Any positive changes to 2016 dates?

[alldiz]

Hi,
I was looking seriously at Scotland and am very sad to see Isle of Lewis gone.
1 less day no private plane just a price increase taking one of the best parts of the trip out.

Anyone studied the rest of the itineraries for any positive changes?
Thanks
Kerri

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

You beat me to the thread, LOL! I was going to say basically the same thing. Talk about anticlimactic! I'm not seeing anything new and exciting, all I've seen is very negative (Scotland). Why were we waiting so long for this? I don't see why these dates couldn't have been released with the river cruises.

 

[Cinderella's Slipper 2015]

They've removed the Marionette-Making workshop off the Austria trip, which is a plus for me. Not fond of Marionettes.

 

[Bobo912]

They've removed the Marionette-Making workshop off the Austria trip, which is a plus for me. Not fond of Marionettes.

I'm not a fan of any of the artsy-craftsy activities, so that sounds like a positive to me too. Did they replace it with some other acitivity or just drop it? If they didn't replace it, I would change my opinion to negative.

 

[Cinderella's Slipper 2015]

I'm not a fan of any of the artsy-craftsy activities, so that sounds like a positive to me too. Did they replace it with some other acitivity or just drop it? If they didn't replace it, I would change my opinion to negative.

They didn't replace it with anything other than more free time on your own in Prague. It may still be offered but be an optional activity. I'm sure they will have other optional activities that people can do in the 'free time' but I want to explore the city. Prague and Vienna are 2 cities I really want to see.

 

[paddles]

The London/Paris trip looks better - but Stonehenge has been removed from the itinerary. I haven't done that trip, so can't comment if that's a positive change or not.

 

[emilymad]

The London/Paris trip looks good to me but we just did London/Paris on our own last year. I think the itinerary looks good though. I was hoping the France trip would get some changes but it didn't.

 

[hilarys]

The marionette making was fun when we did last year and since it was on the first full day it was a good ice breaker, but you are left with a big item to pack to take home and then what do you do with it once home? Not really something I want to display but I feel bad tossing it. I think having more free time in Prague is a plus. We definitely felt like we did not have enough time there and we had one full pre-day to explore. On our version of the trip we had the walking tour for a long morning in Prague then an hour and half on hour own for lunch then joined up for marionette making then the river cruise. They way they have it structured now with the cruise in the morning gives me the impression that the walking tour is shorter than what we had, which would be a shame. I did not compare 2015 to 2016 so maybe they had already made that change.

I like the changes they made to London/Paris. Traveling to Paris is in strong consideration for next summer for my family. Previously I had been comparing the ABD France trip vs a Tauck Bridges French Riverboat trip, but now London/Paris is in the mix too.

 

[kristilew]

I posted this on the other thread, but very disappointed with the December offerings for the Amazon Galapagos trip. We were planning to book and I had to catch my TA and tell her to call it off because they shifted the dates so much as to make it impossible to work the winter break trip with school schedules. The only other December offering came out waitlisted, so I assume is a private trip. Boo!

Not sure we will do an ABD after all for next year, as we feel the European ones aren't very kind to families of 3.

 

[sayhello]

I posted this on the other thread, but very disappointed with the December offerings for the Amazon Galapagos trip. We were planning to book and I had to catch my TA and tell her to call it off because they shifted the dates so much as to make it impossible to work the winter break trip with school schedules. The only other December offering came out waitlisted, so I assume is a private trip. Boo!

Not sure we will do an ABD after all for next year, as we feel the European ones aren't very kind to families of 3.

I just don't understand this. Families of three are really, really common these days. It makes no sense that they seem to ignore this demographic.

Sayhello

 

[calypso726]

You beat me to the thread, LOL! I was going to say basically the same thing. Talk about anticlimactic! I'm not seeing anything new and exciting, all I've seen is very negative (Scotland). Why were we waiting so long for this? I don't see why these dates couldn't have been released with the river cruises.

OMG! They removed Isle of Lewis??? Wow, I am so glad we turned our life upside down and did this the first year it was released. I told DH I needed to figure out how we could make it work the first year out because I had read that the itineraries do change and not always for the better. I am surprised this was taken out though. I recall a good number of people saying they booked this particular adventure BECAUSE it included Isle of Skye AND Isle of Lewis.

 

[Cousin Orville]

Holy smokes, in China they changed the first real dinner to Duck de Chine. Excellent choice! They dropped the Royal Restaurant. That's a great move, and something I talked about in my trip report. The Royal Restaurant was okay, but nothing special. Duck de Chine specializes in Peking Duck (one of God's gifts to the food world) and is usually listed as one of the top restaurants for Peking Duck in Beijing. I made a point to eat a couple of the best Peking Duck places last year during my pre days, and while I didn't eat here, this place was on all the lists I looked saw. Great move ABD!

Ha! It looks like they changed the lunch place in Xi'an, too! That replaces the restaurant I slammed last year. Now it's at the Terra Cotta Complex Teahouse which at least sounds faster and more convenient. Well done, ABD!

And as we knew before, they changed to the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, which is certainly one of the nicest and most famous hotels in all Asia.

I'm impressed! (Not sure who dropped the ball on Scotland, but whoever tweaked China hit it out of the park)

 

[calypso726]

Holy smokes, in China they changed the first real dinner to Duck de Chine. Excellent choice! They dropped the Royal Restaurant. That's a great move, and something I talked about in my trip report. The Royal Restaurant was okay, but nothing special. Duck de Chine specializes in Peking Duck (one of God's gifts to the food world) and is usually listed as one of the top restaurants for Peking Duck in Beijing. I made a point to eat a couple of the best Peking Duck places last year during my pre days, and while I didn't eat here, this place was on all the lists I looked saw. Great move ABD!

