Long lines and lots of trash

[ems909]

For the first time in 18 years, I am not looking forward to my trip in a couple of weeks. This report is just another nail in the Disney coffin. Disney set its own bar high with the way the customer is treated and the way the parks are run. It is what people expect the Disney vacation experience to be and what they spend the extra dollar to get. Now it is just profit first and do more with less to include maintenance and staff. The lack of staff, dogs, security checks, spiraling prices, up charges everywhere you turn and now charging for parking, did Disney hire a former airline exec to run its parks? It is beginning to look like the Disney experience is turning into a do it yourself vacation. Go online schedule everything from check in to fast passes, you get the feeling they just don't want to deal with you as long as you spend a boatload of money.

A lot of truth in your post!!

 

[Ksdisney22]

A lot of truth in your post!!

I can also add that i have been at dl when the park has actually had to close for capacity. Who remembers those days in the 90s!

Still at navi. We are close enough to the merge to count. It's about 100 fp to 10 or so regular making up the fast passes from this am hurts but this can definitely improve.

Hopefully our luck turns. Still have two more days.

 

[AngiTN]

My theory is that Disney is cutting staff amd ride capacity to appear busier than they actually are so they can justify the price increases. The Dis Team have been speculating on this since the ticket prices and plans for tiered pricing on multi-day tickets were announced.

That doesn't make more people appear in the parks so I call bunk to their theory. The parks are busier. There are more bodies in the parks. That doesn't mean they aren't also cutting staff and ride capacity, I'm not saying that I'm saying that it isn't what is making it APPEAR busier. They ARE busier. There ARE more bodies visiting. There is zero doubt about it. I saw it with my own 2 eyes. There were more people at Epcot yesterday, a Tuesday, than I saw on a Saturday this past F&W festival. Navigating crowds in WS was harder. Staff and ride capacity had nothing to do with that.

 

[Disneyliscious]

As long as the droves keep going, the prices will keep going up. Everyone who is going, is paying for the vacations that others didn't take due to price increases.

 

[DGsAtBLT]

We got home a couple days ago after almost 2 weeks there.

We had longer stand by waits thank i would have liked, which was manageable IMO as we know how to tour well enough to avoid them. Our biggest disappointments were excessive downtime of major rides (especially all 3 MK Mountains - it became the running joke for us, walk up to Space/Splash and they’re closed), the shoulder to shoulder crowded walkways, and the gross bathrooms. I don’t remember bathrooms ever being so disgusting on prior trips. I don’t know if we just had terrible luck with the parks we hit on the days we did or what.

Fortunately the resorts and the parks were night and day. We had great experiences both at our own resort (BLT) and visiting others this trip. The crowds just walking anywhere in the parks had us longing for a lot more resort downtime than normal.

 

[randumb0]

Rides do go down a lot. Here's the problem. Disney is open much longer than any other theme park. Their rides take a beating. In order to increase reliability most rides would either need to be refurbished for an extended period or you increase the amount of refurbishments per ride. Either way people will complain about all of the refurbishments or they will complain about rides being down. I guess it would help if they decreased park hours.

 

[kittyab]

No ride is worth a 2 hour wait.

 

[DGsAtBLT]

Rides do go down a lot. Here's the problem. Disney is open much longer than any other theme park. Their rides take a beating. In order to increase reliability most rides would either need to be refurbished for an extended period or you increase the amount of refurbishments per ride. Either way people will complain about all of the refurbishments or they will complain about rides being down

As a guest, that’s not my problem though. If they want lowered expectations, at least from me, they can lower their prices accordingly.

Until then, I’m not happy with multiple headliners down at the same time in the same park on multiple occasions in a 10 day span. None of them being planned refurbs.

 

[Linkura]

Rides do go down a lot. Here's the problem. Disney is open much longer than any other theme park. Their rides take a beating. In order to increase reliability most rides would either need to be refurbished for an extended period or you increase the amount of refurbishments per ride. Either way people will complain about all of the refurbishments or they will complain about rides being down. I guess it would help if they decreased park hours.

