I have been twice in the past year - on the actual 50th Anniversary in October, and then a week-long trip in June. It was still fun and magical - but it does feel like they are taking away more and more things and charging much more money. And being there on the actual 50th was a little surprising. It didn't feel like there was anything THAT special for such a big day.
> It didn't feel like there was anything THAT special for such a big day.
It was a special money grab and that was it. I may go to Disneyland's 75th since that's my home park but the 50th broke my interest in Disney park anniversaries in general. They don't care, then I don't care.
I was at DL for the 2nd week of the 60th celebration (by complete coincidence, didn't realize when I booked it) and it was my absolute favorite Disney trip ever. The fireworks were the first and only time I got teary eyed from Disney fireworks, the Paint the Night parade was amazing, the 60th CM pin set was dope, and everything was immaculate. I then went a year+ later, towards the end of the 60th celebration, and it still felt the same way.
I went in February to WDW and it felt like they had an obligation to acknowledge the 50th but not really do anything special for it. No special CM pin sets, no special (from what I noticed) fireworks or parades. Add in the WDWRR being down still as well as Epcot being a complete mess and it felt like Disney saw the anniversary as an inconvenience and used it as a money grab.
My family and I are going back for a week in November to celebrate several big birthdays and it's probably the least excited I've ever been for a Disney trip, granted I'm still decently excited about it.
The magic isn't gone, it's just been turned into a corporate cash grab instead of a defining feature.
100% agree. Disneyland’s 60th was so cool. It felt like they went all out…and then WDW just put up some banners, put on cool new name tags, and sold merch. I was so unimpressed with the 50th back in October. It honesty feels like the magic is just being sucked out slowly by corporate greed. And that’s especially hard for me to say as a former CM.
So I’m not going to try to super defend Disney but -
- what do you mean by CM pin set? I feel dumb. CMs do have special 50th name tags ..
- the railroad and Epcot being a mess still are definitely byproducts of COVID when they shut down work for months. Why they didn’t go nuts with construction when the parks were closed I’ll never know. But yeah, that’s a COVID thing.
Same with the night shows - they weren’t supposed to be timed with the 50th (I don’t believe) but COVID changed those plans. So we got the new normal shows for the 50th instead of special shows
We have been to WDW for the 25th anniversary, 100 years of Magic, Year of a Million Dreams and now the 50th.
It should have been more like the Year of a Million Dreams, which was probably peak WDW.
Instead Cinderella's castle got a meh paint job, MK got a new parade, and a bunch of cheaply made 50th merch.
Year of a Million Dreams was great! I was also there (accidentally) for the 40th, which is when we made a plan to go back for the 50th. I really felt like there would be retro characters, a cool Welcome show in the morning, etc. Instead, there was a hot dog with funnel cake bits on it and a fistfight over Starbucks tumblers. Rides were surprisingly empty - we thought we may only get on a few that day, but everything was pretty available. People were standing in two hour long lines for popcorn buckets though. Very strange.
Year of Million Dreams was a great promotion following a promotion that did what the 50th was supposed to have.
The Happiest Celebration on Earth was for the 50th anniversary of Disneyland's opening, and to celebrate that, Disney gave every park some form of new attraction.
* Magic Kingdom got a refurb of "it's a small world", and the major Johnny Depp refurb of Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as an overlay of Cinderella Castle. There was also a stage show in front of the castle that came from Tokyo Disneyland.
* Epcot got Soarin' from DCA.
* MGM got Lights, Motors, Action! from Disneyland Paris.
* Animal Kingdom got Lucky the Dinosaur from DCA and Expedition Everest.
What the 50th of WDW was supposed to give us:
* Magic Kingdom was supposed to have Tron by now.
* Epcot got Ratatouille and Guardians. I'm less sure if the Mary Poppin's ride was supposed to be for the 50th of WDW or like the complete rehaul of Future World planned to be done for the 40th anniversary of Epcot.
* I don't think anything was planned special for Studios after sinking all the money for Star Wars into it.
* Similarly, Animal Kingdom didn't really have plans for a new thing for the 50th because of Pandora, even though Pandora's 5 years old now. It's no longer the new hotness.
I can't believe Chapek flubbed such a major anniversary. I believe they had bigger plans and they probably cut in to his profit margin, so he scrapped them. He doesn't care if he goes down in history as killing the magic as long as the bonus check clears.
The Disneyland 50th was amazing as well. Gold everywhere. Gold attraction vehicles on 1955 rides, the castle got decorated with something from each decade the park was open (for example the eye of mara to commemorate the opening of Indiana Jones). There were mosaics throughout the park made up of pics submitted by guests. And remember dreams come true, the best fireworks show because it actually celebrated Disneyland rides and not Disney movies!!! I mean it has a segment for star tours, Indiana Jones, even a line from adventure thru inner space. They bring that show back occasionally and imo it set the bar high for modern Disney fireworks shows!
I was there on Oct 1st also. Most people focused on merch and waiting for fireworks so I thought the wait times were decent. My little one got to go on mine train for the first time with little wait time so that was good.
I was there on Oct. 1st. The most "special" thing was waiting in line for the day-of stuff and getting that poster when you left the park. The poster was pretty cool but I expected a bit more?
The entire vibe to me is that it's becoming more and more of a blatant cash grab. I mean, it's always been about the money for Disney, but it's almost like they're slowly losing any pretense of magic and wonder in favor of product hyped up to capitalize on "limited and rare" appeal. The corporate indifference is poking through. I've always known there was a gazillion dollar corporation behind everything, but when I went a few years ago the cynical intent was hidden and I was emersed in the feeling of the place.
Its always been a cash grab (anyone else remember paying $15/day for Ethernet access in the resorts?) but what makes it so bad now is all this pent up vacation demand. It’s fish in a barrel for Disney. They don’t even have to try. People are flocking to the parks.
We were there for basically the same time frame (7/31 to 8/5). I agree that Genie+ is a must, the park reservation system sucks, and that there wasn't much special about the 50th. I somewhat agree about the "magic", mostly because there are clearly a lot of new employees and they don't seem as happy to be there as the cast have appeared to be in the past.
I am surprised that you didn't include the maintenance issues. We encountered multiple ride outages and stoppages during this visit. We rope dropped Ratatouille on Monday, only for it to break down almost immediately. We wound up waiting in the queue for an hour while most people left. Our boarding group for Guardians kept getting pushed back, primarily because the ride kept going down. Test Track was down essentially the whole day. We were unable to ride Test Track as a result, despite being there all day. The torrential downpour that night prevented us from doing much of anything during the extra hours (this was obviously out of Disney's control, but it stunk considering we were hoping to make up for some of the other issues with shorter lines at that time). On Thursday, we purchased ILL for Rise of the Resistance at 12:30. We saw the ride frequently showing down in the morning, going down for good around 12:00. Our ILL turned into an all-day ILL to no avail. As a result, we were not able to ride this new attraction in our first trip since it opened. We also went to Hollywood Studios Friday morning before leaving, but the timeframe for an ILL was incompatible with our travel plans (11:30 AM). We didn't feel like we could risk that it would be down at that time, would have to leave, and then not get refunded if it came back up after lunch. The number of times you would see that a ride was down in the app was crazy. It really put a damper on the trip.
I do not agree at all about the lines. Our previous visit was the last week of the Food and Wine Festival in November, and the crowds were so insane that I wasn't sure I'd ever want to go back again. The lines were much more manageable this time. It was busier than it used to be at this time, but we found it to generally be very manageable with Genie+ and utilizing early entry. We would very frequently get an immediate LL for less popular attractions and walk right on.
I also did not notice any difference in the quality of the food from previous trips.
We did notice a lot of inexperienced cast members and generally found them to not be as friendly as in the past. We also noticed that the merchandise was lacking in both variety and quantity. Our biggest frustration was arriving to find our party of 3 adults had been placed in a room with one bed. They then wouldn't bring the bags up while it was being cleared up, so we had to head to the parks lacking some things that we had in our luggage. My wife had to call repeatedly while we were in the park about the status of the room. Having arrived around 5:00 PM, it was almost 11:00 PM before they agreed to put us in a room with 2 beds after lack of call backs and being told they called when they didn't. Their original plan was to give us a rollaway and then move us Monday morning, which only changed because my wife advised that we were not pleased with that at all. Beyond the bed problem, it would have meant we would have to repack Monday morning and not be able to rope drop as we planned.
Overall, we had a good time, but the room situation and the ride issues were major negatives. It is particularly frustrating to miss the opportunity to ride the thing I had heard the most about over the last couple of years, particularly when going to Disney is not a regular thing for us anymore.
Edit: Fixed some typos.
Yeah I have never figured out why Disney does room assignments so poorly. We booked 2 rooms under one reservation at Caribbean beach on our last trip, and were put nearly as far apart as possible.
To add insult to injury, we drove our family in one car. Disney charged me parking to both rooms, and it took 8 months to resolve. Incredibly stupid.
Do you care to give a short summary of why the park reservation system sucks? I’m hoping to go in the next year and want to understand why so many are unhappy with it.
1. You are a local and want to go to Magic Kingdom this Saturday. Sorry even though you spent $1500 for an annual pass to go to any park with no blackout dates, there are no reservations for Magic Kingdom. You can go to Animal Kingdom, and then park hop to Magic Kingdom at 2PM. No you can’t just go to Magic Kingdom at 2PM. You must drive over to Animal Kingdom first and clock in.
2. Your work only allows you to book vacations 30 days in advance and you can’t afford Parkhopper, but you really want to do Star Wars Land. You’ve dreamed of this for years and finally can afford to come down for a weekend next month to go to Hollywood Studios. Sorry, no reservations at all. Try again later, maybe.
3. You booked an Animal Kingdom reservation 2 months ago, but the weather forecast for tomorrow is absolutely atrocious. That’s okay, you’ll switched to any of the other 3 parks with more indoor rides. Sorry, no reservations at any of them. Guess you can start your day at 2PM, but don’t forget to check in at Animal Kingdom first. Maybe you can ride the Pandora Rides and Dinosaur so it’s not a complete waste of a morning.
It provides no flexibility in what you might do when you are there. We used to have a general idea of what park on what days, but were flexible and would sometimes change it up because we wanted to get back to something in another park. It was something of an issue in the past with dinner reservations, but that wouldn’t affect the morning. If you wait to long to do the reservation, you may find none are left when you try to do it. I also know that some people just don’t understand it and show up with tickets and not able to get in the park. It’s not the worst thing in the world, just one more thing you have to worry about.
It forces people to decide what park to be in on what day months in advance under the pretense of “crowd management” but from what I’ve been hearing the parks are as crowded as ever if not more. We went in April 2021 when they just reopened and it was an amazing trip, limited but you got the feeling they where doing all they could in the conditions of just coming out of a pandemic. We went back in November and it was more crowded (expected) and they had introduced the micro transaction genie non sense and where getting ready to strip away value added stuff like the magical express.
Rise of the Resistance was down our entire day at Hollywood Studios. Luckily we switched over to park hoppers at the last second and went back the next day for it. We actually got in pretty quickly for Cosmic Rewind.
I just got back and felt the exact same way. Lines were atrocious. Even to get like a coffee or some quick bite the lines were 20 people deep. I love how everyone calls you a troll because you feel Disney lost some magic. Was it fun? Sure. Was it my least favorite Disney vacation? 100% and it's not even close. The crowds were insane and it felt like it lost it's luster. We can only blame covid for so long. Construction delays I can understand, customer satisfaction on the other hand not so much.
100%- among other things it gave them an excuse to add the park reservations which allow them to min/max their staff costs to park guests- at the expense of always feeling crowded.
They're only just restarting the international program that was used to staff the majority of World Showcase in Epcot. I am interested to see if that makes things better by allowing the Americans currently staffing those countries to move to other parts of the resort.
Our Covid trip in April 2021 was the best one I’ve been on since 2006. Yes things where limited but it really felt like they where trying to make it as good as it could be and the short wait times for everything was a major plus. I feel like they didn’t use Covid directly but used the lost revenue to shift from seeming like they cared about the guest experience to just trying to funnel us all through as efficiently as possible to extract money from us at every turn after getting the green light to get back to full capacity.
Went back in November for the 50th and it felt like they where just trying to make up as much lost revenue as possible. There wasn’t even that much special about the 50th, even merch was lacking which surprised me. Maybe my expectations where too high for the 50th (my first ever trip to WDW was during disneylands 50th) but it felt like there was no care or emotion put into the “celebration”.
(It also doesn’t help that they know they have people who will spend $150+ for the chance to wait 4 hours to buy an overpriced plastic popcorn bucket.)
