Walt Disney World Part 2

David J. Danto

Travel thoughts in my own, personal opinion

eMail: ddanto@IMCCA.org Follow Industry News: @NJDavidD on

Disney, Part 2– March 2025

A couple of weeks ago I posted a blog about how complicated and frustrating it has become to plan a trip to Walt Disney World. I’ve now taken that trip – and it turns out the chaos doesn’t stop once you’ve successfully booked it. The operational complexity is just as bad inside the parks as it is before you arrive.

Epcot: Starting Strong

We began our morning at Epcot, and to Disney’s credit, security was a breeze – no bag inspections required thanks to modern scanners (the same ones used at Broadway theaters.) That moment of efficiency was a rare highlight – but maybe not (I’ll get back to that.)

Unfortunately, Test Track – one of the park’s marquee rides – was closed for refurbishment. Sad, but at least the app gave us a heads-up in advance before our trip.

Which brings me to the Disney Experience app – your mandatory park companion. It’s awful. Clunky, confusing, and inexplicably limited, the app makes it unnecessarily difficult to do basic things like make a reservation or check ride statuses. Often, you have to access the same feature from multiple menus just to complete a single task. If that sounds confusing, it’s because it is.

The crowds were thick that day, and unless we had a reservation (you get three if you pay for their “Lightning Lane”), everything had a wait time long enough to kill your enthusiasm. We did brave the standby line for one additional ride – and lost an hour and ten minutes of our day to do so.

On the bright side, we had a lovely lunch at the sushi house in the Japan Pavilion before deciding to hop over to the Magic Kingdom. That’s when the day really took a turn.

Magic Kingdom: Where Magic Meets Malfunction

Getting into the Magic Kingdom means going through security (again) at the Transportation and Ticket Center (TTC). Here’s the weird part: the same bag that passed through Epcot’s scanners without issue triggered the sensors at TTC, and I had to undergo a full hand inspection – including pulling out personal health items in front of a crowd. I don’t mind security, but I do mind inconsistent and illogical processes. We asked to chat with a manager and even he couldn’t explain the discrepancy. The best theory he had? My phone charging cable may have been angled differently in the bag the two times I entered. Not exactly comforting.

To make matters worse, if we had simply driven to one of the nearby resort hotels (like the Contemporary or Grand Floridian) said we were parking there for a dining reservation, and taken the resort monorail, we could’ve bypassed the entire TTC security process. What we have here is just more of ‘the illusion of security’ which doesn’t make anyone safer – just more annoyed.

Once inside the Magic Kingdom, it became clear that Disney has changed how its food service works – and not for the better. Many quick-service restaurants now require mobile ordering through the app. No walk-ups. No talking to a person. Just more screen time and more confusion. Guests were struggling to pick up orders that should have been simple, with delays that made it seem like nobody was saving any time – except, perhaps, Disney in not having to hire competent food servers.

I tested the app ordering myself at a spot across from the Tomorrowland Speedway. After the person in front of me took ten minutes to pick-up a pre-order (???), the soda I eventually got was undrinkable – full of that signature Orlando tap water aftertaste. Oddly, the same soda at Epcot had tasted fine, making you wonder how wildly inconsistent Disney’s food and drink preparation is between parks. A soda, a lemonade and a clementine orange cost about $16.

Throughout our time in the Magic Kingdom, our phones kept buzzing with notifications about rides going down. Not “wait times are long,” but “this ride is now closed.”

Families who paid hundreds (or thousands) of dollars for the day were finding out in real-time that some of the biggest attractions were simply unavailable. A described ten-minute wait at the carousel of all things took nearly an hour because (we were told) the “system was having problems rebooting.” Why do you need a complex computer to run a carousel? Did they add some feature since carousels first appeared in their current form in the late 17^th century?

App Problems, Phone Problems, Park Problems

Things got worse when we tried to cancel a dining reservation. We were getting so frustrated with the bad experiences we decided to leave the park early and eat dinner off-site (for a better meal at maybe one quarter of the cost.) The app claimed we could cancel it through the app – but it wouldn’t let us. Instead, it told us to call the Disney dining line. Now imagine standing in a loud theme park, trying to get through an endless automated menu asking for your name, reservation number, blood type, and the number of fingers on your left hand – all while you can barely hear the prompts and every noise stops the automated system from telling you what to do. After 15 minutes of phone menu hell and another 15 on hold, we finally reached a human to say: please cancel our overpriced, underwhelming dinner, we’ve had enough.

And just when we thought we’d escaped the madness and made it back to the TTC, we were told that due to a “medical emergency” in the parking lot, the trams were halted and wouldn’t resume for at least 30 minutes. Sympathy for the emergency? Absolutely. Confusion as to why this shut down all surface transport – trams, buses, shuttles – with no alternate options? Also, absolutely. We, along with countless others, had to make the 2-mile trek to our car on foot.

The Disney Dilemma

Here’s the bottom line: Disney gets away with this ‘we’re sorry we’re not giving you the experience you paid for and were promised’ insanity because people keep paying. Once you’ve dropped hundreds of dollars on tickets and scheduled every moment of your vacation around a faulty app, you’re locked in. There’s no refund. No accountability. Just a slow realization that the magic isn’t what it used to be. And that unfortunately extends to the people. I always used to marvel at how chipper and gregarious the Disney staff (folks they used to call “Cast Members”) were at the parks. Wow, is that sure gone. Many of the people we interacted with were depressed looking individuals that were going through rote tasks like they were indentured servants. I can’t blame them, but I have to point out the enormous change from years past.

When we walked by the ticket booth that morning, we saw that a couple of days at the parks cost nearly $400 per person. That’s before meals, souvenirs, or ‘additional experiences’ like those whopping three lightning lane reservations we bought. I honestly don’t understand how the average family can afford this. My guess? Credit cards – and the hope that they’ll pay it off before the next trip rolls around or before the family breadwinner dies of old-age.

Disney is clearly testing how far they can push people – how expensive, how unreliable, how frustrating they can make the experience before guests finally stop coming. And maybe they haven’t reached that tipping point yet. But they’re clearly getting close.

Final Advice

If you’re looking for a vacation that’s less chaotic, less expensive, and still filled with wonder – go to the beach. The water still works. The walk is easier. And no app will tell you your afternoon is canceled because the ocean closed unexpectedly.

This article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own, personal opinions.

All image and links provided above as reference under prevailing fair use statutes.

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As always, feel free to write and comment, question or disagree. Hearing from the traveling community is always a highlight for me. Thanks!