Not a hateful post here... Just got back from my first trip in 12 years, and my wife and kids first trip ever.
I got a ton of great info from WDW Magic and I"m so glad I found this wonderful site.
I noticed a lot of negativity about many things over the last couple of months and I think some of it (not all) is misaligned, so here is a relatively brief list of things that seem to be incorrect from my recent experience..
1.) By far the biggest thing --
ATTENDANCE IS NOT DOWN! I have gone around the first of October about 6 times in the last 40ish years and was also on the CP in the Fall of 96 and Fall of 97... And I can conclusively say that in all my Fall visits I have NEVER seen the park so busy for this time of year.. Every park was slammed by mid-afternoon... We waited in lines that are typically short (i.e. Spaceship Earth, People Mover, Grand Fiesta Tour) for around 30 minutes each.. Thankfully we had FP's for the larger rides and we rope dropped a few that we didn't have lined up. I have seen countless posts about how the Park attendance is slacking and that's why people are getting canned and what not, but for the last 8ish days, the Disney suits have to be thrilled... I"m just sayin....
2.) Cast Members by and large were very well trained and extremely personable. Another thing I have read a lot lately is how Cast Members have "lost the magic".. While we did run across a few buzzkills (mostly of the older generation.. retirees from New Jersey are just not happy people it seems..lol), the vast majority treated us like royalty and interacted with my young kids in ways that simply made me smile from ear to ear.. The CPers were fantastic and I made a point to chat with them when I could and every one I talked to was pleasant and genuinely thrilled to work there..
3.) We very much enjoyed Navi River Journey... that is all...
4.) It is
EXTREMELY difficult to try and keep your young kids on any type of normal schedule.. I saw several posts stating that that you HAVE to do this to keep your kids "happy".. Well we found with Lunch reservations almost every day and FP times scattered about, if we tried to leave the park at any time and take naps at our resort, we would undoubtedly miss a good bulk of what we had scheduled. And yes I know, you should only do what you can do in the time you have, but even at parks like AK where our kids are too young to do any of the big ticket experiences, we had to rush around like crazy just to catch showtimes and FP times. ( I guess this in hindsight isn't something the message board got wrong but more of an observation to those of you thinking you can just eat when you want and sleep when you want... it just won't happen unless you are going to all the parks multiple times in a trip).
So here are the things you guys most definitely got
RIGHT..
1.) Mobile Order is AWESOME and it should be available at every quick service location! If you are going to WDW, do yourself a favor and use it..
2.) The Dining Plan is more complicated than it needs to be... so true... Especially when it comes to snacks at places like Disney Springs... Everywhere has rules of what is a snack or a QS meal... And many of you suggested to use your snack credits for things like Sodas and Juices rather than ONLY the big ticket snack things... SO SO TRUE!!! We lugged around a cooler with water and Gatorade all day every day and ended up with half of our snack credits left on our final day... Why oh why didn't we just use them for sodas and what not? Carrying Water around for yourself is always a good thing, but in the future (if we use the DDP) we will just use those snack credits for what they are meant for... snacks... even if they don't constitute a a 7 dollar "triple-decker-mickey-sundae-of-destruction" We got a lot of useful info from DFB videos but I"m a little annoyed with how they preach "Don't waste snack credits on common things!" On the contrary, use your snack credits for things you will eat or drink and don't horde them and have to redeem them for 200 bucks worth of Goofy Candy on the last day of your vacation...
3.) Don't go crazy on Character Dining... OMG how I wish we had rethought this when we made our Dining Reservation 180 days ago... Since we had the DDP, we decided to do a Character meal every day except one... It was too much! Even for my 4 and 5 year old, they had lunch with Mickey 3 times in one week! We had 2 princess lunches (with the same princesses at both lunches..) If you are like us and have young ones, schedule maybe 2 good character meals and do yourself a favor and schedule a "normal" meal for your other dining option.. Character Meals are new to me as I never did them in my younger days... But they are a ZOO... The food at some are not bad, but it is so rushed and stressful, they just aren't that fun...
Anyway... Just wanted to post some observations based on what I had read over the last couple of months as compared to what I actually saw while there..
