Hi all -
We spent last week in the parks (3/16 - 3/22). Just my experiences/observations that I hope will be helpful.........
1. Magic Bands - We did a split stay between POR & an off-site condo - had no trouble with our MBs at any time. While there are things about FP+ that don't thrill me, the bands are an excellent convenience.
2. Crowds were manageable for the first couple hours each day then got very heavy until much later in the evening. We did what most of you are already doing/planning. We arrived at RD - did as many rides as we could then utilized FP+ either early afternoon or in the evening when we returned to a park after a break to swim/nap. This really did work well.
3. MDE - I didn't have any major problems with the app. There were only a couple times where it locked up, and we did find the wait times to be mostly accurate, which was very helpful to plan which rides to hit next. I agree with other posters who observed that at times the wait times can change drastically very quickly. That was frustrating, but didn't happen too terribly often.
4. FP+ - Ok, the tiering stinks & we miss the days of being able to ride our favorites multiple times - but it is what it is. As far as scheduling the FP+, there were only a couple times where we couldn't get the rides or times we wanted & we mostly did our scheduling the night before or the morning of. It is a pain to change the times - for instance, if you want shift all your FP+s up or down or flip flop the times of your rides, it takes some time, but I was usually able to get the timeframes we wanted. (Also very possible there was a better way to do it that I don't know about.....)
One other observation on FP+......this is purely our experience & I have no data to back it up, but I felt like we waited LESS with FP+ that we used to with FP-. With very few exceptions, our FP+ really did put us near the front of the line.
5. The parks - I agree with other posters that there are some areas that need some sprucing up - the Buzz Lightyear ride at MK is the first example I can think of. In terms of cleanliness, I felt that considering the crowds, the janitorial CMs do the best they can. We saw a lot of them about & working hard, but we also saw a LOT of very inconsiderate guests who left their garbage wherever they felt like it or weren't very respectful in the restrooms. After Fantasmic, we sat for a while to wait for the crowds to clear, and I was saddened at the amount of garbage people left behind.
6. CMs - we had a couple really wonderful encounters with CMs who were friendly, helpful and went out of their way to make our experience great. The ones I noticed that weren't so friendly were the ones working in crowd management, ride loading etc. They weren't overtly rude - they just seemed stressed and sometimes annoyed.
Our family had a really wonderful trip - the kids loved it every bit as much as they always have. DH and I missed some things about the way we used to tour, but on the other hand.....not being able to ride headliners multiple times pushed us to do things we don't usually make time for (best one was letting kids do the passports in EPCOT, which they LOVED!) so that was the silver lining.
Let me know if you have any questions.
We spent last week in the parks (3/16 - 3/22). Just my experiences/observations that I hope will be helpful.........
1. Magic Bands - We did a split stay between POR & an off-site condo - had no trouble with our MBs at any time. While there are things about FP+ that don't thrill me, the bands are an excellent convenience.
2. Crowds were manageable for the first couple hours each day then got very heavy until much later in the evening. We did what most of you are already doing/planning. We arrived at RD - did as many rides as we could then utilized FP+ either early afternoon or in the evening when we returned to a park after a break to swim/nap. This really did work well.
3. MDE - I didn't have any major problems with the app. There were only a couple times where it locked up, and we did find the wait times to be mostly accurate, which was very helpful to plan which rides to hit next. I agree with other posters who observed that at times the wait times can change drastically very quickly. That was frustrating, but didn't happen too terribly often.
4. FP+ - Ok, the tiering stinks & we miss the days of being able to ride our favorites multiple times - but it is what it is. As far as scheduling the FP+, there were only a couple times where we couldn't get the rides or times we wanted & we mostly did our scheduling the night before or the morning of. It is a pain to change the times - for instance, if you want shift all your FP+s up or down or flip flop the times of your rides, it takes some time, but I was usually able to get the timeframes we wanted. (Also very possible there was a better way to do it that I don't know about.....)
One other observation on FP+......this is purely our experience & I have no data to back it up, but I felt like we waited LESS with FP+ that we used to with FP-. With very few exceptions, our FP+ really did put us near the front of the line.
5. The parks - I agree with other posters that there are some areas that need some sprucing up - the Buzz Lightyear ride at MK is the first example I can think of. In terms of cleanliness, I felt that considering the crowds, the janitorial CMs do the best they can. We saw a lot of them about & working hard, but we also saw a LOT of very inconsiderate guests who left their garbage wherever they felt like it or weren't very respectful in the restrooms. After Fantasmic, we sat for a while to wait for the crowds to clear, and I was saddened at the amount of garbage people left behind.
6. CMs - we had a couple really wonderful encounters with CMs who were friendly, helpful and went out of their way to make our experience great. The ones I noticed that weren't so friendly were the ones working in crowd management, ride loading etc. They weren't overtly rude - they just seemed stressed and sometimes annoyed.
Our family had a really wonderful trip - the kids loved it every bit as much as they always have. DH and I missed some things about the way we used to tour, but on the other hand.....not being able to ride headliners multiple times pushed us to do things we don't usually make time for (best one was letting kids do the passports in EPCOT, which they LOVED!) so that was the silver lining.
Let me know if you have any questions.
I just have to say something about this quote above....
