First time WDW for Disneyland regulars

[nfdavenport]

I couldn't find much helpful on this topic, so forgive a newbie if it is a repost.

We are planning our first family trip to WDW & Universal in Florida. We've been to Disneyland 3 times in the past 4 years and Universal twice. Not exactly regulars I guess, but enough we know our way around DL and know what we like to do.

We are going in July sadly, but have done Disneyland at that time fairly successfully by just staying 4-5 days and leaving in the afternoon when it gets too crowded. We'll likely use the same approach at WDW, but extra days are going to be a little more pricey staying on site this trip, so I want to limit that as much as possible.

Anyway, to my actual question... When we go to WDW we want to make sure we do the stuff we can't do at Disneyland like Epcot as well as hit our favorites, of course. What shouldn't we miss and where should we focus our time? Are some duplicate rides worth giving a shot because they are different in some way, certain shows, etc?

Thanks!

 

[Hootch]

This is a bit dated but should prove to be helpful. HydroGuy is a DLR vet that has been to Disneyworld a few times. He has guides for people crossing coasts and answers questions about the differences between the resorts.. Hope it helps.

We used his guide when we planned our DLR visit.

http://www.disboards.com/threads/an-introduction-to-wdw-for-dlr-vets.1332683/#post-16541636

 

[nfdavenport]

Just the kind of thing I was after. Thanks!

 

[myers2170]

I couldn't find much helpful on this topic, so forgive a newbie if it is a repost.

We are planning our first family trip to WDW & Universal in Florida. We've been to Disneyland 3 times in the past 4 years and Universal twice. Not exactly regulars I guess, but enough we know our way around DL and know what we like to do.

We are going in July sadly, but have done Disneyland at that time fairly successfully by just staying 4-5 days and leaving in the afternoon when it gets too crowded. We'll likely use the same approach at WDW, but extra days are going to be a little more pricey staying on site this trip, so I want to limit that as much as possible.

Anyway, to my actual question... When we go to WDW we want to make sure we do the stuff we can't do at Disneyland like Epcot as well as hit our favorites, of course. What shouldn't we miss and where should we focus our time? Are some duplicate rides worth giving a shot because they are different in some way, certain shows, etc?

Thanks!

How many days do you plan to be in the parks??

 

[nfdavenport]

Well, based on preliminary reading we will probably do about 4 days at WDW, maybe an extra half day on the way to the airport since that 5 day would be pretty cheap. Then 2 maybe 3 at Universal.

I'm thinking this breakdown maybe:

1 day - MK
2 day - Epcot
1 day - AK
.5 day - HS

Might even skip the parkhopper this way.

 

[Ndusmama]

I read everywhere that it takes 2 days at Epcot. If you get there early you can do the front part of Epcot before crowds get there. Test track is essentially radiator springs with a different theme. I prefer radiator springs. Do the mission space ride. Make sure you get in the figment ride/show too since its exclusive to Epcot. As for world showcase its lots of shops and some restaurants representing different countries. So that can be walked around fairly quickly unless you like window shopping and strolling. Or you plan to drink around the world. I didn't get night shows cause I have little ones but it would be like a really long day at Disneyland.
AK will definitely take a full day. Schedule safari ride early and try to get expedition Everest in. The dinosaur ride is a definite you have to do it. It's Indiana jones but with dinosaurs and better I think. And I love Indiana jones.
HS the tower of terror is different. Try the rock n roller coaster. Toy story to me seems the same. I did that park in 6 hours including seeing shows. Although I went less crowded month.
I suggest you try to get 2 days at MK. Space mountain there is more like Disneyland Matterhorn. Thunder mountain is the same just different location. Pirates is different. Haunted mansion is derinely different. I like them both. Small world and Peter Pan are different. Watch the Mickey philharmonic symphony show. Not sure what exactly it was called. You must see the country bear jamboree and the electric light Parade (the precursor to paint the night). The monster inc show I thought was hilarious.

 

[nfdavenport]

Thank you. There was a lot of rides you mentioned that I didn't realize were different in a good way and worth checking out. Would have hated to miss out on a alternate take on Haunted Mansion especially and my kids love Tower of Terror.

 

[Ndusmama]

Thank you. There was a lot of rides you mentioned that I didn't realize were different in a good way and worth checking out. Would have hated to miss out on a alternate take on Haunted Mansion especially and my kids love Tower of Terror.

It was hard for me to not compare rides to Disneyland since I've been there at best guess over 600 times in my life (annual pass and a family member with lifetime pass). Have fun on your trip.

 

[gatorlisa]

Thank you. There was a lot of rides you mentioned that I didn't realize were different in a good way and worth checking out. Would have hated to miss out on a alternate take on Haunted Mansion especially and my kids love Tower of Terror.

If your kids love Tower of Terror, I would definitely recommend riding the HS version. There is an element in the Florida version that does not exist elsewhere that I think makes the ride better.

 

[thelittlemermaid2]

I think that Universal can easily be done in 2 days. Granted, I've never been there in summer crowds, but a group of 12 of us got every ride in Adventure Island done in 4.5 hours... true you want more time than that to look around and drink in the experience, but I think one day for each park is plenty. I would spend that extra day at Disney, as there is more there that you don't want to miss!

 

[ashnicole]

This is a bit dated but should prove to be helpful. HydroGuy is a DLR vet that has been to Disneyworld a few times. He has guides for people crossing coasts and answers questions about the differences between the resorts.. Hope it helps.

