Just back. Some good, bad, and ugly notes from my recent trip

[RalphinSC]

Just back from a nine day trip and our first with MagicBands. Enjoyed every park at least once, including both water parks. Here are a few observations, grouped accordingly to the title. Overall, I'd say it was a good trip and I'll gladly go back again. Some items will be grouped into multiple categories because of different aspects of them

The Good

MagicBands. I really enjoyed using them throughout the trip. They worked for our rooms, charging, and fastpasses. They worked without fail on room access and charging and there were only minor issues on the park and fastpass scanners, all of which were quickly resolved by a castmember on standby (by quickly, I mean within 15 seconds). Disney is getting the hang of this and things worked smoothly for us.

Memory Maker, linking and ride photos. I went on an extended family trip and my brother purchased a Memory Maker package and linked it to us. We ended up with over 300 photos from the trip, including all the ride photos. The newly rolled out RFID transmitters for the ride photos worked wonderfully. You never had to stop and identify a picture, it just automatically loaded to you memory maker. The only pictures we had to manually load were our Jedi Training Academy pictures and our Star Wars Galactic Breakfast pictures. All photopass photographers had RFID scanners with them so they could link your pictures to your band. Worked like a charm.

Commando touring. It's still alive and well. I was worried about this with Fastpass plus and limiting fastpasses. Well, even as busy as it was, we rode multiple rides and we pulled multiple extra fastpasses with a hiccup that I'll note in the ugly section.

My first two hours in the Magic Kingdom on June 7 was pretty much a roll call for quick touring with Fastpass plus help. 1. Sapce Mountain, first train. 2. Buzz Lightyear walk-on 3. Space Mountain fastpass (avoided 10minute wait) 4. Peter Pan, 8 minute wait 5. Big Thunder Mountain, walk on 6. Haunted Mansion, 10 minute wait (only because the ride was stopped for 8 of those minutes) 7. Seven Dwarves Mine Train, Fastpass (wait was posted at 105 minutes) 8. Little Mermaid, walk on. 9. Splash Mountain, fastpass.

To recap, in the first two hours you can hit the four longest lines (and one of them twice) using fastpass+ and be into pulling your fourth fastpass. We ended up pulling eight fastpasses that day. The three pre-selected (Space, Seven Dwarves, and Splash; plus Jungle Cruise, Pirates, Splash, Space, and Splash again.

At Hollywood Studios, we 1.Signed kids up at Jedi Training Academy 2.Toy Story Mania, 8 minute wait 3. Tower of Terror, 5 minute wait 4. Rock n Roller Coaster, fastpass 5.Tower of Terror fastpass 6. Voyage of the Little Mermaid 7.Star Tours 8.Star Tours fastpass 9pulled the 4th fastpass for Rock n Roller coaster. Ended up pulling another fastpass for Tower of terror and Star Tours that day and also watched Indy, Lights, Motors, Action, and Fantasmic. You can still very much ride what you want as long as you move quick and tour wisely.

Pop Century. We have grown to really love this resort! We got upgraded to a preferred room in the 50's that was so short a walk from the main hall that you didn't even need an umbrella when it was raining.

Feel the Force Fireworks Dessert party. IMO, an EXCELLENT value with one really big exception noted in the Ugly. But the dessert party itself was wonderful. The selection was great, the desserts inspired, and the UNLIMITED adult beverages were wonderful and made the value better than any other dessert party I had ever booked through Disney. We loved it and would gladly book it again in a heartbeat.

The Kitchen Sink at Beaches and Cream: I beat you. Best dinner I had the whole trip. Definitely worth the challenge.

The Bad

Seven Dwarves Mine Train reliability. We were pretty lucky with our fastpass windows as we caught the ride running. But it spent a LOT of time down while we were at the Magic Kingdom during our trip. On Wednesday, June 11th, some storms rolled through at about 3pm that shut down all the usual outdoor rides. After the weather cleared out, everything came back online, except the Mine Train. Not sure of the final resolution, but it was still off-line when I last walked by it a 8:30pm that night, a full 4 hours after every other ride came back up. And yes, there were people still standing in line hoping to have a "short" wait as soon as it re-opened.

Aloha Isle. Yeah, Dole Whip central. You'd think with as popular as it is, Disney would maybe expand it beyond a little nook to accommodate more traffic. I love Dole Whips. But I balked at getting in line FOUR different times during this trip because it was a looooong, hot line. I still did get two of them, but that second one must of been made by a miser, because it only had about half of the pineapple soft serve that usually comes with a Dole Whip.

The Ugly

That one smell. Well, that upgraded room at Pop came with a cost, I guess. Outside of the room, it basically smelled like raw sewage. As best I could tell, it was something in the bushes (smelled like a discarded diaper or worse). The smell never cleared during our eight day trip, we just hustled as quickly as we could through the area.

