Just returned from WDW and FP+ stinks

[BuckeyeBama]

For the food debate - my wife and I have not eaten a burger at WDW in the last 4-5 trips. We have never struggled to find very good options. WDW now has a number of very tasty salads and wraps to try, and a number of restaurants serve totally different food. If you cannot find an alternative to burgers and chicken strips, you aren't trying.

Now, you may not like the other food options, but that is a totally different discussion. I just know that there are far more healthy options available today than there were 5 years ago. For us, that is a clear improvement.

 

[mom2rtk]

Just popping in to say that we are not looking forward to a future trip using FP+.
We were major FP utilizers and we would pull up to 6-7 a day, as soon as the time on 1 FP said we could pull another, we always did! Not happy that we can only get 4 per day now.
Also now that we've gone to WDW quite a few times we finally started park hopping for our last 2 trips and liked it...I guess we won't be doing that as we can't pull FP's for multiple parks in one day.

We were planning a trip to WDW this Nov. and I told dh and the kids that we're gonna do something else this year. between FP+ and the mine car ride opening this year I figured we'd do DL or DCL instead to avoid any vacation aggravation.
Of course 2 of my crew picked DCL and 6 y.o. ds picked DL as he wants to go to Carsland. Dh said can'tt we just go to WDW??? Then I explained to to him about the FP+ ( I am the vacation planner, he just comes along for the ride)and he agreed with me. Since we already had a dummy cruise date we decided to go with the cruise for my 40th bday in Nov.

We'll save DL for next year or the year after when my youngest is a bit older and can tolerate the long flight from PA to CA better and when we have more $$$ so we can take 2 weeks to explore CA and the surrounding areas. I'm not gonna fly all the way out there just to go to DL and not do anything else, as we've never been west of the Mississippi before.

I also think some people love it as they never used the old FP system, so many people were dumb and thought you had to ppay for it or did not want to invest the time to learn about it...whereas with FP+ Disney is promoting (like on the Mauros' Disney vacay special on Food network this past weekend) and making it a huge deal so it gets people's attention.

You will love DLR next year.

And I hate to break it to you..... but as it exists today, you only get 3 FP+ per day instead of 4. And 2 of the parks are tiered. Just thought you might like to feel more confident in your decision. .

 

[Shaden]

Just popping in to say that we are not looking forward to a future trip using FP+.
We were major FP utilizers and we would pull up to 6-7 a day, as soon as the time on 1 FP said we could pull another, we always did! Not happy that we can only get 4 per day now.

Don't know if this was a typo or not, but you can only get 3

 

[sonofanarchy]

So, you are saying that, a few years ago, one item at Pinocchio's was, in your opinion, not good.

You have no basis on which to say that Pinocchio's (with its revised menu) IS disgusting.

The entree menu is exactly as it was 2 years ago. Disgusting is probably a bit harsh. Worth ever going back to? No. But I've had worse food in my life.

I can't speak for the flatbreads, but I'm almost certain I had a small pizza there a few years back and it was no better than Pizzafari. Shame as when they served burgers, they were quite good. And it's a much nicer setting than either Pecos Bills or Cosmic Rays.

One thing I will give Disney is both their QS and CS are much better (and far more varied) than Universal. Universal QS is practically inedible.

 

[loveysbydesign]

Don't know if this was a typo or not, but you can only get 3

my bad....meant to type 3

 

[ktlm]

Right now I could make dinner reservations for tonight at many places on property INCLUDING: Ohana, Crystal Palace, California Grill, Chef Mickeys and THREE sit downs at Magic Kingdom.

Okay, am I the only one that notices an issue with all of these ADRs being available on the same day, yet the lines for Small World and POTC are 30 minutes each? We are used to walking on those rides as we go in low crowd times, and one time I tried every single day for 2 months to get a Ohana ADR so we could eat with some friends that we found out where going to arrive toward the end of our trip and no luck! This makes me more convinced that the lines are releated to FP+ and not the parks actually being more crowded than usual.

OP- I don't think you were wrong about FP+ giving you times right in the middle of your ADRS. I have seen on these boards that people are saying that the system will not set ADRS within 2 hours of and ADR. That was not our experience at all. For us the system also loved trying to set them in the middle of our ADR, with a nice little notice that it conflicted with an ADR (but you could still set it). I think WDW may be tweaking and changing this back and forth. I know my thought then was- why is it giving me this time if it knows I have an ADR there? BUT, faced with it giving me nothing within 2 hours of an ADR, I'd much prefer it give me the bad options it did during the ADR which I could just reject.