Ha! It looks like they changed the lunch place in Xi'an, too! That replaces the restaurant I slammed last year. Now it's at the Terra Cotta Complex Teahouse which at least sounds faster and more convenient. Well done, ABD!

And as we knew before, they changed to the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, which is certainly one of the nicest and most famous hotels in all Asia.

I'm impressed! (Not sure who dropped the ball on Scotland, but whoever tweaked China hit it out of the park)

Oh those sound great changes! Awesome, China is on our list for 2018!

 

[sayhello]

Holy smokes, in China they changed the first real dinner to Duck de Chine. Excellent choice! They dropped the Royal Restaurant. That's a great move, and something I talked about in my trip report. The Royal Restaurant was okay, but nothing special. Duck de Chine specializes in Peking Duck (one of God's gifts to the food world) and is usually listed as one of the top restaurants for Peking Duck in Beijing. I made a point to eat a couple of the best Peking Duck places last year during my pre days, and while I didn't eat here, this place was on all the lists I looked saw. Great move ABD!

Ha! It looks like they changed the lunch place in Xi'an, too! That replaces the restaurant I slammed last year. Now it's at the Terra Cotta Complex Teahouse which at least sounds faster and more convenient. Well done, ABD!

And as we knew before, they changed to the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, which is certainly one of the nicest and most famous hotels in all Asia.

I'm impressed! (Not sure who dropped the ball on Scotland, but whoever tweaked China hit it out of the park)

So glad to hear this as China is *definitely* on the short list for 2017!

Sayhello

 

[sayhello]

Holy smokes, in China they changed the first real dinner to Duck de Chine. Excellent choice! They dropped the Royal Restaurant. That's a great move, and something I talked about in my trip report. The Royal Restaurant was okay, but nothing special. Duck de Chine specializes in Peking Duck (one of God's gifts to the food world) and is usually listed as one of the top restaurants for Peking Duck in Beijing. I made a point to eat a couple of the best Peking Duck places last year during my pre days, and while I didn't eat here, this place was on all the lists I looked saw. Great move ABD!

Ha! It looks like they changed the lunch place in Xi'an, too! That replaces the restaurant I slammed last year. Now it's at the Terra Cotta Complex Teahouse which at least sounds faster and more convenient. Well done, ABD!

And as we knew before, they changed to the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, which is certainly one of the nicest and most famous hotels in all Asia.

I'm impressed! (Not sure who dropped the ball on Scotland, but whoever tweaked China hit it out of the park)

A little bird at ABD just told me "You can tell Cousin Orville that I took his comments very seriously with China and we hope that there are great improvements. "

Sayhello

 

[sayhello]

The marionette making was fun when we did last year and since it was on the first full day it was a good ice breaker, but you are left with a big item to pack to take home and then what do you do with it once home? Not really something I want to display but I feel bad tossing it. I think having more free time in Prague is a plus. We definitely felt like we did not have enough time there and we had one full pre-day to explore. On our version of the trip we had the walking tour for a long morning in Prague then an hour and half on hour own for lunch then joined up for marionette making then the river cruise. They way they have it structured now with the cruise in the morning gives me the impression that the walking tour is shorter than what we had, which would be a shame. I did not compare 2015 to 2016 so maybe they had already made that change.

My ABD contact indicated that Guests did prefer more time in Prague. And that you are SO RIGHT about packing up the marionettes!

Sayhello

 

[Cousin Orville]

A little bird at ABD just told me "You can tell Cousin Orville that I took his comments very seriously with China and we hope that there are great improvements. "

Sayhello

I have no doubt they will be great improvements. Knowing these forums are read so closely by ABD almost makes me feel a bit guilty for being so harsh (in parts of my trip report) and about Scotland today. Almost It's only because I love ABD, and think it's the best of the best of Disney. Seriously, ABD has changed my life. Onward and Upward.

 

[sayhello]

I have no doubt they will be great improvements. Knowing these forums are read so closely by ABD almost makes me feel a bit guilty for being so harsh (in parts of my trip report) and about Scotland today. Almost It's only because I love ABD, and think it's the best of the best of Disney. Seriously, ABD has changed my life. Onward and Upward.

I totally agree with this! I think they can take the bad with the good, though. Because I *do* think they know it's coming from a place where we love it so much, we want to see it just keep getting better, not go backwards! Plus, we want everyone else to love ABD as much as we do! ABD has *definitely* changed my life, too!

Sayhello

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

So glad to hear this as China is *definitely* on the short list for 2017!

Sayhello

It looks like it's on our short list for 2017, too, SayHello!! How fun if we overlapped finally! We had planned to do it this year, but without a change to incorporate Shanghai Disney in the itinerary I think we're going to stick with the river cruise and push China back a year. I really hope they add something at Shanghai Disney next year though. It would be the one thing that keeps me from doing the Thompson itinerary (which looks even better than ABD otherwise).

A little bird at ABD just told me "You can tell Cousin Orville that I took his comments very seriously with China and we hope that there are great improvements. "

Sayhello

Hope that little bird (or big one, LOL) was listening to all the discussion about the "guarantee" issue Glad to hear they made some good changes to a trip though. That Lewis change is horrible.

 

[White Rose]

Change for southern CA...no listing on detailed itinerary for the apartment and dream suite on the Disneyland day....It was listed on this year's itinerary...also this year's does not show the lillibelle and it was listed for 2014.