I'm never taking WDW for granted ever again

[Disney loving Iowan]

I've never felt so starved for fresh produce than when I'm at WDW on vacation. I've lived in CA nearly all my adult life and I just can't get over how terrible the produce is in Florida and the east coast in general. We literally book club level JUST for the access to fresh fruits and veggies at WDW. It's ridiculous to have to do that. Finding a salad made with more than just cheap iceberg and a few shredded carrots is an exercise in itself. And why do they throw cheese on every salad at WDW?

The produce carts at DLR are amazing. I love the fresh pineapple spears and veggie cups and the pickles!

This must just be in CA because it sure isn't in AZ lol. I grew up on the east coast and the fruit was always better there. The fruit here just doesn't have any flavor.

 

[DLgal]

This must just be in CA because it sure isn't in AZ lol. I grew up on the east coast and the fruit was always better there. The fruit here just doesn't have any flavor.

I grew up in NJ and other than tomatoes, produce was... not great.

 

[kristensideaoffun]

This must just be in CA because it sure isn't in AZ lol. I grew up on the east coast and the fruit was always better there. The fruit here just doesn't have any flavor.

AZ isn’t the most hospitable climate to transport fresh fruits and vegetables. Once produce is put in the refrigerated trucks they start to lose their flavor. I used to see open cargo tractor trailers full to the brim with tomatoes during the limited time I lived in Northern California. In Southern California, fruit and veggies don’t have to travel far to get to stores and we can get pretty much any produce fresh year round thanks to growers in Mexico. As a matter of fact, I get a CSA box of fresh produce delivered to my doorstep every Monday. Super fresh fruit directly from the grower.

 

[DebbieB]

I love both for different reasons. Did WDW in April and July this year, DL in September. Don’t recall rude CM’s in either location.

 

[Disney loving Iowan]

You know I did just remember an incident with a rude CM from when we were there in April. We were sitting at a table at Jolly Holiday having breakfast and a CM was riding down Main Street yelling at guests to get our of her way. She was quite loud about it too. Anyone in the way of her car that she was being chauffeured in would get an ear full. She was a weird CM though. Dressed in a long fur coat and her hair was white on one side and black on the other.

 

[fly girl]

But Cosmic Rewind IS like the best Disney ride ever !!!

I wouldn't say "best" but it is pretty great. I was impressed!

I would say it is arguably the best coaster Disney has put together, and in the top 5 for the best thrill ride.

In any case:
I will always love DL more than WDW, just in terms of how exhausted I get at WDW.
I just feel something special, from the esplanade and being able to walk to either park, to just the little things like seeing Walt's apartment, POTC, etc.

The queues are better at WDW, the food at TS is better, AK is obviously no comparison, and the "bubble" is more easily maintained there.

I would argue that almost everything else (including QS food), is better at DL.

So funny. We liked Cosmic Rewind, but didn't love it. My family much prefers GoTG - Mission Breakout! That's why I love Disney people, we all have our own favorites.

Best coaster definitely for us goes to Expedition Everest. Yes, even with the disco Yeti.

And our favorite ride in all parks is still Flight of Passage. Although I have noticed on the past few visits that it is getting a little blurry. Not sure if it was screen or the glasses. I thought it was the glasses, and that is an easy fix for Disney.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Although I have noticed on the past few visits that it is getting a little blurry. Not sure if it was screen or the glasses. I thought it was the glasses, and that is an easy fix for Disney.

I noticed that too but when we first went on it in 2017 with my motion sickness I had my eyes closed for most of it whereas this past trip in May I was able to have my eyes open the whole time basically without getting too affected. I didn't have a comparison as much because of that but both times we rode it in May I thought "is this a little blurry or what?" I don't think it's the glasses. It's like a lot of the rides that rely on 3D they get out of sync after a while. T2 over at Universal was sooooo bad at the end of its run because it hadn't been touched up in a long while.

I decided to look it up since you mentioned this and apparently FOP is getting a lot of comments about it. One source says the 3D projections have shifted over time, which is basically what happens over time. Without a correction it just gets worse and worse like T2 was. The information I saw was from way back in Feb. My bets are Disney won't do much for long while.

