disneymom0104
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2008
- Messages
- 991
Oh how I looooooooooooove DL! I grew up going to DL, but hadn't been in over 22 years. (I was at Tokyo DL 18, 19 and 20 years ago) In a way it felt like coming home. We have been to WDW a lot over the past couple years and while I do love it I always felt like there were things missing with certain rides and with Fantasyland in general- all of that felt perfect at DL 
Anyway- I just want to give a run down of our trip. I am sure I will forget something. We are a family of 5 (myself, DH, DD9, DD7 and DS1). We received a pin code through an e-mail for Free Dining. We stayed at PPH for 6 days/5 nights.
We arrived very early on Sunday, Oct. 2. At check-in they let us know we were family of the day! We got balloons, and autographed picture of Mickey Mouse and a room upgrade to an upper level theme park view! Our view was amazing- loved that they feed the audio from World of Color in to the rooms while we watched. We loved everything about this hotel- the room size was great, the CMs were very friendly, I could hear toilets flushing and sometimes noise from the halls but other than that I did not hear much- we have been in some rooms at WDW that seemed to have paper thin walls. We would gladly stay here again. One downside I noticed was that if you are staying on floor 4-6ish- many times, especially in the morning, when we would get on the elevator on floor 10 there would already be people in it. We could get on easily but any other floor below us would have the doors opened to a FULL elevator and they would have to wait for the next one. There are only 4 elevators- 3 of them are interior and one glass one (which can't be used to go down) and I could see the frustration on people's faces, more than once, when the elevator finally got to them and opened up to be full. We did not have that issue on the 10th floor.
The slide for the pool was shut down after our first day which was a bummer, but the lifeguard gave us a card so we could use the pool at either DLH or GCH. We never made it a) because I cannot imagine traveling that far and back to swim (on a park break) but b) the weather turned cold and rainy and none of us wanted to swim. I thought it was nice they did that, though.
Free Dining- Phew. This was a great promotion for our family. We spent between $150 and $200 on food per day with them. We did get some items that we would not have bought without the free promotion, but it still saved us a TON. I think it saved us more than a room discount could have. Not sure I'm a fan of the voucher system, and if this promotion becomes widespread I can forsee some changes needing to be made or I can see a lot of confusion. Nobody at DL knew we received our vouchers as a promotion- as far as every CM knew- we paid cash for them. I felt like some of the CMs felt annoyed with us for using them. We had a few carts tell us their computer system was "down" and they couldn't accept them at that moment, only to try again and have them go through fine. One time we bought 4 Tigger Tails at the Pooh Corner shop and gave the vouchers only to be told they do not accept vouchers. All the items in that shop are considered "merchandise" and we cannot use the vouchers on "merchandise". So, we shelled out $20 for the Tigger Tails- which we would not have purchased 4 of had we known prior to ordering that vouchers were not accepted. But- had we paid dollar for dollar for the vouchers it would be annoying to not be able to use them on certain food items. Some CM's had NEVER seen the vouchers before, which I thought was interesting.
Tax and gratuity are included ONLY at character meals. If you choose to use your vouchers at any other sit down meal, you are responsible for tax and gratuity. This is fine for us but could see how it would be a surprise for some. We did 4 character meals and one meal at Cafe Orleans. You can combine your counter service and snack credits for any other meals, counter service or table service. On our super rainy day we at dinner at PCH Grill at our hotel and used our counter service and snack credits towards it. We paid some out of pocket to cover the difference. They have no problem with this.
I LOVE the buttons they give at most of the character meals. What a nice little souvenier! I can see that being one of the first things cut if this promotion was offered more widespread. We thought Ariel's Grotto was the best of the character meals as far as food, and we thought the character interaction at PCH Grill, Storytellers and Plaza Inn were amazing! So much more interaction than you get at WDW. WDW is on a strict schedule- each character has a "keeper" walking with them and it is very fast paced because the restaurants are so full. Overall we enjoyed our meals. The vouchers are familiar to WDW's dining plan- although with a little more flexibility in how you use them. But it is a pain carrying around 4 booklets. Some CM's wanted to tear out the vouchers themselves, some wanted you to do it and you never knew what you were supposed to be doing until the moment it is happening. Anyway- overall we would use this promotion again but would NEVER pay for it. We were unable to use all our snack vouchers- it was just a TON of food. We also tried to maximize how we used them and often payed .50 or $1 on snacks. Churros are $3.50 so instead of "losing" $1.50 we would get 3 and use 2 vouchers and pay .50. We did this kind of thing a lot.
