Imagine this: You’ve been sitting on a bus for hours, and your back and legs won’t stop aching and cramping. After a less than restful night’s sleep on said bus, you’re dropped off at the gates of Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and told to enjoy the day. However, your efforts to do so are hindered by the longest lines you’ve ever seen, mediocre food priced drastically high, and subpar rides. This was the reality for myself and many others visiting Disney recently.
In December of 2023, I went on a trip with the Harrison band to Disney World. Over the span of three days, we traveled through Hollywood Studios, EPCOT, and finished at Magic Kingdom. I have been a theme park fan my entire life, and as some people know, a large roller coaster and theme park nerd for years. I am spoiled by having major theme parks such as Kings Island nearby, so I may have a slight bias.
Personally, I did NOT like Disney parks. There were so many aspects and experiences of my time there that did not live up to the so-called “Disney adult” culture that I’ve seen built up online.
And that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy my time there, as I made the most of what I had, joked around with my friends, and still managed to make some fond memories. And, as you’ll come to see in this article, Disney is not cheap in the slightest, so I made sure to be grateful with everything I had. However, these fun memories are also tainted by the negative aspects of the parks.
Disney is the most magical place on Earth- but somehow this magic couldn’t shrink some of the longest lines I’ve ever seen. I’ll give Disney some credit, I went around New Years, and from my research that was absolutely the busiest time of year for the park. My problem lies in how Disney addressed and “figured out” these problems.
The ride operations of Disney in all three parks I went to was subpar. Ride operations is the operating and moving of a ride, and the best ride operations assure there is minimal wait times. My home park of Kings Island is very good about ride operations, making sure there’s at least two operating trains on their roller coasters. All of the ride operators are fast and timely with their work as well. The best operations means even if there’s a very long line, you don’t wait in it for long.
This was not the case at Disney at all. I found myself in a grueling stand-still for so many lines, including Rock N’ Roller Coaster, Test Track, Rise of the Resistance, Tron (which is a special case I’ll get into), and other rides. I think the worst offender of this was Rise of the Resistance.
One of the worst things you can do in business is to over-promote and under-deliver, and Rise of the Resistance is that in a nutshell. Even before I went to the park, I heard people RAVING about the ride, saying that the ride is awesome, fun, has a great atmosphere, and other things. I will give the ride its dues – the ride is wonderfully decorated. That’s the appeal of Disney in general, is that it’s decorated and looks all nice. That’s where – to me – the appeal of Disney stops. And the 60+ minute ride times do NOT help.
I understand the time of year I went and the overall popularity of Disney contributed to long wait times. However, I brought up ride operations before to showcase that despite the large crowds, the lines should have stayed in constant motion and not at standstills frequently. I waited in the queue of Rise of the Resistance for around 105 minutes, though the wait was an estimated 205 minutes at its peak. I was told 105 minutes was good!!! My time at Disney was limited, and I didn’t want to spend a third of my day waiting in line for the best ride. Especially with the high cost of Disney, I wanted to make the most of every moment. Even worse, after 105 minutes of waiting, I was met with another lackluster experience.
The ride is no longer than 6 minutes long. Sure, 6 minutes includes some thrilling elements like quick turns, and a droptrack which was pretty fun. Other than that, however, the rest of the ride is video screens. A good 90 seconds of the ride you’re at a standstill. And I waited 105 minutes for that??? I mean, Roller Coaster Database (the website that all coaster fans use to cite information over roller coasters) doesn’t even register it as an actual roller coaster. It’s a dark ride, like Boo Blasters at Kings Island. So I basically waited 105 minutes for Boo Blasters.
I can acknowledge the target audience, and I can acknowledge that for a thrill seeker like me, Disney isn’t the place to go. But the comparison of Disney to those thrill parks that do have what I’m looking for feels so unfair to those parks.
There were some redeeming rides at Disney that I actually enjoyed. Tower of Terror was a fun drop tower, and while just a drop tower (I can ride a taller drop tower at Kings Island) the theming and experience was enough to justify the decently long line, unlike Rise of the Resistance. The staff were also pleasant, but that’s something I’ll get into later.
Rock N’ Rollercoaster was my favorite ride of the entire trip. As stated before, I’m an extreme coasters guy, so being able to ride something that is actually under the thrill category was relieving for me. Especially since I understood the coaster model before riding, with this coaster being a copy of ‘XPress: Platform 13’ at Walibi Holland in the Netherlands. It was fast, intense (pulling up to 5 G’s), had inversions, and actually left me with adrenaline after the ride was over. That can not be said about most rides I rode at Disney. Was it equivalent to some of the best rides in the world? No, it’s not an El Toro at Six Flags Great Adventure, or Eejanaika at Fuji-Q Highland, but it certainly was a breath of fresh air from the glorified flat rides found at every other amusement park.
Another ride I appreciated was TRON Lightcycle Run. The surrounding building looks gorgeous at night and the theming was genuinely amazing. While somewhat typical for Disney, the inside of the building has great sound design and lighting. However, the queue was extremely confusing.
It’s a new ride, so they have a virtual queue system where guests have three shots during the day to enter the virtual queue. After you get in, it’ll give you a ride time for your party to get into line. The only problem is that the queue filled up in the blink of an eye. I got EXTREMELY lucky to get into the queue on a busy day like that, and I’m sure hundreds or even thousands of people who were also in the park didn’t get to ride it.
