then when they let us in, people raced across the performance area to get seats, people literally ran, and some of my party had to sit several rows back from the rest o f us because people filled in around us and we didnt get seats together.

Sorry for your bad experiences.

With FOTLK, I'm surprised. As I recall our experiences with this- we were directed where to sit with absolutely no running. It's a huge place and I can't imagine seats filling in so fast that 6 people couldn't either all sit in one row or at least in 2 rows directly behind each other. That must've been a really crowded show if just the FP+ guests filled it that quickly. Everything I've read says FP+ isn't really needed- maybe I should reconsider that!

 

[Karin1984]

Just got back from a week visit (May 1 - May 8).

I do agree that it was more crowded than I had expected

I was there the same time as you(May 2-May 9)

we went the same dates.

Out of curiosity, as you all travelled in the same period and the crowd experiences are different, may I ask which park you visited on which day?

 

[BarrettDSP]

Sorry for your bad experiences.

With FOTLK, I'm surprised. As I recall our experiences with this- we were directed where to sit with absolutely no running. It's a huge place and I can't imagine seats filling in so fast that 6 people couldn't either all sit in one row or at least in 2 rows directly behind each other. That must've been a really crowded show if just the FP+ guests filled it that quickly. Everything I've read says FP+ isn't really needed- maybe I should reconsider that!

We got lucky and parked our stroller about 2 mins before the show started and a CM saw us walking to the entrance and stopped us and asked us if we would like to sit up front and led us in through the exit and we sat on the 2nd row. The seats said reserved on them so I guess these were FP+ that didnt get filled. Seats were pretty full though except for the reserved rows.

 

[BarrettDSP]

Out of curiosity, as you all travelled in the same period and the crowd experiences are different, may I ask which park you visited on which day?

May 2-MK
May 3-HS
May 4-AK
May 5-MK
May 6-EP than walked to Beach Club and caught bus to DTD
May 7-EP
May 8-HS
May 9-MK

 

[cakebaker]

We got lucky and parked our stroller about 2 mins before the show started and a CM saw us walking to the entrance and stopped us and asked us if we would like to sit up front and led us in through the exit and we sat on the 2nd row. The seats said reserved on them so I guess these were FP+ that didnt get filled. Seats were pretty full though except for the reserved rows.

Lucky you! I can see it being filled right before the show starts, it almost always has been when we went too. I'm just really surprised it would be so full with only FP+ guests that they couldn't all sit together.

 

[MainMom]

Just got back from a week visit (May 1 - May 8). We had 4 adults in our party and two preschoolers, so while we visited all parks we focused on preschooler activities. First of all, I know that Disney is expensive, and while I can afford the trip, I just didn't think it was a good value at all for what we experienced. Considering we were spending over $500 a day just in park admission, I felt underwhelmed at the experience. We specifically went at this time because crowds were said to be lower, we even went to specific parks on the days the crowds there were expected to be lower. But it was crowded. We felt like we couldn't do much more than our 3 fast passes because we didn't want to wait for 40 to 60 min in line. Also, getting additional fastpasses was annoying because of the limited availability of kiosks in which to do this. Sometimes I didnt have a choice in FP times, so my 3rd fastpass was for 4pm. That means I had to wait until after that to get a 4th one, but someone else could be on their 8th by that point. Doesnt seem fair. Also the selection was pretty poor for additional fastpasses anyway. My main problem with the FP is when we used them for shows or parades. We still had to get their early and wait in order to get a good seat. My view is, if you are using FP for a show or parade you shouldnt have to wait that long or race with the crowds to get a good seat. For example, we had FP for the Lion King Festival show. We lined up and waited and then when they let us in, people raced across the performance area to get seats, people literally ran, and some of my party had to sit several rows back from the rest o f us because people filled in around us and we didnt get seats together. Why cant this be orderly? We got there, we lined up? Did we really have to RUN across to get seats? Another point is when booking fastpasses we didnt have much time selection, even though I did it at 1am on the day I could book, so we had to walk across parks to get from one thing to the next. Also the other thing that bothered me was the seating, if I am paying 100 for a so-so lunch I at least expect to have seating, more than once I would had to wait for seating to open up, and then scramble to try to find enough chairs. the tables were often dirty too. Overall the kids enjoyed the trip, so that is what counts, I just felt like the whole trip was hurry up and wait, or race around trying to get seats.

What was your overall strategy? Rope drop? Sleep in arrive at 10 & leave before the parade? Arrive after lunch & stay late? When did you book your FP?

