For the third year in a row I met my cousin and sister for quick vacation at Disney World. What follows is a free-form trip report of sorts with thoughts and opinions.
We made it to Disney property by 5:30 on Wednesday September 24th. Pop Century provided the accommodations and we were on the free dining program. My schedule was such that we could only have 3 nights so we figured we would make it count by upgrading to the Deluxe program. We probably won't do Deluxe again but it was great to try it once. By 10:00AM on Saturday we were on the way to the airport.
Weather:
Stunning. Not a drop of rain and warm enough for shorts but rarely was it uncomfortably hot. There was a nice breeze almost all of the time during the warmest temperatures.
Pop Century:
Just fine. I personally don't see much difference between Pop and the All Stars. Maybe Pop is a bit more compact. In any event we booked next year's vacation under the bounce-back program at Pop again but I would have been happy at any of the values.
One thing I will note though is that my Verizon phone and my sister's US Cellular got very poor reception in our room in the 80's. I hope the reception improves by next year.
Free Dining in General: For 3 adults sharing a Pop Century room Free Dining is almost an embarrassingly good deal. The food alone would have cost far more than we spent on our package.
I'm sure this has been mentioned before but it is worth repeating. You don't have buy any more than a single-day base ticket with your package. Disney will quote your packages with a ticket for every night you stay along with park hopper. Having them change this to a single day with no options reduces the prices substantially. We buy multi-day tickets separately with the no-expiration option. Since we don't go for very long trips these tickets will last us a number of years. For this trip we only had two days in the parks. One day we used the ticket that came with the package that we got without the park-hopper option and for the other day we used one day on our separately purchased park hopper tickets. We don't mind having one day without the park hopper as we can always pick one park each trip we don't mind staying in all day. This year we picked Epcot and next year we'll probably pick the Magic Kingdom.
Additionally Disney will quote the price with insurance. Removing this can save a ton of money too. For our situation the insurance struck me as a terrible deal and I would much rather "self-insure" and assume the risk myself. Beside the insurance doesn't cover all that much anyway.
Deluxe Dining Plan:
For such a short trip it was really fun. Any longer and I would have actually missed not having some meals on-the-go. I can't really recommend the plan unless you are bound and determined to have two or three table service meals a day.
Restaurants:
We at at Artist Pointe the day we arrived, Le Cellier and Flying Fish the next day, Sci-Fi Drive Inn and California Grill the next and Boma for breakfast the day we left. Boma was the only breakfast we ate; we scheduled our lunches early and our dinners late so even though we had a ton of food we really only had two meals a day.
The signature restaurants were all fantastic. I have a personal "25%" rule for all Disney restaurants. If you take a 25% discount off the prices you can compare Disney places directly to places off property. For example I "spent" about $65 before tips (I didn't order alcohol) at each signature restaurant. If I compare these restaurants to ones back home where I would have spent ~$49 for the same meal I would say the Disney signature restaurants compare very favorably. They are very good restaurants but not comparable to the best in town. Service was excellent in all cases.
Le Cellier was fantastic and is a real gem for one credit. The signature restaurants were better but not twice as good. Le Cellier is a real "bargain" when you are on the dining plan.
Sci Fi was fun and the food was fine but not memorable. Probably a "been-there-done-that" restaurant for me.
Boma for breakfast was disappointing. I'm used to Las Vegas buffets so the scope seemed tiny. Nevertheless the quality was pretty good. Still there was nothing memorable about it. Keep in mind that I'm not a breakfast person.
The highlight was California Grill. Not the food, although that was very good. Rather it was all about the fireworks. We were able to see the Halloween fireworks from the observation deck just outside of the restaurant. This was an incredible experience and I highly recommend this. They have very good speakers out there so you get all of the music and the vantage point is unique and a lot of fun. This experience gets my highest recommendation.
Snacks:
We barely touched the snack credits we were so full so we wound up taking home lollipops and rice crispy treats as gifts
Food and Wine Festival:
We were in Epcot on the day before it was supposed to open. At 11:00 AM there were workers in most of the booths but they weren't open. However by mid-afternoon it looked like most if not all of them had opened. A "soft-opening" I guess. Your mileage may vary but this might be a good tip for those that want to try some of the food or wine next year before it officially opens, perhaps avoiding some crowds.
