Anyone else a little miffed about ROTR 2020 opening date?

sjmac42

DIS Veteran
Joined
Aug 15, 2017
Look, I’ll still have a great time but like many Aussies, we have planned our Christmas trip to Disneyland well in advance. Helps to get good prices/availability on airfares (particularly over Christmas) and have plans in place so we can save up. We chose Christmas as even though it’s a lot more expensive for airfares, we (I) thought ROTR would definitely be open as all info from Disney has been saying “opening later in 2019”.

Now all of a sudden, it’s not opening until Jan 17th 2020. Well that’s not 2019 is it. So I can’t help feeling a little disappointed and not a little annoyed as plans were put in place months ago and we will miss out on seeing a complete land. It’s not a deal breaker of course because there are many other things I love but I may not have committed to such an expensive time to travel if Disney had been up front about the potential opening time. It’s also obvious all work on ROTR in Disneyland has stopped until the Florida team arrives to sort out whatever was stuffed up by the California team. Surely that’s unnecessary, work can continue with the lessons learned in Florida.

Anyway, Disney received a rather blunt message from me to which I received the expected pithy cut and paste reply suggesting I should use their calendar to check the availability of attractions for my visit. Apparently it’s a simple matter to arrange a visit to Disneyland from the other side of the world in 6 weeks, so there you go.

I wanted nothing more than a sincere apology from them like I did get last year for my poor experience at a MNSSHP at Magic Kingdom. On that occasion they even offered me free tickets to make up for it which I did not want or expect. I couldn’t use them so asked them to donate the cash value to charity or donate tickets to Give Kids the World, no idea if that happened though.

So I’m committed to this trip but I’ll cancel my plans to visit the Shanghai and Tokyo parks in 2021/22. I’ll find another holiday destination for those trips as I don’t want to continue to enable Disney by attending their parks.

Not that they will care of course as we are but 2 in 150 Million.

Rant over. Don’t be concerned, I will be able to move on with my life :)

All the best.
 
I think you are entitled to be annoyed. You've planned a trip based on Disney's own press material, stating that the attraction would be open in 2019. You aren't being unreasonable.

I'm concerned about the opening date for an entirely different reason. We've booked our trip (also from Australia) for 12-19 January, thinking we'd have relatively light crowds. Only for me to figure out after booking that the NAMM Festival starts on the 16th, MLK Holiday is the 20th (we leave the 19th), and now ROTR opens on the 17th. So much for the light crowds. I'm sure we will still have a great time (just as your family still will). Just have to roll with it and focus on all the great stuff there is to do, rather than the one thing you won't have access to.
 
you have every right to be annoyed. you relied on Disney's own statement that it would be open "later this year." I.e. 2019. A statement that many of us pointed out sounded a bit like marketing "spin" when it was made.
 


Beats getting there, waiting for hours and it constantly breaking down. Personally I wouldn’t drop plans to visit Tokyo or Shanghai Disney over it but it’s your vacation money do what makes you happiest!

Fwiw Disney has creative control over Tokyo but it’s the only Disney park not even partially owned by Disney, the park owners have a licensing agreement with Disney. As for Shanghai it is half owned by Disney and jointly operated by both owning entities from my limited understanding. Just putting it out there in case you kinda want to go again a year or two down the road.
 
Yeah we will still have a great time, no issues there. We are doing lots of other things in California like Big Sur/Hwy 1, LA, Monterey, Dana Point etc. so we’ll definitely have a great time. It was just the cut and paste reply from them which didn’t address anything I said that turned me from miffed to downright annoyed :( But I did thank them for confirming that the guest experience is a low priority for them these days.

I might just flip the bird at the show building from Mickey and Friends or something, making sure of course that there are no cast members about, it’s not their fault.

For future theme park visits, I’ll choose Universal and SeaWorld as I always enjoy their parks just as much and they have parks in Asia as well. There are also great places like Ocean Park in Hong Kong not to mention the Gold Coast theme parks which are about a tenth of the price.

