Skipping the Annual Passholder Preview

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Photo courtesy Walt Disney World (Olga Thompson, Photographer)

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is currently holding Annual Passholder Previews. While I usually jump at the chance to ride an attraction before it opens to the public, I’m sitting this one out. Here’s why I made that decision.

I’m in a couple of Annual Passholder groups on Facebook. The first day of previews was riddled with problems. I read many stories of people who waited all day. Some finally did ride, others never got on. There were also long periods of time when Tiana’s Bayou Adventure was down. Multiple people were evacuated. While the second day seemed to go a little bit better, it still wasn’t smooth.

Since I’m local, I usually don’t spend all day at Walt Disney World. One of the advantages of where I live is that I can run up to a park, see and do whatever I feel like, and then be home a couple of hours later. That’s how I’ve done it with other Annual Passholder Previews. Spending all day in the sun waiting for one ride that I might not ever get on just isn’t something that I wanted to do.

My daughter is my theme park buddy, and I had to take her schedule into account as well. The only day that she would have been able to spend a significant amount of time at the Magic Kingdom with me was the one day that they didn’t have an Annual Passholder Preview. (We went to Epcot that day and had a great time!)

When I saw that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure was having problems during the Annual Passholder Previews, I canceled my Disney Park Pass Reservations. I hope that someone else grabbed them and was able to ride.

A lot of Annual Passholders act like they deserve special privileges because of their APs. That’s not me. I get admission to Walt Disney World and some discounts. Anything else is a bonus.

I do wish that the Annual Passholder Previews for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure would have worked for me, but I’m okay that I didn’t ride. There might be soft openings before June 28 to work out more of the kinks. Even if there aren’t, it’s not like Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is going anywhere. I’ll just grab spots in the Virtual Queue when it works for me as well as for my daughter. I know that I’ll ride at some point.