Mar 25, 20228 min read

Be Prepared: Avoid Disney Disappointment by Keeping Up With Changes

We follow A LOT of Disney forums and communities so we can keep tabs on what guests are asking about. It's great fodder for our posts here, to be honest! But there is one such category of discussion that always feels so unfortunate: Those guests who are disappointed because they were not anticipating a change by Disney that impacted their vacation. With a little bit of planning, we always feel these guests could have avoided being disappointed by knowing about and expecting changes to their vacation. And let's be honest, in the last two years, changes have become the norm rather than the exception.

In this article, we have compiled the policies we hear guests complain about most often because they were taken off guard by them, in hopes of preparing you for these changes so you aren't taken off guard. A lot of these things, unfortunately, make it a little bit harder for guests, but if you know about them ahead of time, you can still have a great time.

Let's start with the broad category of changes that came during the pandemic.

Park Reservations

Ever since re-opening in 2020, Disney parks have required guests to reserve the park they will start the day at. Originally, this was used as a capacity measure so that social distancing could be enforceable in all the parks. However, we believe Disney quickly found that this system also helps them plan their staffing and logistics, even when not enforcing capacity limits. Park reservations are likely here to stay.

Most guests actually seem to know about this, but many are still holding off too long to make a park reservation and then are disappointed when they find they can't. Even if capacity is not restricted at any level under 100% capacity, you still need to be aware of, and make park reservations as soon as you can. This is because guests are classified into "guest types" (such as annual passholder, day guest, resort guest, etc.) and there can be a limit of reservations for each guest type. This is why a resort hotel guest might be able to reserve the Magic Kingdom on a date when an annual passholder can no longer reserve it.

Our advice is to make your park reservations either upon purchasing your park tickets or 120 days in advance if you are a resident or passholder. You can modify reservations later, if there is still availability at the park you now want to reserve, but reserve something as soon as you possibly can to avoid the unfortunate situation of being turned away at the gate, even if you hold a ticket, because you do not have a reservation.

Mousekeeping "Pandemic-Level" Frequency (And Daily Room Checks)

Mousekeeping is what we call Disney's resort housekeeping services. Ever since the pandemic started, the days of having mousekeeping clean your room daily have been a pre-2020 thing. However, Disney is returning to normal mousekeeping schedules at some select resorts (mostly deluxe resorts at the time of writing).

Instead, resort guests (non-DVC) can expect the following schedule:

A thorough cleaning prior to your stay, including sanitizing high-touch areas and steam cleaning floors.
During your stay, an every other day light duty service that involves trash removal, replenishing of towels and supplies, wipe down of surfaces, vacuuming if needed.
DO NOT EXPECT your bed to be made or your linens to be changed. You may request bedding if you'd prefer to change your linens yourself.

DVC guests can expect:

The same pre-arrival treatment noted above.
Cleaning on the 4th and 8th days of your stay unless you decline the service (So, note here, NOT every other day).

Also expect your room to be entered daily. An unfortunate side effect of America's propensity for mass shootings is that ever since the Las Vegas shooting, many hotels require staff to enter rooms daily. You will not be able to put the "do not disturb" sign on your door all day and expect total privacy. At some point, staff will get adamant about entering your room, so just expect it. And put your things in a safe if you have concerns about staff stealing things (Disney staff generally don't steal things, but still).

Socially Distanced Characters

This is a big complaint I hear about a lot. Ever since the pandemic, characters are not going to be hugging, holding, dancing with, or interacting in any physical way with guests. In fact, most characters are going to be at least six feet away from you. This includes at meet & greets, and at character dining (no, they will not sit at the table with you and play with your food - Ew).

Walt Disney World is beginning to phase back some of the pre-pandemic meet & greets, however this is going to be a phased thing, and I continually hear about people going to character dining in particular who are angry that the characters just paraded past every 20 minutes, or stood six feet away for pictures, etc.

This one tends to really rile us up because it assumes that characters do not have a right to safety. Even before the pandemic, characters who interacted physically with guests could get badly injured if a guest wasn't mindful of being gentle with them (and many guests are not mindful of being gentle). The costume is often bulky, heavy, and nearly impossible to thoroughly clean. Socially distanced greetings have allowed characters to be safe in more ways than just safer from catching the germs of every one of the hundreds of guests they encounter daily.

Bottom line: If you like seeing Tigger, then you should want to keep Tigger safe.

And to be fair, the socially distanced interactions are not terrible. Some people actually quite prefer them because when a character is not getting mobbed, it's much easier for anyone who wants a picture to get a picture. The characters will still pose with you and will still interact with you, just not in a physical way.

Reduced Menus

Speaking of the risks of working at a theme park during a pandemic, Disney has had trouble staffing. Because of this some services are slightly scaled back. One place where this is noticeable is in the frequency of ride breakdowns, unfortunately, though in our experience, they're not frequent enough to write home about. Use your MyDisneyExperience app, and it will generally tell you when a ride is down.