Feel the Force premium parade viewing. First, the viewing area for this was not that great. Only a few spots for adults are truly excellent without having to stand behind someone. We had gotten one of those few spots on June 13th when something Disney has absolutely no control over happened, a big line of storms rolled through, cancelling the parade a few minutes before it stepped off. Not Disney's fault. But the thing I found lacking in this was their recovery, a passed out coupon for one popcorn and soda for each attendee. I just thought it was a weak attempt from a company that is great in guest recovery. The dessert party certainly cleared out all my bad feelings on it, but for a while there that Friday I was not in a very good mood. Maybe a better fallback plan next time. I know it's picky and probably not worth being labeled as ugly.

My Disney Experience: This is where the new technology and the Magicbands failed us, it it ALMOST got very ugly (more so for my brother than for me). Our first hint of a problem came on our first park day, when we went to book a 4th Fastpass. I scanned my band and my brother showed up in my party. But he did NOT show up as being linked to his family.

This caused delays and frustration at booking our fourth fastpass. Well, whoever he talked to there somehow re-linked him to his family but unlinked me from my family and to his. So now I cannot book fastpasses at Kiosks with my family, we have to do it as two separate groups. and I can book fastpasses for my brother's family AND my Uncle's family now . So this has devolved into madness as everyone has to be really careful who they are selecting for fastpasses and I cannot make fastpasses for my own family in conjunction with me.

Well this is a problem for guest relations, right? We went to town hall in the MK and our situation promted a look, then a phone call, then ANOTHER phone call; and finally an admission of "well we can't fix this." HUH? I spent the entire trip having to manual;ly separate myself from either my brother or my uncle's party each time I used a MagicBand to reserve a fastpass, and I had to book my wife and son separately from myself. And THEY> COULD. NOT. FIX. IT.

But it almost get's really ugly. My brother enjoyed his first trip. He was only down for a few days but gets home and immediately goes to book another trip. He buys tickets. Can you guess who he buys tickets for through his My Disney Experience account? I had been tied to his reservation in such a way that it counted me as his immediate family and included me in the ticket purchase.

He ended up calling tech support and actually got a legitimate answer. IN MDE, our reservations had gotten tied through the "Friends and Family" section so we could plan together and co-ordinate fastpass times. Well, somehow it ended up linking us as immediate family and tied our reservations so closely together that I showed up linked to his band (the same with my uncle). They could pull it up manually and see we had different reservations, but for some reason, they could not separate the bands in the parks. Just my little horror story. ended up costing us a good hour or two of time and lots of headache with no real resolution. My brother did get me kicked off of his December trip though so at least that got resolved.

Downtown Disney: The place is just a mess right now. I'm sure it will be wonderful after it's all done and we spent two nights down there so it didn't chase us away. But the crowds and the parking are insane (more crowded than any park we went to, easily). A for goodness sake, I know the Lego store just expanded a few years ago, but it is way too small for the horde of people that are always there. LOL!





But even with the Ugly things, I really enjoyed the trip. I had a great time and if I could afford it, I'd be buying up Poly DVC and annual passes.

Any questions, ask away and I'll be glad to try and help

 

[BridgetBordeaux]

Will be going in July.................about what time most days did you pull the 4th FP and how long was the wait at the kiosk?

 

[fbb]

Any questions, ask away and I'll be glad to try and help

My dog likes to chew on my iPad. I realize she's probably overqualified, but if you could put her in touch with Disney IT, she could make some positive changes.

 

[RalphinSC]

My dog likes to chew on my iPad. I realize she's probably overqualified, but if you could put her in touch with Disney IT, she could make some positive changes.

 

[dreamit]

I'm happy to hear you had a great trip, and thank you for sharing the details! Your success with reserving additional FP+ is making me rethink my plan for my upcoming trip. I had been thinking to just book my initial three for times throughout the day or for the afternoon, without a plan to reserve a fourth (or more). Now I think it may be worthwhile to book the initial three for the morning, providing an easier opportunity to obtain additional FP+.

 

[RalphinSC]

Will be going in July.................about what time most days did you pull the 4th FP and how long was the wait at the kiosk?

We scheduled our first three Fastpasses at park opening each day so we were typically pulling our fourth fastpass by 11:45am for a 9am opening. In the Magic Kingdom, avoid the Kiosk by the Diamond Horseshoe at your peril! That line was consistently longer than any other line I got into the entire week. The longest I waited for a Kiosk the whole week was ten minutes at the Diamond Horseshoe, often much less.

 

[RalphinSC]

I'm happy to hear you had a great trip, and thank you for sharing the details! Your success with reserving additional FP+ is making me rethink my plan for my upcoming trip. I had been thinking to just book my initial three for times throughout the day or for the afternoon, without a plan to reserve a fourth (or more). Now I think it may be worthwhile to book the initial three for the morning, providing an easier opportunity to obtain additional FP+.