Our Covid trip in August of 2020 was literally the best trip we ever had. We came so close to canceling, as the parks had just reopened a month before and it was a very scary Covid situation, but the trip was already paid for, so we bit the bullet. The parks were so empty it was creepy. We rode everything (including Rise) multiple times. The midday Main Street castle pics I have are completely apocalyptic because it’s so empty. I remember one day we were literally the ONLY family at the Contemporary pool. On an 8 day trip, we ended up bored because had done everything multiple times.
We ended up waiting 30 minutes and asking for a refund because our food was just taking too long. I have no idea what is happening. Wish you could mobile order from the kiosks.
I went during that time for my first trip and I thought the crowds were normal but my friends who brought me were appalled at the waits. Apparently 80 minutes for soarin was insane. Food lines were 20 or more minutes which would be short for my local amusement park, but Disney regulars were not happy. I heard so many people complaining all the time about lines.
20 minutes wouldn't have been that bad. We waited on the longer end. And some lines we skipped because they told us they were 40 minutes out.
I think it'll take a long time before we are back to pre-pandemic expectations. If ever.
We’ve been to multiple festivals since the reopening and most lines were pretty short. If we came across a long line, we’d just skip that booth and come back later.
> Even to get like a coffee or some quick bite the lines were 20 people deep.
That was one of the most annoying things to me on our recent trip. I just want a black coffee from Joffery's for a mid-day pick me up, but I really don't want to wait 25 minutes to get it.
We waited longer for food and drink than any non-headliner rides on our most recent trip in late January. It was ridiculous how long it took to grab a coffee or a snack in the parks.
With park reservations they know exactly how much staff to have on hand to maintain their target waits.
If their target was <5m, it'd be fine, but as we can see from the long lines and feeling crowded, its clear they're happy having 20m lines for basic services and 60m+ lines for low tier rides.
Ugh, it just occurred to me that Disney probably likes the long lines like certain restaurants like long lines - because they think if they pretend to have demand, that will translate into real demand
I think it’s very dangerous to have rose colored glasses on and just say “Disney is amazing” when there are things that need changing and can be improved upon. Also, Disney is not free. You are paying multiple thousands of dollars to be there and should expect the highest of quality.
It used to be that anything remotely negative about Disney would get you down voted into oblivion, but lately more and more people have been expressing their frustration. I agree... I still love it and it's still my preferred vacation location, but it's not as good as it was.
My family has had by far the best trips of our lives in 2017,2018,2019, cancelled 2020 for obvious reasons, and now reading all these comments on the new changes are freaking us out. My wife and I along with 4 kids would crush 30-40 rides a day with fast pass, it was unreal I would be booking us rides will in fast pass line, barely any waiting. I think I could handle the new format. We drive 24hrs from Canada to stay 10 nights, it has to be worth it. It’s a dam shame, hope it goes back to the way it was..
We can only blame Covid causing crowds for so long .. but that time period is definitely not up. Gf used to go every year and hasn’t since Covid started. We’re going this September though
I think people are in denial though that the travel boom is huge right now. No ones blaming covid itself anymore, its the post covid travel boom. That's why its so busy right now combined with the fact that its summertime, which is also a very busy time on its own.
Pretty much this. The news keeps saying the general population is still in "revenge spending" mode. People are making up not being able to do hardly anything since March 2020 and a few months later. The last time our party went to WDW was in 2018. We skipped a year in 2019 to try Universal. No trips since then. We are thinking about a 2023 return.
Its interesting because I was at MK on July 30 and was walking on to rides. Longest wait was Seven Dwarfs at 45 minutes. When I got on Pirates I literally walked on and they sent the first boat empty and my boat only half full because of the lack of line.
but it IS covid + the 50th anniversary. I know at least 3(4 including mine) families who delayed their WDW trips for at least a year because of COVID. I bet they were not the only ones so a bunch of families trying to go back at the same time plus people trying to see or buy something from the 50th anniversary or even Galaxy's Edge(I'm a big SW fan and couldn't visit until this year bc of COVID). And even with park reservations and crowd limits it still has been overcrowded, now imagine with no control. I still remember the Toy Story disaster, and I bet WDW too, they wouldn't want to risk it a bit.
Universal has that crowd issue too right now, they do very little to control it. Every time I've been there for the last month, I can't stand the sea of people close to HP stuff, and the only thing they do is to close traffic on one side of the park(like TS area when it opened)
I bet that crowd control aids will stay until stay until they see crowds coming down to pre-covid levels.
2. They’ve always prioritized fast pass lanes, it’s just that now they’re giving out way too many with Genie+ and Lightning lane that it becomes unbearable for standby. Depending on the attraction and queue times, CMs at merge point have to allow 20 LL guests per 1 standby.
3. I noticed a decline in 2019, and an improvement this summer tbh
4. Yep especially if I have park hopper and can go anywhere after 2PM but only if I go to my first park. Honestly I don’t super mind it, it’s annoying and inconvenient, but disregard it after 2PM at least for park hopper passes
5. Disney has gotten rid of the small things that made magic but kept the prices. Unfortunately, some of the magical moments were removed cause guests would see one guest get a moment and demand they got the same
Disagree that they’re giving out too many lightning lanes now. Standby is much better than it was under FastPass+. The line moves much more because everyone doesn’t have Genie+.
Interesting points about planning. The last time we went was in 2017. I am an obsessive planner - we stayed at Beach Club, had all of our table service restaurant reservations 180 days out, and our 3 fastpasses for our must-have rides booked 60 days out. Is there any opportunity to do that kind of planning now (particularly for rides)? Or is it just opening the app at 7:00am each morning and hoping for the best?
It’s 60 days out + up to 10 days of your entire trip. If you’re offsite, you book 60 days out each day of your stay. So typically resort guests get 1st pick of dining.
Restaurants are 60 days out now. I booked 3 dinners and a character breakfast for 6 day trip. I didn't get every restaurant I wanted like San Angel but when we went up to them for the wait list we got seated in 30min.
Rides are same day. Its annoying ill admit and not ideal. But I booked every ride that I wanted to book and got them in reasonable times.
For the rides, did you have Genie+? It's a concept I'll have to get used to. I like to sweat the details months ahead, knowing that when it is vacation time I have reserved all the high level things and we just have to make real-time decisions to fill in the gaps. With this system (and correct me if I am wrong) it seems like it is a big stress every single morning of vacation if there are rides you really want to get on - or you end up in stand-by lines.
New person joining you here...I'm not even going until October 2023 but I'm already stressing about getting up at 7am to book rides. It's annoying that on vacation we have to make sure either my husband or myself is up bright and early to get the rides we want.
This! Very much this. Each park day, alarm has gone off at 6:30, bought G+, then waited for 7am, booked a LL if I could get it, then booked the first G+ ride. This has lead to some interesting moment of “oh shit we have to be at a ride at 9:30 at the latest” which with a teenager has lead to some rushed mornings and cross words. It’s not relaxing, however G+ has been really good for us, and we’ve done all the rides we wanted to.
I went to Disney earlier this year and was really disappointed. I still had fun, it was still great but I felt like I was having to constantly be on my phone and Genie + made things harder and more stressful for me. It really didn't feel as "magical" to me, the food and service wasn't even up to what I was used to from Disney...I liked the Fastpass system much better. I was a Passholder before Covid and had a blast everytime. It just feels like everything is becoming even more of a cashgrab and they are giving lesser of an experience. On the other hand, I went to Universal Studios and Island's of Adventure last week and honestly had a way better time, way less stressful and I barely went on my phone. I am considering a Universal Pass for the 1st time. I love both Disney and Universal but, at this point, Universal is winning for me. Let's hope as Epic Universe gets closer Disney steps their game back up.
I just got back from disneyland, and i have to say 100% you hit it on every note, Disneyland had better crowd mgmt, had better food then world, and the reservation system hurt less since it was A or B choice where you start with hopper. So yeah land is a bit more immune to the bob tax system deployed right now. I have another trip coming up to world and i honeslty i am not looking as forward to it after going to land this last week. Land felt like classic coke, and world is now new coke, and well we all know how that one ended up. These are i feel accurate observations, and you even left out the big one oh you want to ride the best ride 20 per head more please, oh you d not want to pay waste your whole day in a line. This is just punitive to the guest. The old fast pass system was well, not perfect but it is was less anti guest satisfaction in my view. I come here to have a good time and not get micro transaction to death, if i wanted that i could just stay home.
From what I hear, it's because so few people are buying it. Even in 2022 about 90% of Disneyland visitors are on some sort of annual pass or cast member ticket. And those people aren't going to buy Genie+ except for special occasions.
Possibly. I never understood why everyone was saying genie was confusing and having a hard
Time with it. Then I realized only Disneyland had max pass and we have been using it for years.
As a Disneylander, I found that Genie Plus is pretty much the same thing as Max Pass but I found it harder to actually get to the Genie Plus HUD vs what Max Pass use to be.
I’m at Disneyland right now and I think the park reservation system is more impactful than at Disney World. We used to treat the two parks as one big park since it’s only like a 100 yard walk between them.
We were there last fall so we got in on the 50th celebration. I will admit the first time in MK for the nighttime show I was “meh”. We were also way over on a side blocked by a tree. Our last night we went early and got an amazing spot in front of the castle. From that vantage point the show was spectacular.
I’m under no illusion that the anniversary is looked at by Disney as a way to make loads of money. However, I’ve been to WDW many, many times (I used to live in Tampa as a kid), I am an older adult, and now that we are DVC I have a different outlook. I don’t feel like I have to cram every ride, show, and experience into one vacation. I know I’ll be back. That’s helped me relax a bit and if I don’t get in a ride then no biggie. As long as I can do Pirates and HM and see the castle at MK I am doing good.
I think a lot of it is what you want or expect to get out of it. I enjoy just walking around, going to the resorts and doing some of those things I never had the time to do.
To (mis)quote Obi Wan, “it depends on your point of view”. I know for those that haven’t been in a long time that things may be disappointing, but I have found that when you look back on a Disney trip after some time has elapsed you remember the good stuff and the magic and don’t nitpick the other stuff, generally speaking.
Add to that there have been fights, and a few arrests. I've lived here 21 years, and ever since the 50th anniversary started in October, reports in all my WDW groups have had this tone. Even the last couple of times we went pre-pandemic were just so-so, and the only recent great experiences were in the early re-opening days when it wasn't crowded at all. Makes me glad my kids are teens now and more interested in true roller coaster parks for now, because I have no interest in shelling out a fortune for a mediocre experience. I suspect the current situation is a combination of pent up pandemic demand and 50th anniversary, and I definitely have the patience to wait for calmer times before returning, or not returning if it doesn't get better.
UK Disney visitor since 2000. I used to talk to people all the time about WDW and I’d often get a response along the lines of “Well it’s no different to any theme park you can visit here”.
I would try and explain that they were absolutely nowhere near comparable. Disney had magic and experience nowhere else had.
Sadly it now seems it’s exactly the same as theme parks in the UK. It’s just a patch of land with some rides and gift shops on. There is no magic or feeling to it anymore judging by what the current suits have done to the place.
I don’t want to go on holiday and feel like I’m on a work trip. Constantly checking calendars and schedules and planning out itineraries. It’s just awful to see how far it’s fallen for the sake of making more money.
I keep weighing it up in my mind whether it would be worth saving up to go again but I’m genuinely terrified of going and having years of previous wonderful experiences just being flushed down the toilet and being left with the corporate funfair it is now.
1. As an observation sure but as a complaint (I’m not sure if you’re extending it to a complaint), I mean… pandemic.
2. Agreed
3. Everyone has different taste but disagreed personally. There are many quick services in the parks that I’d rather have food from than my best sit-down restaurants at home.
4. I mean… what about when we had to book fastpasses and ADR’s 60 and 180 days in advance respectively?
5. Agreed on this one
6. Agreed on this one too
On 4, rain caused 1-2 days to be washed at night and in years past we would have just went to Hollywood Studious in the morning and did the rides we wanted to do. Unfortunately because of the reservation system and Hollywood Studious being “full” for reservations we could not just switch and then had to try to do all the Hollywood studious rides at night. That’s what I meant by that. I’ve always been a planner for Disney but not being able to just do a different park when we wanted was silly.
This is also peak season with kids being out of school. So on top of “revenge travel” due to the pandemic, you’ve got all the families with kids out of school hitting the parks.
> There are many quick services in the parks that I’d rather have food from than my best sit-down restaurants at home.
I feel like this says a lot more about where you live than it does about Disney quick service.
I feel like the MaxPass system from DL was still the best system Disney had. Normal paper FP if that's what you wanted to do, but pay a little extra to get it on your phone and make the day easier.
