First Time I Ever Felt That WDW Wasn't Worth The Time and Money

[sophie832]

I hear you, OP. I have had both good and bad feelings after a WDW vacation. We are coming up on our 6th trip (my 7th, actually) in about a 7 year period of time. My first was in the summer of 1992 when I was 12 years old. My father didn't want to spend a lot, so we stayed in Kissimmee. It was crazy hot, crazy humid, and the day we left was right before Hurricane Andrew came in. Based on that trip, my mother said she would never return (and she hasn't). I don't even remember the crowds, but I do remember being miserable. My second trip was over 18 years later. My husband and I went for our honeymoon. 10 days in early-to-mid December. Great time to visit the parks, but it was freezing cold most days/nights (and by freezing, I mean they were putting freeze cloth on the plants, and I had on as many layers of clothing as I could stand). I am a SoCal girl who wasn't expecting to freeze on my honeymoon, so by the end of the trip I was in tears. Luckily, we had booked a "bounceback" trip for the next month, which was only a 5 day trip, but it was absolutely fantastic. Then we took another tip in late October on the way back from Europe for our first F&W, and it was probably the best time we ever had (Superstorm Sandy was messing with the entire east coast, except for WDW). Great weather, fairly low crowds, fantastic food, perfect room, etc. The next two trips for me were "hot/humid and pregnant" and "sick toddler and pregnant again." We were so hopeful to match that one October trip, but it never quite got that good again.

My point is, you can visit WDW every couple of years, or multiple times a year, and whether or not it is a great trip depends on many factors: weather, crowds, your own life situation, etc. Now, with our older son along for the trip, we have started planning less and trying to just go with the flow. I think the perfect combination is probably a longer trip (1 week or more) with less planning (only a few ADRs and a few FP+). When I'm not rushing around, the crowds don't bother me as much. I know I can't take the heat and humidity, so I try to visit late October-March. We like to stay on-property, but I think this may be our last trip for a couple of years just due to cost. Vacations are really what you make of them, and if WDW is becoming too expensive or stressful, then I would just take the family somewhere else. There are so many amazing places to see in the world.

 

[VAtink]

Sorry it wasn't magical,

but it's all relative I feel.

This exactly. We were there September 18th-24th, and we didn't find the crowds to be bad at all, very similar to what we experienced last September crowd wise. The only day that seemed bad was Thursday when Epcot was a mad house for some reason, but the rest of the days it seemed like very light crowds. On our AK day we walked on the Safari first thing in the morning, then did EE twice with no wait, then Dinosaur walk on with no wait, and got some photopass pictures, all within 70 minutes of entering the park, it was awesome!

I do have to agree MNSSHP did seem a lot more crowded than last year. Last year we rode splash over and over without getting off our log since there was no one there, this year BTMR had a posted 40 minute wait for most of the night, although so did 7DMT and we only ended up waiting about 20 minutes, so not bad for that ride! Was also surprised how many people were still trick or treating right up to midnight! The secret is out! Last year we hardly saw anyone doing that so late so the CMs dumped so much candy in our bags, this year we got just a bit at each station.

For us we found the crowds in the beginning of May this year to be a lot worse! Wait times were much worse for that trip than for this September trip.

 

[Gentry2004]

I totally get it. Here is what I did to love Disney World again. Rent a car always and drive to parks whether we stay off property or not. Very few (if any) ADR's. we rope drop most days but rarely do the nighttime stuff and spend a lot of time lounging at the pool.

But the real key IMO is the rental car. For me it is worlds better than the busses. I know others disagree.

 

[melanielll]

I agree with Gentry2004. I have not been on a Disney bus in years, and I go to the parks often. Back when my kids were little, the bus system was great. Not overly crowded most of the time. And it was timely. Now...ugh. We stay at The Contemporary. We walk to MK and drive everywhere else. My husband split off from us a few days in May. It took him 2 hours to get from AK to the Contemporary on the bus and over an hour from Epcot. This trip, he is only going off on his own when we are at MK so that he can have the car.

It's just more fuel on the fire that makes us doubt the worth. So many things have now got to worked around.

 

[disneyvoice]

We have found that our WDW trips are much more enjoyable since we have backed off of all the crazy pre-planning. I realized that I ended up changing all of FPs and ADR a million times before our trip anyway. Now I rarely worry about trying to get ADRs 180 days out or trying to get FPs 60 days out. Sure I still schedule FPs and get ADRs before we go but we often cancel or reschedule while we are there. We always assume the parks will be crazy crowded, that way we are never disappointed with large crowds, only pleasantly surprised if crowds are low. If a line is longer than about 20-30 minutes, we just don't get in line. If the parks start to feel unbearable because of crowds or heat we leave and find something else to do in WDW. We have had trips where we only ate QS meals because we didn't want to fuss with ADRs, we just go to places that have more creative options. We just ignore any rude people as best we can. I do think there are more rude people with entitled attitudes EVERYWHERE, so we don't let the fact that some of them happen to be at WDW affect our vacation. If we don't rent a car then we just use Uber if WDW transportation isn't convenient for us. In general we just enjoy being at WDW regardless of what it is we actually do there each day.

