President's Day Weekend - Wow with the Crowds!

[Ohiostatefan606]

This was a 4 day 5 night trip. Me, hubby and 13 year old son.
We stayed at CBR - Aruba 53

Our Schedule with Genie+:

2/17 - head to airport at 3:30 am​

2/17: EPCOT -detailed summary​

2/18: MK - detailed summary​

2/19: AK / EPCOT / MK - detailed summary​

2/20: HS - detailed summary​

2/21: back home​

On 2/19 and 2/20 there were no park reservations available! This was our 7th trip to Disney either on President's Day weekend or MLK Jr. weekend. We know we are traveling on a school break and know there will be crowds. The crowds this past weekend reminded me of our Feb 2018 trip. It was President's Day / Weekend before Ash Wednesday / East Coast winter break. So we've seen some crowds. This past weekend reminded my why January is a better choice! But we still had a great time and rode everything we wanted, some rides more than once!

Pros:

• Every CM was pleasant and friendly
• The bathrooms WERE clean. I've seen complaints, but we did not experience messy floors, no paper products or lack of soap/hand sanitizer.
• Genie+ meant we had a great HS day when the crowds were crazy
• I spent my birthday at HS - not planned. We were supposed to be at Disney in January, but COVID positive tests threw a wrench in that plan.
• We tried 3 new restaurants (for us!)
• I had CM help move $LL - two different times - once at EPCOT once at HS.
• Skyliner was awesome (as always)
• We rode EVERY ride we wanted and many more than once (SM / Buzz / HM / Pirates / TeaCups / TSMM / RnR / Star Tours)
• Mask requirement changed on our arrival day!

Cons:

• Genie+ was glitchy on our HS day. (of course) This was the ONLY time we had any trouble. Read the summary - it worked out!
• There is a learning curve with Genie+, even if you look at it at home.
• Disney is definitely moving $LL. We had MMRR for 5:10 on Sunday. It was on My Day. I looked again after we arrived at the park and it moved it 7:30 - the exact time we had ROTR. We never would have selected that time window. CM did move it for us.
• Not being able to select a window for my LL. Or least have the LL avoid your dining reservations.
• Not being able to stop Genie+ from making suggestions. Even after I picked my favorites, told it I didn't want certain things. It just kept popping up. It is a definite attempt to get people to do things that are less popular. If you don't know what you want to do, you can fall into the trap.
• Complete lack of 50th Anniversary Merch.
• The inability rebook a ride on Genie+. We would have like to have booked Buzz a second time on our MK day. There were slots available, but because we already used our one allotment we couldn't.
• Everest was on refurb

We had a great time. And I had the BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!