Crowds:
Thursday we were in Epcot all day. The crowds were very manageable, to the point that we didn't get a single Fast Pass. We noticed that Soaring had a pretty long wait in the afternoon but we had already been on it first thing that morning. In mid afternoon we pretty much walked on to Norway, Mexico, Ellen and the Land.
Friday we started in the Studios and this felt fairly crowded at least compared to the day before in Epcot. Midway Madness had a 35 minute wait when we got there 10 minutes after the park opened and by the time we waited and rode it was up to an hour. We didn't stay in the park long but other major rides were 30 minutes+. We then went to the Magic Kingdom. This was a day where they had the Halloween party scheduled so the park officially closed at 7:00. I don't know if that fact scared people away but the rides were empty! We walked on or waited less than five minutes for Pirates, Big Thunder, Space Mountain and many others. The only ride we noticed that wasn't 5 minutes or less was Peter Pan. I don't know if we were just lucky but I would definitely try the Magic Kingdom on a day when they are having the Halloween part at night. It was too bad we had to leave early but we got so much in we didn't really mind.
Merchandise:
I don't know if others feel this way but at least with me Disney is leaving money on the table. I simply cannot believe that their buyers still have jobs. Besides the fact that everything is too expensive I think the selection is abysmal. Every shop has some of the same things and very few shops have anything unique. Much of the clothing was the same as I saw last year.
They also constantly go for a theme. This year it is "stuff that looks warn out". Two-thirds of the t-shirts were made to look like the image on it has faded and cracked. Baseball caps were made to look frayed. I can wear out my clothing just fine, thank you. If you didn't want something with this theme there wasn't much left.
My biggest disappointment though is with kids toys. I'd love to bring home something crafty or education but the vast majority of stuff you can find is cheap plastic throw away stuff with little redeeming value.
I don't ask for much, I just want things that are:
1. only sold at Disney World or are hard to find
2. good quality
3. creative
4. good looking
If the merchandise fits this description I will buy it. If it is reasonably priced I will buy more of it. As it was I spent a total of $10 on merchandise.
Conclusion:
We had a great time, I can't wait for next year!
We made it to Disney property by 5:30 on Wednesday September 24th. Pop Century provided the accommodations and we were on the free dining program. My schedule was such that we could only have 3 nights so we figured we would make it count by upgrading to the Deluxe program. We probably won't do Deluxe again but it was great to try it once. By 10:00AM on Saturday we were on the way to the airport.
Weather:
Stunning. Not a drop of rain and warm enough for shorts but rarely was it uncomfortably hot. There was a nice breeze almost all of the time during the warmest temperatures.
Pop Century:
Just fine. I personally don't see much difference between Pop and the All Stars. Maybe Pop is a bit more compact. In any event we booked next year's vacation under the bounce-back program at Pop again but I would have been happy at any of the values.
One thing I will note though is that my Verizon phone and my sister's US Cellular got very poor reception in our room in the 80's. I hope the reception improves by next year.
Free Dining in General: For 3 adults sharing a Pop Century room Free Dining is almost an embarrassingly good deal. The food alone would have cost far more than we spent on our package.
I'm sure this has been mentioned before but it is worth repeating. You don't have buy any more than a single-day base ticket with your package. Disney will quote your packages with a ticket for every night you stay along with park hopper. Having them change this to a single day with no options reduces the prices substantially. We buy multi-day tickets separately with the no-expiration option. Since we don't go for very long trips these tickets will last us a number of years. For this trip we only had two days in the parks. One day we used the ticket that came with the package that we got without the park-hopper option and for the other day we used one day on our separately purchased park hopper tickets. We don't mind having one day without the park hopper as we can always pick one park each trip we don't mind staying in all day. This year we picked Epcot and next year we'll probably pick the Magic Kingdom.
Additionally Disney will quote the price with insurance. Removing this can save a ton of money too. For our situation the insurance struck me as a terrible deal and I would much rather "self-insure" and assume the risk myself. Beside the insurance doesn't cover all that much anyway.
Deluxe Dining Plan:
For such a short trip it was really fun. Any longer and I would have actually missed not having some meals on-the-go. I can't really recommend the plan unless you are bound and determined to have two or three table service meals a day.