Also- the vouchers are just looked at as cash, not "per person"- so if adults have $15 and kids have $10 for a counter service meal and the total is $55. They just deduct the value of the vouchers- it doesn't matter if dad has $20 worth of food and the child has $6. That was nice, too.
Crowds- The crowds were heavier overall than we were anticipating and also larger than we EVER see at WDW. They were managable, though, and we did have some moments of near empty parks, which was amazing. We did Magic Morning on Sunday Oct. 2 which was SO great- exactly how I expected crowds to look at 7am. We also did the one on Thursday Oct. 6 which didn't start until 8am and I could not believe the amount of people. It was INSANE. They had the park open until 12am that night and this was definitely the busiest day overall but I noticed that they had both sides of most rides running so lines were actually quicker than they were the rest of the week. I can definitely see the benefit of having higher crowds. Tuesday was cold and sprinkled. We spent the morning at DCA and it was great. DL closed that night at 6pm for a private event and the crowds got crazy at DCA that night. The Little Mermaid ride had a wait over 35 minutes. Wednesday was SO rainy and cold. We are people that just throw on a poncho and go- but we were soaked to the bone by mid morning and had to go back to the room. Especially with the baby, we just couldn't do it. So we spent most of the day in our hotel room. We did go back to the park at 6:30 and from 6:30-8pm the park was empty and we were able to walk on to almost everything! Fantasmic on Thursday night was also crazy- people literally started saving seats at 5:40pm (while we were eating dinner) for a 9pm show! I would NEVER sit for over 3 hours just to see a show. Maybe because we have seen Fantasmic at WDW so many times but 3 hours?? Crazy. We were able to see bits and pieces which was good enough for us.
Halloween Party We attended on Monday, Oct. 3rd. Way WAY more crowded than we have experienced at WDW. You could barely move through the crowds. We still had a fun time, though. The Firework display was amazing and my kids were THRILLED to meet Phineas and Ferb and Perry for the first time. The Trick or Treat lines were INSANE at the start of the party, but empty after the fireworks show. We didn't want or need a ton of candy but still ended up with a lot. Not sure we would do it again at DL, but glad we did it once.
Rides There are some I like better at WDW and some I like better at DL. DL has my favorite ride of all time- Alice in Wonderland My girls loved Matterhorn, and Mr. Toad, Pinocchio, Casey Jr., Storybook Land, Nemo Subs. LOVED Haunted Mansion Holiday. That was just magical what they have done! I could have ridden that all day. My girls are HUGE Space Mountain fans but neither of them liked the Ghost Galaxy overlay. It was loud and scary, and they just didn't enjoy it. I think my oldest was expecting little Mickey Mouse ghosts hanging all over- not the scary, scary ghosts that were there. I thought it was a smoother ride than WDW and liked the 2 seats being next to each other. LOVED the new Star Tours. We did this one pretty much every day with FP. One time my younger DD was the Rebel Spy and she loved that. It's a small world- I forgot how much I loooooooove the outer facade- and the clock that has the little show every 15 minutes I loved the addition of the Disney characters. I kind of like the inside of the WDW version better, though. I think it is bigger inside and I noticed at DL there are black walls on one side of many rooms, where at WDW there is always stuff to see on both sides (I think- it was closed at WDW when we were there in 2010 so I haven't been on it since 2008). Toontown at DL is SO cute. My girls preferred WDW's version of Peter Pan. We all prefer Splash Mountain at WDW but still enjoyed it at DL. My 1 y/o DS LOVED the Pooh ride but I definitely prefer WDW's version. We all LOVED Indiana Jones- what a great ride!
We all thought the Little Mermaid ride was adorable. Was surprised how often it broke down- one time for almost an entire day. We experienced Little Mermaid broken down more than Indiana Jones!
I felt like there are less characters around overall- but LOVED that there was a villian meet and greet. We also did wait an hour to meet Rapunzel and Flynn. They were very cute.
