We bought our first DVC summer 2020 and finally were able to go last week after several cancelled trips due to covid. Background we are a newly retired couple with two grown kids and have been to Disney as family ~10 times. This trip was just the two or us, but we hope to share our points with our kids or go with them in the future. We had an excellent time overall and look forward to going back probably once a year. Crowd levels were med, but manageable. Quick (well not quick) summary below:
Rooms: We arrived late and stayed our first night off campus. This was a split stay with 2 nights each at AKL standard studio, BWV Boardwalk view studio and Saratoga Springs studio. I didn't want to have so many room switches but due to the time of booking was all I could get (home resort BLT) and looked forward to trying out two new resorts for us (AKL, SS). The request we put in for the rooms was high floor, though we also asked for Paddock section in SS.
AKL - We took a Lyft to AKL Kidani village in the morning and dropped off our bags before heading to magic kingdom for our first day. Received a text ~10:30 our AKL room 7525 was ready, nice location near Timon elevator and close to exit for busses. Parking lot woods view, quiet room. Showed a bit of wear but great theming. Enjoyed the lush landscaping and public savanna views. Nice pool with plenty of loungers and attentive food/bar service.
BWV - we were assigned room 4005 and wow this was the best view! It was I believe in the blue Crest of the Wave section. It had an outstanding view of spaceship earth and we really enjoyed the fireworks from our balcony both nights. Definitely think the Boardwalk view was worth it. We really like the location of BWV having stayed there a few times and because of food and wine had tried to waitlist for the other nights, but no success.
SS - We got here before receiving a room is ready text, but thought we'd see if it was ready, probably a mistake. The cast member gave us a room in a different section than we requested and on the first floor. I asked if our requests were on the reservation and he said he only saw that we had asked for a high floor. I thought, well we did well with our first two rooms and thought it would be fine, but the room was an accessible room about 50 feet from the pool (that we were told was open 24 hrs) with no patio privacy. Also housekeeping seemed to be using the area outside our room for staging their laundry with about 8 or so full bags in the hallway outside our room and very noisy. We explored the grounds a bit and though I hate to be that person, thought we'd ask if it was possible to switch rooms as we hadn't unpacked anything. My husband went to ask nicely and they did switch us to a room that perfectly met our original request, high floor in Paddock section (which is a large section). Made sure to tip bell services well and was so happy we asked, nice quiet room facing a courtyard (we always avoid pool view rooms if possible) and still walkable to Disney springs. While the grounds are lovely, I just felt this resort was too big and felt more like a moderate than deluxe resort. The Kidani pool was much nicer. We ate at the Paddock Pool Grill for one dinner and the atmosphere was not nearly as relaxing at AKL. The rooms were very nice and new from the refurbishment and I liked the decor.
Genie +, ILL, virtual queue, early entry experiences-
For those of us that have been going to disney for many years and had worked the Fast Pass system to our advantage, we were kind of dreading all these new and often expensive changes. We watched enough youtube videos and read all the tips and tricks and were planning to give it our best shot. I used to enjoy planning out our disney trips, but it is so much harder now with park reservations, late hopping, and all the phone apps needed to make anything work that it is now truly overwhelming. We had mixed success and what is frustrating is that even when you prepare, success is still very much hit or miss.
Early Entry - Our early entry days I'm counting as a fail. In AK we got there 30 minutes before early entry, there were two lines, we went to the left line. Close to park opening they opened a new line all the way to the right and invited all those behind us into the new line, when the park opened the two right hand lines kept moving and ours didn't. Finally slowly we made it through. So while we arrived in perhaps the first 25% of people before park opening, we entered in the last 25%. This was just poor line mgmt in my opinion. We quickly headed to Avatar, it was about a 45 min wait. Our other rope drop was DHS, we got there about 50 minutes before early opening as advisors suggested, we were first in our line. Different from AK, there were many lanes to get in. We followed those to ROTR jog walking to the left and were 7&8 in line. My husband said we won our age group
A few minutes later they walked us through the queue and stopped at the end, and waited, whah, whah, whah, shortly after official early opening they announced ride was down and didn't have an estimate when it would come up. Decisions! We waited with almost everyone else and the ride started about 40 minutes later. During that time we decided to purchase Genie+ for the rest of the day due to the delay.