 

[CampbellzSoup]

Think of how awesome it is to vacation with your family and the little stuff begins to dicipate. I always just try to seek out the positive as if I go looking for the negative stuff in disneyworld I’ll find it abound.

Try one more time I just think you had an off moment!

 

[mamamelody2]

Sorry your trip was disappointing, OP!

 

[DisBuckMan]

We will NOT go back to WDW in the fall, at least as long as they're doing free dining. Fall is our absolute favorite time to go, but we finally quit trying to fight the FD crowd about 3 years ago. I don't care what the crowd calendars say, it's substantially busier in the fall since FD came along...and quite frankly, the crowd's overall temperament is far more rude than other times of the year.

 

[kydisneyfans]

We hit the burnout point back around 2010, skipped a few years, and are now back to the yearly, and sometimes twice a year, trips.
Burnout can happen on a longer trip. 12 days inside the Disney resort is a long time, even with so much to do. We now do trips of 4-7 days.

My family departs for our 22nd trip to Disney since 2001 in 34 hours. This one is 6 days.
We have exactly 0 ADR's and 0 Fastpasses. We will get some likely the day of, but at this point we're not sure of what park we are doing on what day yet. For dinner, it's either counter service or Olivia's at OKW. Prices there are not far off from offsite comparable restaurants.
The kids will do all of the headliners multiple times, regardless of how busy there will still be times that Everest is a walk on.

Why Disney? We live roughly an hour and a half from Kings Island, an hour from Kentucky Kingdom, and 2 hours from Holiday World. After paying around $60 to enter Kings Island on a chilly, June day, I found myself completely bored out of my mind 3 hours later. Not a coaster fan, and can only ride a train for so long. We also paid somewhere in the teens to park and paid nearly $15 for a chicken sandwich and fries. For not much more than that (less than $20 on a Disney multi day ticket), I can keep myself busy all day at any of the Disney parks(DHS would be a stretch right now though). Cleaner rides, better food, no parking cost of staying onsite, parades, fireworks, shows, there is so much more for the dollar. Of the 3 parks we can drive to in 2 hours, only Holiday World would be worth a revisit.

We completely understand the Disney burnout, we understand the crowd frustration, but time and time again, Disney is the family pick. I would suggest a shorter stay and a few years away to the OP.

 

[awalker1015]

We just got back from a trip from 9/16-9/27. A nice, long, 12-day trip with 5 park days and a party night. It was way more crowded than I thought it would be in mid-September. Uncomfortably crowded at that. Prices for food keep climbing to the point that we cancelled all but TWO of our ADR's because they were just so expensive.

The guests are getting ruder and ruder, and there's an air of "every man for themselves" where you kind of have to be a jerk to get anything done. The planning has gotten maddening and stressful and now is a must with the FP+. The new security procedures for the monorails and such are just ridiculous.

Even an event I THOUGHT wouldn't be slammed (MNSSHP) was just that. Uncomfortably crowded with ridiculous character waits and even RIDE WAITS until about 10:00.

For the first time ever, my family walked away from this thinking "Well, that wasn't really worth it. Next time: Regional Park."

I get why people love Disney. We love it too. But it's really getting to the point where the amount of effort, money, and time you have to put in just doesn't cut it for most people no matter how much you love the place.

This. All of it. Why we have chosen to funnel our money into Dollywood this upcoming year and keep revenue in our home state. I will miss Disneyworld. We had 3 great trips followed by 2 not so great ones and a break is in order. Although I am traveling to Anaheim for work this weekend and will be at DL for a day. Hoping for a better experience but thankfully it was an incredibly good conference rate.

Like you, the major things for us were incredibly rude guests and exorbitant food prices for mediocre quality. We stopped doing more than 1-2 ADRs a few trips ago. Waste of time and money for us.

 

[ofcabbagesandkings]

We hit the burnout point back around 2010, skipped a few years, and are now back to the yearly, and sometimes twice a year, trips.
Burnout can happen on a longer trip. 12 days inside the Disney resort is a long time, even with so much to do. We now do trips of 4-7 days.

I couldn't do 12 days at the resorts, they get crowded too. It's just as annoying to fight for a pool chair or seat at a resort QS restaurant as it is fighting crowds in the parks. We take short trips because of work/school schedules but also because WDW is overstimulating for everyone in our family for longer than 5 days. If we have two weeks off for vacation, we go to the shore.

That said, I'm trying to lower my expectations for what we'll be able to do on our trip in a few weeks, especially since we'll have a baby with us. But last trip both DH and I couldn't ride thrill rides for health reasons, so we'll be chomping at the bit!

