Is Walt Disney World worth visiting in 2023, or for the foreseeable future? Why or why not, and what are WDW's pros and cons?
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Walt Disney World
Is Walt Disney World worth visiting in 2023, or for the foreseeable future? Why or why not, and what are WDW's pros and cons?
CRIME Shirt $21.68 |
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CRIME Shirt $21.68 |
Depends on how badly you want to go: Disney Adult or never went as a kid, because the cons are stacking up:
-Almost impossible to visit without homosexual app
-(Don't know the date for when this will change, but) Need park reservations, even with Park Hopper
-Table-service restaurant reservations are impossible to secure unless it's months out
-Lines are too long, even with dumb paid Genie+ Lightning Lane
-Still too affordable for thirdies and scum buying one-day tickets, so there's more shitty behavior and issues with any queues (even for food)
-Yet, still expensive for a proper trip
-Going between parks is a pain, because WDW is so spread out
-Staying at a resort on-property is just ludicrously expensive now, even for the shitty "budget" tier hotels
-Rides are down too often, and there aren't enough crowd sinks to prevent too many frickers from just walking around
Just go to Universal outside of summer or spring break, bro
Pros:
massive focus on dark rides, mix of classic and ultra budget
Just generally bigger budget than anywhere (although arguably Universal have moved ahead in terms of theming)
Incredibly immersive parks (again, Universal competes on that)
There is something neat about being in the "Disney Bubble"
It's 4 parks
Cons:
Expensive
They still nickel and dime you after spending that much
Insanely busy, the quietest days are still very busy
They've made planning mandatory, not just a fun thing to get you hyped for the holiday
You must book the big new rides on the day (hope you like early mornings) each park for the day weeks in advance, themed restaurants as soon as the become available.
Not outstanding for coasters
IPs replacing classic rides
Lots of entitled, very stressed out family (I don't actually hate the families for this, people expect the holiday of a lifetime and have to deal with all the above)
Universal are leading the way with rides and theming right now, especially when it comes to coasters. Epic Universe looks set to humiliate Disney.
Ultimately it comes down to: do you want to spend that much money on a holiday?
After staying at Universal, I think the Disney "bubble" is kinda bullshit. The property is just too big and spread out. Unless you're staying at one of the few (expensive) hotels that are right next to one of the parks, it takes forever to get anywhere using their transportation and it's quicker if you have a car. If you have a car, you might as well stay at one of the nearby non-Disney hotels that offer far more amenities at a lower price.
No, it really is just outdone by Universal in practically every way and metric.
>themed rides are super slow and boring or dated
>actual rides are few and far between, split up by parks so you have to do park to park to visit them
>lines are ridiculous
>nickel and dimed everywhere despite massive fees to get in
>has great food options but nightmarish to get a table
>Blizzard Beach is unironically great though, top tier water park
>stagnation is present and it shows, new ideas are done extremely lazily (see the star wars cruiser hotel) and a lot of dated stuff is really in dire need of maintenance/renovation
That being said, Disney's mainline hotels are phenomenal and the non-park offers like Disney Springs are pretty good. The feel of Disney Magic dying slowly is pretty shit and you definitely feel it the more you go and are exposed to it.
Compare that to universal:
>more affordable
>better rides for anyone above the age of 12 if you're primarily in Islands of Adventure
>the rides for kids are pretty solid too
>clone rides are far superior, Ripsaw Falls is a much better version of Splash Mountain
>big budget going into Epic Universe to continue expanding
>theming for old IPs hold up, theming for newer IPs are unbeatable (harry potter section is never not packed to the brim)
>food options are dogshit and insanely overpriced
It's really a matter of what you want to get out of a park, do you want better rides and more fun overall? Universal. Do you want nostalgia and childhood revival? Disney will be the way to go.
>harry potter section is never not packed to the brim
bullshit. outside of the lights show at Hogsmeade/Hogwarts, it's pretty chill in the evening through closing. Likewise for Diagon Alley.
>Disney's mainline hotels are phenomenal
also bullshit. they're okay. and since Covid, they're horribly overpriced. I've stayed in the Caribbean Beach resort ($$), All Stars Sports ($), and Coronado Springs ($$).
Universal's Cabana Bay ($$), Aventura ($S), and both Endless Summers ($) are far superior.
I live about 20 minutes from Disneyland. I usually go about once every 2 years when someone is visiting from out of town, or when someone offers a free ticket. I had a good friend who used to work guest relations who would get me in for free. Here's my take the past few times I've been. Yes, it's always fun. But the lines and the crowds are fricking ridiculous. It's pretty common for some of the more popular attractions to have a 2+ hour wait. The food in Disneyland is terrible, with the exception of the churros which really are good. Even if you leave the park and go to downtown Disney, the food is still ridiculously overpriced and not very good. The price of food, admission, parking and a Disney hotel has gotten so expensive that I really wouldn't recommend it. By the time you fly out to California and do a 3 day Disney trip, you could have done a 2 week trip to Europe instead and have an authentic experience. As far as California is concerned, Yosemite National Park is 100 times better than Disneyland. That being said, if you're already in Socal doing a trip, you might as well do 1 day in the park. But Disney should not be the highlight of your trip.
