***Official November 2022 Thread***

[a_ashbiez]

We also probably won't be back for a while.
It's a real bummer, but it just wasn't the same this time.
Still had an amazing time!! But like above poster, for the money we can get a different experience.

I'm not so bothered by the crowds - it's the rushing feeling. Wake up at 7 and try to be the fastest to click a virtual queue, race to pickup a Mobile or make a dining reservation, zip across the park for a lightning lane window...

The worst part was that my husband and daughter kept getting stuck on broken attractions. Literally once a day, stuck for an hour.
We were doing rider swaps due to our baby. They would come out frustrated after waiting then being trapped. I'd be bored out of my mind wandering with a sleeping baby. There's only so much browsing and snacking one can do. Plus being alone in disney (when not planned) just isn't fun!
Breakdowns happen, but to experience it over and over on different attractions in the same week was a bit much.

Probably will try a Disney cruise next!

 

[CeeCee101]

We also probably won't be back for a while.
It's a real bummer, but it just wasn't the same this time.
Still had an amazing time!! But like above poster, for the money we can get a different experience.

I'm not so bothered by the crowds - it's the rushing feeling. Wake up at 7 and try to be the fastest to click a virtual queue, race to pickup a Mobile or make a dining reservation, zip across the park for a lightning lane window...

The worst part was that my husband and daughter kept getting stuck on broken attractions. Literally once a day, stuck for an hour.
We were doing rider swaps due to our baby. They would come out frustrated after waiting then being trapped. I'd be bored out of my mind wandering with a sleeping baby. There's only so much browsing and snacking one can do. Plus being alone in disney (when not planned) just isn't fun!
Breakdowns happen, but to experience it over and over on different attractions in the same week was a bit much.

Probably will try a Disney cruise next!

Agree with all of this too.

 

[kek1287]

We also probably won't be back for a while.
It's a real bummer, but it just wasn't the same this time.
Still had an amazing time!! But like above poster, for the money we can get a different experience.

I'm not so bothered by the crowds - it's the rushing feeling. Wake up at 7 and try to be the fastest to click a virtual queue, race to pickup a Mobile or make a dining reservation, zip across the park for a lightning lane window...

The worst part was that my husband and daughter kept getting stuck on broken attractions. Literally once a day, stuck for an hour.
We were doing rider swaps due to our baby. They would come out frustrated after waiting then being trapped. I'd be bored out of my mind wandering with a sleeping baby. There's only so much browsing and snacking one can do. Plus being alone in disney (when not planned) just isn't fun!
Breakdowns happen, but to experience it over and over on different attractions in the same week was a bit much.

Probably will try a Disney cruise next!

Add me as well to the won't be back likely ever. I guess I was spoiled by our 2 days at Universal. We stayed one night at Hard Rock so had unlimited express passes. We had the best time ever! I hated waking up early on our 4 Disney days to book rides. I felt like I wasn't able to fully be present due to trying to book our next ride. I also don't like that in order to skip 2+ hour waits (which my kids would absolutely not tolerate) we had to pay extra for the top rides. They were absolutely magically amazing but geez the cost for 4-5 people is expensive. Genie+ was a must, we did get to ride a lot, I'm sure my husband and kids had a slightly different experience but for me it was exhausting and stressful.

I only felt the Disney magic at HS. We lucked out with a lower crowd day, rested in the morning while I stacked rides. Loved Toy Story and Star Wars areas. The park and rides truly felt magical.

Other parks felt so crowded, and I've done Disney at 4th of July as a teen and Christmas week 11 years ago. Crazy that Touring plans showed low/moderate crowds. It didn't feel that way, especially at MK and Epcot. Shoulder to shoulder walking through a lot of areas. MK, while nostalgic, felt dated and old. Food was lackluster at all parks but maybe I should have researched options more. I did love mobile ordering in the app though!

Overall I'm grateful my kids got to experience it (my younger 2 had never been and my older only once when he was 3). But I think we're a Universal family lol. Excited for Epic Universe to open! Already planning for a 2026 trip w maybe a SeaWorld day. We'll fly next time bc that 12 hour drive was rough for me!

