Here Now & Just Back WDW Reopening Experiences Including Park Hopping

[cakebaker]

NM- just saw mod request.

 

[Nice Work Pal]

Thank you for your thorough report.

Could you elaborate more on the QS? This has me the most worried out of anything. I've been adding more and more TS to my trip as I find them (yay, got Sci Fi this morning), but we're still having 2 QS meals.

Your TP situation is especially disheartening.

Depends where you’re at for QS. If it’s HS or MK forget about it. Figure out which QS spot you want to eat at, mobile order a time slot then go to pick up. Cosmic rays was a nightmare as was Pinocchio’s village. Just droves of People standing around those areas. There were separate long lines for people picking up their mobile orders so expect an additional 20 minute wait after you get your alert. No seating anywhere. GE wasn’t too bad for mobile orders for ronto wraps and blue milk. Our usual plan of using mobile ordering and scouting seats didn’t work because that area was packed. Docking bay 7 had some seating so go to that area if you’d like to sit. If you’re going to Epcot you’re good…lines at f&w weren’t too bad same with AK (although flame tree is probably the only QS worth it there)

Check your room once you check in and you might want to ask for towels early or just take some from the pool. Mousekeeping is severely understaffed so be prepared for very basic services like daily trash removal only.

 

[Shaft41]

We got back Monday and I wanted to give our perspective. We were there from Wednesday, 7/7 through Saturday 7/17. Unlike almost everyone else I see on here, we were different in that we stayed off property and did not have park hoppers. I think so much of what people are feeling about their vacation this summer is their expectations. If they go 3-4 times a year, or have little kids, or are more show or resort oriented than ride oriented, then all those things are going to color what they think of their trip right now. As for us, it was our first trip since 2017. We have 5 kids, all teenagers, although we found out 2 weeks prior that only 4 of them would be able to be with us on this trip. While we've stayed on property in the past, with a family of 7, we can't justify the cost of even two value hotel rooms with our budget versus a spacious house off property. Our touring style is more ride-oriented with having teenagers.

My wife and I are both teachers, so we've only gone in the summer since we started taking our kids in 2010. That factors into our expectations as well. We know we're only going to be there every 3-4 years, so that's why we went with 8 day park tickets this time.

About 2/3 of the way through the trip, I was reading up on this thread, and seeing a preponderance of negative posts, and many people saying how it was their worst trip, they wouldn't be back until things changed, it was so much worse than they were used to, etc. So, our of curiosity, I asked my wife and kids what they thought. Every member of our family agreed that we were having a great trip, and it was not the terrible experience for us as others were saying. I was glad they agreed with me.

I won't list our day-to-day adventures, but, I will list our pros and cons in general. We stayed at a house in Calabay Parc, which ended up being a 25-35 minute drive each way every day, depending on traffic.

PROS
- Unlike what so many others are saying, I thought the weather was great. Our first day was the day after/of Elsa's arrival in Florida. We put off getting to MK an hour or so, as the forecast showed thunderstorms that morning. Not only did we get no rain, the cloudiness kept the temperature down. We all agreed this was one of more pleasant trips for weather. We had multiple days where cloud cover helped with temperature, I didn't think the humidity was oppressive, and, while I still had my share of sweat, I felt like the majority of it was caused by carrying a heavy backpack with a bunch of our stuff in it every day.
- We had no negative CM interactions. They were professional, courteous and there did not seem to be a lack of staffing.
- Mobile Order worked awesome for us. I wasn't too keen on the idea of it before we went, but we would order in line for a ride, hit "I'm Here" once we got off, walk over to the restaurant, and 90% of the time, it was ready before we got there. And we were often eating at peak times as well. We couldn't find an indoor table at Cosmic Ray's on our last day, and we took our Casey's order over to the seating area for Tomorrowland Terrace, but had no trouble finding seats for out family. We did four table service meals, and loved all of them. Crystal Palace was outstanding, we did Tutto Italia for the first time and dug it, and our two favorites of Liberty Tree Tavern and 50's Prime Time were bussin as always.
- Granted, we had teenagers. Granted, we had 8 days in the parks. I know not everyone was in our situation. But we did everything we wanted to do, and almost all of them multiple times. My 16 yo son and I really wanted to experience every attraction in every park during our stay. He got everything except Navi River, ITTBAB and FOTLK. We only did one day at AK, and, since we'd never done FOP before, that was a priority for us. (We also did AK on our third consecutive park day, and we had done the first two basically open to close, so there was no way being off property that we were getting to rope drop at AK with 4 teenagers). My wife and I did ITTBAB while the kids were on Everest after a ticket snafu delay, but I skipped Tiki Room at MK while he and my other son did that. We did SM, SE, TSMM, and BTMR all 4-5 times each during our stay, and our favorite, Splash, we ended up doing 6 times. We were never there before park opening, typically arriving at or within a half hour of park opening, except for a day at Epcot and a day at MK, where we got there around 1.
- Would we have liked shorter lines? Of course. But we found the following rides ALWAYS were quicker than their posted wait times: Buzz, TSMM, BTMR, PoC, SE, and Soarin. The rides that seemed to be typically right on their times posted were MFSR, RaRC, ToT, KS and KRR. For 7DMT, SDD, JC and FEA, the times were slightly less than posted, but not too much gained. The lines could be a challenge to find the end at times, but the fast movers took you into the queue pretty quick.
- We must have lucked out with ride breakdowns compared to what other people are reporting. Our BG 107 for RotR ended up getting pushed back due to it being down, to the point where we finally got on it at 8:30, but, other than that, the ride were up and running. Our only ride problem was one time on SM, where a young boy a couple logs behind us got out of the boat and was walking around through the ride, I guess trying to catch Brer Rabbit, so we were stopped in the log for 15-20 while cast members got him out of there.
- We met and talked to some great people waiting in those lines. While we waited, hoping RoTR would start up again, my son, who had made a light saber at Savi's, started showing it to a teenage boy behind us in line. They really hit it off as we waited for an hour, and the boy's aunt and uncle later told us he was autistic and rarely talks to anyone he doesn't know, so they couldn't believe how social he was being. He ended up riding the ride with our family and walking out of the park with us. In our 70 minute wait for Kali River Rapids, we met and talked to a lovely family from Brazil.
-Finally, speaking of RoTR, all I can say is WOW. Maybe the best theme park attraction I've ever experienced. Of all the rides that were new to us since our last visit (FOP, SDD, ASwS, MMRR), I was slightly underwhelmed by all of them except Rise and MMRR. After we rode it on our first HS day, my two teenage daughters, who care nothing about Star Wars, said "We HAVE to get another boarding group to ride that again on our other HS day." And we got BG 14 our 2nd day, and even got to see a couple things on the ride that we didn't see the first time!