Splash just went through a long refurb and seems to be doing worse than ever.

I'd rather they'd have announced closures scheduled well in advance that I can plan around as opposed to expecting a ride to be open only for it to be closed for hours almost on the daily due to poor maintenance.

 

[SomDayMyPrnceWillCom]

Sorry for your underwhelming experience. Frankly I don't know how wait times can really be accurate anymore with FP+. A group of people have an hour window to jump the standby line ... if they all showed up at the same time to skip that line, the standby wait time can jump immediately.


But think about this ... in a few weeks you get to pay even more to do something you used to get for free (parking at resort) for this underwhelming service.

Wait. What? I haven't heard this yet. We are driving in March 30 until April 4 staying at the Poly. When does this start and how much is parking at resorts?

 

[michelepa]

I'm going with mostly timing and bad luck I guess.
We did get a lot of FP. Had no problems finding them one right after another. At MK I think we got a total of 10, and that was even with us leaving the park for several hours to get DGD a hair appointment at GF and to do the Tea over there. We could have kept going and gotten more right up till closing but DGD was ready to go so we quit getting FP finally.

this is good news. We are going to the parks 3/25-3/30 have key fp in place and DD is very good at looking at MDE for the rolling 4th fp so hope that works while we're there (fingers crossed)

 

[Stasieki]

Wait. What? I haven't heard this yet. We are driving in March 30 until April 4 staying at the Poly. When does this start and how much is parking at resorts?

Disney just announced. It's for trips booked after 3/21. So you are good for this trip. I think it's $24/night for deluxe... $13/night for value

 

[Dee McGee]

That doesn't make more people appear in the parks so I call bunk to their theory. The parks are busier. There are more bodies in the parks. That doesn't mean they aren't also cutting staff and ride capacity, I'm not saying that I'm saying that it isn't what is making it APPEAR busier. They ARE busier. There ARE more bodies visiting. There is zero doubt about it. I saw it with my own 2 eyes. There were more people at Epcot yesterday, a Tuesday, than I saw on a Saturday this past F&W festival. Navigating crowds in WS was harder. Staff and ride capacity had nothing to do with that.

This is not just my theory. As I said, this has been a standing theory of the Dis Team and Touring Plans since the announcement was made and I happen to agree with them. No need to be rude.

 

[fractalpotato]

But think about this ... in a few weeks you get to pay even more to do something you used to get for free (parking at resort) for this underwhelming service.

Wait what now? parking at resorts is not free any longer?

Regarding the price increases vs the drop in quality, I suspect some of it is weariness. When you go a lot, you start to lose the magic a bit, you get a little jaded, it's human nature. So things that wouldn't bother an infrequent visitor bother you, cracks in the illusion seem more glaring, things like that. I'm not saying there hasn't been drops in some areas, just that they may seem worse than they are. Disney is adding a lot of new stuff, shiny things, and that's great. It's not as if they're sitting on (all) the money from raising prices.

That said, the unfortunate truth is "we" are part of the problem. I use we in a very general sense as parkgoers. Some of us will said "no more, that's too expensive", but mostly we complain about it as we continue buying it. Disney doesn't care what we say, they care what we do. We could say it's the worst thing in the world but as long as sales and profits continues rising, they'd be fools to change what they're doing. This is how capitalism works. We might not like it, we might be frustrated, but by and large we're still going, we're still spending the money they want us to spend and we're still enjoying it. That's okay too, if we're still enjoying it. I don't understand the people who say "I'm not even looking forward to this" and the like, if you don't enjoy it, why go? I suspect a lot of it is stress and maybe frustration manifesting and I hope they really are looking forward to it. I am sure some of it is that they're not looking forward to it but their group is and I hope they can make it to a point of being able to share the fun with them. However, if you're truly fed up and not interested... stop giving them your money, go somewhere else. Stay home. Don't expect them to change if you keep paying them even if you don't want to.