 

[fly girl]

I noticed that too but when we first went on it in 2017 with my motion sickness I had my eyes closed for most of it whereas this past trip in May I was able to have my eyes open the whole time basically without getting too affected. I didn't have a comparison as much because of that but both times we rode it in May I thought "is this a little blurry or what?" I don't think it's the glasses. It's like a lot of the rides that rely on 3D they get out of sync after a while. T2 over at Universal was sooooo bad at the end of its run because it hadn't been touched up in a long while.

I decided to look it up since you mentioned this and apparently FOP is getting a lot of comments about it. One source says the 3D projections have shifted over time, which is basically what happens over time. Without a correction it just gets worse and worse like T2 was. The information I saw was from way back in Feb. My bets are Disney won't do much for long while.

Oh man, I really wanted it to be the glasses!! lol

With their current track record of maintenance, it won't be on the schedule until 2035.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Oh man, I really wanted it to be the glasses!! lol

With their current track to maintenance it won't be on the schedule until 2035.

*sigh* ain't that the truth!

 

[kikismom]

I noticed that too but when we first went on it in 2017 with my motion sickness I had my eyes closed for most of it whereas this past trip in May I was able to have my eyes open the whole time basically without getting too affected. I didn't have a comparison as much because of that but both times we rode it in May I thought "is this a little blurry or what?" I don't think it's the glasses. It's like a lot of the rides that rely on 3D they get out of sync after a while. T2 over at Universal was sooooo bad at the end of its run because it hadn't been touched up in a long while.

I decided to look it up since you mentioned this and apparently FOP is getting a lot of comments about it. One source says the 3D projections have shifted over time, which is basically what happens over time. Without a correction it just gets worse and worse like T2 was. The information I saw was from way back in Feb. My bets are Disney won't do much for long while.

This makes me feel better. I wanted to love that ride so much when we went in April. It was so blurry for me,. I figured it was just me. It was my husband and daughters favorite ride at AK by far. They went s second time.

 

[TikiTikiFan]

To be fair I've seen quite a lot of threads this year regarding ride issues at DL. The OP's situation is far from unique on that one. Not sure what's been going on different either ride maintenance was not kept up during their lengthy closure, or other issues but yeah.

I think we can count RSR fire as a one off but there's been a lot of chatter I've seen regarding the rides in general.

I'd hate for people to discount the OP's experience in its entirety because they are so loyal to DL and that tends to happen a lot on the DL side. Give the OP constructive criticism if you feel like it but don't just scoff at it because it's the OG park. DL is a locals park for a reason, give people grace here. I remember one of the things we had a tiny difficulty with is we didn't feel like there was a lot of directional things at DL and it was explained to us locals frequent it so that's not as heavily needed. To round it out to the OP's title sometimes people take for granted how much of a locals park DL is and forget that to many it's a destination not a "pop on by for the evening or a quick weekend stay" place.

To echo this, our trip overlapped with the same days OP was there and that Friday/Saturday was a miserable time. I commented to my son that if this was my first DL experience as a first timer, I wouldn't be back.

I've never seen so many ride break downs, the crowds were unbearable, Genie+ was useless under the pressure, even the bathrooms had lines, CMs were also cracking under the pressure so we also encountered many rude CMs, it was pure disorganized chaos. And then on Saturday... it rained and we all know DL isn't built for rain creating the perfect storm of bad experiences. And the guests were on their worst behavior too! After the fireworks near the hub, people were actually pushing and shoving to get into the walkways... grown men shoving women and kids out of their way. It was scary, crowd safety hazard level worry in some moments. This isn't a mosh pit, this is Disneyland! I've never seen such behavior there.. ever.

I'm usually an extremely positive DL guest and I love our park but I even left thinking to myself, "Let's try a new vacation spot..."

But also... the October curse! This month is the absolute worst time to visit because it is so crowded! And this is likely the first month we've seen such high crowd levels since reopening and DL is not staffed to handle it. Some of the CMs we talked to told us they were still struggling with staffing issues.

