[berettafan]

Spent 8 nights last week at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and hit all four parks (no water parks on this trip). 5yr old enjoyed it, 3 mo old could care less, wife enjoyed it and didn't want to leave and for the first time ever i was ready to come home by the end of the trip.

My family has always been big on Disney and I can remember the floating light show on the lagoon when we stayed at Ft. Wilderness nearly 30yrs ago. I remember Epcot being new. I remember the people mover being pretty darned high tech. Always enjoyed myself immensly and always hated to leave.

But this last trip, while certainly fun, showed me some cracks in the 'magic'. Mickey wants $60 or so to stay in the Magic Kingdom a few extra hours for a 'Christmas Party' with 'complimentary Christmas treats'. Mickey wants $10 for an unscheduled towel replenishment at the hotel. Mickey wants extra money for me to visit more than one park in a day. Mickey wants me to buy the meal plan which includes snacks but NOW Mickey has decided to not allow me to buy the standard sized candy as a snack....he calls it 'family size' now to differentiate it and thus exclude it from the meal plan. Mickey wants to sell me a Matchbox airplane for $8 that is $2 in any other store on the planet (but it says 'Disney' on the sticker!).

Mickey is just a greedy SOB any more. Maybe he always was and i just didn't see it.

Mickey also has trouble keeping the monorail running well (crapped out twice during our stay. once for 3 hours!) and various rides too.

Other small issues like an awful evening fireworks/laser show at Epcot (used to be fantastic), an initially interesting but ultimately boring 'fantasmic' show at Hollywood Studios and nearly impossible to understand workers on various rides along with all the aforementioned items left me with a general feeling that Mickey is losing his touch.

I coulda put a mid rise lift in my garage and taken my family on a 4 day cruise to Barbados for what i spent. Instead i came home with a head full of advertisements for various Disney movies and the vacation club.

I know what matters is that my family had fun. And the hotel was fantastic, service (other than rides) was equally good, etc. etc. but Disney used to up it's game time after time....it no longer does this IMO.

Next trip will be shorter and a lot less dough will be left in Fla. The people running the show there now have simply run out of ideas or just do not have the talent of those that were before them.