Hi all!
This is our second trip since joining DVC, but first where we actually stayed at our home resort. The first was a last minute trip and we took what we could get which meant resort hopping three DVC resorts.
That trip was just the wife and I, this time there were seven of us there. Wife and myself, two kids (6 and 8) and two friends of ours and their daughter (5). We booked a two bedroom non-lock standard view for the 23rd-29th.
This was the first time at Disney for all the kids and we went all out, we had reservations for Cinderella's royal table, bibbiti bobbiti boutique, Be Our Guest, park hoppers, Genie+, etc.
Day 1:
Our flight was at 7am, so we actually stayed at a hotel at the airport the night before. Plane ride went great and arrived a little early. We booked with FL Tours for our transportation instead of Tiffany Town Car as we had a "meh" experience with TTC for our February trip, and FL Tours seems well liked here. They were on time, early even, and helped with luggage and got us to the resort without issue. Far smoother than TTC.
We got to the Riviera around 11am, bell services took our bags, and we went to Primo Piatto for lunch. We were here once in our February trip as we took a break during our time at Epcot to come check out Riviera. It was surprisingly good at the time, and it was really good this time as well. The cast members there are always so friendly and for the price and speed, I think it's one of the best Disney mobile order/quick service places we have been.
I also received the message that our room was ready at 11:35am, another great surprise. Bell services took our bags and owners locker to our room on the fourth floor, with good view of Epcot fireworks we learned later that night.
The room was beautiful, it was our first time seeing it since the preview we first toured in 2019 while staying at Caribbean Beach and the tour was at Saratoga. It was larger than it seemed it would be in the pictures and from what I remembered, and we were immediately sure we made the right choice. We spent time at Saratoga, Animal Kingdom Lodge, and Boardwalk when we did our February resort hop stay, and this Riviera room blew them all away as far as our needs/priorities for the room.
I took the kids down to the pool. The slide and that isn't really amazing, I think some of the other resorts definitely have "cooler" options in terms of theming and slides. But the kids didn't seem to mind and had a great time, which is really all that matters. Our friends showed up shortly after as they had a later flight and we had a pretty relaxing night, we even used Doordash for our food since we also had a Shipt order being delivered with groceries and didn't want to go far and hadn't made any other plans.
Day 2: Epcot
We all got up early to schedule our Lightning Lanes/Genie+. Three of us were going to do Cosmic Rewind, and the others got Turtle Talk. Cosmic Rewind was fantastic, ended up being a bit much for the 8 year old who only had been on roller coasters at the state fair before. I was worried about that, as I didn't know exactly what to expect from the ride. But she was excited to try other coasters and we were just more cautious since it's so new to her. She was a champ though overall, I know I wouldn't have done them when I was her age, I didn't start liking coasters until I was about in college.
We ended up getting Lightning Lane after Lightning lane. It always seems we are in the minority but I love the new system. We always get the rides we want and more per day than any of our trips before. We did Frozen Ever After, met the princesses, did Remy's Ratatouille Adventure, and got lots of other character meet signatures. This was also our first trip getting PhotoPass, which ended up being a real big hit. It was great because we just bought one, and everyone in our party was able to use it.
Since it was so easy to get back to Riviera using the skyliner and since the world showcase entrance is so light, we even took an hour break in the middle of the day and relaxed at the hotel and let the hottest time of the day pass.
We came back for our dinner reservations and split up the group a bit, my buddy and I went to Le Celier as I had wanted to go for a while, and the girls all went to 9 Dragons, a place we all enjoyed when we came in 2019, and they all liked it this time too. I know this restaurant is a bit controversial for some, but it has been good the two times we went.
We did a little more wandering and bought some stuff at the nation pavilions, and our family went to Soarin' on another easy Lightning Lane before we headed back to the resort. It was a great, and exhausting, day.
Day 3: Magic Kingdom Part 1
We had two Magic Kingdom days planned, one on Day 3 and another on day 6. We suspected the kids were like this part most, and it maybe didn't end up being quite that way, but we worked around it.
