[Critical Review] What's going well and not-so-well at Disney World
Hi everyone! This is the last post in our Walt Disney World November 2023 trip series. I’ve had a lot of fun reminiscing on this trip, and I’m excited to start planning for the next one.
Our Disney trip was amazing, but it’s worth thinking about what could have gone better. The sheer cost of visiting WDW makes us want to reflect on how our money could have been better spent, and what the parks could do to bring us back. For those who are planning their own Disney vacation, I hope this information doesn’t scare you off, but rather, give you a realistic picture of what you’re paying for and what pitfalls you may encounter.
What's working well at the parks
Cast Members (CMs) are friendly and helpful all around, and they go the extra mile to make sure you have a great time. We encountered standout CMs everywhere we went. Wearing a birthday button for the majority of the trip was a pro move. I didn’t get tired of CMs wishing me a happy birthday, and a surprising number of restaurants gave me a little something for my birthday.
The parks are still clean. The bathrooms were in great shape across the board. I don’t remember noticing any trash on the ground anywhere, toilet paper on the floor, etc. Crowds were moderate when we visited - walkways were full during peak attendance times, but waits overall were not long.
Genie+ is a huge time-saver if you know how to use it, especially if you take time to research all the extra ways you can capitalize on it (even though we know it makes everything worse for people who don’t use it).
The Christmas decorations were really beautiful. The deluxe resort gingerbread displays that we saw were lovely. Nobody does holidays like Disney. The decor was on par with the Halloween theming we enjoyed at Disneyland in 2019. I'd love to experience Halloween at WDW or Lunar New Year at Disneyland.
Food and Wine booth lines looked long but generally moved fast. We ate tons of delicious and even compelling food. Food quality and variety, as well as atmosphere at restaurants and efficiency at quick service locations, are probably at an all-time high. We love eating and drinking on vacation, so this is a big deal to us. If you do quite a bit of research and planning, and maybe even mess around with duplicate hotel reservations, you can get a dining reservation at any restaurant.
If you love planning and learning useless things, like I do, Disney World is a really fun place to take a vacation to, because it provides months and months of amusement and research on top of the vacation itself.
What's not working well
Is it just me, or are the hotel grab-and-go marketplaces poorly stocked and not open early enough? It’s not fair to make us get there early but also not feed us. Ryan cannot tour on an empty stomach. At least there was coffee.
Speaking of coff--coughing, everyone at WDW was sick. Seriously, so much coughing and sneezing, so many sick kids coughing into the air around them, so many people looking gray and tired. I suspect that, at this point in the pandemic, people won’t leave the parks even if they’re sick with COVID - they spent thousands of dollars and countless hours planning, and they’re not about to turn back. I’ve heard similar reports from cruise ship travelers recently. This is probably just something to keep in mind for the foreseeable future. I’ll continue to self-test before vacationing and bring tests in my luggage.
Restaurants ran way behind in seating. At Topolino’s Terrace, we had to wait 45 minutes to get seated for our reservation. Boma ran behind in the morning as well. It was super frustrating.
Let’s talk about ride downtime. When a ride goes down, especially a cool, new ride, a whole bunch of people who were waiting to ride now need something else to do. So they go to another, comparable ride in the park. Then, if that ride goes down, 2 queues’ worth of people are headed to the 3rd-choice big ride. This effect is particularly pronounced at Hollywood Studios, which has a lot of “headliner” attractions that all experience a lot of downtime.
In fact, Tower of Terror was down for so much of our trip that we did not get to ride it. It’s also probably my favorite ride in all of WDW. I insisted on more time in the parks to mitigate this exact scenario - being unable to see everything at Hollywood Studios - and I was still thwarted despite the time, money, and effort I threw at the problem. I remain incredibly frustrated that we never got to ride Tower of Terror once during our trip.
What we hope to do next time
We’d like to stay in a 1-bedroom Boardwalk Villa. The biggest motivator for a 1-bedroom villa is having a full kitchen with a real refrigerator. We’ll be able to breakfast on the cheap, without the pain of having to jump out of bed and wait in line, if the grab-and-go market is even open early enough. Ryan remarked that the Yacht and Beach Club don’t have the most exciting theme, but the Boardwalk caught his eye from across the lagoon. I can attest that the Boardwalk is splendid, having stayed there as a kid, and you can’t beat the proximity to Epcot - my favorite park, where I'd always like to be hanging around and people watching with a snack during any otherwise-dead time on a WDW trip.
Sadly, afternoon tea at the Grand Floridian’s Garden View Tea Room has not yet reopened. Hopefully there will be afternoon tea options available again when we return. My mom and I had afternoon tea together during our 2017 family trip, and it was such a relaxing and tasty treat. I’m excited to hear more about the opening of the Cake Bake Shop, conveniently located on the Boardwalk. The Indiana-based shop's 3rd location will serve afternoon tea in addition to bakery fare.
Ryan and I didn’t spend much time at the Animal Kingdom in November, so we’d also want to budget a little extra time to spend there, possibly at night so we can enjoy the phosphorescence from Pandora. I skipped a reservation at Tiffins because I had gone in 2017 and we ate at Nomad Lounge and all of the restaurants at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Maybe we’ll plan on Tiffins for dinner next time around.
We’ve also never been on a Disney Cruise. Granted, we’ve only ever been on one cruise, but it was really awesome, and we’re looking forward to cruising again. With the recent-ish launch of the Disney Wish, and the upcoming launch of the Disney Treasure, and the Silver Anniversary at Sea, there’s a lot of exciting stuff going on at Disney Cruise Line. I was thinking about going on a Disney Cruise for my birthday this year, but we ended up going a different direction. I’ll take a brief interlude at some point to talk about my cruise trip planning process, as well as our travel plans for the rest of the year.
Thanks for joining us on our post-WDW retrospective journey! I'll continue to work my way backwards through my fall 2022 travel, with a brief report on my Atlanta trip next. I continue to be several trips behind, because we took a tiny road trip in February. Hopefully I'll be caught up on the backlog before my next trip, a work offsite in Portland scheduled for May. See you next time!