A Mini Text Only Trip Report - December 2021 (Update 3/2 - Finished! Plus Pt. 7, Was Genie+ and Staying On Site Worth it?))

[ChanaC]

Hello everyone! This forum has been invaluable with helping me plan my most current Disney trip. To pay it back, I thought I would write up a little mini (or should I say Minnie?) trip report. Why mini? For one I’m not someone who takes a ton of pictures or videos, and for two this was a very short trip. Hopefully this can help someone else out there who is also planning a similar style trip. For the W’s:


Who: Me, single young adult. I actually worked at WDW as a PhotoPass Photographer from 2012-2014. I haven’t been to WDW since about 2015 so my main “goal” of this trip was to try as many new things as possible and go on a few old favorites. I now live in the Los Angeles area and have been to Disneyland twice (and have been to Galaxy’s Edge). I’m working from home in LA but I decided to spend an extended holiday season with my family in South Florida. While in South Florida, I decided I might as well make my way up to Central Florida for a few days.

Also with me is my brother, another young adult. He goes more frequently than I do and at one point was an AP, but he has still not been able to do a lot of the newer things. He also lives in South Florida


What: Trip to WDW. Like I’ve said above, the goal was to see some old favorites and ride and see what’s new.


Where: All-Star Music, three nights, and two park hopper tickets.

Some backstory on this - we started planning this trip in August, and at that point all of the value resorts were sold out. We were planning on spending all day in the parks and really didn’t see the need to spend more money on a more expensive hotel. So initially I did some research and booked a refundable rate room at the Springhill Suites in Flamingo Crossings. I was actually pretty excited about this one, since it was really close to the WDW property and included free parking and breakfast, plus the room was bigger than a standard value resort. Around October I heard that some rooms on property had opened up so I looked and sure enough All-Star Music was available so I grabbed it. I initially did a refundable rate at Springhill Suites because we weren’t sure about our travel dates, plus everything Covid related, but it ended up working out because I was able to cancel with no penalty. I will say I have heard multiple great reviews about it so it’s definitely a hotel I’ll check out one day.


When: Dec 11-14. I wouldn’t go into it but we were a little limited on times because of our two work schedules. Our basic schedule was to drive up from South Florida on Sat, Dec 11th and make it to the hotel around 8pm. Then Sun Dec 12th we went to Animal Kingdom and Epcot and Mon Dec 13th was Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom. On Tue Dec 14th we slept in a little, checked out of the hotel and did some shopping around Disney Springs before heading back down to South Florida. We decided to park hop because it was the only way to see four parks in two days.


Saturday December 11th

Part One: Getting to Disney

Our goal was to leave after my brother finished with work at 5:00pm and get to All-Star around 8:00pm. We were 200 miles away, which usually takes a solid three hours. Unfortunately we hit some traffic but it wasn’t major and we ended up arriving around 8:30. About half way up we got a text and notification that our room was ready so we were able to go directly to our room. I subscribed to Touring Plans and put in a room request and got most of what I wanted (a further back building on the third floor facing trees so we wouldn’t have kids running around in front of the room all night). We got a late dinner at the All-Star Music food court and went to the front desk to link our magic bands to our individual credit cards. We then just went to bed because we had an early day the next morning.

I don’t have pictures (there are plenty of good ones online) but we were impressed with our renovated room. The pull down murphy bed was really cool and we pushed it up a few times to use the table. I ended up sleeping on it and thought it was just as comfortable as a normal bed. We also really liked the fridge and coffee maker set up, the nice bathroom, and all the chargers around the room. I thought it was interesting that there wasn’t anything specifically “music,” or in our building’s case “Broadway,” in the room. It seemed like they standardized all the rooms between all three of the All-Stars, probably to save money when they order everything in bulk. I personally liked it because whatever theming was there was very generic “Disney” without being too in your face. But if you are looking for a highly themed room in a value hotel, you might want to go to Art of Animation.

Also, since I’ve heard some people talking about it, our room (8636 in Broadway) was very quiet. We could hear some plumbing from the other rooms, but that’s expected in any hotel. On the last morning we were in there I thought I heard someone in a neighboring room coughing really loudly, and occasionally you could hear people walking in front of the room, but besides I didn’t hear anything. Since we were facing a clump of trees there wasn’t any area for anyone to run around and be loud. It was a bit of a walk to the main building but we only went up there once and we didn’t use the buses. I actually preferred being close to the parking lot and our car, and we never had trouble parking, even with coming back later in the night. The third floor was pretty annoying after a long day of walking but it was fine. There is an elevator, but we only used it once since it was a bit out of the way.

Sunday December 12th

Part Two: An Animal Kingdom Morning

Our plan was to rope drop Flight of Passage, and since Animal Kingdom opened at 8:00 the resort early entry was 7:30. We got up at 6:00 and started getting ready for the morning. We prepaid for Genie+ so at 7:00 I got on the app and got a 8:10 LL for Navi River Journey. The idea was to hit that as soon as we finished FoP. We also paid for and got our only IA$ of the trip for Remy at Epcot. Since we were park hopping we didn’t have any chance to get a boarding pass, and we wanted to ride it. Buying the IAS was our only option if we wanted to get on it.

My plan was for us to leave the room around 7:00 and drive to Animal Kingdom and then line up for the early entry. We didn’t really leave until 7:15 and we ended up getting to the front of the park until about 7:25. We followed the crowds and made our way to Pandora. Interestingly, we passed by the entrance to Flight of Passage and saw the CMs holding everyone back, so they didn’t start really queuing people up inside the attraction until 7:30 officially. We joined the back of the line, which was backed up about half way to Africa on that back trail. Once the queue opened we walked almost non-stop to the area where you are eventually put into the preshow. The line was probably about 30 minutes, so the early entry felt worth it to me.

Two side notes: First, wow, what a cool attraction! I honestly got a little freaked out once I got strapped into the vehicle (I think it was a little tight on me which contributed to that - I’m a smaller person but they really do push the constraints on as tight as possible) but in the end I really loved it. As you might be able to tell while reading this, I’m not a huge thrill ride person but I felt fine on this one. Second, we waited in line the entire time behind an older gentleman in an ECV/scooter and he was able to comfortably go through the line with no issues. I thought that might be good to know for anyone reading this who may also be using one!

I mentioned before I subscribed to Touring Plans, which I think was totally worth it. I ended up using their timer to time some of my waits, which worked out well for this report because I can look back now and see what some of the times were, plus some of the lightning lane times I got.

Anyway, after FoP we went to our 8:10 NRJ LL. I believe we actually got in the line closer to 8:20ish, but once we tapped in we got to the front of the line in less than two minutes. I didn’t catch what the standby wait time was, but we sure did skip most of it! While in line I grabbed a Kilimanjaro Safari LL for 11:05. NRJ was nice and pretty, but like most people say I wouldn’t wait more than 20 minutes for it in the future.

After NRJ my brother stopped for a Tiger Tail on Discovery Island and we walked over to Dinosaur. The standby line said a 25 minute wait and the TP estimate was 15 minutes, and we ended up waiting about 20 minutes, somewhere in the middle. It’s funny going on this after doing Indiana Jones in Disneyland. They say it’s the same ride layout, which I can kind of understand. However, it feels like Dinosaur is mostly in pitch blackness - it’s hard to see what the layout is or even what you are doing!

