2/2 More About My Disney World Experience

 I have been to Disney World several times, and as usual, I found several positive things about my experience:

• Check-in was easy, in fact easier than usual, since I checked in at the entrance booth and completed much of the information online beforehand.  
• Employees were friendly and helpful, as in the past.  
• Crowds were a bit lighter than the last couple of times I went, but those were during spring break times of year.

However, there were some negatives that really bothered me:

• Even with slightly lighter crowds, I felt lines were overly long.  This may have been due to the rumored "backing down" that happens when crowds are light.  In other words, they may take ride cars out of service or do other things to reduce the number of people per hour going through the ride.  I wondered what the lines were like when the park was busy??  If rides have limits to people-per-hour, they need to add more rides and attractions on the outskirts of the various theme parks.  Looking on a map shows that there is more space to do that. 
  
• It seems that that there is a ratio of attractions to dining to souvenir shops.  In other words, it seems as if there are one-third attractions, one-third dining places, and one-third souvenir shops.  If you could not get into an attraction, you could always get into a dining place or shop.  This seems to make the place less a theme park and more of a shopping place.  
• Signage is really bad throughout all of the four theme parks.  I have difficulty walking long distances, so getting lost and walking in circles made my day much more difficult and much more painful.  They do pass out maps, but the maps were obviously printed in the millions, not detailed, and not always clear.  The problem was also made worse by a lot of construction.  
• Here are examples from Epcot:
• Getting off the bus at Epcot, we were faced with a blank construction fence with no arrow or sign pointing to the park entrance.  Which way should we go?  Several of us just ended up following the crowd.
• Once inside Epcot, I wanted to go immediately to the very popular "Soarin' Around the World."  The map has numbers of things only, so looking at the list of attractions, I found it as #15 in World Nature.  I knew it was past the big globe and to the right, so I headed that direction, but there was no building labeled as World Nature.  The first large building was labeled as "Seas" on a sign most of the way down the path.  Not there.  The second large building was labeled as "The Land." 
• There were signs to those buildings, but there was no sign to whatever World Nature is supposed to be.  I am guessing it is an area, and you are supposed to know that "Soarin" would be in a building called "The Land." 
• Also, when I left Epcot in the middle of the light show, I got lost finding the exit.  There are small signs in a very few places that say "Exit" but they are only about 8" x 12" and not in prominent places.  
• Here is an example from Animal Kingdom
• Animal Kingdom is build around a big tree that is in an island which is a hub for the theme park, which consists of several animal-themed areas.  I went first to Dino Land which is to the right of the entrance and then wanted to head to Africa, which is directly across the island.  However, once I got on the island, I got lost again and this time ended up in Asia because I took the right instead of the left main path.  Considering that a couple of the restaurants were Starbucks and the Flame Tree Barbecue, it was hard to tell whether I was in Africa or not.  Apparently, I missed the sign, which meant more backtracking.  
• Once in Africa, I had to ask directions of one of the Disney employees standing around to give people directions.  They pointed me correctly to the Lion King show.  
• After leaving the show, I again had to ask directions to find the safaris that went through the African plain full of real African animals.  In both of these situations I had checked my map and could not tell where I was, let alone how to get to where I wanted to go.  

A lot of this confusion and having to ask directions could be solved by more detailed maps and some big maps like you see at shopping centers and other public places.  You know, the ones that show you where you are, and where everything is with clearly shown paths and names of places along the way.  (Not numbers that required you to continually have to find the number and then try to find it on the map and finally figure out how to get to where you wanted to go.)

Or how about a downloadable map app that acts like an internal GPS and actually walks you to your location??  Like, "Go straight ahead past Starbucks and then walk across the bridge.  After the bridge, continue straight past the Harambe Fruit Market, and you will see the Safari Station on your right."  Then they could get rid of all the employees standing around to help lost customers.

On my way out out Epcot the last day, I did stop at the Disney Customer Service booth and complain about the lack of signage and confusing maps given out.