Well I’m currently composing this while waiting for Remy, on my last night I will be an Annual Passholder for awhile. I bought my AP in October of 2019 and have maintained it through today. While a little bittersweet, I can see the wisdom that I started back in 2015 that it’s really not a great idea to maintain an AP continuously as you do really get in a rut and become more jaded back then coming off of enjoying DLR’s 60th as an AP I decided to institute a 3 year rotation between DLR, UO, and WDW. Back then it was as much for a financial reason as the variety, but it was always exciting to anticipate changing resorts every October and really kept things fresh. Then came Covid. I was in the parks 1 week before the world shutdown and did not come back for nearly 11 months. When it came time for my renewal in March it was a no brainer since they weren’t on sale and I had a forced 1 year break. Last year I was ready to move on with passes back on sale but my sister’s planned trip in October caused me to keep it and run a UO pass with a WDW one for the first time. Anyways that’s my mindset as I sit back and review the positives and negatives of the last 4.5 years as an AP:
Positives:
-The opening months of SWGE-Having been there within a week of it opening at DLR I knew the land, especially without Rise, was only ok but the 7am openings at DHS were just amazing. Riding Slinky before dawn, riding all the big rides for 90 min and then rope dropping Epcot on the same day, just fantastic. I know it’ll never happen again because Disney really messed up on predicting crowds but darn was it fun.
-2 Home Run Ride openings, Rise and Guardians. Both rides vastly exceeded my expectations and are just fantastic examples of there’s entertainment.
-3 solid additions in Mickey, Remy, and Tron while not reaching the heights of the previous two attractions are still very good rides that will be popular for years to come
-Year One of Covid reopening, I really think Disney did an excellent job of threading the needle and opening in the quickest and safest way possible up until summer of 2021. Things went off the rails after that.
-Two superb new nighttime spectaculars, after being extremely disappointed with the new Halloween fireworks I was extremely impressed with Minnie’s Wonderful Christmastime and it commands my #1 spot for castle firework shows. Love it. The other show is of course Luminous which is a worthy successor to Illuminations and manages to have a mature storyline befitting the park it’s in. Illuminations needed either a complete refresh or retirement after 20+ years. While I would prefer a show at Epcot w/o Disney movie music Luminous is still great.
-Fantasmic Refresh, this is just such a home run, and I think the current DHS show is my favorite version I’ve seen on either coast. While the Pan section at DL will always be my favorite segment, even the 2.0 version suffered from a lack of live segments in the villain segment, with a prolonged screen portion with Ursula and Churnabog making up the entire middle segment between the Queen and Malnificent and the DLR plot is much more muddled with villains appearing way too early (Kaa, Pink Elephants.). The DHS refresh took out the most problematic segment, and replaced it with a great series of vignettes that furthered the story of Mickeys imagination running away from him. This is probably my most favorite change.
-The death of the 180 day dining reservation rule, I really don’t think I need to explain that one.
-Spaceship Earths points of light and the monorail leds-litterally the only things I liked about the 50th
Negatives:
-The invention of the virtual queue, might as well start off with my least favorite thing. If I purchase a ticket to a theme park, I should be able to choose to wait in any line I choose no matter how long. I should not need to play a fastest finger game to get the honor to wait in a hour line. I hate them, I really hate them. Sell ILLs, close the line early to not keep the cast working well past close, that’s fine, don’t prevent me from doing a ride I want to do by an artificial barrier. And don’t keep it in place years after a ride has opened!
-Slow Walking back Covid Restrictions-By that I mean park hopping restrictions, show restrictions, park reservations. There was zero reasons these persist in 2024.
-ILL/Genie+: I’ll say it again, this system is too cheap and too expensive. It’s too cheap that people feel they need it resulting in far too few pulls per day and long standby lines, and too expensive for the hassle it brings. If they are going to keep the reservations, they should charge 1/2 the ticket price for it. That way most people don’t get it, and the ones that do get 6-7 pulls out of it. Better yet just charge per ride. Anything that cause less use but nets the same profit, causing standby lines to move faster.