Virtual Queue -GOTG - 50% success rate. Well maybe we would have gotten both, but slept through the first one! Since we slept through the first one we bought a ILL for mid day. Then the 1:00 drop fell in the middle of our window, we sat in the connections cafe with dozens of others on our phones. We succeeded! Yay, but very anxiety producing.
ILL - We only did this for GOTG. Really like this ride so maybe worth it. But again a gamble, since we didn't know if we could score a virtual queue at one pm felt we we needed to buy it which is annoying since we did get the other virtual queue.
Genie + - We bought this for our first park day at magic kingdom after we arrived late the night before and stayed near the airport. We also wanted to practice at this lower risk park to get our feet wet. We arrived in a little after nine for our first LL at space mountain. We did use the genie plus for several rides but the two hour wait and the fact that the park closed early for the halloween party, we didn't maybe get the best value. The price is now surge pricing and it was something like 17.99 a person which I thought was high since the park was not supposed to be too crowded and it closed early. We also bought genie + for HS after the ROTR delay. We were able to still do Rocking Rolling coaster and TOT standby before the crowds got too bad (though when we exited TOT the line was down the street, probably two hours), we used the LL then for Smugglers Run and Micky Minnies RR, didn't try for Slinky Dog and it may have been sold out.
So overall don't like the new practices, no surprise. While there were always variables beyond our control, such as weather and occasional ride failures, now there are more frequent rides down, so many cost benefit decisions on purchasing genie + or ILL, and unable to really pick a decent LL return that fits with your plans, having to get up earlier even when you don't want to rope drop to ride anything of value, the anxiety of trying to score a virtual queue, constantly changing rules, etc. Really, really stinks from a guest experience. I mean we are retired and have more time for planning, but not worth the additional effort IMO, how do those so much busier than us want to commit to the effort and cost.
Dining
Food and Wine - this was great, tried so many delicious items, dangerous! Liked that they had small size beverages. First time doing this and definitely want to go back. Also enjoyed one of the musical concerts one night.
Sanaa - have to give this a thumbs down. The food was decent, entrees and bread service. The poor staff while professional and polite were obviously stressed and overworked, had to bus their own tables and seemed miserable. There was an arctic force of air blowing directly at us, we took our last glass of wine with us when we left, couldn't stand it any longer. An elderly couple that was seated soon before we left abruptly left as soon as shown their table. It really was incredibly uncomfortable.
Jungle Skipper Canteen-(lunch) this was decent, I had an excellent pork/corn pancake app. We had a reservation but still had to wait in the heat at least a half hour to be seated. I think it may have been so crowded because the park closed early. Nice break in AC on a hot day.
Wine Bar George DS - we had the large charcuterie board which was excellent, unlimited bread and crackers.
Boathouse (lunch) DS - very good service and food.
Mobile Order - we found this to be convenient, but were aware that we had to order early to get a preferred time. Satulii canteen in pandora had excellent bowls. Docking Bay in Galaxy's Edge was hard to find something we wanted, I had the kids veggie meal with veggies and black bean hummus, this was healthy but not too filling, my husband found his fried chicken meal disappointing.
We have tried again and again over the years, but always find disney resort and park restaurants disappointing compared to non-disney restaurants with few exceptions, while the food has gotten better over the years there always seems something off, rushed service, long waits, annoying co-patrons (talking adults, not kids).
Cast Members- I know with Covid there had been frequent complaints about cast member attitudes. We found cast members to be great and super helpful. In the galaxy edge rides there were a few cast members that yelled in a nasty way and seemed to enjoy it and one that ran up and grabbed a coffee that a guest was holding before entering a ride (this was at ROTR and a family that had not waited with us in line so guessing VIP, likely didn't know better). Other than those few offs, very good experiences at hotels and parks.
