Not essential for cruising 
-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
Are smart phones essential at the parks?
- Thread starter dave&di
- Start date
Good luck with RofR, seems complicated to me
Not essential for cruising
I've been able to order a drink from my cruise mobile app. To me: "essential"
MickeyLuv'r
Well-Known Member
I see your point. Explained very well, although I would love a FP for Dumbo, I would never ride SM!
Nothing wrong with Dumbo, it is just an easy FP, and very often the FP and standby wait are exactly the same. Offering a Dumbo FP is merely a way for WDW to steer people across the park/manage crowds. So when Space Mtn/Splash and 7D have hour plus waits- Dumbo is 5 minute standby - and it is only 5minutes because that's how long it takes to stop the attraction and reload it. Philarmagic is another not-really-a-FP most of the time. Love Philarmagic, but a Philarmagic FP is useless. it only ties up your ability to get any other FP. About the only time a Philarmagic FP has any potential to shorten your Philarmagic wait at all is like Christmas Day-type crowds, and even then, ANY other FP is a better choice. (even Dumbo!).
When they re-open - most of the show FP fall into the same category.
MickeyLuv'r
Well-Known Member
Good luck with RofR, seems complicated to me
Yes, in the before times, it was. The ride is worth experiencing at least once, though.
So for me, I lucked out. I planned a short trip, and stayed in the Boardwalk/BC/YC/Swan/Dolphin area. I got up early, walked over to HS...got in. Got my boarding group, took advantage of the short wait to ride RnRC 3 times in a row. Then I went back to the hotel for breakfast until my BG was called.
I finished breakfast just as my boarding group was called. The only bad part was that despite having a BG, my wait for the ride was still LONG. Way too long because the ride had -has? - a terrible reliability problem. Ugh!
When I finally got off RotR, it was time for my FP. Actually, I was near the end of my 1st FP window, so I quickly used 2 of my FP, with a short wait until my 3rd one. I forget what I had for FP that day, but with tiers...2 of the 3 FP were more or less throwaway FP. (=didn't save any wait time, as explained above)
Having jumped through that many hoops and STILL had to stand in line for over an hour? Eh.
Last edited:
Yeah I must admit the thought of trying to get on this makes me anxious! it seems you can put on all the effort possible, wait in line with your BG and still not get on! This is a must for my OH and me...unfortunately! Hopefully when we go in 2022 it might have calmed down or changed somehow, we also go in September so less crowds.
MickeyLuv'r
Well-Known Member
Oh, I wouldn't let any ride make you anxious...I suppose I was mildly concerned our effort would somehow be wasted, but I mostly I kinda think of WDW as a game. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, but mostly I win. Sometimes at WDW, you do everything right, but a bus or a ride breaks down, or some other thing happens that is beyond your control. I try not to let those things bother me too much.
Except for RotR breaking down while I was in line, I felt like I came out ahead. Mind, even there, before the the shutdown RotR broke down, I think, practically every day? It was pretty much a matter of how much of each day would it be down.
That said, it was a little fun being part of the Boarding Group lottery.
You asked about smart phones...in the before times, not only was it helpful to have a smart phone to get a low BG number, it was helpful to have MULTIPLE smart phones in your party! That way you had multiple people playing the lottery at the same time.
Thanks for your reply, I totally agree with WDW being a game, I looked back at my trip report from 2013 and had unlucky moments such as rides down, even whole evenings rained off! It was our of our control but we were at WDW right!
. My anxiety with RotR is probably because by the time we hopefully go in 2022 we wouldn’t have been to WDW for 9 years, and a trip after that probably won’t be possible again, we are going to spend the next 2 years saving every penny. My OH is a massive Star Wars fan, it would be devastating to leave WDW without doing it (dramatic I know!) I will be the only one with a smart phone, my OH hasn’t upgraded his phone in years, it doesn’t even have the internet! 
NelleBelle
Well-Known Member
Hopefully by the time you go the boarding groups will be a thing of the past. DH and I went to DLR this past fall, a few months after GE opened Smugglers Run. We were worried there would be boarding groups or that the lines would be really long. We were surprised the line was less than 1-hr (HM with NBC overlay was nearly 2-hrs)! I know that that the ride isn't as popular as RotR, but hopefully it will at least allow you to ride stand-by if you can't get a Fastpass at that time (like FoP). We waiting 2-hrs for FoP (the stand-by time said 90-min but it was quite a bit longer) after we did our FP for the ride. One never knows what the next big "draw" will be in 2022. We're supposed to go next summer and wonder if things that were supposed to be done for the 50th will actually be done by next summer. If not, we'll postpone.Thanks for your reply, I totally agree with WDW being a game, I looked back at my trip report from 2013 and had unlucky moments such as rides down, even whole evenings rained off! It was our of our control but we were at WDW right!
