duckboyone
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2022
- Messages
- 118
So we went for 5 days, Jun 27 - Jul 1, and stayed at the Del Sol Inn. My brother and his family stayed at the Tropicana, so for 5 days it was nothing but hotel-park-hotel-park-hotel-park etc. Ignored basically ALL news from the outside world, it was wonderful.
Things I was worried about:
- Reports that multiple rides were breaking down often
- Big crowds making lines too long and hard to get food
- The heat (well, not that much, as we live in Texas. It's going to get up to 108 here in the next few days)
Were these worries founded? Only a little. The only ride breakdowns we encountered were BTR once (though we heard about it breaking other times) and RSR once, while were on it. It was down for about 10 minutes, and we were allowed to finish it, then they just ran us through it again for our troubles, so it turned out to be a positive for us.
Highlights:
Food: As some others have said on here, mobile food order was AWESOME. Really easy, never had to wait more than 5 minutes after clicking the "I am here, prepare my food" button, with one exception only. We didn't even have to order it too far in advance. We'd usually decided we wanted something, and where, and there would usually be an order window either starting right then, or in 30 minutes or so. Was very happy with it.
Finally tried the corn dogs, and they are definitely the best corn dogs we've ever had. Which may or may not be saying much, as corn dogs aren't my favorite. I don't remember them having corn chowder in the bread bowls the last time we went, it was fantastic. Zocalo is still the best value IMO, you get a good-sized plate of food for a decent price, and it's pretty decent. The beignets weren't quite as good as I'd remembered, but the Dole whips were even better than I remembered.
Also, we have a tradition of getting ice cream at the Ghiradelli store, if you haven't ever done that you MUST.
Cast members: One daughter had a birthday button, another had a graduation button, and we were actually surprised how many cast members stopped to say happy birthday and congratulations. As far as character encounters, as my kids are older we skipped most that we saw, but ran into quite a few with lines no longer than a few people/families. We didn't get pictures with all our favorites, but then we weren't really seeking them out.
Probably the character highlight was Gaston. We saw him on two different days, and he was hilarious. He was pretty committed to the character and said some hilarious things (to one lady who was fawning over him: "How are doing? Even better now, I bet". We saw him a few different times, and once he and Aladdin passed each other, they stopped and had a little bragging session, trying to outdo each other, was fantastic.
Also in general cast members were accommodating when we had issues, which wasn't often but we did have a few, they were patient and helpful, which is what I was hoping was still the case, as I'd heard reports that had changed recently. Maybe we were just lucky and didn't get anyone on a bad day.
Rides: As I said before, we also were fairly lucky with rides not breaking down. We did purchase Genie+, and rope dropped 3/5 days. Also, on the second day I found out about the disability pass, which at first I didn't want to get, but my family talked me into. I'm diabetic and have lots of neuropathy damage on my feet, so I have a hard time standing for too long. I just figured I would tough it out, but after the first day I was in a lot of pain so I got one for the rest of the week. Between those three things (rope drop, genie+, DAS) we did pretty much every ride we wanted, and our favorite ones multiple times. Somehow we managed to go on GotG 7 times in our two days at DCA
Hotel: Was pleasantly surprised with the Del Sol Inn. While I was disappointed that they no longer have breakfast, it's pretty obvious they've made great improvements to the rooms. Our room was clean, the beds were actually pretty comfortable, and the water pressure was good enough. My biggest gripe has always been the lack of parking, which causes the valets to have to put multiple cars in front of where our vehicle was parked, so I had to borrow my brother's vehicle to run down the street to buy my son new shoes (he did not bring good shoes on the trip and his feet were in bad shape after the first day. Teenage boys, right?)
If price were not an issue, I would stay at the Park Vue, Desert Inn, or other closer one, but I'm grateful the less expensive Del Sol option was there.
Merch: I was a little disappointed with this. All of the PotC 55th anniversary merch was long gone, and I wasn't too impressed with the limited/exclusive pins they had, which was something we were really excited about. They had a few good ones, but not a lot and nothing too special, just my opinion though. The highlight for my kids were the light-up fairy wings that my youngest daughter and her cousin got and wore around every day.
Maybe it's a good I was disappointed with the merch, so I didn't spend as much money. Maybe I'm just jaded when it comes to that stuff.
Crowds: Definitely the worst crowds I've personally experienced, but I would guess they would probably have been rated around a 7/10 from what I've gathered, not horrendous. Maybe I'd feel different if I hadn't of had Genie+ and/or DAS pass.
