Disney Doesn't Hate Poor People - We're All Just Rich

We are in the throes of planning an Xmas WDW trip for the first time with kids. I am amazed at how much more difficult it is than DLR. It may simply be because of the number of parks and people, but at DLR you could more or less just roll up at rope drop and with even reasonable strategy, get a fastpass at some point in the day for everything worth doing.

I am genuinely afraid of only getting one of each Tier 1 ride in each park (TSMM, Slinky Dog in DHS; Frozen, Soarin', Test Track in Epcot; Flight of Passage, Navi' River in AK) without waiting multiple hours, even with lots of planning and rope drop.

Better book that onsite hotel if you expect to get the better times and rides.

Also, if you are planning any of the better restaurants the ADR's open up 180 days in advance, plan on booking that day if you want any of the high demand locations.

^^ as a local, this is why Universal and SeaWorld get my money. I can go to those parks on no notice and still do what I want. Last week I found myself at CityWalk on a random Tuesday and had no problem sneaking in a quick Hulk ride just because. At Hollywood Studios, a Rock N Roller Coaster ride would have required an unavailable prebooked Fastpass+ or 60 minute wait at the same time, based on the current status on the app.

The limited number of FP+ one can prebook definitely hurts, especially if one of your times is late in a day. It also hurts when you want to park hop.

Yeah, we're on site. My ADR day is in about a week. The FP+ limit is definitely where I lose ground vs. a day at DLR. I can normally do 3 headliner FP's at DL or DCA by noon.

I would often get 6-7 paper tickets on the old WDW system and during my Disneyland trip. It also doesn't hurt at Disneyland that the three hour window doesn't apply to the other park. We went into California Adventure one morning, got a FP for Radiator Springs that wasn't good until evening, but then were able to go into Disneyland and immediately get another Fastpass.

Andy- use your concierge at your resort to help you iron out scheduling difficulties. They work magic for you.

What do you mean? Do they have magic control over FastPasses somehow?

Yes they do. He got us extras, and even fixed it so we could park hop and fast pass at both places. On our last visit, Feb of 17, Seven Dwarfs and Frozen were firm no’s, but he helped us out otherwise when we needed it. I should add we were at Grand Floridian and maybe that makes a difference, but don’t be afraid to try wherever you are.

The concierges probably hate poor people.

They all have the power to do that but whether or not they will is another story. Never hurts to ask though and as long as you're nice they will likely help out. My sister was staying at the Beach Club last year and just about every day had her concierge give the world to her group as far as Fast Passes went.

Everyone always said that having the new system at WDW made it harder, and I always figured it didn't matter. Then I went to UOR. I haven't been there in quite some time. It was way easier not having to plan it all out and just showing up and doing whatever.

Disney's system wouldn't be bad if you could actually ride the other attractions without a stupid amount of wait. But in the past couple years it seems that Disney has gotten so efficient at spreading the crowds around throughout all times of the year that all days are busy days. I remember going in the beginning of December and having a relatively light crowd level and being able to ride different things, and walk without banging into everyone. Now no matter when I show up, it is packed.

Maybe I need to be visiting these concierges and picking up some passes too.

All days are busy days because all days are busy days. Mind you, we've noticed some brief reprieves in the last year, most notably the week after Thanksgiving and the last two weeks of May, but that's pretty much it now.

The old system was definitely easier in terms of making game day decisions, but even then, as a local I generally couldn't get things like Toy Story or Soarin'. New or old, they solved those both with more capacity. These days, the only thing I feel is really out of reach is Flight of Passage and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train without some advance planning. All things considered, that's not terrible.

BrettV said:
I know many people absolutely swear by the new Fastpass+ system and can't imagine not having it, but I definitely feel it has changed the WDW park experience for the negative, at least for me. Under the old system, it was relatively easy to score paper tickets for most everything. I know it still can be done, but it can require a lot of app checking and refreshing.

The other side of it is that smaller, lesser popular people eating attractions like Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Spaceship Earth did not have Fastpass under the old system. Even on a pretty crowded day, it was fairly easy to hop on these attractions with a reasonable wait, and on a slower day they were almost always a guaranteed walk on. Now that folks have their FP+ reservations and every attraction is included, these once hop on and off rides sport wait times of 40-60 minutes on the regular.