Matt

 

[AngiTN]

This is not just my theory. As I said, this has been a standing theory of the Dis Team and Touring Plans since the announcement was made and I happen to agree with them. No need to be rude.

Rude where? Just because I don't agree? Since when was it rude to disagree?
And I did say I called bunk to "their theory" not "your theory"
So yeah, I know who has said it. And still call bunk. It's not false crowds I saw. Both Touring Plans and Dis are incorrect in relation to crowds. There are more people in the parks.
And it's not rude to say I don't agree.
But do note, I never said they are wrong that they aren't cutting staff nor did I say they are wrong that they aren't altering capacity and wait times. I simply said they are wrong if they are trying to say the parks are not more crowded. They are more crowded.

 

[Ksdisney22]

Ok. Off navi. 200 min wait total to fp merge. Posted was 120 when entering.

I did get a confirm from the castmembers managing the merge that party size does effect how many standby merge. Since we were 7, they had to allow more fp. If we were 2 they could have worked us in sooner.

 

[Magpie]

For the first time in 18 years, I am not looking forward to my trip in a couple of weeks. This report is just another nail in the Disney coffin. Disney set its own bar high with the way the customer is treated and the way the parks are run. It is what people expect the Disney vacation experience to be and what they spend the extra dollar to get. Now it is just profit first and do more with less to include maintenance and staff. The lack of staff, dogs, security checks, spiraling prices, up charges everywhere you turn and now charging for parking, did Disney hire a former airline exec to run its parks? It is beginning to look like the Disney experience is turning into a do it yourself vacation. Go online schedule everything from check in to fast passes, you get the feeling they just don't want to deal with you as long as you spend a boatload of money.

If I felt the way you do, I don't think I'd go at all. It's a lot of money to spend on something I don't think I'd enjoy. And even if other family members were still keen, I doubt they'd want to have me along if I wasn't having fun. There's a lot of other places we could go where we'd all have a good time.

I was just at Disney last January/February and we'll be heading back in April/May. Our last trip was so good, we've discussed actually renewing our annual passes next year (usually we let them lapse and visit elsewhere for a year to 18 months). My husband and I have always promised each other that if we ever start feeling "meh" about any of our upcoming Disney vacations, we'll simply cancel and go elsewhere until the excitement returns (if it ever does).

Vacation time is too precious to waste!

 

[Gehrig1B]

There were more people at Epcot yesterday, a Tuesday, than I saw on a Saturday this past F&W festival.

Wouldn't you expect that during the busiest Spring Break week of the year?

 

[Dee McGee]

Rude where? Just because I don't agree? Since when was it rude to disagree?
And I did say I called bunk to "their theory" not "your theory"
So yeah, I know who has said it. And still call bunk. It's not false crowds I saw. Both Touring Plans and Dis are incorrect in relation to crowds. There are more people in the parks.
And it's not rude to say I don't agree.
But do note, I never said they are wrong that they aren't cutting staff nor did I say they are wrong that they aren't altering capacity and wait times. I simply said they are wrong if they are trying to say the parks are not more crowded. They are more crowded.

You are correct that Disney is indeed busier and more crowded as a whole throughout the year. Crowds have become mroe dispersed throughout the 12 months with peak pockets in between. Gone are the days of the true value season and that makes me sad

 

[mickeysgirl17]

I feel the same way as the op. Went in EARLY December...NEVER had a trip where i came home and said I'm glad to be home. I have no desire to go back for a long time. Lines were longer than ever. Cast members not as nice as they used to be. Busses were so full had to wait 2-3 busses before we could get on. Even had to wait in photopass lines. Didn't feel as clean. Plus my nightmare... got stuck in happily ever after crowd and couldn't get out. My anxiety was through the roof. It felt dangerous to have so many people cramped together and not to mention, I didn't care for the show. Wishes was so much better.