gelatoni fan
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2018
I normally don't do trip reports but I wanted to share a lot of disappointments that I experienced this past weekend. I'm one of those people who try to go for one or two trips to Disneyland per event and have a Magic Key but need to book a hotel. So my main priorities this visit was to do the holiday stuff that was supposed to go until January 9th. I experienced all of the typical stuff that I've come to expect from Disneyland: CMs giving out bad information, a condescending/mean CM, show cancellations, getting kicked out of a space that was supposed to be a viewing area for a show (it was viewing area on previous days but then a CM did not allow people to stand there on Sunday), no mobile orders, food items that I wanted being sold out, etc. But there were also other things that led to a new level of disappointment.
I planned this trip with the understanding that holiday stuff last until January 9th. I was surprised to learn that the Christmas Hawkeye show was no longer happening. Technically, it was not officially advertised as going till the end of January so this could be a bad assumption on my part. There were also no meetings with Santa even the promotional materials for the event made it seem like those would last until the end of the event. Santa wasn't really a priority for me so it was actually not a big deal.
My biggest disappointments for the holiday stuff were that Mater's Junkyard Jamboree was not playing holiday music and Luigi's Joy to the Whirl was constantly down. Apparently there were maintenance issues with the holiday music for Mater's and Luigi's couldn't work due to the cold weather leading to some wet spots. If I remember correctly, Luigi's was down for pretty much all of Friday, the first half of Sunday and part of Saturday. Mater's was still showing as Jingle Jamboree in the app even though it didn't play any holiday music all weekend which I think is false advertising. I originally planned to go on the two rides repeatedly at rope drop on Sunday morning, but couldn't due to neither being available. So instead of getting to go on each a half dozen times, I only managed Joy to the Whirl one time later on Sunday when it had a half hour wait. Most people probably don't prioritize these two rides but these were the rides I was most looking forward to this trip. The feeling would be like if Rise of the Resistance was shut down and Web Slingers was only open for a few hours for other people.
This was not the end of the ride maintenance issues. Web Slingers was down at rope drop on Sunday. In one particular hour on Saturday, I tried to ride Alice which was down, Gadget Go Coaster which was down, and Storybook Land which had a boat break down and need to get towed while I was in line, leading to a longer than expected wait time. I also had to skip other rides due to the app showing them as "Temporarily Closed" when I was hoping to ride them. Maintenance issues completely destroyed my morning plans on both Saturday and Sunday and the Holiday Toy Drummers being cancelled not help. No park hopping before 1PM felt far more restricting than usual and left me feeling like I wasted half of my mornings.
Since Web Slingers opened, I was planning to get a bit of practice before buying Web Tech to see how much my score would improve. I was surprised to see them costing $34.99 with no Magic Key discounts allowed. I could have sworn they were supposed to be $29.99 and the lack of discount made me feel like I was getting Cheapeked. After leaving the store to think about it for a few hours, I decided that I'd get a Web Tech Power Band anyway because it was something I was planning to get a lot of use out of. Well, the first time I took it onto the ride, my arms seemed jittery on the initial setup screen and it wasn't tracking smoothly. It turns out that using Web Tech constantly led to unresponsiveness so I got the lowest score that I ever got on the ride. Fearing the worst, I rode again and the same thing happened. I was getting 1/2 the score I would have normally gotten and the ride was a lot less fun because sometimes I'd try to shoot a web and nothing would show on screen. On one of my rides, someone was using a triple shooter and he got the second lowest score of our group (I got the lowest even though I typically get the highest without Web Tech). I asked him if he was experiencing lag and he said "yes" and he got a higher score the day before when he didn't have his Web Tech yet. So I think this may be a systematic issue and all those bloggers who claim that you get a higher score with Web Tech probably didn't even try the ride with and without the product to test this claim. You can't return Web Tech and I completely regret buying a Web Tech Power Band. It's a terrible product that can't even deliver what it promised.
I also had issues with Play Disney. I was supposed to get another achievement for Fortune Red this trip but after walking over there, the app kept saying that I wasn't in New Orleans Square. I tried turning on/off bluetooth, restarting my phone, walking around, etc. I ended up wasting a lot of time because of this and it bothers me that I couldn't get my Fortune Red achievement and it's now one day behind my Esmerelda.
I also noticed far more issues with shows than usual although I don't really mind. I saw wardrobe malfunctions leading to characters being led offstage a few times. On one viewing of Viva Navidad, Minnie's head accessory fell off which was an amusing to see. I think the 4PM Christmas Fantasy parade on Friday got stuck for a bit also. Even these didn't really bother me, they point to some type of problem with making sure shows are able to function properly. Combined with the maintenance issues, I feel like Disneyland may be cutting corners on making sure things are fully functional. I don't remember ever seeing this many issues in a single weekend.
All in all, Disney's failure to deliver led to me feeling like I wasted a lot of time and money this past weekend. If I could have park hopped on Sunday morning when rides I wanted to go on in California Adventure were down and the Holiday Toy Drummers were cancelled, I would have felt a little bit better. Tokyo Disney announces at the gates when rides are down in the morning before park open to prevent mobs of rope droppers going the wrong way. If Disneyland in California did this, it would have saved me a lot of time and energy since I went to quite a few closed rides in the morning, not knowing they were closed. These things make me feel like Disneyland isn't very guest friendly.
