Has anybody NOT had a disappointing trip lately?

[JaxDad]

I have heard that Disney already has a plan to address the messy restroom issue. The next iteration of FastPass will require you to schedule your restroom visits 60 days out. This will help smooth out demand and allow Disney to more efficiently and effectively perform janitorial services.

 

[mom2rtk]

I have heard that Disney already has a plan to address the messy restroom issue. The next iteration of FastPass will require you to schedule your restroom visits 60 days out. This will help smooth out demand and allow Disney to more efficiently and effectively perform janitorial services.

Maybe they could offer clean bathrooms with an upcharge. Buy a wristband..... get into the exclusive restrooms.

 

[JaxDad]

Or EMRRHs...

 

[sharadoc]

So we need to be willing to continue paying more while settling for less?

We'll have to agree to disagree on that point.

Fair enough. In my PERSONAL experience, and not a blanket statement, I am quite satisfied with doing the "hard to get" things once. I don't need to do them over and over. I am conscious of the fact that everyone wants to do certain things and I don't try to do them every day. Then everyone has a chance to have a good trip, rather than my blocking them by doing something multiple times.

We go every year, so our requirements are different from folks who don't go as often as we do, so I'm sure my opinion is clouded by our personal experience.

As an aside, my DD is competing at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg in May and we are considering going to see her. Their tickets are $75 a day and I think you get about 1/4 of the overall entertainment, attractions and atmosphere that we get at MK. Even half of MK is more than all of Busch Gardens, and it's only $25 more!

 

[mom2rtk]

Fair enough. In my PERSONAL experience, and not a blanket statement, I am quite satisfied with doing the "hard to get" things once. I don't need to do them over and over. I am conscious of the fact that everyone wants to do certain things and I don't try to do them every day. Then everyone has a chance to have a good trip, rather than my blocking them by doing something multiple times.

We go every year, so our requirements are different from folks who don't go as often as we do, so I'm sure my opinion is clouded by our personal experience.

As an aside, my DD is competing at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg in May and we are considering going to see her. Their tickets are $75 a day and I think you get about 1/4 of the overall entertainment, attractions and atmosphere that we get at MK. Even half of MK is more than all of Busch Gardens, and it's only $25 more!

I'm curious if you'd feel the same way using one of the other 3 WDW parks in that same comparison.

 

[Sparkly]

Or you can choose to stand opposite that picture and be the last ones out, definitely no pushing then.

With a scooter in our party we were always told to be the last ones out, and it was wonderful! No pushing and shoving. I'll try it again when I ride on our own in the future- they're not going to run out of Doom buggies before I get on anyway.

 

[Cormoran]

As an aside, my DD is competing at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg in May and we are considering going to see her. Their tickets are $75 a day and I think you get about 1/4 of the overall entertainment, attractions and atmosphere that we get at MK. Even half of MK is more than all of Busch Gardens, and it's only $25 more

I've heard some excellent things about Busch Garden Williamsburg when it's compared to MK. Better food quality, the attractions and grounds are well maintained and the park is clean. Maybe you will feel they same. It really depends if people feel they are getting value for their vacation. If MK has 3 times the attractions as Busch gardens, but the lines are too long at MK for me to enjoy those attractions, I don't think the MK ticket is worth the $25 more.

 

[luvsJack]

I got into a discussion on a thread here a few weeks ago about "expectations". It was the thread about how Anna and Elsa (or really more Elsa) was a disappointment for the OP and others were saying we should all go with "lower expectations". I agree with others that this just doesn't jive with the amount we all pay for these trips. We should not have to go with low expectations of the park we are paying big bucks to be in. I don't do that anywhere else, why should I in Disney?

Anyway, I went on our trip with the same expectations I have always had. Wonderful customer service, clean parks, good food, magical CMs and characters and. And every experience we had met these expectations. The only negative thing I could say is that the posted wait times were wrong but it didn't really matter anyway.

I didn't expect to like FP+ at all, and it worked fine for what it is, but at this point I liked the old system better. Maybe with more tweaking by Disney and more of me figuring out the best way to use the system for my family, it will be better. I did like at MK that we could go and experiencing other things knowing we had the FP for the more popular things. And having RnRC and ToT fp's already when we weren't getting in the park until after 3 was great! So I guess the good things about FP+ could outweigh the negative. I just don't like knowing there is one more thing I have to think about before our next trip!

I didn't go expecting to see filthy bathrooms, and I didn't see them. I expected the food to be good (counter service) and it was-- I did not eat one hamburger or chicken nugget, but what I ate was good.

We aren't big with characters anymore but have a few favorites that dd likes to find and the other teens with us thought would be fun--Chip and Dale, Tigger and Pooh, Stitch, Jasmine and Alladin, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, Buzz, Donald and Daisy and of course Mickey and with a group of teens these characters were great and they had a lot of fun interacting with them. Some that weren't in our group went to meet Rupunzel, Cinderella, and Elsa and Anna. They seemed to all have great interactions.