 

[V.I.N.CENT.]

To echo this, our trip overlapped with the same days OP was there and that Friday/Saturday was a miserable time. I commented to my son that if this was my first DL experience as a first timer, I wouldn't be back.

I've never seen so many ride break downs, the crowds were unbearable, Genie+ was useless under the pressure, even the bathrooms had lines, CMs were also cracking under the pressure so we also encountered many rude CMs, it was pure disorganized chaos. And then on Saturday... it rained and we all know DL isn't built for rain creating the perfect storm of bad experiences. And the guests were on their worst behavior too! After the fireworks near the hub, people were actually pushing and shoving to get into the walkways... grown men shoving women and kids out of their way. It was scary, crowd safety hazard level worry in some moments. This isn't a mosh pit, this is Disneyland! I've never seen such behavior there.. ever.

I'm usually an extremely positive DL guest and I love our park but I even left thinking to myself, "Let's try a new vacation spot..."

But also... the October curse! This month is the absolute worst time to visit because it is so crowded! And this is likely the first month we've seen such high crowd levels since reopening and DL is not staffed to handle it. Some of the CMs we talked to told us they were still struggling with staffing issues.

Last October was just as bad. it was the first time we felt like not coming back for a while due to the crowd size and other issues. Our new golden rule is to avoid October like the plague!

 

[TXAKDisneyFan]

I noticed that too but when we first went on it in 2017 with my motion sickness I had my eyes closed for most of it whereas this past trip in May I was able to have my eyes open the whole time basically without getting too affected. I didn't have a comparison as much because of that but both times we rode it in May I thought "is this a little blurry or what?" I don't think it's the glasses. It's like a lot of the rides that rely on 3D they get out of sync after a while. T2 over at Universal was sooooo bad at the end of its run because it hadn't been touched up in a long while.

I decided to look it up since you mentioned this and apparently FOP is getting a lot of comments about it. One source says the 3D projections have shifted over time, which is basically what happens over time. Without a correction it just gets worse and worse like T2 was. The information I saw was from way back in Feb. My bets are Disney won't do much for long while.

I feel like the inside part before the bioluminescence "turns on" has been blurry for years.

 

[kikismom]

Last October was just as bad. it was the first time we felt like not coming back for a while due to the crowd size and other issues. Our new golden rule is to avoid October like the plague!

Yep, we were there the first week of October 2021 and I was miserable. Funny thing though, we took a family on their first trip and they loved it. They had no idea of what DL was like in the past. They waited over 2 hours for RSR with no complaints and thought it was the best. I have been so many times when crowds were minimal that for me 2 hours for anything is a no go. Plus it was between 90-100 the whole time, we had rain, thunder and lightening on one of our days too. I feel like it's all relative. I said I wouldn't be coming back for a long time and that the magic was gone after that trip. Well I stuck to it. I have a trip planned for December so it will be about 14 months between DLR trips. That is a very long time for me to wait between trips. We went to WDW in April and loved it. Of course there were crappy parts,. It was busy and hot and so spread out. But we'll go back because it was still so magical.

Avoiding DL in October makes me sad, I'm thinking this current week seemed better, at least what's being reported on the boards. I just think those first two weeks with all the school breaks may be the time to avoid.

 

[cdoc29]

Sorry to hear of your bad experience. We live on the east coast and prefer Disneyland over WDW. I still love both parks and have both good and bad experiences at each. I find Disneyland much easier to navigate as everything is in one location and not spread out.. I wouldn't give up on Disneyland, this may have been a one off experience. I know if I stopped going to WDW based off our one trip that nothing went right, crowds were unexpectedly high and I lefty feeling the cost was not justified for the experience I would have missed subsequent trips were we had a great time. Hope you you have a better trip if you try again.

 

[TXAKDisneyFan]

To echo this, our trip overlapped with the same days OP was there and that Friday/Saturday was a miserable time. I commented to my son that if this was my first DL experience as a first timer, I wouldn't be back.