Sorry for the long review, but wanted to share after learning so much here. We enjoyed the new rides and look forward to Tron. But Disney will not be our only vacation destination, keeping it in the mix for now.
Rooms: We arrived late and stayed our first night off campus. This was a split stay with 2 nights each at AKL standard studio, BWV Boardwalk view studio and Saratoga Springs studio. I didn't want to have so many room switches but due to the time of booking was all I could get (home resort BLT) and looked forward to trying out two new resorts for us (AKL, SS). The request we put in for the rooms was high floor, though we also asked for Paddock section in SS.
AKL - We took a Lyft to AKL Kidani village in the morning and dropped off our bags before heading to magic kingdom for our first day. Received a text ~10:30 our AKL room 7525 was ready, nice location near Timon elevator and close to exit for busses. Parking lot woods view, quiet room. Showed a bit of wear but great theming. Enjoyed the lush landscaping and public savanna views. Nice pool with plenty of loungers and attentive food/bar service.
BWV - we were assigned room 4005 and wow this was the best view! It was I believe in the blue Crest of the Wave section. It had an outstanding view of spaceship earth and we really enjoyed the fireworks from our balcony both nights. Definitely think the Boardwalk view was worth it. We really like the location of BWV having stayed there a few times and because of food and wine had tried to waitlist for the other nights, but no success.
SS - We got here before receiving a room is ready text, but thought we'd see if it was ready, probably a mistake. The cast member gave us a room in a different section than we requested and on the first floor. I asked if our requests were on the reservation and he said he only saw that we had asked for a high floor. I thought, well we did well with our first two rooms and thought it would be fine, but the room was an accessible room about 50 feet from the pool (that we were told was open 24 hrs) with no patio privacy. Also housekeeping seemed to be using the area outside our room for staging their laundry with about 8 or so full bags in the hallway outside our room and very noisy. We explored the grounds a bit and though I hate to be that person, thought we'd ask if it was possible to switch rooms as we hadn't unpacked anything. My husband went to ask nicely and they did switch us to a room that perfectly met our original request, high floor in Paddock section (which is a large section). Made sure to tip bell services well and was so happy we asked, nice quiet room facing a courtyard (we always avoid pool view rooms if possible) and still walkable to Disney springs. While the grounds are lovely, I just felt this resort was too big and felt more like a moderate than deluxe resort. The Kidani pool was much nicer. We ate at the Paddock Pool Grill for one dinner and the atmosphere was not nearly as relaxing at AKL. The rooms were very nice and new from the refurbishment and I liked the decor.
Genie +, ILL, virtual queue, early entry experiences-
For those of us that have been going to disney for many years and had worked the Fast Pass system to our advantage, we were kind of dreading all these new and often expensive changes. We watched enough youtube videos and read all the tips and tricks and were planning to give it our best shot. I used to enjoy planning out our disney trips, but it is so much harder now with park reservations, late hopping, and all the phone apps needed to make anything work that it is now truly overwhelming. We had mixed success and what is frustrating is that even when you prepare, success is still very much hit or miss.
Early Entry - Our early entry days I'm counting as a fail. In AK we got there 30 minutes before early entry, there were two lines, we went to the left line. Close to park opening they opened a new line all the way to the right and invited all those behind us into the new line, when the park opened the two right hand lines kept moving and ours didn't. Finally slowly we made it through. So while we arrived in perhaps the first 25% of people before park opening, we entered in the last 25%. This was just poor line mgmt in my opinion. We quickly headed to Avatar, it was about a 45 min wait. Our other rope drop was DHS, we got there about 50 minutes before early opening as advisors suggested, we were first in our line. Different from AK, there were many lanes to get in. We followed those to ROTR jog walking to the left and were 7&8 in line. My husband said we won our age group
A few minutes later they walked us through the queue and stopped at the end, and waited, whah, whah, whah, shortly after official early opening they announced ride was down and didn't have an estimate when it would come up. Decisions! We waited with almost everyone else and the ride started about 40 minutes later. During that time we decided to purchase Genie+ for the rest of the day due to the delay.Virtual Queue -GOTG - 50% success rate. Well maybe we would have gotten both, but slept through the first one! Since we slept through the first one we bought a ILL for mid day. Then the 1:00 drop fell in the middle of our window, we sat in the connections cafe with dozens of others on our phones. We succeeded! Yay, but very anxiety producing.
