Trip Report The "Where Do I begin" Trip Report.....

Ok, first off let me get a few things out of the way. First off, if you're a Pixie Dust snorter than this TR is NOT for you. There will be some praise for Disney but overall the bad outweighs the good. So, if you're squeamish when that "other place" is mentioned then I bid you farewell.

Second, I will not argue with anyone over anything said in here. I will not debate with anyone that wants to say "well, my friend texted me and said it wasn't that bad when they were there". This report is done from first hand account and I know what we saw and heard.

Lastly, I am really not that good at doing TR's, with all of the note taking and keeping tabs and stuff, so I'll leave that to the rest of you pros on here. My TR will consist of mucho typing and then I'll either post pictures or put up a link to the pics. I'd rather spend my time reading y'alls TR's since they're much better!

So, on to the show!!


Going into our vacation the plan was to arrive on the 15th. We would spend the night in the Rodeway Inn on 192 before checking into the Ramada Convention Center on International Drive the next night. We would stay there from the 16th-20th while doing our 3 days of Universal. On the 20th we moved over to POFQ and began our Disney portion, with checkout coming on the 27th.

The Rodeway Inn is a decent little motel to sleep in. It was clean, comfy, and conveniently located. The Ramada was pretty nice as well, and was only about a 5 minute drive from Universal. Although we weren't on property we still got the early admission as well as 2 days of free dining from Uni. We ate at Pastamore and Pat O'Briens, since we didn't want to eat in the parks and lose ride time in there. They were both fantastic and we will be going back again for sure. I also got the chance to have a Krusty burger.....OH MAN!!

Ok, let me try to organize this a little better. I'll start another post and try to go day by day to try to stay focused...lol

 

[draybook]

Why not...is it motion sickness inducing moreso that attractions that actually move?

More of anxiety. I remember the last simulator I did was Star Tours at DL when I was a kid. Also, my asthma was prevalent back then so that didn't help either.

 

[draybook]

And to add insult to injury, the Sorcerer Mickey watch that we picked up at World of Disney during their little promo is too small for me to wear. I don't recall seeing any signs saying that the watches were designed for kids or women, but it's definitely too small for my wrists and I have small wrists.

I guess I'll contact them and see if they have any larger sized watches to exchange.

 

[Runmyhorse]

To add to draybooks TR. Whoever designed the line for test track should be taken in there and shoved around by all the people. This was the dumbest idea disney had. Also one of the cms in begining was a total witch. I had tonhunt her down to try and tell her i didnt have my room key.I didnt have my room key which you use to design the car and all. Well you get a white one you can use if you don't have yours. I told her my husband had mine due to no pockets. She looked at me and said I had to have it but had a realky nasty attitude about it. I told her well i don't and turned to walk off. She then proceeds to hand me one. I told her if she didnt like her job then she could find another one.she just looked at me as I turned and walked back to my spot on my number where my daughter was waiting.the lady then followedne to ask Iif I needed two cards. I told her no and turned back around.

 

[PolynesianPrincess]

THANK YOU for your honest reporting. We just got back 2 weeks ago and I agree with you 100% about the CMs at WDW. They don't give a crap. Most of the CP kids working there don't actually care about working at Disney, they just want something good looking like Disney on their resume. And they turn over, I believe, every 6-8 months. After going on the cruise and experiencing CMs always greeting you, always with a smile, always pleasant and going back to WDW to deal with the grouchy unpleasant CMs.... It's like night and day. While I love that they are finally putting attractions down for refurbs and giving us FLE, it's just not enough. They let the parks hit rock bottom and now they're frantically trying to get them back on their feet again.

 

[DisSplash]

I completely agree with your assessment of the FP+ lines changing the HM standby lime for the worse. Your analogy to cattle is spot on. We LOVE the HM, but it was a bit concerning trying to keep an eye on our kids as the crowd behind us kept pushing forward to the small funnel opening, and very frustrating to see how people kept trying to cut the line in the outside edges. Basically we were navigating a mob. Totally pathetic and totally unnecessary. That goes not only for FP+, since, like you, we saw maybe 5 people on that side of the line the entire time we were waiting on our side, but also for the fact that it doesn't take a brainiac or even a "suit" to figure out that the "mash-em-up" queue technique is an easy fix. It was complete chaos in that line and did not need to be. A simple re-drawing of the queue along with some additional roping to "snake it" and better define the line is not very difficult. Wasn't that what they had before they messed it up with FP+?