After Dinosaur we had some thinking to do. We wanted to see Kite Tales and the first show was at 11:15. We initially thought we would do our safari LL and then see the 12:15 show, but then we decided to see the 11:15 show and just go to the safari after since it wasn’t a very long show and we would still be within our hour window. So we hung out in Asia for a bit and watched the gibbons, who were really active, then walked through the Maharajah Jungle Trek. It was getting hot so I got my first snack, the Kite Tales sundae, and we decided to just sit in the stands in the shade and wait for the show to start. The sundae was pretty good, and they give you a lot of ice cream - definitely a shareable snack! I wish there was something to make it a little more “sundae” like than just sprinkles and a white chocolate medallion. Some fresh strawberries would have been nice.

We initially walked into the stands near Everest and asked a CM if he could point out a shady spot, but he said the whole area was pretty much in the sun so he suggested we go to the stands on the Dinoland side. This seems like the best place to watch. Not only is the whole area pretty shady in the morning/early afternoon but it seemed like all the action was on this side. As a note, while we were waiting we made a 12:20 mobile order for Satu’li Canteen, thinking it would be a good time after the show and after the safari. Before the show some entertainers came out with kites, and at one point they had little sea turtle kites/sticks that they handed out to the kids to do a little parade. Nothing seemed to happen out in the Asia stands. Anyway, the show itself was just okay. Honestly, we were kind of waiting to see a disastrous parade of crashing kites but it wasn’t too bad, and some of the smaller kites were cool. However, at ten minutes it was a really short show, so unless you just want to sit down for a bit it’s really nothing worth sitting and waiting around for.

After Kite Tails (about 11:30) we made our way to Africa for Kilimanjaro Safari for our 11:05 LL. There seemed to be a mass of people walking around between Africa and Asia looking confused, and soon I looked at my phone and saw why - Kilimanjaro was down. It was weird, it was a bright and sunny day with no thunderstorms in the area, so I can only assume there was an issue with an animal blocking the path, or maybe some issues with the trucks. Either way, we were left with a conundrum - the Kilimanjaro LL turned into an any experience LL, but there was nothing else we wanted to use the LL for in Animal Kingdom. We talked to a guest service CM who confirmed that we had to use the LL for Animal Kingdom, and we couldn’t use it at Epcot. Ugh.

We hung out in Africa for a little bit waiting to see if the safari would open up again, but it didn’t. We decided we might as well head to Pandora and see if we could get our Santu’li lunch order in earlier. We ended up looking around Pandora and just sitting in the shade for a bit. Also, since we had an anything LL for Animal Kingdom and there was no time on it, we were able to make our next LL, which we did for Soarin at Epcot at 2:15, since we knew we were park hopping there soon. While it was December, it was still really hot in the sun. We weren’t able to move up our mobile order, but we were able to let them know we were there as soon as our window hit. Luckily we were able to find a table outside in the shade.

I ended up ordering the potato base with tofu and the green onion sauce. I really liked it! I was considering ordering a kid’s portion (I did that the night before at the All-Star food court) but for some reason the potato base wasn’t on the kid menu, at least on the app. This ended up being fine because the portion was good, not too small or too big. The tofu was great and there was a hint of spice that actually really hit me. I would order this again! One minor complaint was the boba balls. I love boba tea, and while it did look cool and “alien,” the flavors didn’t really work for me. I think it was mango, or some other tropical fruit flavor? The sweet and savory didn’t really work in this case. My brother got a chicken bowl with rice and beans and liked his as well.

We started planning out what we would do in Epcot when we got the notification that Kilimanjaro was back up! Yay! We finished lunch and walked over at about 1:00. The standby line was backed up to the front of Tusker House and had a 60 minute wait. We found the LL entrance and tapped in, only to stand in a basically non-moving line. I assume it was also backed up with all the people who now had the anything LL after their initial LL was canceled. It was still pretty hot out and we were worried about waiting forever, but luckily the line started moving and we only waited about 15 minutes, much better than an hour. And while the advice is always to go on KS first thing in the morning to see the animals up and active, we still had a pretty good safari and saw a lot, including a baby rhino!

At this point it was about 1:45, and we did everything we wanted to in Animal Kingdom, so we decided to head over to Epcot! Side note: there were still no trams operating at this time, and while this was fine in the morning, in the afternoon when it was hot and sunny and we had already been on our feet all morning it wasn’t fun at all. We decided to drive to the parks because I heard how inconsistent the buses have been, plus I didn’t want to be packed into a bus where I knew people would be bad about keeping their masks on, but after dealing with the parking lot with no trams I almost wish we did use the buses. Especially the following day at Magic Kingdom.

Up next: Part 3: An Epcot Evening

 

[ChanaC]

Hopefully someone out there is reading this! I'm assuming you are! Anyway, I left off with us leaving Animal Kingdom at 2:00 to park hop to Epcot.

Sunday December 12th

Part 3: An Epcot Evening

We ended up getting back to our car at 2:00 and headed to Epcot. While planning our Epcot half day, I knew I wanted to start with Spaceship Earth, firstly because it’s right at the front of the park and it’s a pain to return to it later in the day, and secondly because I knew it almost went down for renovation and might actually be renovated in the future. I thought it might be smart to use Genie for a SE LL since the lines can get a little long. It had been 120 minutes since we made our Soarin LL, so I was able to grab a SE LL for 2:05, which was perfect!

We parked at Epcot and made our long walk to the front of the park. I miss the old entrance to Epcot, especially the music, but the new version is very nice too. The lights on Spaceship Earth at night are simply amazing! I hope they keep them past the 50th anniversary. SE was good as always, but I can see why it’s being renovated soon. It seemed like the music and VO narration was quieter than usual, and it seemed darker inside, as if some of the lights were off or were dim. We didn’t get a great picture for the video at the end either, but it doesn’t look like anyone really did. Those cameras probably need to be replaced too. The video at the end is fun, but I miss what I always called the “rainbow tunnel” with all the lights as you go slowly backwards. We’ll see what they come up with next! I just hope they keep the “spirit” of Spaceship Earth alive. Also, they better keep that awesome mural up front!

We then headed over to Soarin, still within our 2:15 window. The line was 45 minutes, but we only waited about 10. Once tapped in I grabbed a LL for Living With the Land. I don’t have the time written down, but it was pretty much immediate for whenever we finished with Soarin. I had done Soarin Around the World in California Adventure, but I miss the original. While some of the OG film could have used a refresh, the newer version isn’t as peaceful or relaxing as the other. I hate all the “jump scares” as well. Do we need a whale jumping at you, or a plane nearly crashing into your glider? Give me an orange grove and I’ll be happy.

Once done with Soarin we walked over to LWTL. There was only a 15 minute line but we were able to basically walk on. Once again, it was a nice ride. They had done some decorating for the holidays. While riding, my brother and I were wondering really how much produce really gets used in Epcot restaurants? For example, they grow lettuce there, but surely between the hundreds if not thousands of salads they serve every day they can’t be solely using Living With The Land lettuce, can they? It seems like a lot of lettuce for not a very large growing area. Would love to know more if anyone has that info! Test Track seemed to be “sold” out of LL, but I “fiddle faddled” (thanks Molly from All Ears!) and I ended up getting a 5:50 LL while on the LWTL boat.

After LWTL we headed to World Showcase, starting on the right towards Canada. I believe it was about 3:15 at this point, which is great that we got three attractions in since arriving a little after 2:00pm. We had a 4:15 Remy IA$ so we wanted to stay in that general area. My brother and I were both excited about the Festival of the Holiday booths. I’m going out of order here a little bit, but throughout the night I tried the soba and Christmas tree sushi from Japan (both fantastic!), the chicken kebab and bread dip from Morocco (also pretty good - I wasn’t a fan of the sweeter red dip on the bread platter), and the cheese bowl from Germany (totally worth the hype - so good and rich). My brother got the poutine (technically not a FotH booth) and said it was good, and a huge portion, and the schnitzel from Germany, which was also good.

I also got the latkes from the Chanukah booth. Now I’m going to be a little judgy here, because I’m Jewish and have eaten and made many many latkes throughout my life. They were okay, but a little on the soggy side. They were filling, even though it was only two mini latkes. The dip was vegan instead of sour cream, which while not traditional I thought was at least a good option for people who don’t eat dairy. My brother got the black and white cookie and whatever beer they were serving and he said they were both good. And as a side note… this booth is just so weird. It’s like someone watched an episode of Seinfeld and decided they knew how to make a Chanukah booth. The standard latkes and donuts are traditional, but I’ve never seen lox on latkes before. Also the ruben is… a choice. Very NY Jewish deli based. I would have gone with roasted brisket in a tomato sauce with potatoes and carrots as a “main” dish option. And the blue cosmo drink is kind of hilarious. I guess they just dyed something blue and called it Chanukah themed? But to also kind of defend Disney, there aren’t too many traditional Chanukah foods compared to holidays like Rosh Hashana, Purim, or Passover. Also, it’s worth mentioning that the Chanukah booth isn’t even kosher, which seems like a missed opportunity, but that would also mean closing it on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons. But all that said, I bet all the other country booths throughout the various festivals wouldn’t really impress someone from that country or culture. I would love to know what anyone from another country who has visited Epcot thought of their country’s pavilion or booths! How right or wrong did they get the food? Do you think it was a good representation of your culture? What would you serve if you were the chef?

Anyway, rant aside, we were walking around the store in the Japan pavilion (what happened to all the snacks that are normally in there?!) when we got the notification at 4:00 that Remy was down. Damn, that was a huge disappointment, because those are harder to rebook than the standard LL. I didn’t have to be too disappointed though, because luckily, within 15 minutes it was back up so we were able to go in around our scheduled time anyway!

I thought the ride was pretty cute. I actually wish we could have seen more in the queue since I heard it was cool. The ride was fun, but I don’t know if it was worth paying extra for. In our situation, since we were only going to Epcot once and after the boarding group drops, I guess it was, but in the future I don’t think I would pay more for it. As a note we got a little stuck around the end of the ride - basically we sat in one position for a bit as the video looped. Luckily we got moving again pretty quickly. I wish we were able to do Frozen at some point, but the line was always over an hour and we didn’t want to spend extra money on it.

The rest of the evening was pretty chill, so apologies if I don’t have specific notes. While on Living with the Land we got a LL for Test Track for 5:50, but we were having fun strolling around World Showcase and we had both been on it dozens of times before, so we dropped it and stayed in WS. We went on the Gran Fiesta tour, and then I got a cucumber margarita from the margarita stand out front. I was actually really looking forward to this drink, but it was really gross. I’ve had other cucumber drinks before, so I’m really not sure what went wrong here. I noticed that the drinks were all premade and on tap so maybe that had something to do it with? Maybe I should have tried to get one freshly made from La Cava. Either way I only drank about a third of it before throwing it away. It was definitely my one Disney food disappointment. As we were passing Norway I wanted to get a schoolbread, but I wasn’t really hungry at that exact moment. Luckily they had to-go boxes so I was able to get it packed up and I ended up eating some of it the next day. I do remember the bakery having some tasty savory sandwiches, and the line was never too bad in there. I hope they bring them back because I would love to try more Scandinavian food without paying for the princess character meal.

Around 7:30 we made our way to the American Adventure. Our goal was to stake out a spot for HarmoniUS. We weren’t sure how busy it would be, but at that time no one was camped out for a spot yet. We ended up chatting with a CM who recommended standing in front of the Italy pavilion, where there is that raises/bridge platform. We couldn’t stand directly on it because there was a wedding happening, but there was plenty of space to the left. We didn’t want to wander too far away, so we ended up watching a bit of the Candlelight Processional before going into the 8:00 American Adventure show.

As a quick shout out, there was a CM named either Mackenzie or Madison (something like that) who was fantastic. They opened the doors to the show early and she stood in the corner on the microphone telling jokes, talking to guests, and just having fun. I ended up writing an email to Disney guest services so she could get a cast complement. I’ve never seen a CM warm up the show before (usually the doors just open before the show and everyone just takes their seat) but it was great!

When we were done with the American Adventure we went back to that platform area near Italy and got a spot on the side railing, basically to the right of the American pavilion. We camped out there, occasionally leaving to get a snack or two. Then it was time for HarmoniUS!

Now, I am a huge fan of Illuminations. It’s my favorite WDW nighttime show. I was gutted when they announced it was ending, and was very skeptical of this new show. And in the end… it was okay. Maybe a little better than I expected. I wouldn’t give away any details in case anyone like me wants to be surprised by the show, but to me it doesn’t live up to Illuminations, or to the general concept of Epcot. As a positive, the music selection was good, and it was cool to hear some of the songs in different languages. However, the best part was the technology. I guess I was so used to Epcot I couldn’t imagine how much they could have improved it. The lights, lasers, and fireworks were seriously cool, but I’m not sure they are worth the addition of those ugly barges.

Also, there is a lot of talk about the center ring and getting a good view of it. In the end, I don’t think it adds that much to the show. It just kind of projects images from the Disney movies, but if you recognize the music it’s not really necessary, and it doesn’t really add anything to the show. It did have some nice effects, but if I was to go back to Epcot I don’t think I would fight to get a good spot of the rings - the show is doable without them. I guess it was good to see them for my first time seeing the show, because I would have wondered what I was missing, but all in all it can be skipped. However, if you do want to see the ring, where we stood was a great spot. Some warning though, one of the launch tubes for the fireworks was right next to us, basically on the railing between the Italy platform and the America amphitheater. I think there was one on the other side too. It did give me a little heart attack when it first went off, so if you or someone you are with (especially children) are sensitive to loud, unexpected noises you might want to pick another area. I think they were in place during Illuminations as well.

All in all, it was a fine show, but I miss Illuminations. In a perfect world, I wish they used this time and technology to make a new version of Illuminations. How cool would it have been with a bigger, more updated spinning globe, or with the new lights and lasers?!

After Illuminations we slowly left with a goal of stopping by the Creation Shop on the way out. I know a lot of people didn’t like the layout, but I thought it was fine. My brother commented that he felt like he was in a store in the mall, but I thought it was at least easier to find what you were looking for. I ended up buying a cool, pastel tie-dye baseball hat. However, one disappointment was just the lack of stuff in the store. This ended up being a recurring theme of the trip. While the store in Japan seemed to be lacking, I assumed it was just due to a supply chain problem specifically getting stuff from Japan to the US. But it seems like Disney has low stock on pretty much everything. I was excited to check out the Creation Shop specifically because I saw a lot of news about new Epcot merch for the 50th. However, there barely seemed to be anything left in stock. And what was in stock didn’t seem like a great quality. I was looking at a colorful Epcot drink tumbler that seemed to have a really thin exterior which didn’t seem like it would keep liquids hot like it should. I was also looking for a mug for my mom, who requested something either Minnie Mouse or Toy Story themed. Usually it seems like there are mugs everywhere, but all we could find was a Ratatouille ride vehicle one, which she wouldn’t have liked. My brother was also looking for a few specific 50th anniversary items that he also had trouble finding throughout the trip.

With my hat purchase, and nothing else, we finally left Epcot. Harmonious was at 9:45 and by the time the show ended and we were done shopping it felt like barely anyone was in the park. Even the parking lot was nearly empty. We hiked back to the car, drove back to All-Star Music, and went right to bed, knowing we had another early morning the next day.

 

[sewingmolly]

Thanks for the trip report. I'm really enjoying it. I'm planning a trip in June and I'm worrying about the crowds and how much we will be able to do, but it seems like you were able to get a lot done in a half day at each park.

