First, I can't believe I read all 26 pages. Second, I agree wholeheartedly with WDW1974's views that cleanliness and "show" has declined in recent years. I have been to WDW more times than most people I know here in the rural part of Central IL. I stayed at Poly in 85 when I was 5, Contemporary in 87, when I was seven, off-site with Magic Music days in 94, and later that summer at PO with my parents and cousins, in the late 90's when then NEA covention was there at All-star Music with my parents and fiance, All-Star Music in 2002 on my honeymoon and at Pop this past May with my DH and DS4.
My memory may be faulty of my first 2 trips because of my age, but I remeber everything being spotless, and every attraction running perfectly.The only complaint I remeber was transportation to places that the monorail didn't go. In high school DHS was kind of boring and MK and EPCOT were fun, but not as clean as I remembered. The trips I remeber most clearly are the ones from the late 90's til now.
When we were down there for the convention THings were still pretty good. Not as clean, but it was the week of July 4th and there was one of the largest conventions in the country there at the time. Test Track was brand new and officially open, if you can call it that. I think we only managed to ride it once, the whole week we were down there and were very dissapointed, it was shut down the rest of the time. None of us thought it lived up to the E-ticket that it had marketed as, and the three of us who were repeat visitors mourned the loss of WOM. RNRC was in soft opening that same trip and we were very impressed with that. We lucked onto that coaster probably 10 times during the week we were there.We just timed it right.
On my Honeymoon I noticed things were significantly dirtier and shabbier that my last trip, but nowhere near as bad as things were in May. I was very disappointed with my first ride on Soarin. DS loved it but the adults spent the rest of day complaining about the quality of the film. I am a theatre nut, and am usually very good at suspending disbelief, but the film quality was so poor, that even I couldn't suspend my disbelief. Maelstrom looked like it hadn't had any maintenance since it was built. SGE missed the target audience of kids and lost the previous audience of adults that AE had had. The only truly good show I remember was EE and Nemo at AK. We werelucky enough to see Yeti in A mode.
I'm not sure I should even start with the dining. I had good meals, I'm not saying I didn't, but the quality and choices were not the same. On my honeymoon, DH and my favorite restaurant was Marrakesh, so it was a must do this trip. Now it is a must don't. I am picky and I don't like pepper(any kind even black table pepper) In 2002 the dishes at Marrakesh no pepper they flavored with saffron and other spices. This year I couldn't eat my chicken, there was so much pepper on it. I was glad I had gotten an appetizer. With the exception of the signature restaurants, DS had very little to choose from. I couldn't even get him a hot dog at Pop. That was an adult meal. We were on the DDP. He couldn't get the same chicken nuggets that the adults were eating, Instead of Chicken breast nuggets, he was stuck with processed parts. I could go on with the food, but I won't.
I miss the WDW I remeber from my childhood, not necessarily the attraction or the lack of buses, but the cleanliness and the high quality food and the choices. I miss wanting to stop in every store you passed because they all had at some merchandise that was exclusive to that store. The only thing has survived mostly intact is the friendliness and helpfulness of the most frontline castmembers. I wish the management would follow their example.