Here Now & Just Back - A Place To Share Your Recent Experiences

[maggnanimouse]

Last night night I was reminded why I try to avoid Epcot on weekend nights. It’s low key terrifying Though, it was probably the most spirited ride on Guardians I’ve ever seen. LOTS of cheering lol

 

[set88]

Just finished an absolutely FANTASTIC day at MK and AK. I studied hard and made a plan (that amazingly mostly worked!), and with Genie+ we were able to do 23 attractions between both parks.

I have to say... haven't been to Disney in almost 20 years (since I was a kid)... it really is magical. No hype, it's so true. We had so much fun.

Rough outline of day:
7:30am early entry to MK
Peter Pan
Thunder Mountain
Pirates
Jungle Cruise LL
Haunted Mansion LL
Splash Mountain LL
Small World LL

11:30am Lunch at Columbia Harbor House
Country Bears
Tiki Room
SDMT ILL
Mad Tea Party
Winnie the Pooh LL
Carousel of Progress
Space Mountain LL
Buzz LL

Left MK around 2:45pm, arrived AK 3:20pm

It's tough to be a bug
4pm pre dinner snack at Flame Tree
Kilaminjaro Safari
Expedition Everest LL
Dinosaur LL
Triceratops Spin
EE (2nd time)

7:10pm Dinner at Satuli
Navi LL
FoP (in line at 7:45pm, off ride 8:45pm)

Total step count for the day, including walking to and from all bus stops, around 28,000k.

Other than the 45 min end of night FoP wait, our longest waits were Peter Pan and K Safari, both around 18 min. A couple other waits around 15 min.

EPCOT tomorrow with no Genie+ and Space 220 Lunch! So excited!

I will be posting a full trip report after the trip with the times when everything was booked and total waits vs standby. I will say this - I did no refreshing for times! I just booked as we went with only two 2 hour gaps.

 

[mwmom]

Just finished an absolutely FANTASTIC day at MK and AK. I studied hard and made a plan (that amazingly mostly worked!), and with Genie+ we were able to do 23 attractions between both parks.

I have to say... haven't been to Disney in almost 20 years (since I was a kid)... it really is magical. No hype, it's so true. We had so much fun.

Rough outline of day:
7:30am early entry to MK
Peter Pan
Thunder Mountain
Pirates
Jungle Cruise LL
Haunted Mansion LL
Splash Mountain LL
Small World LL

11:30am Lunch at Columbia Harbor House
Country Bears
Tiki Room
SDMT ILL
Mad Tea Party
Winnie the Pooh LL
Carousel of Progress
Space Mountain LL
Buzz LL

Left MK around 2:45pm, arrived AK 3:20pm

It's tough to be a bug
4pm pre dinner snack at Flame Tree
Kilaminjaro Safari
Expedition Everest LL
Dinosaur LL
Triceratops Spin
EE (2nd time)

7:10pm Dinner at Satuli
Navi LL
FoP (in line at 7:45pm, off ride 8:45pm)

Total step count for the day, including walking to and from all bus stops, around 28,000k.

Other than the 45 min end of night FoP wait, our longest waits were Peter Pan and K Safari, both around 18 min. A couple other waits around 15 min.

EPCOT tomorrow with no Genie+ and Space 220 Lunch! So excited!

I will be posting a full trip report after the trip with the times when everything was booked and total waits vs standby. I will say this - I did no refreshing for times! I just booked as we went with only two 2 hour gaps.

Great report! You did accomplish a lot!

 

[jimim]

Just finished an absolutely FANTASTIC day at MK and AK. I studied hard and made a plan (that amazingly mostly worked!), and with Genie+ we were able to do 23 attractions between both parks.

I have to say... haven't been to Disney in almost 20 years (since I was a kid)... it really is magical. No hype, it's so true. We had so much fun.