 

[ChanaC]

Thanks for the trip report. I'm really enjoying it. I'm planning a trip in June and I'm worrying about the crowds and how much we will be able to do, but it seems like you were able to get a lot done in a half day at each park.

Thanks for reading! I would say we got a fair bit done. I'm about to post about our Hollywood Studios half day, where we unfortunately didn't hit everything. I guess it all depends on what the "goals" for your trip are. I don't think we would have been able to see every nook and cranny in half a day, but for the most part we accomplished what we wanted to do. And it helped that we have done the parks a lot in the past and didn't mind skipping a few things here and there. I'll post a little at the end about Genie+ as well. I will say that subscribing to Touring Plans was helpful. Their line predictions were pretty good, and they had some pretty detailed itinerary planning, better than Genie anyway. We didn't end up using them, but it was fun to play around with and see what their recommendations were.

 

[ChanaC]

Monday December 13th
Part Three: A Hollywood Studios Morning

This morning we woke up at 6:45am. We knew that LL could start being made at 7:00am, and it seemed like Hollywood Studios was the hardest park to get stuff in so we wanted to be up and ready. The day before we talked about buying the RotR IA$. We had both been on it at Disneyland (and got boarding group 2!) so we have already done it. RotR is definitely a repeatable ride, but for $15 a person it didn’t seem worth it. So we decided to skip it. We also decided to skip Millenium Falcon. We had done it twice in Disneyland, and it really wasn’t something I was interested in doing again. Maybe if we had the whole day, but since we were limited on time it didn’t make my final list. The goal this morning instead was to get a Slinky Dog LL and rope drop Mickey and Minnie Runaway Railway.

So 7:00am hits, I go into the app, and am about to grab a 10:00am LL. Then, of course, as I go to the next page I get an error. Damn! When I was finally able to go back and get the LL it was for 5:30pm. This was a problem, because we were park hopping to Magic Kingdom at 2:00. So I released it and tried “fiddle faddling” to see if an earlier Slinky LL would pop up. After several minutes there were no Slinky LL popping up, but LL times for all the other attractions were getting later and later. I finally gave up and got a Toy Story Mania LL for 10:40am. Sigh. Better than nothing, I guess.

The previous day we just ate some granola bars I packed before we ran out the door for Animal Kingdom. But since the Hollywood Studios early entry wasn’t until 8:30 and we were good on time we mobile ordered some breakfast from the All-Star food court and brought it back to the room to eat. There were some good breakfast options at Hollywood Studios I was looking at, but I knew we would be running around most of the morning. We ended up folding the murphy bed up and using the table to eat. I got an egg and cheese sandwich on a bagel and my brother got some oatmeal. We also tried some of my schoolbread from the night before. Breakfast was nothing special but it did the job. Soon we were ready to head out the door.

We once again drove to Hollywood Studios. We of course got the parking spot at the very end of the lane, so while we were close to the front of the park it still had a hike ahead of us. In this case the tram wouldn’t have been much help. I don’t remember the exact time we got in, but they had already let resort guests in and were holding back other guests. We made our way to MMRR and ended up waiting about 30 minutes, which wasn’t too bad.

Originally my brother wasn’t super excited by the idea of this attraction. He doesn’t like the new animation style and thought the attraction was only for young kids, however he also didn’t really know much about it. I had seen a video of the attraction and promised him that he would enjoy it. In the end, we both loved it! In fact, it might be my favorite attraction of the trip. We loved how many surprises were in there, even starting with the preshow, and the cool use of technology. And overall it was just a fun experience! I highly, highly recommend everyone check this one out!

We walked out of MMRR at 9:00, right as Hollywood Studios played their welcome music and the regular park guests were let into the park. We walked into Toy Story Land and thought that we might as well jump in the Slinky Dog line. I believe it had a 60 minute wait, but the Touring Plans estimate said it would only be 30. I also heard the queue line gets hot throughout the day, so we figured we might as well get the wait over while it was relatively cool. We ended up waiting 35 minutes. I really liked this ride too! I thought it would be more of a kiddie coaster like the Barnstormer but you do actually get some thrills out of it. For reference, I would rank it close to Thunder Mountain in terms of thrills. Overall very cute and fun!

Around this time I started having trouble with Genie+ again. I thought I had understood all the rules, so either it was glitching or I just didn’t understand it as much as I thought I did. Since I made my first LL a little after 7:00, I thought I would be able to make my next LL at 9:00, and I was really hoping to get one for Tower of Terror. But it wouldn’t let me. My first LL was for 10:40am so maybe it wanted me to tap into that first? I think looking back the 120 minute only comes into play once the park opens, so I think I really had to wait until 11:00 to book more. You’ll see that I still got confused throughout the day.

After SDD we had some thinking to do. It was about 9:45 and we had our TSM LL for 10:40. So we had about an hour to kill. Now, Touring Plans estimated that the crowds would only be 4/10. I would say it was closer to a 7/10. It was just packed everywhere. At this point, it seemed like nearly every attraction had an hour long line. It was definitely one of those days you look around and wonder what to do because it seemed like there were no good options. We ended up going over to Galaxy’s Edge and walking around. This really wasn’t a problem for my brother, who is a massive Star Wars fan. I don’t think he ended up buying anything but he enjoyed looking around at all the stores. It’s amazing how much it feels like Disneyland. It’s the exact same layout.

At around 10:00 I had an idea. The Touring Plans line app estimated that TSM would have a 40 minute wait. Our LL was for 10:40. I thought that, instead of us just sitting around for 40 minutes we might as well get in the standby line for TSM. That way, we could do the attraction once, then turn around and do it again by going into the LL. So we got in line. As good as the Lines app is, I think it was a little off. We waited about 30 minutes in line and still didn’t go inside the building (the queue was backed up outside). It didn’t look like we were going to get on in the next 10 minutes, and at that point we would be waiting in a standby line when we had access to the LL at the same time. So we hopped out, did a quick bathroom break, and got into the LL line. As a “hack” you can usually tap in a few minutes early.

I think it was in the TSM queue when I was able to book another LL. I looked through Genie again and noticed that the Magic Kingdom attractions all had big wait times as well. I believe it finally let me make a selection, and I picked a 3:20 LL for Thunder Mountain. I figured it was getting busy so we might as well start building our Magic Kingdom itinerary now, even though we weren’t park hopping until later. I was willing to bet that by the time we got to MK the LL would only be for later in the evening.

When we got into the TSM queue we noticed that the ride vehicles would stay in the platform longer than they probably needed to be, as if there was some sort of backup. We finally got on and that’s when we had issues. If you have ever been on, you’ll see that occasionally there is a delay where you’ll be sitting in front one of the screens playing a “practice round” until the vehicles move again. It’s a fun little distraction as you are waiting. However, we got that practice round at nearly every screen. It’s like the whole attraction had some delay either getting people out of the platforms or from going from one screen to the next. Then we hit about our fourth screen… and it was orange. Just a completely orange screen. Looks like the computer had an error. So we couldn’t play that round at all. When we got off we let the CM know that one of the screens was down. We let them know just because it seemed like important info they might not be aware of. To our surprise, they made a note of it and asked if we wanted to ride again! Sure! So we hopped back in and got a redemption ride, which means in the end we did get to go twice like my original plan! On this ride we noticed that once again we got a delay and “practice round” at nearly every screen. We didn’t check, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole attraction went down for maintenance when we were done. There was definitely something off with the whole system.

