I went to Wdw and didn’t hate it.
I hated all Disney during my 20s. Evil corporation etc etc etc. then I went to Disneyland for one day in my 30s and decided it was fun. A year later spent a other day. Still fun. A year later stayed a week. Went back in three months. And again and again and again.
Decided we should think about Orlando. In anticipation made the crazy decision to buy DVC since we were happy to stay offsite at DL if we couldn’t get a nice deal at PPH, but would want ONsite in Orlando. Did so.
I will admit that I have not used the current FP+. I think the last time I was at a park and they had a form of FP+ was the day Seattle won the SuperBowl. The times I’ve been since we’re no-park visits when my cousin and I are there for Princess.
And some of the changes peeve me, but I’m sure it’ll be ok when I go inside a WDW park again.
Expedition Everest is probably my fave ride there.
But I’ve had the odd experience of tending to go when it’s cold. Our first orland trip was December 2010. One of our days over at universal saw us riding Hippogriff 14 times in a row at 7am when it was 25ish degrees. COLD. And that was not my only freezing trip.
like Fantasyland pictures look so cheesy to me, like a carnival somewhere!
It doesn’t look like that in person. It’s quite pretty. Don’t be afraid.
. One of the biggest differences for me is the lack of New Orleans Square, which is my favorite area in DLR.
Yes it’s not there.
But then the nearby Great Rapunzel Bathroom Ride is not at Disneyland.
I started leaning in to the “where the heck AM I?” feeling you get. It’s dizzying. Pretend it’s a tiltawhirl and decide it’s fun.
We tend to skip over a lot of MK because it is similar to DL and I am fairly convinced that if we gave it a really good try instead of skipping bunches of it, that we would like it more than we do now.
Yes you should do the rides.
Would you tell an east coaster to skip a bunch of rides at Disneyland because it’s similar? No. Of course not. So don't skip rides.
It’s worth it to see the rides, even if you don’t end up loving them. At least you’ll know.
Is California weather really that much better to outweigh what feels like downgrades in our experience?
Yes CA weather is more tolerable in general.
Do bring a jacket for evening. Once the sun goes down even on a hot day it gets chilly.
Once again, DLR is acting like they only care about locals, not people who come from thousands of miles away and can't change their plans or come back again if SWGE is at capacity.
I truly truly deeply do not understand this feeling.
I talk to people in line. All lines. I chat. I’m the weirdest shy introvert I know, because I will talk the rear offa strangers in lines.
And apart from the two times I’ve purposely been at Disneyland WITH locals, not including my transplant brother and sis in law, I have literally never, not once, met a fellow guest who was local.
Now there might be a little of what could be called confirmation bias there, because if I hear a New Zealand accent in front of me and someone saying “like”, like, every three words behind me, I’ll likely chat with the NZ person. But then, everyone says “like” now. Ya know? The world has a California accent. So maybe those people I didn’t talk to are local and maybe they aren’t. I don’t know.
SWGE is so vital, essential, and pivotal to our next Disney trip, no matter which park we choose, that I really need a system in place where I know we will get to visit SWGE.
I would not, in a million years, go THIS year, then. To either place. Wait. Let it settle. Let other people be their guinea pigs. Let them all work out their systems. Go later. Not this year.
And you can see outside the park on some of the higher up places in the park. WDW is 100% truly immersive for me. We are in that Disney bubble for the entire week and we never step a foot outside of the Disney property and I love that! I want to be completely lost in Disney on our trip, even when we leave the park at night. You can travel to all 4 parks, the water parks, Disney Springs and countless resorts and never leave the Disney bubble. And you just can’t get that at DL on the same level. You are always just a few steps from the “real world.”
Sounds like a nightmare to me. If I can’t get my sweet tomatoes I might as well not even be in Orlando. And going for my gardein veggie buffalo wings at YardHouse is a necessity, and more pleasant than driving to Seattle for them. And you can see the Orlando Eye, which coincidentally is right near YardHouse, from higher floors at Wdw.
Radiator Springs Racers FPs fly; they’re frequently gone by 11am these days.
But that’s not anything new. Not max pass’s fault.
We planned 11 park days, but only made it 10 because again, we were just so tired. We nearly saw everything.
I once spent 18 total days at Disneyland one year and didn’t come close to doing everything.
You cannot do everything at WDW in 10 days. Don’t try.
Like the travel guy on PBS, Rick Steves, says...”don’t try to do it all. Expect you’ll be back.”
I did wish DLR had the magic bands though for their convenience.
Shudder. Bands do nothing cards didn’t and don’t do. And bands aren’t sweat bombs.
The other really weird thing to me is how small the castle is. It’s super cute but just not the same when you are used to that view when you first come onto Main St at WDW.
Hey, so, you know it’s a different castles right? Different royal family.
You wouldn’t go to England and expect to see Neuschwanstein castle, right? Of course not. That’s in Germany. You wouldn’t go to France and expect to see Buckingham palace. Different family. Different areas of fairy tale world.
Magic Kingdom has Cinderella’s castle.
Disneyland has Aurora’s castle.
(Or their husbands’ castles. Or their fathers’? I doubt if women in fairy tales back then had property rights, so...)