Of course if they snake the line, they will also need to draw it narrow enough to deter the line-cutters (which by the way we never saw before this last trip in August -- at least not to the degree we noticed it this year). Case in point is Pirates. While I was not a fan of the new queue because you lost the opportunity to choose your own fate in line, I was happy to see that at least they snaked the standby line out front. That is, I was happy until I realized that the queue was so wide that about 5 different people kept cutting past us every time we turned a corner. This was so frustrating and very hard to explain to our grade-school aged kids who know what happens if they cut the line. If they can't physically modify the width of the line, then they should at least have people monitoring it, or post a sign prohibiting line-cutting. I know this will not stop everyone, but it may deter some ... I will say that Busch Gardens does post these types of signs and I have never encountered a line-cutter there. Just sayin.'

But like you, our trip was not all bad. We had some great CM's throughout and even got ourselves a "magical parking moment" at AK, a place that we were much more enthralled with this time around probably because one of our old favorites, MK, was a hot mess of people -- and some line-cutters -- everywhere every time we went. AK seemed pretty darn relaxing by comparison.

Great report!

 

[draybook]

What irritates me the most about the HM queue is that it makes me want to skip the ride until late at night when it's not busy. That's bad because it's my favorite ride.

 

[real mad hatter]

Hmmm..Well that was different..But yes..S...does happen..So far it hasn't happened to us on any of our previous five visits, but it has on other holiday destinations..I'am tempting fate here,as were off to Andalusia in two weeks......

 

[foreverbelle]

Thank you for sharing, I agree with you as much as we all love Disney, they are not perfect I am in the middle of my own report, and the next little bit will be about a not so pleasant experience myself. Your views and all were not bad at all just speaking the truth.

 

[draybook]

UPDATE: I just received a call from Kevin with Guest Services. He said he read the whole trip report and would be passing on the good and bad info to the correct leadership. It was a voicemail so I'll try to reach him when I get home.

Better late than never..huh?

 

[jlsHouston]

Day 1- September 15th.

We got to Kissimmee in the afternoon, I think around 2pm. We checked into Rodeway Inn and headed to Cocoa Beach. Had a blast there, and we met a guy that taught us some cool tricks. One of them was that is you cup a medium/large size piece of kelp/seaweed and bring it to the shore, you can shake it and find tiny shrimp and little bitty fish. Really cool trick! We stayed there for about 2 hours and then headed back to the motel to rest up for the next day.

Day 2 - September 16th.

Up and at em!! My wife had her surfing school booked for the 6:45am session, so we had to get up and leave early. This would also be our first time ever going to one of the water parks. She had an absolute BLAST and she wants to do it again. I might even join her next time. We then turned around after the class and got our tickets to stay in the park. Unfortunately, I didn't drink any water so a little after park opening I had a heat headache and was feeling the bite of heat exhaustion. In case I've never mentioned it before(sarcasm) I stay hot and I do NOT like heat.

So after taking a couple of ibuprofen from First Aid I felt better. Me and my son spent most of our time on the lazy river mixed with some time spent at the wading pool at the Crush N Gusher. My wife and daughter are the thrill folks so they hit the other rides. Our only bad experience was when we were eating at Leaning Palms. While we were sitting there eating, a squirrel and some birds came up and starting eating some food under the table that had already been there. A custodial worker had worked her way over to our table and said "don't feed the birds". I wouldn't say she was being outright rude but it wasn't in a friendly tone AND she didn't even bother asking if we had dropped the food. To me this was an omen of things to come.

After we left the park we headed over to T-Rex for our 6:30pm reservation but they let us in early....yay!! The kids had chicken tenders and a burger and my wife had the Jurassic salad. I had THIS BEAST:

My God was that burger delicious!!

After that we did some shopping and got our Christmas ornament and some other items. After that we headed back to the hotel to pack up and get ready for the move to the Ramada. Day 3 coming up next.

