Frustrated and Need a Hug

[BridgetR3]

I got stressed reading your post OP!

We are headed to disney in a couple of weeks, booked about a month ago.
We have not made any fastpasses or dining reservations yet. Our only plan is to be at the park at opening and see how it goes from there..

Hope you are able to enjoy your trip!

While I hope you have a wonderful trip, I feel anxiety about your way of touring! I'm sure it will work if you don't go during a busy time and don't want to ride any of the more popular attractions but it gives me hives just thinking about it. lol.....

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

While I hope you have a wonderful trip, I feel anxiety about your way of touring! I'm sure it will work if you don't go during a busy time and don't want to ride any of the more popular attractions but it gives me hives just thinking about it. lol.....

Remember.....standby is an option

No one is stopping anyone from riding a ride, even a popular attraction, except for if it is closed for refurb, mechanical or weather related or an issue with a guest causing a sensor to go off or something of that sort.

 

[BridgetR3]

Remember.....standby is an option

No one is stopping anyone from riding a ride, even a popular attraction, except for if it is closed for refurb, mechanical or weather related or an issue with a guest causing a sensor to go off or something of that sort.

Ahhh yes, I totally get this but just a weekend or two ago, FOP was a 6 hour wait. I mean - you can wait, but it won't be pretty.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Ahhh yes, I totally get this but just a weekend or two ago, FOP was a 6 hour wait. I mean - you can wait, but it won't be pretty.

Yeah but that was President's Day weekend which from what I understand the crowds rival as being one of the busiest of the whole year. FOP won't be 6 hours nor even close to that on a normal day not by a long shot. Gotta take things in with context ya know?

People just often forget there's a standby OR *gasp* that someone is ok with check day of availability.

If it makes you uncomfortable or not want to ever ride a ride that would be standby or by means of FP the day of that's totally understandable. That doesn't mean others are of the mentallity that it's pre-booked FP or bust

 

[MaryKatesMom]

The OP goes once every 3-5 years. I understand how precious the time in WDW can be in that circumstances.

 

[mom2rtk]

The OP goes once every 3-5 years. I understand how precious the time in WDW can be in that circumstances.

I absolutely agree that makes a big difference.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

The OP goes once every 3-5 years. I understand how precious the time in WDW can be in that circumstances.

This pretty much goes for all of my vacations (including Disney). I don't go to the same place year after year (we do Disney every 3 years or so). When we pick a place we have a list of things we must do and plan accordingly. We know we won't be back to that place anytime soon or ever again for that matter so our time is precious and valuable.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

The OP goes once every 3-5 years. I understand how precious the time in WDW can be in that circumstances.

I go even less frequent than the OP (about every 6 years). It's why I mentioned Standby. If you really want to ride a ride setting yourself up that it's FP or nothing (as the other poster phrased it) is bound to lead to stress and disappointment if you can't get said FP. Waiting in line sucks, but it's still an option. As for my next trip I was wanting to go for the 50th if I could convince my husband but no way am I going if Epcot's spine and Spaceship Earth are under refurb so TBD on the next trip.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

This pretty much goes for all of my vacations (including Disney). I don't go to the same place year after year (we do Disney every 3 years or so). When we pick a place we have a list of things we must do and plan accordingly. We know we won't be back to that place anytime soon or ever again for that matter so our time is precious and valuable.

We just accept that we won't be able to do and see all as we're the same way. We don't really vacation to the same destination over and over again. A few places by certain circumstances we have been able too. When my husband was on a field assignment in MD we visited D.C. multiple times because of that. But mostly it's one and done and never go back again type vacations.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

We just accept that we won't be able to do and see all as we're the same way. We don't really vacation to the same destination over and over again. A few places by certain circumstances we have been able too. When my husband was on a field assignment in MD we visited D.C. multiple times because of that. But mostly it's one and done and never go back again type vacations.

We can't see it all but there are must do's. When we go to Disney we make sure there no refurbs for certain rides. If ToT or Splash is on refurb we will reschedule. Of course crap happens but we have no issues shifting dates around. We like our FP's and since we go for longer trips we make multiple FP for our favorites to ensure we get to ride it at least once but we've always managed multiple times.

So if we had a split stay booked and this new policy came up I would change to one resort or move my dates so I can get one resort. A 4/3 split is going to be pretty hard to get SDC and FOP once let alone twice.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We can't see it all but there are must do's. When we go to Disney we make sure there no refurbs for certain rides. If ToT or Splash is on refurb we will reschedule. Of course crap happens but we have no issues shifting dates around. We like our FP's and since we go for longer trips we make multiple FP for our favorites to ensure we get to ride it at least once but we've always managed multiple times.