CONS
- There are people everywhere. I mean, everywhere. Capacity, in my mind, was every bit as high as a typical summer visit we've had in the past. We were comfortable going, we weren't scared to be around people, etc. but I also didn't hate getting in our own van and heading to our own house at the end of the day to avoid buses, resorts, etc. On our last MK day on 7/17, IaSW had a 60 minute wait! In what alternate reality should that ever be a thing? The crush of people to get on a ferry over 30 minutes after park close that night was staggering. I thought AK felt like the most crowded park. Our one day there, it seemed like there was no escaping the crowds. We were at Epcot the first day of FaW, and it definitely was busier than our first day there.
- Someone posted earlier about a line of cars a mile long to get into parking at the MK. We experienced that moreso at HS and AK. As others have said, if you want to beat the crowd, you better be getting there an hour before opening. But weirdly, I guess since we were closing down the park every night we were there, and typically getting in a ride line right before close and staying until after close, the parking lots never seemed full when we left.
- I didn't understand why some stores seemed to have lines to get in since they seemed to be limiting capacity, while others did not. Ondar's Den of Antiquities has the same square footage as our catbox, but yet there were 100 people in there, while we waited in line for 20 minutes to get in the Lego store at DS, which had maybe 50 people in it, and same with Disney Traders at Epcot.
- I had always wanted to try the Food and Wine Festival, even though we're not foodies and I don't drink alcohol. So, I'm glad we were able to do it. But I wasn't super impressed. Maybe because I don't drink. I didn't dislike any of the food we tried, but the best thing I ate all day was the fish and chips we got from the window in the UK. And three bites of food for $6.75 was not the best value.
- And this is super nitpicky, but I was befuddled when we would get the popcorn bucket refill why some locations it was exactly $2, a couple it was $2.01, and one place was $2.02.

I'm sorry this is so long. We went into it knowing we had time, we were not leaving the parks midday, and we would do as much as our bodies would allow. And we had a great time! Positives far outweighed the negatives for us.

 

[NileNellie]

Depends where you’re at for QS. If it’s HS or MK forget about it. Figure out which QS spot you want to eat at, mobile order a time slot then go to pick up. Cosmic rays was a nightmare as was Pinocchio’s village. Just droves of People standing around those areas. There were separate long lines for people picking up their mobile orders so expect an additional 20 minute wait after you get your alert. No seating anywhere. GE wasn’t too bad for mobile orders for ronto wraps and blue milk. Our usual plan of using mobile ordering and scouting seats didn’t work because that area was packed. Docking bay 7 had some seating so go to that area if you’d like to sit. If you’re going to Epcot you’re good…lines at f&w weren’t too bad same with AK (although flame tree is probably the only QS worth it there)

Check your room once you check in and you might want to ask for towels early or just take some from the pool. Mousekeeping is severely understaffed so be prepared for very basic services like daily trash removal only.

We had the same issue at Cosmic Ray's. Placed a mobile order for 1:35, got the notification to pick come back, and waited around for another 30 minutes until we finally got our food. We hit up Sunshine Tree Terrace earlier that day and did mobile order which was a much more pleasant experience-took less than five minutes.

 

[DaniMoon]

We got back Monday and I wanted to give our perspective. We were there from Wednesday, 7/7 through Saturday 7/17. Unlike almost everyone else I see on here, we were different in that we stayed off property and did not have park hoppers. I think so much of what people are feeling about their vacation this summer is their expectations. If they go 3-4 times a year, or have little kids, or are more show or resort oriented than ride oriented, then all those things are going to color what they think of their trip right now. As for us, it was our first trip since 2017. We have 5 kids, all teenagers, although we found out 2 weeks prior that only 4 of them would be able to be with us on this trip. While we've stayed on property in the past, with a family of 7, we can't justify the cost of even two value hotel rooms with our budget versus a spacious house off property. Our touring style is more ride-oriented with having teenagers.

My wife and I are both teachers, so we've only gone in the summer since we started taking our kids in 2010. That factors into our expectations as well. We know we're only going to be there every 3-4 years, so that's why we went with 8 day park tickets this time.

About 2/3 of the way through the trip, I was reading up on this thread, and seeing a preponderance of negative posts, and many people saying how it was their worst trip, they wouldn't be back until things changed, it was so much worse than they were used to, etc. So, our of curiosity, I asked my wife and kids what they thought. Every member of our family agreed that we were having a great trip, and it was not the terrible experience for us as others were saying. I was glad they agreed with me.

I won't list our day-to-day adventures, but, I will list our pros and cons in general. We stayed at a house in Calabay Parc, which ended up being a 25-35 minute drive each way every day, depending on traffic.

PROS
- Unlike what so many others are saying, I thought the weather was great. Our first day was the day after/of Elsa's arrival in Florida. We put off getting to MK an hour or so, as the forecast showed thunderstorms that morning. Not only did we get no rain, the cloudiness kept the temperature down. We all agreed this was one of more pleasant trips for weather. We had multiple days where cloud cover helped with temperature, I didn't think the humidity was oppressive, and, while I still had my share of sweat, I felt like the majority of it was caused by carrying a heavy backpack with a bunch of our stuff in it every day.
- We had no negative CM interactions. They were professional, courteous and there did not seem to be a lack of staffing.
- Mobile Order worked awesome for us. I wasn't too keen on the idea of it before we went, but we would order in line for a ride, hit "I'm Here" once we got off, walk over to the restaurant, and 90% of the time, it was ready before we got there. And we were often eating at peak times as well. We couldn't find an indoor table at Cosmic Ray's on our last day, and we took our Casey's order over to the seating area for Tomorrowland Terrace, but had no trouble finding seats for out family. We did four table service meals, and loved all of them. Crystal Palace was outstanding, we did Tutto Italia for the first time and dug it, and our two favorites of Liberty Tree Tavern and 50's Prime Time were bussin as always.
- Granted, we had teenagers. Granted, we had 8 days in the parks. I know not everyone was in our situation. But we did everything we wanted to do, and almost all of them multiple times. My 16 yo son and I really wanted to experience every attraction in every park during our stay. He got everything except Navi River, ITTBAB and FOTLK. We only did one day at AK, and, since we'd never done FOP before, that was a priority for us. (We also did AK on our third consecutive park day, and we had done the first two basically open to close, so there was no way being off property that we were getting to rope drop at AK with 4 teenagers). My wife and I did ITTBAB while the kids were on Everest after a ticket snafu delay, but I skipped Tiki Room at MK while he and my other son did that. We did SM, SE, TSMM, and BTMR all 4-5 times each during our stay, and our favorite, Splash, we ended up doing 6 times. We were never there before park opening, typically arriving at or within a half hour of park opening, except for a day at Epcot and a day at MK, where we got there around 1.
- Would we have liked shorter lines? Of course. But we found the following rides ALWAYS were quicker than their posted wait times: Buzz, TSMM, BTMR, PoC, SE, and Soarin. The rides that seemed to be typically right on their times posted were MFSR, RaRC, ToT, KS and KRR. For 7DMT, SDD, JC and FEA, the times were slightly less than posted, but not too much gained. The lines could be a challenge to find the end at times, but the fast movers took you into the queue pretty quick.
- We must have lucked out with ride breakdowns compared to what other people are reporting. Our BG 107 for RotR ended up getting pushed back due to it being down, to the point where we finally got on it at 8:30, but, other than that, the ride were up and running. Our only ride problem was one time on SM, where a young boy a couple logs behind us got out of the boat and was walking around through the ride, I guess trying to catch Brer Rabbit, so we were stopped in the log for 15-20 while cast members got him out of there.
- We met and talked to some great people waiting in those lines. While we waited, hoping RoTR would start up again, my son, who had made a light saber at Savi's, started showing it to a teenage boy behind us in line. They really hit it off as we waited for an hour, and the boy's aunt and uncle later told us he was autistic and rarely talks to anyone he doesn't know, so they couldn't believe how social he was being. He ended up riding the ride with our family and walking out of the park with us. In our 70 minute wait for Kali River Rapids, we met and talked to a lovely family from Brazil.
-Finally, speaking of RoTR, all I can say is WOW. Maybe the best theme park attraction I've ever experienced. Of all the rides that were new to us since our last visit (FOP, SDD, ASwS, MMRR), I was slightly underwhelmed by all of them except Rise and MMRR. After we rode it on our first HS day, my two teenage daughters, who care nothing about Star Wars, said "We HAVE to get another boarding group to ride that again on our other HS day." And we got BG 14 our 2nd day, and even got to see a couple things on the ride that we didn't see the first time!

