I'm not usually a planner so I've been to Disney many times but never had dining reservations. This last time (2022) I planned it at the 90 day mark. We had a great time.

Anonymous wrote:I am not a big disney fan, but don't a lot of vacations involve planning? I spent more time researching my trip to Alaska than I did researching disney (and I spent plenty of time reading up on Genie+ strategies). Unless you are just going to chill on the beach for a week, vacations take planning and often some things have to be arranged in advance.

Not for me when I travel. We just book hotels in advance and research general things to do. We do a lot of spontaneous things, and we only think in advance about food if we have a particular spot we want to go, like that tomato greenhouse restaurant in iceland. I like more relaxing vacations though. We do one or more fun things each day and spend the rest on transportation or chilling in the air b n b.

Agree Disneyland is little easier. I grew up going to Disneyland as we lived in Los Angeles County and had the best memories as a kid. We took my kids every 2 years starting about 2 years old until 8 and always had fun and stayed at California Adventure lodge. Still waaaay more crowded and less magical than my memories as a kid but that’s to be expected. We did Disney World one time a few years ago and managed to hit different parks it for four days for under 5k. It can be done!

Anonymous wrote:We do Disney cruises instead - amazing and so relaxing

We discovered the cruise, but after already visiting the parks 2x and my kids were much older. We did Mediterranean so got that out of it.

But the cruise cruise is now my advice to people who say they are mainly going for their kids to see Mickey or the “top” princesses. ( I admit that Disney Parks was best for my 6yo son at the time to see power rangers, buzz light year, and Cars though. But those were at Hollywood studios, the calmer park. )

I do think Disney Parks is overrated. I think we parents are disappointed after the fact because we talked it up and let other parents and blogs convince us it was best thing ever and we HAD to Take our kids. We built it up in our kids’ minds as the greatest vacation and it failed our expectations as parents. Our kids each only knew 2-3 friends who went, so may have mentioned it but they ask for a lot of things in passing that we say No to. Busch Gardens would have been enough for the “amusement park experience”.

Although I think the newest generation isn’t as gullible.

Anonymous wrote:Disney fans aren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the woodshed to start with, so it seemed almost cruel to make it so complicated.

I hope you’re proud of this comment. Apparently a$$holery is all you’ve got.

We went to Disneyland in December, and it is so much more manageable. (And I say that as a person who has had a lot of fun at Disneyworld.) I think it's a much easier Disney experience. Getting to the park at opening and using genie plus and we had hardly any waits that were more than 15-20 minutes. And all the hotels (even the off-site ones) are so close. No shuttles or trains, just walk out the park and across the street and there's your hotel.

We just got back from DisneyWorld on Monday night, so I was definitely interested to see that Post article. There was a lot of planning involved, not only in figuring out the ways to shorten the lines (by paying more, usually), but also things like pre-ordering groceries for breakfast, setting up the app, linking reservations with the other family we were with so that we could plan together, etc. One of the people in our party had a disability access pass, which helped a lot with avoiding waiting in long lines, but was another thing to figure out and plan throughout the day. Overall it was fun and everybody enjoyed the trip, but I have no need to go back anytime soon. The last time I went was pre-pandemic with the advanced fastpass reservations, free buses from the airport to hotel, free magicbands, etc. -- that felt more magical, for sure!

To the person who asked what kids do while waiting in line --some of the lines have built-in play areas or activities to do as you move along. There's also an app that has specific themed games for some of the lines (e.g., Space Mountain).

We sold our DVC membership. We had gone to Disney every other year for nearly a dozen years and have such happy memories, but the logistics of the trip planning just became too complicated for us. I miss the days of the paper fast passes!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve been pre and post Covid. It’s definitely not easy but it’s also learn-able without paying an influencer for a class I think. Definitely think Disney needs to rethink genie plus re: being on the phone that much.

What like paper fast pass? Of course future line skipping options will be tech based. I don’t want to go back to collecting paper fastpasses in person!