We were hungry so we decided to make a mobile order for lunch. We went with Ronto Roasters. My brother got the standard wrap without the slaw and a beer and I got the veggie one. The mobile order wasn’t for a little bit, so we decided to split up - I wanted to chat with one of the CMs who were helping with the Genie rollout about my Genie questions, and my brother wanted to do the single rider on Rockin Rollercoaster. I don’t like high intensity coasters so I was more than happy to skip out on that one. Unfortunately we both end up disappointed. I had been trying to make a ToT LL, which I thought I would be able to do once I hit the 120 minutes, and again once we tapped into TSM. I learned that since I made a Magic Kingdom reservation, I was basically locked out of Hollywood Studio reservations for the rest of the day (or maybe I had to wait another two hours?). That is why it wouldn’t let me make a ToT LL. I had no idea this was a thing, and I really didn’t want to drop that Thunder Mountain LL. This meant that in Hollywood Studios we were only able to make one LL selection. Lesson learned, I guess? My brother ended up making his way back to me too without riding RR. The standby time was about 60 minutes, and the TP estimate was 40 minutes. The CM at the queue line said that the single rider line was really backed up and was basically the same length as the regular line. He didn’t feel like waiting that long, and with our mobile order he didn’t think it was worth it.

A little over the day already, we made our way to Ronto Roasters. My brother found us a table while I picked up. In another minor fail for the day, the CM at the counter handed me the tray with the two wraps instead of placing it on the counter for me to pickup. Usually this is not a problem, but then he spins around and puts the very full beer on top. I tried to indicate that I wanted to put the tray down first so I can balance it properly with the beer, but no, he put it down, the balance was off, and about a quarter of the beer spilled over the tray and on my brother’s wrap. Luckily he realized his mistake and got me a new tray, a refilled beer, and a fresh, not beer battered wrap.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to like the vegan wrap or that it wouldn’t be filling and worth the money, but it ended up being really delicious! It was filling and tasted great, and even had a little spicy kick. I’m not vegan but I don’t eat pork and beef and thought that this was a delicious option, even if you aren’t plant based! It’s a repeatable lunch options for me! In fact… anyone have a recipe? Maybe I’ll try to make my own!

While finishing lunch we decided to plan our next steps. We for sure wanted to park hop to Magic Kingdom around 2:00. It was around 12:45pm then so based on the wait times that day we only had time for one more attraction. We wanted to do Tower of Terror, which had a posted time of 60 minutes and a TP estimate of 40 minutes. We decided to just go for it.

Now, there is a reason we really wanted to do ToT - I had never been on it. That’s right, I was a grown adult who, up until that day, was too scared. I absolutely, totally hate drops, especially the g-force pressure on your chest, what I call the “swoopy stomach/chest” feeling. However, I had seen some ride throughs, had seen many small children survive, and had been reassured by my brother that it really wasn’t too bad. Plus, I knew that ToT turned into Guardians of the Galaxy in California Adventure, so I thought I might as well do the OG before Disney potentially re-themes this one too.

We ended up waiting 50 minutes, somewhere between the Disney and TP predictions. It wasn’t fun, as it’s mostly in the sun and it was pretty warm that afternoon, but we got through it. And I survived the drops. Besides my brother, there was another guy next to me who saw that I was a little scared and he talked me through some of the ride. Did I like it? No. Did I do it? Yes. Will I ever do it again? Nope. Good for you if you do like it, but the drops just aren’t fun for me, especially with the randomized sequence so you’re never really sure how high you are going or when it will all stop.

After surviving the Tower, we made our way out of Hollywood Studios and onto Magic Kingdom!

 

[ChanaC]

Part 5: Magic Kingdom

We made it to Magic Kingdom! Well, almost. Because as we were driving into the parking lot, we were directed to the very last row of the Simba parking lot. It felt like we actually parked in Africa. I heard the trams are back, and thank god. This is when I started doubting us driving. It would have been so nice to be dropped off at the front of the park.

Anyway, we finally hiked to the TTC, got on the monorail, and made our way to Magic Kingdom. I think we entered the park closer to 2:30. After stopping to enjoy the view of the newly painted castle, we decided to head over to Pirates of the Caribbean. The posted wait time was 40 minutes, and Touring Plans estimated 35. The line looked scary, with the queue extended fully outside, but we ended up only waiting 30 minutes. Somewhere around this time I was also able to grab a 3:45 LL for Splash Mountain, which was perfect for our already booked 3:20 BTM LL!

After our cruise through the Caribbean we headed to BTM. I think we were a little early but we watched the clock and tapped in when we could. I believe it was after we tapped in that I got a 6:15 LL for Haunted Mansion. It wasn’t as soon as we wanted, but the lines were long here too in MK and it was the best option we had. We went on the wildest ride in the wilderness, did another bathroom back, my brother bought a bottle of water, and we got in line for Splash Mountain. We noticed on the weather app that rain was expected that afternoon and we were hoping we could get on and off before it came, which we did… at the moment.

As a side note, I’m very pro-mask wearing, and occasionally wore one outdoors in really crowded lines and areas (like that night in Magic Kingdom during the fireworks). I always had two masks with me - a thick paper KN95 and a cloth Athletic mask. I switched them out throughout the day. I bring this up because I wore the cloth one on Splash Mountain, since you go inside and outside throughout the ride. Well we ended up getting front row for Splash Mountain, and while I’ve only gotten a little splashed in the past, this time I got absolutely soaked! Not only that, but all the water seemed to hit me directly in my face. I basically waterboarded myself! Even the people sitting behind us on the log commented (and laughed) that they had never seen someone get as wet as us. I tried switching out my now soaked cloth mask for my N95 after the drop but I just couldn’t configure myself to get it out of my small backpack while we were sitting. So I went the rest of the ride without a mask, even indoors. Sorry Disney! And as another side note, I was wearing my brand new hat I had gotten the day before in Epcot. Not wanting it to fly off, I put it down by my feet. At some point I stepped on it, and my shoe plus whatever water and dirt were already in the log left a dirty, muddy footprint on my hat. Luckily I was able to wash it off when I got home the next day. But as a warning for anyone else, maybe keep your stuff off the bottom of the log, hold onto what you can.

I really wanted to buy a new beach/pool towel, but hadn’t had luck finding them in the other parks, and while I saw a few in the All-Star Music gift shop I wasn’t a fan of their designs. I thought that surely they must sell towels in the Splash Mountain gift shop, and I was right! This ended up becoming helpful later in the day. And of course, while the rain held off during our Splash ride, it started raining right after we got off. Luckily it was a typical Florida storm and only lasted ten minutes. And since we were already wet, we decided to just keep going through the rain.

After Splash Mountain, I was on a mission. I had been watching way too many AllEars and Disney Food Blog videos and was really intrigued by the elusive jalapeno jack pretzel, now called a pepper jack pretzel. I had heard they were at the pretzel stand in Frontierland by the Country Bear Jamboree, but when I went there it wasn’t on the menu. Even the CMs who worked there weren’t positive where I could find one because it seemed to jump around the park. One suggested I check out the Cheshire Cafe so I made a mental note to keep an eye out when we made our way to that direction. Not too deferred, we decided to find another snack we heard about, one of the new 50th anniversary ones. So we headed to Gaston’s Tavern and got the Mickey Mouse Dome Cake. Yum, it was delicious! It looks small, but it was very rich and we were both glad we decided to get one and split it. I believe at this point I was able to make another LL since we did Splash, so I made one at 8:15 for Buzz Lightyear. Enchantment, which we both wanted to see, was at 8:00, and the park wasn’t closing until 10:00, so this seemed like a good plan. Usually after fireworks there is a mad rush to get back on the attractions, so it was good to know that we could skip some of the crowds and have a LL available to us as soon as we were done.

