We went to Disney this summer. It was not empty, but it was expensive.
The crowds were not as big as usual, but the parks were hardly empty.
In the last few weeks, stories in the media have claimed Disney World is “empty” this summer. Our family recently vacationed there and found it was hardly “empty” with the usual crowds and long lines for dozens of rides at two of the four Florida parks.
The Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios parks were just as crowded as they have been in the past. Animal Kingdom and Epcot, however, were not at their usual capacity but still had quite a decent crowd.
We did notice a low level of people staying at our particular resort, Coronado Springs. The parking lot for the section of the resort our room was located in was nearly empty with maybe two dozen cars parked in the lot.
A word of warning to those eyeing Coronado Springs for a future trip: This property is HUGE. Unless you request and pony up more cash for a preferred room, you will do a lot of walking.
Disney offers transportation to all parks from their properties and in the past those buses are packed. This time around, however, they were almost empty every time we rode to a park. Even the Monorail had no line to take it from Epcot to the Magic Kingdom.
As the planner of the trip, this was the least magical trip to Disney I’ve ever taken. I still had a lot of fun, but there were a lot of things on this trip that shouldn’t have been issues at all.
One major complaint our entire family had was the lack of water bottle-filling stations in the parks. When you and your family are tramping around the parks during July in Florida, you shouldn’t have to hunt around to refill your water bottle, PERIOD.
The fill stations we did find - a mere two - were hidden near restrooms and not on any of the maps for the parks. The point of hiding or not offering these stations more frequently was clearly to drive traffic to refreshment stands - which I will get to in a bit.
More To The Story
I’ve been to Disney World in Florida more than two dozen times over my lifetime and I can honestly say this was the least relaxing trip I personally have ever had there. Here’s why:
Overall - cost was a huge factor. This trip was more than twice as expensive as the one our family took in 2016. The nickel and diming Disney does on top of your resort and ticket costs has become astounding.
We like to stay “on property” when we travel to Disney, but that may change in the future given that the room this time around was more expensive by at least 40% over our 2016 trip.
The food onsite at both the resort and in the parks was ridiculous both in cost and lack of variety.
A single bottle of water will run you anywhere from $3.75 to nearly $5 depending on where you pick one up. Meals an average of between $80 to $90 for our family of four regardless of where we ate.
Park tickets when we booked our trip were over $130 a person per park, but if you want to get the most bang for that buck, guests are forced to use the My Disney Experience app in order to access “Genie+,” the system that replaced “fast passes” allowing guests to bypass long stand-by lines for some rides.
Here’s the thing - in the past, guests would get a couple of free fast passes as part of their park ticket. Now, with Genie+ there are “lightning lanes” that one has to pay for per guest and the price varies by day and by park
For example, Genie+ at the Magic Kingdom was around $27 during our visit. For a family of four to take advantage of Genie+ for that park, that’s an added cost of $108 plus tax.
Folks might say, “Well, then skip Genie+.” And I would respond “That’s not really an option if you want to ride more than a handful of rides during your visit.”
Why? I noted that only three rides had wait times that were less than 45 minutes; Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, The People Mover, and Carousel of Progress.
Most rides had insane wait times of over an hour and a half.
Popular rides like Space Mountain, The Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain, and Pirates of the Caribbean typically had wait times of between one to two hours. Small World and Peter Pan’s Flight were consistently at the two-hour mark.
The Seven Dwarves Minecar coaster almost always had a wait time of over two hours. Here’s another rub with this ride: It is not included in Genie+. Disney makes you pay separately for an “individual lightning lane” for that ride. The individual lightning lane cost for that ride ranged from $12 to $20 per person during our visit.
Similarly, in Hollywood Studios, the Star Wars Rise of the Resistance (RoR) ride is also an individual lightning lane purchase. On the day we visited that park, the cost was $22 per person for that ride - the same cost as Genie+ for that park on that day.
We had already purchased Genie+ for that day ($88 bucks for our family) and opted not to buy the lightning lane for RoR. The result was our family was unable to experience that ride; the line never dropped below two hours during our visit and it shut down at least twice while we were there.
Other than cost, being tethered to my phone on Disney’s app the entire trip stripped the magic and spontaneity from my personal experience as well as my family’s.
I found the My Disney Experience app to be glitchy, clumsy, and hard to navigate. The app also had serious issues with altering any booked plans, including lightning lanes.
The app is supposed to allow you to check in and go to your room directly, bypassing the front desk. That didn’t work at all. The same thing happened at check-out time, however, I will say that the security guard at the entry point of our resort being able to check us out within 30 seconds on his tablet made up for my frustration with the app.
Through the app, Disney’s use of “virtual queues” (VQ) for certain rides was also a huge hassle and a source of major stress.
Two rides, Tron Light Cycle Coaster in Magic Kingdom and Guardians of the Galaxy in Epcot, have no stand-by line and require the use of a VQ to get on the ride. There are also individual lightning lanes for those rides, but they were as costly as RoR was.
There are only two times that one can get a VQ for the rides: 7 a.m. and 1 p.m.
Waking up at 6:55 a.m. in order to secure a spot before they disappeared is NOT how anyone wants to spend their time in the allegedly most magical place on Earth.
If your group likes to go into the park later in the day as our family does, you might miss out on these rides altogether as the VQ fills up in seconds and the individual lightning lanes often sell out quickly. In other words, those who like to go into the park later essentially are forced to alter their plans if they want to ride these rides.
That said, both Tron and Guardians of the Galaxy delivered. Both rides had amazingly staged line areas with a lot to take in while one waited through the queue and both were high in terms of the thrill factor.
My kids liked Tron best, but my favorite was Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind.
This ride was a joy from start to finish - I will not reveal spoilers like the video below, but I can say that swirling through the smoothest coaster I have ever been on to Earth, Wind, and Fire’s “September” was a total rush.
We managed to ride Guardians three times during our trip due to having purchased the Disney After-Hours event pass for Epcot.
The after-hours events are special ticketed nights that are limited in number, meaning the park is at very low capacity and ride waits are small. The after-hours event starts at 10 p.m. and runs until 1 a.m., however, you can check in early starting at 7 p.m.
In hindsight, our family could have nixed going to Epcot with a regular ticket and just attended using the after-hours event ticket. We entered the park before 9 p.m. and caught the fireworks show before hopping on a few rides after the park closed for regular guests. It was well worth the extra cost of the after-hours ticket which typically ranges around $124 to $136 per person depending on which park is holding the event.
If I had to sum things up: Disney has killed the magic through its app and through the high cost of everything it offers.
Our family overall had a fun trip but I, as the planner & organizer, was stressed out due to Disney’s app and anxiety over possibly missing out on top rides.
With food and beverage costs, room costs, ticket costs, and then Genie+ and individual lightning lane costs piling on, a Florida Disney vacation has become prohibitively expensive for the average family.