I've never seen so many ride break downs, the crowds were unbearable, Genie+ was useless under the pressure, even the bathrooms had lines, CMs were also cracking under the pressure so we also encountered many rude CMs, it was pure disorganized chaos. And then on Saturday... it rained and we all know DL isn't built for rain creating the perfect storm of bad experiences. And the guests were on their worst behavior too! After the fireworks near the hub, people were actually pushing and shoving to get into the walkways... grown men shoving women and kids out of their way. It was scary, crowd safety hazard level worry in some moments. This isn't a mosh pit, this is Disneyland! I've never seen such behavior there.. ever.

I'm usually an extremely positive DL guest and I love our park but I even left thinking to myself, "Let's try a new vacation spot..."

But also... the October curse! This month is the absolute worst time to visit because it is so crowded! And this is likely the first month we've seen such high crowd levels since reopening and DL is not staffed to handle it. Some of the CMs we talked to told us they were still struggling with staffing issues.

We haven't been to DLR since August 2019. (We typically go to WDW ~5 times a year for 4-6 nights each, and twice a year for 8 or 9 nights. Never take any rest days.) The outdoor rides at WDW obviously shut down for weather a lot, but nothing like what we've experienced at DLR.

In all our trips to WDW, we've been stuck on several rides for a few minutes but only ever been walked off of Pirates (2009). We did get stuck on the Peoplemover for an annoyingly long time (like half an hour) earlier this year. And we've gotten a lot of "any time" replacement FP/FP+/Genie+ because of breakdowns over the years, but have almost always gotten to ride whatever broke down later in the day.

However over the course of 4 days at DLR in 2019 we had to be walked off Grizzly River Run (never actually got to ride), Splash, and one other ride I'm blanking on. The queues were also cleared right before we boarded at the Incredicoaster and Cars. Indy and the Matterhorn were down enough that we didn't get to ride one day at all (rode each on other days). We also never got to ride Alice in Wonderland. Not a cloud in the sky so unlike at WDW, closures weren't weather-related.

I'm hoping there aren't so many ride breakdowns when we go to DLR next month.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I feel like the inside part before the bioluminescence "turns on" has been blurry for years.

It probably has just getting steadily worse over time. I'm wishing my motion sickness had been better back in 2017 when I first rode it because it had only been open for several months at that point. I'm really not expecting Disney to take a moment to get it corrected but I sure wish they would.

 

[katyringo]

I will agree that Saturday the 15th was kinda miserable. It wasn't just the rain, but the lightning. The lightning closed everything... for hours. We were there and while we found some magic, in my trip report I mention it wasn't our best Disney day. Fantasmic didn't run at all. Literally the only time it stopped storming was just long enough for fireworks to run. All the closures with really heavy crowds did put too much pressure on genie+. Everyone had multiple expirence passes and so for the short time things were open, LL got long. I do think many folks still don't realize that those ME passes are good on a lot of none LL rides and that is what saved us. We rode pirates. That Saturday was just a unique day of heavy crowds+storms. If it had been my only day I would be pretty disappointed in disneyland too. It wasn't like WDW where storms come for a short time and are gone. This was a unique day of weather where storm after storm rolled through.

We were there for 6 days (did OBB) and I don't feel I can give an accurate idea of breakdowns because we had weather 2 of those days that impacted rides (lightning). That being said, there were times we pivoted our plans when we noticed a ride was unexpectedly down and we did have multiple expirence passes everyday. I do believe ride breakdowns are a current issue and I think your best defense to these if using genie+ is to learn how to fish for the ME's.

 

[Aurora0427]

We’ve been to WDW maybe 15-20 times? I’ve lost count. But we are local to OC now, and we go to Disneyland frequently. There’s a sizeable difference between what Disneyland was before 2020 and what it is now, although some of the differences you mentioned between the two parks were evident before Covid.

If I were going to spend thousands of dollars on a Disney vacation, it would not be at Disneyland right now, and definitely not during the month of October. I really enjoy the immersive experience of an on property WDW vacation…. And I feel like that experience is lacking at Disneyland, even if you stay on property. Mainly because of the lack of great table service options…. WDW just has Disneyland beat across the board in that regards, and we are even tired of the counter service options at Disneyland.