There's an ongoing thread about theme parks here if you're interested:
no its garbo now. all the soul has been ripped out over the past 20 years.
get yourself a time machine and go back to 1990 if you want a good Disneyworld experience, that's when WDW peaked, right after the introduction of MGM Studios but before getting rid of 20000 leagues under the sea.
>1990
I would say 1994. MGM was more fleshed out and had Tower of Terror. Most of the hotels existed. Epcot was still in its original state. Spectomagic was running. Splash Mountain was open. 20k was still there for most of the year… and after they closed it the original Alien Encounter soft opened. The castle wasn’t a birthday cake yet. It was all downhill after that
Disney World used to be pretty unique and pioneered a lot of things that the hospitality and amusement industries have since copied. Places like Dollywood out-Disney them in a lot of ways. As others said, Universal has surpassed them in many areas. The same is true of their cruise line, other cruise lines copied them and offer even more at half the price.
Disney World caters to suckers who blow over $10k on "once in a lifetime" vacations and existing obsessed fans. In my opinion the obsessed fans are all Disney Adults but they like to think that only applies to people who devote their lives to the Disney brand. The existing fans usually have a lot of nostalgia from childhood vacations. Take the Magic Kingdom, for example. This is a theme park where toddlers and even babies can ride most attractions. The park leans young and if you've never been there and go as an adult, it's really childish and boring. But the existing fans don't see this because they have a lot of nostalgia for the place.
The changes mentioned by the others can make it very stressful place to visit. The original aspects are being replaced by IPs and a lot of these IPs are modern as opposed to classics. Way too much soulless Pixar garbage. They've poured billions into a few recent attractions but it's not enough. Their parks are priced as individual experiences but a couple of them have very little to do. Their animal kingdom, for example, only has 6 rides and has seen very few additions since it opened in the 90s. I used to enjoy going there but now I refuse to go back.
WDW still is pretty unique. I've been to several non-Disney theme parks across the world and none of them can compare to the WDW-Disney Springs footprint. Maybe once Epic Universe opens up in Orlando then it'll have some competition but, there is no substitute for WDW right now.
The Universal-CityWalk footprint is very comparable even without Epic Universe. It's not spread over 43 square miles of swampland but that's a good thing. Otherwise I agree that it's unique in that sense but that's not what I meant.
When I was a kid, there weren't Great Wolf Lodges. Vegas didn't have large themed casinos. Themed restaurants hadn't come and gone. Hershey Park wasn't a resort and Cedar Point only had one hotel. Universal Orlando didn't exist and when they did they weren't as good as Disney. River Country was one of the few water parks in the country. When Disney used cards to open your hotel room, most places still gave you a metal key. Every non-Disney park could have been done in a day but Disney had multiple parks needing multiple days to see everything. Corporations used to send employees to Disney for training on the Disney way of doing things with a smile on your face (which these days not even Disney employees seem to be doing much). Now Dollywood employees are friendlier than Disney. MGM had a massive Christmas light display that everybody copied (and Disney got rid of) That's what I meant by saying they used to be pretty unique.
Disney is still the best at theming but Universal has arguably bested them in that area too plus Disney's latest efforts have been a bit thematically lacking. I'm not saying you get an equivalent experience to the Walt Disney World Resort by going to Dollywood... but Dollywood is pretty nice and there is plenty to do in the area. Disney Springs itself is not unique. I like some of the eateries and the old marketplace section, the rest of it is kinda a mall. It can be compared with CityWalk, Broadway at the Beach, Branson Landing, The Island at Pigeon Forge and dozens of other large themed shopping and entertainment spots. Disney probably has the better bathrooms though. Now that's something I wish that others would copy from them.
Aside from everything mentioned above, Disney’s biggest problem is that their parks suck as stand alone parks. Years ago, park hopping was included without restrictions just by getting a multi-day pass. This made it more like “one big park” so you overlooked the shortcomings of each park. Today, park hopping is a premium add-on plus it’s still currently restricted to after 2pm. Multi-day passes used to give you a big savings the more days you bought but now there is almost no savings until you hit 5 days. This means the parks are positioned as stand alone parks and guests today are more than likely to spend their day at a single park. It also costs around $150 on average per day not including extras like Genie+
As stand alone parks they are shit. Magic Kingdom is a kiddie park and their classics are all neutered with woke shit. Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom have barely any rides and you’ll finish them in half a day. Epcot is a half dead park, the front half being a disaster without an identity. The back half, the countries, is still really cool to walk around and eat and drink and shop but it’s not $150 cool. As stand alone parks, every non-Disney park in Florida is better 1 to 1 compared to any Disney park unless you’re an obsessed Disney fan
Also, I don’t think Disney purposely positioned their parks as stand-alone parks. There is almost no savings on multi-day passes until you buy 5 days because they want people to buy 5 or more days. The average vacation is 7 days and they want you to spend those days with them. Preferably in their hotels. They made park hopping a premium because of greed and also because they want to keep people in one park. The same reason they have kept the after 2pm covid restriction on park hopping, it’s better for staffing and resource allocation. As a side-effect, however, they now have four stand-alone parks that suck as individual parks on their own. Universal is priced similarly but has better savings and promotions with multiple days. For example they’re currently running a deal where you buy 2 days and get 3 extra days free. Imagine if you only had one day though and spent your $150 on god awful Hollywood Studios instead of Islands of Adventure.
