For years, the way we as Disney Parks guests planned our visit to the parks was purely dictated by the time of year, school, work, and several other underlying factors. The biggest concern that we have heard since the dawning of the seasonal Disney adventure was," How busy is the Park going to be when my family goes?"
Traditionally families have either waited for school holidays or vacation time for adults and parents alike. The majority of that time has fallen during, spring, summer, Thanksgiving, and winter breaks. Those have always been considered the "Peak Season" for the Disney Theme Parks. Now mixed into that "Peak Season," has always been the odd three-day or four-day holiday weekends as well. The "Non-Peak Season," Usually ran from the end of the first week of January up until Middle to Late March, Late August Until the Second week of November. Now you do have various months with weeks scattered about in that time frame, but those were the main "Peak" and "Non-Peak" times to visit the Disney Resorts and Parks.
In both California and Florida, you have to contend with some sort of weather, whether it be hot and humid or just flat hot or you get the California Late March and April Showers vs The Florida Hurricane Season that lasts roughly six months. Those conditions have never stopped Disney Vacationers from crowding the parks and making it difficult to Disney the way that many of us would like. (Below is an example from WDW PREP SCHOOL OF A CROWD CALENDAR)
Since the onset of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, Disney was forced to change how they did business and how we as the overall guest Disney through the parks. As a travel agent, I had not been able to go to the parks since 2015 and had to put my Disney Vacation plans on hold for a couple of years due to the pandemic. Since my triumphant return to the Disneyland Resort, I found that the way we Disney has changed in some ways for the better and some ways for the worse. I see a lot more good than I do see a lot of the bad that those who frequent the parks have been mentioning via social media, YouTube, and other outlets.
One of those great changes that Disney made to help mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 disease was implementing the park reservation system. Instead of moving about Disney Parks freely and walking up to buy a ticket, it is now easier and safer to buy and reserve your spot at any of the Disney Resorts, through us here at VetOne Travel. You can still walk up and try and purchase a ticket, but the likelihood of that happening will be very slim since they sell out quickly for the day, depending on the day of the week. The reason for the reservations was to control how many guests were in their parks on any given day. This idea alone has taken what use to be "Peak" and "Non-Peak" seasons and flipped them on its head. I even heard some folks say it has taken some of the stings out of the Christmas Season at the parks because the crowds aren't as heavy as they once were.
Folks I am here to tell I am here to tell you, that the reservation system is one of the most genius and effective ways of making your Disney Day better. During my visit over the spring break time this past March, it honestly felt like a heavy fall crowd more than it did a busy elbow to elbow, you can hardly move through the park's experience. Were there still long lines for some of the most popular attractions? Of course, that will be the case for all the major attractions like Rise of the Resistance, Indiana Jones, Radiator Springs Racers, Toy Story Mania, Web Slings, Space Mountain, and many more attractions. With that said though, it wasn't like you weren't going to get on any of your favorite attractions without Genie+ or DAS PASS that wasn't the case at all. Some of the attractions you could simply walk on or have a typical Disney Wait time for attractions like Peter Pan's Flight Over London or Big Thunder Railroad.
This leads me to the one change though that does affect the way you might Disney through the parks and guys I get your frustrations. This would be with Genie+ and the fact that it replaced a great system in FastPass and MaxPass/FastPass+(FP for short). For many of you, you grew up on the FastPass system, much like several of the park goers of the last 25 years. However, the onset of the pandemic allowed Disney to try something new and see how it would take. Now Genie+ wasn't something new we were all looking forward to, but let us take a look at what it does do as opposed to what it doesn't do. The old FP system allowed us the user to almost game the system or Aladdin the Genie on his, "Wish he never took to escape the cave of wonders..." So with that said, it now evens the playing field for those who don't want to spend the extra money on the service. It allows those who purchase the basic Genie+ service without the add-ons one Lighting Lane (LL) per attraction that has LLs attached to them. If you want to pay for premium rides like Rise of the Resistance, Web Slingers, or Radiator Springs Racers, those will come at an additional cost to you on top of the $20 you already paid to use Genie+. You only get one chance to book your favorite attractions via Genie+ to skip the lines and it evens out the lines on several of those attractions and allows the wait times to stay within a manageable time for those guests who chose not to purchase the service.
The way we Disney may have changed to some small degree and this is just a small example of how that may affect how you and your family now do Disney Them Parks and Resorts. Some of the old ideas still hold true at both parks as to how you can Disney your day to hit all of your favorite attractions. If you are at WDW always try and 1 park 1 day each park while you are there for your first visit because it will allow you not to feel overwhelmed and when you are at Disneyland and you rope drop Rise of the Resistance, stick to the left you will get to the line quicker, instead of going up through Fantasyland or Frontierland. I hope this has helped you understand that doing Disney hasn't changed a whole lot, just enough to keep it fun and interesting while we go about our best Disney Adventure.
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