So if we had a split stay booked and this new policy came up I would change to one resort or move my dates so I can get one resort. A 4/3 split is going to be pretty hard to get SDC and FOP once let alone twice.

lol make sure no refurbs lol you know how Disney works

I had been planning my Sep 2017 trip since summer of 2015. Here's all what happened in that time frame:

~MNSSHP dates got moved up--announced 4/6/17 and was after I had already booked the resort stay. The week I had been really wanting because I would get the decorations but not the parties...that didn't pan out.

~Splash went on refurb; rumored but appearently the dates were not originally when it actually went on refurb. Announced it would be closed during trip just a bit after mid-March 2017 after I had already booked the resort stay.

~Great Movie ride closed permanently before the trip--announced mid-July well after resort booked (they gave a month's notice). Kicking myself that I only went on it once in 2011.

~Over at Universal for my husband Dragon Challenge -announced towards the end of July for a Sep 4th closing date it would close permanently after resort booked (that was just days before we would be there).

~Oh yeah and days before I had to watch completely nervous about Hurricane Irma. We made the decision to go but holy cow did her path shift like no one thought it did. Came very close to us in terms of the eye which doesn't happen in Orlando really. Understanding that the parks would be closed for approximately 2 days def. helped our expectations. I got very lucky though because those were planned Universal days so no loss of FP or ADRs.

~We were able to see T2 at Universal for the last time so that was nice as it was closed down permanently.

~Still haven't seen Fantasmic! because in 2011 it was stormed out and in 2017 the only timeframe after the hurricane fully passed through that it rained and was cancelled..it would rain of course when I had scored last minute-ish (a couple of hours ahead of the scheduled time) FPs for it (we would have done Standby though).

~We were able to extend a day to make up for one of the lost days at Universal (that meant arrival day we went to Universal instead of relaxing at Disney Springs) and that last day was covered under SWA's hurricane dates so no change in airfare, Disney was able to extend our room and give us the room discount we had but unfortunately the rental car extension couldn't apply any discounts so it cost us a lot for the extra day in comparison to the whole rest of the time.

I could even be missing something. There's been things over the years I never even got a chance to experience because of the length of time in between trips-Backlot Tour is one of them.

I'd say though honestly you're lucky you can reschedule. There wasn't a way I could do that I mean I could but it would have thrown too many things off. I don't think a decent number of people can reschule; it'd be more likely cancel if they did it and maybe hope sometime later they could make it work. Or they go when they can and gotta roll through the punches (hurricane not included though).

As for split stays yeah that is a terrible thing going on; can't even figure out in my head why Disney is opting to not segment it out between onsite people and offsite people for those purposes. It's why I mentioned in this thread I can understand that because it's nuts what's going on for that. But still that's different in my mind though than presenting the situation like "you can only ride a ride with FP and if you don't get a FP you can't ride the ride". I mean no matter how many days you have on your trip someone is going to be out a FP for it as there's only so many FPs available to begin with. Would be unfortunate, and maybe that's a personal thing, if someone felt like they couldn't ride the ride at all because they couldn't get a FP. Maybe the wait time is too long on a personal level to wait but that's not something you know until you're there and it's a choice you can make at that time when you're actually there if it works to fit in. Plus, even as low chance as we may think there is, checking day of or a few days before is an option too.

And TBH I won't even mention all that is closed during this weekend's trip to DLR. It's too many to count . One of the more disappointing is the entire castle has a scrim on it.

 

[EdnaMarieMode]

As for split stays yeah that is a terrible thing going on; can't even figure out in my head why Disney is opting to not segment it out between onsite people and offsite people for those purposes. It's why I mentioned in this thread I can understand that because it's nuts what's going on for that. But still that's different in my mind though than presenting the situation like "you can only ride a ride with FP and if you don't get a FP you can't ride the ride". I mean no matter how many days you have on your trip someone is going to be out a FP for it as there's only so many FPs available to begin with. Would be unfortunate, and maybe that's a personal thing, if someone felt like they couldn't ride the ride at all because they couldn't get a FP. Maybe the wait time is too long on a personal level to wait but that's not something you know until you're there and it's a choice you can make at that time when you're actually there if it works to fit in. Plus, even as low chance as we may think there is, checking day of or a few days before is an option too.

And TBH I won't even mention all that is closed during this weekend's trip to DLR. It's too many to count . One of the more disappointing is the entire castle has a scrim on it.