To prevent this from just seeming like a long rant, I will add a few things that did go well during my trip. I managed to get over 1 million on Astro Blasters which is an accomplishment for me but I just missed the high score table at rank 11. I enjoyed the rubber ducky race at Redwood Creek Trail and Viva Navidad. There were also some short wait times including almost walk ons to Big Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain at night. So even though my weekend was full of disappointment, it wasn't all bad.
I planned this trip with the understanding that holiday stuff last until January 9th. I was surprised to learn that the Christmas Hawkeye show was no longer happening. Technically, it was not officially advertised as going till the end of January so this could be a bad assumption on my part. There were also no meetings with Santa even the promotional materials for the event made it seem like those would last until the end of the event. Santa wasn't really a priority for me so it was actually not a big deal.
My biggest disappointments for the holiday stuff were that Mater's Junkyard Jamboree was not playing holiday music and Luigi's Joy to the Whirl was constantly down. Apparently there were maintenance issues with the holiday music for Mater's and Luigi's couldn't work due to the cold weather leading to some wet spots. If I remember correctly, Luigi's was down for pretty much all of Friday, the first half of Sunday and part of Saturday. Mater's was still showing as Jingle Jamboree in the app even though it didn't play any holiday music all weekend which I think is false advertising. I originally planned to go on the two rides repeatedly at rope drop on Sunday morning, but couldn't due to neither being available. So instead of getting to go on each a half dozen times, I only managed Joy to the Whirl one time later on Sunday when it had a half hour wait. Most people probably don't prioritize these two rides but these were the rides I was most looking forward to this trip. The feeling would be like if Rise of the Resistance was shut down and Web Slingers was only open for a few hours for other people.
This was not the end of the ride maintenance issues. Web Slingers was down at rope drop on Sunday. In one particular hour on Saturday, I tried to ride Alice which was down, Gadget Go Coaster which was down, and Storybook Land which had a boat break down and need to get towed while I was in line, leading to a longer than expected wait time. I also had to skip other rides due to the app showing them as "Temporarily Closed" when I was hoping to ride them. Maintenance issues completely destroyed my morning plans on both Saturday and Sunday and the Holiday Toy Drummers being cancelled not help. No park hopping before 1PM felt far more restricting than usual and left me feeling like I wasted half of my mornings.
Since Web Slingers opened, I was planning to get a bit of practice before buying Web Tech to see how much my score would improve. I was surprised to see them costing $34.99 with no Magic Key discounts allowed. I could have sworn they were supposed to be $29.99 and the lack of discount made me feel like I was getting Cheapeked. After leaving the store to think about it for a few hours, I decided that I'd get a Web Tech Power Band anyway because it was something I was planning to get a lot of use out of. Well, the first time I took it onto the ride, my arms seemed jittery on the initial setup screen and it wasn't tracking smoothly. It turns out that using Web Tech constantly led to unresponsiveness so I got the lowest score that I ever got on the ride. Fearing the worst, I rode again and the same thing happened. I was getting 1/2 the score I would have normally gotten and the ride was a lot less fun because sometimes I'd try to shoot a web and nothing would show on screen. On one of my rides, someone was using a triple shooter and he got the second lowest score of our group (I got the lowest even though I typically get the highest without Web Tech). I asked him if he was experiencing lag and he said "yes" and he got a higher score the day before when he didn't have his Web Tech yet. So I think this may be a systematic issue and all those bloggers who claim that you get a higher score with Web Tech probably didn't even try the ride with and without the product to test this claim. You can't return Web Tech and I completely regret buying a Web Tech Power Band. It's a terrible product that can't even deliver what it promised.
I also had issues with Play Disney. I was supposed to get another achievement for Fortune Red this trip but after walking over there, the app kept saying that I wasn't in New Orleans Square. I tried turning on/off bluetooth, restarting my phone, walking around, etc. I ended up wasting a lot of time because of this and it bothers me that I couldn't get my Fortune Red achievement and it's now one day behind my Esmerelda.
I also noticed far more issues with shows than usual although I don't really mind. I saw wardrobe malfunctions leading to characters being led offstage a few times. On one viewing of Viva Navidad, Minnie's head accessory fell off which was an amusing to see. I think the 4PM Christmas Fantasy parade on Friday got stuck for a bit also. Even these didn't really bother me, they point to some type of problem with making sure shows are able to function properly. Combined with the maintenance issues, I feel like Disneyland may be cutting corners on making sure things are fully functional. I don't remember ever seeing this many issues in a single weekend.
All in all, Disney's failure to deliver led to me feeling like I wasted a lot of time and money this past weekend. If I could have park hopped on Sunday morning when rides I wanted to go on in California Adventure were down and the Holiday Toy Drummers were cancelled, I would have felt a little bit better. Tokyo Disney announces at the gates when rides are down in the morning before park open to prevent mobs of rope droppers going the wrong way. If Disneyland in California did this, it would have saved me a lot of time and energy since I went to quite a few closed rides in the morning, not knowing they were closed. These things make me feel like Disneyland isn't very guest friendly.
To prevent this from just seeming like a long rant, I will add a few things that did go well during my trip. I managed to get over 1 million on Astro Blasters which is an accomplishment for me but I just missed the high score table at rank 11. I enjoyed the rubber ducky race at Redwood Creek Trail and Viva Navidad. There were also some short wait times including almost walk ons to Big Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain at night. So even though my weekend was full of disappointment, it wasn't all bad.
(I guess on some level I am jealous of that adoration blindness, lol. Not really.) I understand why you feel the way you do. No doubt Covid affected a lot of changes, but when you see other theme parks getting things in full swing you wonder what is taking Disney so long. 
