Rant from a Disney Optimist

[Wef]

We just returned from a five day trip (17-22) and I thought I'd add my two cents. Let me preface my comments by saying DH and I have been to WDW 10 times. We are sympathetic to people who work with the public and do not have a sense of entitlement. We knew that FP+ had some issues and were willing to take a "wait and see" attitude. If lines were long, our plans were to just soak up the atmosphere and make the best of it.

Even with the right frame of mind, it was still a frustrating experience. Before I complain, though, this is what was great:

1) Magic Bands. They are so convenient! We loved them. It's fun to watch the Mickey light turn green. And it really does feel like magic when you make a FP+ reservation and you can use your magic band to get through.

2) Flower and Garden Festival kiosks. The food was great and it was a great use of dining snack credits.

3) Mousekeeping at AKL was great. Lots of nice towel animals and room was really clean.

4) Boma and Jiko. Fantastic.

5) Other guests. Despite what other people have been saying, everyone we came in contact with seemed to be very nice and considerate.

6) Dumbo. We used to have to run to avoid a long wait, now it's a leisurely walk-on.

7) New Fantasyland. Ariel's castle is beautiful.


Now for the Not So Great:

1) Cast members. A friendly cast member was more the exception than the rule. We had spent two days at Universal before WDW and their cast members blew WDW's out of the water.

2) The crowds. We have never seen the parks so crowded.

3) FP+ and MDE. On a good day, we were able to do many attractions, but no re-rides of our favorites. On a bad day, we hardly got to ride anything. Twice, we only used 2 FP+ because our kids decided they didn't want to go on two rides that we had passes for. We tried to use MDE to switch to another pass and it just didn't work. We went to a kiosk to ask for help and they couldn't help us, either. We had to spend WAY too much time glued to the app. One morning, my husband spend our first two hours at Epcot trying to work out a dining reservation and FP+ problem we had. It was not fun. It's very difficult to be locked in with dining reservations and FP+ when you have children. And making changes is frustrating.

4) Park Hopper Tickets. They are virtually useless now with the FP+ system. By the time you make it to another park, standby lines are long and FP+s are gone.

5) Condition of the parks. Disney used to take so much pride in cleanliness and never having a burnt out lightbulb. Now, so many things are in disrepair. I can't understand why there are so many unused buildings in Epcot. So many things need updating. Even the long, dark stretch of the PeopleMover seems ridiculous. Can't they add some lighting effects, or paint? Something? The decline is really starting to show.

6) EMH. Only one monorail train was running, which meant we didn't get into the park until 8:15am. I think many people in the line behind us didn't get to the park before 9:00am. By the time we got to the park, Peter Pan was already up to a 30 minute wait and once Frontierland opened BTMRR was immediately 45 minutes. Getting our kids up early was not worth it.

7) Can I just say how ridiculous the Beast's castle looks? It looks like someone left a toy castle on top of a rock. The scale just doesn't work. It really looks chintzy.

8) BOG FP+ was lost. I don't know what happened, but we weren't in the system. And they weren't too sympathetic about it.

I have to say that DH and I have decided not to return to WDW until the FP+ problems are sorted out. This was the most stressful trip to WDW we've ever had.
We spent way too much time trying to get the buggy app to work. We rode many fewer rides than usual. And I'd love to say that just soaking up the atmosphere was enough, but it was really too crowded to do that. I hate to pull the "I paid $$$ for this vacation and deserve better" but it's true. We pay a premium to go to Disney because we've had great experiences in the past and now the value isn't there for us. Still, I'm confident Disney will work this out. We just won't be visiting until that happens.

 

[chapie1968]

Now for the Not So Great:

1) Cast members. A friendly cast member was more the exception than the rule. We had spent two days at Universal before WDW and their cast members blew WDW's out of the water.

We've been noticing this more and more too over the years. My wife and I both agree that Universal is steadily catching up with and surpassing WDW in many aspects. It may not be as large as WDW, but we find our family has been enjoying the two Universal Parks more than the WDW parks with each passing visit.

I wonder when Disney is going to wake up and realize that they are not the only store in town anymore.

