As passholders, were reaching the tipping point. Its getting to where its not worth the money. fp+ is making standby lines impossible, they arent adding anything of substance enough, or updating what they do have. Granted I do like the monthly payment program. Right now we have annuals, but come time to renew next year we already decided we will probably downgrade to either the seasonal or weekday select. We want to keep some kind of ticket because we do like going just for the day and there are good discounts on tours and of course a room if we do a weekend etc, some shopping etc.
This times a million.
I took almost a year off of being a season passholder, and just bit the bullet and got them again last month (mainly because the kids really missed it). We got Universal annual passes in April and have absolutely loved them. The crowds are lower. The prices, while still high, are a little more reasonable because we get a discount with our passes. If there's a huge wait time (say for Despicable Me, for instance) then we just try it again during the week when we know it will be lower. The attractions, for the most part, are in working order and look cleaner and fresher.
The wait times at WDW are insane, especially for attractions like Toy Story (why the hell did they get rid of the single rider line anyways?). I finally rode Toy Story for the first time in
3 years the night I ran the Tower of Terror 10 Miler race, simply because the wait was only 45 minutes at 1:30 a.m. I won't come at rope drop and get run over to ride this attraction, so it's always 70 minutes and higher - so we'll never ride.
Even as a local (I literally live behind MK), it's damn near impossible to get reservations to the restaurants that we like the most. It's like Ohana has become this rare holy grail to get. I miss the promotions like a few years back where we got 3 months free when we bought our passes.
The lines are outrageous. Getting run over by strollers and ECV's all of the time is maddening. I personally feel like the new Fantasyland area was a huge let down (I love Storybook Circus, though) and really dislike how prices are steadily going up, up, up (higher cost for a child's seasonal AP, food prices slowly going up, cheap merchandise prices going up, having to put a credit card down for all reservation required restaurants). You can't even get a big cup of free ice water anymore (my past 5 visits to WDW in the past month I've asked for water and have received a very small cup versus the large cup they used to give out).
I feel like Disney has almost gotten too big for its britches. I think they were in their prime in the 90's - or even in the 80's - when you could just walk into the park, not have to do a ridiculous touring plan, walk up to nearly any restaurant, and no fast passes.
I miss the days where my family and I would pile into the car (grew up in Daytona), would be at the park about 30 minutes before opening, head into Tony's for breakfast, ride every single attraction with no more than an hour wait, watch fireworks from the hub area and not dodge millions of strollers or ECV's, stay until the park closed at 2 a.m., then ride home in a deliriously happy and exhausted state. Now my family and I make the 5 minute drive to the park, wait 20ish minutes to board the boat with hundreds of ed off tourists since the monorail is down, walk from attraction to attraction to see 60+ minute waits and no fast passes, no openings for sit down restaurants, and wall to wall people watching fireworks, parades, and the castle show. We end up walking around the park for a few hours and never actually DO anything. And that's just MK - it's pretty much the same for other parks at WDW as well.
For the record, I am a massive Disney fan. I am also a gigantic Run Disney fan, and I see issues in their department as well. I am greatly disappointed that Disney can't seem to get their act together on a number of things (run down attractions, monorail constantly breaking down, etc etc etc).
If Disney took the extra money that they're making off of everyone and put it back into their existing attractions and monorail system, I'd be okay with it. But I don't see improvements, just adding more things to the parks to add more people in to generate more money...a giant mouse trap.
I know I'm all over the place with this.
At the end of the day, I do not see myself renewing again for awhile when these expire. I'm happy there is a monthly payment plan, but the cost isn't worth it anymore.