Rough outline of day:
7:30am early entry to MK
Peter Pan
Thunder Mountain
Pirates
Jungle Cruise LL
Haunted Mansion LL
Splash Mountain LL
Small World LL

11:30am Lunch at Columbia Harbor House
Country Bears
Tiki Room
SDMT ILL
Mad Tea Party
Winnie the Pooh LL
Carousel of Progress
Space Mountain LL
Buzz LL

Left MK around 2:45pm, arrived AK 3:20pm

It's tough to be a bug
4pm pre dinner snack at Flame Tree
Kilaminjaro Safari
Expedition Everest LL
Dinosaur LL
Triceratops Spin
EE (2nd time)

7:10pm Dinner at Satuli
Navi LL
FoP (in line at 7:45pm, off ride 8:45pm)

Total step count for the day, including walking to and from all bus stops, around 28,000k.

Other than the 45 min end of night FoP wait, our longest waits were Peter Pan and K Safari, both around 18 min. A couple other waits around 15 min.

EPCOT tomorrow with no Genie+ and Space 220 Lunch! So excited!

I will be posting a full trip report after the trip with the times when everything was booked and total waits vs standby. I will say this - I did no refreshing for times! I just booked as we went with only two 2 hour gaps.

I have to say with u having the lunch time in there I was impressed. U did a lot until 1130 lunch. And some pretty quick lightening lanes. Without having ur lunch time in there I would say mmmh they spent all day to get it all in but EVEN THOUGH you spent all day from the looks you did very well in the those blocks of time. Long day for sure but if able you deff got ur time and money worth.

Awesome. That’s a solid day. Solid use of money. Lol and solid post!

 

[set88]

Day 2 was yesterday 11/15 EPCOT... the day I didn't decide to buy Genie+ until 9:35am and still managed to get LLs for all 3 headliners...

Will go into more thoughts and details in my eventual trip report... G+ was absolutely invaluable in the end, but there was luck involved for absolute sure, and without it things might have felt quite different.

Outline of day -

7am - Guardians VQ - we were on our game and got boarding group 1!

7:25ish am - arrive at EPCOT ( regular entrance)
Run to holding point for Frozen walk
8:10am on Frozen

The plan had been TT next but it was down. It was down on and off all day.

Morning 9am - 11am
GotG via VQ
Soarin LL
Living with the Land

11am
Booths - Flame Tree, Noodle Exchange, Joffrey, Swanky Swine
Gran Fiesta Tour
Booths - Canada and Appleseed Orchard
Journey into Imagination LL
Nemo LL

Lunch at Space 220! 2:10pm - 3:30pm

Late afternoon

TT LL converted because it was down - anytime LL excluded both Remy and Frozen

Guardians ILL
Mission Space (Green)
Frozen LL (total surprise to pick up with immediate return)
Booth - Refreshment Outpost - while sitting there I picked up a total surprise LL for Remy in the last hour of the day

Then around 5:50pm TT finally came back up and we walked back over to use the anytime LL
Spaceship Earth
Shopping
Booth - Australia
Remy LL

Left park via international gateway because we couldn't face the walk back across the park and to the busses! Took skyliner to Riviera Resort and ubered back to All Star Music. Well worth the $10 + tip Uber fare.

Total step count 26,000k.

Today is Hollywood Studios. Got 30 minutes to kill until hubby wakes up and we start getting ready!

 

[jods]

Day 2 was yesterday 11/15 EPCOT... the day I didn't decide to buy Genie+ until 9:35am and still managed to get LLs for all 3 headliners...

Will go into more thoughts and details in my eventual trip report... G+ was absolutely invaluable in the end, but there was luck involved for absolute sure, and without it things might have felt quite different.

Outline of day -

7am - Guardians VQ - we were on our game and got boarding group 1!

7:25ish am - arrive at EPCOT ( regular entrance)
Run to holding point for Frozen walk
8:10am on Frozen

The plan had been TT next but it was down. It was down on and off all day.