CONS
- There are people everywhere. I mean, everywhere. Capacity, in my mind, was every bit as high as a typical summer visit we've had in the past. We were comfortable going, we weren't scared to be around people, etc. but I also didn't hate getting in our own van and heading to our own house at the end of the day to avoid buses, resorts, etc. On our last MK day on 7/17, IaSW had a 60 minute wait! In what alternate reality should that ever be a thing? The crush of people to get on a ferry over 30 minutes after park close that night was staggering. I thought AK felt like the most crowded park. Our one day there, it seemed like there was no escaping the crowds. We were at Epcot the first day of FaW, and it definitely was busier than our first day there.
- Someone posted earlier about a line of cars a mile long to get into parking at the MK. We experienced that moreso at HS and AK. As others have said, if you want to beat the crowd, you better be getting there an hour before opening. But weirdly, I guess since we were closing down the park every night we were there, and typically getting in a ride line right before close and staying until after close, the parking lots never seemed full when we left.
- I didn't understand why some stores seemed to have lines to get in since they seemed to be limiting capacity, while others did not. Ondar's Den of Antiquities has the same square footage as our catbox, but yet there were 100 people in there, while we waited in line for 20 minutes to get in the Lego store at DS, which had maybe 50 people in it, and same with Disney Traders at Epcot.
- I had always wanted to try the Food and Wine Festival, even though we're not foodies and I don't drink alcohol. So, I'm glad we were able to do it. But I wasn't super impressed. Maybe because I don't drink. I didn't dislike any of the food we tried, but the best thing I ate all day was the fish and chips we got from the window in the UK. And three bites of food for $6.75 was not the best value.
- And this is super nitpicky, but I was befuddled when we would get the popcorn bucket refill why some locations it was exactly $2, a couple it was $2.01, and one place was $2.02.

I'm sorry this is so long. We went into it knowing we had time, we were not leaving the parks midday, and we would do as much as our bodies would allow. And we had a great time! Positives far outweighed the negatives for us.

Thank you for your thorough account. Gives me a boost for our upcoming trip. I am going into it with realistic expectations and have told my two kids that it will be different than previous trips, but we are just excited to be getting away and be on vacation and be at our happy place. It's nice to see the positives!!

 

[BebopBaloo]

- And this is super nitpicky, but I was befuddled when we would get the popcorn bucket refill why some locations it was exactly $2, a couple it was $2.01, and one place was $2.02.

I had wonder that in the past and asked around. It seems to be because some parks are in one county and others are in another county with different taxes.
[/QUOTE]

 

[moesy4]

We got back Monday and I wanted to give our perspective. We were there from Wednesday, 7/7 through Saturday 7/17. Unlike almost everyone else I see on here, we were different in that we stayed off property and did not have park hoppers. I think so much of what people are feeling about their vacation this summer is their expectations. If they go 3-4 times a year, or have little kids, or are more show or resort oriented than ride oriented, then all those things are going to color what they think of their trip right now. As for us, it was our first trip since 2017. We have 5 kids, all teenagers, although we found out 2 weeks prior that only 4 of them would be able to be with us on this trip. While we've stayed on property in the past, with a family of 7, we can't justify the cost of even two value hotel rooms with our budget versus a spacious house off property. Our touring style is more ride-oriented with having teenagers.

My wife and I are both teachers, so we've only gone in the summer since we started taking our kids in 2010. That factors into our expectations as well. We know we're only going to be there every 3-4 years, so that's why we went with 8 day park tickets this time.

About 2/3 of the way through the trip, I was reading up on this thread, and seeing a preponderance of negative posts, and many people saying how it was their worst trip, they wouldn't be back until things changed, it was so much worse than they were used to, etc. So, our of curiosity, I asked my wife and kids what they thought. Every member of our family agreed that we were having a great trip, and it was not the terrible experience for us as others were saying. I was glad they agreed with me.

I won't list our day-to-day adventures, but, I will list our pros and cons in general. We stayed at a house in Calabay Parc, which ended up being a 25-35 minute drive each way every day, depending on traffic.