 

[jmkjr72]

All I can say is we were just there 2nd to the 10th and except for the last 2 full days the 8th and 9th the only 3 things we needed fp for was tsm 7 dwarf and a/e when I made the fp the only one we couldn't get a better time on was a/e
heck on our dhs day we even swapped 1 fp that we almost missed for a later time on tot and the only reason we fp it was my fiance was very nervous about riding it and didn't want a 15 or 20 min line

seating can be the down side to doing counter service is the seating

 

[jas80]

I stayed on site. But if you book FP for the parades, you do not have any option in time, the Festival of Fantasy parade was at 3 I think.. I basically dont think FP for parades are worth it anymore, I thought it meant you could get there later, and then have a good view, if I have to still get there 45 min early and wait in the heat, I might as well just sit on another curb and wait without a FP

Why did you think you needed to show up 45 minutes early for FoF and other parade FPs? The window on parade FPs opens up 30 minutes before the parade time and "closes" 10 minutes before the parade time. Also, I would imagine that even if you were to show up "at" the parade start time (which is still before the parade even reaches the FP viewing spot), you would still be allowed in.

 

[DisneyDizzy]

We also just got back. Honestly, it was the best vacation. I did NOT want to come home. I thought MK felt crowded but other than Anna and Elsa and the Mine train, I never thought waits were bad at all. It seemed like if it was truly crowded, people weren't riding. We had a Be Our Guest breakfast and they let us on Mine Train before park opening and we rode 3 times in a row! Then had a fastpass later in the day. It was awesome. That was Friday. We were in MK the 3rd, HS for May the 4th, Epcot (5th), MK (6th), Epcot (7th), MK (8th) We only did the 3 parks because my daughter is almost 5 and this was her trip to be a Princess. She had BBB with a Castle Dinner on Wednesday and Anna and Elsa meet and great after that. We got less done that day from waiting. But really we did SO much. We walked on Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain and Splash a couple of times on Friday morning. Pirates always seemed to be between 5 and 15 minutes when we were over that way. May the 4th at Hollywood Studios was my least favorite day. It was so crowded but nothing really special going on. My daughter AND husband got to do Jedi TRaining Academy though so that was truly a highlight of our trip.

All in all for us it was an amazing week! I did feel it was crowded but wait times weren't bad. The end of the week was HOT though. I thought we'd hate FastPass+ but we ended up loving it. We moved our fastpasses around several times and had no trouble doing so. The tiering at Epcot was my big complaint. Other than that...it was great. But also, I spent 6 months planning and tweaking. And forcing my family (8 people - 6 adults and 2 kids) to get up and moving and on the bus at what they thought were unreasonable hours in the morning but it was worth it. We had lots of afternoon down time to shop the stores, and I booked 5:00 dinner all week which turned out to be the perfect time to sit in the AC and enjoy a meal.

 

[itchin2go]

If you don't plan accordingly, you will not get to do everything you would like to do. Our first visit, we had no idea what to expect and didn't plan ahead. We literally wandered around trying to figure out what to do and the lines were so long that we didn't get to do very much. Download the extra magic hours for each park for the duration of your stay, make a list of all of the attractions you don't want to miss, and secure a fast pass for those attractions. You will thank yourself later.

I agree and disagree with the above. You must plan, yes, but if your plan includes rope drop, you can get tons of stuff done without FPs and without long lines. I am told staying till the wee hours is similar (but I will probably never find out personally ).

So, "plan" doesn't have to mean your schedule is mapped out to the second 60 days out.

I would make your FPs as soon as possible, but if you wake up and want to go to a different park, that's not out of the question.

 

[Squidgyness]

It might be worthwhile to repeat a distinction.

Disney used to take only knowledge, not planning, to get enjoyment. You could still spontaneously decide on a park or area of a park as long as you had the knowledge of fastpass, which rides got popular when and which routes could save you time etc. it might not be the most optimum usage of time, but it was still more efficient than the results you would get today just using knowledge, a lot more.

We never planned, in the sense of picking rides/parks in advance, but wherever we chose to go we used our knowledge to aid us, and yes that resulted in some compromises but there was no need to ever pick parks in advance or schedule rides.

 

[Astridia]

It might be worthwhile to repeat a distinction.

Disney used to take only knowledge, not planning, to get enjoyment. You could still spontaneously decide on a park or area of a park as long as you had the knowledge of fastpass, which rides got popular when and which routes could save you time etc. it might not be the most optimum usage of time, but it was still more efficient than the results you would get today just using knowledge, a lot more.

We never planned, in the sense of picking rides/parks in advance, but wherever we chose to go we used our knowledge to aid us, and yes that resulted in some compromises but there was no need to ever pick parks in advance or schedule rides.

This is what I miss. It's really difficult to plan your day based on people's whims. We were there with first timers on the last trip, and I tried scheduling FP+ based on what I thought they would enjoy. The problem was when they saw something interesting that caught their attention, I didn't have the heart to tell them that we had a ride appointment so we had to move along. So we missed our FP+ reservations and ended up in some long SB lines. Oh well, I wanted the trip to be about what they wanted to do, not about what I thought they should do.