-Wallcot-The walls went up as I bought my AP and 4.5 years later they still haven’t finished Future World’s breakup. Thats just unacceptable, even if Play and MP are dead, they still haven’t finished the festival center, no excuse for that.
-The death of AK at night-RoL could have used some more tweaking but there was no reason to just abandon AK at night. Anything that syphons crowds away from MK nights is a welcome change. A new show needs to be fast tracked.
Anyways is so long for now, I’m off to Universal and DLR. Other then maybe a party or two, I’m done with WDW until fall 2026 at the earliest
Positives:
-The opening months of SWGE-Having been there within a week of it opening at DLR I knew the land, especially without Rise, was only ok but the 7am openings at DHS were just amazing. Riding Slinky before dawn, riding all the big rides for 90 min and then rope dropping Epcot on the same day, just fantastic. I know it’ll never happen again because Disney really messed up on predicting crowds but darn was it fun.
-2 Home Run Ride openings, Rise and Guardians. Both rides vastly exceeded my expectations and are just fantastic examples of there’s entertainment.
-3 solid additions in Mickey, Remy, and Tron while not reaching the heights of the previous two attractions are still very good rides that will be popular for years to come
-Year One of Covid reopening, I really think Disney did an excellent job of threading the needle and opening in the quickest and safest way possible up until summer of 2021. Things went off the rails after that.
-Two superb new nighttime spectaculars, after being extremely disappointed with the new Halloween fireworks I was extremely impressed with Minnie’s Wonderful Christmastime and it commands my #1 spot for castle firework shows. Love it. The other show is of course Luminous which is a worthy successor to Illuminations and manages to have a mature storyline befitting the park it’s in. Illuminations needed either a complete refresh or retirement after 20+ years. While I would prefer a show at Epcot w/o Disney movie music Luminous is still great.
-Fantasmic Refresh, this is just such a home run, and I think the current DHS show is my favorite version I’ve seen on either coast. While the Pan section at DL will always be my favorite segment, even the 2.0 version suffered from a lack of live segments in the villain segment, with a prolonged screen portion with Ursula and Churnabog making up the entire middle segment between the Queen and Malnificent and the DLR plot is much more muddled with villains appearing way too early (Kaa, Pink Elephants.). The DHS refresh took out the most problematic segment, and replaced it with a great series of vignettes that furthered the story of Mickeys imagination running away from him. This is probably my most favorite change.
-The death of the 180 day dining reservation rule, I really don’t think I need to explain that one.
-Spaceship Earths points of light and the monorail leds-litterally the only things I liked about the 50th
Negatives:
-The invention of the virtual queue, might as well start off with my least favorite thing. If I purchase a ticket to a theme park, I should be able to choose to wait in any line I choose no matter how long. I should not need to play a fastest finger game to get the honor to wait in a hour line. I hate them, I really hate them. Sell ILLs, close the line early to not keep the cast working well past close, that’s fine, don’t prevent me from doing a ride I want to do by an artificial barrier. And don’t keep it in place years after a ride has opened!
-Slow Walking back Covid Restrictions-By that I mean park hopping restrictions, show restrictions, park reservations. There was zero reasons these persist in 2024.
-ILL/Genie+: I’ll say it again, this system is too cheap and too expensive. It’s too cheap that people feel they need it resulting in far too few pulls per day and long standby lines, and too expensive for the hassle it brings. If they are going to keep the reservations, they should charge 1/2 the ticket price for it. That way most people don’t get it, and the ones that do get 6-7 pulls out of it. Better yet just charge per ride. Anything that cause less use but nets the same profit, causing standby lines to move faster.
-Wallcot-The walls went up as I bought my AP and 4.5 years later they still haven’t finished Future World’s breakup. Thats just unacceptable, even if Play and MP are dead, they still haven’t finished the festival center, no excuse for that.
-The death of AK at night-RoL could have used some more tweaking but there was no reason to just abandon AK at night. Anything that syphons crowds away from MK nights is a welcome change. A new show needs to be fast tracked.
Anyways is so long for now, I’m off to Universal and DLR. Other then maybe a party or two, I’m done with WDW until fall 2026 at the earliest