 

[FeliciaB23]

We got home on Saturday night (well, technically Sunday, got home at 2am! lol). Will do a full review sometime this week. Many pros, some cons. Count us in as the "we won't be back any time soon" crowd - it just didn't feel magical this time. Felt like a theme park...which is an odd thing to complain about but, not sure how else to explain it lol.

 

[manicmonkey]

We leave in a week! I'm debating switching around two park days. Currently I have:
Mon 28th - arrival into MCO at 3:30pm, check into BWV, dinner res at 6:30pm in Epcot
Tues 29th - MK, BOG res at 2pm
Wed 30th - Epcot
Thur 1st - AK
Fri 2nd - HS, check out, depart mco at 8 pm

We have park hoppers too, so I figure afternoons/evenings we can fill in things we've missed. H and I did ROTR in DL this spring, so not the end of the world if we miss it. Going with 3 adults and 1 four yr old. I'm thinking of doing HS on Wed and Epcot Fri am instead. Thoughts?

 

[MomOTwins]

Probably will try a Disney cruise next!

I am such a fan of Disney Cruise Line. I prefer it to the Parks (a lot) but my kids do like rides so we'll be at Disney next week, and I can already tell I'm going to be missing disney cruise line. No need to plan anything, there are fun activities all day long and you just go do what you feel like doing in the moment.

 

[a_ashbiez]

Count us in as the "we won't be back any time soon" crowd - it just didn't feel magical this time. Felt like a theme park...which is an odd thing to complain about but, not sure how else to explain it lol.

My husband said the same thing about it just being a theme park this time.
Not something we could specifically single out that made it feel that way.

We were lucky enough that he qualified for DAS. (Not lucky he qualifies... but lucky we had the pass to use) Without that we would've gotten to do like 2 or 3 attractions a day - especially with rider swap going on.

 

[Aladora]

We got home Saturday evening after a whirlwind 3 days in the parks. Definitely have some thoughts, will write up a report as soon as I clear off some of the giant pile of work I have to catch up on!

 

[snikki]

We were there 11/3-11/12 and had an amazing time. We had G+ added to our length of stay tickets and it really worked well for us. We were able to utilize it very well and felt it was worth the $15 we paid. We got many more rides than we used to get with FP+ since we used to book those in our PM park. We stacked HS a few times and it works great at MK, especially if you are there all day. We got 8 or more our first day and that was with a 4 hour midday break and the dessert party. The biggest downside is the zig zagging and walking through the parks. We walked 75.4 miles/182K steps in our 9 days and we didn't do full park days everyday.

Our longest waits all trip were one of our VQs for Guardians which took almost an hour and oddly enough Under the Sea for 25 minutes (was posted as 10). Everything else we used G+ or walked on at low wait times. We did ILL for Star Wars x2, FOP x 2, Guardians x 1 and 7DMT x1. It sucked to pay extra for this but it was worth the wait times. I will say we did NOT need G+ for each day of our trip but it was already paid for so we used it.

The first few days of our trip were low crowds and you could feel the crowds grow by that Saturday and Sunday. The following Friday and Saturday were Veterans Weekend but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting but that's probably due to cancellations from TS Nicole. The parks closed early that Wednesday and opened late Thursday which wasn't a big deal to us since we had 9 days and we just used that as our rest time and rearranged our time. We really needed that. The worst of the storm seemed to pass through overnight so we didn't see much except some rain and gusts of winds here and there.

The beginning of the week ToT was running well and by midstay I noticed only one side was running. The ride went down at one point on 11/12 and when it reopened they had to close it again since the LL line was 45 minutes and standby was 195 minutes. The ride was still running but no one could get in line. We had a LL and when we got off (took about 35 minutes) it was still closed to new guests.

Two things I noticed and stuck out to me:

#1 - I felt that Epcot was just as packed on a weeknight as it was on the weekend. There really was no difference to me.

#2 - I felt that 50% of the people in the parks were without children. Especially in DHS and Epcot. Even AK. Of course MK is kid central but even there I saw a lot of people without kids. Much higher than I'm used to. One day we were on a full friendship boat and there were only about 6 kids. Lots of adult only trips. (and my next trip will be just myself and DH!)

