8/15 - 8/17 Trip - Get there early, get there EARLY, GET THERE EARLY!!

[CrabbyPatty]

DD and I have been to WDW twice (go in August with the heat and humidity, but VERY short times plus free dining!), so DLR was new to us, plus my DH went along for this trip. Our group consisted of myself, DH and DD (10) plus our friends who have 2 girls (8 and almost 5 - grand nieces).

We stayed at the Ramada Maingate and thought we made a good motel choice. Under 2 minute walk to the crosswalk, easy to go back in the afternoon for swims in their great pool, nice to be back "home" quickly at the end of a Disney day.

We had a 3-day PH and while I could have used a day or two more, it worked out well for us. First day (Monday), we were at DLR a few minutes after opening. Went to Fantasyland and rode Mr. Toad, Pinnochio, Dumbo, carousel, Storybook Canal boats, Alice in Wonderland, Teacups, walked over to Small World and saw it had a larger line (perhaps 20 minutes at that point?) so we walked into Toontown and did everything there, except Minnie's House.

Minnie was there signing autographs, so the wait was 45 minutes and the girls were actually not that excited about the characters! (DD has done just about every character meal at WDW plus gotten autographs and pictures the last two years, and the 8 yr old as well in her prior trips, and the almost 5-yr-old on her first trip was more excited about the rides, so the characters for a picture/autograph didn't even cross her mind - thankfully for us adults!)

After Toontown, Small World had no line, so we did that, then got FP for Autopia, and stood in line 15 minutes for Buzz Lightyear, did Autopia, went over to CA for Soarin' FPs and then headed out to the Ramada for swimming.

Came back to CA later in the day, did Soarin', Little Mermaid twice (absolutely no line), walked around, did the kid's play area (walking those rope bridges in flip flops was a real killer!) and headed back to Mimi's Cafe for dinner, then watching fireworks right outside our door at the Ramada Maingate.

Day 2 (Tuesday, August 16th) to follow .........

 

[daneenm]

DD and I have been to WDW twice (go in August with the heat and humidity, but VERY short times plus free dining!), so DLR was new to us, plus my DH went along for this trip. Our group consisted of myself, DH and DD (10) plus our friends who have 2 girls (8 and almost 5 - grand nieces).

We stayed at the Ramada Maingate and thought we made a good motel choice. Under 2 minute walk to the crosswalk, easy to go back in the afternoon for swims in their great pool, nice to be back "home" quickly at the end of a Disney day.

We had a 3-day PH and while I could have used a day or two more, it worked out well for us. First day (Monday), we were at DLR a few minutes after opening. Went to Fantasyland and rode Mr. Toad, Pinnochio, Dumbo, carousel, Alice in Wonderland, Teacups, walked over to Small World and saw it had a larger line (perhaps 20 minutes at that point?) so we walked into Toontown and did everything there, except Minnie's House.

Minnie was there signing autographs, so the wait was 45 minutes and the girls were actually not that excited about the characters! (DD has done just about every character meal at WDW plus gotten autographs and pictures the last two years, and the 8 yr old as well in her prior trips, and the almost 5-yr-old on her first trip was more excited about the rides, so the characters for a picture/autograph didn't even cross her mind - thankfully for us adults!)

After Toontown, Small World had no line, so we did that, then got FP for Autopia, and stood in line 15 minutes for Buzz Lightyear, did Autopia, went over to CA for Soarin' FPs and then headed out to the Ramada for swimming.

Came back to CA later in the day, did Soarin', Little Mermaid twice (absolutely no line), walked around, did the kid's play area (walking those rope bridges in flip flops was a real killer!) and headed back to Mimi's Cafe for dinner, then watching fireworks right outside our door at the Ramada Maingate.

Day 2 (Tuesday, August 16th) to follow .........

Wow, how great are those lines for August!

 

[disneymom0104]

Sounds so much fun! We are doing our first family DL trip after 3 WDW trips- so love hearing everything!

