9/16/17 Here now, first trip

[eeyoresmom]

I'm just going to post some quick notes whenever possible. I'll save the longer posts for when we get home. We arrived last night and had planned on going to DTD bit instead devided to upgrade our 3 day tickets to 5 and entered DL around 6 something. We are WFW vets so can't help compare and I do think it's useful in most instances. Guest services was very slow. I have never seen such long lines at WDW and they moved slowly. Be prepared for that. We got our tickets and immediately took photos of the back of them, then immediately lost mine. That second visit to guest services inside the park went much quicker. We got hung up in the hub because if a parade so ducked into see Great Moments with Mr Lincoln. Loved it. We had the fried chicken at the Plaza. DD got the full meal and I purchased a breast piece for $4. It was just enough for 2 adult women. The chicken was delicious, moist and crispy but way too salty. Is it supposed to be? If this is a fluke I would rate the meal a A- for cs. If it is always that salty i can't recommend it. Fantasmic fp were all out as we expected. We hopped on its a small world and enjoyed it as much as the wdw version. Really liked the additional Disney characters. We had a go for BTMM but it went down. We uaed it at Space and that you went down just as we were about to board. They had to evacuate guests from vehicles. The delay there was about 10 min. We did ride it and it is a better version than the WDW one. Got a fairly decent spot for the fireworks and a delicious chocolate covered peanut butter sandwich from the confectionary. It was after almost 11 pm, 2 am our time and we had flown across the country so we were done
15 min walk back to our hotel. Up early this morning and will be at DL for rope drop with maxpass and a plan

 

[Shelly S]

Thanks for posting. We will be arriving on Friday and I just love to read current reports.

 

[gsrieff]

Following along. Have a great trip!

 

[Shanti]

Following.

 

[Sue M]

We left on the 13th and was so disappointed that Space was still closed. I kept hoping for an early soft opening!

 

[colormegreen]

Will be following along! I loved reading trip reports. As to your question about the chicken, we had it many times and as a person that does not cook with much salt at home, I don't find the chicken to be salty on a normal basis. We are AP holders and locals so we go often, from all the times we've ate there, only once did I find the chicken salty.

 

[wdwfan22]

Looking forward to more posts. I love following along with folks who are there. I'm getting so exited for my trip in one month!

 

[pennym]

Keep posting please!

 

[eeyoresmom]

Still out this evening at DL but having a great time. We got maxpass today and it has been an incredible time saver. We arrived at rope drop and did so much today. I know you are supposed to wait 90 min between next available to but we were able to make our next ones sooner. Usually in around 45 min. Because of this we literally fastpasses everything we wanted , some twice. We will use it again for our first day at DCA then decide.It's definitely worth it for a first visit. It has been great. WI FI in the parks not so much but we got through it. I am not a big fan of HM but the Halloween overlay here is out of this world good. Don't miss it. Lunch at Cafe Orleans
Had the Monte Christo, pomme frites and a cup of gumbo. DD and I shared all this and still couldn't finish
I will be dreaming of this meal for years. So good. Also had a corn dog which was good but I'm not a fan of corn dogs so not a good judge. The Matterhorn macarron is excellent. Doesnt look it but one of my favorite Disney items ever. Gotta go, got teo fp attractions to ride

 

[Skyegirl1999]

I know you are supposed to wait 90 min between next available to but we were able to make our next ones sooner. Usually in around 45 min.

90 minutes is a MAXIMUM. You are always eligible to book a new FP as soon as your window opens (unless the window opens in less than 30 minutes, in which case you need to scan that FP first). 90 minutes only comes into effect if you have a longer-than-90-minute wait for your FP window to open.

Glad you're having fun!

 

[eeyoresmom]

We went to DCA yesterday. A few minor frustrations first....cast members have not been as helpful as we are used to. At GOTG there was no cm to direct guests where to go .Everyone followed the leader and we all had to be redirected. This happened again at another attraction but i cant remember which. We also had a bit of trouble figuring out where to go for WOC and a cm was not very helpful. We also could not find many photopass photographers until very late in the day. Maybe we were just missing them......We also could not find iced coffee anywhere outside of Starbucks. We even tried the quick service at the GCH but couldn't get it. I don't know why but Monday at DCA and DTD seemed much more crowded then Sunday at DL. Also, standing for Fantasmic and WOC and still not having decent views unless you are right up front is frustrating.Those are the negatives we encountered and i know are minor. Overall , we absolutely loved DCA. The theming is great and we were so impressed with the Frozen show and all of Radiator Springs. The best decision we made all day was to stalk a fp to ride rsr at night. That was really cool. So far we have found the cs restaurants here to be superior to WDW but much less options for TS. Back to DL today without max pass. Hope it goes well.

 

[smartlabelprint]

I avoid Monday's. That's usually my travel day. The parks tend to be super crowded mondays IME. Hope it evens out for you tomorrow.

You could upgrade to parkhoppers.

 

[Priory]

We also could not find iced coffee anywhere outside of Starbucks. We even tried the quick service at the GCH but couldn't get it.

