Quoted from jedimastermatt:

As someone who frequents all the parks, here’s my 2 cents.
The state of WDW is just depressing these days. Not only the condition of the parks from an upkeep and maintenance perspective; but, from the ever increasing amount of micromanagement that is required to accomplish anything. Planning dining, planning park reservations, planning prepaid LLs, etc, etc. I can’t blame anyone from needing to take a break and change the routine.

Quoted from jedimastermatt:

Yes. That is what is circulated internally.
Unfortunately, the reality is that all of this planning “crap” is a byproduct of supply and demand.
WDW has long exceeded the demand category so everything now is trying to increase revenue per guest - not drive more guests. The micromanagement planning is a byproduct of controls put in place to make sure guests are locked in and steered around as best as possible. Operational capacity is finite and if you can’t get everyone into what they want to do (park/ride/attraction) you incentivize them to go somewhere else on property. While that will continue to work because of the supply and demand imbalance, it does drive those like the OP away over time.
The real issue is that the company makes so much profit from the parks and WDW in particular is seen as a liability over time due to its travel destination reliance. They learned after 9/11 that demand far exceeds supply and why bother with heavy investment to fix the supply problems if another travel down turn puts that investment at risk.
All the parks need more reasons to have people not fighting over the same handful of attractions. Honest high capacity attractions (rides/shows) that get people out of the current headliners. Update/prune away the underperforming attractions and make them hold their own weight. You can’t keep artificially trying to steer someone that wants to ride a headliner like Test Track into Imagination and think that is a satisfactory solution. It still leads to disappointment. Just like park reservations do. If someone wants to go to MK and it’s not available because of staffing - sending them to AK is going to do them same.
The irony is that WDW’s woes could be alleviated if they were operationally more like DLR and DLRs woes could be improved by having WDWs space.
WDW with per captia rides/attractions per park with Disneyland or even California Adventure would improve the experience so much.
DLR with the wider walkways and services would fix their challenges.
The issue is why fix WDW and make the investment when you don’t have to? The status quo is working fine.

Quoted from jedimastermatt:

Unfortunately, the drive to keep WDW as crown jewel isn't a priority. The mindset is to do as little as absolutely necessary to make sure the resort occupancy levels are maintained. As long as they feel there is enough demand to keep that happening, they don't have any reason to raise the bar and have proven time and time again to continue to whittle away at it to sink it further. Since 9/11, they literally have been playing chicken with guests and daring them not to come and yet attendence rose. Even now when they are actually doing their best to maintain attendence levels and focus on squeezing every nickel they can out of the guests as possible, they are hitting internal operational limits of staffing and logisitics.
Disneyland Resort has two thing keeping them honest.
- the legacy of Disneyland park gives it preferential treatment. Being down the road from Burbank also adds to that equation.
- the resort can and is self sufficient with just the local population. While Parks would love to turn DLR into a mini-WDWesque "bubble", the reality is that even if they controlled all the land around the resort and drove off all the 3rd party hotel access, SoCal's local population can jump into the car and come. This is a negative for them (as guest spending per capita is lower with the locals); but, also an insurance policy that protects the resort in times of travel/economic uncertainty. This is why DLR's local population is Parks fans greatest saving grace. The locals keep DLR honest. They can't let quality slip too far as the bottom line impact is very quickly felt if they stop showing up.
With all the micromanaging controls in place to "lock" WDW guests into spending as much time onsite as possible when combined with the long lead times to travel to Orlando, TDO knows far in advance how busy they will be at all times - plus or minus any weather. While I'm sure Disney could keep all 4 parks busy enough at all times to be profitable even if travel tanked, the real concern is they can't keep the rest of the resort profitable. All those hotels need to be filled or they are a huge liability and if people can't get to them - they are a concern.
Don't get me wrong - I love Disney Parks and still love WDW; but, things are likely to get worse before they get better. As long as just being at the Magic Kingdom is viewed as Disney quality with no understanding of what Disney Parks quality was and should be - we will have to settle for less and less.

Quoted from jedimastermatt:

The way I describe DLR to WDW diehards is like this:
- if your love of WDW is primarily based on being in the parks, you will LOVE DLR. It’s like taking all of the magic of the FL parks and cramming it into a space not much bigger than EPCOT. In my opinion, operationally everything is better and closer to what many of remember WDW was until the early 90’s. Maintenance usually is better. There’s a ton more street level entertainment. Characters wander around in their natural habitats and aren’t hidden away being queue lines and walls. I’ve seen Alice take a child by the hand at the front gate and walk them all the way through the park and then ride the Tea Cups. I’ve seen Mickey by himself (no handler or Photopass photographer) just posing and playing at the end of Main Street. Characters come out and interact with each other too. You can find them just being silly. It’s so refreshing. Then you add in that there are more rides in the 2 Cali parks than all of FL put together, so you just go from one experience to the next so easily. Long lines at DLR usually aren’t as long as their WDW counterparts because there are so many other attractions pulling people around.
- if your love of WDW is from the bubble of the resorts, then DLR can’t match that. Even if you stay at one of the 3 on prem resorts, the real world intrudes much easier.
Now, there is one big downside to DLR. While a busy day at WDW will have insane lines, the FL parks can handle crowd traffic much better. Disneyland park on any night with Fantasmic running will feel jammed packed due to the narrower layout of the paths. All things considered, the average busy day at DLR you may feel more crowded but can usually get much more done since they have significantly more attraction capacity.
The best lesson with those that head West is don’t try to micromanage the planning like WDW.