Tell it like it used to be...

[FortForever]

When I was a kid, and even a younger adult, WDW was not the crazy, crowded place that it is today. There was never more than a ten minute wait for any ride and there were no fastpasses. They just weren't needed.

So, what Disney needs to do, is bring the guest capacity back down to those numbers. Set a cap on guests in each park. A realistic cap, not the insane cap they use now.

Make everyone have reservations for the parks. On site guests and annual passes only. That's it. Bring things back down to an enjoyable level for everyone.

I'm sure this is going to set a fire under many people, but I just don't see any other solution to getting things back to a quality vacation for everyone. I know that's not Disney's goal, it's only my dream, so not going to happen anyway.

Apparently, Disney's goal is to cram as many guests in as possible and basically tell them all that money they paid to get in is only worth three rides ... at a theme park! People are not only accepting this scenario now, they're thanking Disney for it. It's outrageous.

Personally, I would be willing to pay double for the experience the way it used to be. Not sure I'm willing to pay anything for the way things are going now. I grieve for WDW the way it used to be.

 

[teamdkdisney]

I'm not sure how old you are but I remember HUGE waits for the popular rides. Our family would go every year from the late 80's to early 2000's. Space mountain was sometimes 90 minutes.

 

[Pooksie]

I'm not sure how old you are but I remember HUGE waits for the popular rides. Our family would go every year from the late 80's to early 2000's. Space mountain was sometimes 90 minutes.

Yes. That is the reason why they instituted FP- in the first place..

 

[morethananyonex]

The popular rides have always had waits. From day 1. People tend to remember the good ol' days with rose coloured glasses.

Also, Disney will gladly take double your money, except they're still going to let everyone in. Their costs have been rising and rising and people still keep coming. It would be absolutely ridiculous for a company with so much demand to restrict supply for no other reason than to keep waits extremely low. That makes no sense.

 

[Reizo]

The popular rides have always had waits. From day 1. People tend to remember the good ol' days with rose coloured glasses.

Also, Disney will gladly take double your money, except they're still going to let everyone in. Their costs have been rising and rising and people still keep coming. It would be absolutely ridiculous for a company with so much demand to restrict supply for no other reason than to keep waits extremely low. That makes no sense.

Um.. This.

 

[happy Dis planner]

Having grown up in California in the 60's and70's we went to DL a couple times a year. We were in San Jose and even our schools would fly us down for the day during the last week of school.
Then as I got older our family started going to WDW. Honestly there were big crowds and hour waits would easily be the norm.
For me the difference was that you *knew* there was no way to short cut the line, therefore we just had to grin and bear it. We played games in lines, looked at the cool stuff they had in line and generally talked to each other.

Again, since there were no other options we just did it, never gave it a second thought and had some wonderful family memories.
Yes now I very much enjoy FP's etc but back then it just wasn't available. (Boy do I feel like I am dating myself!! )

 

[Mousemommy1]

The popular rides have always had waits. From day 1. People tend to remember the good ol' days with rose coloured glasses.

Also, Disney will gladly take double your money, except they're still going to let everyone in. Their costs have been rising and rising and people still keep coming. It would be absolutely ridiculous for a company with so much demand to restrict supply for no other reason than to keep waits extremely low. That makes no sense.

Agree!

OP, not sure of your age, but my childhood trips in 1985 and 1989 were quite full of VERY long waits. As kids, we were just happy to be there.

I still feel that we get a great quality vacation at Disney. But for us it's about family time and just being together sharing experiences. I suppose we could get that anywhere, we just choose to do it with our favorite backdrop.

I also surely don't share the sentiment of paying XXX amount of dollars to be only able to ride 3 rides. You can only get 3 FP's yes, but you can do standby and ride whatever else you want. I am aware that some people are not willing to do that, so I guess there is a loss for those people, but we barely used FP before and never had a problem riding rides multiple times and now with FP+, we'll sneak in a couple more!

 

[Kellykins1218]

When I was a kid, and even a younger adult, WDW was not the crazy, crowded place that it is today. There was never more than a ten minute wait for any ride and there were no fastpasses. They just weren't needed.

So, what Disney needs to do, is bring the guest capacity back down to those numbers. Set a cap on guests in each park. A realistic cap, not the insane cap they use now.

Make everyone have reservations for the parks. On site guests and annual passes only. That's it. Bring things back down to an enjoyable level for everyone.

