fastpass

[HydroGuy]

The only thing I didn't agree with was your count of attractions at WDW, I found it to be short, I took out my park maps and counted at least 87 attractions at the 4 major parks. But overall the guide was great, thanks for writing it.

Well, as I tried to point out, Disney is very liberal on what counts as an "attraction" at DLR and WDW. I tried to be more judicious. But it is open to interpretation.

I also read your trip report and I can't believe how little time you guys spent in the parks! When we visit WDW we spend at least 10 hours per day in the parks. We also tour exclusively in summer, when parks have exended hours.

We did not try to do short hours at the parks. I think there were a several factors that led to this:

1. Some parks have short hours (AK was only open 10 hours, Epcot FW and WS are open 10 hours each and we dedictaed one day to each of these)

2. Weather - it was hot and humid, and by Noon or 1PM my family members were begging to leave each day. We planned to do that, but that takes up a lot of time. By the time we got back to our room, went for a swim, and took a nap, it was latish - sometimes 5PM. After we ate dinner, on several days no one thought it was worth going out again after 6PM. So I went back out solo on a couple evenings.

3. It was rainy - we had a tropical storm come through and we visited Epcot FutureWorld in a downpour that lasted all day. In the original plan we were going to hang around Epcot longer, but after all the rain we were soaked (even through our rain ponchos). We left Epcot at 4PM and no one wanted to come back afterwards.

4. The effort to get to the parks was more of an obstacle. At DLR everyone in my family is gung ho to get back to the parks in the evening because it is so close and the weather is so nice in the summer. At WDW the effort to get back to the parks after a break was larger, and with the heat and humidity on several days everyone said "I do not want to go back".

5. We were trying to pace ourselves and not burn out by spending all outside. We only did this once - at Animal Kingdom.


You could say that we could have spent more hours at the parks at WDW, and that is true. But the conditions (heat/rain/tropical storm for 2 days/time required to get to the parks) made it so many in my family did not want to go back to the parks on several different days.

So we are planning to go next time during Spring Break when the weather should be more tolerable and the rain much less, and I expect we will then get in more hours at the parks - but I doubt we will be able to do as many hours as at DLR mostly because of transportation time at WDW and greater time required to park hop.

 

[bumbershoot]

The AAA enhanced question made me remember the research I did two years ago for our first one-day blast through DL.

And from my memory (not experience, just reading), the enhanced FP you got through AAA meant you could have more than one FP at a time. At that time, FP NOT through AAA meant one-at-a-time, and I *think* that's how it was on our first trip in '05 (I could be wrong, though, b/c there was a huge storm that morning and we had the park to ourselves until around 2pm, so FP wasn't a big part of our day!).

On our last trip, if memory serves, FP had changed, and they had opened it up a bit. They put in the one-at-a-time OR wait-two-hours-then-get-another allowance, which made things easier (darned sunny day!), because you could hold more than one at a time.

Now, I don't know what it's like at disneyworld. But if one is comparing the AAA enhanced thing to what the NON-enhanced FP was (in my memory, which is sometimes faulty when it comes to DL, sorry if that's the case here), it seems to be important to realize that the regular FP is different, at least than it was on what-I-remember of our first visit in '05.

Gawd I hope I'm even just a little bit correct here...



By the way, 4 days is what we're doing, but we're NOT going to visit LA. We *are*, however, including a visit to the Bay Area on our visit (b/c it's my HS reunion before we go to Disney), where we will do fun things like the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, and some other things yet to be determined (Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum might be included). So yeah, it might be difficult to do 2 weeks at Disneyland and DCA, but just because *others* visit more of Southern CA on their trips, doesn't mean YOU have to!

Also, Amtrak can take you out of Anaheim and off to places like San Diego, where you could stay right in downtown and do things like their Zoo and SeaWorld. No driving, just a taxi and a train, necessary!

 

[Sleeping Becca]

Thanks a lot everyone for the great advice.

Trey, I did read your trip report, and I'm sorry the weather was so bad for your visit. I know FL weather can be a big adjustment with just the humidity, and during your visit a tropical storm on top of that. I'm glad that didn't deter you from a second trip!

Bumbershoot: That train ride sounds nice. It might be fun to hop on a train to San Diego, I think we might look into that.