Springing For A Solo Trip 04/25 - 05/04/22

rangerxenos

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jun 25, 2008
Back from my last trip, took a few extra days off to recoup.

First off, if you’re hesitant about going solo, don’t be! This was my second completely solo trip, and my longest at 9 nights. (I’ve also done 3 partially solo trips.) I love to travel with friends and family, but not everyone is able to afford a trip, or get the time off to go to Disney, so I figured if I really wanted to go as often as I do, solo was a viable option. Turns out that my 2 solo trips have been amongst the favorite of all my trips! The only real downside is that you’re the one paying for everything, LOL! If you think you might be lonely, just talk to people while you’re waiting in line, or talk to Cast Members. I met some really nice people throughout my trip.

I took the Mears buses to and from the airport and had no issues whatsoever. Waited ten minutes to get on the bus when I arrived, took about an hour to get to the resort as AKL was at the 4th of 5 stops. Bus was waiting for me at 5 a.m. to take me back to the airport on my departure day. MAKE SURE you allow for extra time at MCO, it was an absolute madhouse at 6 a.m. Oh, how I miss Disney resort airport check in on the day you leave!

Weather was beautiful until the last 3 days of my trip, when it got too hot and humid for my liking. I made sure to stay well hydrated, but it was still way too hot, and I heard that several people were treated for heat exhaustion on Sunday. If you’re going anytime now through September, please make sure you stay well hydrated, and take breaks when you need them.

I love visiting this time of year to see the Flower and Garden Festival at EPCOT, and I timed my visit this year to Dapper Day Weekend and had a lot of fun both dressing up and meeting other people who did the same. This is my third Dapper Day Weekend and I always enjoy them.

Overall, crowd levels at the parks weren’t bad at all, I was pleasantly surprised after being shocked at the crowds in early December last year. I did not plan on using Genie+, and didn’t end up buying any Individual Lightning Lane slots either. Most people I talked to who did purchase Genie+ weren’t very happy with it, and I also commiserated with long time park goers like me who feel it’s an inferior product to Fast Pass+. It requires you to be on your phone too much of the day, often has no time slots available by mid afternoon for the popular rides, potentially messes with meal reservation times, and often has you walking back and forth too many times in the day. By rope dropping and staying until closing (both are things that I usually do anyway) I was able to ride everything I wanted to ride, often multiple times, without spending more money.

Posted Wait times at most rides were a joke, severely overstated almost everywhere in every park, the only exceptions being Rise of the Resistance and Flights of Passage. (though the day I rode it at park close there was a posted 65 minute wait and I was on in 30 minutes). I believe they're overstating to 1) Make people think Genie+ is saving them more time than it actually is, and 2) To try and steer people to other areas of the park. As a regular WDW guest, on most rides I can tell if the posted wait time is reasonably correct by looking at the queue that you can see from the start of the ride. There was a posted 40 minute wait for Toy Story Mania, and I walked on. Posted 45 minute wait for Pirates, another walk on. Posted 30 minute wait for Haunted Mansion, 5 minute wait.

Cast Members almost to a person were all friendly, wonderful and helpful. I was really impressed with the Disney Photopass photographers, there were plenty of them and they didn’t rush people along, they took their time with each person/group. This was especially true on Dapper Day when people were trying to get some really nice photos when they were dressed up. I was also happy to see so many photographers again, as last trip it was hard to find them anywhere except the usual popular spots. If you don’t want to pay for Memory Maker, the Disney photographers are more than happy to use your phone or camera to take photos for you. So are most of your other parkgoers, so if you want everyone in the picture, just ask someone to take a photo for you! I often offer when I see someone taking a photo of other people they’re traveling with.

Ride maintenance is an obvious issue right now, I’ve never seen so many ride breakdowns as I did this trip, and it wasn’t just the newer rides that rely heavily on tech. My first HS day, Rock and Roll Rollercoaster was down all day, and Rise of the Resistance and Toy Story Mania were down for hours. This made the wait times for other rides much worse, and really messed with Genie+ and ILL holders’ plans. My last HS night, 2/3 of Rise was down, so they only ran the last part of the ride. I felt bad for people experiencing the ride for the first time, as it was ruined by us being brought down a back corridor past windows where you could see cars parked, and unceremoniously just walking right into the Stormtrooper room. Both guests and CMs seemed a little confused. If I had paid $15 for an ILL to ride and only experienced half of the ride, I would have been pretty unhappy.

I ate at one sit down restaurant a day, and all were excellent, both food and service. Highlight was Jiko, which was absolutely amazing and lived up to the hype. I ate at Boathouse for the first time as well, another winner, I recommend finding out what time sunset is and asking for a table out on the deck, it was beautiful. I ate at Space 220 again this trip and liked it just as much the second time. Not sure why so many people complain about it. Yeah, it’s expensive, but you’re at Disney, most meals are pricey. Boma remains a favorite of mine, I can highly recommend both the breakfast and dinner buffets. This trip was the second time I’ve had lunch at Steakhouse 71, and it was great. Had another great dinner at Art Smith’s Homecomin’. Ate at both SciFi Dine-in and 50s Prime Time, both favorites of mine at HS. And finally, I can’t recommend the cookies and cold brew at Gideon’s highly enough! I lucked out and never had more than a 20 minute or so wait all three times I stopped by.

I do not recommend the Enchantment Fireworks party, I am sorry I signed up for it last minute when I found an opening. They crammed way too many people into the viewing area, you could barely move, I found the food to be mediocre at the after party, and they stopped refilling some of the stations long before the event was supposed to end. Definitely not worth the $100 in my opinion.

I was delighted that character Meet and Greets were back to normal, though not everyone is meeting again in every park. All I know is that I got to give Mickey and Goofy a big hug again, and there may have been a few tears involved… I took my first tour this trip, Wild Africa Trek, and it was a lot of fun. Next time I think I would like to try the Keys to the Kingdom tour at Magic Kingdom.

This was the trip of the ever-changing resorts for me. I started off reserving offsite at Swan, then switched to Animal Kingdom Lodge, then switched to Gran Destino Tower, then ultimately back to Animal Kingdom Lodge when AP discounts came out as it’s always been my favorite place to stay. This is also most likely my last stay on property for the foreseeable future as I no longer see much value in staying on property given the lack of perks, so I figured staying at my favorite was a good choice. I was lucky enough to get my request for a Standard with a partial savannah view, and ended up on Zebra Trail for the first time. While not quite as nice a view as Sunset Savannah, it was a much shorter walk back to the room, and I was just happy being able to see animals from my balcony! I was also happy to have full housekeeping every other day, unlike my last trip here.

I plan on letting my AP expire for the first time in almost a decade, as I feel like I'm being nickle and dimed to death by Disney right now. The magic is definitely still there, but it comes at a steep price right now; it's time for me to cut back and see if Disney plans on continuing down the road they're on. I don't see myself staying completely away, but I won't be giving them as much of my dollars as I used to going forward.

Overall I had a great trip, and I look forward to going back to WDW next year, when hopefully I’ll finally get to ride Guardians of the Galaxy, and maybe Tron will even be open by then! And MAYBE the walls will finally be down at EPCOT!
 
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Thanks for an honest review! I wonder if Disney is paying attention to the number of people who are letting their AP’s expire and/or aren’t staying on site
 
thanks for sharing your experiences. Glad you enjoyed most things, and Disney won’t learn until people vote with their money.
 

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