Im here now!! Crowd info!! Walked on Nemo!! Cried happy tears!!

[Mom of three]

I know this is long but bear with me.....

We arrived on Tuesday and checked into HOJO. We have joint rooms and one room was ready, the other was not. No biggie, at least we had somewhere to store our stuff, change, freshen up and make our way to the park.

We headed straight to DCA as we wanted to be there to catch the Pixar Play parade and then head straight to our reservation at Medieval Times later that night. Crowds were okay. 20 min wait for Monsters, everything in Bugs Land was pretty much 5 minutes. TOT was 50 minutes but we got fast passes and also utilized baby swap. I HIGHLY recommend using both child swap and fast passes together. Heres how we did it:

Get fast passes for everyone in group and then ask CM for child swap pass. We had 5 riders total, 3 adults, 2 kids.

When its was time to use our FP one of the adults would go with the kids and the other two hung back.

Once they returned, we used the remaining two FP along with the child swap for the other two adults that were waiting. So the kids actually went twice on everything.

Couple of things that we encountered while doing this. One was that almost EVERY time, the CM wanted to see our child/baby. That was fine and I understand. It only became a problem when we went to use our FP on Space and had the remainder of our party wait at the exit. When we arrived and handed them our FP and asked for a child swap, they wouldnt give it to us. We had to walk all the way around to the exit, grab everyone and race back to the entrance. Sure it was inconvenient, but again I understand. LOVE LOVE LOVE the fact that with Space, the people using the child swap get boarded almost immediatly as they enter through the handicapped entrance.

We got a ton of stuff in on our second day and I found crowds to be quite managable. We did not arrive until almost 9:30 and as expected Fantasyland was busy. However Snow White and Tea Cups were walk on, Dumbo, Toad, Carousel and Small World were all about 5-10 minutes as was POTC. We didnt even bother with Splash and Haunted Mansion.

I was not aware that they closed the Matterhorn while the fireworks were going on. Something to do with Tinkerbell and Dumbo flying around/out of there. We waited in line for what seemed to be for-EVER. Finally got on, they didnt even measure DS (he's 2 1/2 and 38", but still) and that was his first time on it. He was not feeling it and im preeeeety sure I have permanant scarring on my legs from his death grip. He didnt scream, cry or fuss until we came to a stop and he said, "I done". I seem to recall a similar reaction that another DIS board member had with their little one.

The greatest part of our second night was WALKING ON NEMO!!! It was about 11:30 and we made a mad dash from the Tiki Room to Nemo, but were swayed into Buzz with the 5 minute wait. Finished Buzz and beelined to Nemo at about 11:55 There were 2 CM standing at the entrance, as we got closer one was directing towards the monorail which I thought that was a polite way of saying "sorry, your too late" and the other directed us towards Nemo!! It was a great way to end the night.

We went to Goofys Kitchen for brunch this morning. It was good. I have to say the brunch was bigger than dinner. We've done dinner a few times and this was our first brunch. I was VERY disappointed in the lack of characters though. We saw Goofy, Chip and Dale, Jasmin and Belle. Pluto was out front doing pictures and at no time made any rounds. Baloo was there but never even came in our direction. We later discovered he had slipped out the front and was taking pictures with people. That was IT!! We spent the day in DCA and hit GRR first. Then it happened.....we tried the single rider line. I could NOT believe how much time we shaved off by utilizing the single rider line AND the baby swap!!! Mullholland Madness had a wait time of 30 minutes, 4 of us used the single rider line and were boarded in less than 5 minutes. Got the baby swap and 2 more went right away. We were all on and off in about 10 minutes. We used that same strategy on California Screamin and were able to hit it 3 times each in under an hour. TSM was a projected 45 minute wait although it didnt seem that long. We hit Soaring and then headed out for dinner at Tortilla Joes and a night of fireworks and Fantasmic.

You could not pay me to deal with those crowds again. We got a pretty good spot for the fireworks, until about 3 people in front of us thew their kids on their shoulders. After they were over it was crazy madness to get to Fantasmic. We opted for the later show too. It seemed that everyone was just in an irritated, crabby mood and I we were being pushed, shoved and ran over by strollers left and right. Once we found a spot, which was just to the left of a light tower (already raised from earlier show). We seemed to have enough room and it was somewhat comfortable until people behind us started crowding closer and in the end we were actually about 10 feet from our original starting location. Our view was obstructed by others and we had mere peek a boo views of the action with Mickey. Not worth it in my opinion and I will not be doing it anytime again soon. It was NOT a pleasant experience.