You should have tried finding an iced coffee before Starbucks was there. I distinctly remember standing at that coffee cart near where Little Mermaid is now trying to get them to pour a couple of shots of espresso over ice. (They had espresso. They had ice). You'd think I was from mars. Sometimes I'd ask cast members to just poor coffee over ice (I know it sounds gross, but the Nescafe was already gross and I was desperate!) You'd get the Mars look asking for that as well. Generally, I'd just go into places where you could get your own drink (Rancho comes to mind) and just fill a cup with ice and pour coffee over it. Made life easier for everyone.

 

[azdisneylover]

In DCA, Schmoozies has iced mocha drinks as well as a mocha smoothie.

 

[eeyoresmom]

Just checking in after our third day. We visited DL yesterday without max pass. We did MM there and it was really crowded all day long. We concentrated on doing secondary attractions and just wandering around so it was ok. I have to say, we may be just unlucky but our interactions with cm's here have been less than helpful. We were not scanned in correctly at the turnstiles at park opening so when we went to get a paper fp the system wouldn't allow. We waited at guest services again for over a half hour to straighten it out. The line was past the next building. At WDW they have cm's with iPad type computers that come through the line and assist guests. Also after waiting all that time (We lost an hour of morning park time) we weren't offered another set of fast passses. That would have been a very simple gesture and good customer service. That has been our biggest frustration here. For other WDW vets coming for a first visit I have to say most of the rides here are better versions of their WDW counterparts. Pirates is awesome! We also love that the rides are so close together. It does feel more crowded but it's easier to get around.

 

[onlyoneash]

We had the opposite, this trip all the CMs were great. We had a few rides in a row break down on us at the end of the day. We went to guest services right before they closed at night to add another day onto our tickets since we missed out on a bunch of rides. My kid also peed his pants trying to get through the cluster of people in front of NOS to the bathroom (45 min standstill in the walkways), but that's a story for another day...
The CM saw we had a multi-experience fastpass and asked why we didn't use it. I explained the broken down rides and that it was too late to use them as the park was closing. He gave us an extra magic hour ticket to use the next morning and I was very grateful.
I paid for my extra day and went on my way. I didn't expect anything else. When I looked at my app the next day, we had 12 guest services "anywhere" fastpasses to anyride in the whole park (3 passes on each of our 4 tickets) We went on the fantasyland rides in the afternoon with ridiculously long waits by just going through the disability entrance. They scanned our tickets right there at the exit and let us immediately on each ride. It saved the day!

I'm honestly surprised they didn't at least give you something to make up for the whole hour you lost by waiting in line and the fact that not scanning your ticket properly is their fault. That first hour is precious!

 

[eeyoresmom]

We had the opposite, this trip all the CMs were great. We had a few rides in a row break down on us at the end of the day. We went to guest services right before they closed at night to add another day onto our tickets since we missed out on a bunch of rides. My kid also peed his pants trying to get through the cluster of people in front of NOS to the bathroom (45 min standstill in the walkways), but that's a story for another day...
The CM saw we had a multi-experience fastpass and asked why we didn't use it. I explained the broken down rides and that it was too late to use them as the park was closing. He gave us an extra magic hour ticket to use the next morning and I was very grateful.
I paid for my extra day and went on my way. I didn't expect anything else. When I looked at my app the next day, we had 12 guest services "anywhere" fastpasses to anyride in the whole park (3 passes on each of our 4 tickets) We went on the fantasyland rides in the afternoon with ridiculously long waits by just going through the disability entrance. They scanned our tickets right there at the exit and let us immediately on each ride. It saved the day!

I'm honestly surprised they didn't at least give you something to make up for the whole hour you lost by waiting in line and the fact that not scanning your ticket properly is their fault. That first hour is precious!

Yeah, like I said, maybe we have just been unlucky. We just walked through the turnstiles for Maters Junkyard jamboree and my daughter said hi to the cm and she didn't even respond. There was no one else around and she looked right at us so it was actually kind of funny. We just laughed it off. Another positive for DLR is the weather is so temperate. It's nice not to have to prepare for humidity, heat and rain.

 

[Linkura]

Yeah, this Tuesday's DL EMH was completely nuts and pretty much a waste of time. We waited under 10 minutes for PP by running to it right away, but by the time we got off, everything in FL except Tea Party had long lines. Casey Jr didn't open until well after 10 and the canal boats didn't open until after 9:30, and it very quickly got a 30+ minute line. We went on Snow White during the EMH with a much longer line than it had the previous afternoon. If you want to do FL first thing, don't go on a day with early entry. We'd rope dropped it the Monday as well and it was much more bearable.

We had the same exact meal as you at Cafe Orleans. The pomme frites were only decent imo, but the gumbo was delicious and the Monte Cristo was INCREDIBLE. My husband was extremely skeptical about it, but he agreed with my assessment! We too didn't finish- we finished the gumbo and Monte Cristo, but left over half the pomme frites.

Yes, the Matterhorn macaroon was delicious and huge for only $2.99.

We too found there to be a huge lack of Photopass photographers. While WDW has a ton of them on Main St and the hub, there were only a few in that area total at DL and they always had huge lines.