Again we were up for LL reservations, this time targeting 7 Dwarfs mine car and Jingle Cruise to start. Myself and our 8 and 6 year old did mine car. The 8 year old loved it, which was a big relief after we went a bit too big with Cosmic the day before. The 6 year old liked it, but didn't love it. Jingle Cruise was fun as always. It's a nice way to tone things down from rushing around the park. We also did It's a Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean, Aladdin's Carpet Ride, and some smaller shows and that. We really pushed Genie+/Lightning Lanes to the max and continued the trend of never waiting in a standby line except for Prince Eric's Carousel. We were eventually to our 4:30 reservation for Cinderella's Royal table and that was a great experience. Probably not one we will do again because the girls are at the best age for it and while the food was excellent, all the waiting and everything that goes into it just isn't something we need to do on a trip any time soon. Wait staff was great, meeting Cinderella was a 10/10 experience for the girls, my 8 year old had an actual jaw dropped moment when we walked in and Cinderellas was waiting. Worth every penny.
We headed back to the hotel after dinner since we were coming back to MK anyway in a few days and didn't have anything more we needed to do and were pretty tired.
Day 4: Hollywood Studios
Our groups favorite park I think, we did our reservations for Rise of the Resistance, which my wife and I have done before, but nobody else had. And one of our other friends is a huuuuuuge Star Wars fan and we have been holding back from revealing any details. We also booked Mickey and Minnie Runaway Railway, Slinky Dog Dash, Toy Story Mania, Swirling Saucers, Frozen Sing Along, and some others I am likely forgetting. It was a first for any of us actually doing the Toy Story rides. Slinky Dog had more going on than I thought, I always thought it was much shorter than it actually is and wondered about the appeal. It's a great ride for kids.
Nothing really fancy for dining or anything, we did Backlot for lunch and we kind of didn't even have traditional dinner anywhere, we had Oga's Cantina at 6:40PM and just did their appetizer platters. We were a little upset with this one because we didn't realize they added 18% gratuity to the bill and our waiter had folded the receipts he brought each of our groups in a way that this line item was obscured. Added together, he ended up with about a 60% tip. He was a good guy, but probably not that good. Our only hope is that tips are divided among many of the employees there because overall they do a great job. That was a bit of a sour note as we didn't see a notice that gratuity would be added, he didn't say it would be, and there was no need to fold the receipt so it just feels like we were taken advantage of... but it's not the end of the world. We could have done more leg work too.
Another night of grabbing the skyliner and enjoyed the cool breeze back to Riviera.
Day 5: Animal Kingdom and then HS Park Hopper
We have a bit of a tradition of doing the Safari every time we visit AK and get on it early and this trip was no different. The kids all love animals and had a blast. We then had Tusker House for breakfast and continued to fill out the signature books and get pictures. The wait staff and characters were all great, the food was excellent, another outstanding experience overall.
To the surprise of our waiter, we went immediately from that big breakfast to some LL reservations on Everest. The 8 year old was going to do another roller coaster and I warned her this was going to be a bit more than 7 dwarfs, but less than Cosmic Rewind, since I have actually been on this one. There were only four of us doing the roller coaster, the smaller kids and my wife went to meet mickey and Minnie at the individual meet up there. Yeah they saw them at Tusker House, but it was available during our Everest ride so went for it.
Everest is still a blast, my daughter (the 8 year old) started to have a hard time with it like Cosmic, but just told her to take deep breaths and she ended up loving it. Her problem with both rides was she was tensing her stomach so much it was hurting, she said the deep breaths worked and as the coaster car was coming into station she was all smiles until... we arrived in station and the car stopped HARD and jammed the bar heavy into her stomach. And man did it stop hard, it surprised me big time. She was in real pain and the ride staff quickly came and helped and said they could get the medics if needed, but she thankfully was able to calm down. That was far from ideal given how happy she was for those brief moments thinking she had really conquered another big kid roller coaster. I got her a snow leopard stuffed animal from the gift shop, so I guess Disney and the daughter won on that one.
She and I had an appointment with Flight of Passage next so our group broke up again. This was another ride I did in February but ended up doing alone as my wife didn't feel good, and the rest of our group has trouble with virtual motion rides like that. She absolutely loved flight of passage and I still think it's a pretty cool ride.
Our 6 year old was getting tired so we went back to the resort. Took a Lyft instead of the bus so we could just be out of the sun. This was maybe the hottest day of the trip by this point and still really humid, so we had no complaints. After some cooling down and time at the pool we went to Hollywood Studios again (that darn Skyliner just makes it so easy) and the girls did Mickey and Minnie Runaway Railway and Slinky Dog Dash again. We also did Toy Story Mania again. Ate at Mama Melrose which is a favorite for my wife and I at HS. Overall we went from not doing anything at Toy Story to seeming to revisit it over and over. We also did a bunch more Photopass stuff in Galaxy's Edge and got them light sabers, not the full on $250 ones, but the still surprisingly nice $40 ones.
Headed back to the Riviera, starting to feel the sadness of the coming end of the trip.
Day 6: Magic Kingdom Part Deux and Park Hopper to... Hollywood Studios
Our main reason for going to MK was Bibbiti Bobbiti Boutique. We made breakfast first at the resort then took the bus to MK. We got during the early access period and were able to see the stage show right at opening. We also had just enough time since we were right there to meet Merida, That was cool and they did a really good job with that character meet up. With ten minutes to spare we made it to BBB and got checked in.
BBB was another up and down experience I think. The dresses are cool, they do a good job making the girls feel awesome during much of it, but a part of Disney I absolutely hate was really on display here. This is a premium experience that is fairly difficult to book. It has a premium price tag and comes with premium expectations. The dresses seemed nice enough for kids, but the dollar store quality wands, shoes, and tiara/crown are rough. I see this every time I walk by the bubble wand stands or most of the smaller shops. It's one thing to have stuff made in China for lowest bidder prices and then charge huge amounts for them, but it seems like so many companies have found a way to at least find manufacturers, even in China, that can make the product still feel fairly premium. These are such cheap looking garbage that it really distracts from the experience, especially when opting for the top available package. If Disney wants to keep raising prices and moving more to premium offerings, they have to drop the dollar store items across the board or actually offer something premium, even if it costs even more. I would have definitely paid another $50 or whatever to actually have the girls get a wand that didn't look so bad, or tiara or whatever, and even better if every single thing wasn't made in China.
Sorry, I know it's a bit of a tangent, I am just amazed how cheap and ugly so much of the merch we encountered was, especially stuff that was $40 or more a piece and in most cases was already broken/batteries dead on arrival. I know Disney CAN do better because as I noted above those Light Sabers we got at HS are surprisingly really nice. They are fixed blade, so not the cheap expandable ones they sell at the end of Star Tours. They react to motion and impact. We have used them a lot playing around and they still work great, original batteries too! They were also $40 as I noted before. Seeing those then seeing similarly prices bubble wands that broke almost immediately is just so jarring. They need a serious refresh on this front.
Alright... back on topic. I was feeling a bit down on BBB for the reasons noted above until we got over to Cinderella's Castle for the actual makeup/hair portion. Those ladies were amazing, the PhotoPass photographer was amazing and nailed every perfect shot. This took BBB from possible loss/waste of money to huge success, stupid looking wands aside. This was the real main event and all the girls were so happy. Especially when it didn't end there and we went back to Sir Mickey's and they did the photo shoot.
After BBB we did the Meet Tiana Lightning Lane, and Rapunzel was the guest princess. Two princesses we haven't run into, and my daughters both picked the Rapunzel dress at BBB. A double win. Another fantastic cast member who was guiding everyone and did a little story/skit for the girls about the storybook in that room and the girls ate it up. We definitely ran into the highest number of experience enhancing cast members on this trip!
It was then time to get to Be our Guest, and only our family did that one. They sat us right by the windows at the front of the ballroom and that was great, we saw the beast come through a few times, and the food was awesome. Like Royal Table, this was really expensive and I probably won't do it again anytime soon. It's not bad, it's just a lot of money for something that I think really only has the full impact on the first run through. We will see though.
We went back to the resort and between bus times and that, it was already about 2:30PM when we got back. The girls wanted to cool down and we initially planned to go back to Epcot, and my wife and I still wish we had, but the kids wanted to do runaway railway again! So we booked that LL and I also happened to look right when a 6PM slot opened for Sci-Fi Drive In, something none of us had done before. So I booked that and off we went to HS. We walked a few shops, did our runaway railway, for the third time, then got to our dinner. Another amazing cast member was our waitress, the food was pretty good for what I expected, and it was a fun time. After that we headed back, since it had been a pretty exhausting week so far.
Day 7: Dawn of the Last Day - Disney Springs
Our day was supposed to start with our first visit to Topolino's Terrace. We all basically woke up and were an hour from going there, and agreed we were all basically done with food. Our friends were leaving at 9:30am for their flight which was a lot earlier than ours, and we had mainly booked it for the character experience, but had already seen the characters that would be there, a few times! So we called the Disney reservation line and cancelled it, and they didn't even charge us the cancellation fee. We don't often cancel things, but it just wasn't making sense to us. We weren't hungry, still had a lot of groceries left that were going to be thrown out, didn't feel like more characters, and at $45/person for what looked to be mainly still waffles and fruit plates, it just seemed like it would end up being a sour point for us on an otherwise nearly flawless vacation.
So we ate in the room, burned through most of the remaining groceries and felt a lot better saving the money and not wasting the groceries. Our friends had their return car show up, and they were off. We unfortunately were denied a late checkout (our flight was pushed back two hours so we were hoping we could stick around and cover that time). We just checked out at the normal time in the end and bell services held the bags. We didn't have any park tickets left so we went to Disney Springs. Bus was quick, got into Disney Springs fast, had incredible weather. It ended up being really nice and I am kind of glad we didn't get the check out extension. We found some last minute stuff at the shops, and I threw us in the virtual line for meeting Santa, and didn't tell the girls. We went over to meet Santa and they lit up at that. I also found out they had a photopass photographer, and I wasn't sure if PhotoPass would still work since we were technically checked out and our park tickets were done, but it did! PhotoPass photographer nailed a bunch of great shots. We took a Lyft back to the hotel and our driver from FL Tours sent me a text confirming our 2PM airport ride, and I said it was all good and we should be back to the resort by 1:30pm. He said he would get us early if we wanted, and I was all for it. Never hurts to get to the airport early.
I ran into the Riviera to use the bathroom and get one more thing from the Cafe, and the driver said he was out front. I only saw a Jeep and a limo, so I asked which vehicle? He said "the Long One". FL Tours had sent a Limo for our return! We had talked seriously about at least doing a Limo to the resort just for fun, but had decided not to. Now we had a no extra charge Limo taking us to the airport! I guess FL Tours had a Limo pick up scheduled for 2:10pm, so they probably just piggybacked it on our original reservation. No complaints here and the girls have talked about their Limo ride almost more than the Disney rides.
Anyway, flight home was fine, typical airport stuff. Spent some time in the Delta Sky Lounge since we had the extra time. They set up a taco bar. It was nice.
Overall Rating: 9/10, we did so many rides, checked off every box, and had significantly more great cast member experiences than bad ones. Skyliner never broke down or anything like that (never has thankfully for us). weather held out when it was looking like run coming up to the vacation. No lost kids or injuries. Only real problems were the *maybe* shady waiter at Oga's and my kind-of ongoing disappointment with increased prices and ugly/cheap merch, especially in premium experiences.
Some side thoughts:
PhotoPass was an unexpected hero of the trip. None of us had really paid attention to how many PhotoPass photographers there are, and how much fun it is to do them not knowing if they will add some extra magic to the shot. We have pictures with X-Wings and Tie Fighters in the back, glowing orbs, chameleons in hands, etc, it was so much fun.
The premium experiences like Royal Table and BBB are pretty amazing through the eyes of the kids. None of them seemed to care about their wand or crown quality, and they walked around that park with such confident glee afterward.
The Skyliner rocks. This is our third trip making heavy use of it, and it's a game changer. I hope it gets expanded.
The Riviera is outstanding. You feel good being there, the staff was amazing without exception, it has great food and drinks. It has a mid-tier pool, but it's a small blemish on an otherwise rockstar resort and I am glad we own there. It having one bus stop and exclusive bus runs is also a big win. I remember how long it took us to get back on the bus when we stayed at Caribbean Beach or Animal Kingdom Lodge.
Many of the cast members don't know what can be a magic band. We had one basically argue and say my friend was "wrong" that his Apple Watch was working as a magic band, even when she could see all the charges posted to our room. She insisted he had used his MB and just forget, and wouldn't budge even when he showed her he didn't wear an MB, had not even brought one on the trip, and just had his watch. I also found I had to just tell a CM "Magic Band" and kind of hide my wrist because if I held up my Apple Watch and said it, they always selected Apple Pay, thinking I was just mistaken. They keep changing the rules on this front though so I don't entirely blame them.
The DVC Merch Discount is great. It saved us a few hundred dollars easy, and only one CM the entire trip actually checked my ID. Most checked for the "DVC Y", but only that one person actually wanted ID.
Again, great trip, can't wait to go again!
This is our second trip since joining DVC, but first where we actually stayed at our home resort. The first was a last minute trip and we took what we could get which meant resort hopping three DVC resorts.
That trip was just the wife and I, this time there were seven of us there. Wife and myself, two kids (6 and 8) and two friends of ours and their daughter (5). We booked a two bedroom non-lock standard view for the 23rd-29th.
This was the first time at Disney for all the kids and we went all out, we had reservations for Cinderella's royal table, bibbiti bobbiti boutique, Be Our Guest, park hoppers, Genie+, etc.
Day 1:
Our flight was at 7am, so we actually stayed at a hotel at the airport the night before. Plane ride went great and arrived a little early. We booked with FL Tours for our transportation instead of Tiffany Town Car as we had a "meh" experience with TTC for our February trip, and FL Tours seems well liked here. They were on time, early even, and helped with luggage and got us to the resort without issue. Far smoother than TTC.
We got to the Riviera around 11am, bell services took our bags, and we went to Primo Piatto for lunch. We were here once in our February trip as we took a break during our time at Epcot to come check out Riviera. It was surprisingly good at the time, and it was really good this time as well. The cast members there are always so friendly and for the price and speed, I think it's one of the best Disney mobile order/quick service places we have been.
I also received the message that our room was ready at 11:35am, another great surprise. Bell services took our bags and owners locker to our room on the fourth floor, with good view of Epcot fireworks we learned later that night.
The room was beautiful, it was our first time seeing it since the preview we first toured in 2019 while staying at Caribbean Beach and the tour was at Saratoga. It was larger than it seemed it would be in the pictures and from what I remembered, and we were immediately sure we made the right choice. We spent time at Saratoga, Animal Kingdom Lodge, and Boardwalk when we did our February resort hop stay, and this Riviera room blew them all away as far as our needs/priorities for the room.
I took the kids down to the pool. The slide and that isn't really amazing, I think some of the other resorts definitely have "cooler" options in terms of theming and slides. But the kids didn't seem to mind and had a great time, which is really all that matters. Our friends showed up shortly after as they had a later flight and we had a pretty relaxing night, we even used Doordash for our food since we also had a Shipt order being delivered with groceries and didn't want to go far and hadn't made any other plans.
Day 2: Epcot
We all got up early to schedule our Lightning Lanes/Genie+. Three of us were going to do Cosmic Rewind, and the others got Turtle Talk. Cosmic Rewind was fantastic, ended up being a bit much for the 8 year old who only had been on roller coasters at the state fair before. I was worried about that, as I didn't know exactly what to expect from the ride. But she was excited to try other coasters and we were just more cautious since it's so new to her. She was a champ though overall, I know I wouldn't have done them when I was her age, I didn't start liking coasters until I was about in college.
We ended up getting Lightning Lane after Lightning lane. It always seems we are in the minority but I love the new system. We always get the rides we want and more per day than any of our trips before. We did Frozen Ever After, met the princesses, did Remy's Ratatouille Adventure, and got lots of other character meet signatures. This was also our first trip getting PhotoPass, which ended up being a real big hit. It was great because we just bought one, and everyone in our party was able to use it.
Since it was so easy to get back to Riviera using the skyliner and since the world showcase entrance is so light, we even took an hour break in the middle of the day and relaxed at the hotel and let the hottest time of the day pass.
We came back for our dinner reservations and split up the group a bit, my buddy and I went to Le Celier as I had wanted to go for a while, and the girls all went to 9 Dragons, a place we all enjoyed when we came in 2019, and they all liked it this time too. I know this restaurant is a bit controversial for some, but it has been good the two times we went.
We did a little more wandering and bought some stuff at the nation pavilions, and our family went to Soarin' on another easy Lightning Lane before we headed back to the resort. It was a great, and exhausting, day.
Day 3: Magic Kingdom Part 1
We had two Magic Kingdom days planned, one on Day 3 and another on day 6. We suspected the kids were like this part most, and it maybe didn't end up being quite that way, but we worked around it.