 

[MaryLovesPoohBear]

I'm so sorry, OP, that you didn't feel that your trip was worth it.

We were there Sept 24 - Sept 30. We didn't have any problems at our resort. Our bus problems were only because we had the worst luck with timing. Every time we went to catch a bus, we watched it pull away. So we ended up waiting the longest time possible.

I only came across a couple of really rude people. Most were like me, trying to have a good time in the heat.

We did end up changing our dates. I was suppose to be there from Sept 10- Sept 17. We rescheduled to January. But if a room had been available, we would have move to a closer date.

 

[Ellwood970]

Paying 5 dollars for a Mickey ice cream bar did it for me.

 

[UnderTheRialto]

I get you OP.

I, like some PP, will never go in FD/party season again. I hate the scheduling issues with the parties and the FD makes ADRs difficult to get for extremely overpriced food.

I renewed my AP this year because my daughter is still young and loves princesses and I know this phase won't last long. But I don't think it's going to be "worth it" when my kids are even a couple years older.

 

[DisneyOma]

THIS. The past few years, this has really put me off. I love the resorts otherwise. I'm thinking Lyft and Uber are worth it while staying on property just to avoid these insane wait times. I haven't tried it yet, but think I may in November.

Why not support the legitimate taxi services and use them instead? They pay a fee for their license and are regulated. I'm surprised WDW lets Uber and Lyft on property, into the parking lots and into resort parking lots. Do they have to pay to get into the park lots? They should.

I agree with Gentry2004. I have not been on a Disney bus in years, and I go to the parks often. Back when my kids were little, the bus system was great. Not overly crowded most of the time. And it was timely. Now...ugh. We stay at The Contemporary. We walk to MK and drive everywhere else. My husband split off from us a few days in May. It took him 2 hours to get from AK to the Contemporary on the bus and over an hour from Epcot. This trip, he is only going off on his own when we are at MK so that he can have the car.

It's just more fuel on the fire that makes us doubt the worth. So many things have now got to worked around.

Why did your husband take a bus to the Contemporary from EPCOT? Was the monorail down?

 

[melanielll]

Of course the monorail was down. It was down as much as it was up during that trip.

 

[MickeyWaffles]

The new security procedures for the monorails and such are just ridiculous.

What did you find ridiculous about it? We love the new system. Boarding at the resorts is smooth and not everyone has to go through the same security line anymore. Our local relatives are AP holders and board at the TTC and think it's much more streamlined too. We think it's so nice that everyone doesn't have to go through security at the park entrance. Now that herd was a total nightmare!

 

[CampbellzSoup]

I totally get it. Here is what I did to love Disney World again. Rent a car always and drive to parks whether we stay off property or not. Very few (if any) ADR's. we rope drop most days but rarely do the nighttime stuff and spend a lot of time lounging at the pool.

But the real key IMO is the rental car. For me it is worlds better than the busses. I know others disagree.

Agreed! You can get a barebones rent a car for what $20 dollars a day at MCO airport when you come in? Totally worth it compared to the busses

 

[hp_lovecraft]

Agreed! You can get a barebones rent a car for what $20 dollars a day at MCO airport when you come in? Totally worth it compared to the busses

Last year we rented 2 minivans (large group at Bonny Creek), this year was just bus/boats alone on site. We often alternate depending on if we are on site or not.

Having the rental is certaintly great for food and other shopping options. You can save a fortune by stocking up at the nearby walmart. But I hated driving to the parks. It was a tedious hassle to get everyone in the car, park, open trollers, walk to trams, close strollers, ride trams, open strollers, walk to monorail, close strollers, wait, ride monorail, open strollers, walk.... then finally to the gates.

And its a bigger hassle in return. We usually split up as younger children need breaks, older kids want independence, and adults want adult time. With the car, everyone is sorta trapped together, leaving together, etc.

The bus drops you right off at the gate. People are free to separate, and leave whenever. Yes, it is madness at parks closing. Same if you drove a car. Trams, etc full. Line in parking lot. Usually what we do is once the rides are closed, THEN we do our souvenir/etc shopping. The stores are open later then closing, and it gives the bus lines a chance to thin out.

 

[RangerPooh]

This was us after our October trip last year. We attended one of the Halloween parties and were frustrated by how packed it was and how little candy we received. We'd attended the DLR Halloween parties for previous 4 years and always walked away with two full bags of candy/fruit/crackers, and the ride lines were manageable. The WDW Halloween party had no candy alternatives and we walked away with half a bag due to stinginess of cast members. We decided that we won't do their Halloween or Christmas parties ever again, at least not at WDW.

Our next trip is over Christmas vacation and we know that it will be crazy crowded. Hoping for the best, being flexible, and hopping from park to park is our strategy.