New poster here
I like the system they had between the paper fast passes and the Genie; where you can pre-book 3 fast passes and use them by scanning your magic band or plastic card ticket. It was so nice to be able to book them 2 months in advance, rather than having to wake up at 7 am every morning of vacation

Yes - that’s the system I was alluding to. The getting up before 7 to get lightening lanes & genie plus seems sh!tty to ask of guests on vacay. I definitely preferred having 3 fast passes booked before getting to Disney. I was still on my phone and brought a power bank but it wasn’t near as all consuming genie + can feel like at times.

Funnily enough, I actually avoided Disney because of the FastPass three months out - I didn’t want to have to plan that far in advance - who knew how’d we feel that day, or what the weather would be like, or if we’d enjoy that ride?

I went in the summer of 2022 with my then 8 year old and we had a BLAST - yes, I had to be keeping tract of timing, but I set up an alert on my watch and boom, done. If we missed it, we missed it. I had watched a lot of YouTube videos about stacking etc, but frankly, it seemed like a game to me and kind of fun.

It was ungodly expensive- but the Genie+ was a small fraction of where I indulged.

Now, my husband would have hated it - I told him that and he didn’t go. It was also amazingly easier because I had one kid, and when we got tired, we went back to the hotel and the pool.

I didn’t mind getting up early, I was usually up anyway and enjoying some downtime before all the walking.

Not going to disagree that it’s crazy expensive and crowded - that’s unfortunate, but unless they introduce some lottery system making it less expensive will only make it more crowded.

Disney fans aren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the woodshed to start with, so it seemed almost cruel to make it so complicated.

This sounds just awful. I can’t imagine spending my money, time, and energy trying to figure out their schemes.

Side question: what do kids do while waiting in line? Look at phones?

Wow, this sounds awful. Spending a vacation glued to a phone - no thanks! I went in 1991 and WDW was magical! The only real wait was for Space Mountain, and characters were walking all over the place.

Thanks to the PP for the tip about Disney Cruises as an alternative. That actually sounds like a sane way to have a Disney experience.

Anonymous wrote:I’m super organized. I had our recent Disney trip planned to a T. I was up getting our genie reservations at 7am, I’d booked all the best character dining. I was on my phone booking new passes every 2 hours.

Even still, dh was so over it. The crowds were out of control (we went M-Th during the lowest week of the year) and we often waited in line 45-90 per ride. My 2 year old lost her mind at having to wait in lines like this. My biggest beef is with child swap. Dh would go with one kid while I waited with the other two and then I would go with the other kid while he waited with the toddler. Doing this took foreeeeeever. You used to be able to walk on (rightly so, we already waited once!) but now the wait was 20 min each time.

I don’t think I can ever convince my easy going husband to go back to Disney. We’ve been 2x a year for years. It’s just straight up miserable now. Dh thinks they’ve allowed too many people in for the rides that they have.

Oh yeah and not one character was walking around. You either pay $$$ for character dining, wait in long lines to meet them or wave while a parade goes by.

When exactly did you go? We just went last week (January 23-26) and I agree w everything you said except we didn’t do child swap so I can’t speak about that. I wasn’t expecting that even w genie+ and even going at a supposedly “light crowds” time of year we still frequently waited almost an hour even for rides that aren’t super popular or new and over an hour for the newer ones. And I was very disappointed how there were no characters walking around like they used to be and that the cast members, while pleasant and helpful, were not really in character like they used to seem to be. It seems the ride attendants and concession vendors, etc used to really add extra magic to every ride or concession experience and now they’re just like regular employees anywhere just wearing silly outfits.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve been pre and post Covid. It’s definitely not easy but it’s also learn-able without paying an influencer for a class I think. Definitely think Disney needs to rethink genie plus re: being on the phone that much.

What like paper fast pass? Of course future line skipping options will be tech based. I don’t want to go back to collecting paper fastpasses in person!

New poster here
I like the system they had between the paper fast passes and the Genie; where you can pre-book 3 fast passes and use them by scanning your magic band or plastic card ticket. It was so nice to be able to book them 2 months in advance, rather than having to wake up at 7 am every morning of vacation

Yes - that’s the system I was alluding to. The getting up before 7 to get lightening lanes & genie plus seems sh!tty to ask of guests on vacay. I definitely preferred having 3 fast passes booked before getting to Disney. I was still on my phone and brought a power bank but it wasn’t near as all consuming genie + can feel like at times.