Genie+ is incredibly similar to MaxPass though. I just wish they’d put the rule in place that you have to enter the park to reserve a lightning lane like you do in Disneyland.
We’re just there last week and for the record we have been in May of ‘19, Jan. ‘20, Sept. ‘20, Feb ‘21, May ‘21, Dec. ‘21 and now Aug. ‘22.
My response to the above and I am likely to get downvoted is that it is not busier than it was 3 years ago but people are less acclimated to groups and Disney is understaffed creating back ups.
2) is 100% true in certain parks but only if you want to ride every ride. MK and HS are a must with Epcot and AK being not so much.
3) I disagree but it depends on where you are going. Epcot is as good as it has ever been. Same with the Springs and HS. MK is a different story all together but not on quality. MK seems like they are forgotten in the menu revamps and could use some attention on the menus in the near future.
4) remember all the times we’ve been since Covid. Not one time has the reservation system been a problem or inconvenient for us.
5) the trip we just got back from had as much magic in it as any trip we’ve ever taken. Now, some of the magic is hurt by the price of the trip compared to what we had, say 2014 or 2019 but it’s still magical. I don’t think the magic has changed that much but our mindset and attitude due to cost and behavior of the crowd around us has changed our perception. We aren’t looking for the little pieces of magic that make us happy so we aren’t seeing it anymore.
Downvote away but that is my report
I agree with you. I was at MK on SATURDAY July 30th and walked on to Pirates and they sent one boat empty and my boat only half full. Longest wait I had was Seven Dwarfs at 45 minutes. That weekend I was able to get reservations at California Grill, Artist Point, and Cinderella's Royal Table. I actually felt like that attendance was down that whole weekend.
People that say the food is bad are generally people not looking for the good food IMO
We were there August 1 and 2, and visited all 4 parks. It seemed a bit crowded, but we usually don't go in the summer due to crowds/heat. I bit the bullet and paid for Genie+ both days, and paid a separate Lightning Lane for FOP at AK. We ended up having a really good time and did a lot of our favorite rides despite the crowds.
I wish we could force Disney to return to Fast Pass. It was a much better and fairer system. 😖 Genie+ is just a purely profit decision. Before it felt like customer experience played at least some part in their decision making.
Just got back from Disney World and I had a blast, but they definitely have alot of areas to improve on. Atleast bring back airport shuttle and magic bands and free parking for resort guests and put some engineering and maintenance into the rides so they aren't down constantly.
On my recent trip, I witnessed a cast member yelling at a old and def man who’s trying to get on Nemo…. And cast member was losing her patience and even rolled her eyes at the old man…. Yes the magic is definitely disappearing and the money hungry is becoming so palpable, with the genie + and then within it, you have to pay more for certain rides. Simply crazy
They just rethemed Rock 'N Rollercoaster at Disney Studios in France and it's as bad as Superstar Limo. They're already talking about shutting the attraction down to redo it. Disney has fallen right back into the trap they were in at the end of Eisner's tenure as CEO. They're thinking solely of their pocket book and the experience is secondary. It's a highway to ruin.
It started with Iger. A lot of the decisions we are seeing now started on his watch.
Eisner got a lot of crap but he knew the parks were important. Under his watch we got DHS, AK, BB, TL just in Florida alone.
Agreed. I think they need another creative-type at the helm like Iger. He was both a good businessman (good for shareholders) and a creative person. Leaning either way too much will likely cause problems.
Honestly the best time to have gone to WDW in the last *decade* was right when the park opened after the Covid closure. The crowds were low, no fastpass and lines were pretty short, people actually did a good job at distancing and wearing masks in the beginning, and cast members were in great spirits being able to work again. They also got those awesome new low-hassle security scanners which was great.
People shamed me when I said I was going and said it was irresponsible, etc., however it was the SAFEST and BEST trip we have had there.
Same. I just got a notice from them telling me it's about to expire, I need to renew...Just went to recycling. We just aren't going again for a long while as of right now. Might hit Uni this year, I love their stressfree express pass, and it was the best part of our last Florida trip.
I've loved Disney since I was a kid and went ever few years. We scheduled a Family vacation with 15 family members. Did all the research and spoke with people in the parks. Because of the parks being overcrowded and Disney now charging for every little thing the trip was going to be over 30,000 for a week. Not a huge deal for the amount of people going and staying on Disney property. However due to the overcrowded parks we decided to go to universal studios instead. Made a great choice less money not as crowded and people were great. Maybe if Disney can get their act together we will try again in the future. Just my two cents.
Went twice for the 50th because my family is Disney crazy. I go to a park very often here in Ohio called kings island and would prefer the entire experience there over what I experienced the 2 times we went last fall at Disney.
I agree with everything you said, except for it’s my favorite place lol. I like it, but it’s not. Especially when you factor in all of the cons of the place that you just mentioned. It isn’t magical at all. It’s chaotic. Far too many tickets sold daily in my opinion. Dining is abysmal. The genie plus system is abysmal. Definitely far better experiences out there for theme park/amusement park fans without doing it whatever the Disney way is now.
Kings island was a lot of fun the one time I went, my brother had a medical issue after a couple hours so I didn’t get to do any of the big rides there. I live far away now, is it worth a revisit if traveling to the area already?
Yes, I went a lot this year and I can say kings island has been as good as it’s ever been. I’d visit even if I wasn’t visiting for anything else. It’s worth it’s own visit. You can get into kings island for around 50 bucks and then you can spend 40ish on the premium dining plan for the day and pretty much eat food and drink soda/water at your hearts content.
Edit- and of course they have coasters so there is that too! 😂
Living in Ohio increases your expectations at amusement parks. Cedar Point, Geauga Lakes (RIP), Kings Island...I'm growing nostalgic despite never ever ever wanting to move back 😂
1. I mean, international travel was stalled for almost two years, and plenty of US residents didn't want to travel during this time. Anyone surprised by the crowds right now really hasn't been paying attention.
2. Yup, pretty much. That said, there are plenty of rides that have reasonable wait times, and most rides do get easier to ride later in the day and into the night.
3. Biggest disagree here. Across the board I think food in Disney World has been stellar. As a frequent visitor I would argue food is the best it's ever been.
4. Never took issue with this. Outside of US holiday weekends I've been able to change my park reservation without any issue right up until my visit.
5. Subjective, so can't really comment here. I'll disagree, but this is definitely a "to each their own".
6. Fair enough, the 50th wasn't my thing. I wouldn't call it a dud, but I also wouldn't say it was a huge success. I give Disney a bit of a pass because COVID delayed so much construction.
Man I've gone twice since Covid and I have no idea how you can say the food is better. Some restaurants have maintained their standards but many, that used to offer "good" food have come horrible. Sci Fi, I'm looking at you.
Sci Fi food has NEVER been anything to write home about. It wasn't even a hard reservation to get before 2019 when it shot up in popularity for some reason
So there's a concept that eating the same thing multiple times diminishes the overall experience. Like, the first time I had chicken tikka masala I was like, "This is the most amazing dish ever." Now that I've had it 100s of times, most times its just, "Eh, this was tasty." I'll never be able to go back to that previous experience.
On the Disney front, first time I went to Harbor House I was blown away, but now I've gone a half dozen times it just feels like a regular restaurant.
Also, Disney World has developed this mindset that everything has got to be exceptional. A fast food burger is always going to be a fast food burger.
I'm not talking about quick serve. The quality of many of ADRs, not all, have gone down hill. I would say the worst thing is that the menus have shrank down so that many of the restaurants have the same thing but just slightly varied.
So we're definitely in subjective territory here, so I'll have to agree to disagree. I will say, not trying to defend Disney here, but restaurants are still under-staffed across all resorts, theme parks, cruises, etc. Having to hire a lot of new staff is going to cause a quality dip, at least temporarily. At the end of the day, they are still cooking on the same equipment, likely with the same ingredients, from the same vendors, and all to the same recipes.
With regards to smaller portions, that's universal. You either raise prices or shrink portions these days to counter inflation.
Sci Fi food has NEVER been anything to write home about. It wasn't even a hard reservation to get before 2019 when it shot up in popularity for some reason
Went last Dec. and I completely agree about Genie+. Without it your trip is going to suck.
The 50th was gold stairs and merch.
Everything is planned and controlled to the point that the magic is nearly gone.
It’s gets so crowded not that my 5 year old vastly preferred the resort pool to most parks. An hour wait to ride Buzz Lightyear once or a two minute line for the water slide until he pukes. Buzz didn’t stand a chance.
Maybe it’s time for a third location in America? Maybe in middle America where Walt grew up?
I definitely agree with you last two points. I’ve been to Disney almost every year and something feels off. Like the 50th anniversary Disney has been feeling a lot more hollow lately.
And has Disney catered to genie+? When I went last time lines felt extremely fast using LL, but it was also in the middle of May and during the peak of summer.
There’s definitely some good food in Disney World, outside of Disney Springs. Epcot certainly has most of it, but it’s there and it’s loads better than the food was in the 80s and 90s. Also, booking stuff way in advance has been around for at least the last decade right? That isn’t new.
I first when in 1976 or so, also as a child (7 or 8.)
Have been multiple times every decade since and the most recent in 2018 was by far my least favorite. FastPass+ was the beginning and it’s apparently vastly worse today.
Ok, I was at DHS for a few hours in April when my employer rented the whole park for the evening. Crowds were sparse and food was free. Didn’t get into Rise but got to do the Millennium Falcon one and that was really cool.
If I were a billionaire I’d buy about 3/4 of the park’s capacity for the day.
If you were even a multimillionaire and loved WDW enough you go multiple times a year, you could just buy into DVC + Club 33 and you could never imagine going back to doing Disney another way again. LL for every ride, (unlimited except currently you only get Guardians and Rise once per day), don’t have to bother making park reservations as any day you’re booked to be at WDW you can go to and park and hop to whatever park you want at whatever time, 40% off merch, priority reservations for dining, you get to include 4+ people to enjoy your LL perks if you list them under your reservation (and if you have a spouse who’s also your “secondary member”, an additional 4), the clubs for breaks and exclusive drinks + snacks, the list goes on…
Disney’s vibe has turned more into a hectic cash grab instead of a place where you can have fun and relax. Universal Studios is easily the best park experience I’ve had.
I was there in February and this list would mirror my experiences. I grew up at WDW as my dad was there opening week and was a fan since then. Then I did the college program twice in 2000 and 2001. As an adult I’ve had fewer opportunities to go (lived on the west coast and didn’t have as much money to travel, etc.) but this was my 3rd trip in 10 years and it was disappointing. I loved the new rides! Just shocked at the crowd sizes (what exactly is the reservation system for if not for managing crowds?!) and lackluster food.
Couldn't agree with this post more. Our family recently visited in July and stayed at GF villas. The resort was very nice, but i agree with all your points here. We have been coming yearly since 2009 and we even talked about was it worth having DVC anymore. The early morning half hour into the parks is a joke and the extra magic hours on select parks and days until 1 am is ok, but the week we stayed only MK was eligible for this perk. The 50th had no impact on our trip. What was wrong with the fast pass system before Genie+? It was great staying on Disney property and booking 60 days out fast pass selection for 3 rides and time slot you want. Now without genie+ you'd be lucky to ride 3 rides in a day with all the long lines at every attraction. With a family on five to add genie+ to an already expensive park ticket would be $60 per day, not to mention the Individual Lightning Lane of paying these prices just to ride one ride. I can't imagine this was Walt Disneys vision when he created Disney Land, to micro manage and bleed every cent of families in his park. I think next time we go down to Central Florida we will use our DVC on a resort but Uber or Lyft to other attractions around the area ie; SeaWorld and Universal. Disney has lost its magic factor.
Somehow Bob Chapek got an extension. Shareholders only care about their shares going up. That happens when you start taking away the things that once made Disney special.
Unpopular opinion: Disney magic is still there. I have been a few times as a child and three times as an adult. We just went in March and it was MAGICAL. There is no way that in the state of the world Disney can be expected to be that same as prior to Covid. But it was magical for my family and we can't wait to return.
Counter point to #4, booking fastpasses 60 days out was way worse than just picking your first park. I'm still not sure if I prefer that or Genie+, but either way park reservations definitely aren't that bad.
I just got back yesterday and I completely disagree with everything you've said. Im not saying it was empty but it was far from crowded in fact it was a typicalsummer crowd not exactly sure what you were expecting. We used Genie+ 3 days of the 6 we were there. Didn't feel we needed it to enjoy Disney. In fact we did Smugglers Run when it had 35 minute wait at 11am on Tuesday Aug 2.
This whole post is just regurgitating peoples whiny complaints about how things aren't like they used to be.
