Disney World is Exhausting and EPCOT is a broken mess [Trip Report]

Modeps

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
17,255
44
91
My wife is a teacher so our timeframe for going on trips with the kids is fairly limited (she can't just take off of work, or even extend existing holidays, without repercussions). It's either a major holiday or the summer months where we can take trips, both present their own challenges. With my dad's recent passing, my mom wanted to go to Disney with her grandkids as she hadn't been there in over 20 years. So we planned a whirlwind trip to Disney World flying out late Tuesday the 22nd (after school let out), and returning late Sunday the 27th.

We flew JetBlue which is generally my airline of choice, but early Tuesday we were already getting messages about a delay. Those messages implied that perhaps they'd be able to resolve the problems and to still get to the airport for our regular time. So we did, and of course the delay remained. Instead of arriving in Orlando at midnight, we arrived at 2am. With Disney's cutbacks, they no longer offer transportation from the airport so we arranged for a shuttle through the replacement MEARS. Got our luggage, followed their instructions on where to go after landing and the counter for MEARS was completely empty. No signs, no people. Just silence. After placing an enraged, exhausted call to their support line, we learned that the counter closes at 1am and we needed to go to another terminal... which just so happened to be where the Disney offering used to be.

Finally got to the resort (Port Orleans French Quarter) and because the day rolled over, the security guard couldn't find us as checking in that day but let us through anyway. The Disney app wasn't showing a room number so we had to go to the front desk instead of just to the room and crashing but the employee sped us through and was as helpful as she could be. Eventually crashed at around 5am with my 11 year old son, completely overtired, waking up ever hour to talk to me until about 10 when we gathered and hit Animal Kingdom. Thankfully I had planned to make the first day the "least interesting" park so I wasn't too put out at my exhaustion.

My son has a disability which granted us access to use their DAS pass system, pre-booking certain rides and requesting access to others. Effectively getting Genie+ without needing to pay for it, and it came in extremely handy. I'm really not sure I'd do Disney World without some kind of access to their lightning lanes. I can't imagine waiting in a line for 2 hours, specially with kids... though there were plenty of people there to do just that.

Animal Kingdom was pretty great and I was able to get Dole Whip with rum. Avatar Flight of Passage is still the best ride throughout all the parks. Their safari is cool and has a bunch of animals. I remember liking Dinosaur way more... it was too dark and too violent in the rover. Maybe I'm just getting old.

Thanksgiving day we hit up Hollywood Studios. We'd never been to Galaxy's Edge before and I was geeking out a little too hard. We were able to get reservations for Light Saber building and Droid Building. My younger kids and mom did the droid building and had a bunch of fun. My oldest and I did the lightsaber building which was a great experience. All of it was very expensive... We rode Rise of the Resistance, Smuggler's Run, Star Tours. Rise of the Resistance gave Flight of Passage a run for its money and was really cool.

Outside of the Star Wars stuff, we rode the new Mickey and Minnie Runaway Railway which I liked way more than I expected. They were able to apply cartoon-like animation to all the real-world scenery and characters through what appeared to be lighting effects. Really neat. Muppetvision 3D hasn't changed in seemingly decades. We skipped the show-based things, Rock n' Roller Coaster, and Tower of Terror, but went on Slinky Dog Dash and Toy Story Mania. Both were fun. Back at the hotel we found that one of their options was a turkey dinner, so we had a late, relatively traditional thanksgiving dinner that was pretty good.

Black Friday was EPCOT and intended to be another "slower" day. I woke up before 7am to attempt to get into the Virtual Queue for Cosmic Rewind and as soon as 7am hit, there were no slots available anymore. Looking to purchase individual lightning lane entries showed the earliest was at 8pm which probably wouldn't fly with my family, so I decided to try again at their 1pm virtual queue time. We had some pre-reservations for later in the afternoon, so hit up the Figment ride (also hasn't been updated in forever) then had a time slot for Ratatouille so we made our way though the worlds doing their Cookie Tour (most of the cookies were not great).

Watching the app and wait times throughout the day showed basically all the rides shutting down at some point. We had a LL reservation for Test Track that we couldn't use because it was dead (when we went back to use it, the LL for that ride was probably around a 40 minute wait which we opted out of). Frozen was down for a lot of the day (we didn't ride it). I'm not sure who would be fulfilled if they waited the THREE HOURS for standby Ratatouille. It was a fun ride, but even the 40ish minutes we waited in the LL was too long in my opinion. While in line, the 1pm Virtual Queue opened and closed immediately. Once again we were unable to join it and my disappointment was extremely high. All the other things we did at EPCOT were things we did before. Nemo, Soarin', Spaceship Earth. EPCOT in general was a gigantic disappointment. They're working on some updates in the middle of everything, but unless you like sampling lots of different food items, it's really hard to recommend going there right now.