PROS
- Unlike what so many others are saying, I thought the weather was great. Our first day was the day after/of Elsa's arrival in Florida. We put off getting to MK an hour or so, as the forecast showed thunderstorms that morning. Not only did we get no rain, the cloudiness kept the temperature down. We all agreed this was one of more pleasant trips for weather. We had multiple days where cloud cover helped with temperature, I didn't think the humidity was oppressive, and, while I still had my share of sweat, I felt like the majority of it was caused by carrying a heavy backpack with a bunch of our stuff in it every day.
- We had no negative CM interactions. They were professional, courteous and there did not seem to be a lack of staffing.
- Mobile Order worked awesome for us. I wasn't too keen on the idea of it before we went, but we would order in line for a ride, hit "I'm Here" once we got off, walk over to the restaurant, and 90% of the time, it was ready before we got there. And we were often eating at peak times as well. We couldn't find an indoor table at Cosmic Ray's on our last day, and we took our Casey's order over to the seating area for Tomorrowland Terrace, but had no trouble finding seats for out family. We did four table service meals, and loved all of them. Crystal Palace was outstanding, we did Tutto Italia for the first time and dug it, and our two favorites of Liberty Tree Tavern and 50's Prime Time were bussin as always.
- Granted, we had teenagers. Granted, we had 8 days in the parks. I know not everyone was in our situation. But we did everything we wanted to do, and almost all of them multiple times. My 16 yo son and I really wanted to experience every attraction in every park during our stay. He got everything except Navi River, ITTBAB and FOTLK. We only did one day at AK, and, since we'd never done FOP before, that was a priority for us. (We also did AK on our third consecutive park day, and we had done the first two basically open to close, so there was no way being off property that we were getting to rope drop at AK with 4 teenagers). My wife and I did ITTBAB while the kids were on Everest after a ticket snafu delay, but I skipped Tiki Room at MK while he and my other son did that. We did SM, SE, TSMM, and BTMR all 4-5 times each during our stay, and our favorite, Splash, we ended up doing 6 times. We were never there before park opening, typically arriving at or within a half hour of park opening, except for a day at Epcot and a day at MK, where we got there around 1.
- Would we have liked shorter lines? Of course. But we found the following rides ALWAYS were quicker than their posted wait times: Buzz, TSMM, BTMR, PoC, SE, and Soarin. The rides that seemed to be typically right on their times posted were MFSR, RaRC, ToT, KS and KRR. For 7DMT, SDD, JC and FEA, the times were slightly less than posted, but not too much gained. The lines could be a challenge to find the end at times, but the fast movers took you into the queue pretty quick.
- We must have lucked out with ride breakdowns compared to what other people are reporting. Our BG 107 for RotR ended up getting pushed back due to it being down, to the point where we finally got on it at 8:30, but, other than that, the ride were up and running. Our only ride problem was one time on SM, where a young boy a couple logs behind us got out of the boat and was walking around through the ride, I guess trying to catch Brer Rabbit, so we were stopped in the log for 15-20 while cast members got him out of there.
- We met and talked to some great people waiting in those lines. While we waited, hoping RoTR would start up again, my son, who had made a light saber at Savi's, started showing it to a teenage boy behind us in line. They really hit it off as we waited for an hour, and the boy's aunt and uncle later told us he was autistic and rarely talks to anyone he doesn't know, so they couldn't believe how social he was being. He ended up riding the ride with our family and walking out of the park with us. In our 70 minute wait for Kali River Rapids, we met and talked to a lovely family from Brazil.
-Finally, speaking of RoTR, all I can say is WOW. Maybe the best theme park attraction I've ever experienced. Of all the rides that were new to us since our last visit (FOP, SDD, ASwS, MMRR), I was slightly underwhelmed by all of them except Rise and MMRR. After we rode it on our first HS day, my two teenage daughters, who care nothing about Star Wars, said "We HAVE to get another boarding group to ride that again on our other HS day." And we got BG 14 our 2nd day, and even got to see a couple things on the ride that we didn't see the first time!

CONS
- There are people everywhere. I mean, everywhere. Capacity, in my mind, was every bit as high as a typical summer visit we've had in the past. We were comfortable going, we weren't scared to be around people, etc. but I also didn't hate getting in our own van and heading to our own house at the end of the day to avoid buses, resorts, etc. On our last MK day on 7/17, IaSW had a 60 minute wait! In what alternate reality should that ever be a thing? The crush of people to get on a ferry over 30 minutes after park close that night was staggering. I thought AK felt like the most crowded park. Our one day there, it seemed like there was no escaping the crowds. We were at Epcot the first day of FaW, and it definitely was busier than our first day there.
- Someone posted earlier about a line of cars a mile long to get into parking at the MK. We experienced that moreso at HS and AK. As others have said, if you want to beat the crowd, you better be getting there an hour before opening. But weirdly, I guess since we were closing down the park every night we were there, and typically getting in a ride line right before close and staying until after close, the parking lots never seemed full when we left.
- I didn't understand why some stores seemed to have lines to get in since they seemed to be limiting capacity, while others did not. Ondar's Den of Antiquities has the same square footage as our catbox, but yet there were 100 people in there, while we waited in line for 20 minutes to get in the Lego store at DS, which had maybe 50 people in it, and same with Disney Traders at Epcot.
- I had always wanted to try the Food and Wine Festival, even though we're not foodies and I don't drink alcohol. So, I'm glad we were able to do it. But I wasn't super impressed. Maybe because I don't drink. I didn't dislike any of the food we tried, but the best thing I ate all day was the fish and chips we got from the window in the UK. And three bites of food for $6.75 was not the best value.
- And this is super nitpicky, but I was befuddled when we would get the popcorn bucket refill why some locations it was exactly $2, a couple it was $2.01, and one place was $2.02.

I'm sorry this is so long. We went into it knowing we had time, we were not leaving the parks midday, and we would do as much as our bodies would allow. And we had a great time! Positives far outweighed the negatives for us.

I really appreciate your report, this encourages me more for our trip in November. We got 7 day passes with the water parks add on…we have very few expectations except to hit a few rides and enjoy the parks. We probably have 4 hours max before we are ready for a break. So it is encouraging to here with a longer trip, we should still enjoy ourselves!

 

[Shaft41]

I had wonder that in the past and asked around. It seems to be because some parks are in one county and others are in another county with different taxes.

[/QUOTE]
That's what I told my son I figured was the case.

 

[Leigh L]

We had the same issue at Cosmic Ray's. Placed a mobile order for 1:35, got the notification to pick come back, and waited around for another 30 minutes until we finally got our food. We hit up Sunshine Tree Terrace earlier that day and did mobile order which was a much more pleasant experience-took less than five minutes.

This has consistently been an issue for us at Cosmic Ray's and at Backlot Express at DHS all year. We stopped going to both of those.

Those places should have figured this out by now. Satuli was crazy crowded with people waiting back in November, but when we were there in June, it was smooth - appeared they'd worked out the kinks.

 

[Shaft41]

I really appreciate your report, this encourages me more for our trip in November. We got 7 day passes with the water parks add on…we have very few expectations except to hit a few rides and enjoy the parks. We probably have 4 hours max before we are ready for a break. So it is encouraging to here with a longer trip, we should still enjoy ourselves!

Yes! I forgot to mention that we also had the water park add-on. On two separate days, we went mini-golfing at Winter Summerland and then right over to Blizzard Beach, and we had great times both days.

 

[DisneyFive]

Check your room once you check in and you might want to ask for towels early or just take some from the pool. Mousekeeping is severely understaffed so be prepared for very basic services like daily trash removal only.

Great reminder about pool towels! Thank you. Was thinking about that and forgot about that as an option. We’re arriving in 3 days so lots going through my head.

Dan

 

[The Iron Giant]

We got back Monday and I wanted to give our perspective. We were there from Wednesday, 7/7 through Saturday 7/17. Unlike almost everyone else I see on here, we were different in that we stayed off property and did not have park hoppers. I think so much of what people are feeling about their vacation this summer is their expectations. If they go 3-4 times a year, or have little kids, or are more show or resort oriented than ride oriented, then all those things are going to color what they think of their trip right now. As for us, it was our first trip since 2017. We have 5 kids, all teenagers, although we found out 2 weeks prior that only 4 of them would be able to be with us on this trip. While we've stayed on property in the past, with a family of 7, we can't justify the cost of even two value hotel rooms with our budget versus a spacious house off property. Our touring style is more ride-oriented with having teenagers.

