The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly: A Collection of Thoughts Post-Trip

Walt Disney World Trip Reports
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I named my trip report after my favorite western because even though this was a good trip, there were some bad and ugly parts. First, the basics: 6 adults, 3 kids, ages 14, 9, and 7. My family (2 adults, the 14 and 7-year-old), my parents, my sister, my new brother-in-law, and my nephew (the 9-year-old). My family and parents came from Washington state, and my sister’s family came from Southern California. We were in Florida for a week. We stayed in a rental property about 20 minutes from WDW in Kissimmee. We did one day in each park. I’ve never written a trip report before, so I’m unsure how much detail to include. Still, I can fill in more information in the comments if people are interested. Unlike the western title, I’m going to start with the ugly and end with the good because I want to end on a positive note.

The Ugly: Covid and rental car fiasco.
The worst part of the trip was that we all came home and tested positive for Covid. Another issue was that my dad had rented a passenger van so we could all drive together. When we arrived at the airport, passenger vans were not available. They suggested we check in Orlando when we got there. They offered us an Expedition, but we would still be one seat short. Because of crazy flight prices, my parents and I had to fly into Tampa and meet my sister in Orlando. Once my dad contacted customer service in Orlando, they still didn’t have his passenger van. When he asked if they would give him a second smaller car, they refused and blamed him for taking a car that wouldn’t work for us! This resulted in some of us having to rideshare to and from the parks and everywhere else every day.

The Bad: Poor guest behavior, unhelpful crowd calendar/TP app, homesickness.
We all felt we encountered many rude and poorly behaved guests in the parks. People stopped in the middle of walkways or at the entrances and exits of rides, not listening to CMs, blocking others’ views of shows or fireworks, etc. Many of these behaviors have always been an issue, but we all agreed that it seems much worse now. In planning this trip, I chose these dates based on the crowd calendar, but all our park days were significantly busier. I also found that the Lines app was not very accurate regarding wait times, so I had to rework many of my plans and guess what to do next using the Disney app. On a more personal level, this trip really made me homesick for San Diego and Disneyland. We moved from SD to Washington 7 years ago, and when we lived in SD, we had DLR annual passes and would go about once a month. I love WDW, but I miss my “home” park.

The Good: New rides are unique; going to Disney is always fun!
Despite the bad and the ugly, we did have a fantastic time! We were all blown away by the newest rides: Rise of Resistance, Flight of Passage, and Cosmic Rewind. These are all so creative and offer such unique ride experiences. These aren’t just thrill rides; they offer rich, immersive experiences. We also love that there are so many great table service restaurants at WDW, something DL is definitely lacking. We ate at 50s Prime Time Cafe, Liberty Tree Tavern, and Biergarten. Also, despite the heavier crowds and my plans not working well, we could ride most of the rides and only missed a handful of things.

Thanks for reading! These were just my first initial thoughts when I returned home. I couldn’t post it because shortly after, Covid started kicking my butt, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to respond.

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OK that is shady.
Note to self (as I am considering a big family trip and a passenger van would be involved): if they don’t have a passenger van insist on multiple vehicles before accepting any rental at all.

This is just WDW. Every day. Since forever. I can tell when it’s almost time to go home because it goes from mildly annoying to giving me small fits of rage.

I think we are still in an odd year when more people are traveling who otherwise wouldn’t at this time and that as a result the calendars struggle to keep accurate. Genie has borked up everything as far as I’m concerned with TouringPlans. Not that they aren’t working hard to figure out how to remain accurate, but it’s a work-in-progress.

These are great, aren’t they??!!

Ugh. Hope you and everyone else is on the mend now.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I hope it’s less crowded next time you go - I think that will go a long way to improve your overall experience and resolve the concerns you had this time around. I think it looks to be starting to slow down after the New Year, at least by my own personal barometer.

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Oof- I also tested positive for Covid shortly after my trip. I need to go back and look at what the actual crowd levels were, but overall It did feel a bit more crowded then I was expecting too. I just think everyone had the same great idea- go to Disney!