We wrapped up the trip on Saturday with Magic Kingdom. There was literally nothing new since the last time we went, so we just hit what we could when we could (Peter Pan, Small World, Snow White, Winnie the Pooh, Space Mountain, Buzz's shooting game, Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean). Got more dole whip, had a character dinner at Crystal Palace (my mom is a huge Winnie the pooh fan and loved it), watched the fireworks, shopped during a sea of people exiting the park. While this park hasn't changed, it's comfortable, we all felt less tired despite walking more, and I still think it is my favorite park despite not having any "wow" rides. Maybe I'm a fan of the classics.

Return flight was also delayed, but only after we were already on-board. There was some kind of weather system in DC that screwed things up. Got in an hour+ after we were scheduled to be but made it hope and crashed only to start the work and school week soon after the next day.

Overall it was a pretty good trip! The kids had fun and were surprised (we didn't tell them before getting in the car) and there were only a couple meltdowns. The weather wasn't oppressive like it would have been in summer; we didn't get any rain. My watch told me we walked around 40 miles throughout the parks. Most importantly, I think my mom highly enjoyed herself and the time she spent with her grandkids. We all agreed that my dad would have hated being there.
 

Captante

Lifer
Oct 20, 2003
30,244
10,748
136
Best time of year to go to Disney is late autumn no doubt. Many years ago my ex and I had our honeymoon in a concierge suite @ the Grand Floridian and we had a fantastic time.

Hate to think what that trip would cost these days considering it was nearly $10000 (with tips & airfare) in 1993!

DIsney has gotten out of hand price-wise. :oops:
 
Last edited:

kage69

Lifer
Jul 17, 2003
26,967
35,580
136
Took the kids in 2017. Huge disappointment. I won't be wasting any of our time or my money there again. Kind of my view on most of Florida these days. I'll head back to the Keys to see friends and do some fishing, but by day 4 or 5 I'm ready to bounce.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Captante

quikah

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2003
4,068
649
126
I have gone to DW and DL over 20 times over the past 30 years (including this past summer to DW and last month to DL for a school trip). Disney parks are in a VERY bad state currently. Maintenance seems to be a low priority so rides are down more than they should be. Prices are sky high. They nickel and dime you for everything. Cast member morale seems to be at an all time low. Entertainment is at a bare minumum. Crowds are obscene. The CEO was just fired and replaced with the previous CEO.

Give it a couple of years before you even think about going again.

Cosmic Rewind is currently the best ride at DW, bummer you missed out on it.
 

Modeps

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
17,255
44
91
I have gone to DW and DL over 20 times over the past 30 years (including this past summer to DW and last month to DL for a school trip). Disney parks are in a VERY bad state currently. Maintenance seems to be a low priority so rides are down more than they should be. Prices are sky high. They nickel and dime you for everything. Cast member morale seems to be at an all time low. Entertainment is at a bare minumum. Crowds are obscene. The CEO was just fired and replaced with the previous CEO.

Give it a couple of years before you even think about going again.

Cosmic Rewind is currently the best ride at DW, bummer you missed out on it.
My oldest has a planned trip for school where they'll play in the band down in Disney in a little over a year. Kind of wish it was a bit further away than that... I'm really bummed about Cosmic Rewind for sure. I talked to a customer agent person and they claimed the slots were filled in 3 seconds at 7am then 2 seconds at 1pm. I was refreshing like crazy and think they're lying (but they told the same story to another couple I talked to).
 

Exterous

Super Moderator
Jun 20, 2006
20,348
3,426
126
I have gone to DW and DL over 20 times over the past 30 years (including this past summer to DW and last month to DL for a school trip). Disney parks are in a VERY bad state currently. Maintenance seems to be a low priority so rides are down more than they should be. Prices are sky high. They nickel and dime you for everything. Cast member morale seems to be at an all time low. Entertainment is at a bare minumum. Crowds are obscene. The CEO was just fired and replaced with the previous CEO.

