A few notes from our recent visit

PinkBudgie

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We went for 2 and a half days last weekend, including Monday, the start of Christmas season. We were a group of 8: Me, DH, my parents, my sister, her DH, and their two children 18 months and 7 years.

1. Elias and Company had Santa there before rope drop. My sister took her kids to see him with no line while DH waited in the RSR FP line.

2. Bugs Land is a great place to take small kids while someone waits in the FP line right after rope drop.

3. DH and I have APs but the rest of the family did not. Not only did they have to sign their tickets and show id each time they entered, they also had to show a hand stamp. I don't see the point of the hand stamp if they are checking ids each time. :confused3

And they had a mix up when turning in the etickets at the gate. My mom bought the tickets online so her name was already printed on ONE of the 6 tickets when they recieved them at the gate. The others were blank. Well, the CM gave her a ticket to sign so then they had two tickets with her name on it and none with my dad's. The next time they went through, they explained what happened and that CM scribbled out my mom's signiture and write his own above it. So if they do that, what is to keep anyone from scribbling out a signiture and writing their name on a used ticket? The first CM at the gate should have known Disney puts a name on one of them and checked for that, but he didn't.

4. We saw no line for people with 4 or 5 day tickets. Checking ids and hand stamps, signing tickets, and people stopping to dig for their ids caused the entry lines to take longer. What I realized they really need is a few express lanes for APs. Since the picture comes up, they go through much faster.

5. Loved the Earl of Sandwhich! I have long said DTD needs a place you can grab a quick sandwhich. I had the chicken chipotle and the holiday one. Both yummy, and a great price! AND we found out the AAA discount is better than the one you get with an AP! 10% vs 15%! So, dig out your AAA cards!

6. For my family who just had tickets, non park hoppers would have been good enough ( they had park hoppers). They were only there 2 days, so one day in each park. Hopping back and forth was too hard with 2 small children and one stroller. For someone there only 2 days, a non park hopper would be fine. However, two days was not nearly enough time to see very much. We were just there for a week in the summer, so that was ok for us. But for a first time or infrequent visitor, I'd say a minimum of 4 days.

7. The Great Gingerbread Cookie Hunt- I looked for a gingerbread cookie over the weekend and was told they wouldn't be available until Monday, the first day of the Christmas season. On Monday I found gingerbread men in the Jolly bakery and bought one. Yummy! My family reported that they saw Mickey ones slightly smaller but with some chocolate on it in the Market House and Pooh Corner. I didn't get to try one of those, but I kept thinking how yummy my cookie would have been with a little chocolate.

That's all I can think of at the moment that may be of help to future DLR visitors.
 
How were the Earl of Sandwich lines when you went? It looks like they were seeing really long lines when they first opened.
 
It took us about 10 minutes to get through to pay. (Maybe about 5min to the order station) It didn't go out the door, but started just in side. They have a ziggy DLR line just inside to fit more people. I needed that time to figure out what to order. It is very streamlined and organized.
 
AAA Discount at Earl of Sandwich! Great news (especially since I don't have an AP!).

Hopefully Disney will stop IDing everyone at park entry soon, but it sounds like non-hoppers may just be the way to go, even if you don't have strollers. (Probably even moreso if/when you're having to come back to use your Fastpass within the posted return time.)

So glad you found gingerbread! They had the Gingerbread Mickeys at the candy store in DCA on Buena Vista Street in early November. I'd heard they might even be year-round now? :confused3
 

I got a Gingerbread Cookie from Pooh Corner store in early November too. We were there Nov 4-9.

 
That's the one I was looking for. I looked all over and finally asked in Jolly and they said Monday. So, the ones they had on Monday were bigger. I wanted to post a picture but for some reason I can't get the photobucket page to load or show pictures or upload pictures. It says beta version and has a link to use the old version, but it doesn't work either. Well, if I ever can get in, I'll put a few pics up.
 
Hopefully Disney will stop IDing everyone at park entry soon, but it sounds like non-hoppers may just be the way to go, even if you don't have strollers. (Probably even moreso if/when you're having to come back to use your Fastpass within the posted return time.)
The only way that will happen is if they either make everyone take pictures for their multi-day tickets or start using fingerprints. From what I understand they want to eventually eliminate the turnstiles in favor of other technology with the NextGen system, so I wouldn't count on ids to stop anytime soon.

I do agree that they should have lanes for APs, CMs and one day ticket holders since all of them can go through without needs to show additional IDs.

Another way they could speed the process up is to have tables setup in prominent locations to assist people with signing their tickets prior to getting in line.
 
I would add that the Elias & Co. Santa is also present until park CLOSING, which can also be an easy and quick time to visit. My kids as a group or as individuals visited him about five times because there was often only the briefest of waits (like two groups in front of us), mainly to get the candy canes, I suspect. He's right on the way to things like the Mad T Party and the Animation Academy, so we were frequently passing by.
It's a lovely set-up, very old-school department-store Santa. I kept expecting to see "Miracle on 34th Street" Susan to be there.
 
I would add that the Elias & Co. Santa is also present until park CLOSING, which can also be an easy and quick time to visit. My kids as a group or as individuals visited him about five times because there was often only the briefest of waits (like two groups in front of us), mainly to get the candy canes, I suspect. He's right on the way to things like the Mad T Party and the Animation Academy, so we were frequently passing by.
It's a lovely set-up, very old-school department-store Santa. I kept expecting to see "Miracle on 34th Street" Susan to be there.

That's good to know too. I was so surprised the first time I walked through the store and saw him there. So neat!
 





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