Again we were up for LL reservations, this time targeting 7 Dwarfs mine car and Jingle Cruise to start. Myself and our 8 and 6 year old did mine car. The 8 year old loved it, which was a big relief after we went a bit too big with Cosmic the day before. The 6 year old liked it, but didn't love it. Jingle Cruise was fun as always. It's a nice way to tone things down from rushing around the park. We also did It's a Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean, Aladdin's Carpet Ride, and some smaller shows and that. We really pushed Genie+/Lightning Lanes to the max and continued the trend of never waiting in a standby line except for Prince Eric's Carousel. We were eventually to our 4:30 reservation for Cinderella's Royal table and that was a great experience. Probably not one we will do again because the girls are at the best age for it and while the food was excellent, all the waiting and everything that goes into it just isn't something we need to do on a trip any time soon. Wait staff was great, meeting Cinderella was a 10/10 experience for the girls, my 8 year old had an actual jaw dropped moment when we walked in and Cinderellas was waiting. Worth every penny.
We headed back to the hotel after dinner since we were coming back to MK anyway in a few days and didn't have anything more we needed to do and were pretty tired.
Day 4: Hollywood Studios
Our groups favorite park I think, we did our reservations for Rise of the Resistance, which my wife and I have done before, but nobody else had. And one of our other friends is a huuuuuuge Star Wars fan and we have been holding back from revealing any details. We also booked Mickey and Minnie Runaway Railway, Slinky Dog Dash, Toy Story Mania, Swirling Saucers, Frozen Sing Along, and some others I am likely forgetting. It was a first for any of us actually doing the Toy Story rides. Slinky Dog had more going on than I thought, I always thought it was much shorter than it actually is and wondered about the appeal. It's a great ride for kids.
Nothing really fancy for dining or anything, we did Backlot for lunch and we kind of didn't even have traditional dinner anywhere, we had Oga's Cantina at 6:40PM and just did their appetizer platters. We were a little upset with this one because we didn't realize they added 18% gratuity to the bill and our waiter had folded the receipts he brought each of our groups in a way that this line item was obscured. Added together, he ended up with about a 60% tip. He was a good guy, but probably not that good. Our only hope is that tips are divided among many of the employees there because overall they do a great job. That was a bit of a sour note as we didn't see a notice that gratuity would be added, he didn't say it would be, and there was no need to fold the receipt so it just feels like we were taken advantage of... but it's not the end of the world. We could have done more leg work too.
Another night of grabbing the skyliner and enjoyed the cool breeze back to Riviera.
Day 5: Animal Kingdom and then HS Park Hopper
We have a bit of a tradition of doing the Safari every time we visit AK and get on it early and this trip was no different. The kids all love animals and had a blast. We then had Tusker House for breakfast and continued to fill out the signature books and get pictures. The wait staff and characters were all great, the food was excellent, another outstanding experience overall.
To the surprise of our waiter, we went immediately from that big breakfast to some LL reservations on Everest. The 8 year old was going to do another roller coaster and I warned her this was going to be a bit more than 7 dwarfs, but less than Cosmic Rewind, since I have actually been on this one. There were only four of us doing the roller coaster, the smaller kids and my wife went to meet mickey and Minnie at the individual meet up there. Yeah they saw them at Tusker House, but it was available during our Everest ride so went for it.
Everest is still a blast, my daughter (the 8 year old) started to have a hard time with it like Cosmic, but just told her to take deep breaths and she ended up loving it. Her problem with both rides was she was tensing her stomach so much it was hurting, she said the deep breaths worked and as the coaster car was coming into station she was all smiles until... we arrived in station and the car stopped HARD and jammed the bar heavy into her stomach. And man did it stop hard, it surprised me big time. She was in real pain and the ride staff quickly came and helped and said they could get the medics if needed, but she thankfully was able to calm down. That was far from ideal given how happy she was for those brief moments thinking she had really conquered another big kid roller coaster. I got her a snow leopard stuffed animal from the gift shop, so I guess Disney and the daughter won on that one.
She and I had an appointment with Flight of Passage next so our group broke up again. This was another ride I did in February but ended up doing alone as my wife didn't feel good, and the rest of our group has trouble with virtual motion rides like that. She absolutely loved flight of passage and I still think it's a pretty cool ride.
Our 6 year old was getting tired so we went back to the resort. Took a Lyft instead of the bus so we could just be out of the sun. This was maybe the hottest day of the trip by this point and still really humid, so we had no complaints. After some cooling down and time at the pool we went to Hollywood Studios again (that darn Skyliner just makes it so easy) and the girls did Mickey and Minnie Runaway Railway and Slinky Dog Dash again. We also did Toy Story Mania again. Ate at Mama Melrose which is a favorite for my wife and I at HS. Overall we went from not doing anything at Toy Story to seeming to revisit it over and over. We also did a bunch more Photopass stuff in Galaxy's Edge and got them light sabers, not the full on $250 ones, but the still surprisingly nice $40 ones.
