CalgaryTroy
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2014
Here's the opinion of someone who doesn't get to either park very often, but was fortunate enough to visit both 2 weeks apart this year...
( First some background: Been to DLR in 1980, 1995, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2014, and Nov.11-14 2016....first time to WDW was Oct.27-28 2016 ).
I had read MANY comments over the years about how superior DLR was to WDW so I had a preconceived impression of WDW, and found that I really enjoyed WDW anyway, I loved the space ( WDW never had bunched up crowds like DLR does around Indiana Jones and HM - which was SOOO NICE ), the much larger castle, and a couple of the classics like Peoplemover. I will likely never get back there tho', just because now I understand the differences and still much prefer DLR for most of the reasons mentioned in previous posts.
While I did parkhop, and accepted the time it took to commute, saying it's a not a PITA seems strange to me, I think there's nothing enjoyable about waiting for busses, and there's ALOT of that if you parkhop. There's a lot of it just getting to the parks and back at the end of the day - nevermind parkhopping.
I was surprised by Mistys comment that the dining choices were more and better at DLR, I felt WDW seemed way more about making $$ of things like restaurants as there were so many more. I do have to say that I strongly disliked the counter service restaurant process of Order/pay, then walk up the counter to have your meal assembled - yuck!
To get back to the OP question about "is it worth it to stay onsite at DLR " - I vote NO, have never stayed on site at either destination, and likely never will. My usual advice re: DLR hotels is that I would do it if I had UNLIMITED $$ + LIMITED time and wasn't able to travel very often - due to making/earning all the UNLIMITED $$ - LOL! simply because the money saved staying offsite could be applied to taking another vacation either elsewhere or even back to DLR another time in the same year.
( First some background: Been to DLR in 1980, 1995, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2014, and Nov.11-14 2016....first time to WDW was Oct.27-28 2016 ).
I had read MANY comments over the years about how superior DLR was to WDW so I had a preconceived impression of WDW, and found that I really enjoyed WDW anyway, I loved the space ( WDW never had bunched up crowds like DLR does around Indiana Jones and HM - which was SOOO NICE ), the much larger castle, and a couple of the classics like Peoplemover. I will likely never get back there tho', just because now I understand the differences and still much prefer DLR for most of the reasons mentioned in previous posts.
While I did parkhop, and accepted the time it took to commute, saying it's a not a PITA seems strange to me, I think there's nothing enjoyable about waiting for busses, and there's ALOT of that if you parkhop. There's a lot of it just getting to the parks and back at the end of the day - nevermind parkhopping.
I was surprised by Mistys comment that the dining choices were more and better at DLR, I felt WDW seemed way more about making $$ of things like restaurants as there were so many more. I do have to say that I strongly disliked the counter service restaurant process of Order/pay, then walk up the counter to have your meal assembled - yuck!
To get back to the OP question about "is it worth it to stay onsite at DLR " - I vote NO, have never stayed on site at either destination, and likely never will. My usual advice re: DLR hotels is that I would do it if I had UNLIMITED $$ + LIMITED time and wasn't able to travel very often - due to making/earning all the UNLIMITED $$ - LOL! simply because the money saved staying offsite could be applied to taking another vacation either elsewhere or even back to DLR another time in the same year.