Yeah it sounds like Disney has made some questionable expenditure decisions and is relying on park revenue to offset costs elsewhere (park income used to be 40% of Disney's revenue but is now 66%). As a consequence they're squeezing $ from customers while cutting park expenses
 
  • Like
Reactions: Modeps

quikah

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2003
4,068
649
126
My oldest has a planned trip for school where they'll play in the band down in Disney in a little over a year. Kind of wish it was a bit further away than that...

My son did it for orchestra (plays violin). It was a pretty cool experience. They basically did a recording session like they do for movies. So they lay down the score and play back the scene with/without the music they made. Was a combined trip for band, orchestra and choir. Each group had their own session. The band directory told us they used to actually play in the park, but no one ever came to it so they stopped doing it. This is for DL, might be different for DW. I was a chaperone on the trip. Gave me a whole new appreciation of the work teachers do.
 

Modeps

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
17,255
44
91
My son did it for orchestra (plays violin). It was a pretty cool experience. They basically did a recording session like they do for movies. So they lay down the score and play back the scene with/without the music they made. Was a combined trip for band, orchestra and choir. Each group had their own session. The band directory told us they used to actually play in the park, but no one ever came to it so they stopped doing it. This is for DL, might be different for DW. I was a chaperone on the trip. Gave me a whole new appreciation of the work teachers do.
I haven't looked into details at all yet about the trip as it is still over a year away, but I know at least the band and chorus are going. It may be similar to what you did. Thanks for that info!
 

thestrangebrew1

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2011
3,430
382
126
Glad you had fun. We just got back from DLand a week ago and had a good time there as well. Pre-Covid, we would go 4-5x a year, but this was our first trip back. We for sure got nickel and dimed though. We waited the lines out for both parks the first 2 days but ended up buying the genie passes the last day to avoid some of the longer wait times for the bigger attractions. That was $35/person. On top of that, it was an extra $20 IIRC just to get on the Rise of the Resistance ride. There was 5 of us. I'd say it was worth it for the genie pass though overall. It was nice because we got to plan the rides ahead of time and got in all of the ones we wanted before 3pm so we just hung out till the parades and fireworks shows. Made the last day more enjoyable for sure.

Maybe it was just the fact that I haven't been around massive crowds like that since pre-covid, but I feel like people have gotten more rude and lacked personal space awareness. People kept hugging up against us in lines and we found a spot to hang out while we waited for the parade. Laid out a blanket for the kids and as the parade start time got closer, people kept stepping over us and actually stepped on our blanket to get by us. We were sitting on the curb, so not on Main St. but not in the sidewalk either. Plenty of room to go around and they just kept stepping over/through us.
 

Modeps

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
17,255
44
91
Funny you mention all of that. When we were planning the trip and considering adding the Genie+ for some of the busier places just to get another reservation, I was calculating the price of $15/person/day. Then the week came and they bumped it to $30/person/day under the "prices fluctuate" garbage. Was not a fan.

You're not wrong about people being quite selfish as well. When we stopped to watch the fireworks on Saturday, we had walked significantly far, towards the entrance of the park where there were large spaces to watch from. The fireworks were going on for about 10 minutes, then some guy decided to step right in front of my mom (who was on an electric scooter) and put his kid on his shoulders. Super cool bro.
 

nakedfrog

No Lifer
Apr 3, 2001
58,054
12,239
136
I definitely get the feeling it's not for me anymore, last time I went was in the mid-90s and it seems probably a lot more crowded now.
 

Modeps

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
17,255
44
91
I definitely get the feeling it's not for me anymore, last time I went was in the mid-90s and it seems probably a lot more crowded now.
Leaving Magic Kingdom on the Saturday very nearly triggered a panic attack with how many people there were in the same areas. I lost track of all three of my kids at one point. They claim they only allow a certain number of people into the park and that you need a reservation. I think that number is probably 100,000.
 

Zeze

Lifer
Mar 4, 2011
11,074
995
126
Wife and I still laugh at each other saying going to Disney World with the kids was this year's biggest mental and physical achievement.

*shudder*

God, I still remember carrying one of my kid asleep after some night show wrapped up. You had to wait another 40 minutes just to get on the exiting ferry ride, then WALK another 30 minutes to the parking lot, but wait you're not done! You have a date with all the cars stuck in the parking lot which is another 20 mins. Then tada, you're finally on a bigger road and requires the final 15 mins of driving back to the hotel.

*coils in disgust*
 
Last edited: