GoldeneyezCA
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2016
Hello all,
Thanks again to all of you who helped me plan a 6-11 person, 3- family, multi-generational trip this past week. We stayed at Shades of Green but booked a campsite for MagicBands and 60-day FP access, and overall, we had a great trip!
LODGING:
- Shades of Green was wonderful. We had huge rooms in the beautifully renovated Palm wing, and took advantage of the breakfast plan (added $30 per night for my family of 4). The price was unbeatable - would stay again.
- WDW delivers park purchases to SOG!
TRANSPORTATION
- SOG runs buses every 30-60 min depending on parks, which didn't always work for our plans, so we did a mix of UberXL + car seat, driving ourselves, and SOG buses if the timing was right. Our usual waits for Uber were 7-15 min for car seat and 0-8 minutes without.
- On our MK morning arrival at 10 am, there was a huge line for the monorail, and the CM advised us to take the bus from TTC to the park, so we did and the time from bus-boarding to park entry was about 7 min.
DINING
- We LOVED Tusker House Lunch (with ROL package), Boma, and Satuli Canteen for their unique, flavorful, and varied food choices. TH and Boma had allergy/GF menus for my BIL's family that were greatly appreciated. Definitely use online ordering before arriving at Satuli to bypass the line - takes about 10 min for food to be prepared.
- We did lunch at Cinderella's Royal Table and dinner at BOG on the same day, and were more impressed by the decor than the food at each. BOG is just gorgeous! The food and service was good at both, not outstanding or unique, and I am glad we went to both for the experience (and the midday A/C break at lunch!). At BOG, we were seated at the first table in the right corner of the ballroom and were subjected to the cast members introducing guests with, "This is the ballroom, where Belle and the Beast danced and fell in love..." about 50 times as they walked in, and it did get a bit annoying. I was happy to be in the ballroom, though, so it is what it is.
SPECIAL EVENTS/SHOWS
- SWAGS Dessert Party was outstanding. I agree that seats would be great during the dessert party, but we enjoyed the desserts and drinks, found a low table arriving a few min after the party started, and really enjoyed the fireworks.
- MK Plaza Dessert Party - We loved being able to sit during the party and had plenty of space and great views in the plaza garden, but I thought the desserts were a little boring in comparison to the SWAGS, and they ran out of cider, so I was sent down to the TT Dessert Party to get sparkling cider for my family (!). Of note, our kids had the best view sitting on the railing in the back of the garden.
- ROL - very underwhelming, even to our kids, who have seen World of Color, Paint the Night, and the new Fantasmic at DL. Skippable, really. The Tree of Life Awakenings are better.
PARKS/RIDES
- AK EMH Sat 8/19 - We arrived with bag at 6:45 (2nd in line at security), were passed by hundreds of bagless people when the rope dropped (as expected based on reports here), took 10 min (!!!) to get through security (why is only one guard checking 2 lines?), and then were held up further because part of our family had Florida passes, and their MDE profiles had been messed up by "someone at Disney", so they couldn't enter the park (they were given FP for "any ride but FOP" to compensate.) We split the family, raced to FOP to hold spots in line, and managed to beg the CM's to let them in line once they were straightened out (at which point the end of the FOP line was 2.5 hrs, at about 8:15). We ended up getting on FOP with about a 25 min wait, but by the time we got off, NRJ was over an hour, and we had FP for that, so we rode Everest x 2 and Safari as walk-ons before the park started getting more crowded.
***Lessons here: check your tickets, go bagless if you can, and if you can't, be realistic about the fact that you will be waiting a while for the ride and may not be able to fully take advantage of the EMH in Pandora.
- FOP - LOVED it. Rode it once during EMH, then twice using my and my daughters 8:30 pm FP's on 8/24 because she refused to ride it again. (DD4 loves Star Tours but was frightened by FOP.) I really liked NRJ, too, since I had minimal waits (FP 8/19, rode at park closing 8/24 with 5 min wait), and the Shaman of Songs is an incredible animatronic!