Cast Members I think WDW takes the cake on this one. We did encounter a few wonderful CM's that went out of their way to be friendly and polite- but overall I felt most of them were just there to do their job and I didn't get that "magic" vibe from most. I also got snipped at a few times. I am very much a rule follower and go out of my way to make the CM's job as easy as possible but still got scolded a couple times. Oh well. I do feel bad for the CM's at the enterance/exit gates. I think their jobs could be much easier if they had the fingerprint machines instead of having to scan/stamp/rescan and check stamps with the blacklight. My older dd asked where all the Mickey stickers were
I am sure I am leaving something out that I wanted to mention- I will come back if I remember
Oh- the CASTLE! It is SO charming! It is so different from Cindy's castle, but still so wonderful. I love how small and cute and charming it is I always had a feeling of being at WDW on Main Street until I turned that corner and saw the castle. We loved it.
I think we rode and saw just about everything. Things we missed that I definitely want to catch next time (and we probably would have been able to get to had we not lost most of a day to rain)- the train that goes around the park. We all talked about doing it every time we were there, but never did. We missed Billy Hill and the Hillbillies
This was on my list of things I wanted to do most- but we missed it. Big Thunder Ranch petting zoo- seems like we always walked by early in the morning or after dusk- and never caught it open. We also didn't see the Moments with Lincoln show. I think we did and saw everything else! Not too bad.
The convenience of everything being right there can not be matched. I LOVED how easy it was to park hop, walk to our hotel, walk to DTD. This alone makes DL seem soooooo appealing for future visits.
We also LOVED staying on property and can't imagine ever doing it any other way.
Overall- we were a WDW family that wanted to try DL once. We all LOVED it more than we thought we would and will definitely be back. I like that it is driveable (we live near Denver). Coming back felt SO much longer than going because we decided to go through Four Corners. The 35/50 mph speed limits were so different than 75/80 mph through Utah. It was 200 extra miles- but 200 SLOW miles. Oh well- it was beautiful but we learned our lesson. We did stop at Grand Canyon on the way which was amazing. But it took us 2 nights to get home and only 1 night to get there. We will do I-70 in the future.
I am sure I forgot something I wanted to say but will just add it later Overall we had an amazing time- better than we were anticipating and other than a few minor "issues" it could not have been more perfect. 
Anyway- I just want to give a run down of our trip. I am sure I will forget something. We are a family of 5 (myself, DH, DD9, DD7 and DS1). We received a pin code through an e-mail for Free Dining. We stayed at PPH for 6 days/5 nights.
We arrived very early on Sunday, Oct. 2. At check-in they let us know we were family of the day! We got balloons, and autographed picture of Mickey Mouse and a room upgrade to an upper level theme park view! Our view was amazing- loved that they feed the audio from World of Color in to the rooms while we watched. We loved everything about this hotel- the room size was great, the CMs were very friendly, I could hear toilets flushing and sometimes noise from the halls but other than that I did not hear much- we have been in some rooms at WDW that seemed to have paper thin walls. We would gladly stay here again. One downside I noticed was that if you are staying on floor 4-6ish- many times, especially in the morning, when we would get on the elevator on floor 10 there would already be people in it. We could get on easily but any other floor below us would have the doors opened to a FULL elevator and they would have to wait for the next one. There are only 4 elevators- 3 of them are interior and one glass one (which can't be used to go down) and I could see the frustration on people's faces, more than once, when the elevator finally got to them and opened up to be full. We did not have that issue on the 10th floor.
The slide for the pool was shut down after our first day which was a bummer, but the lifeguard gave us a card so we could use the pool at either DLH or GCH. We never made it a) because I cannot imagine traveling that far and back to swim (on a park break) but b) the weather turned cold and rainy and none of us wanted to swim. I thought it was nice they did that, though.