We have had so many changes come up between any time we started planning and the time we actually arrived as well. I always say we can't control the wind but we can adjust our sails. Seems like you were able to have a lot of great stuff work out despite the changes between planning/ execution!

The bit with the split stays is kind of the elephant in the room/ loophole that's being closed here. People have booked 1 night onsite cheapo stays before their actual planned stay (so, 1 night at a FW campsite followed by 1 week at BC as an example), to open the FP booking window early. Alternately, they book 1 night onsite with park tickets for the whole trip which previously would open a FP window for the entire stay (or at least open each day individually at 60 days out, I'm not sure which but either way not fair to those actually staying onsite for the entire trip). In order to combat this, if your 1 night stay no longer affords you the ability to book all of your FP for the entire stay then there's no point booking a room for this purpose. It would be nice if they could sort out those with legitimate split stays (like give the 2 stays one reservation number and then the entire stay is subject to 1 cancellation policy, merging them together in a sense) that would help but I'm not going to count on it.

What's in it for Disney is that there will be more availability for the resorts that suffer most for this (like the campsites), or people will have to choose to spend more $$ to book the one resort for the whole stay (instead of maybe saving a few $$ booking some nights elsewhere) or booking 1 night and then staying offsite completely.

Unfortunately, those of us with legitimate split stays (either couldn't book the entire week in 1 place, or just want to see 2 resorts, or just trying to save a few $$) are also impacted by the change.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We have had so many changes come up between any time we started planning and the time we actually arrived as well. I always say we can't control the wind but we can adjust our sails. Seems like you were able to have a lot of great stuff work out despite the changes between planning/ execution!

Thank you. It was an amazing trip even with all the stuff going on.

One of the things with this weekend's trip in LA is while we've got Splash to go on at DLR this weekend, which we didn't get to in 2017 at WDW, Space Mountain, which we got to go on in 2017 at WDW, is closed for refurb at DLR so that's a bummer . It's like let's play switcheroo on rides lol.

To the bolded--very nice quote too

The bit with the split stays is kind of the elephant in the room/ loophole that's being closed here. People have booked 1 night onsite cheapo stays before their actual planned stay (so, 1 night at a FW campsite followed by 1 week at BC as an example), to open the FP booking window early. Alternately, they book 1 night onsite with park tickets for the whole trip which previously would open a FP window for the entire stay (or at least open each day individually at 60 days out, I'm not sure which but either way not fair to those actually staying onsite for the entire trip). In order to combat this, if your 1 night stay no longer affords you the ability to book all of your FP for the entire stay then there's no point booking a room for this purpose. It would be nice if they could sort out those with legitimate split stays (like give the 2 stays one reservation number and then the entire stay is subject to 1 cancellation policy, merging them together in a sense) that would help but I'm not going to count on it.

What's in it for Disney is that there will be more availability for the resorts that suffer most for this (like the campsites), or people will have to choose to spend more $$ to book the one resort for the whole stay (instead of maybe saving a few $$ booking some nights elsewhere) or booking 1 night and then staying offsite completely.

Unfortunately, those of us with legitimate split stays (either couldn't book the entire week in 1 place, or just want to see 2 resorts, or just trying to save a few $$) are also impacted by the change.

Ugh yeah I know I've been following one thread (I know it's not the only one out there). I've been shaking my head ever since people started reporting split stays were being affected. If people are staying onsite for the length of their trip it's like a slap in the face to do something like this. So many reasons why people do split stays too. If I was more confident in Disney's IT maybe just maybe you could see the rationale but alas Disney's IT leaves much to be desired--one of the local DISers in my area is one of the fortunate people whose FP window opened up early thanks to you know Disney's IT

 

[JinxedSydney]

The new FP booking rules do not apply to DVC/DVC split stays.

Unless something has changed, my experience was this: due to some funky reservation with the DVC points (LONG, long story), we had a "split" stay at the BLT. However, we stayed in the same room. I had to make two sets of FP+ and DP reservations, depending on the date. And yes, by the time the second date came up for me to make the next set of reservations, rides were gone. We made the best of it and made sure to rope drop for FOP twice. It was worth it.

 

[disneygirlsng]

Unless something has changed, my experience was this: due to some funky reservation with the DVC points (LONG, long story), we had a "split" stay at the BLT. However, we stayed in the same room. I had to make two sets of FP+ and DP reservations, depending on the date. And yes, by the time the second date came up for me to make the next set of reservations, rides were gone. We made the best of it and made sure to rope drop for FOP twice. It was worth it.

I don't have personal experience, but from everything I've read on here, ADR reservations have been separate for split stays for a while, but FPs should have been continuous. So that's weird.