Dining menus are another thing. You might have enjoyed a restaurant in the past that had a particular dish you loved, but when you visit you may find that the menu has been pared down from 30 some dishes to perhaps 12. Again, this makes it more efficient for the kitchen and is a way Disney can keep providing you the experience of dining while accounting for their reduced staffing.

Personally, there has only so far been once I've been disappointed in the limited menu and that was when I wanted beignets and they'd been taken off the menu. I have noticed online menus are sometimes not even entirely accurate. Disney's site is likely to be the most accurate, but even then, this can change month to month.

My advice would be do not select a restaurant for one particular dish, but rather because many of the dishes look good to you. That way, if the menu is reduced, you can still find something you enjoy.

The following are changes that are not directly in response to the pandemic, but that guests sometimes are disappointed about.

Airport Transportation

For several years, Disney offered a service called Disney's Magical Express to and from the Orlando International Airport and Disney Resort Hotels. This service was complimentary for guests of Disney resorts, and allowed guests to bypass baggage claim as Disney would collect your bags and magically deliver them directly to your room.

This service, however, retired at the end of last year. That's right, guests must now pick up their own bags and pay for transportation, which, let's be honest, if this were any other destination in the world, that is the norm. So transportation options are now:

Mears Connect - This is actually the SAME vendor that ran Disney's Magical Express. It's just that they did it previously under a contract with Disney and that contract expired, so you can still expect very similar service with a few very important exceptions: You must pick up your bags and bring them with you AND there is a cost. A Mears Connect ride will cost you between $13 and $30 round trip per guest, depending on time of year. Other than that, you can still pretty much expect a bus or van that takes you from the airport to your resort, with potential shared service to other resorts.
Mears Connect Express - Similar to the above, however if you pay more, you can use a non-shared service, meaning rather than stop at other resorts, the service would be direct from the airport to your resort.
Lyft and Uber - These private services are always an option and the prices will vary based on service and time of day.
Car rentals - You don't really need a car at Disney. Nothing has changed significantly about transportation within the resort property, just to the airport and back.. But if you will want a car anyway, you can always rent a car at the Orlando airport.

Genie, Genie Plus, Lightning Lane, and Individual Lightning Lane

Perhaps one of the most confusing changes Disney has made recently is the introduction of a paid "fast lane" service that replaced the formerly fee and accessible to everyone FastPass service. There is so much misconception about how this service works that we strongly recommend anyone actually read the information on Disney's website rather than ask this question in an online forum where you are not guaranteed to get officially accurate responses. Disney does not help the situation by naming everything with a similar name.

A lot can be, and has been, said about these services in our blog, but the short version from which to start is this:

Genie - Disney Genie is a part of the MyDisneyExperience app that is available to anyone. It will take your preferences and recommend experiences.
Genie Plus - You can pay to "upgrade" your app to Genie Plus. Genie Plus includes the ability to "skip the line" on SOME rides by making a Lightning Lane reservation, included in the cost of Genie Plus. Genie Plus is $15-$20 per guest per day (depending on if you are at Disney World or Disney Land).
Lightning Lane - This replaces FastPass and is available on SOME rides. It lets you skip the "standby" line by choosing a return time to go in a shorter line to ride. You can only get a Lightning Lane via Genie Plus but there is no additional cost to do so.
Individual Lightning Lane - Some rides are so popular that they have a la cart fees to "skip the line". Instead of being Lightning Lane rides included with Genie Plus, these rides are on their own list and one must pay to skip the line individually for these rides. One does not need Genie Plus to do this as this is a totally separate system. For example, one might pay $13 to use the fast lane for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.

One can use Individual Lightning Lane without using Genie Plus, as we mentioned above. One can also use Genie Plus and Lightning Lane without purchasing any Individual Lightning Lanes. And one can choose to use none of it and ride standby for all rides, using the posted wait time as an indication of how long the line will be. But one CAN'T use Lightning Lane without Genie Plus. We know. It's confusing, which is why guests can't just "phone this one in". You really must do your research on this before you go, or be prepared to be disappointed.

Hopefully, this article clears at least one common point of confusion up for you. Again, this article is meant to serve as education on these topics, and not necessarily to endorse these changes. This is the way things work, so if you are going to Walt Disney World, there is no reason to expect otherwise. Personally, we still love Walt Disney World, but we don't love some of the changes.

Disney has a "Know Before You Go" section of each page right now that pops up depending on the topic you are looking at on their site. Because the text is smaller, many consider this the "fine print" and don't read it. But all of this is laid out there, and more, and reading the fine print can save guests a lot of headaches.

What's the most surprising change you've encountered if you've been to Walt Disney World in the past couple years? Tell us in the comments or over on our Facebook page where you can follow us to see when new articles are posted each week. Until next time...