Morning 9am - 11am
GotG via VQ
Soarin LL
Living with the Land

11am
Booths - Flame Tree, Noodle Exchange, Joffrey, Swanky Swine
Gran Fiesta Tour
Booths - Canada and Appleseed Orchard
Journey into Imagination LL
Nemo LL

Lunch at Space 220! 2:10pm - 3:30pm

Late afternoon

TT LL converted because it was down - anytime LL excluded both Remy and Frozen

Guardians ILL
Mission Space (Green)
Frozen LL (total surprise to pick up with immediate return)
Booth - Refreshment Outpost - while sitting there I picked up a total surprise LL for Remy in the last hour of the day

Then around 5:50pm TT finally came back up and we walked back over to use the anytime LL
Spaceship Earth
Shopping
Booth - Australia
Remy LL

Left park via international gateway because we couldn't face the walk back across the park and to the busses! Took skyliner to Riviera Resort and ubered back to All Star Music. Well worth the $10 + tip Uber fare.

Total step count 26,000k.

Today is Hollywood Studios. Got 30 minutes to kill until hubby wakes up and we start getting ready!

Sounds like a great day. I was also able to snag the epcot headliners in August with those afternoon drops. It's a game.changer for sure.

 

[Stormtrooper mum]

Sounds like a great day. I was also able to snag the epcot headliners in August with those afternoon drops. It's a game.changer for sure.

Can you remind us again what time the afternoon drops are?

 

[jods]

Can you remind us again what time the afternoon drops are?

In August it was 1247 and 247 and maybe 447. If you look at thrill data it will show the recent drops. My old eyes can't read the charts so someone else helped me read/interpret them lol. It's all different lines and colorful and my eyes/brain couldn't discern it on my phone.

 

[jods]

Can you remind us again what time the afternoon drops are?

I also played around the days leading up to my trip and it was dead on.

 

[Stormtrooper mum]

I also played around the days leading up to my trip and it was dead on.

You’re amazing thanks!

 

[pixiedust2u]

If anyone has any recent experience with drops specially at Epcot and or MK I’d appreciate the info. Thrill data overwhelms me and I end up confused!

 

[set88]

In August it was 1247 and 247 and maybe 447. If you look at thrill data it will show the recent drops. My old eyes can't read the charts so someone else helped me read/interpret them lol. It's all different lines and colorful and my eyes/brain couldn't discern it on my phone.

That's interesting, I believe it was right around 4:45-4:50pm when I booked Frozen with an immediate return. So maybe it's still the same.

 

[set88]

Day 3 Hollywood Studios 11/16

We are back home now, but I will add our last two "quick summaries" of each day before I start working on the big trip report!

Bought Genie+ and had the app ready to go right at 7:00:00am but it stuttered and we had to quickly open the app on another phone to book. This happened a couple mornings on the trip - lesson learned, have two phones ready to go right from the start. Our SDD return time was 3:05pm. Bought Rise right after for 5:10pm (I could have had an earlier time but chose to go later - worth noting, though, that some times were definitely already sold out).

We arrived to the front gate (ready to walk through security) at 7:30am. Walked to ToT and stood in the "out front" line for 10 minutes before they announced that ToT would not be ready to open at 8am, so we quickly jumped into the RockNRollercoaster line.

Early Entry
RnRc (10 minute wait)
ToT (posted 35 min wait at 8:20am, actual wait around 20-25 minutes)

Morning - Noon
Coffee at Joffrey's
Killing time watching wait times start shooting up to unreasonable levels - didn't help that Rise was down
Mobile ordering food in advance at Woody's (earliest time already an hour away)
Wandering around Walt Disney Presents

Woody's Lunchbox -10:10am (took around 10 minutes for food to be ready)
Muppet Vision
Indiana Jones Show (got there around 11:35am for the noon show - boy, I don't recommend being any later, it was slammed)

Afternoon
"Vacation Fun" animated short film
Frozen 1:30pm show (arrived 1:10pm)
Oga's Cantina 2:15pm reservation

MMRR LL (3:15pm, second pick at 10:30am)
SDD LL (3:35pm, first pick at 7am)
Alien Swirling Saucers LL (4:15pm, fourth pick at 2:35pm)

Late Afternoon - Early Evening
Dinner at Docking Bay (just before 5pm)
Smuggler's Run LL (5:15pm, third pick at 12:30pm)
Rise ILL
Star Tours x2

Evening
Toy Story Mania LL (7pm, fifth pick at 4:15pm)
RnRc LL (8pm, sixth pick at 6:20pm)

Left the park before close because we were wiped out!