All the best.
 
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I also understand your frustrations, and your great attitude in getting your complaining out of your system here. It may not make you feel any better, but of course the rest of DLR will be open and it's never a good idea to book a trip around the world based on a single attraction. What if you loved Space Mountain (for example), and they had unexpected maintenance the entire time of your visit? For someone like you, who has such a good attitude, you'd get some complaining out of your system and then move on, enjoying the rest of your vacation. Kudos!
 
What if you loved Space Mountain (for example), and they had unexpected maintenance
That actually happened to us on our Honeymoon (pre smartphone) which was my wife’s first trip and my third. Plus Pirates, plus the Mark Twain plus Tom Sawyer Island.

Didn’t matter, still had a great time. No trip I’ve planned has or will ever be ruined by one attraction in a theme park been unavailable. It is what it is but it’s the “oh well we’re not gonna do that now, we’ll do this so if you want to see it, come again” attitude that irks me. All you can do, particularly from so far away, is plan your trips based on their press and hope you get the maximum number of attractions open. After all they release months in advance to encourage visitors, not just because they like us.

So I’ll still enjoy China and Japan down the road, Disney just won’t be a part of those trips for us.

All the best.
 
So I’ll still enjoy China and Japan down the road, Disney just won’t be a part of those trips for us.

Your choice, obviously, but this would be a "cutting off your nose to spite your face" kind of thing. The Disney parks in Asia are spectacular, and different in so many ways from the parks in the USA and France. Given that you love Disney enough to travel long distances to visit DLR (for example), I highly recommend that you let Disney be part of your Asian vacations in the future.
 
Disneyland Tokyo isnt technically owned by Disney, its the Oriental Land Company which uses the license.
Thanks for that but well aware of the ownership for the Asian Parks. I just don’t want to enable them further by patronising their parks after this next trip. I have no issues if anyone, or everyone, else goes and me not been there will make zero difference. But I can only do what I feel is right for me based on the way I prefer to deal with others.
All the best.
 
Wouldn't it then be cheaper to cancel this trip and just fly to L.A. and have an amazing Christmas trip there?
As it's a few months before Christmas, I take it you can still cancel the hotel.
 
Wouldn't it then be cheaper to cancel this trip and just fly to L.A. and have an amazing Christmas trip there?
Yep, I am flying into LA so no point cancelling and rebooking that. My trip is 6 nights Anaheim (including a day at Knott’s), 7 nights Hwy 1 and 4 nights LA so most of my trip is not in Disneyland anyway if that’s what you mean and less of it will be now. Believe me we don’t fly all the way to America (or most anywhere really) for a 5 or 6 day visit from Australia :)

Yes all accommodation is cancellable although I have already purchased Disneyland tickets as well as dated Universal tickets hence why I’m committed. I may as well use them as I’m not so stubborn that I’ll toss a thousand bucks away 😝🤑🤔. Besides there’s plenty of other things to do in LA and Orange counties. Might give Six Flags a crack.

All the best.
 
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I feel you. We are in the same boat. We are comming all the way from Germany and looked Forward for the Ride to be open. We are really disappointed. Sure, we will still have fun, but as you said: Disney made an announcement and we relyed on it. And Disney choosed to sent all imganineers to WDW instead of getting DLR working. I don't know when our next Disney trip will be, but not within the next 2 or 3 years. :(
 
I definitely understand your frustration, but if I were coming from that far away and there was no solid opening date yet, I'd wait until there was one (and then probably come months later, tbh). Disney was really unfair even saying late 2019 when they weren't for sure, of course, but sometimes with construction/new technology things get delayed.

Our next trip is about 6 weeks after RoTR opens and I'm a little nervous about that, honestly.
 
If your itinerary had 737-MAX or any schedule change because of it, you can probably at least change it, maybe even cancel it...
 

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