Walt Disney World suspends annual pass sales again

Lord Gonchar said:

(although I suspect the diehard Disney visitors get off on all the planning, inside knowledge and such as much as they enjoy visiting the parks)

You called?

Meh, I found the Universal experiences to be uneven at best. The food is terrible everywhere that isn't Wizarding, some rides are terribly slow loading, the parks are seemingly never open late, no nighttime spectaculars, the front gates are mobbed in the morning, no Epcot festivals, every other ride is a 3D screen... you get what you pay for. I love those parks dearly, but they're not in the same class.

But time will tell on the WDW passholder experience. Things haven't fundamentally changed for us. Actually, I take that back... end of the night lines are negligible despite posted times, which means we've had the hard to get rides a lot the last few months.

I don't know... Seems like grasping at things there.

In-Park food options are no better at Disney when you can't reserve something months in advance. But on a serious note, some pretty fantastic food options in Citywalk (which I consider 'in the park' for both IOA/USO).

Terribly slow loading rides? Never once have I thought that while at those parks (same with Disney). What rides in particular are you thinking of here?

No nighttime spectaculars... Universal literally has a show called "Cinematic Spectacular". They also have the night shows on the Potter castle or whatever it is as well.

No Epcot Festival... Got it there, I guess. But Disney doesn't have HHN, Mardi Gras, etc... So pick your poison.

The 3D screen thing... Yeah, I get that (still bitter Jaws is gone). But I mean, dude, have you been on Velocicoaster yet?! They literally built probably the best steel coaster in the country with incredible theming (no glasses required!)... I mean, I assume you have considering you live down the street from the place, but if not...

I personally consider them both in the same class... Both offer huge, elaborate resorts and a full theme-park experience. No other parks in the country are on the level of Disney/Universal. They just have different approaches in how they do things, depending what you are after.

One reason I liked the California Disney Parks so much (at the time, at least) is that it offered the Disney 'experience' but without all the hassle to have a decent time. We rode what we wanted to ride without reservations and we ate where we wanted without being told "no" at the door.

If the Orlando parks could offer the top quality experience without micromanaging every part of the visit, it would be so much more enjoyable.

I don't need to grasp at anything, it's just my opinion. You'll have to adjust.

The counter service food at Universal sucks. Outside of the Potter locations, they have nothing even remotely as good as Regal Eagle, Satu'li Canteen, Baseline Tap House, etc. And that's not even getting into the bars and variety of sit-down restaurants. And during the festivals at Epcot, the options are insane.

I've always been a Universal fanboy, since my first visit to IoA in 2000, but I'm self-aware enough to see there's a wide gulf in the quality of experiences between the two resorts.

Universal Orlando >>> Rip Ride Rockit

My daughter has a soccer tournament at Wild World of Sports in a couple weeks. We’ve decided to do Universal instead of Disney due to the general pain in the ass Disney seems to have become to the average soccer mom (and a couple dads).

Literally EVERYONE except me (15-1 vote) voted for Universal because the reservations seemed too time consuming. And online reviews are scary…etc.

I don’t know if this is a case of “perception is reality” OR a case of “reality is reality.” I do know that Universal is gaining thousands of dollars from our 16 person roster (plus families) due to Disney’s real or perceived difficulties…

Five or six of us have even decided to stay at Royal Pacific onsite to take advantage of the express passes/early entry, etc.

I know this is a drop in the bucket to Disney’s profit margins. But these are 16 middle to upper class families that Universal is getting the opportunity to impress…while we are literally playing games ON DISNEY’S PROPERTY!

Whatever they are doing right now can’t make much business sense…

Yes, the parks being pretty full of people paying a premium has to be killing their bottom line.

I found myself going to Disney more and more for food and festivals and less and less for rides, or a typical park experience.

Also, just did SDC for Christmas and it was leaps and bounds ahead of anything Disney ever did, totally mind blowing!

I feel like Disney’s direction lately has been kind of muddy, or maybe hyper revenue focused, I’m not sure. I missed food and wine the past couple years, that’s really my biggest miss, nothing else there seemed to matter much.

The internet complaints about WDW are as abundant as usual, but it seems at least a few more of them have some valid points sprinkled in with the nonsense.

Yeah, I did see someone trying to objectively measure LL to standby ratios and they couldn't draw any meaningful conclusions, such leads me to believe Disney doesn't know what the optimal mix is. The only thing I can tell for sure is that most standby lines are shorter compared to the FP days. I'm not sure that's an improvement when all but three rides were hard to get. That, and any queue management tactic falls apart at Epcot because it has too few big "rides" in the first place.