Total step count around 23k.

Quick takeaways - Crowd levels were a 7/10 and this was really the only day of the trip they felt "too much" to us. Genie+ is essential. In the future, I would not arrive to HS in the morning - I think it's better as an afternoon park once your LLs kick in and where you spend the morning doing something else.

Though, for a first time visitor doing one day at HS - I would definitely recommend doing what we did. Early entry, knock out RnRc and ToT. Kill time with shows in the morning and midday until your stacked LLs in the afternoon (arrive early for the shows, there's nothing better to do anyway and you might as well get good seats!) Plus all the shows were very good.

If we'd been up for it, I'm sure we could have done a couple more attractions with very low wait times in the last half hour of the day. Would have loved to do that but our third >23k step day in a row didn't allow for more, haha.

Next up, our final day of the trip with MK morning and EPCOT afternoon.

 

[Orsino]

Just back and had a great time. I know there is a lot of chatter about lost magic and with all the extra charges and fussing needed with Genie+ I sort of get it. But when we arrived, we had an absolutely great time. Studios, which historically had been our least favorite park was pretty magical. Cast Members were all in great spirits (not just Studios, but everywhere). Out of nowhere, they had a special performance of Fantasmic! for AP holders, which is the first time I've been able to do a special AP holder event. I would not have bothered to see Fantasmic, but with the special showing, we did and enjoyed it.

I have to admit, there is a bit of luck involved too. We happened to be walking past Rise with a posted 60min wait, which was suspiciously short. We figured it had been down and just came up. We were right and had a 30-35 minute wait. [Side note, for the first 20-25 minutes the line moved fast, then I think they were slammed with LL so it moved soooo slow (about 4 people from standby per preshow room).] It was a nice moment and it saved us from Night Dropping Rise at closing time, which would have been fine, but we had an early flight to MCO that morning so leaving early was great too.

Genie+ requires a lot of fuss, there is no denying that, but I'm a fussy person so it works for us. We stacked Studios to great success (7am departure meant I grabbed Slinky just before the plane pulled away from the gate, and we landed just before the next LL grab time). We tried the 'get LL early and use early to book more' to moderate success. This plan allowed us to plan LL for specific lands and reduce walking. For example we could tap into Buzz and book Space for a short while later and bridge the gap with Carousel. The downside is by afternoon the booking situation wasn't great for us because what was left were rides we already booked or rides that were sold out.

 

[set88]

Day 4 - MK morning and EPCOT afternoon - Our final day! Thursday 11/17

On Tuesday evening when we got back from EPCOT, I got the idea to try to do a nice breakfast our last morning instead of doing another early entry rush. Made a reservation for Crystal Palace (big splurge, but I have very fond memories of eating there as a small child and meeting the Winnie the Pooh characters.) Plus it was way easier to do MK breakfast instead of hitting one of the resorts first.

Also bought Genie+ and chose Meet Mickey at 7am.

This was intended to be a slower day for us, and we wanted to do our favorites from our first MK day again as well as a handful of things we missed).

Morning
Crystal Palace Breakfast 8am (we LOVED this)
Meet Mickey LL 9am
Haunted Mansion LL
Carousel
Splash Mountain (cold day, no wait)
Thunder Mountain LL
Had booked Pirates LL, but it was down
Dumbo LL
Under the Sea LL
Buzz LL (this was what we used our anytime LL from Pirates on)

(The Thunder LL was about an hour away when I booked it, everything else was an immediate return).