MickeyLuv'r
Well-Known Member
Thanks for your reply, I totally agree with WDW being a game, I looked back at my trip report from 2013 and had unlucky moments such as rides down, even whole evenings rained off! It was our of our control but we were at WDW right!
If you are traveling in September, afternoon storms are - more or less - the norm. That's one of the tradeoffs of September. You get low prices, but weather is less than ideal. Still, it can be a good time to go. The only thing that I really disliked about September was all the stupid parties at MK. And WDW kept pushing them further and further back. It was absurd that WDW was holding Halloween events in August! It would be nice if WDW stopped holding so many of them.
Anyhow, you have plenty of time to think about having a smart phone along, or not.
Jon81uk
Well-Known Member
If you are on the Three network in the UK then roaming in the USA comes out of your standard data allowance as if you were in the UK.
We went in 2016 and used a mixture of WiFi and 3G data. I used Google Maps to navigate to Universal as well.
Jon81uk
Well-Known Member
Reading through this has just made me think about how things have changed.
I can remember my first trip in 2001 and I turned my phone off at the airport (in the UK) and then bought a pre-paid phone card to call my parents back home from a payphone while at Disneyworld. We had a camera with film in it for taking pictures!
There were several other Disney trips over the years but I didn't use a mobile due to the high cost of using it abroad. But we did have a digital camera!
In 2012 I went to California and I think I took photos on a smartphone and I remember logging onto the hotel WiFi each night to update Facebook on what we had been up to, as it was still too costly to use it without WiFi.
In 2016 we needed a phone at WDW to manage FP+ properly and at that point it was now "free" to use it abroad so I used 3G more.
In 2018 we went to California again and we used MaxPass to get FastPasses and this felt so much easier than paper passes, I also paid for almost everything with Apple Pay.
Just amazing how in 20 years I've gone from a camera with film in it, to paying for goods by tapping my phone and how technology has changed.
I can remember my first trip in 2001 and I turned my phone off at the airport (in the UK) and then bought a pre-paid phone card to call my parents back home from a payphone while at Disneyworld. We had a camera with film in it for taking pictures!
There were several other Disney trips over the years but I didn't use a mobile due to the high cost of using it abroad. But we did have a digital camera!
In 2012 I went to California and I think I took photos on a smartphone and I remember logging onto the hotel WiFi each night to update Facebook on what we had been up to, as it was still too costly to use it without WiFi.
In 2016 we needed a phone at WDW to manage FP+ properly and at that point it was now "free" to use it abroad so I used 3G more.
In 2018 we went to California again and we used MaxPass to get FastPasses and this felt so much easier than paper passes, I also paid for almost everything with Apple Pay.
Just amazing how in 20 years I've gone from a camera with film in it, to paying for goods by tapping my phone and how technology has changed.
This is the best way to deal with it if you have phone from another country. Our youngest daughter used a table on the last trip to entertain herself while waiting in lines and it was more useful than my phone since it had a much larger screen and it was only connected to the world via the wifi. Frankly if you have a small tablet it might be a better option than taking a phone that you are just using on wifi.
CaptainAmerica
Premium Member
I don't know what you all are talking about, we don't use our phones in the parks at all. That's family time, not phone time.
We book our initial FastPasses for as close to 9-10, 10-11, and 11-12 as possible. Then we eat lunch and return to the resort for a swim and a nap. While on the bus, we book a fourth FP for that evening's park.
On an 8 night/9 day trip, doing this gets you 27 pre-booked FPs, 8 same-day FPs, and 8 rope drops, for a total of 43 rides without any wait. Disney doesn't have 43 rides that accumulate significant lines. This is more than enough.
We book our initial FastPasses for as close to 9-10, 10-11, and 11-12 as possible. Then we eat lunch and return to the resort for a swim and a nap. While on the bus, we book a fourth FP for that evening's park.
On an 8 night/9 day trip, doing this gets you 27 pre-booked FPs, 8 same-day FPs, and 8 rope drops, for a total of 43 rides without any wait. Disney doesn't have 43 rides that accumulate significant lines. This is more than enough.
I’m hoping things will change by 2022! I believe Disney has already delayed some projects, I guess the next few months will be interesting. I hope everything goes your way.
Smart phones are a bane on society and need to be confiscated and ground into confetti.
[/QUOTE
I hear ya! Get this man a drink!
We’ve in in September 4 times, it’s the only time we’ll go, low crowds, still warm enough for our English bodies! We’ve always gone to MNSSHP. I would love to go in November and experience Christmas!
Yep plenty of ti,e to get my head around it! Toooo much time!
This is my problem! I want to go back to the 2001 era! The only way we communicated with the UK was to get a phone card and use a pay phone! No connection to the outside world at all! No technology apart from a camera and a memory card. I don’t even use phones for technical things here in London.