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Count us in the post-trip Covid bunch…actually dh caught it while we were there in June. Sorry about all the hassles but glad you still had a good trip. We love any and all kinds of trip reports around here! :+1:

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Maybe it’s just a difference between WDW and DLR? This was my 3rd time in WDW as an adult. It happens in DLR too, but our whole group agreed that this time was worse and people in general seemed so selfish and unperturbed by how they were affecting people around them. We witnessed guests outright ignore CM instructions all over the place. People just didn’t seem to care.

I can’t imagine how hard it must be for TP to keep up with all the changes! Here’s the predictions vs reality for the dates we visted: AK: 3 vs 6; HS: 5 vs 6; MK:. 2 vs 6; EPCOT: 4 vs 5. HS and EPCOT weren’t too bad, but AK and MK were rough. I can’t even imagine what anything above 6 looks like!

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Looking back, I think my parents started coming down with it while we were there. They were exhausted on our last day and had some congestion, but we chalked it up to just being tired after all the walking for four days.

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This isn’t just WDW. It’s any where there are lots of people. Folks will just stop in the middle of walkways or by entrance/exit doors. My favorite was a convention hotel where a woman got to the bottom of the escalator, stepped off, and … stopped. Hello? Pile up happening right behind you.

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I think it bothered us so much because people seemed completely unphased. We didn’t see people have a realization and then step out of the way, and we came across people seemingly hanging out in the middle of walkways. That particular thing was just one of many guest behaviors that turned us off. People were climbing up on fences and planters during evening shows. We witnessed a family climb over a planter to get out of line. We were delayed on several rides because people wouldn’t follow CM’s instructions. I know this has always happened, but it seemed like in the past, especially at DLR, CMs would swoop in quickly, and people listened. That was not our experience this time.

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Entitlement is a terrible thing. I think that behaviors have lapsed since the lockdown.
I find Wal Mart aisles to be like this…also the hallways of my school. Large groups of students just stop in the middle of the hall without regard to those around them.

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There was lots of entitled behavior!

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Imagine that though.

Not excusing it. But kind of understanding where that entitlement could be coming from.

A family of four can barely get a 6nt 7dqy vacation with full tickets for under $5K at a value resort. I think paying a price tag that high might lend itself to a sense of feeling entitled.

It’s still wrong. But just a thought that occurred to me.

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Thankfully we didn’t witness or at least didn’t notice anything as bad as you. Of course people werr wandering around aimlessly, with no regard for those around them, but that’s always expected. Living near a major city, I think we’re desensitized to how the heard operates. It seemed like for the most part people were respectful though, and followed instructions from CMs, with the exception of “if you can see carpet in front of you, step forward” lol.

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Oh totally. I completely agree with this.

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I get that to an extent. We have all paid exorbitant amounts of money and are entitled to enjoy ourselves, but it seems in the age of fuck your feelings, some people’s enjoyment comes at the expense of another’s enjoyment. I think most people are just oblivious to their actions, and stopping in the middle of the fast moving sidewalk or waking five abreast isn’t too terrible, just gotta keep nimble feet :wink:

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We’ve encountered this before as well. For us, they tried to give us a cargo van instead.

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Once, we were given one of the airport transport vans to rent when the minivan wasn’t available. It was a 12 or 14 passenger, something like that. The lady at the counter said to always ask if this is available if they are out of vans. This was enterprise.

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Sometimes I do this, especially when I’m trying to get my eyes to focus. Lighting changes effect my vision greatly. I usually let DH walk in front of me or RIGHT next to me. I see fine (with glasses) once my eyes adjust. But I get caught off guard sometimes.
But unlike some other people, I am profoundly sorry for causing any commotion or build up and apologize to people in public all the time. I find that I will excuse a lot of things when someone is genuinely sorry and expresses it.

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Interesting. The rental car company claimed that FEMA had rented all the passenger vans due to the recent hurricane. Initially, that made sense to us, but after their complete unwillingness to help us, we wondered if they overbooked their stock.

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People do not return cars on time always. The system allows bookings on anticipated inventory. This is really never accurate. Do they over book like airlines? Not sure. But a reservation with rental cars isn’t gaurenteed.

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“See, you know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to hold the reservation and that’s really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can just take them.”

— Jerry Seinfeld

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