The McCrankyPants Family has returned-Observations

[WDWCrazyKaren]

We're back!

Trip was 11/12/13 to 11/19/13. We had a great time! There were four of us this year. DH, and 2 of our DD's, one is 23, the other 16. We got two rooms at French Quarter, one for DH and me, and one for the girls. We did receive connecting rooms, as we requested. Not going to do a full trip report, since I never finish them, but I'll give you our observations.

FQ was beautiful, as always. We were placed in building 2, and it took us less than 30 seconds to get from our room to the food court/gift shop. Add another 20 seconds or so, and we were at the bus stop. Great location! FQ shared all busses with Riverside with the exception of Magic Kingdom, the entire trip. As an example for anyone who has never stayed there-we watched the clock-it took us 20 minutes AFTER we were picked up to make the loop around Riverside, and only 6 minutes to get to Epcot after that. 8 minutes to DHS, and about 15 minutes to AK. That loop certainly adds a lot of extra time to the trips.

We ended up taking quite a few taxi rides this week. When we found ourselves on a tight schedule, or just a really busy time (after Wishes, Fantasmic! etc.). The taxis are always waiting, and at about $15 per trip (generous tip included), we thought it was a bargain!

Crowds-different than we expected at this time of year. We really thought that after Veterans day, Jersey week, and before Thanksgiving, we would have a really quiet week. Not so! It was certainly not Christmas or Spring Break busy, but definately more crowded than we expected.

MagicBands-we were prepared for the worst. Having 2 reservations, we had read about the horror stories of things just not working well. Surprisingly enough, we did not have a single glitch the entire week. They worked on our rooms every time, we were there with free dining, and every time we used them for dining and snacks, they worked perfectly. The servers at the table service restaurants seemed to be confused about using two bands, and also about how to charge us separately for our "beverages" that were not included, which surprised us because people do this thousands of times a day!

FastPass+-Ok, here's where the only real issues of the week reared their ugly heads. For the record, we did receive Keys to the World cards when we checked in (we never used them however). We had luckily made our FP+ reservations prior to the "tiering" at Epcot and DHS. MagicBands worked great on all of the rides, at the right times. No issues at all there, and we loved having made them in advance. We are big hoppers, so we made all of the FP+'s for the afternoons, figuring we would get the rides in as we are at rope drop every morning. This system worked great for us. Since are are rope-droppers, we are able to get in anything we want very early in the day. As an example, at rope drop at MK, we went to Pooh, Peter Pan, Under the Sea, Haunted Mansion, Pirates, Big Thunder and Splash in LESS than one hour. We then went back to IASW and Mickey's Philharmagic before heading out to Disney Quest for a while. We would then make our way to another park for the late afternoon/evening and use the FP+ at that point. Worked great. Here's the rub. There is NO reason, at any point in any day, on a non-holiday day, that there should be a line outside the door and around the corner for Muppets, or Spaceship Earth, or The Great Movie Ride, etc. We have never, in all of our years, seen lines at these rides. We always go during what is considered "slow" season. Even though slow season is all relative to what "slow" used to mean. Last year, all of those rides/shows have always been "walk right on". Now, during "slow" season, there is a 60 minute wait for the Great Movie Ride? WHAT? Those rides do not need to be FastPass rides. They never have needed to be, and do not need to be now. I think if you removed those from the FastPass pool, and left the new system for rides that NEED fastpasses (Soarin', TSMM, Space Mtn etc.) and leave the others alone, touring would be just as wonderful as it's always been.

(I'll Continue in Next Post)

[faline]

Glad to hear your had a lovely trip!!

The more I read, the more I believe that the the Fastpass+ system is causing the long wait times in the standby lines of a number of rides. We experienced this phenomenom when we were there in August on rides like Pirates and It's a Small World as well as Haunted Mansion.

[DisneyBarb]

We were there on the 16th - 21st, we also booked our FP+ before grouping. Not sure why Disney doesn't think restricting by park will not make their park hoppers go down.

We had heavy crowds the first 2 days, it went down significantly the last 3 days where we were able to walk on most things but Toy Story.

I had issues when I went to cancel FP+ and change them.

Glad you had a good time despite the crowds, it had always been a great time to go even with free dining. Hard to say if it was due all to FP+ because just walking through the parks was tough some days (we had never seen that this time of year).

[Ms. Mode]

Thanks for this report...love the title of the post too!

[PopPhan]

Thanks for the great report, Karen!!

Not sure why Disney doesn't think restricting by park will not make their park hoppers go down.

I am certain that they ARE well aware that this FP+ fiasco will make Park Hoppers go down. If you are on a bus/boat/monorail/car/etc. for however long it takes to go between parks, you are not spending money in those parks! You have to know that it is all about the almighty $$$$$.

[yjgirl32]

Great report, thanks for sharing