My wife and I are both teachers, so we've only gone in the summer since we started taking our kids in 2010. That factors into our expectations as well. We know we're only going to be there every 3-4 years, so that's why we went with 8 day park tickets this time.

About 2/3 of the way through the trip, I was reading up on this thread, and seeing a preponderance of negative posts, and many people saying how it was their worst trip, they wouldn't be back until things changed, it was so much worse than they were used to, etc. So, our of curiosity, I asked my wife and kids what they thought. Every member of our family agreed that we were having a great trip, and it was not the terrible experience for us as others were saying. I was glad they agreed with me.

I won't list our day-to-day adventures, but, I will list our pros and cons in general. We stayed at a house in Calabay Parc, which ended up being a 25-35 minute drive each way every day, depending on traffic.

PROS
- Unlike what so many others are saying, I thought the weather was great. Our first day was the day after/of Elsa's arrival in Florida. We put off getting to MK an hour or so, as the forecast showed thunderstorms that morning. Not only did we get no rain, the cloudiness kept the temperature down. We all agreed this was one of more pleasant trips for weather. We had multiple days where cloud cover helped with temperature, I didn't think the humidity was oppressive, and, while I still had my share of sweat, I felt like the majority of it was caused by carrying a heavy backpack with a bunch of our stuff in it every day.
- We had no negative CM interactions. They were professional, courteous and there did not seem to be a lack of staffing.
- Mobile Order worked awesome for us. I wasn't too keen on the idea of it before we went, but we would order in line for a ride, hit "I'm Here" once we got off, walk over to the restaurant, and 90% of the time, it was ready before we got there. And we were often eating at peak times as well. We couldn't find an indoor table at Cosmic Ray's on our last day, and we took our Casey's order over to the seating area for Tomorrowland Terrace, but had no trouble finding seats for out family. We did four table service meals, and loved all of them. Crystal Palace was outstanding, we did Tutto Italia for the first time and dug it, and our two favorites of Liberty Tree Tavern and 50's Prime Time were bussin as always.
- Granted, we had teenagers. Granted, we had 8 days in the parks. I know not everyone was in our situation. But we did everything we wanted to do, and almost all of them multiple times. My 16 yo son and I really wanted to experience every attraction in every park during our stay. He got everything except Navi River, ITTBAB and FOTLK. We only did one day at AK, and, since we'd never done FOP before, that was a priority for us. (We also did AK on our third consecutive park day, and we had done the first two basically open to close, so there was no way being off property that we were getting to rope drop at AK with 4 teenagers). My wife and I did ITTBAB while the kids were on Everest after a ticket snafu delay, but I skipped Tiki Room at MK while he and my other son did that. We did SM, SE, TSMM, and BTMR all 4-5 times each during our stay, and our favorite, Splash, we ended up doing 6 times. We were never there before park opening, typically arriving at or within a half hour of park opening, except for a day at Epcot and a day at MK, where we got there around 1.
- Would we have liked shorter lines? Of course. But we found the following rides ALWAYS were quicker than their posted wait times: Buzz, TSMM, BTMR, PoC, SE, and Soarin. The rides that seemed to be typically right on their times posted were MFSR, RaRC, ToT, KS and KRR. For 7DMT, SDD, JC and FEA, the times were slightly less than posted, but not too much gained. The lines could be a challenge to find the end at times, but the fast movers took you into the queue pretty quick.
- We must have lucked out with ride breakdowns compared to what other people are reporting. Our BG 107 for RotR ended up getting pushed back due to it being down, to the point where we finally got on it at 8:30, but, other than that, the ride were up and running. Our only ride problem was one time on SM, where a young boy a couple logs behind us got out of the boat and was walking around through the ride, I guess trying to catch Brer Rabbit, so we were stopped in the log for 15-20 while cast members got him out of there.
- We met and talked to some great people waiting in those lines. While we waited, hoping RoTR would start up again, my son, who had made a light saber at Savi's, started showing it to a teenage boy behind us in line. They really hit it off as we waited for an hour, and the boy's aunt and uncle later told us he was autistic and rarely talks to anyone he doesn't know, so they couldn't believe how social he was being. He ended up riding the ride with our family and walking out of the park with us. In our 70 minute wait for Kali River Rapids, we met and talked to a lovely family from Brazil.
-Finally, speaking of RoTR, all I can say is WOW. Maybe the best theme park attraction I've ever experienced. Of all the rides that were new to us since our last visit (FOP, SDD, ASwS, MMRR), I was slightly underwhelmed by all of them except Rise and MMRR. After we rode it on our first HS day, my two teenage daughters, who care nothing about Star Wars, said "We HAVE to get another boarding group to ride that again on our other HS day." And we got BG 14 our 2nd day, and even got to see a couple things on the ride that we didn't see the first time!

CONS
- There are people everywhere. I mean, everywhere. Capacity, in my mind, was every bit as high as a typical summer visit we've had in the past. We were comfortable going, we weren't scared to be around people, etc. but I also didn't hate getting in our own van and heading to our own house at the end of the day to avoid buses, resorts, etc. On our last MK day on 7/17, IaSW had a 60 minute wait! In what alternate reality should that ever be a thing? The crush of people to get on a ferry over 30 minutes after park close that night was staggering. I thought AK felt like the most crowded park. Our one day there, it seemed like there was no escaping the crowds. We were at Epcot the first day of FaW, and it definitely was busier than our first day there.
- Someone posted earlier about a line of cars a mile long to get into parking at the MK. We experienced that moreso at HS and AK. As others have said, if you want to beat the crowd, you better be getting there an hour before opening. But weirdly, I guess since we were closing down the park every night we were there, and typically getting in a ride line right before close and staying until after close, the parking lots never seemed full when we left.
- I didn't understand why some stores seemed to have lines to get in since they seemed to be limiting capacity, while others did not. Ondar's Den of Antiquities has the same square footage as our catbox, but yet there were 100 people in there, while we waited in line for 20 minutes to get in the Lego store at DS, which had maybe 50 people in it, and same with Disney Traders at Epcot.
- I had always wanted to try the Food and Wine Festival, even though we're not foodies and I don't drink alcohol. So, I'm glad we were able to do it. But I wasn't super impressed. Maybe because I don't drink. I didn't dislike any of the food we tried, but the best thing I ate all day was the fish and chips we got from the window in the UK. And three bites of food for $6.75 was not the best value.
- And this is super nitpicky, but I was befuddled when we would get the popcorn bucket refill why some locations it was exactly $2, a couple it was $2.01, and one place was $2.02.

I'm sorry this is so long. We went into it knowing we had time, we were not leaving the parks midday, and we would do as much as our bodies would allow. And we had a great time! Positives far outweighed the negatives for us.

Thank you for taking the time to share all that information! There’s no doubt a positive attitude can make all the difference

 

[Gabby01]

Loved hearing your report, Shaft41! I was there around the same time, with park days on 7/6 and 7/7. My goal was to spend 2 full days in Galaxy’s Edge so I could enjoy everything there in a single trip, since I wasn’t ever planning on going back to Disney World. Well, I did that, absolutely loved it, and am now thinking about going back!

