Awesome Spring Break Trip w/o March 20

[mommajen08]

Hello! This is my first post I am so thankful to DisBoards as everyone here helped us so much in planning an amazing Disney/Universal spring break trip. While my husband and I had been to WDW as children, this was our first time as adults and our two daughters (ages 8 and 11) first time.

I'll post here about our two days at WDW. We were at Epcot on Monday, 3/21. I believe Touring Plans rated the crowds as a 9/10. Honestly, I didn't think the crowds were bad at all. Probably because we were expecting the worst, but we really were able to do a lot, even as newbies to WDW.

EPCOT
Favorite Rides/Attractions:

• Mission Space:Orange. I totally wanted to avoid this one, as I thought DD8 would not like it, but DH refused to do Green, so off we went. And we all absolutely loved it. But it was WILD and I would not recommend it if you get sick on rides.
• Test Track. We didn't have a FP for this one. The line was probably about an hour long, but there was enough distractions in line to keep us entertained. I really enjoyed this ride, thought it was very innovative. And again, perfect for even our 8 year old.
• Sum of All Thrills. I wasn't super impressed with this one, but I'll include it here as the girls thought it was amazing. They had a blast creating their own roller coasters and getting to experience the results. Definitely a cool experience for them.

Least Favorite Rides/Attractions:

• Turtle Talk with Crush: While funny, definitely geared towards younger kids, even my 8 year old seemed a little "old" for it.
• Under the Seas with Nemo and Friends: Again, much better for the preschool/kindergarten set.
• Boat Ride in Mexico (forget what it was called): So glad we didn't have a wait for this one. Wasn't worth it!

Food:

• Ate lunch at Garden Grill. About $190 for the four of us (DD8 is still a child rate). Food was great, but not really worth the price. I chose this place because it seemed to be one of the healthier options for a character meal. Girls loved meeting Mickey, Pluto, Chip and Dale. The restaurant was practically empty when we were there (around noon), so the characters were by our table every 5-10 minutes. The atmosphere isn't the best, although the rotating restaurant idea is cool. They do give you plenty of food. We didn't need to eat dinner later. But I wouldn't go there again.
• L'Artisan Des Glaces - in France. Best ice cream ever. DH and I had the cinnamon with apples and pie crust. So delicious. DD11 had dark chocolate and DD8 had vanilla. We all got one scoop in a cone and it was somewhere between $14 and $17 for the four cones, which had more ice cream than expected. We were over there around 4 and the line was so long. Went back around 6:30 and there was no line.

Other:
Flower and Garden Show: So glad we got to experience this. The topiaries were beautiful. The butterfly garden was super cool. And the girls loved the musical playground. They even met some kids from England while playing (we're from Ohio). And DH and I got to sit in comfy chairs and relax We didn't enjoy any of the food trucks, we were too stuffed from our Garden Grill lunch. And we don't have a ton of $$$ to spend on food. But if I did have unlimited funds, I'd love to try a little of everything next time.

MAGIC KINGDOM
We went to MK on 3/22. Again crowds were a 9/10. While I could definitely feel the crowds this day, especially on Main Street, with proper planning we were able to do everything we wanted except 7DMT and Splash Mountain (only because it was too cold for us to get wet).

Favorite Rides/Attractions:

• Space Mountain - obviously a classic and the girls loved it.
• Pirates - Just great details and very entertaining
• Tom Sawyer Island - so much fun for the girls to explore. Was a welcome break from the lines. We were probably over there for about 45 minutes

Least Favorite Rides/Attractions:

• Peter Pan - Meh
• Swiss Family Tree House - the girls couldn't figure out why we were climbing up and down stairs in a line!
• Tea Cups - not as rowdy as we hoped
• Monster's Inc Laugh Floor - rather short for the wait.

Food:

• Ate lunch at Cosmic Rays. Standard amusement park fare. Nothing exciting to report.
• Sunshine Tree Terrace - tried the Citrus Swirl. Wasn't as good as I hoped it would be. Wouldn't get it again.
• Turkey legs - amazing! We shared one between the four of us and that was definitely the hit of the day foodwise.

Mixed reviews:
Afternoon parade. DH and I loved the parade. The girls did not. Not sure why. I loved how happy and magical it was. But I think our girls are just at ages where they are trying to be too "cool" for things like Disney characters.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
We're glad we did Epcot and MK, although we feel that the kids were not overwhelmingly impressed. While we may be coming back next year due to my huband's job, we would probably not go out of our way to return to WDW, at least not with the kids. It's really a surprise to say that, but I think we would've been better off taking them when they were a little younger.

 

[Dashzap]

How did you like Universal? Are your kids Harry Potter fans?

 

[mommajen08]

We loved Universal! While there's always going to be something special about WDW, we honestly enjoyed Universal a lot more than Disney. DD12 is a huge Harry Potter fan. So this was her dream trip. DD8 does not like Harry Potter. She enjoyed the HP rides, but didn't care to hang around to try out her sister's wand or check out the stores.

I definitely want to go back to Universal again. The rides are so much fun. And there's so much to explore. Now that we've done it once, we can go back and take our time to enjoy the parks more.