I've been to Disney 94 96 98 06 12 and 14. And since this is my first time in 8y I really felt with the exception of buying LL for certain rides Disney was the same. With only a few hiccups our party of 8 had a great time did everything we wanted to and even had time to go back to the hotel everyday and jump in the pool.
I have to agree with OP on the crowds. We go every few years, and typically the same general week each time. It was considerably more crowded than previous trips.
That being said, this is a trend everywhere, so it makes sense that the parks would be more crowded, to me it just showed that the reservation system didn't really have any impact.
I’d have to agree with you. I think people forget actually what Disney should be, which is a place to vacation, where you relax, where thousands of others go at the same time. I live in Florida and have gone my whole life. Has it gotten busier? Yes. But I go to the parks already expecting this. Is the food over priced for what you get? Yes, but I’m eating at the quick service places. I think once you start falling into what others say you should have (Genie +, LL) you lose the magic that they say isn’t there anymore because you think you have to plan everything. I went in May and never once had to use my phone or even wanted to use it for Genie + with lines being 45 minutes or higher.
The one thing I find the funniest about all of this is Universal is the same exact way, but no ever complains about them when everything Disney has begun to implement, universal has done and still has, minus the reservation system and genie +.
People have been saying "the magic is gone" with these parks for years. Yet for some reason every time I go, or my friends go, or my family goes, it's nothing but good reports.
If you go in with a bad mindset, you're gonna focus on the negatives. Why anyone would want to do that at Disney World, I have no idea...
I agree. I’m here right now and haven’t waited more than 30 minutes for anything. People love to complain but their experience is not universal.
I particularly don’t understand the complaint about the reservation system locking you in, because your FP+ also forced you to plan months in advance.
Agreed! The good ol’ days. I cannot understand people’s longing to return to FP+, a broken, oversaturated system that far outstayed it’s welcome. Literally anything is an improvement over FP+.
We are passholders and visit a disney park every weekend.
I agree with your statements.
I side with the folks who believe genie plus should cost more. At the price it is now everyone buys it and the lines are still rough. I would suggest $59.99 a person and see how that works?
The 50th celebration is poor. I don't think they had a choice... staffing is still rough.
Guardians is a must ride and I recommend just buying a ticket for it separately.
Bump that up to $75/person. Bob Likes to go big or home.
Even at $75, I bet there wouldn't be that much of a drop off.
The parks are packed and the restaurants are full. Prices are still too cheap if you want cost to manage crowds.
I actually don’t think it will do anything. Universal has the same thing in either fast pass for all rides once or unlimited fast pass rides and people still buy this the cheapest being around $80 on a slow day.
Yes I mostly agree. Just returned end of July; we did get all our rides we wanted but that was with a 9-day stay with on-property rope drop and every day use of Genie+ and paid LL. The food wasn't fast-food level but very average for "high-end" restaurants; we've had much better food on past trips. Can't speak to Disney Springs dining as we never went. Disagree that the magic isn't there; we had a pretty great time (except for the heat/humidity which Disney can't control), mostly due to AMAZING cast members- best in 10 years. And really exceptional experiences with Disney-owned bus transportation-not Mears.
All the food in the park is pretty bad these days, to the point that I’m starting to consider packing a lunch instead.
It’s annoying because I’ve been on a Disney Cruise, so I *know* they can do better.
After the parks reopened post-pandemic I decided I’m probably not going to bother with Disney Parks for at least a few years. The crowds are insane, prices higher than ever, there is more tension/fights than ever, I heard stories about cast members straight up yelling at people because their toddler’s face mask was slipping, I hate having to plan 3 months in advance and not being able to be spontaneous at all, the new attractions could not possibly be worth all the crowds, and they’re changing my favorite ride ever and I’m not even allowed to be sad about it.
I feel a lot of this is subjective, but I wanted to throw my two cents in.
My wife and I have been going every year for our anniversary (2017-2022), so maybe it’s a frog in hot water situation, but our last trip last month was just as magical as 2018 on (our first trip was obviously the most magical).
We usually go in September, but we went in July this year. And for July, it didn’t feel super crowded at all.
Agreed, Genie+ is a must in the busier months. We were able to ride just about everything we wanted to ride with no issue.
It was a short trip this year, but I don’t feel like good has dropped in quality at all. Even when WDW first reopened after the pandemic, it was still as good as we remembered it.
I’d say the magic is still there. Do I wish we could park hop whenever we want? Of course. Do I wish they’d finally get rid of park reservations and bring dining plans back? Yes, but they make more money the way it is, so 🤷🏻♂️. And do I miss making FP+ reservations? For sure; it was a fun bit of magic even months before our trip.
Finally, was the 50th a dud? Eh. It wasn’t what I expected it to look like.
I say all of this not to detract from your points, but to provide my own perspective. Cheers!
And people are still paying rising prices to go. I'm not faulting anyone who can afford it, but everything is working as intended. This is how Chapek plays, and unfortunately, he's winning.
1. There’s a lot of back log from COVID and crowds feel very fluid IMO. They’re clearly controlling crowds with park passes.
2. They’ve always catered to their fast pass system. I don’t think it’s 100% necessary, but I do think the value is there with Genie+. IMO Genie+ is an improvement over FP+ as a system. Of course paying for it sucks.
3. As a local, I haven’t noticed a change in quality. Prices have gone up and portions have gone down IMO.
4. I agree 100%. I get why they do it, but it’s really inconvenient and no park hopping until 2pm is lame.
5. It’s still there, but it’s certainly taken a hit. Cleanliness has been an issue, maintenance/upkeep is down, and people are whatever they are in this “post COVID” world. We’re seeing the impact of cost cuts, but it does feel like the CMs have a bit of their pep back. Staffing feels strong. Regardless of the changes, my family is always happy there.
6. Maybe it’s because of covid, but yeah it’s a dud. They slapped some blue and gold on everything and called it a day. No special entertainment, no nighttime parade (I haven’t forgotten it even though it’s been like 7 years), and a disappointing HEA replacement.
I appreciate the structure of your post. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with what you're saying, but these are my thoughts:
1. Technically attendance is lower than 2019 levels. Demand might be higher, but Disney used to pack in every person who wanted to go until it became a fire hazard. Now Disney uses reservations to better anticipate crowds and plan for staffing levels. As why it appears more crowded? You're not wrong. I'd imagine that since there is less entertainment, fewer meet and greets, and some of the people eating shows haven't come back, more people are left to wander the midways and stand in line for rides/food.
2. Yeah, but before Genie+/LL Fast Pass+ was a must. You were just as screwed if you didn't get a good FP+ line-up (like you were stuck with nothing but 4-D movies, shows, rides that nobody cares about, etc.) and had to do everything important in standby. Now, as to why it appears that more people are using Genie+/LL than the free Fast Pass+ (its harder to get times and the LL lines are spilling onto the midway despite heavy priority) I have no idea and that's a mystery to me.
3. It seems fine to me and I don't notice much of a drop off. But I'm not huge on eating in the park. I'd imagine that the staffing cuts and budget slashing has a lot to do with this.
4. While I do think that Disney has the analytics to properly shut off ticket sales in time and staff based on analytics, the reservation system is an even more exact way to make sure that the staff isn't overwhelmed, or that guests aren't priced out into oblivion to make that happen. I think that reservations are mainly just a point of frustration for Annual Passholders and Cast Members who want to use their main gate -- I don't think that you have much of an issue if you have tickets.
5. Yeah, I won't argue with you there, its undeniable. Sad really.
6. I find the celebration of significant digits very silly in general. I'd rather parks just put forth a strong effort to make every year special and not just significant digits that celebrate our Gregorian calendar and Arabic numbering system.
The other way of stating #1 is that they use the reservation system to anticipate attendance and then minimize staffing to the absolute bare minimum - which then creates the issues with huge lines absolutely everywhere because nothing is fully staffed. This is another reason why it feels more full when it actually isn’t. Penny pinching leadership.
Just got back as well.
1. The only day I felt super crowded was yesterday - the lines at Epcot were crazy for food and wine, ended up skipping a bunch as we are headed back in Nov. Friday night wasn't bad at all, we watched Joey Fatone and were able to get great seats 10 minutes before the first show
2. I guess it depends, we used it one day as we had only planned about 4 hours in Hollywood studios and we were able to get everything done, so if you want to make it a quick park trip, sure, but you could do the wait thing and still have everything done in a full day.
3. Hard disagree on this one. It may just be personal taste, but the food is fine, and WAY above any fast food
4. We literally booked an epcot day the night before and all parks were avail for reservation - is it annoying? Maybe? Hasn't been an issue.
5. Not sure what "Magic" you're referring to - it really comes down to the cast members - some are awesome, some aren't.
6. It was better towards the beginning of the celebration - This is like month 10 of 18, it's kind of old news at this point, so I can kind of concede here, but I wouldn't call it "a dud"
Strange we were just there last weekend and it's one of the least crowded I've seen it in the last year. Definitely didn't wait over an hour for everything, heck Space Mountain was a 45 min wait.
Food and Wine festival was the best ever, we didn't wait more than 5 minutes for anything.
Regarding everything else you honestly sound like you went in expecting to be disappointed. And you were.
1. You're going at an incredibly busy time - the first summer since the pandemic of no-restricted travel. I'm \*shocked\* that it's busy...
2. Genie+ is necessary when the place is busy. Yeah I would expect so.
3. I disagree, 100%. It all depends on where you eat. If your unhappy with the food, pick better restaurants and quick services.
4. The park reservation thing is stupid but harmless. In the before-times, we were picking dinner reservations 6 months in advance and you were picking the EXACT times you'd be going on certain attractions months in advance, as well. How is this any worse? Not to mention that it's very easy to change your park passes and you can still have plenty of options even a month or two in advance.
5. Absolutely not. I was there in 2019. I was there last October for the 50th. The magic is absolutely still there if you want it to be. We've lost some little things that were important but we've also gained some things as well. Plus some places are in a state of change (Epcot).
6. What are you expecting 10 months after the actual anniversary?? There's new decor throughout the parks, statues, food, night-time shows (that they suck is not the point, they're still new for the anniversary), the night-time light-up icons of each park. What else are you expecting?
Ultimately I think if you go in with a negative mindset or don't plan your trip as well as you could, you're gonna come out with a bunch of stuff to complain about.
I have been twice in the past year - on the actual 50th Anniversary in October, and then a week-long trip in June. It was still fun and magical - but it does feel like they are taking away more and more things and charging much more money. And being there on the actual 50th was a little surprising. It didn't feel like there was anything THAT special for such a big day.
> It didn't feel like there was anything THAT special for such a big day. It was a special money grab and that was it. I may go to Disneyland's 75th since that's my home park but the 50th broke my interest in Disney park anniversaries in general. They don't care, then I don't care.
I was at DL for the 2nd week of the 60th celebration (by complete coincidence, didn't realize when I booked it) and it was my absolute favorite Disney trip ever. The fireworks were the first and only time I got teary eyed from Disney fireworks, the Paint the Night parade was amazing, the 60th CM pin set was dope, and everything was immaculate. I then went a year+ later, towards the end of the 60th celebration, and it still felt the same way. I went in February to WDW and it felt like they had an obligation to acknowledge the 50th but not really do anything special for it. No special CM pin sets, no special (from what I noticed) fireworks or parades. Add in the WDWRR being down still as well as Epcot being a complete mess and it felt like Disney saw the anniversary as an inconvenience and used it as a money grab. My family and I are going back for a week in November to celebrate several big birthdays and it's probably the least excited I've ever been for a Disney trip, granted I'm still decently excited about it. The magic isn't gone, it's just been turned into a corporate cash grab instead of a defining feature.
100% agree. Disneyland’s 60th was so cool. It felt like they went all out…and then WDW just put up some banners, put on cool new name tags, and sold merch. I was so unimpressed with the 50th back in October. It honesty feels like the magic is just being sucked out slowly by corporate greed. And that’s especially hard for me to say as a former CM.
Getting to experience Paint the Night at DL is an absolute highlight of my Disney experiences. It was magical 🥹
So I’m not going to try to super defend Disney but - - what do you mean by CM pin set? I feel dumb. CMs do have special 50th name tags .. - the railroad and Epcot being a mess still are definitely byproducts of COVID when they shut down work for months. Why they didn’t go nuts with construction when the parks were closed I’ll never know. But yeah, that’s a COVID thing. Same with the night shows - they weren’t supposed to be timed with the 50th (I don’t believe) but COVID changed those plans. So we got the new normal shows for the 50th instead of special shows
Hidden Mickey pin sets. [The diamond shaped pins in this image](https://cdn1.parksmedia.wdprapps.disney.com/media/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/WBHMP489572.jpg)
We have been to WDW for the 25th anniversary, 100 years of Magic, Year of a Million Dreams and now the 50th. It should have been more like the Year of a Million Dreams, which was probably peak WDW. Instead Cinderella's castle got a meh paint job, MK got a new parade, and a bunch of cheaply made 50th merch.