 

[Eldon_Brasche]

We just returned from a five day trip (17-22) and I thought I'd add my two cents. Let me preface my comments by saying DH and I have been to WDW 10 times. We are sympathetic to people who work with the public and do not have a sense of entitlement. We knew that FP+ had some issues and were willing to take a "wait and see" attitude. If lines were long, our plans were to just soak up the atmosphere and make the best of it.

Even with the right frame of mind, it was still a frustrating experience. Before I complain, though, this is what was great:

1) Magic Bands. They are so convenient! We loved them. It's fun to watch the Mickey light turn green. And it really does feel like magic when you make a FP+ reservation and you can use your magic band to get through.

2) Flower and Garden Festival kiosks. The food was great and it was a great use of dining snack credits.

3) Mousekeeping at AKL was great. Lots of nice towel animals and room was really clean.

4) Boma and Jiko. Fantastic.

5) Other guests. Despite what other people have been saying, everyone we came in contact with seemed to be very nice and considerate.

6) Dumbo. We used to have to run to avoid a long wait, now it's a leisurely walk-on.

7) New Fantasyland. Ariel's castle is beautiful.


Now for the Not So Great:

1) Cast members. A friendly cast member was more the exception than the rule. We had spent two days at Universal before WDW and their cast members blew WDW's out of the water.

2) The crowds. We have never seen the parks so crowded.

3) FP+ and MDE. On a good day, we were able to do many attractions, but no re-rides of our favorites. On a bad day, we hardly got to ride anything. Twice, we only used 2 FP+ because our kids decided they didn't want to go on two rides that we had passes for. We tried to use MDE to switch to another pass and it just didn't work. We went to a kiosk to ask for help and they couldn't help us, either. We had to spend WAY too much time glued to the app. One morning, my husband spend our first two hours at Epcot trying to work out a dining reservation and FP+ problem we had. It was not fun. It's very difficult to be locked in with dining reservations and FP+ when you have children. And making changes is frustrating.

4) Park Hopper Tickets. They are virtually useless now with the FP+ system. By the time you make it to another park, standby lines are long and FP+s are gone.

5) Condition of the parks. Disney used to take so much pride in cleanliness and never having a burnt out lightbulb. Now, so many things are in disrepair. I can't understand why there are so many unused buildings in Epcot. So many things need updating. Even the long, dark stretch of the PeopleMover seems ridiculous. Can't they add some lighting effects, or paint? Something? The decline is really starting to show.

6) EMH. Only one monorail train was running, which meant we didn't get into the park until 8:15am. I think many people in the line behind us didn't get to the park before 9:00am. By the time we got to the park, Peter Pan was already up to a 30 minute wait and once Frontierland opened BTMRR was immediately 45 minutes. Getting our kids up early was not worth it.

7) Can I just say how ridiculous the Beast's castle looks? It looks like someone left a toy castle on top of a rock. The scale just doesn't work. It really looks chintzy.

8) BOG FP+ was lost. I don't know what happened, but we weren't in the system. And they weren't too sympathetic about it.

I have to say that DH and I have decided not to return to WDW until the FP+ problems are sorted out. This was the most stressful trip to WDW we've ever had.
We spent way too much time trying to get the buggy app to work. We rode many fewer rides than usual. And I'd love to say that just soaking up the atmosphere was enough, but it was really too crowded to do that. I hate to pull the "I paid $$$ for this vacation and deserve better" but it's true. We pay a premium to go to Disney because we've had great experiences in the past and now the value isn't there for us. Still, I'm confident Disney will work this out. We just won't be visiting until that happens.

Sad to hear all these problems exist. Hope you vent to Disney as well as they need to keep hearing these issues from the guests themselves. The only way they will "work this out" is if it is brought to their attention.
Glad to hear it wasn't all bad though.

 

[hammie59]

Thanks for posting your experience. I like that you included the good with the bad.

 

[Day-Day]

Thanks Wef for taking an open attitude for your visit and letting us know your experience. This will be helpful for our plans and we will see how our visit goes in May.

