I just spent 5 days at the parks, then took a week long cruise with Royal Caribbean, then visited the parks one more day before returning home. I've never done this, but I thought I'd share some thoughts I had as I spent time in the parks. I'm just gonna do it bulletpoint style, and keep each one brief:
1. The whole TSMM morning rush.
2. Needing a FP runner.
Those are literally the only two pros that I could come up with. And the FP runner issue could be solved many other ways more easily and cheaper. FP+ is certainly not the only solution.
One of the biggest things I kept thinking is that Disney is just "feeding the beast" here when it comes to people staring at their cell phones in the parks. Building up a wifi network will only make it worse. Teens with their heads buried and texting rather than talking to family or friends or noticing the detail around them... It's really a horrible trend, and Disney is empowering the habit. It was even MORE noticeable on the cruise we went on. Having no cell serivce was noticeable, and had a positive effect, IMO... Especially on my family. We had great dinners together with great conversation, and the same around other areas of the ship. Disney should be working toward THAT, as opposed to trying to make it easier for Sally to tweet about how she's getting a churro.
Overall, the days in the parks were a lot of fun. We really tried hard to just go and enjoy and not stress about crowds and so forth, and we suceeded for the most part. But some things just didn't escape our view.
- Starting with the best... SPLASH MOUTAIN. Bravo. Beautiful refurb. Now PLEASE maintain it!! (also fix the final bluebird. what the heck?!?!?)
- We were given RFID park tickets. We first used them at Typhoon. Worked just fine. The next time we entered a park, the whole family got the green light... Mine was blue and I had to be manually entered by one of the supervisors with the iPhone deal they have. This happened at literally every point I tried to enter a park for the rest of my visit. It never worked. I asked, LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE TIME, if it could be actually fixed so that this wouldn't continue to happen, and I was literally ignored every single time. They would just say something to the effect of "oh, you're good to go!" and that was it. You'd think in beta testing they would want to examine and fix the issue, not just push the issue off to the side and move on.
- Wifi in the parks was HORRIBLE on my iPhone 5. The My Disney Experience app was even WORSE. Getting the two to succesfully align was like threading a needle. The app would fail repeatedly (and yes, it was updated), and the handful of times it worked, I found it very hard to navigate and get info from. For example, finding current wait times and current FP return times was BRUTAL to locate. IMO, that should be a big, fat, easy to find button. There should also be a simple way to see if any TS restaurant in the current park you are in has table availability. Between connection issues and the app, it took the entire walk from Dumbo to Pirates just to find out if there was any availability at LTT. A single button labeled "Check MK Table Service Availability Today" seems like such a simple idea.
- Enchanted Tales with Belle - No complaints. My 4 year old was into it. The effect in the workshop is really quite impressive.
- BoG was fine. Liked eating in the West Wing much more than I would have liked eating in the Ballroom. Way too loud.
- I liked the que for TLM as much as I liked the ride.
- HM still looks great. A couple times when I rode it, they were rushing people through the foyer and straight into the stretching rooms though, which I didn't like because you missed the whole initial Ghost Host speech. The HHG's really are cool. I find myself really looking forward to seeing what the ghost is gonna do with my doombuggy... And that's really what it's all about.
- Relieving myself at the Tangled bathrooms was everything I dreamed it would be and more.
- There seem to be quite a few more healthy options food wise around the parks. For the first time, we spent our entire time at WDW without eating a bacon cheeseburger. It was nice.
- Pirates is a mess. Non-functioning AA's, the audio is TERRIBLE and unbalanced all over the place, the blackbeard mist effect is so out of focus you can't even tell it's supposed to be a person let alone blackbeard, and the Jack AA's are seriously showing wear and tear. Thank goodness they spent all that money altering the que though, huh??
- I didn't mind the mermaid add. The effect in the water was okay, the skeleton on the beach looked well done, and the singing worked for me.
- We really loved the new castle projection show.
- I'm getting awfully tired of Americans (of which I am one) and their boorish behavior. Far too many of us are rude and thoughtless. For whatever reason, at the Disney parks, this is magnified. Put that many people in one place, and far too many begin to jockey for position. Adults arriving late and shoving their way in front of small children... Cussing loudly with no regard for surroundings... Loudly berating CM's because of a false feeling of entitlement that apparently wayyyyyy too many of us have... The list goes on and on. Seriously. Sometimes I hate Americans. I noticed some of the same behavior with foreign visitors, but make no mistake. The problem runs rampant with us 'Muricans.
- HoP is just great.
- Splash was closed the first 4 days we were at the parks, then after our week long cruise, it was open when we were back in the park for our final day. It was amazing to me how much less crowded the park seemed with that one E-ticket open. It'll be interesting to see how much worse the walkways get (if that's even possible) with FP+.
- HOLY COW WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO CHANGE THE LIGHTBULBS ON THE GF?!?!??! It seriously looks horrible. I have no idea what the problem is with that. It couldn't cost much and is a posterchild for people critical of maintenance. For god's sake, TDO... Just FIX it and give us one less thing to be upset about.
- We hadn't been to a waterpark at Disney in years, but that will change in the future. We had a lot of fun at Typhoon, and that's even with the cool temps. BB was closed.
- Sunshine Seasons is the best CS place on property.
- TT is meh. And it doesn't help that the whole interactive thing still doesn't work. It all makes literally no sense right now. There should have been a plan B for when the interactive aspect didn't work, a la "B Mode" for Everest (but hopefully less sucky).
- Illuminations remains fantastic, and with a globe upgrade to today's video tech, would be nothing short of amazing. Makes no sense to me that this hasn't been done yet. It could easily be marketed well.
- I believe Raglan Road is one of the best places on property. The entertainment is great, and the food is very very good. And I say that even though one of my daughters and I both good food poisoning from the place. I'll definitely be back next trip.
1. The whole TSMM morning rush.
2. Needing a FP runner.
Those are literally the only two pros that I could come up with. And the FP runner issue could be solved many other ways more easily and cheaper. FP+ is certainly not the only solution.
One of the biggest things I kept thinking is that Disney is just "feeding the beast" here when it comes to people staring at their cell phones in the parks. Building up a wifi network will only make it worse. Teens with their heads buried and texting rather than talking to family or friends or noticing the detail around them... It's really a horrible trend, and Disney is empowering the habit. It was even MORE noticeable on the cruise we went on. Having no cell serivce was noticeable, and had a positive effect, IMO... Especially on my family. We had great dinners together with great conversation, and the same around other areas of the ship. Disney should be working toward THAT, as opposed to trying to make it easier for Sally to tweet about how she's getting a churro.
Overall, the days in the parks were a lot of fun. We really tried hard to just go and enjoy and not stress about crowds and so forth, and we suceeded for the most part. But some things just didn't escape our view.
Sucks though that you had many technical diffuculties be it with RFID Ticket, MDE app, TT,etc. Did you go to DHS or AK at all or didn't you have any time to do so?