We wanted to do the Peoplemover so from Gastons we headed to Tomorrowland. But before we got there, I checked at Cheshire Cafe and sure enough there was my pepper jack pretzel! This was actually a perfect time for a second snack. After getting the pretzel we walked a short distance over to the bridge that connected the Hub to that Fantasyland/Tomorrowland border and were surprised that the built in concrete benches were completely empty. At this point it was about 5:15, the sun was setting, and we had an absolutely gorgeous view of the castle and the really pretty sky. Don’t miss out on those benches and that view! My brother even stood in as an amatuer PhotoPass Photographer and helped some people get a picture of the castle and the sunset. I sat and ate my pretzel, but unfortunately it didn’t really live up to my expectations. I would have loved it if they kept the jalapenos and it was spicier.

SIDE STORY TIME / PARK SAFETY RANT:

For some reason, we walked into the Hub, and as we were passing the popcorn cart and the other bridge to Tomorrowland we saw a scary sight - a very small child (maybe three years old) running and screaming aimlessly. He was looking around and seemed very scared. He was obviously lost. I was about to approach him but luckily a woman and her family were closer and they swooped in. Now, this has a happy ending, but they didn’t really do something I would recommend. I mentioned before that I am a previous CM, but I also worked at Universal and SeaWorld too. They may be different parks and companies, but they trained us on what to do when they see a lost child, and their advice was the same - DON’T MOVE.

Here’s the thing - more often than not, parents are reunited with their “lost” children within a few minutes, if not in under a minute. And when a parent realizes a child is lost, the first thing they will do is retrace their steps and look around them. Most of the time, they really aren’t that far away from the child. So if you find a lost child and decide to walk away with them, imagine the confusion if a parent sees you walking away with their child. It wouldn’t look good. Also, I’ve heard stories that a good samaritan will try to walk around with the child looking for the parent, but what ends up happening is that the parents and child just end up circling each other as they are looking for each other. So if you see a lost child, first try flagging down a CM/employee. If they aren’t around and you are with someone, send them to find a CM/employee while you stick with the child and try to calm them down by asking some simple questions and getting some info from them (“What’s your name?” “How old are you?” “Do you know what your mommy or daddy’s name is?” “What were they wearing today?”).

In this case, the woman who saw this toddler scooped him up and walked him to the popcorn vendor. I saw the CM come out from behind the cart and talk to them, while a third person came over and pointed to the hub. From what I can tell, the child’s family was sitting on a bench in the hub, and they must have looked away for a second. In that second, the boy got distracted or just wandered away, and now he was lost. I guess the third person saw him walk away and knew where his parents were. All in all, he was reunited back with his family in less than 60 seconds. Still, I don’t think I would have picked up the kid, and while this did work out great, I would suggest staying put with the kid if you were in the same situation.

Two side stories (since why not, we’re already off topic) - Once, when I was working at SeaWorld, I saw an about six year old girl crying and looking around. Clearly a lost kid. Another SeaWorld employee saw her too, so the two of us tried talking to her and calming her down. Once again, we were remaining calm and staying in one place. We tried talking to the girl, but it became clear she didn’t speak English. She was trying to speak to us in another language. That’s when a young couple approached us and said that they heard her speaking Portuguese, which they also spoke, and that they could help! Great! We asked if they could ask her what her name was and how old she was. They spoke to each other for a few seconds, then the male partner picked her up and started walking away. We asked what they were doing and they responded “it’s okay, we’re from her country.” Sorry, no, just because you are from the same country does not mean you can form your own search committee and walk away with this kid. Luckily just then the girl’s dad found her at that moment and everything was fine.

Second story - I was working at Universal Studios as an attractions attendant, and was standing in front of the queue line scanning Express Passes and answering questions about the attraction. I believe it was my coworker who noticed a preteen boy (I think he was about 12?) standing next to us in front of the attraction. We started talking to him and he said he got separated from his group, which was a large extended family. Luckily, he was super calm. I wouldn’t be surprised if his family warned him that if he got separated to stay where he was. So we continued standing and chatting with him. After about ten minutes my coworker radioed our supervisor about the situation. He came out and confirmed that the kid was lost. Once again, the kid remained super calm. Not wanting to move, the supervisor also just chatted with him while keeping an eye out for his family. About ten minutes after that the supervisor called security. A security guard came out to us and asked him a few questions. The guard was able to radio the rest of the park to see if anyone reported the kid missing. Unfortunately they didn’t. Security still didn’t want to move him, so he joined us just standing and chatting with the kid. It was about ten minutes after that, maybe 25 minutes total, that security decided to bring him to the front of the park. Just shows you how reluctant even security is to move a lost kid from the area. I didn’t hear anything more about the kid being reunited with his family, but I also didn’t hear anything in the local news about a missing child who was abandoned at Universal, so I assume he eventually found his family eventually.


I’ll leave this here and come back with a part 2 of Magic Kingdom later!

 

[tigerlilly]

Enjoying your trip report! Can't wait for part 2 of MK. I too live in California so DL is our normal park but we love WDW. It is nice to hear about your Genie + plans. We went in January and I discovered I am just not good at Genie + ...

 

[ChanaC]

Back to our regularly scheduled programming, our day at Magic Kingdom!

Part 6: Magic Kingdom part 2

While I think we were heading to the Peoplemover, we saw that the wait times were high so we did some shopping on Main Street. We still couldn’t find a mug for my mom, and my brother still couldn’t find some of the 50th anniversary merch he was looking for! He was also looking for one of those Starbucks mugs for a friend, but he couldn’t find them either.

It was getting close to our 6:15 Haunted Mansion LL so we headed there. The line was really backed up outside and was close to an hour wait. Luckily we got through in a breeze with our LL. One of the VIP tour guides was ahead of us with a guest and they got in the vehicle right before us together. I noticed throughout the ride that the CM seemed to be pointing at things and whispering to the guest. I couldn’t overhear them, but I could only imagine that she was pointing out a lot of cool history and facts!

We got off the Haunted Mansion around 6:30 and had some thinking to do. Our original plan was to get dinner at Pacos Bills and then find a spot for Enchantment. However, when we were passing through the Hub on the way to HM we noticed that some people seemed to be camping out for the show. It was early, but we decided to head to the Hub then and see what the situation was like. Luckily for us, this was a good call. It was still 1.5 hours before Enchantment but Main Street and the Hub were already packed! Our plan was to watch from Main Street around Casey’s because we wanted to see the Main Street projections, but after walking back and forth we ended up finding a spot in the hub. At that point, we realized it was time to camp out. I pulled out my new towel and put it down as seating and we just sat and waited. We were also hungry so we mobile ordered food from Casey’s, because we realized there was no way we could really get anywhere else. I got a plain vegan dog, and it was fine. I think it was Impossible Foods, while I prefer the Beyond brats. I was looking at the loaded vegan dog option, but realizing we had to sit in the street to eat I decided against getting anything too messy. I think my brother just got a plain hotdog or the corndog nuggets. We also got another 50th treat, the chocolate pressed penny silk pie. It was okay. It just reminded me of a chocolate pudding or mousse pie you could make at home. All in all it wasn’t the most exciting Disney meal but it did the job.

At one point I tried getting up to return our tray to Casey’s, but it was so, so packed. Like I couldn’t move through the crowd to people to get back to Casey’s. It really was pretty claustrophobic. I eventually found a trash can to place the tray on top of. Before our trip, my brother and I actually talked about splurging and doing one of the dessert or dinner parties at MK or Epcot. We eventually decided not to, but if I was to go again I think I would seriously consider it. Standing around the lagoon in Epcot wasn’t too bad, and since the show was later at night I think it was less crowded. But we were concerned with seeing that center ring. Now that I know it’s not that important, I might enjoy spending the money to sit and eat, especially if the view isn’t that important. In Magic Kingdom, I would have loved to just not have to be stuck in the crowds, especially during a pandemic. I saw the garden standing area and it was definitely not as packed. It might be worth spending the money to not have to deal with the crowds as much.