Since this thread seems to have gone way off on a CS food tangent- I'll throw my 2 cents in. I do absolutely think that on the whole, DL CS is much better than WDW. As example- here are photos of DH and my CS meal on Pacific Wharf in California Adventure park.

My Fire grilled Citrus Chicken:



DH's Chicken Tamales:



As far as MK, we've always thought the CS there was pretty bad until BOG. We think BOG is great! Also, I know people generally think DHS CS is bad and I've heard lots of people criticize the ABS Commissary, but we really like the salads at the ABC Commissary.

 

[hsmamato2]

we ate at Pinnochios once.... can't say we'll ever go back there again.... but there are tons of other good options,so I'm not worried!
on the FP+ thing....that does concern me,I think it will diminish the fun factor for our family by a LOT. Don't know yet how it will impact our future trips, but I guess we'll take things as they come along.
(personally,I felt like ddp was too much to plan, forget every single ride of every day...no thank you)

 

[loveysbydesign]

we ate at Pinnochios once.... can't say we'll ever go back there again.... but there are tons of other good options,so I'm not worried!
on the FP+ thing....that does concern me,I think it will diminish the fun factor for our family by a LOT. Don't know yet how it will impact our future trips, but I guess we'll take things as they come along.
(personally,I felt like ddp was too much to plan, forget every single ride of every day...no thank you)

ITA about it diminishing the fun.
Now that 6 y.o. ds is old enough/tall enough to love the coasters sometimes we'd pull 2-3 FP just for Space or BtMRR or EE along with the other FP rides in each park. Heck at MK we pulled 10 FP's one day! Plus if one park is mobbed and we change our park mid-day we're screwed.

 

[KatieCharlotte]

Okay, am I the only one that notices an issue with all of these ADRs being available on the same day, yet the lines for Small World and POTC are 30 minutes each? We are used to walking on those rides as we go in low crowd times, and one time I tried every single day for 2 months to get a Ohana ADR so we could eat with some friends that we found out where going to arrive toward the end of our trip and no luck! This makes me more convinced that the lines are releated to FP+ and not the parks actually being more crowded than usual.

I really want some expert analysis on the lines at PotC, HM, IASW, maybe Jungle Cruise and Buzz -- what effect FP+ is having and what kinds of lines we might see in early April. Anyone want to study the wait times and give your opinions?

Regarding food -- My family has pretty low standards for theme park food, but we've never had any complaints at Disney. Part of that might be our hunger level. The BOG lunch menu looks delicious to me, but not to my pizza/chicken strip loving family. I enjoy Sunshine Seasons salads and the fish at CHH. I appreciate the kids' meal sides and the free ice water, since my kids are not soda drinkers.

 

[wisblue]

The entree menu is exactly as it was 2 years ago. Disgusting is probably a bit harsh. Worth ever going back to? No. But I've had worse food in my life.

I can't speak for the flatbreads, but I'm almost certain I had a small pizza there a few years back and it was no better than Pizzafari. Shame as when they served burgers, they were quite good. And it's a much nicer setting than either Pecos Bills or Cosmic Rays.

One thing I will give Disney is both their QS and CS are much better (and far more varied) than Universal. Universal QS is practically inedible.

I have never had a flatbread at Pinocchio's, but two of my adult daughters really like them. I know that I enjoyed my Caesar salad with grilled chicken while sitting at a table waving to the people on the boats on Small World.

Like a lot of things, this is, in the most literal sense possible, a matter of taste.

 

[robinb]

I can't speak for the flatbreads, but I'm almost certain I had a small pizza there a few years back and it was no better than Pizzafari. Shame as when they served burgers, they were quite good. And it's a much nicer setting than either Pecos Bills or Cosmic Rays.

The flatbread is different now that the pizza at Pizzabarfi. BUT it needs to be hot. I ordered the pizza and it was nasty and stone cold so I swapped it out and it was actually quite good IMO.