Left MK at 1:30pm to monorail to EPCOT. We were coming back just to hit up the F&W booths we wanted to do that we missed on our first day, then planning to leave before evening.

Afternoon
2:25pm Meet Donald (line was around 25 min)
Booths:
Kenya
Spain
Hops & Barley
Greece
Tangerine Cafe
Brazil

4:45pm Soarin LL (booked this at around 1pm with a 3:50-4:50pm return)
Shimmering Sips to redeem cheese crawl prize
Shopping
Headed back to monorail to TTC to drive home - got to car around 6:30pm, got home to Tampa 2 hours later.

Total step count around 22k... and this was supposed to be a slow day! No such thing at a Disney park. I can't even imagine what the count would have been if we'd stayed the last 3 hours of the evening.

Over our 4 days, we got in around 100,000k steps - around 50 miles!

Next trip is already on the calendar for late January!

Overall, we had an AMAZING time. I've been to so many theme parks (I'm a thrill ride junkie) but hadn't returned to Disney since I was a kid. I LOVED it. I honestly didn't expect this trip to turn me into a Disney fanatic, but I think it did. We've had Universal season passes and love the rides at Universal, but the atmosphere is decidedly lacking in comparison to Disney. There is truly something different in the air.

Full trip report with tons of photos, restaurant reviews, ride reviews, strategy tips, Genie+ thoughts (the good and bad!), and more... coming soon!

 

[snikki]

We were there 11/3-11/12 and had an amazing time. We had G+ added to our length of stay tickets and it really worked well for us. We were able to utilize it very well and felt it was worth the $15 we paid. We got many more rides than we used to get with FP+ since we used to book those in our PM park. We stacked HS a few times and it works great at MK, especially if you are there all day. We got 8 or more our first day and that was with a 4 hour midday break and the dessert party. The biggest downside is the zig zagging and walking through the parks. We walked 75.4 miles/182K steps in our 9 days and we didn't do full park days everyday.

Our longest waits all trip were one of our VQs for Guardians which took almost an hour and oddly enough Under the Sea for 25 minutes (was posted as 10). Everything else we used G+ or walked on at low wait times. We did ILL for Star Wars x2, FOP x 2, Guardians x 1 and 7DMT x1. It sucked to pay extra for this but it was worth the wait times. I will say we did NOT need G+ for each day of our trip but it was already paid for so we used it.

The first few days of our trip were low crowds and you could feel the crowds grow by that Saturday and Sunday. The following Friday and Saturday were Veterans Weekend but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting but that's probably due to cancellations from TS Nicole. The parks closed early that Wednesday and opened late Thursday which wasn't a big deal to us since we had 9 days and we just used that as our rest time and rearranged our time. We really needed that. The worst of the storm seemed to pass through overnight so we didn't see much except some rain and gusts of winds here and there.

The beginning of the week ToT was running well and by midstay I noticed only one side was running. The ride went down at one point on 11/12 and when it reopened they had to close it again since the LL line was 45 minutes and standby was 195 minutes. The ride was still running but no one could get in line. We had a LL and when we got off (took about 35 minutes) it was still closed to new guests.

Two things I noticed and stuck out to me: I felt that Epcot was just as packed on a weeknight as it was on the weekend. There really was no difference to me. #2 - I felt that 50% of the people in the parks were without children. Especially in DHS and Epcot. Even AK. Of course MK is kid central but even there I saw a lot of people without kids. Much higher than I'm used to. One day we were on a full friendship boat and there were only about 6 kids. Lots of adult only trips. (and my next trip will be just myself and DH!)

 

[Gentry2004]

In August it was 1247 and 247 and maybe 447. If you look at thrill data it will show the recent drops. My old eyes can't read the charts so someone else helped me read/interpret them lol. It's all different lines and colorful and my eyes/brain couldn't discern it on my phone.