I had not given the food kiosks in EPCOT much thought. I am looking at more food time in EPCOT after reading your post and a few others.

 

[ArwenMarie]

Thanks for sharing.

I agree on the Universal team members. They seemed more relaxed and happier overall, less stressed. At the parks and the hotel.

 

[crazymomof4]

Hope you vent to Disney as well as they need to keep hearing these issues from the guests themselves. The only way they will "work this out" is if it is brought to their attention.
Glad to hear it wasn't all bad though.

Yes! OP, Please let WDW know!
We are going in Sept with the same attitude that you began your trip with. We don't have small children anymore, so that might make it somewhat easier for us (I've been there lots of time with kids starting with our 1st one at age 7mo-So I can relate!)
Thank you for taking the time to post both positives and negatives!

 

[purpledisneyprncess]

Thank you for posting your experience! I really like that you includes the good with the bad. I agree with you on many points. I think I'm going to post my report too!

 

[tim123]

We just returned from a five day trip (17-22) and I thought I'd add my two cents. Let me preface my comments by saying DH and I have been to WDW 10 times. We are sympathetic to people who work with the public and do not have a sense of entitlement. We knew that FP+ had some issues and were willing to take a "wait and see" attitude. If lines were long, our plans were to just soak up the atmosphere and make the best of it.

Even with the right frame of mind, it was still a frustrating experience. Before I complain, though, this is what was great:

1) Magic Bands. They are so convenient! We loved them. It's fun to watch the Mickey light turn green. And it really does feel like magic when you make a FP+ reservation and you can use your magic band to get through.

2) Flower and Garden Festival kiosks. The food was great and it was a great use of dining snack credits.

3) Mousekeeping at AKL was great. Lots of nice towel animals and room was really clean.

4) Boma and Jiko. Fantastic.

5) Other guests. Despite what other people have been saying, everyone we came in contact with seemed to be very nice and considerate.

6) Dumbo. We used to have to run to avoid a long wait, now it's a leisurely walk-on.

7) New Fantasyland. Ariel's castle is beautiful.


Now for the Not So Great:

1) Cast members. A friendly cast member was more the exception than the rule. We had spent two days at Universal before WDW and their cast members blew WDW's out of the water.

2) The crowds. We have never seen the parks so crowded.

3) FP+ and MDE. On a good day, we were able to do many attractions, but no re-rides of our favorites. On a bad day, we hardly got to ride anything. Twice, we only used 2 FP+ because our kids decided they didn't want to go on two rides that we had passes for. We tried to use MDE to switch to another pass and it just didn't work. We went to a kiosk to ask for help and they couldn't help us, either. We had to spend WAY too much time glued to the app. One morning, my husband spend our first two hours at Epcot trying to work out a dining reservation and FP+ problem we had. It was not fun. It's very difficult to be locked in with dining reservations and FP+ when you have children. And making changes is frustrating.

4) Park Hopper Tickets. They are virtually useless now with the FP+ system. By the time you make it to another park, standby lines are long and FP+s are gone.

5) Condition of the parks. Disney used to take so much pride in cleanliness and never having a burnt out lightbulb. Now, so many things are in disrepair. I can't understand why there are so many unused buildings in Epcot. So many things need updating. Even the long, dark stretch of the PeopleMover seems ridiculous. Can't they add some lighting effects, or paint? Something? The decline is really starting to show.

6) EMH. Only one monorail train was running, which meant we didn't get into the park until 8:15am. I think many people in the line behind us didn't get to the park before 9:00am. By the time we got to the park, Peter Pan was already up to a 30 minute wait and once Frontierland opened BTMRR was immediately 45 minutes. Getting our kids up early was not worth it.

7) Can I just say how ridiculous the Beast's castle looks? It looks like someone left a toy castle on top of a rock. The scale just doesn't work. It really looks chintzy.

8) BOG FP+ was lost. I don't know what happened, but we weren't in the system. And they weren't too sympathetic about it.