Just be wary that at Epcot and Hollywood Studios, they often run out of fastpasses for the big attractions. Fastpasses were very plentiful in the Magic Kingdom, but in Epcot when I went to pull my 4th at 11:30, everything was gone except for Maelstrom and Captain EO. And Maelstrom had nothing available until the mid afternoon. At Hollywood Studios, Toy Story Mania and Rock n Roller Coaster run out by early afternoon and Tower of Terror is not long after. You can pull a Fantasmic Fastpass at virtually anytime though, so you really don't need to worry about any waiting in line to see that.

 

[jedi jen]

Thanks for the great report. We are going Christmas and I have not done the FP+ yet. We do RD touring, so I am planning on using the same plan as you....FP scheduled for morning and pulling more FPs if available. Glad you had a great time dispite the technical difficulties. They sounded like they could be pretty frustrating having to wrangle with the FP assignments.

 

[AmyB2006]

Thanks for the report!! Very informative.

Probably a dead animal outside your room. Eewwwww

 

[illinidp]

Will be going in July.................about what time most days did you pull the 4th FP and how long was the wait at the kiosk?

We were usually making our fourth and subsequent selections starting in the afternoon in a different park. The waits at the kiosks were usually not bad. Look for either large banks of kiosks or ones out of the way (such as the back gate at EPCOT) and remember where they are. The app will show you where the kiosks are as well. EX - the bank at the tip board at HS usually has a fairly long line so it's better to use a different bank if you can.

There was usually availability for most attractions at that time, though if you are booking at 1pm and the only opening for, say, Space Mountain is 11:30-12:30 you might want to go a different route and just walk on the headliner at that time, just like under the old system. The two headliners at each park have very limited availability for extra FP+ selections. Once in a while you will get lucky with snatching up somebody else's cancellation, so it's worth checking what's available each time you have an opening.

 

[RalphinSC]

Thanks for the report!! Very informative.

Probably a dead animal outside your room. Eewwwww

Hoping it was something like a vent for a sewer line. At least then they couldn't really be faulted for not cleaning it up. The smell was at the end of 50's building 1, closest to the Classic Hall. You just had to move by there swiftly. I did smell the mythical sewage smell at MouseGear too. This one was worse.

(geez, I'm ranking bad smells now, lolol)

 

[jwsqrdplus2]

The Bad

Seven Dwarves Mine Train reliability. We were pretty lucky with our fastpass windows as we caught the ride running. But it spent a LOT of time down while we were at the Magic Kingdom during our trip. On Wednesday, June 11th, some storms rolled through at about 3pm that shut down all the usual outdoor rides. After the weather cleared out, everything came back online, except the Mine Train. Not sure of the final resolution, but it was still off-line when I last walked by it a 8:30pm that night, a full 4 hours after every other ride came back up. And yes, there were people still standing in line hoping to have a "short" wait as soon as it re-opened.

Totally agree with this. That was our only MK day. Our FP+ were for 3:15-4:15. We finally got to ride around 9pm. We were the "crash test dummies" after about 15 empty trains!

 

[Missymouse18]

Thanks for sharing! Sounds like your "bad" wasn't so terrible Glad you had a good time. And BTW, POP is our favorite resort, also!

 

[Planogirl]

That smell could have been fresh fertilizer. Did you smell it in other parts of the resort? We've stayed at Disney resorts where they put some out and the smell just about knocks you over.

Thanks for the review.

 

[Pkltm]

Thanks for sharing, great to hear they are working out the bands!!!

 

[boltfan]

It's great to hear how many extra FP's you were able to get after the first 3. Makes me a little more optimistic for our trip in November.

 

[Mariep26]

Re: the smell. I have caught a whiff of it while on Disney property a few times and it reminds me of the sewer smell that you get on the Vegas strip. I think that when we build up these huge buildings/infrastructure on wetlands/marsh/desert (i.e. not completely ideal building areas) when things like sewer are overtaxed it quickly becomes an obvious issue. Sorry that you were on the receiving end of it

Thanks for the review on MB and FP+. Our trip in October will be our first with FP+ but our second with MB so I am hoping our trip is as successful as yours!

 

[RalphinSC]

That smell could have been fresh fertilizer. Did you smell it in other parts of the resort? We've stayed at Disney resorts where they put some out and the smell just about knocks you over.

Thanks for the review.

Could of been if it was very "organic" fertilizer. It was only confined to that small area near the bushes at the end of building 1. There are some plumbing fittings on that end of the building, which led me to the possibility of sewer gas. It was definitely very localized and it didn't go away over the eight days we were at Pop.

 

[RalphinSC]

It's great to hear how many extra FP's you were able to get after the first 3. Makes me a little more optimistic for our trip in November.

Just remember, pulling extras works great at the Magic Kingdom and to a lesser extent, Hollywood Studios. Not so great at Epcot and Animal Kingdom.

 

[Planogirl]

Could of been if it was very "organic" fertilizer. It was only confined to that small area near the bushes at the end of building 1. There are some plumbing fittings on that end of the building, which led me to the possibility of sewer gas. It was definitely very localized and it didn't go away over the eight days we were at Pop.

Yes, it being localized probably means that it was due to the pipes in that area. Ugh, I would hate that!