Free Dining- Phew. This was a great promotion for our family. We spent between $150 and $200 on food per day with them. We did get some items that we would not have bought without the free promotion, but it still saved us a TON. I think it saved us more than a room discount could have. Not sure I'm a fan of the voucher system, and if this promotion becomes widespread I can forsee some changes needing to be made or I can see a lot of confusion. Nobody at DL knew we received our vouchers as a promotion- as far as every CM knew- we paid cash for them. I felt like some of the CMs felt annoyed with us for using them. We had a few carts tell us their computer system was "down" and they couldn't accept them at that moment, only to try again and have them go through fine. One time we bought 4 Tigger Tails at the Pooh Corner shop and gave the vouchers only to be told they do not accept vouchers. All the items in that shop are considered "merchandise" and we cannot use the vouchers on "merchandise". So, we shelled out $20 for the Tigger Tails- which we would not have purchased 4 of had we known prior to ordering that vouchers were not accepted. But- had we paid dollar for dollar for the vouchers it would be annoying to not be able to use them on certain food items. Some CM's had NEVER seen the vouchers before, which I thought was interesting.
Tax and gratuity are included ONLY at character meals. If you choose to use your vouchers at any other sit down meal, you are responsible for tax and gratuity. This is fine for us but could see how it would be a surprise for some. We did 4 character meals and one meal at Cafe Orleans. You can combine your counter service and snack credits for any other meals, counter service or table service. On our super rainy day we at dinner at PCH Grill at our hotel and used our counter service and snack credits towards it. We paid some out of pocket to cover the difference. They have no problem with this.
I LOVE the buttons they give at most of the character meals. What a nice little souvenier! I can see that being one of the first things cut if this promotion was offered more widespread. We thought Ariel's Grotto was the best of the character meals as far as food, and we thought the character interaction at PCH Grill, Storytellers and Plaza Inn were amazing! So much more interaction than you get at WDW. WDW is on a strict schedule- each character has a "keeper" walking with them and it is very fast paced because the restaurants are so full. Overall we enjoyed our meals. The vouchers are familiar to WDW's dining plan- although with a little more flexibility in how you use them. But it is a pain carrying around 4 booklets. Some CM's wanted to tear out the vouchers themselves, some wanted you to do it and you never knew what you were supposed to be doing until the moment it is happening. Anyway- overall we would use this promotion again but would NEVER pay for it. We were unable to use all our snack vouchers- it was just a TON of food. We also tried to maximize how we used them and often payed .50 or $1 on snacks. Churros are $3.50 so instead of "losing" $1.50 we would get 3 and use 2 vouchers and pay .50. We did this kind of thing a lot.
Also- the vouchers are just looked at as cash, not "per person"- so if adults have $15 and kids have $10 for a counter service meal and the total is $55. They just deduct the value of the vouchers- it doesn't matter if dad has $20 worth of food and the child has $6. That was nice, too.
Crowds- The crowds were heavier overall than we were anticipating and also larger than we EVER see at WDW. They were managable, though, and we did have some moments of near empty parks, which was amazing. We did Magic Morning on Sunday Oct. 2 which was SO great- exactly how I expected crowds to look at 7am. We also did the one on Thursday Oct. 6 which didn't start until 8am and I could not believe the amount of people. It was INSANE. They had the park open until 12am that night and this was definitely the busiest day overall but I noticed that they had both sides of most rides running so lines were actually quicker than they were the rest of the week. I can definitely see the benefit of having higher crowds. Tuesday was cold and sprinkled. We spent the morning at DCA and it was great. DL closed that night at 6pm for a private event and the crowds got crazy at DCA that night. The Little Mermaid ride had a wait over 35 minutes. Wednesday was SO rainy and cold. We are people that just throw on a poncho and go- but we were soaked to the bone by mid morning and had to go back to the room. Especially with the baby, we just couldn't do it. So we spent most of the day in our hotel room. We did go back to the park at 6:30 and from 6:30-8pm the park was empty and we were able to walk on to almost everything! Fantasmic on Thursday night was also crazy- people literally started saving seats at 5:40pm (while we were eating dinner) for a 9pm show! I would NEVER sit for over 3 hours just to see a show. Maybe because we have seen Fantasmic at WDW so many times but 3 hours?? Crazy. We were able to see bits and pieces which was good enough for us.
Halloween Party We attended on Monday, Oct. 3rd. Way WAY more crowded than we have experienced at WDW. You could barely move through the crowds. We still had a fun time, though. The Firework display was amazing and my kids were THRILLED to meet Phineas and Ferb and Perry for the first time. The Trick or Treat lines were INSANE at the start of the party, but empty after the fireworks show. We didn't want or need a ton of candy but still ended up with a lot. Not sure we would do it again at DL, but glad we did it once.