 

[MomOTwins]

We were there 11/3-11/12 and had an amazing time. We had G+ added to our length of stay tickets and it really worked well for us. We were able to utilize it very well and felt it was worth the $15 we paid. We got many more rides than we used to get with FP+ since we used to book those in our PM park. We stacked HS a few times and it works great at MK, especially if you are there all day. We got 8 or more our first day and that was with a 4 hour midday break and the dessert party. The biggest downside is the zig zagging and walking through the parks. We walked 75.4 miles/182K steps in our 9 days and we didn't do full park days everyday.

Our longest waits all trip were one of our VQs for Guardians which took almost an hour and oddly enough Under the Sea for 25 minutes (was posted as 10). Everything else we used G+ or walked on at low wait times. We did ILL for Star Wars x2, FOP x 2, Guardians x 1 and 7DMT x1. It sucked to pay extra for this but it was worth the wait times. I will say we did NOT need G+ for each day of our trip but it was already paid for so we used it.

The first few days of our trip were low crowds and you could feel the crowds grow by that Saturday and Sunday. The following Friday and Saturday were Veterans Weekend but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting but that's probably due to cancellations from TS Nicole. The parks closed early that Wednesday and opened late Thursday which wasn't a big deal to us since we had 9 days and we just used that as our rest time and rearranged our time. We really needed that. The worst of the storm seemed to pass through overnight so we didn't see much except some rain and gusts of winds here and there.

The beginning of the week ToT was running well and by midstay I noticed only one side was running. The ride went down at one point on 11/12 and when it reopened they had to close it again since the LL line was 45 minutes and standby was 195 minutes. The ride was still running but no one could get in line. We had a LL and when we got off (took about 35 minutes) it was still closed to new guests.

Two things I noticed and stuck out to me:

#1 - I felt that Epcot was just as packed on a weeknight as it was on the weekend. There really was no difference to me.

#2 - I felt that 50% of the people in the parks were without children. Especially in DHS and Epcot. Even AK. Of course MK is kid central but even there I saw a lot of people without kids. Much higher than I'm used to. One day we were on a full friendship boat and there were only about 6 kids. Lots of adult only trips. (and my next trip will be just myself and DH!)

Thanks for the mini trip report! We have length of stay G+ too and I hope it works for us like it did for you although I am nervous thanksgiving will be another ball game entirely for G+.

Your observation about adult only trips is interesting. You were there during two big adult events (F&W and a marathon) but it was also jersey week/veterans day friday and normally those draw a lot of families with kids due to the school holiday. Maybe it is just that Disney is getting so expensive for families that DONK (double income no kids) couples are forming a greater share of the guest population.

 

[Memorymakerfor4]

AK was packed today, more than I’ve ever seen it. A guy in our group on FOP got really mad at the cast member because he didn’t fit on the ride after waiting two hours. We understood his frustration but didn’t appreciate the profanity in front of my kids. Other than that it was a great day. Perfect weather. Like others have mentioned, you tend to crisscross the park more with Genie+. We managed better today, only did 7 miles lol.

 

[sdk1231]

AK was packed today, more than I’ve ever seen it. A guy in our group on FOP got really mad at the cast member because he didn’t fit on the ride after waiting two hours. We understood his frustration but didn’t appreciate the profanity in front of my kids. Other than that it was a great day. Perfect weather. Like others have mentioned, you tend to crisscross the park more with Genie+. We managed better today, only did 7 miles lol.

Glad to hear about the great day and the good weather! FOP ride vehicle situation... I remember my husband checking out the FOP ride vehicle "tester" outside before he getting in line for the ride. Is that ride veh tester no longer there, or did the guy in your group just miss it?

 

[npatellye]

Glad to hear about the great day and the good weather! FOP ride vehicle situation... I remember my husband checking out the FOP ride vehicle "tester" outside before he getting in line for the ride. Is that ride veh tester no longer there, or did the guy in your group just miss it?

The ride vehicle tester outside is still there.

 

[Aladora]

Okay, let me try writing up some of my thoughts. Apologies for jumping around, I caught a terrible cold while we were gone and I am still sick and brain is fuzzy!