I have to say that DH and I have decided not to return to WDW until the FP+ problems are sorted out. This was the most stressful trip to WDW we've ever had.
We spent way too much time trying to get the buggy app to work. We rode many fewer rides than usual. And I'd love to say that just soaking up the atmosphere was enough, but it was really too crowded to do that. I hate to pull the "I paid $$$ for this vacation and deserve better" but it's true. We pay a premium to go to Disney because we've had great experiences in the past and now the value isn't there for us. Still, I'm confident Disney will work this out. We just won't be visiting until that happens.

I have one word of advice for you since you've been giving large sums of money to WDW over the years and are now disappointed with your experience there……TOKYO DISNEY RESORT!….Disney's Ambassador Hotel and The MiraCosta hotel INSIDE DisneySea….You will be so totally blown away by what you experience there you won't believe its possible. Take an adventure out of America and experience an other culture based on dedication to service, quality and cleanliness….It will blow your mind. You will need to do a fair amount of research to plan your stay accordingly because the parks are crowded much of the time but if you go when the crowd calendar is good you'll see that Tokyo Disney is by far the best Disney Park in the world hands down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIFx6gvqfys

 

[Ravenne]

Cast members have been absolutely horrible our last three visits and each time getting exponentially worse. We had multiple horrible cast member experiences this past February. The worst one was when we were leaving MK after the fireworks caused such a huge back up by Adventure land and an elderly woman was having an anxiety or heart attack or something horrible. We ran around asking for help and we had go to FOUR different cast members until we got someone who would take us seriously...one young girl mocked us and literally made fun of us saying "whatever" "we'll take a note of your concern sir." and then laughed about it as I ran away wishing the world allowed us all one get out of jail free card for punching someone in the face. It was absolutely unbelievable bad. We finally got help from one of the "senior/aka older"employees who could see that I was not joking. They were able to help the lady finally. I have a dozen other cast member stories that were disappointing, but point being... cast members are an embarrassment as a group. I now assume they are guilty until proven innocent.

Unfortunately, this is the level of service I expect any more. Not necessarily from Disney, but day to day stuff. It's a sad state of our society, though in my experience, I do expect better out of Disney. Having entry level staff be surly is one thing, and unfortunately, expected. I am more interested in knowing how management handles it once they are made aware of it. Are they concerned? I mean really concerned, not some sort of canned response such as, "your feedback is valuable to us and we are taking this seriously" bs. What do they do?

 

[akadada]

Unfortunately, this is the level of service I expect any more. Not necessarily from Disney, but day to day stuff. It's a sad state of our society, though in my experience, I do expect better out of Disney. Having entry level staff be surly is one thing, and unfortunately, expected. I am more interested in knowing how management handles it once they are made aware of it. Are they concerned? I mean really concerned, not some sort of canned response such as, "your feedback is valuable to us and we are taking this seriously" bs. What do they do?

Great question...and I don't know. Based on how that girl responded to us, it tells me there are higher ups that allow this to happen, because she was simply too lax and inconsiderate to even care. That's what we call organic incompetence ...and it is always nurtured (or allowed) at the top (whatever the top may be in terms of crowd control).

 

[Ravenne]

Great question...and I don't know. Based on how that girl responded to us, it tells me there are higher ups that allow this to happen, because she was simply too lax and inconsiderate to even care. That's what we call organic incompetence ...and it is always nurtured (or allowed) at the top (whatever the top may be in terms of crowd control).

That's not really a fair assumption. Often times management has no idea how one (or even several) specific employee is behaving, and they won't know unless you let them know. I'm usually very tolerant when it comes to customer service, but if it's a constant repeat offense, or a very serious (life threatening), I tell management if I care enough about the venue because I like it for whatever reason. Simply put, because I want to be happy about going there. For example, I frequent a chain eatery across the street from a high school so naturally, most of their employees are high schoolers. Suffice to say, they are typically immature, lack interpersonal skills that adults have, and just don't seem to care very often. After repeat experiences there, I'm left with 2 choices: stop going (which I didn't really want to do since I like the food and it's convenient for me) or tell management in hopes things will improve. I chose the latter and submitted a feedback form on their website. The next day, management contacted me for more details, apologized, and offered me a coupon to try them again. I gave them some time to improve (quite a few months if not close to a year) and the next visit, it was a complete 180. I was greeted kindly, my order was right, I was charged correctly, service with a smile. It was clear the manager took action and made changes for the better as a result of my feedback, and in response to that, they continue to have my business...happily. How the company handles feedback means a lot to me. I recently filled out another feedback form (one of those surveys on the back of receipts) for another restaurant and they didn't even ask me for my email, so it's clear they have no interest in following up with customers. Even though they gave me a free entree for filling out the survey, I can't say I'm thrilled to use it. I don't expect service providers to be perfect, but I do expect them to try.