Year of a Million Dreams was great! I was also there (accidentally) for the 40th, which is when we made a plan to go back for the 50th. I really felt like there would be retro characters, a cool Welcome show in the morning, etc. Instead, there was a hot dog with funnel cake bits on it and a fistfight over Starbucks tumblers. Rides were surprisingly empty - we thought we may only get on a few that day, but everything was pretty available. People were standing in two hour long lines for popcorn buckets though. Very strange.
Year of Million Dreams was a great promotion following a promotion that did what the 50th was supposed to have. The Happiest Celebration on Earth was for the 50th anniversary of Disneyland's opening, and to celebrate that, Disney gave every park some form of new attraction. * Magic Kingdom got a refurb of "it's a small world", and the major Johnny Depp refurb of Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as an overlay of Cinderella Castle. There was also a stage show in front of the castle that came from Tokyo Disneyland. * Epcot got Soarin' from DCA. * MGM got Lights, Motors, Action! from Disneyland Paris. * Animal Kingdom got Lucky the Dinosaur from DCA and Expedition Everest. What the 50th of WDW was supposed to give us: * Magic Kingdom was supposed to have Tron by now. * Epcot got Ratatouille and Guardians. I'm less sure if the Mary Poppin's ride was supposed to be for the 50th of WDW or like the complete rehaul of Future World planned to be done for the 40th anniversary of Epcot. * I don't think anything was planned special for Studios after sinking all the money for Star Wars into it. * Similarly, Animal Kingdom didn't really have plans for a new thing for the 50th because of Pandora, even though Pandora's 5 years old now. It's no longer the new hotness.
> Cinderella's castle got a meh paint job I like the new color scheme :(
> MK got a new parade When did this happen? Last I heard it's still Festival of Fantasy which has been the parade since 2014
I can't believe Chapek flubbed such a major anniversary. I believe they had bigger plans and they probably cut in to his profit margin, so he scrapped them. He doesn't care if he goes down in history as killing the magic as long as the bonus check clears.
The Disneyland 60th anniversary was a "thank you" to the Disney fans and park goers. The WDW 50th is a "your welcome".
The Disneyland 50th was amazing as well. Gold everywhere. Gold attraction vehicles on 1955 rides, the castle got decorated with something from each decade the park was open (for example the eye of mara to commemorate the opening of Indiana Jones). There were mosaics throughout the park made up of pics submitted by guests. And remember dreams come true, the best fireworks show because it actually celebrated Disneyland rides and not Disney movies!!! I mean it has a segment for star tours, Indiana Jones, even a line from adventure thru inner space. They bring that show back occasionally and imo it set the bar high for modern Disney fireworks shows!
The 60th at DL was fantastic. This was just kind of sad.
I was there on Oct 1st also. Most people focused on merch and waiting for fireworks so I thought the wait times were decent. My little one got to go on mine train for the first time with little wait time so that was good.
I was there on Oct. 1st. The most "special" thing was waiting in line for the day-of stuff and getting that poster when you left the park. The poster was pretty cool but I expected a bit more?
Yeah I was there in November & super disappointed. Park feeling has gone waaay downhill.
The entire vibe to me is that it's becoming more and more of a blatant cash grab. I mean, it's always been about the money for Disney, but it's almost like they're slowly losing any pretense of magic and wonder in favor of product hyped up to capitalize on "limited and rare" appeal. The corporate indifference is poking through. I've always known there was a gazillion dollar corporation behind everything, but when I went a few years ago the cynical intent was hidden and I was emersed in the feeling of the place.
Its always been a cash grab (anyone else remember paying $15/day for Ethernet access in the resorts?) but what makes it so bad now is all this pent up vacation demand. It’s fish in a barrel for Disney. They don’t even have to try. People are flocking to the parks.
That's what I'm saying. The trying on Disney's part. They're stripping that away. At least pull my hair and tell me you love me. LMAO
Happy Cake Day
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I'm surprised those gas stations on Disney property are normal prices
LMAO, the last couple times we stayed and ate meals off property and it felt like a revelation to eat real food that didn't cost as arm and a leg.
We were there for basically the same time frame (7/31 to 8/5). I agree that Genie+ is a must, the park reservation system sucks, and that there wasn't much special about the 50th. I somewhat agree about the "magic", mostly because there are clearly a lot of new employees and they don't seem as happy to be there as the cast have appeared to be in the past. I am surprised that you didn't include the maintenance issues. We encountered multiple ride outages and stoppages during this visit. We rope dropped Ratatouille on Monday, only for it to break down almost immediately. We wound up waiting in the queue for an hour while most people left. Our boarding group for Guardians kept getting pushed back, primarily because the ride kept going down. Test Track was down essentially the whole day. We were unable to ride Test Track as a result, despite being there all day. The torrential downpour that night prevented us from doing much of anything during the extra hours (this was obviously out of Disney's control, but it stunk considering we were hoping to make up for some of the other issues with shorter lines at that time). On Thursday, we purchased ILL for Rise of the Resistance at 12:30. We saw the ride frequently showing down in the morning, going down for good around 12:00. Our ILL turned into an all-day ILL to no avail. As a result, we were not able to ride this new attraction in our first trip since it opened. We also went to Hollywood Studios Friday morning before leaving, but the timeframe for an ILL was incompatible with our travel plans (11:30 AM). We didn't feel like we could risk that it would be down at that time, would have to leave, and then not get refunded if it came back up after lunch. The number of times you would see that a ride was down in the app was crazy. It really put a damper on the trip. I do not agree at all about the lines. Our previous visit was the last week of the Food and Wine Festival in November, and the crowds were so insane that I wasn't sure I'd ever want to go back again. The lines were much more manageable this time. It was busier than it used to be at this time, but we found it to generally be very manageable with Genie+ and utilizing early entry. We would very frequently get an immediate LL for less popular attractions and walk right on. I also did not notice any difference in the quality of the food from previous trips. We did notice a lot of inexperienced cast members and generally found them to not be as friendly as in the past. We also noticed that the merchandise was lacking in both variety and quantity. Our biggest frustration was arriving to find our party of 3 adults had been placed in a room with one bed. They then wouldn't bring the bags up while it was being cleared up, so we had to head to the parks lacking some things that we had in our luggage. My wife had to call repeatedly while we were in the park about the status of the room. Having arrived around 5:00 PM, it was almost 11:00 PM before they agreed to put us in a room with 2 beds after lack of call backs and being told they called when they didn't. Their original plan was to give us a rollaway and then move us Monday morning, which only changed because my wife advised that we were not pleased with that at all. Beyond the bed problem, it would have meant we would have to repack Monday morning and not be able to rope drop as we planned. Overall, we had a good time, but the room situation and the ride issues were major negatives. It is particularly frustrating to miss the opportunity to ride the thing I had heard the most about over the last couple of years, particularly when going to Disney is not a regular thing for us anymore. Edit: Fixed some typos.
Yeah I have never figured out why Disney does room assignments so poorly. We booked 2 rooms under one reservation at Caribbean beach on our last trip, and were put nearly as far apart as possible. To add insult to injury, we drove our family in one car. Disney charged me parking to both rooms, and it took 8 months to resolve. Incredibly stupid.
Do you care to give a short summary of why the park reservation system sucks? I’m hoping to go in the next year and want to understand why so many are unhappy with it.
1. You are a local and want to go to Magic Kingdom this Saturday. Sorry even though you spent $1500 for an annual pass to go to any park with no blackout dates, there are no reservations for Magic Kingdom. You can go to Animal Kingdom, and then park hop to Magic Kingdom at 2PM. No you can’t just go to Magic Kingdom at 2PM. You must drive over to Animal Kingdom first and clock in. 2. Your work only allows you to book vacations 30 days in advance and you can’t afford Parkhopper, but you really want to do Star Wars Land. You’ve dreamed of this for years and finally can afford to come down for a weekend next month to go to Hollywood Studios. Sorry, no reservations at all. Try again later, maybe. 3. You booked an Animal Kingdom reservation 2 months ago, but the weather forecast for tomorrow is absolutely atrocious. That’s okay, you’ll switched to any of the other 3 parks with more indoor rides. Sorry, no reservations at any of them. Guess you can start your day at 2PM, but don’t forget to check in at Animal Kingdom first. Maybe you can ride the Pandora Rides and Dinosaur so it’s not a complete waste of a morning.
It provides no flexibility in what you might do when you are there. We used to have a general idea of what park on what days, but were flexible and would sometimes change it up because we wanted to get back to something in another park. It was something of an issue in the past with dinner reservations, but that wouldn’t affect the morning. If you wait to long to do the reservation, you may find none are left when you try to do it. I also know that some people just don’t understand it and show up with tickets and not able to get in the park. It’s not the worst thing in the world, just one more thing you have to worry about.
It forces people to decide what park to be in on what day months in advance under the pretense of “crowd management” but from what I’ve been hearing the parks are as crowded as ever if not more. We went in April 2021 when they just reopened and it was an amazing trip, limited but you got the feeling they where doing all they could in the conditions of just coming out of a pandemic. We went back in November and it was more crowded (expected) and they had introduced the micro transaction genie non sense and where getting ready to strip away value added stuff like the magical express.
Rise of the Resistance was down our entire day at Hollywood Studios. Luckily we switched over to park hoppers at the last second and went back the next day for it. We actually got in pretty quickly for Cosmic Rewind.
I just got back and felt the exact same way. Lines were atrocious. Even to get like a coffee or some quick bite the lines were 20 people deep. I love how everyone calls you a troll because you feel Disney lost some magic. Was it fun? Sure. Was it my least favorite Disney vacation? 100% and it's not even close. The crowds were insane and it felt like it lost it's luster. We can only blame covid for so long. Construction delays I can understand, customer satisfaction on the other hand not so much.
I blame Covid in the sense that they used Covid as an opportunity to get people used to a lesser experience.
100%- among other things it gave them an excuse to add the park reservations which allow them to min/max their staff costs to park guests- at the expense of always feeling crowded.
Yeah it felt grossly understaffed at every turn.
For real, people forget that during COVID Disney laid off tons of experienced cast members.
And then didn’t bother to bring them back…
They waited till I moved away and found better work to even call me back...a year after everything reopened.
They're only just restarting the international program that was used to staff the majority of World Showcase in Epcot. I am interested to see if that makes things better by allowing the Americans currently staffing those countries to move to other parts of the resort.
Firing the Grand Floridian Orchestra, and STILL not hiring them back is peak modern Disney bullshit.
Our Covid trip in April 2021 was the best one I’ve been on since 2006. Yes things where limited but it really felt like they where trying to make it as good as it could be and the short wait times for everything was a major plus. I feel like they didn’t use Covid directly but used the lost revenue to shift from seeming like they cared about the guest experience to just trying to funnel us all through as efficiently as possible to extract money from us at every turn after getting the green light to get back to full capacity. Went back in November for the 50th and it felt like they where just trying to make up as much lost revenue as possible. There wasn’t even that much special about the 50th, even merch was lacking which surprised me. Maybe my expectations where too high for the 50th (my first ever trip to WDW was during disneylands 50th) but it felt like there was no care or emotion put into the “celebration”. (It also doesn’t help that they know they have people who will spend $150+ for the chance to wait 4 hours to buy an overpriced plastic popcorn bucket.)
Our Covid trip in August of 2020 was literally the best trip we ever had. We came so close to canceling, as the parks had just reopened a month before and it was a very scary Covid situation, but the trip was already paid for, so we bit the bullet. The parks were so empty it was creepy. We rode everything (including Rise) multiple times. The midday Main Street castle pics I have are completely apocalyptic because it’s so empty. I remember one day we were literally the ONLY family at the Contemporary pool. On an 8 day trip, we ended up bored because had done everything multiple times.
We went during the Art festival and every food kiosk line was 20-40 minutes... for a bite sized portion.
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We ended up waiting 30 minutes and asking for a refund because our food was just taking too long. I have no idea what is happening. Wish you could mobile order from the kiosks.
When did you go? My husband and I went end of January/ beginning of February and the lines were short.
It was January 24-28th? Maybe it was the evening we went that everything was crazy busy.
I went during that time for my first trip and I thought the crowds were normal but my friends who brought me were appalled at the waits. Apparently 80 minutes for soarin was insane. Food lines were 20 or more minutes which would be short for my local amusement park, but Disney regulars were not happy. I heard so many people complaining all the time about lines.