- EPCOT - DD8 loved Mission Space: Green - rode it twice, and DD4 and DD8 loved Frozen, but other than that, the park felt very outdated, hot/hard to find shade, and a bit boring. This was a little disappointing since I loved Epcot as a kid, but no one wanted to go back or even mentioned Epcot again after we left.
- MK - We did Peter Pan FP, Haunted Mansion, a huge princess day (FP Storytime with Belle, CRT lunch, met Tiana and Rapunzel since my girls were dressed as those princesses, and BOG dinner), and grabbed FP for several other rides during the day. The girls were over the moon, and we ended with the HEA dessert party and fireworks. The HEA fireworks are the best I have ever seen at a Disney park, including DL's 60th Anniversary show!
- Typhoon Lagoon - we reserved an umbrella at Getaway Glen, which worked well for us as a storage base, but honestly, we were at the park for 4 hours and never sat under the umbrella because we were having too much fun in the wave pool, the family slides, and the lazy river.
- Our favorite park: AK, hands down - spent 2 days there. Best atmosphere, food, loved KS, FOTLK, Everest (rode it 3 times, and single rider wait is only 5-10 min), Tree of Life, jungle treks, Pandora (day and night).
WEATHER/CROWDS
- Aug worked for us due to scheduling, but it was definitely ridiculously hot and at times unbearable, even with planned TS meals each day. And it was still pretty crowded (more than in years past, according to other guests), so not sure I'd go in Aug again.
COMPARISON to DL, in our opinion:
- DL - more atmospheric, better weather, more (and better versions of) rides, easier park hopping
- MK - wins points for Belle experience, BOG, and HEA, but otherwise feels a bit over-large and sterile
- AK - I would go back to WDW to visit AK, but probably not Epcot or HS until the updates happen
Also: I wish DL would use Magic Bands - so convenient!
Thanks for reading, and happy planning!
Thanks again to all of you who helped me plan a 6-11 person, 3- family, multi-generational trip this past week. We stayed at Shades of Green but booked a campsite for MagicBands and 60-day FP access, and overall, we had a great trip!
LODGING:
- Shades of Green was wonderful. We had huge rooms in the beautifully renovated Palm wing, and took advantage of the breakfast plan (added $30 per night for my family of 4). The price was unbeatable - would stay again.
- WDW delivers park purchases to SOG!
TRANSPORTATION
- SOG runs buses every 30-60 min depending on parks, which didn't always work for our plans, so we did a mix of UberXL + car seat, driving ourselves, and SOG buses if the timing was right. Our usual waits for Uber were 7-15 min for car seat and 0-8 minutes without.
- On our MK morning arrival at 10 am, there was a huge line for the monorail, and the CM advised us to take the bus from TTC to the park, so we did and the time from bus-boarding to park entry was about 7 min.
DINING
- We LOVED Tusker House Lunch (with ROL package), Boma, and Satuli Canteen for their unique, flavorful, and varied food choices. TH and Boma had allergy/GF menus for my BIL's family that were greatly appreciated. Definitely use online ordering before arriving at Satuli to bypass the line - takes about 10 min for food to be prepared.
- We did lunch at Cinderella's Royal Table and dinner at BOG on the same day, and were more impressed by the decor than the food at each. BOG is just gorgeous! The food and service was good at both, not outstanding or unique, and I am glad we went to both for the experience (and the midday A/C break at lunch!). At BOG, we were seated at the first table in the right corner of the ballroom and were subjected to the cast members introducing guests with, "This is the ballroom, where Belle and the Beast danced and fell in love..." about 50 times as they walked in, and it did get a bit annoying. I was happy to be in the ballroom, though, so it is what it is.