 

[Disneychick75]

CMs have been intolerable- arguing with each other from opposite ends of a store, indifferent attitudes, talking with each other while lines build at the check out and before anyone jumps in, no they weren't discussing business. My niece came with us and got lost. I spoke to 3 CMs and got zero assistance. I was in a panic by the time I saw her walking towards me.
Bull on saying CMs react badly to guests because the guests have a bad attitude. We have been nice and in happy moods when we had these experiences. Disney needs to step up and train their employees to treat guests with respect. I agree with those who say that Universal's employees are much better. I know some people work at both parks. Universal seems to hold their park staff to a higher standard so maybe that's why Disney CMs who work there are nicer to the guests.

 

[easyd]

I have one word of advice for you since you've been giving large sums of money to WDW over the years and are now disappointed with your experience there……TOKYO DISNEY RESORT!….Disney's Ambassador Hotel and The MiraCosta hotel INSIDE DisneySea….You will be so totally blown away by what you experience there you won't believe its possible. Take an adventure out of America and experience an other culture based on dedication to service, quality and cleanliness….It will blow your mind. You will need to do a fair amount of research to plan your stay accordingly because the parks are crowded much of the time but if you go when the crowd calendar is good you'll see that Tokyo Disney is by far the best Disney Park in the world hands down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIFx6gvqfys

I couldn't agree more with this! Disney service still exists, just not in Orlando! Disneyland in California, Adventures by Disney, and Cruise Line are where it went!!!

 

[Disney_Princess83]

This sounds like a similar situation we had late one evening leaving the parks. A mother was there with her three children. One of her children had autism and was having a very serious meltdown on the monorail. We tried to held the mother as much as we could by looking after her other two young children. When the monorail arrive at the TTC, the young girl with autism got out and threw herself to the ground and was crying and screaming. A CM came over and demanded the mother "move" her child. It was an impossibility, the child was over by the gate (no where near the monorail) the child was screaming and crying and CM literally just said. "You'll have to move her now!" No understanding, no offer to help (or get help) and was SO rude. It took a while but we managed to coax her off the platform. I'm not sure if the mother put in a complaint but I did the next day at Guest Relations. (this happened at midnight)

Cast members have been absolutely horrible our last three visits and each time getting exponentially worse. We had multiple horrible cast member experiences this past February. The worst one was when we were leaving MK after the fireworks caused such a huge back up by Adventure land and an elderly woman was having an anxiety or heart attack or something horrible. We ran around asking for help and we had go to FOUR different cast members until we got someone who would take us seriously...one young girl mocked us and literally made fun of us saying "whatever" "we'll take a note of your concern sir." and then laughed about it as I ran away wishing the world allowed us all one get out of jail free card for punching someone in the face. It was absolutely unbelievable bad. We finally got help from one of the "senior/aka older"employees who could see that I was not joking. They were able to help the lady finally.

 

[surferdave]

#1 We had great experiences. You get back the vibe you give off. based on your negatives, maybe you were not coming off as someone the CM wanted to be special with. sorry, it happens.

The OP was able to make a direct comparison to CM behavior at Universal, so this tired old dismissal of another person's experience doesn't hold up so well.

