Just as
@WDW1974 ventured into the Kingdom for the first time in awhile, my wife and I took our youngest to the Magic Kingdom, which we hadn't visited since June 2011. To put it in perspective, I went as a child on vacation to WDW annually from New England and when my wife and I lived in Orlando, my goodness, we burned holes through those annual passes. Here's some of our observations and they're probably what you've noticed as well:
To start on a positive note, we found the Cast Members to be downright pleasant everywhere we went, which was a huge improvement over our prior several visits (and dropping by Downtown Disney over the past few years). They were helpful, very nice, and really great with our little guy. It was the first time in ages that we didn't see Cast Members chatting about things on-stage with other Cast Members, which had/has become a huge problem over there. I also noticed that operations and legal seemed to give them some latitude because if there was stupid behavior or someone not listening during a safety spiel, they flat-out called them out. It was a pleasant surprise.
Selfies have become a disease. It was deplorable. It doesn't matter where on the globe the visitor was from, it was insane whether at the MK or UNI. Parents desperate to be their children's friends taking selfie one after another throughout entire rides were maddening. People taking pictures of themselves literally in every nook and cranny, yet barely taking pictures of what they came to see (I assume themselves at this point) or paying attention to anything. Spend a day at the Magic Kingdom and it's a perfect microcosm for what has gone south. Now, for the main event, what our money sucking DISNEY (R) Company has done. (Let's just ditch "The Walt" out of the company name because we're way beyond that point today...")
Since we were going to have our six year old going around the MK from opening to late in the night, we figured why not take the tram to start the day? He thought it looked cool and since he was going to use his legs all day (unlike some children upwards of 10 in strollers.. ugh), we figured, cool. We boarded the tram and the gray paint was filthy nearly everywhere. Not a surprise. The Cast Member doing the spiel was really enthusiastic and did a good job. It reminded me of the old days.
We took one of the ferries over from the Ticket and Transportation Center and right away, the declining degrees were apparent: It was filthy. Dirt on the light bulbs, worn off paint, filthy floors, you name it. We entered the park with the superficial security and were thinking about if this is the security "show" that they are putting on for the masses, what must be going on that we don't see? Orange County and Disney K9 vehicles were very noticeable right from the get-go. The security screeners were very kind and I was pleased that they at least made a process that when it's busy is going to be downright exhausting, pleasant. Interestingly enough, we found that the metal detectors at the MK were not nearly as sensitive as the one coming from Loews Resorts at UNI where we stayed.
There was no shortage observations, so let me just stick to some of the highlights.
We found trash to be all over the place. My wife would mention that we would go back to the same area quite a good time later and the same trash was still there. The cleaning crew cuts are incredibly noticeable today along with the fact that people are nothing short of being classless slobs. On the Haunted Mansion, when boarding the Doom Buggies, to the right of the vehicles, there were countless water bottles, wrappers. and junk that people had tossed aside.
The Aladdin spinner looked way better than last time as the paint had been peeling all over it, but the little things like paint chipped in the queue, worn off the pathways, that was very apparent. Show areas of the Jungle Cruise where there are rocks as ground coverage had weeds all over the place, but I'm sure that's now rationalized as it simply looks natural. Splash Mountain looked way better than the last time and all the show scenes looked to be in good shape. I was really pleased. Just as
@WDW1974 stated, short lines to be had on many attractions. 5 mins in the morning and 5 mins at night to get on Splash.
It's time to go down the rabbit hole and hopefully get through to some of the pixie dusters. Marquee attractions like It's a Small World and the Haunted Mansion were downright disasters. Before this era, these rides would not be in operation because their working conditions were so deplorable. The first time in the Haunted Mansion, we had audio issues in the stretching room to the left, they had an area where they had a piece of the wallpaper cut out and replaced, which was amazingly apparent, when the room was fully stretched out, the top of the wallpaper above was ripped, blackened, a mess. In the other stretching room, the audio was upgraded and apparent, but so was one of the stretching room picture frames that was warped and bowed out. It was unreal. The scrims throughout the graveyard scene were filthy. Not to be outdone was It's a Small World, which was probably the worst looking show that we've seen in almost 35 years of visiting WDW.
It's a Small World, go through the queue and be welcomed by the clock tower that is filthy. The numbers with brown dirt and dust caked on them. As for the attraction itself, there were so many show elements that were down that I lost track. Black walls that had huge white streaks running down them. The final scene won hands down as the we had clowns in balloons frozen in time, lights off in several scenes, burnt out light bulbs, and even one step better than burnt out lightbulbs, places where they had simply removed them and hadn't replaced them. Top it all off with the narcissistic or caste system setup with the names of certain guests at the end. The Space Mountain building was dirty and rusty all over the place. You could see areas of the support beams on the side where they let the paint peel and then covered it with a thin layer of paint where it becomes very apparent of the different layers of paint being applied.
When exiting the Peoplemover, there was dust and dirt caked at the end of the Goodyear walkway. They can't even simply clean the place any longer? $112 to get in the place, they can manage to not have giant dustballs. 50's show scene father in the Carousel of Progress has the movement of someone with a neuromuscular disorder. Buzz Lightyear's "Z" targets were worn down, I could go on. It all looks tired.
After long days at our company, my wife and I would visit twice a week one of the parks and have dinner. When we would go to Epcot, a meal at The Electric Umbrella for two orders of chicken fingers and two beverages ran a tab of $17 with tax. This was from the late 90's until the mid-00's. We ate with our son at Cosmic Rays and for $50.18 we had two veggie burgers with fries, three beverages, and a salad with grilled chicken. Dole Whip at $4.19 a cup. Price points on merchandise that are so overinflated, it was something.
I couldn't help but think of the families there that went because of that marketed obligation to visit WDW and how they paid for their trip. The costs are astonishingly high and how much debt are many of these guests racking up just to pay for the basics of the vacation? Most families staying on-property, paying the exorbitant prices for lousy food, and kitsch in the shops simply don't have it. For many of us that can swing the cost, we aren't interested in doing so as at this point, it's fiscally foolish and I can't get past how much less you're getting while paying so much more. Queues that now take twice the time because of the FastPass+ disaster. Omnimovers like The Little Mermaid moved at a snails pace because of the alternating loads of the standby and FastPass.
Lastly, when leaving, we must have hit the Monorail jackpot because our train had been full refurbished inside and was the best that it had looked in years.... and it didn't smell!
For those of you that are new or newer to WDW, you honestly don't have any idea as to how far the product has fallen. They wrote the book on quality, care, and being superior. They now fail on nearly every account. I was glad to visit attractions that we haven't been on in several years and used to on a regular basis, but after that full day at the MK, there isn't a desire to go back unless they get their act together. The next Disney theme park that we'll do is overseas. It's all a far cry from being a child that was so inspired by EPCOT Center.
