Sanwich
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 3, 2012
Just back from a May 22-28 trip. Going to try a not-too-long summary... this is from the perspective of people who have been many times to Disney, many times of year, experienced the various incarnations of Fastpass:
CROWDS: It was definitely crowded, but not the worst we've seen (for us, the highest crowds we've ever experienced were during Mardi Gras week, pre-COVID). Studios during the day felt the most crowded, most likely because there are fewer "people eater" type attractions.
WEATHER: It was very hot (for us--highs around 92). Some days there were some clouds or a breeze, but mostly it was just direct sun beating down. We were fortunate that there wasn't any rain to speak of. Between the crowd patterns and the weather, we've decided that going forward, we're going to try to do parks mostly in the evening when we visit in Summer. In almost every case, ride wait times went down significantly in the evenings.
GENIE+: Despite being theoretically well-prepared for the new system, knowing the "tricks," etc... G+ was just an enormous fail for us. If you're in a small, mobile group that is very good about sticking to a plan (and being flexible as that plan changes throughout the day), G+ may work for you. We were traveling with my elderly parents, and ran into several cases where the rigidity of the system was an issue. Example--booked a LL at 7 am for a ride window starting at 11:30. When 11 rolled around, booked a second LL. So far so good. Then... parents realized they wouldn't be able to make it to the first LL (11:30-12:30 time). Cancelled that LL, but couldn't make a replacement booking until 2 hours after the second LL had been booked (1 pm). I realize this is working as intended, but it led to us "losing" our first LL with no replacement. Another issue is that a member of our party has difficulties with walking (but stubbornly refuses to use any kind of aid), so with the old system, we could plan to be in X area at the beginning of the day and minimize the need for backtracking. With G+, you basically have to plan around the time availability windows you are assigned, so we had to backtrack/walk more than before.
ILL: We were able to get what we needed for these (even Cosmic Rewind on opening day), that said, there were still issues.
OVERALL LOWLIGHTS:
CROWDS: It was definitely crowded, but not the worst we've seen (for us, the highest crowds we've ever experienced were during Mardi Gras week, pre-COVID). Studios during the day felt the most crowded, most likely because there are fewer "people eater" type attractions.
WEATHER: It was very hot (for us--highs around 92). Some days there were some clouds or a breeze, but mostly it was just direct sun beating down. We were fortunate that there wasn't any rain to speak of. Between the crowd patterns and the weather, we've decided that going forward, we're going to try to do parks mostly in the evening when we visit in Summer. In almost every case, ride wait times went down significantly in the evenings.
GENIE+: Despite being theoretically well-prepared for the new system, knowing the "tricks," etc... G+ was just an enormous fail for us. If you're in a small, mobile group that is very good about sticking to a plan (and being flexible as that plan changes throughout the day), G+ may work for you. We were traveling with my elderly parents, and ran into several cases where the rigidity of the system was an issue. Example--booked a LL at 7 am for a ride window starting at 11:30. When 11 rolled around, booked a second LL. So far so good. Then... parents realized they wouldn't be able to make it to the first LL (11:30-12:30 time). Cancelled that LL, but couldn't make a replacement booking until 2 hours after the second LL had been booked (1 pm). I realize this is working as intended, but it led to us "losing" our first LL with no replacement. Another issue is that a member of our party has difficulties with walking (but stubbornly refuses to use any kind of aid), so with the old system, we could plan to be in X area at the beginning of the day and minimize the need for backtracking. With G+, you basically have to plan around the time availability windows you are assigned, so we had to backtrack/walk more than before.
ILL: We were able to get what we needed for these (even Cosmic Rewind on opening day), that said, there were still issues.
- Technical problems: More than once, the app just messed things up. Sometimes we would select a timeframe, that same timeframe would be on the confirmation screen, then we hit "purchase" and suddenly were assigned a totally different time (sometimes even an earlier time). There were also instances where the first purchase attempt would return a "payment method error," then we'd hit it a few more times and suddenly it worked. This second issue caused us to almost lose out on the Cosmic Rewind ILL (we lost our first time slot and had to grab a much later one).
- Ride-related scheduling issues: I'm not exaggerating when I say that almost every ILL we purchased (4 total) wound up being turned into an "anytime" pass because the ride was down when our ILL window occurred. This caused more scheduling/walking issues, since we had formulated something of a "plan" and then had to change everything around to accomodate the fact that we couldn't use the ILL during the originally scheduled time. I don't blame them for having technical issues with the rides; it just made the shortcomings of the G+ system even more of a pain point during the trip.
- Almost every cast member we encountered was SO friendly and helpful. It may be due to the fact that we had so many more technical/app issues than usual (so we needed help more than before), but each time we had a problem, the staff was completely understanding and went above and beyond to make it right. We also lost an item during the trip and assumed it was gone forever... then suddenly got a call from one of the resorts, who had managed to piece together our contact info from the item, which a guest had turned in (our name/info wasn't even obvious from the item itself, so props to them for their detective work).
- Toppolino's Terrace dinner was excellent in every way.
- Cosmic Rewind was awesome and very fun (though even with dramamine I was a bit "off" afterward).
- Rise of the Resistance is still good... I think even more effects were working this time vs. our first experience.
- The new Cirque show was amazing.
OVERALL LOWLIGHTS:
- As mentioned above, the Disney app and G+/ILL system just didn't work for us.
- Worst food--Docking Bay 7. We couldn't believe how far the quality of the food had declined. It was absolutely wonderful a year ago, but the chicken has been turned into ground-up, overcooked gristle, with no sauce whatsoever, and no more mashed potatoes... just plain rice and undercooked broccoli. We are not picky eaters... we find most food at Disney at least "decent," and I almost NEVER call something "inedible"... but this chicken was darn close.
- Despite taking precautions, at least one member of our group returned with COVID. The rest of us are waiting on test results.