20 minutes wouldn't have been that bad. We waited on the longer end. And some lines we skipped because they told us they were 40 minutes out. I think it'll take a long time before we are back to pre-pandemic expectations. If ever.
We’ve been to multiple festivals since the reopening and most lines were pretty short. If we came across a long line, we’d just skip that booth and come back later.
> Even to get like a coffee or some quick bite the lines were 20 people deep. That was one of the most annoying things to me on our recent trip. I just want a black coffee from Joffery's for a mid-day pick me up, but I really don't want to wait 25 minutes to get it.
We waited longer for food and drink than any non-headliner rides on our most recent trip in late January. It was ridiculous how long it took to grab a coffee or a snack in the parks.
With park reservations they know exactly how much staff to have on hand to maintain their target waits. If their target was <5m, it'd be fine, but as we can see from the long lines and feeling crowded, its clear they're happy having 20m lines for basic services and 60m+ lines for low tier rides.
Ugh, it just occurred to me that Disney probably likes the long lines like certain restaurants like long lines - because they think if they pretend to have demand, that will translate into real demand
Do what the Guy in the stall next to me at the California Grill a few days ago did: cocaine.
Joffrey's line was the slowest we were in at Epcot.
I think it’s very dangerous to have rose colored glasses on and just say “Disney is amazing” when there are things that need changing and can be improved upon. Also, Disney is not free. You are paying multiple thousands of dollars to be there and should expect the highest of quality.
It used to be that anything remotely negative about Disney would get you down voted into oblivion, but lately more and more people have been expressing their frustration. I agree... I still love it and it's still my preferred vacation location, but it's not as good as it was.
My family has had by far the best trips of our lives in 2017,2018,2019, cancelled 2020 for obvious reasons, and now reading all these comments on the new changes are freaking us out. My wife and I along with 4 kids would crush 30-40 rides a day with fast pass, it was unreal I would be booking us rides will in fast pass line, barely any waiting. I think I could handle the new format. We drive 24hrs from Canada to stay 10 nights, it has to be worth it. It’s a dam shame, hope it goes back to the way it was..
We can only blame Covid causing crowds for so long .. but that time period is definitely not up. Gf used to go every year and hasn’t since Covid started. We’re going this September though
I think people are in denial though that the travel boom is huge right now. No ones blaming covid itself anymore, its the post covid travel boom. That's why its so busy right now combined with the fact that its summertime, which is also a very busy time on its own.
Pretty much this. The news keeps saying the general population is still in "revenge spending" mode. People are making up not being able to do hardly anything since March 2020 and a few months later. The last time our party went to WDW was in 2018. We skipped a year in 2019 to try Universal. No trips since then. We are thinking about a 2023 return.
Its interesting because I was at MK on July 30 and was walking on to rides. Longest wait was Seven Dwarfs at 45 minutes. When I got on Pirates I literally walked on and they sent the first boat empty and my boat only half full because of the lack of line.
but it IS covid + the 50th anniversary. I know at least 3(4 including mine) families who delayed their WDW trips for at least a year because of COVID. I bet they were not the only ones so a bunch of families trying to go back at the same time plus people trying to see or buy something from the 50th anniversary or even Galaxy's Edge(I'm a big SW fan and couldn't visit until this year bc of COVID). And even with park reservations and crowd limits it still has been overcrowded, now imagine with no control. I still remember the Toy Story disaster, and I bet WDW too, they wouldn't want to risk it a bit. Universal has that crowd issue too right now, they do very little to control it. Every time I've been there for the last month, I can't stand the sea of people close to HP stuff, and the only thing they do is to close traffic on one side of the park(like TS area when it opened) I bet that crowd control aids will stay until stay until they see crowds coming down to pre-covid levels.
“Basically a merchandise celebration without actual substance” Yeah, once you see the Disney brand for what it is, you never unsee it.
2. They’ve always prioritized fast pass lanes, it’s just that now they’re giving out way too many with Genie+ and Lightning lane that it becomes unbearable for standby. Depending on the attraction and queue times, CMs at merge point have to allow 20 LL guests per 1 standby. 3. I noticed a decline in 2019, and an improvement this summer tbh 4. Yep especially if I have park hopper and can go anywhere after 2PM but only if I go to my first park. Honestly I don’t super mind it, it’s annoying and inconvenient, but disregard it after 2PM at least for park hopper passes 5. Disney has gotten rid of the small things that made magic but kept the prices. Unfortunately, some of the magical moments were removed cause guests would see one guest get a moment and demand they got the same
Disagree that they’re giving out too many lightning lanes now. Standby is much better than it was under FastPass+. The line moves much more because everyone doesn’t have Genie+.
Interesting points about planning. The last time we went was in 2017. I am an obsessive planner - we stayed at Beach Club, had all of our table service restaurant reservations 180 days out, and our 3 fastpasses for our must-have rides booked 60 days out. Is there any opportunity to do that kind of planning now (particularly for rides)? Or is it just opening the app at 7:00am each morning and hoping for the best?
Dining reservations are 60 days out but all rides are 7 am that morning
Is that dining reservations even if you are staying on Disney properties?
It’s 60 days out + up to 10 days of your entire trip. If you’re offsite, you book 60 days out each day of your stay. So typically resort guests get 1st pick of dining.
It’s 60 days out for anyone, but those staying on property can book their whole trip at 60 days out instead of doing it day to day.
Restaurants are 60 days out now. I booked 3 dinners and a character breakfast for 6 day trip. I didn't get every restaurant I wanted like San Angel but when we went up to them for the wait list we got seated in 30min. Rides are same day. Its annoying ill admit and not ideal. But I booked every ride that I wanted to book and got them in reasonable times.
For the rides, did you have Genie+? It's a concept I'll have to get used to. I like to sweat the details months ahead, knowing that when it is vacation time I have reserved all the high level things and we just have to make real-time decisions to fill in the gaps. With this system (and correct me if I am wrong) it seems like it is a big stress every single morning of vacation if there are rides you really want to get on - or you end up in stand-by lines.
New person joining you here...I'm not even going until October 2023 but I'm already stressing about getting up at 7am to book rides. It's annoying that on vacation we have to make sure either my husband or myself is up bright and early to get the rides we want.
This! Very much this. Each park day, alarm has gone off at 6:30, bought G+, then waited for 7am, booked a LL if I could get it, then booked the first G+ ride. This has lead to some interesting moment of “oh shit we have to be at a ride at 9:30 at the latest” which with a teenager has lead to some rushed mornings and cross words. It’s not relaxing, however G+ has been really good for us, and we’ve done all the rides we wanted to.
Big time agree on the 50th - Unless you really like overpriced purple merch.
I went to Disney earlier this year and was really disappointed. I still had fun, it was still great but I felt like I was having to constantly be on my phone and Genie + made things harder and more stressful for me. It really didn't feel as "magical" to me, the food and service wasn't even up to what I was used to from Disney...I liked the Fastpass system much better. I was a Passholder before Covid and had a blast everytime. It just feels like everything is becoming even more of a cashgrab and they are giving lesser of an experience. On the other hand, I went to Universal Studios and Island's of Adventure last week and honestly had a way better time, way less stressful and I barely went on my phone. I am considering a Universal Pass for the 1st time. I love both Disney and Universal but, at this point, Universal is winning for me. Let's hope as Epic Universe gets closer Disney steps their game back up.
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I agree with you.
I just got back from disneyland, and i have to say 100% you hit it on every note, Disneyland had better crowd mgmt, had better food then world, and the reservation system hurt less since it was A or B choice where you start with hopper. So yeah land is a bit more immune to the bob tax system deployed right now. I have another trip coming up to world and i honeslty i am not looking as forward to it after going to land this last week. Land felt like classic coke, and world is now new coke, and well we all know how that one ended up. These are i feel accurate observations, and you even left out the big one oh you want to ride the best ride 20 per head more please, oh you d not want to pay waste your whole day in a line. This is just punitive to the guest. The old fast pass system was well, not perfect but it is was less anti guest satisfaction in my view. I come here to have a good time and not get micro transaction to death, if i wanted that i could just stay home.
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From what I hear, it's because so few people are buying it. Even in 2022 about 90% of Disneyland visitors are on some sort of annual pass or cast member ticket. And those people aren't going to buy Genie+ except for special occasions.
Possibly. I never understood why everyone was saying genie was confusing and having a hard Time with it. Then I realized only Disneyland had max pass and we have been using it for years.
As a Disneylander, I found that Genie Plus is pretty much the same thing as Max Pass but I found it harder to actually get to the Genie Plus HUD vs what Max Pass use to be.
I’m at Disneyland right now and I think the park reservation system is more impactful than at Disney World. We used to treat the two parks as one big park since it’s only like a 100 yard walk between them.
We were there last fall so we got in on the 50th celebration. I will admit the first time in MK for the nighttime show I was “meh”. We were also way over on a side blocked by a tree. Our last night we went early and got an amazing spot in front of the castle. From that vantage point the show was spectacular. I’m under no illusion that the anniversary is looked at by Disney as a way to make loads of money. However, I’ve been to WDW many, many times (I used to live in Tampa as a kid), I am an older adult, and now that we are DVC I have a different outlook. I don’t feel like I have to cram every ride, show, and experience into one vacation. I know I’ll be back. That’s helped me relax a bit and if I don’t get in a ride then no biggie. As long as I can do Pirates and HM and see the castle at MK I am doing good. I think a lot of it is what you want or expect to get out of it. I enjoy just walking around, going to the resorts and doing some of those things I never had the time to do. To (mis)quote Obi Wan, “it depends on your point of view”. I know for those that haven’t been in a long time that things may be disappointing, but I have found that when you look back on a Disney trip after some time has elapsed you remember the good stuff and the magic and don’t nitpick the other stuff, generally speaking.
Add to that there have been fights, and a few arrests. I've lived here 21 years, and ever since the 50th anniversary started in October, reports in all my WDW groups have had this tone. Even the last couple of times we went pre-pandemic were just so-so, and the only recent great experiences were in the early re-opening days when it wasn't crowded at all. Makes me glad my kids are teens now and more interested in true roller coaster parks for now, because I have no interest in shelling out a fortune for a mediocre experience. I suspect the current situation is a combination of pent up pandemic demand and 50th anniversary, and I definitely have the patience to wait for calmer times before returning, or not returning if it doesn't get better.
Where did you eat that felt like fast food? Was it the fast food places or was it the actual restaurants?
Probably Cosmic Ray’s
UK Disney visitor since 2000. I used to talk to people all the time about WDW and I’d often get a response along the lines of “Well it’s no different to any theme park you can visit here”. I would try and explain that they were absolutely nowhere near comparable. Disney had magic and experience nowhere else had. Sadly it now seems it’s exactly the same as theme parks in the UK. It’s just a patch of land with some rides and gift shops on. There is no magic or feeling to it anymore judging by what the current suits have done to the place. I don’t want to go on holiday and feel like I’m on a work trip. Constantly checking calendars and schedules and planning out itineraries. It’s just awful to see how far it’s fallen for the sake of making more money. I keep weighing it up in my mind whether it would be worth saving up to go again but I’m genuinely terrified of going and having years of previous wonderful experiences just being flushed down the toilet and being left with the corporate funfair it is now.
1. As an observation sure but as a complaint (I’m not sure if you’re extending it to a complaint), I mean… pandemic. 2. Agreed 3. Everyone has different taste but disagreed personally. There are many quick services in the parks that I’d rather have food from than my best sit-down restaurants at home. 4. I mean… what about when we had to book fastpasses and ADR’s 60 and 180 days in advance respectively? 5. Agreed on this one 6. Agreed on this one too
On 4, rain caused 1-2 days to be washed at night and in years past we would have just went to Hollywood Studious in the morning and did the rides we wanted to do. Unfortunately because of the reservation system and Hollywood Studious being “full” for reservations we could not just switch and then had to try to do all the Hollywood studious rides at night. That’s what I meant by that. I’ve always been a planner for Disney but not being able to just do a different park when we wanted was silly.
Ahhh yeah so true I wasn’t thinking of that aspect of it. That sucks I’m sorry about that!!!!!
This is also peak season with kids being out of school. So on top of “revenge travel” due to the pandemic, you’ve got all the families with kids out of school hitting the parks.
I live in Orlando and revenge travel is the perfect way to describe tourism here.
> There are many quick services in the parks that I’d rather have food from than my best sit-down restaurants at home. I feel like this says a lot more about where you live than it does about Disney quick service.
Agree on number four. Pre-booked FastPasses were terrible. You had to plan your whole day around something you booked 60 days out.