We added this on to a business trip that DH and I were on so we only had 3 days in the parks. My sister flew down to join us, she has never been to WDW and we took her to DL for the first time this past March.

Our dates and parks were:

Nov 16 - Epcot
Nov 17 - AK and MVMCP at MK
Nov 18 - HS

We used G+ and ILL when we were in DL in March so I knew the system. I really feel as though we got more out of it at DL as compared with WDW. I suspect that this is a combination of a few things that are all tied together.

1. Area of each park. When you compare the parks and their acreage WDW parks are all larger than DLR ones. Going from largest to smallest on each coast: DL 98 acres, DCA 72 acres. MK 106 acres, HS 136, Epcot 299, AK 580. The larger size means a lot more walking back and forth to get to the LL rides we were able to book.

2. Number of LL rides in each park. This goes hand in hand with point #1, When you remove entertainment and character meets from the available LL attractions and only look at rides, there are as many or more LL rides at DLR when compared to WDW, with the exception of MK. (We only did MK for the Christmas party so LLs were not really a factor at all) DL 12, DCA 8, MK 16, HS 8, AK 5, Epcot 9.

3. Capacity. Given the larger area of WDW parks, although the exact number is not know, it is safe to assume that the capacity of the East coast parks is higher than those on the West coast.

So, when you add all three of those things together, you get more people battling for fewer LLs, and more area to walk between rides. All of the "top tier" rides sold out of LLs pretty early in the day and when you factor in the 2 hr wait this meant that there were LLs we were just not able to get.

Oh, and HS...wow was that a mess on the 18th! For quite a bit of the morning there were 4 attractions down at the same time! ToT, RnR, SDD, and M&MRR were all down for a significant portion of the day. This put a TON of pressure on the other attractions and made for some insane posted wait times! We ended up getting a LL for AlienSS, M&M, and paid for RotR. Definitely not worth the $ we spent on G+ that day.

Don't get me wrong, I love Disney and we all had a good time at WDW but the issues we had around G+ combined with some pretty "meh" meals has made DLR our parks of choice without a doubt. We had been planning a big trip to WDW next June to celebrate our son's 18th birthday as well as his high school graduation but now we are probably going to go to DLR to celebrate.

We did pay for ILLs for 3 rides: Guardians, FoP, and RotR. FoP remains my absolute favourite ride ever and RotR is as awesome as always. Guardians, on the other hand...no thank you. I was SO excited for this but the spinning made me so nauseated! Definitely a one-and-done for me. DH loved it though.

We did not have to pay for 7DMT because we were in MK for the Christmas party and took advantage of much shorter lines! We met zero characters and ate zero free cookies, our priority were the rides! Oh, we did have to book a sit down meal though! We were not aware that all QS places closed at 6 and we found ourselves with nowhere else to eat. We got on the wait list for Skippers and got a table (The butterfly one no less!) in less than an hour. We also booked the dessert party so that we could get a really great viewing area for the fireworks. While expensive, we all felt it was 100% worth it.

Sorry for a bit of a rambling trip report!

Forgot to add one big positive! We had AMAZING bus luck on this trip. Every single time (except one) we went to catch a bus we literally walked up to the stop as the bus was pulling in! The one and only time we had to wait at all was the very last bus we took from HS back to AKL. It was amazing how lucky we were.

 

[Memorymakerfor4]

Glad to hear about the great day and the good weather! FOP ride vehicle situation... I remember my husband checking out the FOP ride vehicle "tester" outside before he getting in line for the ride. Is that ride veh tester no longer there, or did the guy in your group just miss it?

It was still there, but it was the restraints for the legs and back that couldn’t lock. Those aren’t on the test vehicle.

 

[menotyou21]

$29 for G+ today (23rd). That’s crazy to me.

 

[MomOTwins]

Leaving foe airport in an hour, wish me luck! Nervous flying on the peak travel day before thanksgiving. Disney here we come!

 

[CeeCee101]

Okay, let me try writing up some of my thoughts. Apologies for jumping around, I caught a terrible cold while we were gone and I am still sick and brain is fuzzy!

