heybets30
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2010
- Messages
- 453
Ok, so I'm a frequent-enough DL visitor (my kids' 18th trip in 11 years was last week), that we've got a system that has worked pretty well on each visit.
We had a 1-day park hopper this trip (we were traveling with another family), Thursday, July 26th. Even for seasoned travelers, 1-day Park Hopper was NOT enough to do everything. 2-day park hopper would've absolutely been preferred.
We got to the parks at 8:30am, we didn't realize how long it takes to get into the parking garage & how mammoth it is (we normally stay at Grand Legacy & walk). So, we were a bit late to the game to start with. My BFF had 6-people on her DL App account, I had my family of 4. We entered the parks (at least there was NO LINE at the gates), exactly the same time & each went into our apps to purchase MaxPass at the same time. Her purchase went through no problem, I got an error "we're sorry, your purchase couldn't be completed at this time". So we walked towards Fantasyland, my hubby & I each trying to update my DL App account as we walked (i.e., thinking we had entered my credit card wrong, or CVV, NOPE). We tried his credit card in there, NOPE, didn't work. My Bff's family hopped on Snow White I had an error message to call a toll-free number. ON hold for 10 minutes, then talked to someone, "oops, sorry, can't help you with that error, but see the guest service reps next to Dumbo". Off to Dumbo Guest Services we go. "Maybe it's because your full name isn't your account name. Nope, that's not it. Let's try reentering your cc#. Nope, that's not it. Sorry, you need to go to City Hall to manually purchase it." Let's just say at this point in time, hubby was using some very un-Disneyland-type language. BFF & crew pulled Star Tours FPs in the meantime as it was their first trip, and we didn't want to slow them down. Off Hubby went, we rode Pinnochio, Mr. Toad, and while hubby was in line, he tried deleting a lot of my info, then re-entering while he waited in line for City Hall, then FINALLY, it worked, so didn't even get to the CH desk, it was fixed while he was in line! He got back to us in line for Casey, and all 10 of us were able to pull 4:55-5:55 RSR. (By the way, this is the MOST AWESOME feature, get FPs for RSR while in another park!!!).
Incredicoaster was down that morning for a while, so that threw a wrench into our hopeful DCA plans. Anyway, Buzz Astro Blasters went down right as our FP time came up. The CM told us that we could use our MaxPass at ANY DL FP line for the inconvenience. While what she said was true, the CM left out the important "oh, only if the ride is down for a certain length of time during your FP return time." At least we didn't find out the hard way, we went back to clarify - really, we could do that? Then she clarified. Alas, Buzz opened up right as we were standing there, so we walked on, & then used our FPs right after.
Space Mountain had SINGLE RIDER open. Thank you, Thank you to all those who assured me it might be there. Seriously, we rode it twice within 10 minutes. My BFFs daughter waited maybe 45 seconds in single rider line, sat with a single gentleman who said he waited 75 minutes standby. Of our two trips through Single Rider, the longest wait I had was 30 seconds. I kid you not.
As our FPs opened up to order again through MaxPass, we realized that our return times were completely different from one another. We both tried for Toy Story MM, but hers were for almost 2 hours before we could get them. The app showed "FP return times" - BUT - when you go to pull them via MaxPass, totally different times would pop up. Incredicoaster had reopened, so we did that without them (her family doesn't like coasters too much). In between there, we were able to get Guardians of the Galaxy.
Our next FPs, we aimed to DL, as most times moved QUICKLY up to after 10pm. Indy showed 10-11 for her, 11-midnight for me. We thought we'd try for Haunted Mansion. Hers showed like 9-10pm, mine showed 10:45-11:45pm ... she didn't want to do it as they definitely planned on parade & fireworks. Then, 2 minutes later, when we went to book Haunted Mansion for us, ALL FPS were GONE!! Seriously? We did get Small World 10:15-11:15 instead. Then, 5 minutes later she tried to get Small world, they were all gone for her!! CRAZY.
I recognize it is July, super, super busy month - that's why we avoid DL if at all possible during the summer. This was the only week we could all vacation together. It was a bummer with the standby lines, so really, after Fantasyland, we really only did FP lines.
Here are some lessons that I came away with:
We'll use MaxPAss on our next trip, for sure, and now that we have used it once, we can probably plan a little bit better for it.
We had a 1-day park hopper this trip (we were traveling with another family), Thursday, July 26th. Even for seasoned travelers, 1-day Park Hopper was NOT enough to do everything. 2-day park hopper would've absolutely been preferred.
We got to the parks at 8:30am, we didn't realize how long it takes to get into the parking garage & how mammoth it is (we normally stay at Grand Legacy & walk). So, we were a bit late to the game to start with. My BFF had 6-people on her DL App account, I had my family of 4. We entered the parks (at least there was NO LINE at the gates), exactly the same time & each went into our apps to purchase MaxPass at the same time. Her purchase went through no problem, I got an error "we're sorry, your purchase couldn't be completed at this time". So we walked towards Fantasyland, my hubby & I each trying to update my DL App account as we walked (i.e., thinking we had entered my credit card wrong, or CVV, NOPE). We tried his credit card in there, NOPE, didn't work. My Bff's family hopped on Snow White I had an error message to call a toll-free number. ON hold for 10 minutes, then talked to someone, "oops, sorry, can't help you with that error, but see the guest service reps next to Dumbo". Off to Dumbo Guest Services we go. "Maybe it's because your full name isn't your account name. Nope, that's not it. Let's try reentering your cc#. Nope, that's not it. Sorry, you need to go to City Hall to manually purchase it." Let's just say at this point in time, hubby was using some very un-Disneyland-type language. BFF & crew pulled Star Tours FPs in the meantime as it was their first trip, and we didn't want to slow them down. Off Hubby went, we rode Pinnochio, Mr. Toad, and while hubby was in line, he tried deleting a lot of my info, then re-entering while he waited in line for City Hall, then FINALLY, it worked, so didn't even get to the CH desk, it was fixed while he was in line! He got back to us in line for Casey, and all 10 of us were able to pull 4:55-5:55 RSR. (By the way, this is the MOST AWESOME feature, get FPs for RSR while in another park!!!).