I'm sure this is going to set a fire under many people, but I just don't see any other solution to getting things back to a quality vacation for everyone. I know that's not Disney's goal, it's only my dream, so not going to happen anyway.

Apparently, Disney's goal is to cram as many guests in as possible and basically tell them all that money they paid to get in is only worth three rides ... at a theme park! People are not only accepting this scenario now, they're thanking Disney for it. It's outrageous.

Personally, I would be willing to pay double for the experience the way it used to be. Not sure I'm willing to pay anything for the way things are going now. I grieve for WDW the way it used to be.

Wow, what Disney World were you visiting? We've been going since I was little and I remember waiting in really long lines every time. I also remember the thrill and excitement when they introduced Fastpass because of those lines. We've never, even once, felt that we weren't getting a quality vacation.

 

[ArwenMarie]

Personally, I would be willing to pay double for the experience the way it used to be. Not sure I'm willing to pay anything for the way things are going now. I grieve for WDW the way it used to be.

You can pay more for a much better experience...the VIP tour for $1800 bucks for ten people for six hours. $30 an hour per person to bypass all of the lines.

 

[Brian Noble]

So, what Disney needs to do, is bring the guest capacity back down to those numbers. Set a cap on guests in each park. A realistic cap, not the insane cap they use now.

Well, I'd dispute your recollection. But, there's an easy way to reduce the number of guests per day. Charge more for tickets. A lot more. Raise the price high enough, and you'll reduce the number of people in the parks. Even better: go to dynamic pricing, just like they do for hotels. Low-demand seasons have lower gate prices. High-demand seasons are more expensive. Even college sports teams are doing this now; it's a wonder that theme parks haven't.

 

[wisblue]

I echo the comments about what WDW was like years ago. I remember being concerned about our first trip over Easter break in the 90's when we no longer thought we should take our kids out of school. We ended up loving those trips despite the crowds. On some of them, it was so crowded that the parking lots at MK closed for several days.

I would also use our trip between Christmas and New Year's to dispute the idea that you can't have a quality vacation at WDW these days and that you can only do 3 rides a day.

I only go at those times because of family members who are tied to school vacation schedules, but we still have a great time.

If I wasn't tied to those schedules, I would be avoiding those holiday times, and even well known busy times like MLK weekend, like the plague.

 

[glocon]

I guess everyone's idea of a quality vacation is different. To some people time spent in lines does not = quality vacation.

Yes, you can do 3 FP+ rides then SB, but if SB lines are 60-120 min, then you won't get too many more rides in.

But I am sure there was backlash when the original FP was introduced, then people loved it. Hopefully this will be better than many people seem to think it will be.

 

[JimmyV]

The popular rides have always had waits. From day 1.

Agree!

OP, not sure of your age, but my childhood trips in 1985 and 1989 were quite full of VERY long waits.

I'm not sure what you are using as "Day 1", and it certainly was not 1985-1989. But the OP is correct in their recollection of crowds. (But the idea of eliminating off-site day guests is illogical). In the Summers of 1972-1977 when our family did our first 6 trips, the crowds at the MK were nothing like they are now. For example, the Peter Pan queue has been extended a couple of times since then, and it is now filled to the end and beyond. Back "in the day", the original queue was a couple of posts with chains that zig-zagged two, maybe three times and it was never filled beyond that. The original Haunted Mansion queue was just the covered walkway and the crowd never extended to the end of that. Most times, you hit the end of the line as the walkway made its final right-hand turn toward the Mansion entrance. Now, they have had to re-route the foot traffic into a long, winding queue, and it fills up. Yes, certain holidays were crowded back then. But take away a few holiday weekends and a few weeks in the summer and the MK was a "walk-on" experience from opening until closing for around 30-35 weeks a year. There is a reason why Disney started events such as Food and Wine, and the Flower and Garden festivals. And marathon week. And Pop Warner week. Back in the 70's and well into the 80's, there really was an off-season where the MK was dead empty. Not any more.

It certainly would make a difference if they utilized a crowd capacity cut-off that is smaller than it is now. But they cannot tell local FL residents or people who need to stay off site for space and budget concerns that they are not welcome. Well, I suppose they could do that. But it would be a P.R. nightmare.