Headed back to the Riviera, starting to feel the sadness of the coming end of the trip.
Day 6: Magic Kingdom Part Deux and Park Hopper to... Hollywood Studios
Our main reason for going to MK was Bibbiti Bobbiti Boutique. We made breakfast first at the resort then took the bus to MK. We got during the early access period and were able to see the stage show right at opening. We also had just enough time since we were right there to meet Merida, That was cool and they did a really good job with that character meet up. With ten minutes to spare we made it to BBB and got checked in.
BBB was another up and down experience I think. The dresses are cool, they do a good job making the girls feel awesome during much of it, but a part of Disney I absolutely hate was really on display here. This is a premium experience that is fairly difficult to book. It has a premium price tag and comes with premium expectations. The dresses seemed nice enough for kids, but the dollar store quality wands, shoes, and tiara/crown are rough. I see this every time I walk by the bubble wand stands or most of the smaller shops. It's one thing to have stuff made in China for lowest bidder prices and then charge huge amounts for them, but it seems like so many companies have found a way to at least find manufacturers, even in China, that can make the product still feel fairly premium. These are such cheap looking garbage that it really distracts from the experience, especially when opting for the top available package. If Disney wants to keep raising prices and moving more to premium offerings, they have to drop the dollar store items across the board or actually offer something premium, even if it costs even more. I would have definitely paid another $50 or whatever to actually have the girls get a wand that didn't look so bad, or tiara or whatever, and even better if every single thing wasn't made in China.
Sorry, I know it's a bit of a tangent, I am just amazed how cheap and ugly so much of the merch we encountered was, especially stuff that was $40 or more a piece and in most cases was already broken/batteries dead on arrival. I know Disney CAN do better because as I noted above those Light Sabers we got at HS are surprisingly really nice. They are fixed blade, so not the cheap expandable ones they sell at the end of Star Tours. They react to motion and impact. We have used them a lot playing around and they still work great, original batteries too! They were also $40 as I noted before. Seeing those then seeing similarly prices bubble wands that broke almost immediately is just so jarring. They need a serious refresh on this front.
Alright... back on topic. I was feeling a bit down on BBB for the reasons noted above until we got over to Cinderella's Castle for the actual makeup/hair portion. Those ladies were amazing, the PhotoPass photographer was amazing and nailed every perfect shot. This took BBB from possible loss/waste of money to huge success, stupid looking wands aside. This was the real main event and all the girls were so happy. Especially when it didn't end there and we went back to Sir Mickey's and they did the photo shoot.
After BBB we did the Meet Tiana Lightning Lane, and Rapunzel was the guest princess. Two princesses we haven't run into, and my daughters both picked the Rapunzel dress at BBB. A double win. Another fantastic cast member who was guiding everyone and did a little story/skit for the girls about the storybook in that room and the girls ate it up. We definitely ran into the highest number of experience enhancing cast members on this trip!
It was then time to get to Be our Guest, and only our family did that one. They sat us right by the windows at the front of the ballroom and that was great, we saw the beast come through a few times, and the food was awesome. Like Royal Table, this was really expensive and I probably won't do it again anytime soon. It's not bad, it's just a lot of money for something that I think really only has the full impact on the first run through. We will see though.
We went back to the resort and between bus times and that, it was already about 2:30PM when we got back. The girls wanted to cool down and we initially planned to go back to Epcot, and my wife and I still wish we had, but the kids wanted to do runaway railway again! So we booked that LL and I also happened to look right when a 6PM slot opened for Sci-Fi Drive In, something none of us had done before. So I booked that and off we went to HS. We walked a few shops, did our runaway railway, for the third time, then got to our dinner. Another amazing cast member was our waitress, the food was pretty good for what I expected, and it was a fun time. After that we headed back, since it had been a pretty exhausting week so far.