The weather was perfect—not too hot or humid, I totally forgot about the weather aside from the brief rains. I was also nervous about relying on mobile ordering, but like you said, my food was always ready within a minute or two of clicking “I’m here,” and no problems finding a place to sit. I loved trying all the space food and drinks, especially at Oga’s. (Once the bartender asked me where I was from, and when I told her my hometown, she said “Never heard of it”—then I remembered we were on Batuu! Loved it!!). I got to the park around 8:30 and was able to get lots of good pictures with hardly anyone there. No lines to get into any of the shops, ever. I loved the atmosphere in Dok’s! I will say I heard a few people get turned away from Oga’s or Savi’s because they didn’t have reservations, and there was a fair walk-up line for Droid Depot, but since I had reservations, no problem. Was able to see Rey, Vi, and Kylo Ren, who had the sweetest interaction with a little girl with a disability without ever breaking character. Got onto RoR and MFSR. Only had to wait for a bus once. Also went to Disney Springs on 7/8, neither Star Wars store was crowded at all, no problems eating at Earl of Sandwich. I really didn’t feel like the pandemic affected my trip at all. Loved every minute of it!

 

[cdurham1]

We got back Monday and I wanted to give our perspective. We were there from Wednesday, 7/7 through Saturday 7/17. Unlike almost everyone else I see on here, we were different in that we stayed off property and did not have park hoppers. I think so much of what people are feeling about their vacation this summer is their expectations. If they go 3-4 times a year, or have little kids, or are more show or resort oriented than ride oriented, then all those things are going to color what they think of their trip right now. As for us, it was our first trip since 2017. We have 5 kids, all teenagers, although we found out 2 weeks prior that only 4 of them would be able to be with us on this trip. While we've stayed on property in the past, with a family of 7, we can't justify the cost of even two value hotel rooms with our budget versus a spacious house off property. Our touring style is more ride-oriented with having teenagers.

My wife and I are both teachers, so we've only gone in the summer since we started taking our kids in 2010. That factors into our expectations as well. We know we're only going to be there every 3-4 years, so that's why we went with 8 day park tickets this time.

About 2/3 of the way through the trip, I was reading up on this thread, and seeing a preponderance of negative posts, and many people saying how it was their worst trip, they wouldn't be back until things changed, it was so much worse than they were used to, etc. So, our of curiosity, I asked my wife and kids what they thought. Every member of our family agreed that we were having a great trip, and it was not the terrible experience for us as others were saying. I was glad they agreed with me.

I won't list our day-to-day adventures, but, I will list our pros and cons in general. We stayed at a house in Calabay Parc, which ended up being a 25-35 minute drive each way every day, depending on traffic.

PROS
- Unlike what so many others are saying, I thought the weather was great. Our first day was the day after/of Elsa's arrival in Florida. We put off getting to MK an hour or so, as the forecast showed thunderstorms that morning. Not only did we get no rain, the cloudiness kept the temperature down. We all agreed this was one of more pleasant trips for weather. We had multiple days where cloud cover helped with temperature, I didn't think the humidity was oppressive, and, while I still had my share of sweat, I felt like the majority of it was caused by carrying a heavy backpack with a bunch of our stuff in it every day.
- We had no negative CM interactions. They were professional, courteous and there did not seem to be a lack of staffing.
- Mobile Order worked awesome for us. I wasn't too keen on the idea of it before we went, but we would order in line for a ride, hit "I'm Here" once we got off, walk over to the restaurant, and 90% of the time, it was ready before we got there. And we were often eating at peak times as well. We couldn't find an indoor table at Cosmic Ray's on our last day, and we took our Casey's order over to the seating area for Tomorrowland Terrace, but had no trouble finding seats for out family. We did four table service meals, and loved all of them. Crystal Palace was outstanding, we did Tutto Italia for the first time and dug it, and our two favorites of Liberty Tree Tavern and 50's Prime Time were bussin as always.
- Granted, we had teenagers. Granted, we had 8 days in the parks. I know not everyone was in our situation. But we did everything we wanted to do, and almost all of them multiple times. My 16 yo son and I really wanted to experience every attraction in every park during our stay. He got everything except Navi River, ITTBAB and FOTLK. We only did one day at AK, and, since we'd never done FOP before, that was a priority for us. (We also did AK on our third consecutive park day, and we had done the first two basically open to close, so there was no way being off property that we were getting to rope drop at AK with 4 teenagers). My wife and I did ITTBAB while the kids were on Everest after a ticket snafu delay, but I skipped Tiki Room at MK while he and my other son did that. We did SM, SE, TSMM, and BTMR all 4-5 times each during our stay, and our favorite, Splash, we ended up doing 6 times. We were never there before park opening, typically arriving at or within a half hour of park opening, except for a day at Epcot and a day at MK, where we got there around 1.
- Would we have liked shorter lines? Of course. But we found the following rides ALWAYS were quicker than their posted wait times: Buzz, TSMM, BTMR, PoC, SE, and Soarin. The rides that seemed to be typically right on their times posted were MFSR, RaRC, ToT, KS and KRR. For 7DMT, SDD, JC and FEA, the times were slightly less than posted, but not too much gained. The lines could be a challenge to find the end at times, but the fast movers took you into the queue pretty quick.
- We must have lucked out with ride breakdowns compared to what other people are reporting. Our BG 107 for RotR ended up getting pushed back due to it being down, to the point where we finally got on it at 8:30, but, other than that, the ride were up and running. Our only ride problem was one time on SM, where a young boy a couple logs behind us got out of the boat and was walking around through the ride, I guess trying to catch Brer Rabbit, so we were stopped in the log for 15-20 while cast members got him out of there.
- We met and talked to some great people waiting in those lines. While we waited, hoping RoTR would start up again, my son, who had made a light saber at Savi's, started showing it to a teenage boy behind us in line. They really hit it off as we waited for an hour, and the boy's aunt and uncle later told us he was autistic and rarely talks to anyone he doesn't know, so they couldn't believe how social he was being. He ended up riding the ride with our family and walking out of the park with us. In our 70 minute wait for Kali River Rapids, we met and talked to a lovely family from Brazil.
-Finally, speaking of RoTR, all I can say is WOW. Maybe the best theme park attraction I've ever experienced. Of all the rides that were new to us since our last visit (FOP, SDD, ASwS, MMRR), I was slightly underwhelmed by all of them except Rise and MMRR. After we rode it on our first HS day, my two teenage daughters, who care nothing about Star Wars, said "We HAVE to get another boarding group to ride that again on our other HS day." And we got BG 14 our 2nd day, and even got to see a couple things on the ride that we didn't see the first time!

