We typically visit DLR this same week every year and have since maybe 2014?
1. The day of Halloween, on a weekday, is one of the best days to go IMO. Locals have other stuff going on, visitors don't want to pay for a ticket if they're going to be kicked out early. It has consistenly been a great day for us. Standby waits were <30 mins for most rides most of the day except RSR. Tuesday and Wednesday 11/1 - 11/2 were much more crowded for no particular reason.
2. Genie+ is a worse value than I expected and I didn't expect very much. In the mornings, it's unnecessary because waits are low. In the afternoon, waits are pushed out considerably. Combined with the parkhopping rule of 1pm, this absolutely sucks. By the time we could parkhop and book Genie+ at 1pm for the other park, Genie+ times were already at 5-6pm. Many of our Genie+ went unused for our afternoon parks because it wasn't logistically possible to use them.
3. The ILL is such an eyeroll. RSR was at 120 minutes at multiple times of days and that effectively eliminates people with kids 6 and under (who are the primary consumers/target audience of the Cars movies.) We would have not been able to ride this without a DAS which would have been super disappointing to my 3 boys. Yes, I could have paid the $20/person ILL but I refuse on principle after having paid $400/ticket for 6 people. ****not to mention RSR was down for a considerable amount of our trip, including the mornings which is the only remotely accessible time without ILL***
4. The number of closed rides should be embarrassing for Disney. We only rode matterhorn once and it wasn't for lack of trying. 4 times in a row over the course of 3 days I booked genie+ and all 4 times LL eventually converted to MEP. Hard to use the MEP on matterhorn later when it just broke down again. There was a time in DCA when we had 4 rides left, and all 4 were down (incredicoaster, goofy's sky school, swings, TSMM.) I mean...it's just ridiculous.
5. Very few characters out. Super weird. My kids are kind of out of the character stage so it's wasn't that big a deal to us, but it was weird. If I had a little kid who was invested in meeting all the princesses we would have been very disappointed.
6. I do give Disney credit for keeping Halloween Screams at DL despite the OBB going on at DCA. However, there weren't any parades or other nighttime stuff the rest of the week. My kids love the parades (soundsational??) and this is kind of sad.
Unpopular opinion, we're kind of over it all. Even considering our experience in planning the day's strategy, we still would have been very limited in getting on rides due to closures and super extended waits if it wasn't for my son's DAS. We paid $2495 for 3 days excluding flights/hotel/food and frankly, my kids would have had an equally good time in Mexico which would have been the same price or less.
Another unpopular opinion, I know there are people there who have saved for years to afford a vacation like that, and it makes me kind of sick to think they're getting on a few rides and that's it. Disney is becoming an experience for the affluent, but it's not even a fantastic experience in light of that. I would be willing to pay a lot more for tickets if I knew rides would be working, there would be parades, I could expect to not have to wait hours for rides, and NOS wouldn't be a mosh pit.
Anyway. Maybe it's still a good experience for some people who don't remember the good days. It has just declined so significantly from 10 years ago - my husband and I remember being super impressed. We're done for a while though I think!
1. The day of Halloween, on a weekday, is one of the best days to go IMO. Locals have other stuff going on, visitors don't want to pay for a ticket if they're going to be kicked out early. It has consistenly been a great day for us. Standby waits were <30 mins for most rides most of the day except RSR. Tuesday and Wednesday 11/1 - 11/2 were much more crowded for no particular reason.
2. Genie+ is a worse value than I expected and I didn't expect very much. In the mornings, it's unnecessary because waits are low. In the afternoon, waits are pushed out considerably. Combined with the parkhopping rule of 1pm, this absolutely sucks. By the time we could parkhop and book Genie+ at 1pm for the other park, Genie+ times were already at 5-6pm. Many of our Genie+ went unused for our afternoon parks because it wasn't logistically possible to use them.
3. The ILL is such an eyeroll. RSR was at 120 minutes at multiple times of days and that effectively eliminates people with kids 6 and under (who are the primary consumers/target audience of the Cars movies.) We would have not been able to ride this without a DAS which would have been super disappointing to my 3 boys. Yes, I could have paid the $20/person ILL but I refuse on principle after having paid $400/ticket for 6 people. ****not to mention RSR was down for a considerable amount of our trip, including the mornings which is the only remotely accessible time without ILL***
4. The number of closed rides should be embarrassing for Disney. We only rode matterhorn once and it wasn't for lack of trying. 4 times in a row over the course of 3 days I booked genie+ and all 4 times LL eventually converted to MEP. Hard to use the MEP on matterhorn later when it just broke down again. There was a time in DCA when we had 4 rides left, and all 4 were down (incredicoaster, goofy's sky school, swings, TSMM.) I mean...it's just ridiculous.
5. Very few characters out. Super weird. My kids are kind of out of the character stage so it's wasn't that big a deal to us, but it was weird. If I had a little kid who was invested in meeting all the princesses we would have been very disappointed.
6. I do give Disney credit for keeping Halloween Screams at DL despite the OBB going on at DCA. However, there weren't any parades or other nighttime stuff the rest of the week. My kids love the parades (soundsational??) and this is kind of sad.
Unpopular opinion, we're kind of over it all. Even considering our experience in planning the day's strategy, we still would have been very limited in getting on rides due to closures and super extended waits if it wasn't for my son's DAS. We paid $2495 for 3 days excluding flights/hotel/food and frankly, my kids would have had an equally good time in Mexico which would have been the same price or less.
Another unpopular opinion, I know there are people there who have saved for years to afford a vacation like that, and it makes me kind of sick to think they're getting on a few rides and that's it. Disney is becoming an experience for the affluent, but it's not even a fantastic experience in light of that. I would be willing to pay a lot more for tickets if I knew rides would be working, there would be parades, I could expect to not have to wait hours for rides, and NOS wouldn't be a mosh pit.
Anyway. Maybe it's still a good experience for some people who don't remember the good days. It has just declined so significantly from 10 years ago - my husband and I remember being super impressed. We're done for a while though I think!