We were there for OBB on Thursday night and did a day at Disneyland yesterday. We stayed at Hotel Indigo…. And yesterday morning we got to walk by a homeless person shooting up with drugs at the corner of Harbor and Katella. That’s not something you see if you stay on property at either park, but the on property hotels at Disneyland are so expensive, it really eliminates those as an option for a lot of people. The value resorts at WDW give people a more reasonable on property option.
We go because we have passes and we live less than 40 minutes away. But if we still lived in Texas, I’d choose WDW for an immersive Disney vacation. I think Disneyland is perfect as part of a larger Southern California vacation…. Few days at the beach, few days at Disney, few days up in L.A. etc. etc.

 

[LondaCorc]

I'm never taking WDW for granted ever again

After 9 trips to WDW plus a college program, I finally took the plunge and went to Disneyland, because everyone says California has the better park. I can only speak to my experience, but it wasn't true in my case. Allow me to count the things I missed:

1) It decided to rain my first day and CA Adventure is basically shut down during rain. Only Soarin', Toy Story Midway Mania, and Little Mermaid were open. Lines shot up to 2.5 hrs, 1.5 hrs, and 50 min respectively. Also, people freak out at the sight of puddles. Wouldn't have been too bad, but after being up for 22 hours flying across the country I was miffed that people could walk through a tiny puddle.

2) I need a DAS. This has never been an issue in FL, but in CA they questioned whether a theme park is the right place for me. On its own, that might just be a person thinking someone with an invisible disability is faking, but it brings me to my next issue.

3) Rude Cast Members. Yes, they've gotten worse in Florida, but I've never seen levels close to what I saw in Cali. Never in a million years would I expect to hear a CM cuss a guest out because he was waiting in the wrong spot (a bunch of people used that spot as stroller parking, CM was trying to move the strollers to the proper area, and when the man asked where he was supposed to wait for his family to be done with the Golden Zephyr since the CM wanted him to move, he was told to "figure it the **** out.") While that was the worst of what I saw, there was plenty of rudeness all around. Not to say there weren't fantastic CMs (special shout out to the woman at the Disneyland hotel who let me know i could still get my Chase discount if i used my redemption card), but they were much more the exception.

4) Photopass not taking photos with our phone. I know that covid took that ability away for Photopass to take photos in all parks for a bit, but I also know they were brought back after covid restrictions eased up. At least on the east coast. But apparently, in DL they decided to keep that restriction, and refuse to let you use your own camera in certain locations, because those were reserved for Photopass.

5) The food. WDW has plenty of good food if you know where to go. DL, not so much.

6) Ride reliability. Again, not necessarily unique, but 70% of the rides I went on either broke down in line or while on the ride.

7) The lack of decent queues. You really do love your bare chain queues for the most part, don't you?

I'm going to skip over the only 2 parks, limited hotels, and the fact that DTD is way smaller than DS, because those are obvious to anyone with eyes.

And to end it on a positive note, let me talk about what I actually did like about the park compared to FL:
1) Halloween Haunted Mansion. Loved it.
2) Trader Sam's has reservations, meaning I actually got to get a seat after 5 years of trying.
3) the weather.

TL;DR Disneyland isn't the better park. WDW is massively better.

This is my first post, but I had to register and reply to this as I couldn't disagree more. I'm a west coaster (Portland, Or) and have been to disneyland hundreds of times. I have NEVER experienced rude CM's. Quite the opposite, as they have made magic for our family many, many times (every single trip). I have seen complacent CM's but not rude, and never swearing. (Maybe things have changed recently (I was last there in August for a week). I think food is a very personal thing, but if you know where to look at DLR, you can find great food. Certainly not as many options as DW, but there it is almost overwhelming. We use DAS and have never had a problem with my son with autism and he has always been treated like royalty...including our whole family. I agree with you about ride breakdowns. They need to fix that. (although 70% seems an exaggeration) I'm sorry you had a bad experience. That's always disappointing. Hopefully you live closer to WDW!