Is this only for Epcot or for every park?

 

[snikki]

I did see some drops at 11:47 am.

 

[dorchrislen]

Day 3 Hollywood Studios 11/16

We are back home now, but I will add our last two "quick summaries" of each day before I start working on the big trip report!

Bought Genie+ and had the app ready to go right at 7:00:00am but it stuttered and we had to quickly open the app on another phone to book. This happened a couple mornings on the trip - lesson learned, have two phones ready to go right from the start. Our SDD return time was 3:05pm. Bought Rise right after for 5:10pm (I could have had an earlier time but chose to go later - worth noting, though, that some times were definitely already sold out).

We arrived to the front gate (ready to walk through security) at 7:30am. Walked to ToT and stood in the "out front" line for 10 minutes before they announced that ToT would not be ready to open at 8am, so we quickly jumped into the RockNRollercoaster line.

Early Entry
RnRc (10 minute wait)
ToT (posted 35 min wait at 8:20am, actual wait around 20-25 minutes)

Morning - Noon
Coffee at Joffrey's
Killing time watching wait times start shooting up to unreasonable levels - didn't help that Rise was down
Mobile ordering food in advance at Woody's (earliest time already an hour away)
Wandering around Walt Disney Presents

Woody's Lunchbox -10:10am (took around 10 minutes for food to be ready)
Muppet Vision
Indiana Jones Show (got there around 11:35am for the noon show - boy, I don't recommend being any later, it was slammed)

Afternoon
"Vacation Fun" animated short film
Frozen 1:30pm show (arrived 1:10pm)
Oga's Cantina 2:15pm reservation

MMRR LL (3:15pm, second pick at 10:30am)
SDD LL (3:35pm, first pick at 7am)
Alien Swirling Saucers LL (4:15pm, fourth pick at 2:35pm)

Late Afternoon - Early Evening
Dinner at Docking Bay (just before 5pm)
Smuggler's Run LL (5:15pm, third pick at 12:30pm)
Rise ILL
Star Tours x2

Evening
Toy Story Mania LL (7pm, fifth pick at 4:15pm)
RnRc LL (8pm, sixth pick at 6:20pm)

Left the park before close because we were wiped out!

Total step count around 23k.

Quick takeaways - Crowd levels were a 7/10 and this was really the only day of the trip they felt "too much" to us. Genie+ is essential. In the future, I would not arrive to HS in the morning - I think it's better as an afternoon park once your LLs kick in and where you spend the morning doing something else.

Though, for a first time visitor doing one day at HS - I would definitely recommend doing what we did. Early entry, knock out RnRc and ToT. Kill time with shows in the morning and midday until your stacked LLs in the afternoon (arrive early for the shows, there's nothing better to do anyway and you might as well get good seats!) Plus all the shows were very good.

If we'd been up for it, I'm sure we could have done a couple more attractions with very low wait times in the last half hour of the day. Would have loved to do that but our third >23k step day in a row didn't allow for more, haha.

Next up, our final day of the trip with MK morning and EPCOT afternoon.

Thanks for this. Because of your experience I am re-designing my whole day. I think on January 5 the crowds will probably be at 7 also so I’m ditching my plan and going with yours!

 

[jods]

If anyone has any recent experience with drops specially at Epcot and or MK I’d appreciate the info. Thrill data overwhelms me and I end up confused!

I have to laugh because I had the same reaction to thrill data.

That's interesting, I believe it was right around 4:45-4:50pm when I booked Frozen with an immediate return. So maybe it's still the same.

I'm sure that was it. They started with immediate returns and refreshing went a couple hours later. The drops would only last a few minutes so you couldn't be too picky.

Is this only for Epcot or for every park?

There was talk at MK with different times but we were never there early so I didn't test it out. I think I read around 12 but again, I didn't look. HS did have random drops when i was there but I didn't really pay attention to a pattern. Thrill data has the info for all LL if you want to try and figure it out.