Hi,
Just polished off a week trip to DL, that included the Tink 10k and Half Marathon that my wife ran. We Had 5 day hoppers, went to the park Thu/Fri/Sat and Mon/Tue leaving the Half Marathon day as a rest day. We stayed at the Hojo for 7 nights. Lines were average, most were 20-30 minutes exception given to RSR and Hyperspace Mountain. We didn't notice anything related to budget cuts to be honest, we go once a year and have been for some time and the experience was just as good as usual.
Highlights:
Just polished off a week trip to DL, that included the Tink 10k and Half Marathon that my wife ran. We Had 5 day hoppers, went to the park Thu/Fri/Sat and Mon/Tue leaving the Half Marathon day as a rest day. We stayed at the Hojo for 7 nights. Lines were average, most were 20-30 minutes exception given to RSR and Hyperspace Mountain. We didn't notice anything related to budget cuts to be honest, we go once a year and have been for some time and the experience was just as good as usual.
Highlights:
- New parade PTN, nice fun parade that was shorter than expected but super fun to watch.
- New Fireworks and Main Street show - fantastic and way easier to find a good viewing spot on Main Street, no longer need to be in front of Castle to get best viewing
- New WOC - nice change up from the last one, just something different which is cool
- New Luigi's cars - more for to watch than ride, but an improvement overall from the tire ride
- New Jedi Training - love the new sign up process, the new theatrics.
- Hyperspace Mountain - took my favourite ride and made it even better
- Jedi Training - they now take sign-ups during MM, previously it wasn't until official park opening. We almost missed out because of this.
- Hyperspace Mountain is more popular than RSR sometimes and lineups were 150 minutes at times.
- RSR is connected to the FP system now, also all members of the party have to have been checked in through the front gate to get a FP. This eliminated people with a stack of 40 tickets getting fast passes which was a huge improvement.
- There's no need to sit curbside for the PTN parade, seems to be lots of room to see along the parade route. I just had to prop up my 5 year old.
- When cars has issues during the day, they seem to honour the FP throughout the rest of the day despite your window, this is great for FP but brutal for the stand by line.
- The new Luigi ride won't operate if there is even a drop of water on the surface, if it rains that day I wouldn't bother trying.
- HOJO makes you wear a bright orange band (like a Mexican resort) to access their pool and waterpark, but they don't enforce it and the Wifi is awful, but they do have free parking.
- If you love craft beer, go to Liquor Mart on 804 S Anaheim Blvd, Anaheim, CA. This is the closest amazing bottle shop to the park. Also, The Bruery tasting room is a 10 minute drive/cab/uber away.
- Anaheim Garden Walk is a ghost town, like 4 shops and a few restaurants.
- People who run the Tinkerbell marathon are obsessed with the merchandise, folks were dropping $500 on merch like it was nothing.
The $500 on merchandise is crazy. We're having a hard time wanting to even spend that on a hotel for our stay... 