We used his guide when we planned our DLR visit.

http://www.disboards.com/threads/an-introduction-to-wdw-for-dlr-vets.1332683/#post-16541636

Thank you for posting the link! I'm interested to see what others think, which will help in planning my trip!

There are many attractions in both WDW and DLR. I only spent one day in MK but would have liked another. Pirates was closed when I went and I skipped BTMRR, dumbo, splash mountain, and small world. I don't remember the differences on peter pan, other than the que. TLMM is practically the same except the entrance and the que. Also, Jungle cruise in WDW has more to the attraction. Astro blasters and space mountain were the two I noticed that were very different, and I've heard pirates is very different. I found that most of them were slightly different, and it was fun to see things I hadn't seen since I was little, like country bears and the electrical parade. We made it a priority to ride what we don't have in Disneyland and then picked our favorites from Disneyland that everyone wanted to ride with our fp and emh.
I loved Tower of Terror in HS, but TSMM seemed the same, but I still loved it. If you can only do tsmm or rnrc, I would suggest rnrc.
We skipped Soarin' and opted for test track fp because I heard Soarin' is the same on both coasts. The nemo attraction is different than the submarine.
Most everything in AK is unique to wdw, except tough to be a bug, which we skipped because I heard it was the same. Kali river rapids is the same idea as grizzly rapids, but it's different.
I found that even if both coasts have similar attractions they make it different with the themes (like Dinosaur and Indiana Jones/ test track and radiator) or have different ques (TLMM and TSMM).

 

[nfdavenport]

As the OP I just wanted to come back and thank everyone. We had a successful trip and had a great time. I just wanted to post a few thoughts for other Disneyland regulars thinking about doing WDW. It will sound like griping but I'm just hitting the gotchas, not all the good stuff.

1. WDW in the summer - DON'T DO IT!!! I will never go back in the summer, except to the beach which was awesome and beats the beaches in CA by a long shot. This is not about crowds, dealing with the crowds is easy if you are willing to plan and arrive early. This is about the weather. Oh my goodness. I used to live on the east coast, NJ and also in MI which gets pretty humid. Nothing can prepare you for 95 degrees on a hot Florida day. If you live out east and think this is normal, maybe it is tolerable for you. If you are from out west and a Disneyland person, you might discover a new definition of hell. I'm being a little tongue in cheek here, but only a little. I don't ever plan on going back.

2. Fastpass+ kind of sucks. If you are a Disnelyand FP expert, FP+ can kind of crimp your style. You can get more than 3 per day which I didn't initially realize. However, unless you use them really early, by the time you can get more they are for very late in the day or for useless rides (Epcot in particular). And since you can get them so early, you HAVE to get the good ones early or they are long gone. If you use something like Ridemax it doesn't use FP+ as effectively as FP. Of course, my experience was in July in the summer crowded season.

3. All the same headliner rides are spread out across 4 parks instead of two. Yes, there are a lot of WDW only things like AK and Epcot, but now that we've done those once we likely wouldn't ever go back (most because of point #1).

4. We did fine without parkhopper, especially since FP+ only allows one park per day. We definitely are not full day people though and will spend a couple extra days and afternoons at the pool. I love leaving at 2pm and watching all the poor unfortunate souls just arriving, may God have mercy on their souls.

5. If you aren't staying onsite and are also doing Universal, stay at the Cabana Bay. We switched hotels halfway through to be 10 minutes closer to WDW and really wished we had just stayed at the Cabana Bay. It's a touch more expensive that the Caribe Royale where we stayed, but not that much. The room was basically the same size but the 6 person family suites are so much better organized at CB. Of course, we actually enjoy putting all 6 of us in a room for a week. It's kind of like camping in a large popup trailer. You have to all get along.

6. The AK night show, Jungle Book Alive with Magic is as bad as reported. My daughters are bollywood fans and we were willing to be open minded. We even got a FP for the show. We couldn't see the main center stage from our side and the two floating stages farthest out on our side had no one on them. Maybe we hit a bad night, but it was really disappointing.

7. Some of the WDW only rides are really good. AK - Expedition Everest and HS - Rocking Roller Coaster were fun. If you like California Screamin' you will like these two as well. My kids really like these middle of the road, not too crazy roller coasters that Disney is fond of. On the other hand AK - Dinosaur was disappointing and not worth a FP my kids prefer Indiana Jones. Epcot - Test track wasn't as good as DCA - RSR as others suggested. Oh and we agree, HS - Tower of Terror is better than at DCA. We added on extra Saturday morning to go back to HS and did ToT 4 times in a row, RRC twice and Star Tours twice more before heading to the beach that day.

Oh, before I forget, Universal...

Universal FL and IofA are much, much better than the Hollywood version. At Universal Hollywood, we never quite had time to do everything and it got horribly crowded. In FL things seem a little more spread out. If you can come at opening you have a more time to get some short lines in it seemed that in CA. Also, if you can do the early entry by staying onsite, that's even better. We were able to do some rides that we never had time for in CA. Were were able to go back and forth between Transformers and The Mummy a couple of times first thing in the morning with 5 minutes waits. Sadly, Sinbad isn't anywhere near as good as Water World. The new Kong ride was a bit of a dissappointment, I'm glad we weren't waiting 2+ hours like the late arrivers. I liked it better as part of the studio tour in CA which is missing in FL as well. By evening, some rides like Jurassic Park were down to a 5 minute wait time. The Harry Potter stuff is all pretty awesome but if you are going to do the spell locations you really need early entry. My kids loved it. We just wish the Hulk ride was open.

We had a great time though over all and were able to do tons of stuff.