Rides There are some I like better at WDW and some I like better at DL. DL has my favorite ride of all time- Alice in Wonderland
My girls loved Matterhorn, and Mr. Toad, Pinocchio, Casey Jr., Storybook Land, Nemo Subs. LOVED Haunted Mansion Holiday. That was just magical what they have done! I could have ridden that all day. My girls are HUGE Space Mountain fans but neither of them liked the Ghost Galaxy overlay. It was loud and scary, and they just didn't enjoy it. I think my oldest was expecting little Mickey Mouse ghosts hanging all over- not the scary, scary ghosts that were there. I thought it was a smoother ride than WDW and liked the 2 seats being next to each other. LOVED the new Star Tours. We did this one pretty much every day with FP. One time my younger DD was the Rebel Spy and she loved that. It's a small world- I forgot how much I loooooooove the outer facade- and the clock that has the little show every 15 minutes I loved the addition of the Disney characters. I kind of like the inside of the WDW version better, though. I think it is bigger inside and I noticed at DL there are black walls on one side of many rooms, where at WDW there is always stuff to see on both sides (I think- it was closed at WDW when we were there in 2010 so I haven't been on it since 2008). Toontown at DL is SO cute. My girls preferred WDW's version of Peter Pan. We all prefer Splash Mountain at WDW but still enjoyed it at DL. My 1 y/o DS LOVED the Pooh ride but I definitely prefer WDW's version. We all LOVED Indiana Jones- what a great ride!We all thought the Little Mermaid ride was adorable. Was surprised how often it broke down- one time for almost an entire day. We experienced Little Mermaid broken down more than Indiana Jones!
I felt like there are less characters around overall- but LOVED that there was a villian meet and greet. We also did wait an hour to meet Rapunzel and Flynn. They were very cute.
Cast Members I think WDW takes the cake on this one. We did encounter a few wonderful CM's that went out of their way to be friendly and polite- but overall I felt most of them were just there to do their job and I didn't get that "magic" vibe from most. I also got snipped at a few times. I am very much a rule follower and go out of my way to make the CM's job as easy as possible but still got scolded a couple times. Oh well. I do feel bad for the CM's at the enterance/exit gates. I think their jobs could be much easier if they had the fingerprint machines instead of having to scan/stamp/rescan and check stamps with the blacklight. My older dd asked where all the Mickey stickers were
I am sure I am leaving something out that I wanted to mention- I will come back if I remember
Oh- the CASTLE! It is SO charming! It is so different from Cindy's castle, but still so wonderful. I love how small and cute and charming it is
I always had a feeling of being at WDW on Main Street until I turned that corner and saw the castle. We loved it. I think we rode and saw just about everything. Things we missed that I definitely want to catch next time (and we probably would have been able to get to had we not lost most of a day to rain)- the train that goes around the park. We all talked about doing it every time we were there, but never did. We missed Billy Hill and the Hillbillies
This was on my list of things I wanted to do most- but we missed it. Big Thunder Ranch petting zoo- seems like we always walked by early in the morning or after dusk- and never caught it open. We also didn't see the Moments with Lincoln show. I think we did and saw everything else! Not too bad.The convenience of everything being right there can not be matched. I LOVED how easy it was to park hop, walk to our hotel, walk to DTD. This alone makes DL seem soooooo appealing for future visits.
We also LOVED staying on property and can't imagine ever doing it any other way.
Overall- we were a WDW family that wanted to try DL once. We all LOVED it more than we thought we would and will definitely be back. I like that it is driveable (we live near Denver). Coming back felt SO much longer than going because we decided to go through Four Corners. The 35/50 mph speed limits were so different than 75/80 mph through Utah. It was 200 extra miles- but 200 SLOW miles. Oh well- it was beautiful but we learned our lesson. We did stop at Grand Canyon on the way which was amazing. But it took us 2 nights to get home and only 1 night to get there. We will do I-70 in the future.
I am sure I forgot something I wanted to say but will just add it later
Overall we had an amazing time- better than we were anticipating and other than a few minor "issues" it could not have been more perfect. 