SPECIAL EVENTS/SHOWS
- SWAGS Dessert Party was outstanding. I agree that seats would be great during the dessert party, but we enjoyed the desserts and drinks, found a low table arriving a few min after the party started, and really enjoyed the fireworks.
- MK Plaza Dessert Party - We loved being able to sit during the party and had plenty of space and great views in the plaza garden, but I thought the desserts were a little boring in comparison to the SWAGS, and they ran out of cider, so I was sent down to the TT Dessert Party to get sparkling cider for my family (!). Of note, our kids had the best view sitting on the railing in the back of the garden.
- ROL - very underwhelming, even to our kids, who have seen World of Color, Paint the Night, and the new Fantasmic at DL. Skippable, really. The Tree of Life Awakenings are better.
PARKS/RIDES
- AK EMH Sat 8/19 - We arrived with bag at 6:45 (2nd in line at security), were passed by hundreds of bagless people when the rope dropped (as expected based on reports here), took 10 min (!!!) to get through security (why is only one guard checking 2 lines?), and then were held up further because part of our family had Florida passes, and their MDE profiles had been messed up by "someone at Disney", so they couldn't enter the park (they were given FP for "any ride but FOP" to compensate.) We split the family, raced to FOP to hold spots in line, and managed to beg the CM's to let them in line once they were straightened out (at which point the end of the FOP line was 2.5 hrs, at about 8:15). We ended up getting on FOP with about a 25 min wait, but by the time we got off, NRJ was over an hour, and we had FP for that, so we rode Everest x 2 and Safari as walk-ons before the park started getting more crowded.
***Lessons here: check your tickets, go bagless if you can, and if you can't, be realistic about the fact that you will be waiting a while for the ride and may not be able to fully take advantage of the EMH in Pandora.
- FOP - LOVED it. Rode it once during EMH, then twice using my and my daughters 8:30 pm FP's on 8/24 because she refused to ride it again. (DD4 loves Star Tours but was frightened by FOP.) I really liked NRJ, too, since I had minimal waits (FP 8/19, rode at park closing 8/24 with 5 min wait), and the Shaman of Songs is an incredible animatronic!
- EPCOT - DD8 loved Mission Space: Green - rode it twice, and DD4 and DD8 loved Frozen, but other than that, the park felt very outdated, hot/hard to find shade, and a bit boring. This was a little disappointing since I loved Epcot as a kid, but no one wanted to go back or even mentioned Epcot again after we left.
- MK - We did Peter Pan FP, Haunted Mansion, a huge princess day (FP Storytime with Belle, CRT lunch, met Tiana and Rapunzel since my girls were dressed as those princesses, and BOG dinner), and grabbed FP for several other rides during the day. The girls were over the moon, and we ended with the HEA dessert party and fireworks. The HEA fireworks are the best I have ever seen at a Disney park, including DL's 60th Anniversary show!
- Typhoon Lagoon - we reserved an umbrella at Getaway Glen, which worked well for us as a storage base, but honestly, we were at the park for 4 hours and never sat under the umbrella because we were having too much fun in the wave pool, the family slides, and the lazy river.
- Our favorite park: AK, hands down - spent 2 days there. Best atmosphere, food, loved KS, FOTLK, Everest (rode it 3 times, and single rider wait is only 5-10 min), Tree of Life, jungle treks, Pandora (day and night).
WEATHER/CROWDS
- Aug worked for us due to scheduling, but it was definitely ridiculously hot and at times unbearable, even with planned TS meals each day. And it was still pretty crowded (more than in years past, according to other guests), so not sure I'd go in Aug again.
COMPARISON to DL, in our opinion:
- DL - more atmospheric, better weather, more (and better versions of) rides, easier park hopping
- MK - wins points for Belle experience, BOG, and HEA, but otherwise feels a bit over-large and sterile
- AK - I would go back to WDW to visit AK, but probably not Epcot or HS until the updates happen
Also: I wish DL would use Magic Bands - so convenient!
Thanks for reading, and happy planning!