Restaurants:
We at at Artist Pointe the day we arrived, Le Cellier and Flying Fish the next day, Sci-Fi Drive Inn and California Grill the next and Boma for breakfast the day we left. Boma was the only breakfast we ate; we scheduled our lunches early and our dinners late so even though we had a ton of food we really only had two meals a day.
The signature restaurants were all fantastic. I have a personal "25%" rule for all Disney restaurants. If you take a 25% discount off the prices you can compare Disney places directly to places off property. For example I "spent" about $65 before tips (I didn't order alcohol) at each signature restaurant. If I compare these restaurants to ones back home where I would have spent ~$49 for the same meal I would say the Disney signature restaurants compare very favorably. They are very good restaurants but not comparable to the best in town. Service was excellent in all cases.
Le Cellier was fantastic and is a real gem for one credit. The signature restaurants were better but not twice as good. Le Cellier is a real "bargain" when you are on the dining plan.
Sci Fi was fun and the food was fine but not memorable. Probably a "been-there-done-that" restaurant for me.
Boma for breakfast was disappointing. I'm used to Las Vegas buffets so the scope seemed tiny. Nevertheless the quality was pretty good. Still there was nothing memorable about it. Keep in mind that I'm not a breakfast person.
The highlight was California Grill. Not the food, although that was very good. Rather it was all about the fireworks. We were able to see the Halloween fireworks from the observation deck just outside of the restaurant. This was an incredible experience and I highly recommend this. They have very good speakers out there so you get all of the music and the vantage point is unique and a lot of fun. This experience gets my highest recommendation.
Snacks:
We barely touched the snack credits we were so full so we wound up taking home lollipops and rice crispy treats as gifts
Food and Wine Festival:
We were in Epcot on the day before it was supposed to open. At 11:00 AM there were workers in most of the booths but they weren't open. However by mid-afternoon it looked like most if not all of them had opened. A "soft-opening" I guess. Your mileage may vary but this might be a good tip for those that want to try some of the food or wine next year before it officially opens, perhaps avoiding some crowds.
Crowds:
Thursday we were in Epcot all day. The crowds were very manageable, to the point that we didn't get a single Fast Pass. We noticed that Soaring had a pretty long wait in the afternoon but we had already been on it first thing that morning. In mid afternoon we pretty much walked on to Norway, Mexico, Ellen and the Land.
Friday we started in the Studios and this felt fairly crowded at least compared to the day before in Epcot. Midway Madness had a 35 minute wait when we got there 10 minutes after the park opened and by the time we waited and rode it was up to an hour. We didn't stay in the park long but other major rides were 30 minutes+. We then went to the Magic Kingdom. This was a day where they had the Halloween party scheduled so the park officially closed at 7:00. I don't know if that fact scared people away but the rides were empty! We walked on or waited less than five minutes for Pirates, Big Thunder, Space Mountain and many others. The only ride we noticed that wasn't 5 minutes or less was Peter Pan. I don't know if we were just lucky but I would definitely try the Magic Kingdom on a day when they are having the Halloween part at night. It was too bad we had to leave early but we got so much in we didn't really mind.
Merchandise:
I don't know if others feel this way but at least with me Disney is leaving money on the table. I simply cannot believe that their buyers still have jobs. Besides the fact that everything is too expensive I think the selection is abysmal. Every shop has some of the same things and very few shops have anything unique. Much of the clothing was the same as I saw last year.
They also constantly go for a theme. This year it is "stuff that looks warn out". Two-thirds of the t-shirts were made to look like the image on it has faded and cracked. Baseball caps were made to look frayed. I can wear out my clothing just fine, thank you. If you didn't want something with this theme there wasn't much left.
My biggest disappointment though is with kids toys. I'd love to bring home something crafty or education but the vast majority of stuff you can find is cheap plastic throw away stuff with little redeeming value.
I don't ask for much, I just want things that are:
1. only sold at Disney World or are hard to find
2. good quality
3. creative
4. good looking
If the merchandise fits this description I will buy it. If it is reasonably priced I will buy more of it. As it was I spent a total of $10 on merchandise.
Conclusion:
We had a great time, I can't wait for next year!