Maybe some people aren't going in with "high expectations", they are going expecting a perfection that cannot be met?

 

[jade1]

Far more amazing than ever before. Esp XMAS week, FP+ has vastly improved our touring, we enjoy the midnight fireworks and not needing to rush the next am. We also enjoy many "non park" activities the first half of many days-yet our evenings are simply magical that week.

First week of March was great as well-just not as magical as XMAS week. But FP+ was very available the night before and inside the parks as well-even A/E and 7DMT.

 

[jade1]

Far more amazing than ever before. Esp XMAS week, FP+ has vastly improved our touring, we enjoy the midnight fireworks and not needing to rush the next am. We also enjoy many "non park" activities the first half of many days-yet our evenings are simply magical that week.

First week of March was great as well-just not as magical as XMAS week. But FP+ was very available the night before and inside the parks as well-even A/E and 7DMT.

Oh and trips were very last minute at least IMO.

XMAS was 3 weeks and March 1 week.

Plenty of availability for both weeks-even XMAS eve.

 

[JimmyV]

As an aside, my DD is competing at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg in May and we are considering going to see her. Their tickets are $75 a day and I think you get about 1/4 of the overall entertainment, attractions and atmosphere that we get at MK. Even half of MK is more than all of Busch Gardens, and it's only $25 more!

I wouldn't be so quick to jump to that conclusion. BGW is a really nice park.

As for the original question, it all depends on how one defines "disappointing". I've been going to WDW since July, 1972. I've experienced WDW under virtually every condition, every crowd level, every ticket medium, every FP iteration and every dining plan implementation. If you forced me to rank my visits from "best" to "worst", (with "worst" being a relative term), my two most recent trips would be ranked in the bottom 5 visits. But even with them being in the bottom 5, no single visit was "poor" or "regrettable" or "not worth the effort". It's sort of like hot fudge sundaes, (or, insert your favorite NSFW comparison here). At some point in your life you had the "worst" hot fudge sundae that you have ever had. But you probably still enjoyed the heck out of it. It is hard to make the case that customer service, park conditions, ride conditions and food quality haven't gone down over the past 5-10 years. Current levels of all of the above were simply better in the past. But that does not make a trip to WDW unenjoyable now. It just hurts when you have been so many times over so many years to see things trend downward. But if your first visit(s) were in the past 5 or so years and you don't have any first hand experience with the WDW of yesteryear, you'd probably never notice any sort of difference.

 

[Love Tink]

As an aside, my DD is competing at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg in May and we are considering going to see her. Their tickets are $75 a day and I think you get about 1/4 of the overall entertainment, attractions and atmosphere that we get at MK. Even half of MK is more than all of Busch Gardens, and it's only $25 more!

Nah. We've had annual passes to Busch Gardens a couple times (which can be had for about $70 in state) and the "atmosphere" is absolutely awesome - clean, landscaped and beautiful, with great music and theming. There are tons of attractions (including five fantastic coasters, water rides, and fun rides and characters for small children) and several good shows, including Irish dancing, animal shows, fireworks and light shows, and ticket-included concerts all summer.

The numbers? Busch Gardens has 34 attractions and Magic Kingdom has...well, I get about 34 when I count. Check my math - but I don't think "1/4" is accurate.

Also, please don't pay $75 to go to Busch Gardens. There are about 50 different ways to get admission discounts.

 

[JimmyV]

Also, please don't pay $75 to go to Busch Gardens. There are about 50 different ways to get admission discounts.

Don't know if this is still true, but when I was living in Billysburg, every Coke can had a discount coupon imprinted on it.

 

[Mome Rath]

I want to go, but am hesitant given such widespread complaints here about oversalted food, disgusting bathrooms, declining service, broken technology, layoffs and defections, crowds, construction, nothing new in years and decay/abandonment of whole areas of parks, rising costs in an increasingly poorly disguised effort to gouge the guest, and diminishing value. Oh, and loss of spontaneity due to FP+. So...still a good destination? Do we all just need an antidepressant and lessons in gratitude? I'm honestly not sure what to expect and whether even to go.

I had wonderful food, clean bathrooms (with at least one CM in almost every single bathroom I went into), great service, fun and working tech, manageable crowd levels, a new coaster to try, clean parks, all for a good value experienced with plenty of spontaneity and magic, loved FP+ and magic bands... yes I'm going back in a month and again later in the year. Love it!

 

[Laketravis]

We on the DIS definitely share a somewhat unique viewpoint on WDW. We spent the day with a family of four friends in Orlando the same time as us who we suggested they join us at MK. They were a little taken aback at the cost for their one day at a single park, but even more dismayed by the fact that they couldn't get FP's for the same attractions we had reserved FP's for weeks in advance (not to mention their disbelief that we had actually done that).