CONS
- There are people everywhere. I mean, everywhere. Capacity, in my mind, was every bit as high as a typical summer visit we've had in the past. We were comfortable going, we weren't scared to be around people, etc. but I also didn't hate getting in our own van and heading to our own house at the end of the day to avoid buses, resorts, etc. On our last MK day on 7/17, IaSW had a 60 minute wait! In what alternate reality should that ever be a thing? The crush of people to get on a ferry over 30 minutes after park close that night was staggering. I thought AK felt like the most crowded park. Our one day there, it seemed like there was no escaping the crowds. We were at Epcot the first day of FaW, and it definitely was busier than our first day there.
- Someone posted earlier about a line of cars a mile long to get into parking at the MK. We experienced that moreso at HS and AK. As others have said, if you want to beat the crowd, you better be getting there an hour before opening. But weirdly, I guess since we were closing down the park every night we were there, and typically getting in a ride line right before close and staying until after close, the parking lots never seemed full when we left.
- I didn't understand why some stores seemed to have lines to get in since they seemed to be limiting capacity, while others did not. Ondar's Den of Antiquities has the same square footage as our catbox, but yet there were 100 people in there, while we waited in line for 20 minutes to get in the Lego store at DS, which had maybe 50 people in it, and same with Disney Traders at Epcot.
- I had always wanted to try the Food and Wine Festival, even though we're not foodies and I don't drink alcohol. So, I'm glad we were able to do it. But I wasn't super impressed. Maybe because I don't drink. I didn't dislike any of the food we tried, but the best thing I ate all day was the fish and chips we got from the window in the UK. And three bites of food for $6.75 was not the best value.
- And this is super nitpicky, but I was befuddled when we would get the popcorn bucket refill why some locations it was exactly $2, a couple it was $2.01, and one place was $2.02.

I'm sorry this is so long. We went into it knowing we had time, we were not leaving the parks midday, and we would do as much as our bodies would allow. And we had a great time! Positives far outweighed the negatives for us.

Finally, thank god, a positive trip report I can show my kids before we go on Monday. On second thought, I will continue showing them the negative so I don't have any pushback when I am telling them we have to get to the park 1.5 hours early if we want to ride anything.

 

[jujubiee4]

@Shaft41
I won't list our day-to-day adventures, but, I will list our pros and cons in general. We stayed at a house in Calabay Parc, which ended up being a 25-35 minute drive each way every day, depending on traffic.



How did you like this and would you do it again?

 

[Shaft41]

@Shaft41
I won't list our day-to-day adventures, but, I will list our pros and cons in general. We stayed at a house in Calabay Parc, which ended up being a 25-35 minute drive each way every day, depending on traffic.



How did you like this and would you do it again?

We enjoyed the house. Good space and nice having our own pool. Not being as regular visitors to the area, I underestimated the time it would take to drive the 8 miles to the parks. Traffic was always an issue, regardless of the time of day. I think next time we would like something closer but would stay here again for the right price.

 

[To the honeypots]

We were not there and did not hear the conversation so it is difficult to interpret how the CM was speaking and I do not believe one side of a story. CM's have been treated terribly by guests in the last year, and all I was saying is give them some grace. Apparently they should not be allowed to be human beings and have feelings because that disrupts the guests' magic?? Going to WDW is a privilege, not a need but I think people have forgotten that over the last year. CM's are people and most visitors treat them as part of the background, with no regard to them as individuals with feelings.

We actually normally let Disney know which CMs are kind and generally do treat them kindly to the point that one CM that we interacted with on another trip offered to give us a personal tour of his hometown if we ever found ourselves there. We booked this trip while Disney still had all the protocols in place. Only as we got closer and closer did they start to drop the measures and we had other reservations made that we would have lost money to cancel.
We did not ask to skip the line. We asked to stand in an empty area that did not impede the flow of the crowd line. She told us no and did have an attitude that we have never encountered at Disney.

When I contacted guest services to let them know of our experience (overflowing trashcans, the CM interaction, not enforcing their masks policy), I did also provide a list of the CMs that made our trip more enjoyable and enhanced our experience.

 

[AlternateID]

Last time I visited was in April 2021, so it may be a bit dated. But for the QS stuff, there is really a limited amount of meals they can push out at any given time. If you want to eat at peak times (12-1pm, 5-6pm), you'll want to secure your Mobile Order early!! We would order our lunch first thing in the morning, and select a pick-up time for the time we wanted to eat. The only time that things felt a little chaotic was when we ordered from Peco Bill's and everyone was standing around the entrance waiting for their alert that their meal was ready.

The other option would be to eat in off times - which is a win-win. This allows more availability for the time frame, and lower crowds for when you pick up your food and are looking to eat.

The only place where we had issues with mobile order was Cosmic Rays and we ordered 90+ mins in advance. It took them 30 mins to prepare our food from when I pressed the “prepare my food” button and that was at 1:30 pm.

 

[smwisc]

We got back Monday and I wanted to give our perspective. We were there from Wednesday, 7/7 through Saturday 7/17. Unlike almost everyone else I see on here, we were different in that we stayed off property and did not have park hoppers. I think so much of what people are feeling about their vacation this summer is their expectations. If they go 3-4 times a year, or have little kids, or are more show or resort oriented than ride oriented, then all those things are going to color what they think of their trip right now. As for us, it was our first trip since 2017. We have 5 kids, all teenagers, although we found out 2 weeks prior that only 4 of them would be able to be with us on this trip. While we've stayed on property in the past, with a family of 7, we can't justify the cost of even two value hotel rooms with our budget versus a spacious house off property. Our touring style is more ride-oriented with having teenagers.

My wife and I are both teachers, so we've only gone in the summer since we started taking our kids in 2010. That factors into our expectations as well. We know we're only going to be there every 3-4 years, so that's why we went with 8 day park tickets this time.

About 2/3 of the way through the trip, I was reading up on this thread, and seeing a preponderance of negative posts, and many people saying how it was their worst trip, they wouldn't be back until things changed, it was so much worse than they were used to, etc. So, our of curiosity, I asked my wife and kids what they thought. Every member of our family agreed that we were having a great trip, and it was not the terrible experience for us as others were saying. I was glad they agreed with me.

I won't list our day-to-day adventures, but, I will list our pros and cons in general. We stayed at a house in Calabay Parc, which ended up being a 25-35 minute drive each way every day, depending on traffic.