The problem is always Animal Kingdom and MGM. Animal Kingdom simply doesn't have enough rides form opening day and MGM relied on shows and hybrid show/rides to fill up the day.
I think Disney in general have a pretty terrible track record of parks opened since the 90s. Disney Studios Paris was an utter embarrassment when it opened and it's still lacking now (I guess Frozen Land might make it a full day park but you'd still need to fill your day with some very mediocre flat rides).
On a related note, when I first went to MGM I was picked to do one of the stunts (I was at the boat controls where they throw a huge wave at you). Was neat.
Yeah. Tokyo Disney Sea is the only one that hasn’t been a miss and that park isn’t theirs, it’s owned by the Oriental Land Company. MGM having nothing used to be fine when park hopping was free plus it’s a short distance to Epcot. But now it’s a premium and they want you to spend a whole day there despite having no attractions. The overhaul over the last decade replaced attractions when the new stuff should have been additions. The place is too small and congested and it’s even worse post-overhaul plus attendance has increased because of the (awful) star wars area. Animal Kingdom has even less to do and I really hate the Disney Adults who obsess over it like it’s their best park and swear it’s a full day experience despite the average guest being done by noon. It looks really nice but there is nothing to do.
Regional parks have dozens of rides to eat people and they don’t get the crowds that Orlando parks get. Space is not a problem in Disney World, they have no excuse for not having more attractions at any of their parks even if they’re Disney-themed off the shelf flat rides. And even though people say Disney is great for kids, all their parks are lacking a kids ride area where the parents can just sit and eat and drink a beer or glass of wine while they ride things within your sight.
No. Disney blows.
Just take the 5-6 grand you'd spend on a week long trip for a family and go to Europe or Japan or something for two weeks.
%3D%3D
This is the best one
Anyone else been there recently? I just went a couple weeks ago, and it's like they decided to not pay their electric bill. Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain etc were so dark to the point where you couldn't see most of the effects. For example in HM I could barely make out the caretaker/dog in the graveyard despite them being five feet away. Stars almost invisible in SM. But the dinosaur ride was the worst offender, absolutely pitch fricking black, and half the animatronics (that you could see) were turned off. Tower of Terror doesn't do that cool starfield transformation into an elevator door at the end either.
>inb4 "you're just getting old and your eyes are going"
Had kids as young as 12 in our party and they couldn't see a damn thing either.
Noticed lots of other various aspects of disrepair, like Mission Space rattling and creaking like it's about to rip apart and launch you out of the building all the way to MGM. At least you can still walk straight on it because no one likes it.
Multiple rides are often down at the same time recently too. This has been a problem for a couple years now. They must have cut back on maintenance staff and budget. This plus a lot of aging rides that are decades old and should have their entire ride systems replaced. I used to enjoy going to their parks but a lot of my enjoyment was rooted in nostalgia and it’s just not worth the hassle and stress they put you through or the expense. Overrated and outdated, with strong emphasis on outdated.
I noticed that too, and they ran several rides at half capacity around late evening in multiple parks I was in. I can't say for sure, but my gut feeling is them trying to cut costs on exactly what you said, because turning Tower of Terror from a 45 minute wait to a 90 is acceptable knowing that people will still wait for it, and if they don't, who cares. They've already paid.
The other thing is just how horribly the app has affected the park. You see "oh wow, Test Track is only 30 minutes!" and so does every other person in the park. A three minute jog later and the line has exploded past the queue into the walkways.
While I'm b***hing, we tried to get on the new star wars ride, but it was inexplicably shut down all morning. When we did get in line, it did not move for an hour. Presumably all the backed up fastpass+ people having their tickets honored in front of the standby line. Most employees said "sorry I can't tell you that information" when asked how long we would be in limbo. One chiller, more jaded dude did though, and based on the fact we were only in the second room of many queue rooms, he estimated four hours, two at best. We ditched to ride rocknroller coaster twice more, ToT, and the falcon ride, but people were camped out in ponchos in the rain for hours after.
Later I checked the wait time and it had climbed to SIX fricking hours, and people were still joining the line at 7 pm
WTF bros, is this the summer to go to avoid the crowds?
You can try, but shit like Star Wars (at Disney Hollywood) and Avatar (at Animal Kingdom) are likely still going to have 2 hour+ wait. The park is shit, even with the Genie Pass, which costs extra money. Go right after a hurricane if you live nearby.
Kinda hoping that Early September will be dead (aside from Labor Day). There's at least 2 other Brit anons from this thread going.
>went 1999 new years
>Epcot was the busiest I've ever seen it on New Years
>days after it was empty and most rides were walk on
Disney sucks for new years btw, they mostly just do their normal shows, Universal put on concerts and do special fireworks.
i'm going early september as well. hoping for some empty parks