We did get to see Mickey twice, both times on Main St. He was actually out quite a lot, and by "see" him, I mean stand in line. The first time ds freaked and didnt want his picture taken. It was strange because 9 months ago when we went he was quite the opposite and LOVED the characters. This was an odd moment because it was not what I had anticipated and caught me off guard. Our second attempt was truly magical though. It was our third day at the park and ds asked to see him. He was on Main st. again and we stood in line, which moved REALLY fast. DS ran up to Mickey and gave him a giant hug. MM gave him a kiss, we got some pics and ds told him goodbye. My face lit up and all was well until we ran into these ladies on a park bench near by who had been watching. They made a point to tell us how adorable it was, watching him because he was so happy....that made me cry...HAPPY TEARS.

We did have an issue when my dad forgot to get his hand stamped and we returned later for the fireworks. They almost didnt let him back in. We were very patient and the rest of us had already gone through the line. They made him step aside and called someone else over to talk to him. She explained, he listened. Long story short she let him in and said it was an "exception". So let that be a lesson to anyone else!!!

Going to sleep in tomorrow...get some much needed rest. Isnt that what vacation is all about? Still gotta hit the Electrical Parade, HM, Splash and anything else we missed as Friday is our last day.

 

[nunzia]

You could not pay me to deal with those crowds again. We got a pretty good spot for the fireworks, until about 3 people in front of us thew their kids on their shoulders. After they were over it was crazy madness to get to Fantasmic. We opted for the later show too. It seemed that everyone was just in an irritated, crabby mood and I we were being pushed, shoved and ran over by strollers left and right. Once we found a spot, which was just to the left of a light tower (already raised from earlier show). We seemed to have enough room and it was somewhat comfortable until people behind us started crowding closer and in the end we were actually about 10 feet from our original starting location. Our view was obstructed by others and we had mere peek a boo views of the action with Mickey. Not worth it in my opinion and I will not be doing it anytime again soon. It was NOT a pleasant experience.

Going to sleep in tomorrow...get some much needed rest. Isnt that what vacation is all about? Still gotta hit the Electrical Parade, HM, Splash and anything else we missed as Friday is our last day.

PHEW! Great report! and that one paragraph makes me glad I decided to spring for the fantasmic dessert package in Sept..holy COW..I've gotten where I hate the HUGE crowd times and the packed in smooshed irritated people Fantasmic and Firework crowds..especially with little kids in tow.
Have a great Friday!

 

[Kayla's Mom]

Couple of things that we encountered while doing this. One was that almost EVERY time, the CM wanted to see our child/baby.

That is interesting, in the last few years that we have used child swap, the CM has NEVER asked us to see the child. I wonder if they are cracking down on that? Good to know....thanks.

 

[Sherry E]

It sounds like all in all it was a great time. Happy tears are a wonderful thing.

I didn't realize the Goofy's breakfast/brunch buffet was bigger than dinner - I just knew I liked breakfast better than the dinner buffet. Now I am curious to revisit the GK dinner buffet just to see what is there. Did you enjoy the breakfast selections? I do have to disagree slightly with the observation of the "lack of characters" at Goofy's. I don't think 7 characters is bad at all! I guess it is just what I am used to. Sometimes I have been to GK when then there are only 5 on duty for a while, and others trickle in throughout the morning. Storytellers often just has 5 characters making the rounds at a time (or 4). 7 is a pretty good number, in my opinion. Now the fact that some didn't make it to your table seems to be the case at Minnie & Friends too, or with character meals in general. When they have many characters around, not all of them make it to every table. They try to make sure that the ones that are there kind of disperse and cover different areas of the restaurant. There is usually one character by the entrance at GK (in your case, it was Pluto), and anyone can go up at any time and get their photo taken with that character (on their own camera, not the PhotoPass camera). So what you described doesn't sound out of the ordinary to me. But maybe when you ate dinner at Goofy's, you had more characters come by the table?? I have a hunch that there may be extra characters (or at least different ones) onsite for dinner, and maybe if went to the GK dinner again, I would be saying to my friend, "Wow! Look at all the characters we have been missing!" But since we are so used to the breakfast characters, 7 of them onsite seem like a normal or above-normal number based on who we have seen and what we are accustomed to.

I don't think any of the character meals can top Minnie & Friends in number of characters, that's for sure! They have a ton of them.

 

[Sherry E]

Oh, and I almost forgot to add that your sweet story of how your son reacted to Mickey reminded me of other DIS-ers' accounts of their kids (usually boys, it seems) being alternately afraid of and then enchanted by certain characters. Sometimes they will act terrified or even standoffish, and other times they engulf Mickey or the character in question in a big bear hug. I can see how it is awkward for parents when they wait in a long line to meet characters, only to get up to the character and have the child react oddly!

Is your son okay with the characters at Goofy's or any other character meal you have done, or is he sometimes timid with characters in general, in any setting?