mikedoyleblogger
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2013
- Messages
- 2,458
We are just finishing our five-day, sixth anniversary holiday trip to Walt Disney World staying at Coronado Springs. However, we're on night six because of the snowstorm in the Midwest-our original flight tonight was diverted from our Chicago home to St. Louis so we're pretty glad we booked an extra night just in case! We were here for most of Pop Warner, and I have to say although I dreaded the experience, it was terrific. Coronado was not really overtaken, there weren't any noise issues or rowdiness issues at all during our stay. We also didn't experience any cheerleader antics in the parks, other than a single, loud cheer group at the end of an evening at Epcot. Our only issue was cheerleaders cutting in line at Pepper Market, and the food court CM is put a stop to that pretty quickly.
Free dining just began however, so the parks seem to have gotten fuller in the past couple of days, ADRs are (of course) now hard to come by, and FastPass+ is running out early in the day.
Before this, I had only ever experienced the Christmas festivities at Disneyland. My partner, Ryan, and I both think that the holidays here at Walt Disney World are about as well done as they could possibly be anywhere. But we also I think a little bit of them goes a very long way. I expected the vibe to be Disney does Christmas. But what it really is is Disney becomes Christmas, and a lot of the baseline vibe of Walt Disney World gets put on the back burner.We didn't quite expect that, and while the parks are outstandingly beautifully decorated, we don't need to hear another Christmas carol at all, whatsoever, for the next 12 months, if you know what I mean.
We're both also Jewish, and didn't really think that that would matter. But for anyone who isn't Christian considering experiencing Disney during the Christmas holiday, while it is not a religious celebration here, it is beyond 100% Christmas and at times that had us feeling a little bit left out. Not in terms of wanting it to be a celebration other than Christmas. But when the band at the Biergarten in Epcot told the whole audience to start singing with them the English lyrics of Silent Night, I cringed. Because The whole world comes to Walt Disney World, and you can't expect every patron in a restaurant to know or care to sing the lyrics of a religious Christmas carol. It was a moment that felt very un-Disney and I thought about writing a comment to Guest Services about it.
We both enjoyed MVMCP, and although some have suggested otherwise, we both thought our sold out party was very much not overcrowded. We were able to easily view the fireworks and get a curb side seat for the (2nd) parade on Main Street. The cookie lines were very manageable, and ride times were pretty short as well. Our previous Disney party experiences to which we compared MVMCP are the two Disneyland Halloween parties we've attended, both of which were total clusters. MVMCP was so much better, although alittle ridiculously expensive. We definitely wished we had a blanket though, because the fake snow runs for half an hour after the fireworks, and then of course through the parade. And if you're sitting on main street waiting for the second parade, you basically just freeze under the soap flakes If it's a chilly night, as our party night was.
The highlight of the trip was the refurbishment if it's a small world. The last time we rode, in 2013, it was filthy and half of the kinetic effects were not working. The state that the ride is in now is breathtaking. Everything is clean. Everything is fixed. Everything is moving. Every monkey on a vine. Every bird with a spinning head. Every flying carpet. Every bouncing kite. Everything. We could not believe it and it was just absolutely lovely and magical.
The lowlight has been the end-of-night Coronado bus service at MK and Epcot. It's annoying to watch bus after bus pull out for Riverside, and still be waiting for the bus for your larger moderate resort.
And the unexpected moment was dragging my partner on a crawl of the MK resorts, which he had never seen, and in the middle of the Contemporary, having him tell me that it felt like it had the vibe of our beloved Disneyland Hotel. Which made my jaw drop because CR reads that way to me, too.
In August we changed our opinion of WDW from meh to love on our second trip in three years. This time, we had the conversation tonight about whether we'll ever be DLR passholders again and realized that we're happier to be new WDW vets. Much as we love it, we can't imagine going back to the "land" before MDE, MagicBands, and Fastpass+.
Free dining just began however, so the parks seem to have gotten fuller in the past couple of days, ADRs are (of course) now hard to come by, and FastPass+ is running out early in the day.
Before this, I had only ever experienced the Christmas festivities at Disneyland. My partner, Ryan, and I both think that the holidays here at Walt Disney World are about as well done as they could possibly be anywhere. But we also I think a little bit of them goes a very long way. I expected the vibe to be Disney does Christmas. But what it really is is Disney becomes Christmas, and a lot of the baseline vibe of Walt Disney World gets put on the back burner.We didn't quite expect that, and while the parks are outstandingly beautifully decorated, we don't need to hear another Christmas carol at all, whatsoever, for the next 12 months, if you know what I mean.
We're both also Jewish, and didn't really think that that would matter. But for anyone who isn't Christian considering experiencing Disney during the Christmas holiday, while it is not a religious celebration here, it is beyond 100% Christmas and at times that had us feeling a little bit left out. Not in terms of wanting it to be a celebration other than Christmas. But when the band at the Biergarten in Epcot told the whole audience to start singing with them the English lyrics of Silent Night, I cringed. Because The whole world comes to Walt Disney World, and you can't expect every patron in a restaurant to know or care to sing the lyrics of a religious Christmas carol. It was a moment that felt very un-Disney and I thought about writing a comment to Guest Services about it.
We both enjoyed MVMCP, and although some have suggested otherwise, we both thought our sold out party was very much not overcrowded. We were able to easily view the fireworks and get a curb side seat for the (2nd) parade on Main Street. The cookie lines were very manageable, and ride times were pretty short as well. Our previous Disney party experiences to which we compared MVMCP are the two Disneyland Halloween parties we've attended, both of which were total clusters. MVMCP was so much better, although alittle ridiculously expensive. We definitely wished we had a blanket though, because the fake snow runs for half an hour after the fireworks, and then of course through the parade. And if you're sitting on main street waiting for the second parade, you basically just freeze under the soap flakes If it's a chilly night, as our party night was.
The highlight of the trip was the refurbishment if it's a small world. The last time we rode, in 2013, it was filthy and half of the kinetic effects were not working. The state that the ride is in now is breathtaking. Everything is clean. Everything is fixed. Everything is moving. Every monkey on a vine. Every bird with a spinning head. Every flying carpet. Every bouncing kite. Everything. We could not believe it and it was just absolutely lovely and magical.
The lowlight has been the end-of-night Coronado bus service at MK and Epcot. It's annoying to watch bus after bus pull out for Riverside, and still be waiting for the bus for your larger moderate resort.
And the unexpected moment was dragging my partner on a crawl of the MK resorts, which he had never seen, and in the middle of the Contemporary, having him tell me that it felt like it had the vibe of our beloved Disneyland Hotel. Which made my jaw drop because CR reads that way to me, too.
In August we changed our opinion of WDW from meh to love on our second trip in three years. This time, we had the conversation tonight about whether we'll ever be DLR passholders again and realized that we're happier to be new WDW vets. Much as we love it, we can't imagine going back to the "land" before MDE, MagicBands, and Fastpass+.