We added this on to a business trip that DH and I were on so we only had 3 days in the parks. My sister flew down to join us, she has never been to WDW and we took her to DL for the first time this past March.

Our dates and parks were:

Nov 16 - Epcot
Nov 17 - AK and MVMCP at MK
Nov 18 - HS

We used G+ and ILL when we were in DL in March so I knew the system. I really feel as though we got more out of it at DL as compared with WDW. I suspect that this is a combination of a few things that are all tied together.

1. Area of each park. When you compare the parks and their acreage WDW parks are all larger than DLR ones. Going from largest to smallest on each coast: DL 98 acres, DCA 72 acres. MK 106 acres, HS 136, Epcot 299, AK 580. The larger size means a lot more walking back and forth to get to the LL rides we were able to book.

2. Number of LL rides in each park. This goes hand in hand with point #1, When you remove entertainment and character meets from the available LL attractions and only look at rides, there are as many or more LL rides at DLR when compared to WDW, with the exception of MK. (We only did MK for the Christmas party so LLs were not really a factor at all) DL 12, DCA 8, MK 16, HS 8, AK 5, Epcot 9.

3. Capacity. Given the larger area of WDW parks, although the exact number is not know, it is safe to assume that the capacity of the East coast parks is higher than those on the West coast.

So, when you add all three of those things together, you get more people battling for fewer LLs, and more area to walk between rides. All of the "top tier" rides sold out of LLs pretty early in the day and when you factor in the 2 hr wait this meant that there were LLs we were just not able to get.

Oh, and HS...wow was that a mess on the 18th! For quite a bit of the morning there were 4 attractions down at the same time! ToT, RnR, SDD, and M&MRR were all down for a significant portion of the day. This put a TON of pressure on the other attractions and made for some insane posted wait times! We ended up getting a LL for AlienSS, M&M, and paid for RotR. Definitely not worth the $ we spent on G+ that day.

Don't get me wrong, I love Disney and we all had a good time at WDW but the issues we had around G+ combined with some pretty "meh" meals has made DLR our parks of choice without a doubt. We had been planning a big trip to WDW next June to celebrate our son's 18th birthday as well as his high school graduation but now we are probably going to go to DLR to celebrate.

We did pay for ILLs for 3 rides: Guardians, FoP, and RotR. FoP remains my absolute favourite ride ever and RotR is as awesome as always. Guardians, on the other hand...no thank you. I was SO excited for this but the spinning made me so nauseated! Definitely a one-and-done for me. DH loved it though.

We did not have to pay for 7DMT because we were in MK for the Christmas party and took advantage of much shorter lines! We met zero characters and ate zero free cookies, our priority were the rides! Oh, we did have to book a sit down meal though! We were not aware that all QS places closed at 6 and we found ourselves with nowhere else to eat. We got on the wait list for Skippers and got a table (The butterfly one no less!) in less than an hour. We also booked the dessert party so that we could get a really great viewing area for the fireworks. While expensive, we all felt it was 100% worth it.

Sorry for a bit of a rambling trip report!

Forgot to add one big positive! We had AMAZING bus luck on this trip. Every single time (except one) we went to catch a bus we literally walked up to the stop as the bus was pulling in! The one and only time we had to wait at all was the very last bus we took from HS back to AKL. It was amazing how lucky we were.

Similar. DL we WILL visit in the future, much easier and more variety outside the parks. WDW not sure when or if we will ever go back.

 

[pinkxray]

Leaving foe airport in an hour, wish me luck! Nervous flying on the peak travel day before thanksgiving. Disney here we come!

Hope you had smooth travels. We are flying out Sunday, which I’m sure is going to be nuts. I wanted to fly out Friday but DH didn’t want take off two extra days from work.

Im hoping TSA precheck and leaving from a small, local airport helps our travels easier.

 

[TikiRob]

Should have been in the air to MCO but flight is delayed 7 hours! Of course we woke up at 3am and couldn’t fall back asleep. The worst part is it is a short trip (3 nights) and now we have park tickets for tonight at HS but won’t get there until after 5pm. Just crossing fingers for no cancellation at this point. Fantasmic tonight was one of our most anticipated experience.