 

[Bete]

I'm inclined to agree with the original poster. I don't have rose colored glasses on, either. I've been to WDW over 40 times across 35 years and I do remember accomplishing a lot more in a shorter period of time. I've done peak and non-peak times. For one, I was able to get 6 to 8 legacy fastpasses a day per park across the last 12 trips. I'm a savvy Disney traveller and consider myself up on all the latest and greatest there.

In the old days of E tickets I remember getting company coupon books where we had more E tickets than the coupon books you would get at the parks. So, even then you could have more rides on the better rides, if you were lucky enough to get one of the better coupon books.

We just finished a December trip and it was our worse. I won't be returning if the current state is basically the way it will be. We have been enjoying other vacations more for less money over recent years. I am older; I don't quite have the patience I did years ago, either.

I'm fine with doing other trips and skipping Disney World, now if this is how it's going to be.

It's human nature to justify what you want to do; so, we will all have to agree to disagree on this one. Disney won't listen right now because the parks are full or fuller; so, we shall see how they are doing three years from now. We can wait until the tide changes.

I hope I'm wrong about this one. I've enjoyed many successful trips to Disney World through the years and I would like to continue to go there, but not the way it is now.

 

[chartle]

Even better: go to dynamic pricing, just like they do for hotels. Low-demand seasons have lower gate prices. High-demand seasons are more expensive. Even college sports teams are doing this now; it's a wonder that theme parks haven't.

They already do that. A Single day MK is $5 more and the hotels have been doing dynamic pricing (aka Seasons) for as long as I can remember.

It doesn't seem to stop the hordes that rein down at Xmas time, the most expensive time of the year.

 

[ucfknight]

It depends on what you are comparing. Consider this...

Magic Kingdom 1978 attendance: 14 million
Magic Kingdom 2012 attendance: 17.5 million

No too much of a difference, especially when you consider how much the park has been expanded in the last 35 years with a lot of added ride capacity (Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, New Fantasyland, etc have all been opened since then).

So if you are comparing now with the late 70s, the park is about as crowded as it was then when you consider current ride capacity.


Now if you look at just 20 years ago, a few years after the Disney MGM Studios opened to spread out the guests, the Magic Kingdom is definitely more crowded since then. Attendance at the Magic Kingdom specifically is up about 45% since that time (was around 12 million in 1993). However, attendance at Epcot is relatively flat since then and attendance at the Studios is up only about 10% (again, the park now has much higher capacity with the added attractions so it is probably about equal to the crowds it experienced then).

Disney has already started to differentiate the Magic Kingdom to account for demand. This past year they started charging $5 more for a Magic Kingdom 1-day ticket.

 

[redsbe]

I guess everyone's idea of a quality vacation is different. To some people time spent in lines does not = quality vacation.

Yes, you can do 3 FP+ rides then SB, but if SB lines are 60-120 min, then you won't get too many more rides in.

But I am sure there was backlash when the original FP was introduced, then people loved it. Hopefully this will be better than many people seem to think it will be.

Yes the top attractions in each park will develop long SB lines as the day goes by, but there is much more then a few attractions in a park to be experienced and define an enjoyable quality vacation.

If your definition is riding TSM, TT, Soarn' or one of the MK mountains several times a day, then yes your time in lines will impact "your" quality vacation, but that experience is not how the majority of visitors define their WDW trip by.

Plus using RD, plus visiting on low crowd days (even possible to do so during summer and seasonal holidays) can greatly minimize your wait times even for the most popular attractions.

 

[ArwenMarie]

They already do that. A Single day MK is $5 more and the hotels have been doing dynamic pricing (aka Seasons) for as long as I can remember.

It doesn't seem to stop the hordes that rein down at Xmas time, the most expensive time of the year.

I think Epcot, DHS and MK should be half the price of MK, because they are worth half the amount of money (to me anyway!) and to have any effect on crowd distribution.

 

[richmo]

I might agree that some of the waits are longer now than they were in the recent past, but waits in the pre-FastPass days were sometimes horrific. Back in the early days (pre-Epcot, DHS, AK), the long waits would start just trying to park at MK and if you hit it wrong, during busy periods you could be turned away.

 

[DavidNYC]

I'm sorry but not only is this a horrible idea. - it's amazingly selfish. So you would be willing to pay double to keep others out so you can enjoy the park how you want? So all those family's that save for a couple years for this vacation can now save for 4-5 years instead. And the attendance at the park is about proportionally the same when size of park is taken into account and lines other than a few exceptions are comparable as well.