Shows: We honestly didn't seek out too many shows. We forgot that Thursday was another grad night at DCA, and were planning to watch WoC then, but were foiled. We did watch Fantasmic, and it was improved and better than I had remembered! What was even cooler, they had some WoC-type devices installed, and when Fantasmic was over, they showed scenes from movies and played music while the fireworks went off.
The only thing that irked me, is apparently all that open space on the waterfront, you can no longer go down there and save a place to sit, you have to have dinner reservations for basically that entire area going all the way back to the buildings. There is standing room on either side of the main waterfront, and on the bridge going over the PotC queue, but we didn't want to stand, so we found out that there was one section right in front of the Stage Door Cafe where you could save tables and sit there to watch. We got there a little less than 2 hours before the show, and got the last two tables. Then we had a leisurely dinner, then dessert from the Jolly Holiday Bakery (using the mobile app to get food items from all over the place, and dispatching different kids to go pick it up).
It turned out to be one of the highlights for me, as we really hadn't slowed down much all week. It was our last day, the sun was going down, so we just relaxed and ate and watched/listened to the sights and sounds, then had great seats for Fantasmic. You have to actually have a chair to sit in, and no one can stand up. Multiple times people tried to come in and stand there, and were either chased away by CMs, or by me. I wasn't having it when some people came and tried to just stand right in front of us.
This is getting much longer than I planned...
Other random thoughts:
- The things I have always loved about the Disney parks were still present: the music playing everywhere, whiffs of scent now and then, the nostalgia from our favorite movies/characters/rides.
- Not a fan of the new SW movies, at ALL, but SW Land was cool, and the RotR ride was great. Doesn't break into my top 5, but was definitely worth rope-dropping for.
- We always loved ToT, so were a little sad about the new GotG theming, but I will say we like it a LOT more now.
- Marvel Land is cool too, but I've been Marvel'ed out for a while and still miss Bug's Land. Oh well.
- Splash Mountain has always been one of my absolute favorites, so it was a bit sad to think it might have been the last time we would go on it with that theming. I know that I liked GotG better than ToT, and we do really like The Princess and the Frog, so I'm sure Disney will do a great job with whatever changes they make, but to me SM is so iconic, with the music, and the characters, and it fits so perfectly in Critter Country. I love the idea of a PatF ride, but I wish they could have figured out a way to fit that more in New Orleans Square than Critter Country.
- On Saturday, the first day PotC was open, I actually ran into the Youtuber Freshbaked and got a picture with him.
Going to end this for now in interest of time, but I'll probably have more thoughts later on...
Things I was worried about:
- Reports that multiple rides were breaking down often
- Big crowds making lines too long and hard to get food
- The heat (well, not that much, as we live in Texas. It's going to get up to 108 here in the next few days)
Were these worries founded? Only a little. The only ride breakdowns we encountered were BTR once (though we heard about it breaking other times) and RSR once, while were on it. It was down for about 10 minutes, and we were allowed to finish it, then they just ran us through it again for our troubles, so it turned out to be a positive for us.
Highlights:
Food: As some others have said on here, mobile food order was AWESOME. Really easy, never had to wait more than 5 minutes after clicking the "I am here, prepare my food" button, with one exception only. We didn't even have to order it too far in advance. We'd usually decided we wanted something, and where, and there would usually be an order window either starting right then, or in 30 minutes or so. Was very happy with it.
Finally tried the corn dogs, and they are definitely the best corn dogs we've ever had. Which may or may not be saying much, as corn dogs aren't my favorite. I don't remember them having corn chowder in the bread bowls the last time we went, it was fantastic. Zocalo is still the best value IMO, you get a good-sized plate of food for a decent price, and it's pretty decent. The beignets weren't quite as good as I'd remembered, but the Dole whips were even better than I remembered.
Also, we have a tradition of getting ice cream at the Ghiradelli store, if you haven't ever done that you MUST.
Cast members: One daughter had a birthday button, another had a graduation button, and we were actually surprised how many cast members stopped to say happy birthday and congratulations. As far as character encounters, as my kids are older we skipped most that we saw, but ran into quite a few with lines no longer than a few people/families. We didn't get pictures with all our favorites, but then we weren't really seeking them out.
Probably the character highlight was Gaston. We saw him on two different days, and he was hilarious. He was pretty committed to the character and said some hilarious things (to one lady who was fawning over him: "How are doing? Even better now, I bet". We saw him a few different times, and once he and Aladdin passed each other, they stopped and had a little bragging session, trying to outdo each other, was fantastic.
Also in general cast members were accommodating when we had issues, which wasn't often but we did have a few, they were patient and helpful, which is what I was hoping was still the case, as I'd heard reports that had changed recently. Maybe we were just lucky and didn't get anyone on a bad day.
Rides: As I said before, we also were fairly lucky with rides not breaking down. We did purchase Genie+, and rope dropped 3/5 days. Also, on the second day I found out about the disability pass, which at first I didn't want to get, but my family talked me into. I'm diabetic and have lots of neuropathy damage on my feet, so I have a hard time standing for too long. I just figured I would tough it out, but after the first day I was in a lot of pain so I got one for the rest of the week. Between those three things (rope drop, genie+, DAS) we did pretty much every ride we wanted, and our favorite ones multiple times. Somehow we managed to go on GotG 7 times in our two days at DCA
Hotel: Was pleasantly surprised with the Del Sol Inn. While I was disappointed that they no longer have breakfast, it's pretty obvious they've made great improvements to the rooms. Our room was clean, the beds were actually pretty comfortable, and the water pressure was good enough. My biggest gripe has always been the lack of parking, which causes the valets to have to put multiple cars in front of where our vehicle was parked, so I had to borrow my brother's vehicle to run down the street to buy my son new shoes (he did not bring good shoes on the trip and his feet were in bad shape after the first day. Teenage boys, right?)
If price were not an issue, I would stay at the Park Vue, Desert Inn, or other closer one, but I'm grateful the less expensive Del Sol option was there.
Merch: I was a little disappointed with this. All of the PotC 55th anniversary merch was long gone, and I wasn't too impressed with the limited/exclusive pins they had, which was something we were really excited about. They had a few good ones, but not a lot and nothing too special, just my opinion though. The highlight for my kids were the light-up fairy wings that my youngest daughter and her cousin got and wore around every day.
Maybe it's a good I was disappointed with the merch, so I didn't spend as much money. Maybe I'm just jaded when it comes to that stuff.
Crowds: Definitely the worst crowds I've personally experienced, but I would guess they would probably have been rated around a 7/10 from what I've gathered, not horrendous. Maybe I'd feel different if I hadn't of had Genie+ and/or DAS pass.
Shows: We honestly didn't seek out too many shows. We forgot that Thursday was another grad night at DCA, and were planning to watch WoC then, but were foiled. We did watch Fantasmic, and it was improved and better than I had remembered! What was even cooler, they had some WoC-type devices installed, and when Fantasmic was over, they showed scenes from movies and played music while the fireworks went off.
The only thing that irked me, is apparently all that open space on the waterfront, you can no longer go down there and save a place to sit, you have to have dinner reservations for basically that entire area going all the way back to the buildings. There is standing room on either side of the main waterfront, and on the bridge going over the PotC queue, but we didn't want to stand, so we found out that there was one section right in front of the Stage Door Cafe where you could save tables and sit there to watch. We got there a little less than 2 hours before the show, and got the last two tables. Then we had a leisurely dinner, then dessert from the Jolly Holiday Bakery (using the mobile app to get food items from all over the place, and dispatching different kids to go pick it up).
It turned out to be one of the highlights for me, as we really hadn't slowed down much all week. It was our last day, the sun was going down, so we just relaxed and ate and watched/listened to the sights and sounds, then had great seats for Fantasmic. You have to actually have a chair to sit in, and no one can stand up. Multiple times people tried to come in and stand there, and were either chased away by CMs, or by me. I wasn't having it when some people came and tried to just stand right in front of us.
This is getting much longer than I planned...
Other random thoughts:
- The things I have always loved about the Disney parks were still present: the music playing everywhere, whiffs of scent now and then, the nostalgia from our favorite movies/characters/rides.
- Not a fan of the new SW movies, at ALL, but SW Land was cool, and the RotR ride was great. Doesn't break into my top 5, but was definitely worth rope-dropping for.
- We always loved ToT, so were a little sad about the new GotG theming, but I will say we like it a LOT more now.
- Marvel Land is cool too, but I've been Marvel'ed out for a while and still miss Bug's Land. Oh well.
- Splash Mountain has always been one of my absolute favorites, so it was a bit sad to think it might have been the last time we would go on it with that theming. I know that I liked GotG better than ToT, and we do really like The Princess and the Frog, so I'm sure Disney will do a great job with whatever changes they make, but to me SM is so iconic, with the music, and the characters, and it fits so perfectly in Critter Country. I love the idea of a PatF ride, but I wish they could have figured out a way to fit that more in New Orleans Square than Critter Country.
- On Saturday, the first day PotC was open, I actually ran into the Youtuber Freshbaked and got a picture with him.
Going to end this for now in interest of time, but I'll probably have more thoughts later on...