Then it was time for the show! And… eh. Much like HarmoniUS, the technology was cool (I really liked the lasers) but besides that it didn’t feel like anything special, just a montage of Disney songs. Even the theme of the show was barely there. In a VO, the narrator says something generic like “you can be the Enchantment in your life” or something. It didn’t tie the show together as well as something like Wishes. A little before coming to Disney I found a video of Disneyland’s “Remember… Dreams Come True” show, which was their 50th anniversary show. It is so good! Not only do they have Queen Of Everything Amazing Julie Andrews narrate, but they did such a good job of celebrating the park. They played music from different attractions past and present so it really feels like a tribute to the park’s anniversary. The new Magic Kingdom one just feels like a Spotify playlist. Because of my gap of visiting the parks, I never actually saw Happily Ever After in person, but I would have loved to have seen that instead.

With the show done, it was now time to head to Tomorrowland for our Buzz LL. The LL was for 8:15, and at this point it was only 8:20 we had had plenty of time to get there. Fighting through the crowds was bad though. It was like paddling upstream, because most people were heading to the park exit. I even told my brother that we might get separated, and if we did to just meet at the Buzz entrance. Luckily we stayed together and didn’t get trampled.

As we headed into Tomorrowland I noticed that the Peoplemover line was short. Since we still had time to head to Buzz, we made a detour there and only waited about ten minutes. Luckily for us too, because the crowd behind us was really starting to form. It’s crazy how Peoplemover has a line these days! It used to always be a walk on!

After a short tour of Tomorrowland we headed back to Buzz. This is where the curse of the Toy Story rides followed us. If you remember, earlier in the morning we had an issue with Toy Story Mania, where one of the screens wasn’t working and the whole attraction seemed to be a little off. Well we got on Buzz and the first thing I noticed was how quiet and dark the attraction felt. Usually the music in the attraction is loud, and you can hear all the binging from people’s lasers. But it was so quiet! It’s like half the speakers weren’t working, and the lasers weren’t working. And speaking of not working… my brother’s laser didn’t work at all! We put our hands in front of the laser to see if there was a light coming out, but nope, it was just dead. I assigned him as my designated spinner lol. But then we got to the end of the attraction where you go into the screen tunnel, but the screen wasn’t working! We just moved through a gray tunnel where we could barely hear the sounds from the attraction. I don’t know what happened, but Disney really let the upkeep of this attraction slide. Hopefully it was just an end of the night thing, but if not it seemed to need a serious overhaul. We mentioned my brother’s laser wasn’t working to the CM, who asked if we wanted to ride again, but my brother said no. I think he was just over it.

While in line for Buzz I got a 9:00 LL for Pirates. We had already done it, so we debated just letting it go and jumping in the 45 minute Space Mountain line, but we decided to come back to it. We went back to Pirates for an uneventful ride. After, we had some more decisions to make. It was 9:15. The park was open for another 45 minutes. We could go back to Space Mountain, or go on another attraction and then go back to Space. We knew that we could get in line at 9:59 and still get on. However, I made the boring, adult decision to call it a night. My feet were killing me, and even though I was wearing my normal walking/running/gym shoes, I had never stood in them for so long and had discovered that they really didn’t have as much arch support as I thought they had. I was dying to sit down and relax, but I knew we still had a literal hike ahead of us back to the car. I said that we should save our energy for the walk and not wait in lines any longer. I love Space Mountain, but I have done it a ton and honestly I just wasn’t in the mood. Luckily my brother agreed.

We did stop on Main Street to do some more shopping. I really wasn’t looking for anything, so I walked through the newly updated confectionary, checked out the cool crystal items in the crystal store, and found a curb to sit on until my brother was done. We then made our way to the ferry, and luckily we were one of the first ones on so we were able to claim a bench seat on the second deck. I never really thought spending money at one of the deluxe resorts was worth it, but watching the Contemporary as we were sailing away and imagining how close our room could potentially be, and how we could be in bed at that moment did convince me. It must have been about 9:45 at this point, as we were able to see some of the HarmonUS fireworks at Epcot going off.

We survived our walk to the car, and the drive back to the hotel. Even though All-Star isn’t the Contemporary, it was nice that our hotel wasn’t that far away. When I lived in Orlando I always hated that drive back to my apartment after a day working or playing in the parks, because I wished I could just be closer to my bed. We did make it back to All-Star and went to bed pretty quickly after that.

 

[ChanaC]

Tuesday, December 14th.
Part 6: Checking Out And Disney Springs


The next morning we took a well deserved sleep-in, although we were both up by 8:30. We casually got showered and packed up and left around 9:15. We got in the car and decided to swing by the All-Star Music lobby so my brother could fill up his reusable cup (I forgot to mention it before, but he got one the night we checked in) and to check out the gift shop one more time. I noticed there was a lot of leftover NBA Experience merch, which was weird because we were in Music, not Sports. We didn’t buy anything and instead headed over to Disney Springs.

It was so weird to walk around Disney Springs since the expansion! Every other corner felt familiar, and yet totally different! We did have a goal that morning to get to Gideon’s Bakehouse. We arrived a little after 10:00 and there was already a line. Luckily, right as we were about to get into the line an employee came out and offered to put us on the virtual waitlist. It would be about 45 minutes, which was great because we would have rather shopped than wait in line! We stopped in the Star Wars and Marvel shops and World of Disney. Once again, we were disappointed by the lack of merch we were looking for! Curiously, I never saw my tie-dye hat I bought at Epcot even though there is nothing “Epcot” about it. I would have thought it was general enough to sell in every location, so I’m glad I bought it when I did! However, I did end up seeing a towel I liked more than the one I bought the day before in Magic Kingdom, but you win some, you lose some. I still couldn’t find a mug for my mom, and my brother couldn’t find the Starbucks mugs for his friends. In the Co-Op I found a yellow retro-looking t-shirt I loved. It has Mickey advertising MK’s opening in 1971. What’s weird about it is that the small size is huge! I at first thought it was mislabeled, but nope, apparently they just run large. I almost got an extra small but stuck with small. Now I wear it with leggings like a tunic. While looking for mugs, we decided to head to what was the Disney homeware/kitchen store. I don’t remember the name, but it was connected to Earl of Sandwich. We used to love all the fun stuff in that store, but it’s now a chain spice store. In the end, we walked away with no mugs.

We got our text from Gideon’s and headed back, and after a short wait finally got in. The theming is great! I ended up buying a cookies and cream cake slice and a chocolate chip and cinnamon coffee cake cookie. I brought the two cookies back home to my parents (where I was staying during the holidays). We all agreed they were good, but very heavy. The chocolate chip was almost too chocolatey for me, and I wish it had slightly less chips, because it felt more like a ball of chocolate chips held together by some cookie dough. The coffee cake was okay. It tasted very buttery, and I think it could have used a little more cinnamon. At lunch my brother and I tried the cake and thought it was pretty good. Overall it’s a good once in a while treat and I would try something else from them again.

We didn’t eat that morning, so we decided to do an early lunch at 11:30 at Chicken Guy. I don’t eat fried foods, so I was glad they had grilled options. I got the three piece grilled tenders with buffalo and Nashville hot honey sauce and my brother got the six piece fried tenders with cumin lime and sweet and sour sauce. I liked my sauce selections, but I wish both were hotter. The buffalo was hotter than the Nashville sauce, even though the Nashville one was on the hot and spicy menu. I tried my brother’s sauces and they were pretty good too. We also split the mac and cheese. I was pleased to know that we could get it with the grilled chicken and no bacon. I would have thought it was all premade, but clearly it’s made to order, which is a nice touch in a quick service restaurant. Hot tip - mix some of the hot sauce in the mac and cheese, it’s delicious!