I completely agree with you about spaceship Earth, it’s a small world, etc. the new fast pass plus system just jammed up the lines in them because they want people to think that they are getting choose three fast passes at once. But in reality some of these rides never needed a fast pass. It’s a horrible sister but absolutely ruined the experience for us and I refuse to spend that much money for such A vacation that is really not relaxing when you have to do so much pre-planning. The old system was much better because it didn’t require pre-planning. The tickets were unavailable until the gates open so it was basically like waiting in line without waiting in the line. The new system is reservations and many of the good rides are gone before you get there

I’m the opposite. I find it to be quite relaxing knowing that I don’t have to stress about whether we’ll get our favorite rides in or reservations at nice restaurants. Yes, we have a schedule, but we set the schedule ourselves so we’re fairly confident it’s going to work to our liking.
There was that afternoon that an appointed representative from the other couple and I sat at my dining room table for 4 hours trying to figure it all out..., but when we were done we were so happy! And the vacation for us and two first-timers turned out great. Everyone got what they wanted and no one complained.

So we're finally in agreement that you schedule your Disney vacation in advance - or at least enough of it at this point that it's worthy of discussion?

😊

As busy as Disney world is now, if this wasn’t an option, everyone would be in hours long lines and complaining. Some people...

The Disney parks are the most well attended parks in the world. Magic Kingdom alone pushes through over 20,000,000 people a year, which is the most of any park (not even considering the combined of the four Orlando Disney parks). In comparison, Cedar Point only pushes through 3.6 million people. The other Disney parks hover between 9-18 million. So it makes sense that they would always be crowded. They do what they can with capacity, and some of their rides have incredible capacity, but they still have a few flat rides and rides/coasters that are cars only, so the low capacity rides get hammered. At least the operations are as smooth and fast as possible considering the restrictions.

With most parks, you can cherry pick your visits, and savvy guests go during slow times and/or Tuesday-Thursday. But at Disney, everybody knows about this, so the benefit of going in the middle of the week is minimized. And, the fact that people will often takes five or more days means that more GP will be at the park midweek than at average parks.

But on the bright side, the queues at Disney parks are usually fantastically themed. And the line is moving. So its not like you're standing in one spot with the ride ops shouting "re-check" for an hour with one train operation like at a Six Flags park. And, the experience is fun, but the rides aren't exactly fantastic if you're used to CP quality. Relax, enjoy the park, take the FP's and don't knock yourself out on trying to binge re-rides or expecting walk-ons.

If you know what to do, you can still do a lot. My last trip to MK was in December last year, at 30 days out I got FP for Space, Jingle Cruise and Splash (I was able to have my first FP window start at 3:30 even though I could not enter until 4.). Was one of the first people through the gates, after getting a round of cookies I headed off to Adventureland:
-Ride Jingle Cruise (FP)
-Ride Splash (FP)
-Watch Mickey’s Philharmagic
-Watch Carosel of Progress
-Ride Space Mountain (FP)
-Ride TTA
Park Close 6 pm (only party people can queue for rides)
-Ride Pooh
-Ride Mermaid
-See Country Bears
-Watch the parade curbside on Main Street (luck, two teens ditched 15 min before)
-Watch Castle Show from my fireworks spot
-Watch Fireworks (I can’t remember which show was first just that I saw all 3)
-Ride Pirates
-Ride Big Thunder
-Ride Splash
-Walk past parade stopping briefly to watch Toy Soldiers again
-Ride Haunted Mansion
-Ride 7 Dwarfs (longest wait of night, 30 min)
-Choose to watch midnight castle show instead of another 30 min wait for Peter Pan (but I could have made it if I wanted to, had 10 min to spare leaving the mine)

I also had plenty of time for treat station stops and stopped to have fancy Mac and cheese in Fantasyland for dinner. This was a Friday party. You just need to know what you are doing, and unlike other parks there is loads of books out there that teach you how to do the Disney Parks.

Wake up, have coffee on the balcony.

Walk to EPCOT, have breakfast in France, with a mimosa

Rope drop World Showcase, have another drink

Spend some time in the sun at EPCOT, doing stuff, and having another drink or 2

Walk back to the resort, change into swim trunks, go to the pool. Consume drinks by the pool

Change, walk to Hollywood Studios for a bit. Utilize that Fast Pass for ToT before walking to the Tune-In Lounge for a drink

Walk to resort to freshen up

Walk to Epcot, have a La Vie En Rose in France, and have Monsieur Paul for Dinner - then close the night with Reflections of Earth

That's how you do Disney.

Touchdown- Is Jingle Cruise a recurring typo/auto correct or do they retheme it for Christmas?