 

[kapoof]

This sounds like a similar situation we had late one evening leaving the parks. A mother was there with her three children. One of her children had autism and was having a very serious meltdown on the monorail. We tried to held the mother as much as we could by looking after her other two young children. When the monorail arrive at the TTC, the young girl with autism got out and threw herself to the ground and was crying and screaming. A CM came over and demanded the mother "move" her child. It was an impossibility, the child was over by the gate (no where near the monorail) the child was screaming and crying and CM literally just said. "You'll have to move her now!" No understanding, no offer to help (or get help) and was SO rude. It took a while but we managed to coax her off the platform. I'm not sure if the mother put in a complaint but I did the next day at Guest Relations. (this happened at midnight)

As a mother of an autistic boy, I see some issues here. I would NOT have him out at midnight...that is asking for trouble. I would not expect a cm to go,after him during a meltdown either. A cm doesn't know or shouldn't be expected
If the child is autistic or just having a temper tantrum. Why should the cm grab a child who is screaming and kicking?? He doesn't want to get hit or bit or deal with it, I know I wouldn't want to be. Nor should anyone have to watch her other kids! She sounds like a very unorganized mother who pushed the limits of her special needs child. Not the cm's fault at all.

I do agree some cm's have gotten not as friendly however. We encounter a couple who weren't as good. The bathrooms have really gotten bad but I have to blame a bit on both sides. It is hard to keep up with the sheer masses of people. Maybe and hopefully when all the bugs are worked out disney will settle down back to 'normal'. I have to say though I am not seeing a lot of hope for fast pass plus.

 

[Freezing Maine Mama]

I think I agree with the whole first post completely. You seemed to have had the exact same experience we did in late January. The thing that stood out to me most was the customer service and the cleanliness. So much so of a decline in the 3 years since our last visit I actually emailed Disney about it.

We had a cast member yell at the kids to sit down in Belle's Enchanted tales. We also noticed so many of them just chatting amongst themselves, not doing their jobs. And bathrooms in gross gross conditions. not recent messes either..

We still had a magical vacation and I'd love to go back again, but my expectations would be soooo much lower this time. I refuse to pay full price anymore. We had military tickets and I am glad I did because I would have been more disappointed if I had paid full price for what we got.

 

[happymommy]

To the OP: we just got back from the same week, and my experience was very similar to yours.

I found we were constantly on the app on my phone, and it's really buggy (freezing up all the time). We always park hopped in the past, but found that it was really not useful with the new (stupid) FP+. Only good thing was my DD went to MK twice until midnight with her friend's family and they found no lines late at night.

The Flower & Garden Festival is beautiful.

FP+ stinks, and I won't be back until it's fixed.

 

[Marionnette]

1) Magic Bands. They are so convenient! We loved them. It's fun to watch the Mickey light turn green. And it really does feel like magic when you make a FP+ reservation and you can use your magic band to get through.

2) Flower and Garden Festival kiosks. The food was great and it was a great use of dining snack credits.

3) Mousekeeping at AKL was great. Lots of nice towel animals and room was really clean.

4) Boma and Jiko. Fantastic.

5) Other guests. Despite what other people have been saying, everyone we came in contact with seemed to be very nice and considerate.

6) Dumbo. We used to have to run to avoid a long wait, now it's a leisurely walk-on.

7) New Fantasyland. Ariel's castle is beautiful.


Now for the Not So Great:

1) Cast members. A friendly cast member was more the exception than the rule. We had spent two days at Universal before WDW and their cast members blew WDW's out of the water.

2) The crowds. We have never seen the parks so crowded.

3) FP+ and MDE. On a good day, we were able to do many attractions, but no re-rides of our favorites. On a bad day, we hardly got to ride anything. Twice, we only used 2 FP+ because our kids decided they didn't want to go on two rides that we had passes for. We tried to use MDE to switch to another pass and it just didn't work. We went to a kiosk to ask for help and they couldn't help us, either. We had to spend WAY too much time glued to the app. One morning, my husband spend our first two hours at Epcot trying to work out a dining reservation and FP+ problem we had. It was not fun. It's very difficult to be locked in with dining reservations and FP+ when you have children. And making changes is frustrating.

4) Park Hopper Tickets. They are virtually useless now with the FP+ system. By the time you make it to another park, standby lines are long and FP+s are gone.