After lunch we did some more walking around, including at the M&M shop. At this point, both of our feet were starting to kill us from the previous two days. I think I would have had a hard time doing a third full park day in the row. If we were staying for longer, I would definitely have used this day as a “rest day” with just Disney Springs and maybe some pool time at the resort, or maybe half a day at the park (although with prices these days, I would have a hard time buying a ticket and not getting as many park hours out of it as possible). We ended up leaving around 1:00pm, filling up the car with gas, and heading back down to South Florida. All in all, a successful trip!

 

[ChanaC]

Part 7: Was Genie+ and Staying On Site Worth It?

Technically, this isn’t a part of the trip report, but I thought some people would appreciate a review of Genie+ and staying on property.

Genie+ is new, and even we weren’t sure if it was worth it. My brother hated the idea on principle, but we ended up buying it for both days to experiment. So was it worth it? Kind of. And would we do it again? I think it depends on the situation.

One of the biggest debates with Genie+ is if you should get it for Animal Kingdom and Epcot. I thought it was pretty good for both, but maybe not really necessary. It really helped us save a lot of time by not waiting in line for Navi River Journey and Soarin. We probably saved close to two hours in time combined that day. I know I would have hated waiting an hour for Navi River Journey. And we wouldn’t have gotten on Kilimanjaro Safari that day without it. If you remember, the attraction went down right before we got in line, and came back right before we park hopped to Epcot. The line was huge after the downtime, and we probably would have just skipped it and gone to Epcot without the LL. It also saved us a few minutes at other attractions like Spaceship Earth and Living With the Land. Those waits probably wouldn’t have impacted our day much, but still, I don’t think anyone doesn’t enjoy just walking past a full queue line. But looking back, we only got in six LL in one day between both parks (we got a Test Track but decided to release it, which I am counting). For two parks that don’t have many LL/FP lines, I guess it’s a decent number, but I wonder if we would have been able to get more in with the old system. But....

At Animal Kingdom we almost hit a wall of being done with Genie+. We have already used it for NRJ and did the stand by line for Dinosaur. Kali was closed. When we got an “any time” LL for Animal Kingdom after Kilimanjaro went down, we kind of looked around and realized that we really didn’t need or want to use it for anything else. Luckily it came back up quickly and we were able to use it for Kilimanjaro. We probably could have squeezed another LL in for something else if we wanted to, but I'm glad we starting getting Epcot LL while in DAK so we could walk right in with LL to use. On top of that, by the end of our Epcot day we just wanted to hang out in World Showcase, but if we really wanted to we probably could have gotten in some last minute LL for attractions like The Seas with Nemo or Journey Into Imagination. So while we did get six LL that day, we could have gotten more if we really wanted.

Hollywood Studios honestly sucked with LL. We only got one in during our half day. The park has an unbalanced ratio of too many people, not enough attractions, and yet too many E ticket attractions. If we spent the whole day in the park we probably would have only gotten one or two more. When we got in line for Tower of Terror I saw that there were some 3:00pm times available, but that obviously didn’t help us when we wanted to leave the park by 1:30pm. Theoretically, if we stayed the whole day we could have gotten that one, but I’m sure by the time we could get more nearly everything else would be “sold” out. I saw an article or a video saying that the perfect day to use Genie+ was on a moderately heavy day. On a light day, it’s unnecessary, but on a busy day the LLs would go too quickly and you wouldn’t get your money’s worth out of it. We were there on what was considered a moderate day though and it was just tough. I really don’t know how they could fix the situation, because I predict it would still be crazy with the old FP+ system. Maybe when they open more shows and character experiences they could offer more LLs? Defunctland did a great YouTube video about FastPasses and touched on that subject. I don’t know. Maybe the best strategy is just going during a slow time of the year, but even that is hard to predict. And if you are planning to stay in WDW for multiple days, I would definitely consider visiting Hollywood Studios more than once. My advice is to just pick 2-3 highlight attractions and focus on just doing them, because these days getting in all the hot attractions seems nearly impossible.

I did think LL was a pretty good value in Magic Kingdom. There are just so many attractions, and with relatively long park hours it seems like there is nearly always something to do. You still have to go in and be smart by strategizing which attractions to do first, but it seems like LL could really help you gain some time in the parks. I predict the LL would go really quickly on very busy days, like the week between Christmas and New Years, but if the day is moderately busy or less, I would actually suggest it. We got five LL in during our half day, and probably could have gotten more if we weren’t being picky (we didn’t do some of the smaller attractions like It’s A Small World or Winnie The Pooh).

I also think the Individual Attraction Selections are just terrible. It worked for us for Remy since we wouldn’t have been able to get a free boarding group, but for everything else it’s just ridiculous. I hope they do away with it soon (I think they just did for some of the attractions?). Once again, adding $7-$15 for us once was fine, but I can’t imagine doing it every day with a large party. I did really want to do Frozen, but with the long lines and the extra cost it just didn’t feel worth it so we missed out on it.

That all being said, I think Genie+ was worth it for us. We were just a party of two going for two days. For us, an extra $30 wasn’t too bad. I’m glad we were able to get through some lines quickly, because we just didn’t have much time in the parks. But if we were a party of four or more going for a week… it would just be so expensive. It worked for us with our limited schedule, and because we weren’t interested in doing and seeing everything. I might buy it again if I was to go for a day or two, but honestly with the cost of everything else (we spent $400 a person on tickets - two day tickets with park hoppers and Genie+) that Disney World is becoming less of a once in a while destination and more of a once in the blue moon destination. I wouldn’t rule out a trip to Disneyland here or there, but I can’t imagine getting an annual pass or going more than once every two years or so. If you are going to WDW for a longer period of time, I think it’s smarter to plan out your day and try to rope drop each park and get to those headline attractions first rather than buy Genie+.

As for staying on site, I would say it was worth it, but barely. The major pro of staying on site is the half hour early access. With it, we were able to get on Flight of Passage and MMRR with minimal waits. If we decided to do RotR, it looks like we would have only been able to book it at 7:00, and it would have been sold out when it opens to the general public later. The other benefits were kind of a wash for us. Yes, we could park for “free” at the parks, but we were also paying per night to park at the hotel. It’s about the same as coming from off site and paying for parking. We could have used the free transportation but we didn’t take advantage of it, but it would be a huge plus for people who don’t have cars on their vacation. The rooms were nice and clean, but from what I read our potential off property stay in Flamingo Crossings would have been nice and clean as well. Charging things back to the room with a magic band was nice, but really pulling out my credit card wouldn’t have been that bad. Same goes for magic bands and tapping into the park and LL lines, but once again we’re talking about two seconds more of effort. I will say, I would have loved to stay in a more well themed hotel like the moderate and deluxe hotels, but they are just so much money. Maaaaaybe I could justify it if I wasn’t planning on going into the parks and just wanted to hang at the hotels and by the pool, but still, for the same amount of money I could get a hotel directly on a beach in Hawaii.

Do you have any questions about our trip or Genie+ experience? Let me know!

 

[RedHead77429]

Very insightful detailed report, thanks for sharing!

 

[DSNY4ever]

Thank you for sharing- lots of good info

 

[erinch]

Great report! Thanks!

 

[DHare]

Thanks for the detailed report! I enjoyed reading it

 

[cccory]

What a great trip report. Thank you so much for sharing all your experiences.