I just want to vent my frustrations from my recent (Jan 24-Feb 1) WDW trip and chat with anyone else who’s feeling the same way.
As a massive WDW fan who doesn’t have a ton of expendable income, I usually go every 4-5 years or so, and really try to maximize my dollars and time while I’m there. I always target the “slowest” and coolest time of year, but this is the first time I’ve been dissatisfied with my outcomes. WDW is looking rough, the paint is literally peeling in parts of the lineups, light bulbs are burnt out, multiple elements of hugely popular attractions are not even working, and standby wait times were, in general, much longer than advertised for the headliners.
For example, when we rode Rise of the Resistance in 2020, our minds were blown. In 2024 I brought new people who had never seen it before and they were less impressed. Kylo Ren’s animatronic looked jerky and unnatural and the cannons were offline, making that scene a bit of a disappointment.
The bathrooms were filthy, each one had at least one dead-eyed attendant who was in there with a broom and dustpan but the toilets in multiple stalls, in every bathroom we used, were covered in urine and wet toilet paper. I don’t understand how people can be so rude to leave their stalls in such condition, but it’s the worst I have ever seen, and the attendants just seemed to standing there, holding a dustpan and looking demoralized.
For the more popular attractions, like Frozen and Jungle Cruise, we would get into line with the advertised 45 min standby wait time, only to watch the lightning lane queue pile up with tons of people all at once, and then there would be an announcement like “if you’re in the standby line for Jungle Cruise, the wait time is now 90 minutes, thanks for your patience.”
It really seems like they do not have a handle on lightning lane use and guest movement throughout the parks anymore. We got in line for Peter Pan, willing to wait the advertised 55 minutes but we actually waited 115 minutes! I faithfully checked the touring plans app but it predicted shorter wait times almost everywhere, when we were facing wait times that rapidly extended while we were already in the queue. In retrospect, I wish I had been more on-the-ball and timed my waits through the app to share the data, but I was preoccupied with two little kids and didn’t get around to it. 
There did not seem to be any air conditioning in any of the indoor lineups, so we were sweltering and feeling trapped in there with all these other people sweating and children understandably running out of patience.
I don’t remember it ever being like this. I blame the lightning lanes, because it always seemed like people would pile in and suddenly the standby line would slow to a crawl. I’ve never in my life considered not going back to WDW but this was an eye-opening experience for me. I feel like I spent more and got less for my money than ever before.
It will probably be a long time before I go back, since it seems that we need to pay to play now. I’m guessing this trend will not be reversed as long as they are still bringing in profits from the parks.
Is anyone else feeling disillusioned with WDW lately?