We decided to forgo our FP''s that day and stand in the SB lines with them. It was a unique opportunity for me to experience the day with people who haven't been before, don't know anything about these boards, and really had no expectations other than to spend the day with friends at a theme park.

We all had a great time together, but I'm pretty sure they won't be back.


.

 

[Magpie]

It is hard to make the case that customer service, park conditions, ride conditions and food quality haven't gone down over the past 5-10 years. Current levels of all of the above were simply better in the past.

I wish there was some way to quantify this statement beyond just, "I remember." I've been going since 2005, and I haven't noticed any decline. Customer service? The same, excellent, top-notch service, with the very occasional grumpy-puss (we met our first grumpy castmember in 2007). Park conditions? The same, clean and well maintained. Ride conditions? Some rides are showing their age, but there were rides showing their age when we first went in 2005. What's really neat is how several of the "aging" rides have since been refurbished or re-themed or just plain yanked and had something else built in their place. Food quality? That's actually improved! When we first came in 2005, we had a heck of a time feeding our hypoglycemic son and picky daughter. It's gotten easier to find healthy alternatives every trip since then.

One of the things that keeps us returning time after time is the way Disney is constantly working on their parks. There's always something in the middle of being built or fixed. Scrims, walls, cranes... Disney's never finished. And we like it that way!

On the other hand, my mother is a professor and I grew up in campus housing. For almost forty years now (counting from when my mum started teaching), I've listened to my mother and her friends bemoan the state of today's youth. The students they are currently teaching are never as bright, well-educated, motivated or attentive to their studies as the kids they taught five or ten years ago. And it's a moving target! In five years' time, today's students will have taken on the warm glow of nostalgia and tomorrow's students will be the ones who make their teachers' despair for the future of the human race.

So, I get VERY suspicious whenever someone starts talking about how much better things were in the past. Because, in my experience, our memories lie to us.

As long as Disney continues to grow and change and innovate and expand (purchasing Marvel and Star Wars!), I'm reluctant to conclude that the company is in any kind of decline.

 

[JimmyV]

So, I get VERY suspicious whenever someone starts talking about how much better things were in the past. Because, in my experience, our memories lie to us.

Simple. Talk to any one of the thousands of CMs who have been laid off. WDW is bigger than it has ever been. And it is more crowded than it has ever been. And yet staffing is down as compared to 10 years ago. Do you think that the people who comment on the condition of the bathrooms are "lying to us"? There was a time when any stray napkin was skewered by a CM with a trash stick seemingly before it hit the ground. Garbage cans were never allowed to get more than half full. These are not lying memories. What purpose would that serve? Listen to the podcasts. These are hosted by people who have been going to WDW for a long time, (but in most cases, less time than me). There isn't a single one of them that will tell you that customer service and CM attitude has not declined over the last 10 years. CMs are asked to do the work of 2 CMs now, and it frequently shows in terms of performance and attitude. Not all. But enough for it to show through. Not sure how anyone can conclude that massive layoffs at the park operations level of full time employees and replacing them with (fewer) temp workers would not result in a decline in overall service. It has to. The question is, does the service decline to the point where people stop going. But that point is a different point than the one at which people take notice. I am at the latter stage but not yet at the former.

 

[Makcarly]

Had a wonderful trip this past September and we will be going back next month. I LOVE Disney!

 

[jade1]

I wouldn't close AK to go back to clean bathrooms (even though haven't noticed that) and certainly not AK and DHS to go back further. Service? Have not seen any difference, but I'm not one to count on others as much to make my trip better. MK looks better than ever by far, EPCOT F&G was incredible, AK is nearing an incredible improvement-even though it was great already. DHS-hoping the hat etc lead to some nice improvements there. I do think middle of the road food was better before DP-but fine dining has been amazing, even though MPLS spoils us with great food and value.

 

[tlmadden73]

Went in October with my 2 year old son for the first time.
My wife and I went several years before with my parents, but this trip (because it was now being done through the eyes of a child) was just as magical .. if not more.

If I went often (once a year or many times a year) ... i guess I could complain just like I can complain at how service at my favorite local restaurant has gone downhill.

But when you go for the magic .. the magic is still there .. especially when experiencing it in a different way.

Did I stress about Fast Passes? Nope .. I knew I wasn't going on the big ticket rides.
Did I worry about ADRs? Nope ..all three of our best meals were done with little or no notice (waited in line (10 minute wait) at Crystal Palace and Ohana).
Did I worry about restrooms cleanliness? Nope .. but I was amazed and impressed about the baby center at MK when we needed some supplies for the toddler.

Did I soak up who my son was in awe of everything we saw? Yes

There is always things to complain about . .but take what you can get.

For some people ... when you pay $X .. you expect certain things. For others .. it doesn't matter as much as long as you have a magical time.