 

[skiingfast]

Sounds like a productive first day, but didn't stay in the park for night shows? Were you tired?

 

[CrabbyPatty]

Thanks for the comments - our group had decided that the night shows were not in the mix for this trip. With the time change, our body clocks were two hours ahead, the 4-yr-old had a tough time staying awake, my DH has back problems so standing still for any amount of time results in a lot of pain, and we really didn't want to stand in line to get WOC FPs, to stand in line to wait to get into a section, to wait to stand in line for the show!

Our second day as a prime example of NOT following HydroGuy's prime directive - get there early, get there EARLY, GET THERE EARLY. The other part of our group are definitely the "sleep in, arrive late" demographic, so we didn't get going until after 10:30 a.m. the second morning. By this time, lines were getting very busy, the park was crowded and we wallowed around trying to find rides that didn't have long lines. We rode the riverboat while some of our group did the Big Thunder roller coaster, we did Haunted Mansion and POC without too much wait.

We ate at the Hungry Bear - without a doubt a HORRID eating experience. DH had the cheeseburger, or as he called it "school lunch room steamed meat on the bun" and the salad I had was a weird mix of just too many fruits and vegs (and I generally LIKE any type of salad). The other part of our group had turkey sandwiches - definitely the BETTER choice on the menu - they actually looked pretty good.

We did the Winnie Pooh ride, rode the railroad to the front of DLR and hopped over to CA for another round of Soarin' FPs, did Little Mermaid again (no wait) and headed back to the hotel for another pool afternoon.

DH and I decided to get back to the parks before 5:00 p.m. so we could do Muppet 3D (last show was at 5:00 due to the Tron shows at night), did Soarin', and then all the rides in Bug's Land (as you can probably guess from our ride choices, my DD is NOT a big fan of roller coasters and anything more than mildly "scary"), Monsters Inc., etc.

 

[CrabbyPatty]

We're back from California, and I thought I'd just finish up my thoughts on your trip, and a bit more information about our 3rd, and last day, at DLR.

Our final day our group split up with DH, DD and myself doing the parks together, and our friends (2 adults, 2 kids) doing their thing, meeting up at lunch.

Again, we started out EARLY getting to DLR right after opening. We got FP for Star Tours, did all our favorite rides again, finally got to do the Nemo submarine ride with no wait (other days we found the ride was usually 30 minutes wait), Autopia, Buzz Lightyear, Toontown, FantasyLand, no wait for Small World, etc.

About 10:00 we switched over to California Adventure, and did a few more rides there, waiting in line for 40 minutes for Toy Story Mania. The line moved quickly and it's wasn't too bad standing in line. We explored around Paradise Pier a bit more ......

.... and at this point, the rest of our group contacted us. They had just gotten into the parks around 10:45 a.m. and had done two rides with shorter lines. They thought they could do Tower of Terror before our noon-time reservation at House of Blues (!) so we once again separated and met up with them at HOB. (They were surprised there was a 30 minute wait to TOT around noon, so they got FPs for a later afternoon return).

We had lunch at HOB - NOT good by any means. We rode the monorail back to the DLR Nemo location (girls got to ride in the front of the monorail) which was PACKED at this time of day (all of Tomorrowland was pretty busy), but did Buzz once again, and then DH, DD and I did Star Tours.

We once again split up, with DH, DD and I doing Soarin' again, and exploring CA a bit more, doing more repeats of our favorite rides.

We ended our last day at the Hour 10 mark, feeling that we had done just about everything we wanted to do for a first visit. Our friends, in contrast, did perhaps 4-5 rides total that last day (TOT, Indiana Jones, Buzz and two smaller rides in CA).

I felt the August lines were VERY do-able, especially getting there early and utilizing FPs. As you'll note from my comments, we are NOT a family that does any thrill rides - no roller coasters, etc. - so your mileage can vary, but we were completely satisifed with our first go at DLR!