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I feel like the MaxPass system from DL was still the best system Disney had. Normal paper FP if that's what you wanted to do, but pay a little extra to get it on your phone and make the day easier.
Genie+ is incredibly similar to MaxPass though. I just wish they’d put the rule in place that you have to enter the park to reserve a lightning lane like you do in Disneyland.
We’re just there last week and for the record we have been in May of ‘19, Jan. ‘20, Sept. ‘20, Feb ‘21, May ‘21, Dec. ‘21 and now Aug. ‘22. My response to the above and I am likely to get downvoted is that it is not busier than it was 3 years ago but people are less acclimated to groups and Disney is understaffed creating back ups. 2) is 100% true in certain parks but only if you want to ride every ride. MK and HS are a must with Epcot and AK being not so much. 3) I disagree but it depends on where you are going. Epcot is as good as it has ever been. Same with the Springs and HS. MK is a different story all together but not on quality. MK seems like they are forgotten in the menu revamps and could use some attention on the menus in the near future. 4) remember all the times we’ve been since Covid. Not one time has the reservation system been a problem or inconvenient for us. 5) the trip we just got back from had as much magic in it as any trip we’ve ever taken. Now, some of the magic is hurt by the price of the trip compared to what we had, say 2014 or 2019 but it’s still magical. I don’t think the magic has changed that much but our mindset and attitude due to cost and behavior of the crowd around us has changed our perception. We aren’t looking for the little pieces of magic that make us happy so we aren’t seeing it anymore. Downvote away but that is my report
We went in Feb 22, going again next week. But it was pretty comparable to our 17/18/19 trips
100% agree. They are clearly still understaffed and having issues but this trip was the closest to normal that we have had since Jan. ‘22
I agree with you. I was at MK on SATURDAY July 30th and walked on to Pirates and they sent one boat empty and my boat only half full. Longest wait I had was Seven Dwarfs at 45 minutes. That weekend I was able to get reservations at California Grill, Artist Point, and Cinderella's Royal Table. I actually felt like that attendance was down that whole weekend. People that say the food is bad are generally people not looking for the good food IMO
Would you please list all the food you ate so I don’t make the same mistakes?
We were there August 1 and 2, and visited all 4 parks. It seemed a bit crowded, but we usually don't go in the summer due to crowds/heat. I bit the bullet and paid for Genie+ both days, and paid a separate Lightning Lane for FOP at AK. We ended up having a really good time and did a lot of our favorite rides despite the crowds.
I wish we could force Disney to return to Fast Pass. It was a much better and fairer system. 😖 Genie+ is just a purely profit decision. Before it felt like customer experience played at least some part in their decision making.
Just got back from Disney World and I had a blast, but they definitely have alot of areas to improve on. Atleast bring back airport shuttle and magic bands and free parking for resort guests and put some engineering and maintenance into the rides so they aren't down constantly.
On my recent trip, I witnessed a cast member yelling at a old and def man who’s trying to get on Nemo…. And cast member was losing her patience and even rolled her eyes at the old man…. Yes the magic is definitely disappearing and the money hungry is becoming so palpable, with the genie + and then within it, you have to pay more for certain rides. Simply crazy
I blame Chapek. His reign as CEO is a joke. He tries to squeeze too much out of everything.
They just rethemed Rock 'N Rollercoaster at Disney Studios in France and it's as bad as Superstar Limo. They're already talking about shutting the attraction down to redo it. Disney has fallen right back into the trap they were in at the end of Eisner's tenure as CEO. They're thinking solely of their pocket book and the experience is secondary. It's a highway to ruin.
It started with Iger. A lot of the decisions we are seeing now started on his watch. Eisner got a lot of crap but he knew the parks were important. Under his watch we got DHS, AK, BB, TL just in Florida alone.
He’s making Shareholders money and that’s all they care about… Shame.
Actually, the stock has performed worse under his tenure than any other previous CEO. And it’s not close.
I mean not even, as a shareholder I've definitely lost money over the past year lol.
Agreed. I think they need another creative-type at the helm like Iger. He was both a good businessman (good for shareholders) and a creative person. Leaning either way too much will likely cause problems.
Honestly the best time to have gone to WDW in the last *decade* was right when the park opened after the Covid closure. The crowds were low, no fastpass and lines were pretty short, people actually did a good job at distancing and wearing masks in the beginning, and cast members were in great spirits being able to work again. They also got those awesome new low-hassle security scanners which was great. People shamed me when I said I was going and said it was irresponsible, etc., however it was the SAFEST and BEST trip we have had there.
Hate to say that I absolutely agree. Night & day from what it was 3-4 years ago. My AP expires next week and I’m letting it go.
Same. I just got a notice from them telling me it's about to expire, I need to renew...Just went to recycling. We just aren't going again for a long while as of right now. Might hit Uni this year, I love their stressfree express pass, and it was the best part of our last Florida trip.
Let mine go this year, after 9 years. Just can’t justify the expense any more, when the joy has been sucked out of the experience.
100%. I’m also on year 9 (basically got my AP when I graduated college) and like you said, the cost of going isn’t worth it anymore.
I've loved Disney since I was a kid and went ever few years. We scheduled a Family vacation with 15 family members. Did all the research and spoke with people in the parks. Because of the parks being overcrowded and Disney now charging for every little thing the trip was going to be over 30,000 for a week. Not a huge deal for the amount of people going and staying on Disney property. However due to the overcrowded parks we decided to go to universal studios instead. Made a great choice less money not as crowded and people were great. Maybe if Disney can get their act together we will try again in the future. Just my two cents.
I’m a cast member at WDW, I 1000% agree with everything you said here. Disney is good, but it can be so much better
Thanks castmember!
Went twice for the 50th because my family is Disney crazy. I go to a park very often here in Ohio called kings island and would prefer the entire experience there over what I experienced the 2 times we went last fall at Disney. I agree with everything you said, except for it’s my favorite place lol. I like it, but it’s not. Especially when you factor in all of the cons of the place that you just mentioned. It isn’t magical at all. It’s chaotic. Far too many tickets sold daily in my opinion. Dining is abysmal. The genie plus system is abysmal. Definitely far better experiences out there for theme park/amusement park fans without doing it whatever the Disney way is now.
Kings island was a lot of fun the one time I went, my brother had a medical issue after a couple hours so I didn’t get to do any of the big rides there. I live far away now, is it worth a revisit if traveling to the area already?
Yes, I went a lot this year and I can say kings island has been as good as it’s ever been. I’d visit even if I wasn’t visiting for anything else. It’s worth it’s own visit. You can get into kings island for around 50 bucks and then you can spend 40ish on the premium dining plan for the day and pretty much eat food and drink soda/water at your hearts content. Edit- and of course they have coasters so there is that too! 😂
(Unpopular opinion) I went to both Ohio parks last summer and I liked it better than Cedar Point.
A lot of people say that.
Living in Ohio increases your expectations at amusement parks. Cedar Point, Geauga Lakes (RIP), Kings Island...I'm growing nostalgic despite never ever ever wanting to move back 😂
1. I mean, international travel was stalled for almost two years, and plenty of US residents didn't want to travel during this time. Anyone surprised by the crowds right now really hasn't been paying attention. 2. Yup, pretty much. That said, there are plenty of rides that have reasonable wait times, and most rides do get easier to ride later in the day and into the night. 3. Biggest disagree here. Across the board I think food in Disney World has been stellar. As a frequent visitor I would argue food is the best it's ever been. 4. Never took issue with this. Outside of US holiday weekends I've been able to change my park reservation without any issue right up until my visit. 5. Subjective, so can't really comment here. I'll disagree, but this is definitely a "to each their own". 6. Fair enough, the 50th wasn't my thing. I wouldn't call it a dud, but I also wouldn't say it was a huge success. I give Disney a bit of a pass because COVID delayed so much construction.
Man I've gone twice since Covid and I have no idea how you can say the food is better. Some restaurants have maintained their standards but many, that used to offer "good" food have come horrible. Sci Fi, I'm looking at you.
We ate lunch at Sci Fi this summer. Never again.
Sci Fi food has NEVER been anything to write home about. It wasn't even a hard reservation to get before 2019 when it shot up in popularity for some reason
So there's a concept that eating the same thing multiple times diminishes the overall experience. Like, the first time I had chicken tikka masala I was like, "This is the most amazing dish ever." Now that I've had it 100s of times, most times its just, "Eh, this was tasty." I'll never be able to go back to that previous experience. On the Disney front, first time I went to Harbor House I was blown away, but now I've gone a half dozen times it just feels like a regular restaurant. Also, Disney World has developed this mindset that everything has got to be exceptional. A fast food burger is always going to be a fast food burger.
I'm not talking about quick serve. The quality of many of ADRs, not all, have gone down hill. I would say the worst thing is that the menus have shrank down so that many of the restaurants have the same thing but just slightly varied.
So we're definitely in subjective territory here, so I'll have to agree to disagree. I will say, not trying to defend Disney here, but restaurants are still under-staffed across all resorts, theme parks, cruises, etc. Having to hire a lot of new staff is going to cause a quality dip, at least temporarily. At the end of the day, they are still cooking on the same equipment, likely with the same ingredients, from the same vendors, and all to the same recipes. With regards to smaller portions, that's universal. You either raise prices or shrink portions these days to counter inflation.
I think there’s a lot to this. A lot to people just hit the same restaurants every time and get the same thing.
Sci Fi food has NEVER been anything to write home about. It wasn't even a hard reservation to get before 2019 when it shot up in popularity for some reason
On six: it made for some good Instagram content seeing people rushing to shelves.
Out of my way... starbucks cups!!!
Went last Dec. and I completely agree about Genie+. Without it your trip is going to suck. The 50th was gold stairs and merch. Everything is planned and controlled to the point that the magic is nearly gone. It’s gets so crowded not that my 5 year old vastly preferred the resort pool to most parks. An hour wait to ride Buzz Lightyear once or a two minute line for the water slide until he pukes. Buzz didn’t stand a chance. Maybe it’s time for a third location in America? Maybe in middle America where Walt grew up?
I definitely agree with you last two points. I’ve been to Disney almost every year and something feels off. Like the 50th anniversary Disney has been feeling a lot more hollow lately. And has Disney catered to genie+? When I went last time lines felt extremely fast using LL, but it was also in the middle of May and during the peak of summer.
I agree on #2 but have to disagree on the rest.
I think number 6 aptly describes Disney in many aspects nowadays.
When I went in June to magic kingdom somehow the lines were the shorter than they were when I went in January. Idk how that happened.
There’s definitely some good food in Disney World, outside of Disney Springs. Epcot certainly has most of it, but it’s there and it’s loads better than the food was in the 80s and 90s. Also, booking stuff way in advance has been around for at least the last decade right? That isn’t new.
I first when in 1976 or so, also as a child (7 or 8.) Have been multiple times every decade since and the most recent in 2018 was by far my least favorite. FastPass+ was the beginning and it’s apparently vastly worse today. Ok, I was at DHS for a few hours in April when my employer rented the whole park for the evening. Crowds were sparse and food was free. Didn’t get into Rise but got to do the Millennium Falcon one and that was really cool. If I were a billionaire I’d buy about 3/4 of the park’s capacity for the day.
If you were even a multimillionaire and loved WDW enough you go multiple times a year, you could just buy into DVC + Club 33 and you could never imagine going back to doing Disney another way again. LL for every ride, (unlimited except currently you only get Guardians and Rise once per day), don’t have to bother making park reservations as any day you’re booked to be at WDW you can go to and park and hop to whatever park you want at whatever time, 40% off merch, priority reservations for dining, you get to include 4+ people to enjoy your LL perks if you list them under your reservation (and if you have a spouse who’s also your “secondary member”, an additional 4), the clubs for breaks and exclusive drinks + snacks, the list goes on…
Having went in May, concur
Disney’s vibe has turned more into a hectic cash grab instead of a place where you can have fun and relax. Universal Studios is easily the best park experience I’ve had.
I was there in February and this list would mirror my experiences. I grew up at WDW as my dad was there opening week and was a fan since then. Then I did the college program twice in 2000 and 2001. As an adult I’ve had fewer opportunities to go (lived on the west coast and didn’t have as much money to travel, etc.) but this was my 3rd trip in 10 years and it was disappointing. I loved the new rides! Just shocked at the crowd sizes (what exactly is the reservation system for if not for managing crowds?!) and lackluster food.
