Back from a 7 night stay at Orange Lake, where we spent out days as well as a few late evenings in WDW. Very fun trip, but very exhausting! Here's some observations we made:
I get that a big part of the appeal of WDW is revisiting favorite attractions, and that's why so many attractions are so long lived. However, unless I'm grossly mistaken, Walt never wanted his parks to become static museums. So, why exactly is the Hall of Presidents still around? Or the Tiki Birds? Or Tomorrowland Speedway? Instead of HoP, I'd love to see an Ichobod Crane attraction.
The Speedway was especially off-putting. My wife's car nearly stalled out; our party didn't race, instead we were driving in a line. Wow, that's exciting ... what I get to do every day on the highway. The cars were difficult to steer as well. This attraction came across as poorly maintained, pure and simple. What would be really cool would be to replace part of its footprint with a 2nd node for the Peoplemover, so the PM is a legit transport option within Tomorrowland. And, surely Disney could put something else far more in line with Tomorrowland's theme in the remaining space. That's a lot of land dedicated to a really bad attraction.
7DMT - I don't get the complaints people have with this. This is a brilliant attraction. It was the first time we'd seen the new Fantasyland, and I was blown away. Yes, Harry P across town is awesome, but so is this entire new area. The typical Disney theming and attention to detail in all of New Fantasyland was very much in evidence and I loved all of it. Turns out 7DMT was our last attraction on this trip, and my wife and I lucked out and scored front row seats, so that was a nice bonus as well.
Under the Sea - Totally new to us, and we all loved it. The queue is outstanding, and the ride itself is wonderful. It's a basic dark ride, yes, no different from so many others Disney has, but personally, I can't get enough of them.
The food - ahh, the food. Some of it was average, most of it was superb, and all of it was ridiculously expensive. In Disney's defense, every restaurant was full, so I can't blame them for their prices. We're already going through withdrawals on the food, and we haven't even been back 24 hours yet. BTW, if you're looking for a great offsite place, eat at Chey's off 192. Best tex-mex I've ever eaten.
FP+ - we had no issues; our typical day was to arrive at park opening, hit the high demand rides via standby, then uses passes for other major attractions later in the day and visit high capacity and/or low demand attractions right after. I loved FP+ because I no longer have to sprint to Soarin for paper passes and then run to rendezvous with the rest of my party someplace else. We only used our daily 3, and didn't try to get more. We usually only stayed in a park 6 or maybe 7 hours at most. We also once used a FP for the Fantasy parade, which is an excellent use for a pass.
MK Crowding - They should open back pathways up that parallel Main Street during the evening parades & fireworks. Traffic does not flow well at all otherwise.
Epcot's FutureWorld - this place has too many empty buildings and under utilized spaces. We loved the attractions that are here, but if you get to the park early, and use FP+, you're gonna run out of things to do here fast.
Overall, while the crowds were thick, our wait times were minimal on the vast majority of attractions we tried. I especially enjoyed taking my f-i-l with us, as it was his first visit to WDW. After we left yesterday, he made a funny joke, 'Well, I've had my Disney-oscopy, so I should be good for the next 10 years.'