PROS
- Unlike what so many others are saying, I thought the weather was great. Our first day was the day after/of Elsa's arrival in Florida. We put off getting to MK an hour or so, as the forecast showed thunderstorms that morning. Not only did we get no rain, the cloudiness kept the temperature down. We all agreed this was one of more pleasant trips for weather. We had multiple days where cloud cover helped with temperature, I didn't think the humidity was oppressive, and, while I still had my share of sweat, I felt like the majority of it was caused by carrying a heavy backpack with a bunch of our stuff in it every day.
- We had no negative CM interactions. They were professional, courteous and there did not seem to be a lack of staffing.
- Mobile Order worked awesome for us. I wasn't too keen on the idea of it before we went, but we would order in line for a ride, hit "I'm Here" once we got off, walk over to the restaurant, and 90% of the time, it was ready before we got there. And we were often eating at peak times as well. We couldn't find an indoor table at Cosmic Ray's on our last day, and we took our Casey's order over to the seating area for Tomorrowland Terrace, but had no trouble finding seats for out family. We did four table service meals, and loved all of them. Crystal Palace was outstanding, we did Tutto Italia for the first time and dug it, and our two favorites of Liberty Tree Tavern and 50's Prime Time were bussin as always.
- Granted, we had teenagers. Granted, we had 8 days in the parks. I know not everyone was in our situation. But we did everything we wanted to do, and almost all of them multiple times. My 16 yo son and I really wanted to experience every attraction in every park during our stay. He got everything except Navi River, ITTBAB and FOTLK. We only did one day at AK, and, since we'd never done FOP before, that was a priority for us. (We also did AK on our third consecutive park day, and we had done the first two basically open to close, so there was no way being off property that we were getting to rope drop at AK with 4 teenagers). My wife and I did ITTBAB while the kids were on Everest after a ticket snafu delay, but I skipped Tiki Room at MK while he and my other son did that. We did SM, SE, TSMM, and BTMR all 4-5 times each during our stay, and our favorite, Splash, we ended up doing 6 times. We were never there before park opening, typically arriving at or within a half hour of park opening, except for a day at Epcot and a day at MK, where we got there around 1.
- Would we have liked shorter lines? Of course. But we found the following rides ALWAYS were quicker than their posted wait times: Buzz, TSMM, BTMR, PoC, SE, and Soarin. The rides that seemed to be typically right on their times posted were MFSR, RaRC, ToT, KS and KRR. For 7DMT, SDD, JC and FEA, the times were slightly less than posted, but not too much gained. The lines could be a challenge to find the end at times, but the fast movers took you into the queue pretty quick.
- We must have lucked out with ride breakdowns compared to what other people are reporting. Our BG 107 for RotR ended up getting pushed back due to it being down, to the point where we finally got on it at 8:30, but, other than that, the ride were up and running. Our only ride problem was one time on SM, where a young boy a couple logs behind us got out of the boat and was walking around through the ride, I guess trying to catch Brer Rabbit, so we were stopped in the log for 15-20 while cast members got him out of there.
- We met and talked to some great people waiting in those lines. While we waited, hoping RoTR would start up again, my son, who had made a light saber at Savi's, started showing it to a teenage boy behind us in line. They really hit it off as we waited for an hour, and the boy's aunt and uncle later told us he was autistic and rarely talks to anyone he doesn't know, so they couldn't believe how social he was being. He ended up riding the ride with our family and walking out of the park with us. In our 70 minute wait for Kali River Rapids, we met and talked to a lovely family from Brazil.
-Finally, speaking of RoTR, all I can say is WOW. Maybe the best theme park attraction I've ever experienced. Of all the rides that were new to us since our last visit (FOP, SDD, ASwS, MMRR), I was slightly underwhelmed by all of them except Rise and MMRR. After we rode it on our first HS day, my two teenage daughters, who care nothing about Star Wars, said "We HAVE to get another boarding group to ride that again on our other HS day." And we got BG 14 our 2nd day, and even got to see a couple things on the ride that we didn't see the first time!

CONS
- There are people everywhere. I mean, everywhere. Capacity, in my mind, was every bit as high as a typical summer visit we've had in the past. We were comfortable going, we weren't scared to be around people, etc. but I also didn't hate getting in our own van and heading to our own house at the end of the day to avoid buses, resorts, etc. On our last MK day on 7/17, IaSW had a 60 minute wait! In what alternate reality should that ever be a thing? The crush of people to get on a ferry over 30 minutes after park close that night was staggering. I thought AK felt like the most crowded park. Our one day there, it seemed like there was no escaping the crowds. We were at Epcot the first day of FaW, and it definitely was busier than our first day there.
- Someone posted earlier about a line of cars a mile long to get into parking at the MK. We experienced that moreso at HS and AK. As others have said, if you want to beat the crowd, you better be getting there an hour before opening. But weirdly, I guess since we were closing down the park every night we were there, and typically getting in a ride line right before close and staying until after close, the parking lots never seemed full when we left.
- I didn't understand why some stores seemed to have lines to get in since they seemed to be limiting capacity, while others did not. Ondar's Den of Antiquities has the same square footage as our catbox, but yet there were 100 people in there, while we waited in line for 20 minutes to get in the Lego store at DS, which had maybe 50 people in it, and same with Disney Traders at Epcot.
- I had always wanted to try the Food and Wine Festival, even though we're not foodies and I don't drink alcohol. So, I'm glad we were able to do it. But I wasn't super impressed. Maybe because I don't drink. I didn't dislike any of the food we tried, but the best thing I ate all day was the fish and chips we got from the window in the UK. And three bites of food for $6.75 was not the best value.
- And this is super nitpicky, but I was befuddled when we would get the popcorn bucket refill why some locations it was exactly $2, a couple it was $2.01, and one place was $2.02.

I'm sorry this is so long. We went into it knowing we had time, we were not leaving the parks midday, and we would do as much as our bodies would allow. And we had a great time! Positives far outweighed the negatives for us.

Thank you for this! We are heading down this weekend, and your situation sounds pretty similar to ours - first trip since 2015, always go in summer, staying offsite, 3 kids including 2 teenagers, 10 day non-hoppers. So this is encouraging.

 

[Neener16]

We have been here since Monday and are staying at the Yacht Club. Love, love, love Yacht Club.
the first day we got to MK early afternoon. It was not a pleasant experience. Most major rides were down and the rest were crazy wait times. Went to Mickey’s Philharmonic and left.
Tuesday got up at 6, got on first bus to AK, and arrived there shortly after 7. I think you must do this to get on FOP. If you get on right away, easy to then do Safari and Expedition Everest. We picked major things that we wanted to cover, and anything else was gravy. I would make a list of what you absolutely want to do, bite the bullet and be there at rope drop and do it. What we did was the next day had an easier day, and slept a little so nobody is overtired etc.
Epcot was a little more reasonable. We have no desire to go on test track, and were able to ride Soarin twice so far. We were fortunate both times to get in the middle, just by luck. It’s best for food and wine to go shortly after 11, and it’s not crowded at all. Even early afternoon is OK. It’s a little more crowded at dinner time, but nothing outrageous and we had a good time.
We were able to ride millennium falcon at Hollywood studios. We just lucked out with the timing and the weight wasn’t too bad. Today we went on rock ‘n’ roll roller coaster, single rider and that took about 45 minutes to get on. We also did Toy story mania. we waited about 40 minutes for that as well. Both of these were in the afternoon.
I think people can I have a good time if you are a Disney experienced person. You also have to be willing to get up early at least a couple of the days that you’re going to the parks. The lines are definitely not going down at the end of the night as much as they were a few weeks ago. My daughter was here a few weeks ago and is with me now and feels that the lines are much longer this time around.
We haven’t experienced much line cutting, except for families that are trying to get together. This personally doesn’t bother me. The CMs have been lovely. OK I need to and for now, Time to go out for a drink!