Incredicoaster was down that morning for a while, so that threw a wrench into our hopeful DCA plans. Anyway, Buzz Astro Blasters went down right as our FP time came up. The CM told us that we could use our MaxPass at ANY DL FP line for the inconvenience. While what she said was true, the CM left out the important "oh, only if the ride is down for a certain length of time during your FP return time." At least we didn't find out the hard way, we went back to clarify - really, we could do that? Then she clarified. Alas, Buzz opened up right as we were standing there, so we walked on, & then used our FPs right after.
Space Mountain had SINGLE RIDER open. Thank you, Thank you to all those who assured me it might be there. Seriously, we rode it twice within 10 minutes. My BFFs daughter waited maybe 45 seconds in single rider line, sat with a single gentleman who said he waited 75 minutes standby. Of our two trips through Single Rider, the longest wait I had was 30 seconds. I kid you not.
As our FPs opened up to order again through MaxPass, we realized that our return times were completely different from one another. We both tried for Toy Story MM, but hers were for almost 2 hours before we could get them. The app showed "FP return times" - BUT - when you go to pull them via MaxPass, totally different times would pop up. Incredicoaster had reopened, so we did that without them (her family doesn't like coasters too much). In between there, we were able to get Guardians of the Galaxy.
Our next FPs, we aimed to DL, as most times moved QUICKLY up to after 10pm. Indy showed 10-11 for her, 11-midnight for me. We thought we'd try for Haunted Mansion. Hers showed like 9-10pm, mine showed 10:45-11:45pm ... she didn't want to do it as they definitely planned on parade & fireworks. Then, 2 minutes later, when we went to book Haunted Mansion for us, ALL FPS were GONE!! Seriously? We did get Small World 10:15-11:15 instead. Then, 5 minutes later she tried to get Small world, they were all gone for her!! CRAZY.
I recognize it is July, super, super busy month - that's why we avoid DL if at all possible during the summer. This was the only week we could all vacation together. It was a bummer with the standby lines, so really, after Fantasyland, we really only did FP lines.
Here are some lessons that I came away with:
- If you are traveling with a group, and expect to ride rides together, ADD ALL TICKETS TO ONE ACCOUNT!! She was pulling 6 FPs, I was pulling 4, and only twice did the return times come out the same (most were within 15-20 minutes of each other), and as the day went on, they were more like 1-2 hours apart. Whatever the algorithm DL is using, it doesn't seem to have any rhyme or reason to it, where sometimes our times would be earlier, sometimes hers would.
- Make sure MaxPass works BEFORE you head back into the park from City Hall. It would've been a lot quicker if we had just headed there when it didn't work. Any problems, go directly to City Hall, the Guest members scattered in the parks may not be able to help you.
- There were a lot less PhotoPass photogs in the parks than in past visits. This was pretty disappointing. Though I was happy to see an actual line for front entrance pics, past visits it was always CHAOS. At DCA there was a FAB, probably the best Photog we've had, who did a whole photoshoot with all 10 of us, then as 2 families, just super-personable & excited about it, even in 90 degree weather! (though I have to call, because 5 days later, none of the magic shot pictures are in our accounts). 5 of us rode Space twice as single riders, so right there, we got 10 ride photos out of it, which definitely made the MaxPass photo portion worth it.
- I will admit, that whatever they are doing, going through FP lines was WAY quicker than in past visits. Seriously, we WALKED on to Incredicoaster with our return time MaxPass FP. We only had a 4-minute wait in RSR line. Guardians was a bit longer wait, but that's pure crowd control on any given day.
- Using MaxPass, with a 1-day, park hopper, we did NOT get to ride all the rides we wanted to. As a matter of fact, I felt like we really missed a lot. We got the headliners, but the little rides, we had to skip the parade in lieu for the short line (i.e., Monster's Inc was walkon, my son rode 5 times in a row, they let him hop off & short-cut back on - his FAVORITE, and one we wont wait in line for!). Son and I did Jungle Cruise while my daughter did Splash single rider. We missed Haunted Mansion, Winnie the Pooh, Autopia, Pirates, Goofy's, Matterhorn, to name a few. But, I do put that more at the sheer amount of people at the parks than anything else. Granted at 10:45, Jungle Cruise was walkon, as I'm sure some of the other DL rides were.
- MaxPass for Indy 11pm-midnight was useless, so I felt we wasted that pull and could've done Haunted Mansion instead. They shut down the Indy FP return line & so we were with all the standbys at 11:40, so everyone stood in the same line. And, I remembered I don't really like that ride. each time I ride, it gets more bumpy! But, last 3 trips it was closed each time, and my son was finally tall enough to ride, so ride we did. He hated it.
We'll use MaxPAss on our next trip, for sure, and now that we have used it once, we can probably plan a little bit better for it.