OMG I am ordering this when I have my ADR there, I am a hamburger FREAK

 

[jlsHouston]

Day 3 - September 17th



Let me say that watching this ride on YouTube does NOT prepare you for the final drop. As we crested that last lift my eyes bulged out of their sockets like Jim Carrey in the Mask and I yelled OH MY GOD!! Somehow I managed to keep my eyes open and seconds later we're all having a good laugh, especially when we check out the ride photo. Check out http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/splash-mountain-drop-question.873713/page-2 to see the photo from that.

Next post will start the Disney days!

And that was fun ?????

 

[draybook]

And that was fun ?????

Lol. well I'm glad I did it. But I can guarantee you won't catch me on it again.

 

[jlsHouston]

i agree totally with you
we sent eary sept 2013 for 14 days
the worst trip i have had in 18 years
cast members ignoring us, photo pass guy ignoring their lines and taking people off the street at a whim, face characters who looked tired and over worked, severe park over crowding, a friday 31th villains party that was the worst possible event in my disney history, a halloween party with incomplete decorations, sept crowds the largest i have ever seen, rude south americans cutting in lines pushing and shoving guests opening using damaging merchandise in stores with cast members watching and saying nothing, etc etc etc (and i'm south american so have all the right to complain)

what the heck is going on?

I heard the Villain party was a total fiasco, there was no traffic control even on the roads leading into DHS that day even...pretty sorry and sad Disney takes a great idea and then fails to execute for the enjoyment of the paying guests...

 

[jlsHouston]

Well I liked your TR....what you write about is what I have experienced from the very first of my trips to the world in terms of crowd control and CMS that could give $%&@ less... Sometimes we run across great CM's at one of the parks, but not often...I will say except for the front desk at the POLY, all the resorts I have visited have wonderful cast members I have interacted with especially those at AKL and BWI and those aren't even my favorite resorts..
The crowd control issues are dangerous though and I am very careful since I have the grands with me to take measures that are somewhat offensive rather than defensive if I feel like we are being herded....
I loved the pic of you on that horrible ride....and was that your wife burying her head next to you?? Haha..my daughters would love UNI, we will probably do a week there in a couple of years...once my grandkids are just a little bit older...
Thanks for sharing and I hope Guest relations does something to make up to you the crappy experiences especially those with the Halloween party which you paid extra.

 

[Epcotbob]

Thanks for the report, I've wondered for a while if a WDW trip is reaching an inflection point...where the whole experience is now a net negative and just not worth it anymore. With the incessant rise in ticket prices, food, etc. I'm now questioning the value. My family is taking trip down to Florida in November for a week and, for the first time, WDW will not be the centerpiece....we will go 1 day, maybe 2.

Being a huge WDW fan, I never thought I would find myself at this point....it's sad really.

I think they get away with it because people just keep coming, but eventually, hopefully, it will catch up with them.

 

[USAF79]

Great tr. wife and I were there about the same time. 17-23. Prob passed each other at uni on the 19th and at mnsshp on Friday. It was insanely crowed friday night. Had similar experiences with people carriages and such. Was waiting for the second parade to see if crowds lessened but not so much. People didn't move after first parade just stayed in place! We did get the seven dwarfs pic which was worth the wait. Uni seemed so much fresher and staff was wonderful. We did do both parks in one day but were wiped at 6pm. It was just so so crowded during that week at disney. Was expecting little less heel to toe everywhere we went.

 

[SeaweedCupcake]

Problems aren't isolated to the World with CMs. Last trip to the land with my disabled brother had the rudest run ins with the plaids working the kiosks for the new disability access. Had to wait for one CM to stop talking on her phone to attend to me and when I asked if I could have a time for Space the only response I got was "yeah" with no eye contact and her snatching my card out of my hand. I'm not sure what's going on with training but it's ridiculous.

 

[EnchantedRose]

We went last year in Nov...and that was the first trip (out of 6) that we countered so many rude CM's. We also had an issue on Pirates!! We were taking pictures while in Queue (we couldn't see the loading area yet)....and a CM that was loading guests onto the boat....YELLED no flash. Even to get onto the ride itself they were just very rude!

We had an issue at Pinocchio's while trying to get lunch. The crowds were crazy! Luckily we did get a seat fast but this one lady with her kids had a full blown fight with a CM over an empty table next to us. It was so crowded we didn't really enjoy our food (after it taking about 30 minutes to order and get our food).