IMO you have to make a choice between being spontaneous and being in longer SB lines, or adhering to a schedule.

 

[Austintatious]

Hopefully I'll never feel the need to, but if I do I'm going to think twice before I ever post a not-so-good trip report. According to several posters many of the things the op was disappointed with could have been avoided if her expectations were lower, they had done better research, and they planned a lot more.

 

[subtchr]

Hopefully I'll never feel the need to, but if I do I'm going to think twice before I ever post a not-so-good trip report. According to several posters many of the things the op was disappointed with could have been avoided if her expectations were lower, they had done better research, and they planned a lot more.

So, your point is that if someone posts anything negative, no one should respond, for the sake of others reading, how those disappointments could have been mitigated? I thought that was one of the purposes of this board?

Of course, everyone should be respectful and constructive, but it seems to me that people have been so on this thread.

 

[larryz]

Hopefully I'll never feel the need to, but if I do I'm going to think twice before I ever post a not-so-good trip report. According to several posters many of the things the op was disappointed with could have been avoided if her expectations were lower, they had done better research, and they planned a lot more.

You should never feel intimidated out of posting your observations, just because some people post suggestions on how they might have done it.

It's like the little ol' lady in the grocery store line, who, having observed you buying ribs, barbeque sauce and lemons, will insist on sharing with you her secret family recipe for barbeque ribs.

You can listen, or not. Your choice.

 

[Austintatious]

You should never feel intimidated out of posting your observations, just because some people post suggestions on how they might have done it.

It's like the little ol' lady in the grocery store line, who, having observed you buying ribs, barbeque sauce and lemons, will insist on sharing with you her secret family recipe for barbeque ribs.

You can listen, or not. Your choice.

Maybe I didn't word that properly - it's not that I would feel intimidated, I would need to think twice because there seem to be many reasons why it could be my fault I felt that way.

 

[Austintatious]

So, your point is that if someone posts anything negative, no one should respond, for the sake of others reading, how those disappointments could have been mitigated? I thought that was one of the purposes of this board?

Of course, everyone should be respectful and constructive, but it seems to me that people have been so on this thread.

See above.

 

[bwang123]

Out of curiosity, as you all travelled in the same period and the crowd experiences are different, may I ask which park you visited on which day?

5/2 - MK
5/3 - AK
5/4 - AK > EP > HS
5/5 - MK
5/6 - EP
5/7 - EP > MK
5/8 - HS > EP

 

[itchin2go]

Hopefully I'll never feel the need to, but if I do I'm going to think twice before I ever post a not-so-good trip report. According to several posters many of the things the op was disappointed with could have been avoided if her expectations were lower, they had done better research, and they planned a lot more.

So, your point is that if someone posts anything negative, no one should respond, for the sake of others reading, how those disappointments could have been mitigated? I thought that was one of the purposes of this board?

Of course, everyone should be respectful and constructive, but it seems to me that people have been so on this thread.

I *get* both of these points. My initial (internal) response to the OP's post was, "Oh, he/she didn't know you could change the FP times the system spit out at first," and, "Oh, it seems no (or minimal) lines were anticipated, and that's almost never the case. Did OP use rope drop?". So I *get* the PP's responses, but I also feel like sometimes it starts to feel like OPs get beaten up in this kind of thread.

If we're doing things right, we need to walk a fine line between beating people up for not knowing EVERYTHING and doing EVERYTHING perfectly, and deconstructing some of these experiences to see what we (and the OP) can learn from them to do things better in the future.

Even when people are not being overtly ugly, it starts to feel like "piling on" at some point.

 

[Chrelaine]

We travelled from 5/2-5/9 and it was more crowded than we had expected (We didn't have anything to really compare it to. First trip as adults). We had just thought 5/10 would be a little less crowded. We still did everything we wanted with some waits. We waited 45 for PP and 30 for Soarin', 40 for Buzz (Never would have but the sign said 25 when we went in) and for some reason, the Carousel in MK took FOREVER!
We never had trouble finding a table to eat at. FP+ wasn't perfect but we made do. We had FP+ for MSEP so we only utilized 3 that day. We worked it out and found that FP worth it as my DD4 could have almost touched the floats. Yes, you did have to get there early. I won't use a FP+ for a show again because I felt they weren't of any particular advantage. They were a waste at this crowd level. I assume they are useful when the parks are more crowded. We followed easywdw suggestions although we may not have picked the MOST preferred park each day:

5/3 DHS/AM EP/PM
5/4 AK
5/5 MK
5/7 EP
5/8 MK

Overall we weren't disappointed. There were things we would change but most things worked out according to our research. The only thing we couldn't predict was what the crowd level would feel like. Now, we know