ILL - We only did this for GOTG. Really like this ride so maybe worth it. But again a gamble, since we didn't know if we could score a virtual queue at one pm felt we we needed to buy it which is annoying since we did get the other virtual queue.
Genie + - We bought this for our first park day at magic kingdom after we arrived late the night before and stayed near the airport. We also wanted to practice at this lower risk park to get our feet wet. We arrived in a little after nine for our first LL at space mountain. We did use the genie plus for several rides but the two hour wait and the fact that the park closed early for the halloween party, we didn't maybe get the best value. The price is now surge pricing and it was something like 17.99 a person which I thought was high since the park was not supposed to be too crowded and it closed early. We also bought genie + for HS after the ROTR delay. We were able to still do Rocking Rolling coaster and TOT standby before the crowds got too bad (though when we exited TOT the line was down the street, probably two hours), we used the LL then for Smugglers Run and Micky Minnies RR, didn't try for Slinky Dog and it may have been sold out.
So overall don't like the new practices, no surprise. While there were always variables beyond our control, such as weather and occasional ride failures, now there are more frequent rides down, so many cost benefit decisions on purchasing genie + or ILL, and unable to really pick a decent LL return that fits with your plans, having to get up earlier even when you don't want to rope drop to ride anything of value, the anxiety of trying to score a virtual queue, constantly changing rules, etc. Really, really stinks from a guest experience. I mean we are retired and have more time for planning, but not worth the additional effort IMO, how do those so much busier than us want to commit to the effort and cost.
Dining
Food and Wine - this was great, tried so many delicious items, dangerous! Liked that they had small size beverages. First time doing this and definitely want to go back. Also enjoyed one of the musical concerts one night.
Sanaa - have to give this a thumbs down. The food was decent, entrees and bread service. The poor staff while professional and polite were obviously stressed and overworked, had to bus their own tables and seemed miserable. There was an arctic force of air blowing directly at us, we took our last glass of wine with us when we left, couldn't stand it any longer. An elderly couple that was seated soon before we left abruptly left as soon as shown their table. It really was incredibly uncomfortable.
Jungle Skipper Canteen-(lunch) this was decent, I had an excellent pork/corn pancake app. We had a reservation but still had to wait in the heat at least a half hour to be seated. I think it may have been so crowded because the park closed early. Nice break in AC on a hot day.
Wine Bar George DS - we had the large charcuterie board which was excellent, unlimited bread and crackers.
Boathouse (lunch) DS - very good service and food.
Mobile Order - we found this to be convenient, but were aware that we had to order early to get a preferred time. Satulii canteen in pandora had excellent bowls. Docking Bay in Galaxy's Edge was hard to find something we wanted, I had the kids veggie meal with veggies and black bean hummus, this was healthy but not too filling, my husband found his fried chicken meal disappointing.
We have tried again and again over the years, but always find disney resort and park restaurants disappointing compared to non-disney restaurants with few exceptions, while the food has gotten better over the years there always seems something off, rushed service, long waits, annoying co-patrons (talking adults, not kids).
Cast Members- I know with Covid there had been frequent complaints about cast member attitudes. We found cast members to be great and super helpful. In the galaxy edge rides there were a few cast members that yelled in a nasty way and seemed to enjoy it and one that ran up and grabbed a coffee that a guest was holding before entering a ride (this was at ROTR and a family that had not waited with us in line so guessing VIP, likely didn't know better). Other than those few offs, very good experiences at hotels and parks.
Sorry for the long review, but wanted to share after learning so much here. We enjoyed the new rides and look forward to Tron. But Disney will not be our only vacation destination, keeping it in the mix for now.