 

[wisblue]

I really want some expert analysis on the lines at PotC, HM, IASW, maybe Jungle Cruise and Buzz -- what effect FP+ is having and what kinds of lines we might see in early April. Anyone want to study the wait times and give your opinions?

If you want expert and objective information, I don't think you're going to get it here.

Long before FP+ these boards would contain wildly conflicting reports about crowds in the same park on the same day. Including comments like "I'm never coming in early September again. It used to be quiet but now it's insanely crowded". Even while the touring plan sites report that the crowds were a level 1 or 2.

It's the same now with respect to how crowds, standby waits, and FP return lines are. Now there are even disputes about whether the wait times posted at the rides are consistent with the wait times posted on MDE and whether those wait times are generally overstated or grossly understated.

I think the best you're going to do is follow something like easywdw and see what they have to say. I don't think Josh is going to try to sugarcoat anything or go out of his way to bash FP+. He recently updated his "cheat sheets" that provide estimated wait times for the attractions at different times of the day for different park crowds:

http://www.easywdw.com/category/cheat-sheets/

I'm sure he will be continuing to watch this closely to see if he detects any noticeable trends.

 

[ethanwa]

I have one comment:

FP+ is the new way it's being done for the long foreseeable future. It's not going back to the old way. Get used to it or stop going to Disney. Pretty simple.

 

[sonofanarchy]

I have one comment:

FP+ is the new way it's being done for the long foreseeable future. It's not going back to the old way. Get used to it or stop going to Disney. Pretty simple.

And there's the good ole American spirit - If you don't like something, don't speak up or try and change it. Just give up!

 

[Shaden]

I have one comment:

FP+ is the new way it's being done for the long foreseeable future. It's not going back to the old way. Get used to it or stop going to Disney. Pretty simple.

And there's the good ole American spirit - If you don't like something, don't speak up or try and change it. Just give up!

SoA for the win on that one.

 

[DebbieB]

I have one comment: FP+ is the new way it's being done for the long foreseeable future. It's not going back to the old way. Get used to it or stop going to Disney. Pretty simple.

It's not going back to the old way but hopefully now that the "old way" is gone, they can make changes to FP+ to make it work better. I don't buy that it's not going to change.

 

[jeneric997]

We usually do TS for a few lunches in the park. Is there a rule about FP+ and ADRs? I thought I heard 1 hour before and 2 hours after? If that is the case, it's another strike against FP+ for us. Or we could stop spending so much on TS and just leave the parks.

The more I think about our experience with FP+, MBs, MDE, the more I know why I didn't love it. I don't need Disney to think for me! I remember using the kiosk for the first time and getting so frustrated with their "options" and the fact that I couldn't just pick the ride I wanted when I wanted to ride it. The interface was frustrating!

The tracking of me, really bothers me too. Does Disney really need to know what I ate at Pecos Bill's at 1:17pm? Or that I had 3 Dole Whips on my last trip? Unless they are going to sell my bad eating habits to my health insurance company, why does it matter!

 

[Mad Hattered]

How did I miss that!

You have a picture for everything, don't you!

You weren't paying attention, mom! And yes, I do have a picture for everything. I take A LOT of them. I even take pics of the food I cook(as seen there). I started doing that long before there was a Disney food porn thread. I also have a bad habit of collecting horror movie memorabilia. Psssst....that hockey mask and hood (that is not my real head ) I am wearing comes directly from the Friday the 13th Part 3 movie mold.

Still not digging FP+, just for the record.

 

[mom2rtk]

You weren't paying attention, mom! And yes, I do have a picture for everything. I take A LOT of them. I even take pics of the food I cook(as seen there). I started doing that long before there was a Disney food porn thread. I also have a bad habit of collecting horror movie memorabilia. Psssst....that hockey mask and hood (that is not my real head ) I am wearing comes directly from the Friday the 13th Part 3 movie mold.

Still not digging FP+, just for the record.

It makes sense now. You posted that long after my bedtime. I have to be up early every day for rope drop...... uh...... to get my daughter off to school.

And you didn't need to post those photos to prove that some here find you scary!

So clarifying your stance on FP+. I had you down as a "maybe".

 

[shalom]

The interface was frustrating!

It looked like a royal pain on the walkthrough Josh did on EasyWDW.

Not that this was exactly unexpected, going on their past history. A reservations system where they don't try to steer you somewhere you don't want to go? Inconceivable!