5) Condition of the parks. Disney used to take so much pride in cleanliness and never having a burnt out lightbulb. Now, so many things are in disrepair. I can't understand why there are so many unused buildings in Epcot. So many things need updating. Even the long, dark stretch of the PeopleMover seems ridiculous. Can't they add some lighting effects, or paint? Something? The decline is really starting to show.

6) EMH. Only one monorail train was running, which meant we didn't get into the park until 8:15am. I think many people in the line behind us didn't get to the park before 9:00am. By the time we got to the park, Peter Pan was already up to a 30 minute wait and once Frontierland opened BTMRR was immediately 45 minutes. Getting our kids up early was not worth it.

7) Can I just say how ridiculous the Beast's castle looks? It looks like someone left a toy castle on top of a rock. The scale just doesn't work. It really looks chintzy.

8) BOG FP+ was lost. I don't know what happened, but we weren't in the system. And they weren't too sympathetic about it.

My trip was the same time as yours (3/18-3/21). Wasn't the weather absolutely perfect?!!!!

1. We had a lot of positive interaction with the CMs. The only negative was the CM who checked us in at ASSp. It's not that she did not perform her job. I just didn't get the cheerful "welcome to Disney World" vibe from her. Her answers to questions were abrupt and unhelpful. I didn't want to ask her anything more after my first two questions. I'm still not sure why we had to go through giving a CC to have on file when I had provided one during the online check-in process two days before. We didn't need to do that when we checked in at OKW later.
   
2. The crowds were unbelievable but I admit that my last few visits have been in January and September. They were much larger than the 6 or 7 levels that had been predicted, especially in the MK. I think that FP+ limiting you to one park per day, combined with the New Fantasyland being open, generally influences people to choose a park and stay with it all day.
   
3. FP+ is not the wonderful thing that Disney would like us to believe. IMO, it leads to much longer standby lines at all of the attractions. Changing FP+ on the app was easy but nearly impossible if you are a day guest who needs to queue up to make their choices and changes at a kiosk. The kiosk CMs were very helpful and had great attitudes but the system hamstrings them a bit. We learned that if you park hop without using your FP+ at the first park, you must have Guest Services erase those choices from your ticket before you can make changes at the new park. You cannot make those changes at a kiosk.
   
4. Park hopping is not as desirable as it once was and there can be problems if you do (see above). However, you could still visit your first park at rope drop and use the standby lines to get a few attractions in before the crowds build and then hop to the second park where (if you are staying onsite) you can have 3 pre-selected FP+ attractions waiting for you.
   
5. I agree with you about the lack of any attention to detail in the TTA. That long dark tunnel needs something - anything! Maintenance issues did not draw my attention at all. I wasn't looking for problems, so maybe that's why but I didn't see any glaring examples of any lapses. I did see plenty of power-washing and painting going on at the resorts. And the landscaping crews were busy just about everywhere we went.
   
6. EMH - didn't bother with them. As you pointed out, the transportation system at Disney is S-L-O-W! I regretted that I didn't rent a car on more than one occasion. It's gotten to the point where I get the impression that Disney wants you to be either waiting for transportation or waiting in a line somewhere.
   
7. Totally agree with you about the Beast's castle. For a company that has mastered the art of forced perspective, Disney dropped the ball on this one. The "rock" needs some random vegetation to break up the appearance and help with the perception that it is taller than it is.
   
8. I had no problem with BOG FP+. At first they could not find my reservation but after punching a few buttons, they did and we were sent in right away. I was surprised that it went so well, given that I had quite a problem with the website.

All in all, I had a good trip but not a great trip. I don't like the current version of FP+. The concept has its pluses, such as being able to reserve afternoon or evening attractions without having to be in the park to do it. And I like being able to choose your return time rather than having to accept whatever return time is posted when you approach the kiosk. I don't like being limited to only 3 FP+ and restricting those choices to only one park per day. I really hate the tiered system in place at HM and EPCOT. However, I'm not going to avoid going to my favorite place just because I don't like FP+. I know that it's still being tweaked and I'm hopeful that it will improve as Disney gets more feedback from guests. In the mean time, I'll continue to visit and I'll learn to adjust my touring to accommodate the way it has changed the experience.