I’m not a Disney adult- I don’t worship the mouse religiously, and I’m not at Disney once a week. And if I don’t become a billionaire, I’m probably never going back. So if I didn’t get lucky enough to ride TRON, I would never have. That’s what I don’t like virtual queues- it’s a complete gamble if you get to ride a ride or not. Plus, there are few downsides to a traditional queue system other than long wait times, which are typical for Disney anyway. Other parks do a normal opening for their new rides and those go completely fine. Besides all of those factors, it was a really fun ride that felt super fast, and the seating with the motorcycle position was fun. I can’t say the same thing about another ride marketed as being fast…
Test Track sucked!!!! To be honest, Test Track was SO boring. It was so underwhelming that I could have watched a POV of the ride on Youtube and had the same experience. It was an almost 2 hour wait in a long, barely moving line, just to make my own car. Wow! After that, you wait in another line, and then finally you get to ride the ride. Where you sit in yet another line of cars waiting for the ride to start.
WHAT IS IT WITH THIS COMPANY AND HAVING LINES AFTER LINES?!
FINALLY, the ride started. And just as quick as it started, it ended! The ride is going through a dark building with decorations pretending it’s “precarious and inclimate weather conditions.” Wow, how innovative. And then the hallmark of the ride, the launch, only lasted 15 seconds. And just like that the ride is over and it’s time to get off. To say this ride underwhelmed me is an understatement. I’ll give it some credit, the theme is great. But the actual ride experience for someone who wanted a fun launch coaster was everything but that. Even worse, I waited two hours for this disappointing experience.
I’m sure the largest Disney supporters are shaming me for my opinion, saying “Well Disney isn’t a thrill park! Your expectations were set too high!” And I will say, I did have high expectations, but I also think they were fair expectations. The new standard set by the theme park industry is fun, intense thrill rides that incorporate good theming into them. And I think none do it better than Universal Studios.
Universal has AMAZING theme parks that are, in my opinion, so much better than Disney. While Universal is better than Disney in so many ways, one aspect I want to focus on is the rides. And to explain Universal’s superiority I only need one word: VelociCoaster. Almost 5,000 feet of track, 70 MPH, 4 inversions, and it invented its own element??? That’s a TOP notch roller coaster. The theming was also amazing and definitely comparable to Disney’s theming. VelociCoaster also only cost around 80-120 million to build, including the theming. Test Track cost around 300 million.
Thrilling coasters like VelociCoaster are becoming the new standard in the theme park industry, and this expectation will soon engulf Disney. I, for one, would certainly rather ride actually thrilling coasters as compared to glorified dark rides. Plus, Universal tickets were almost 200 dollars cheaper than Disney tickets. Many more parks are going to start following in Universal’s footsteps. Busch Gardens/SeaWorld (both are owned by the same parent company) will absolutely step up the theming in their rides, and soon Cedar Fair/Six Flags will as well. What is Disney going to look like in 30 years once more VelociCoasters show up? Will it be the flagship amusement park company then?
After all of that, you might be hungry. I certainly was, and from all the hype online, I was ready to try some Disney food. In Hollywood Studios, I got food at Catalina Eddie’s, and my experience was beyond disappointing.
That was the food. The pizza was smaller than the size of my hand, and I know I have big hands but come on, really? I paid 12 dollars for that pizza! The portion was absolutely ridiculous. I get it’s Disney, so everything is insanely expensive, but I can get a pizza three and a half times larger at Little Caesars for half the price, and with arguably better quality! The food was gross. It tasted so low quality, as it was completely bland and undercooked. If you want high quality food at Hollywood Studios, you have to get a restaurant reservation, which would probably put you in debt. The only other option is getting borderline disgusting theme park food for an unreasonably high mark up.
Hollywood Studios feels like Disney’s neglected middle child, as all the food I had there was not that good. However, there was one place I did have really good food from at Disney.
In EPCOT, in the Mexico area, in a stand that isn’t even marked on their food map or on their website is Choza de Margarita, and GOOD LORD Tostada de Pollo was DELICIOUS. It’s $11, which is expensive, but considering the quality and how good the food is it’s completely understandable. It was SO good. I devoured it within two minutes, it was so good. It was cheesy, juicy, creamy, and so filling.
The rest of the food I had during the trip was just okay. Nothing notable or special, just run of the mill theme park food. Be conscious of what food you get at Disney, because you’re gonna run out of money, and that’s a guarantee. But it’s better to run out of money with food you’ll actually like.
While getting food, you waited in a line.
While waiting for rides, you waited in a line.
After you finished a line, you had another line.
This park and the ridiculous number of lines just drives me crazy. Every time I thought I was at the end of a line, I was just met with another hidden line. While there isn’t much Disney can do to resolve this other than removing parts of the queue, it was still very annoying.
People’s uncourteous behavior while in line was also incredibly frustrating. People were constantly crowding around my party and invading our personal space, as well as showering us with dirty looks. While in line for Rock N’ Rollercoaster, a couple behind me kept trying to get past me, leading to them getting UNCOMFORTABLY close. This isn’t a Disney specific issue, but people in lines need to have some courtesy.
This is a smaller issue, but I’m slightly hard of hearing and I am not great at understanding what people are saying sometimes. So when I’m trying to order food in France at EPCOT and the guy working is speaking in a very heavy accent, give me some grace if I don’t understand you the first time. Whether it was immersion or he actually just had a heavy french accent, don’t act like you hate me when I can’t understand you.
This has been a very negative article, but I will say there were some very positive things about Disney. The park as a whole was very immersive, despite some negative aspects breaking this immersion from time to time. Sometimes it genuinely feels like you’re in a musical or movie, and that can be pretty cool.
I get the culture surrounding the “Disney Experience”- but for me, that experience consisted of long lines, overpriced low quality food, and rude interactions.
Did I enjoy my time there? For the most part, yes. For hanging out with my friends, yes. But was it because I got to ride the most thrilling rides, or experience the most magical experiences? No, not in the slightest. So, at the end of the day, would I pay money to go back? Probably not, and that’s my opinion.