Matterhorn is what you use to set your compass by at DL.
The ride had a huge refurb a few years ago, but that actually made it worse not better as far as bumpiness and uncomfortableness goes.
Correct. And from what a CM working Matterhorn told me, it was on purpose to make it feel more like a bobsled.
And it wasn’t that huge. 6 months.
“January 9, 2012: The Matterhorn closes for a 6-month refurbishment which would include a new outside fixture of the mountain and new trains with different restraints.”
A few months in 2015 for the projection. And 3.5 months last year for a new queue.
Nothing compared to the 2+ year refurb for Space Mountain in the early 2000s.
I think it would be great to dine at Cinderella castle in WDW though, just expensive and a hard reservation.
It’s ok. Still doesn’t really feel like you’re in the castle, IMO.
It seemed like EVERYTHING at MK had a FP for it.
Yes. That’s what happened when they moved to FP+. So silly.
Getting places takes forever. Especially to Magic Kingdom. The distance might not be that far, but the free transportation just seemed to take a long time. Good thing we didn't park hop.
Hopping is actually the easiest part. You go from one resort to the other. No stops. Not like with parks to resorts or vice versa with multiple little stops like at old key west.
I tend to have a car, though.
Don't understand what the big deal is about Disney Springs.
Neither do I, but then I hated it when it was called Downtown Disney. Give ya a guess how I feel about the Anaheim mall still called Downtown Disney.
I do not like malls.
From the moment you get off your plane until you get back on, you're surrounded in Disney Magic. Truly an escape.
If it were like that maybe I’d get into it. But until the transporter beam is invented and they work out how not to splinch people (forgive my Trek Potter mashup there), you must still traverse a freeway.
And as the daughter of a retired greyhound driver, I’ll just drive myself, thank you. Most of the time.
The Matterhorn is the first tubular steel coaster that was ever built and inspired by one of Walt's trips to Switzerland. It's my favorite Disney ride, period. I'm sorry for you that you don't appreciate it.
It’s painful, Lizzy. Like it physically hurts. And it got so much worse with the new (ha! 2012!) seats.
I am short. I should not have even touched part of the ride with my knee and yet I had a bruise that lasted three months from the new ride vehicles on Matterhorn.
It’s a terrific idea of a ride and it’s fun for my brain and the exhilaration. But it hurts. I’m hurting just thinking about it.
My son, who rode the new version when he would have been 8, says it hurts. We tried again at some point in maybe 2016ish. He still says it hurts.
Never done WDW as an adult, but the weather, and lesser attractions (I miss Tower of Terror), however just make it a lesser venue for me.
I don’t understand the attraction comment.
WDW has TOT.
DL doesn’t anymore. They have a thing that goes up and down, but they kicked out the ghosts and now there’s a raccoon yelling at you the whole time.
(Not a fan of marvel. Was a massive fan of bug’s land. Harrumph)
I think if they updated and made it more smooth it would be so much better.
I think that’s literally the opposite of what they want for Matterhorn.
The Space Mountain at WDW isn’t much better in my opinion although it’s my son’s favorite ride - go figure!
Correct. When I tell people what to expect, I say that MK Space feels like Matterhorn, and the only thing it has in common with DL Space is the general theme and name.
I'm going back to DL this year for the first time in about 20 years. ......
For example, a Platinum pass with waterparks for WDW - $994
For DL minus waterparks - $1399 for AP, or $395 for 5 day PH
Those horrific AP prices are so new imo. They’ve lost their minds at both parks.
But wait. Do you actually need the highest level of pass???
DL - $48 on the DL express
The two cannot be compared. Please don’t compare them. All they have in common is that they are coach buses and go to Disney.
My Disney experience! Some people think this is a con, but I love it. It always works for me and there is no extra cost for it like there is for maxpass.
MDE is the “my account” area of a website that they made an app for. Yes you make your FP+ reservations through it, but it is not FP+.
magic bands! I suppose pro or con depends on the person but I love magic bands. I pay for everything on my magic band and then just pay it off before I leave. It's so handy for me, especially being a Canadian and preferring to do one credit card transaction instead of a whole bunch.
And you could do that with the cards. You can do that at Disneyland if staying onsite, too, with your keycards.
Charging to the room is nothing new and doesn’t require a plastic bracelet.
For WDW they recommend allowing 90 mins for travel between destinations when using their transportation.
Yep!
I did like they sent entertainment to the bus location when it took so long for the bus.
They sent entertainment??
Personally, I don't feel it either at WDW or DL.
Same!
If I feel a bubble anywhere it’s at universal. It feels so immersive to me. But I still go offsite. I even felt it at USH last year while staying the night at the Hilton. And that requires walking on a street!
It's private property so while there are streets, traffic signals, even gas station, etc not seeing other businesses around, commuters like you'd see elsewhere, etc makes people feel like you're isolated in a good way.
Doesn’t work on me. All I see are gas stations fire houses pet boarding places, and if I’m on the road in a car I’m heading off to sweet tomatoes or Trader Joe’s lol.
what I meant was a lot of people have had issues with MDE and it freezing up, I’ve never had that problem. I use it to book multiple FastPasses durring my WDW trips after I’ve used my pre booked 3 FPs