Day 7: Dawn of the Last Day - Disney Springs
Our day was supposed to start with our first visit to Topolino's Terrace. We all basically woke up and were an hour from going there, and agreed we were all basically done with food. Our friends were leaving at 9:30am for their flight which was a lot earlier than ours, and we had mainly booked it for the character experience, but had already seen the characters that would be there, a few times! So we called the Disney reservation line and cancelled it, and they didn't even charge us the cancellation fee. We don't often cancel things, but it just wasn't making sense to us. We weren't hungry, still had a lot of groceries left that were going to be thrown out, didn't feel like more characters, and at $45/person for what looked to be mainly still waffles and fruit plates, it just seemed like it would end up being a sour point for us on an otherwise nearly flawless vacation.
So we ate in the room, burned through most of the remaining groceries and felt a lot better saving the money and not wasting the groceries. Our friends had their return car show up, and they were off. We unfortunately were denied a late checkout (our flight was pushed back two hours so we were hoping we could stick around and cover that time). We just checked out at the normal time in the end and bell services held the bags. We didn't have any park tickets left so we went to Disney Springs. Bus was quick, got into Disney Springs fast, had incredible weather. It ended up being really nice and I am kind of glad we didn't get the check out extension. We found some last minute stuff at the shops, and I threw us in the virtual line for meeting Santa, and didn't tell the girls. We went over to meet Santa and they lit up at that. I also found out they had a photopass photographer, and I wasn't sure if PhotoPass would still work since we were technically checked out and our park tickets were done, but it did! PhotoPass photographer nailed a bunch of great shots. We took a Lyft back to the hotel and our driver from FL Tours sent me a text confirming our 2PM airport ride, and I said it was all good and we should be back to the resort by 1:30pm. He said he would get us early if we wanted, and I was all for it. Never hurts to get to the airport early.
I ran into the Riviera to use the bathroom and get one more thing from the Cafe, and the driver said he was out front. I only saw a Jeep and a limo, so I asked which vehicle? He said "the Long One". FL Tours had sent a Limo for our return! We had talked seriously about at least doing a Limo to the resort just for fun, but had decided not to. Now we had a no extra charge Limo taking us to the airport! I guess FL Tours had a Limo pick up scheduled for 2:10pm, so they probably just piggybacked it on our original reservation. No complaints here and the girls have talked about their Limo ride almost more than the Disney rides.
Anyway, flight home was fine, typical airport stuff. Spent some time in the Delta Sky Lounge since we had the extra time. They set up a taco bar. It was nice.
Overall Rating: 9/10, we did so many rides, checked off every box, and had significantly more great cast member experiences than bad ones. Skyliner never broke down or anything like that (never has thankfully for us). weather held out when it was looking like run coming up to the vacation. No lost kids or injuries. Only real problems were the *maybe* shady waiter at Oga's and my kind-of ongoing disappointment with increased prices and ugly/cheap merch, especially in premium experiences.
Some side thoughts:
PhotoPass was an unexpected hero of the trip. None of us had really paid attention to how many PhotoPass photographers there are, and how much fun it is to do them not knowing if they will add some extra magic to the shot. We have pictures with X-Wings and Tie Fighters in the back, glowing orbs, chameleons in hands, etc, it was so much fun.
The premium experiences like Royal Table and BBB are pretty amazing through the eyes of the kids. None of them seemed to care about their wand or crown quality, and they walked around that park with such confident glee afterward.
The Skyliner rocks. This is our third trip making heavy use of it, and it's a game changer. I hope it gets expanded.
The Riviera is outstanding. You feel good being there, the staff was amazing without exception, it has great food and drinks. It has a mid-tier pool, but it's a small blemish on an otherwise rockstar resort and I am glad we own there. It having one bus stop and exclusive bus runs is also a big win. I remember how long it took us to get back on the bus when we stayed at Caribbean Beach or Animal Kingdom Lodge.
Many of the cast members don't know what can be a magic band. We had one basically argue and say my friend was "wrong" that his Apple Watch was working as a magic band, even when she could see all the charges posted to our room. She insisted he had used his MB and just forget, and wouldn't budge even when he showed her he didn't wear an MB, had not even brought one on the trip, and just had his watch. I also found I had to just tell a CM "Magic Band" and kind of hide my wrist because if I held up my Apple Watch and said it, they always selected Apple Pay, thinking I was just mistaken. They keep changing the rules on this front though so I don't entirely blame them.
The DVC Merch Discount is great. It saved us a few hundred dollars easy, and only one CM the entire trip actually checked my ID. Most checked for the "DVC Y", but only that one person actually wanted ID.
Again, great trip, can't wait to go again!