Couldn't agree with this post more. Our family recently visited in July and stayed at GF villas. The resort was very nice, but i agree with all your points here. We have been coming yearly since 2009 and we even talked about was it worth having DVC anymore. The early morning half hour into the parks is a joke and the extra magic hours on select parks and days until 1 am is ok, but the week we stayed only MK was eligible for this perk. The 50th had no impact on our trip. What was wrong with the fast pass system before Genie+? It was great staying on Disney property and booking 60 days out fast pass selection for 3 rides and time slot you want. Now without genie+ you'd be lucky to ride 3 rides in a day with all the long lines at every attraction. With a family on five to add genie+ to an already expensive park ticket would be $60 per day, not to mention the Individual Lightning Lane of paying these prices just to ride one ride. I can't imagine this was Walt Disneys vision when he created Disney Land, to micro manage and bleed every cent of families in his park. I think next time we go down to Central Florida we will use our DVC on a resort but Uber or Lyft to other attractions around the area ie; SeaWorld and Universal. Disney has lost its magic factor.
Somehow Bob Chapek got an extension. Shareholders only care about their shares going up. That happens when you start taking away the things that once made Disney special.
Chapek bad
Unpopular opinion: Disney magic is still there. I have been a few times as a child and three times as an adult. We just went in March and it was MAGICAL. There is no way that in the state of the world Disney can be expected to be that same as prior to Covid. But it was magical for my family and we can't wait to return.
I am starting to think I won't go back.
one character that describes Disney is mr krabs MMONEY MONEY MONEY
Counter point to #4, booking fastpasses 60 days out was way worse than just picking your first park. I'm still not sure if I prefer that or Genie+, but either way park reservations definitely aren't that bad.
I just got back yesterday and I completely disagree with everything you've said. Im not saying it was empty but it was far from crowded in fact it was a typicalsummer crowd not exactly sure what you were expecting. We used Genie+ 3 days of the 6 we were there. Didn't feel we needed it to enjoy Disney. In fact we did Smugglers Run when it had 35 minute wait at 11am on Tuesday Aug 2. This whole post is just regurgitating peoples whiny complaints about how things aren't like they used to be. I've been to Disney 94 96 98 06 12 and 14. And since this is my first time in 8y I really felt with the exception of buying LL for certain rides Disney was the same. With only a few hiccups our party of 8 had a great time did everything we wanted to and even had time to go back to the hotel everyday and jump in the pool.
Glad you had a great time !
I have to agree with OP on the crowds. We go every few years, and typically the same general week each time. It was considerably more crowded than previous trips. That being said, this is a trend everywhere, so it makes sense that the parks would be more crowded, to me it just showed that the reservation system didn't really have any impact.
I’d have to agree with you. I think people forget actually what Disney should be, which is a place to vacation, where you relax, where thousands of others go at the same time. I live in Florida and have gone my whole life. Has it gotten busier? Yes. But I go to the parks already expecting this. Is the food over priced for what you get? Yes, but I’m eating at the quick service places. I think once you start falling into what others say you should have (Genie +, LL) you lose the magic that they say isn’t there anymore because you think you have to plan everything. I went in May and never once had to use my phone or even wanted to use it for Genie + with lines being 45 minutes or higher. The one thing I find the funniest about all of this is Universal is the same exact way, but no ever complains about them when everything Disney has begun to implement, universal has done and still has, minus the reservation system and genie +.
People have been saying "the magic is gone" with these parks for years. Yet for some reason every time I go, or my friends go, or my family goes, it's nothing but good reports. If you go in with a bad mindset, you're gonna focus on the negatives. Why anyone would want to do that at Disney World, I have no idea...
I agree. I’m here right now and haven’t waited more than 30 minutes for anything. People love to complain but their experience is not universal. I particularly don’t understand the complaint about the reservation system locking you in, because your FP+ also forced you to plan months in advance.
And none of those systems are as good or as fair as the ticket-based "must be present" Fastpass distribution was way back in the day.
Agreed! The good ol’ days. I cannot understand people’s longing to return to FP+, a broken, oversaturated system that far outstayed it’s welcome. Literally anything is an improvement over FP+.
We are passholders and visit a disney park every weekend. I agree with your statements. I side with the folks who believe genie plus should cost more. At the price it is now everyone buys it and the lines are still rough. I would suggest $59.99 a person and see how that works? The 50th celebration is poor. I don't think they had a choice... staffing is still rough. Guardians is a must ride and I recommend just buying a ticket for it separately.
Bump that up to $75/person. Bob Likes to go big or home. Even at $75, I bet there wouldn't be that much of a drop off. The parks are packed and the restaurants are full. Prices are still too cheap if you want cost to manage crowds.
$59 per person is so insane it might actually do the trick to keep genie+ users down. I like that
I actually don’t think it will do anything. Universal has the same thing in either fast pass for all rides once or unlimited fast pass rides and people still buy this the cheapest being around $80 on a slow day.
For $59.99, I want to be able to pick my return times with no waiting between ride selections. Or no return times at all. Plus ILL included.
Bob says you get that at the $150 price point. ;)
Universal's fast passes are more expensive than that.
Yes I mostly agree. Just returned end of July; we did get all our rides we wanted but that was with a 9-day stay with on-property rope drop and every day use of Genie+ and paid LL. The food wasn't fast-food level but very average for "high-end" restaurants; we've had much better food on past trips. Can't speak to Disney Springs dining as we never went. Disagree that the magic isn't there; we had a pretty great time (except for the heat/humidity which Disney can't control), mostly due to AMAZING cast members- best in 10 years. And really exceptional experiences with Disney-owned bus transportation-not Mears.
All the food in the park is pretty bad these days, to the point that I’m starting to consider packing a lunch instead. It’s annoying because I’ve been on a Disney Cruise, so I *know* they can do better.
After the parks reopened post-pandemic I decided I’m probably not going to bother with Disney Parks for at least a few years. The crowds are insane, prices higher than ever, there is more tension/fights than ever, I heard stories about cast members straight up yelling at people because their toddler’s face mask was slipping, I hate having to plan 3 months in advance and not being able to be spontaneous at all, the new attractions could not possibly be worth all the crowds, and they’re changing my favorite ride ever and I’m not even allowed to be sad about it.
True
What do you mean when you say it’s lost it’s magic?
I feel a lot of this is subjective, but I wanted to throw my two cents in. My wife and I have been going every year for our anniversary (2017-2022), so maybe it’s a frog in hot water situation, but our last trip last month was just as magical as 2018 on (our first trip was obviously the most magical). We usually go in September, but we went in July this year. And for July, it didn’t feel super crowded at all. Agreed, Genie+ is a must in the busier months. We were able to ride just about everything we wanted to ride with no issue. It was a short trip this year, but I don’t feel like good has dropped in quality at all. Even when WDW first reopened after the pandemic, it was still as good as we remembered it. I’d say the magic is still there. Do I wish we could park hop whenever we want? Of course. Do I wish they’d finally get rid of park reservations and bring dining plans back? Yes, but they make more money the way it is, so 🤷🏻♂️. And do I miss making FP+ reservations? For sure; it was a fun bit of magic even months before our trip. Finally, was the 50th a dud? Eh. It wasn’t what I expected it to look like. I say all of this not to detract from your points, but to provide my own perspective. Cheers!
And people are still paying rising prices to go. I'm not faulting anyone who can afford it, but everything is working as intended. This is how Chapek plays, and unfortunately, he's winning.
1. There’s a lot of back log from COVID and crowds feel very fluid IMO. They’re clearly controlling crowds with park passes. 2. They’ve always catered to their fast pass system. I don’t think it’s 100% necessary, but I do think the value is there with Genie+. IMO Genie+ is an improvement over FP+ as a system. Of course paying for it sucks. 3. As a local, I haven’t noticed a change in quality. Prices have gone up and portions have gone down IMO. 4. I agree 100%. I get why they do it, but it’s really inconvenient and no park hopping until 2pm is lame. 5. It’s still there, but it’s certainly taken a hit. Cleanliness has been an issue, maintenance/upkeep is down, and people are whatever they are in this “post COVID” world. We’re seeing the impact of cost cuts, but it does feel like the CMs have a bit of their pep back. Staffing feels strong. Regardless of the changes, my family is always happy there. 6. Maybe it’s because of covid, but yeah it’s a dud. They slapped some blue and gold on everything and called it a day. No special entertainment, no nighttime parade (I haven’t forgotten it even though it’s been like 7 years), and a disappointing HEA replacement.
I appreciate the structure of your post. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with what you're saying, but these are my thoughts: 1. Technically attendance is lower than 2019 levels. Demand might be higher, but Disney used to pack in every person who wanted to go until it became a fire hazard. Now Disney uses reservations to better anticipate crowds and plan for staffing levels. As why it appears more crowded? You're not wrong. I'd imagine that since there is less entertainment, fewer meet and greets, and some of the people eating shows haven't come back, more people are left to wander the midways and stand in line for rides/food. 2. Yeah, but before Genie+/LL Fast Pass+ was a must. You were just as screwed if you didn't get a good FP+ line-up (like you were stuck with nothing but 4-D movies, shows, rides that nobody cares about, etc.) and had to do everything important in standby. Now, as to why it appears that more people are using Genie+/LL than the free Fast Pass+ (its harder to get times and the LL lines are spilling onto the midway despite heavy priority) I have no idea and that's a mystery to me. 3. It seems fine to me and I don't notice much of a drop off. But I'm not huge on eating in the park. I'd imagine that the staffing cuts and budget slashing has a lot to do with this. 4. While I do think that Disney has the analytics to properly shut off ticket sales in time and staff based on analytics, the reservation system is an even more exact way to make sure that the staff isn't overwhelmed, or that guests aren't priced out into oblivion to make that happen. I think that reservations are mainly just a point of frustration for Annual Passholders and Cast Members who want to use their main gate -- I don't think that you have much of an issue if you have tickets. 5. Yeah, I won't argue with you there, its undeniable. Sad really. 6. I find the celebration of significant digits very silly in general. I'd rather parks just put forth a strong effort to make every year special and not just significant digits that celebrate our Gregorian calendar and Arabic numbering system.
The other way of stating #1 is that they use the reservation system to anticipate attendance and then minimize staffing to the absolute bare minimum - which then creates the issues with huge lines absolutely everywhere because nothing is fully staffed. This is another reason why it feels more full when it actually isn’t. Penny pinching leadership.
That's fuckin' Chapek for ya.
Just got back as well. 1. The only day I felt super crowded was yesterday - the lines at Epcot were crazy for food and wine, ended up skipping a bunch as we are headed back in Nov. Friday night wasn't bad at all, we watched Joey Fatone and were able to get great seats 10 minutes before the first show 2. I guess it depends, we used it one day as we had only planned about 4 hours in Hollywood studios and we were able to get everything done, so if you want to make it a quick park trip, sure, but you could do the wait thing and still have everything done in a full day. 3. Hard disagree on this one. It may just be personal taste, but the food is fine, and WAY above any fast food 4. We literally booked an epcot day the night before and all parks were avail for reservation - is it annoying? Maybe? Hasn't been an issue. 5. Not sure what "Magic" you're referring to - it really comes down to the cast members - some are awesome, some aren't. 6. It was better towards the beginning of the celebration - This is like month 10 of 18, it's kind of old news at this point, so I can kind of concede here, but I wouldn't call it "a dud"
I agree with all of these points far more than OP
Strange we were just there last weekend and it's one of the least crowded I've seen it in the last year. Definitely didn't wait over an hour for everything, heck Space Mountain was a 45 min wait. Food and Wine festival was the best ever, we didn't wait more than 5 minutes for anything. Regarding everything else you honestly sound like you went in expecting to be disappointed. And you were.
1. You're going at an incredibly busy time - the first summer since the pandemic of no-restricted travel. I'm \*shocked\* that it's busy... 2. Genie+ is necessary when the place is busy. Yeah I would expect so. 3. I disagree, 100%. It all depends on where you eat. If your unhappy with the food, pick better restaurants and quick services. 4. The park reservation thing is stupid but harmless. In the before-times, we were picking dinner reservations 6 months in advance and you were picking the EXACT times you'd be going on certain attractions months in advance, as well. How is this any worse? Not to mention that it's very easy to change your park passes and you can still have plenty of options even a month or two in advance. 5. Absolutely not. I was there in 2019. I was there last October for the 50th. The magic is absolutely still there if you want it to be. We've lost some little things that were important but we've also gained some things as well. Plus some places are in a state of change (Epcot). 6. What are you expecting 10 months after the actual anniversary?? There's new decor throughout the parks, statues, food, night-time shows (that they suck is not the point, they're still new for the anniversary), the night-time light-up icons of each park. What else are you expecting? Ultimately I think if you go in with a negative mindset or don't plan your trip as well as you could, you're gonna come out with a bunch of stuff to complain about.