July 23-30: Too Hot And Too Crowded!

[DISUNC]

THAT is my FAVORITE week to go! You will love it then. Do the Mickeys Christmas party & Osbourne Family lights @ MGM!!!

 

[MazdaUK]

And try mousesavers.com for great travel journals and activity pages for the kids to do in any "down time" - makes a great show & tell when they get back to school and reassures teachers that it was educational (well, a bit!) My kids loved doing theirs this Easter, and still get them out to look at so it makes a nice souvenir

 

[dbriggsq]

Hi

We've just come back from 3 weeks in Florida (from the UK) which included a couple of 5 day visits to Disney.

Firstly

to DISUNC - unfortunately it isn't 5 dollars to the pound (how I wish it was) - it's only 1.75 and it's still very expensive for a family of 6 to come over from the UK - mainly due to the airfares in July and August (UK school holidays)

Yes it was extremely hot and crowded - we could only manage a couple of hours in the early morning. Luckily we had annual passes so we didn't feel we were wasting too much money by only staying for a couple of hours. If we had hopper tickets I think we would have been disappointed.

Yes even the pools were too hot - we stayed at OKW and they were like hot baths. In fact 4 of our party of 6 got ear infections which I can only think came from the pools - 2 needed medical attention for pain and fever and the symptoms lasted a week. I wonder if I should write to Disney to mention this.

And BTW I hope the last person out of Brazil left the lights on.

 

[MazdaUK]

DISUNC - try paying £500 per person for a flight (not far short of $900) and tell me how dirt cheap it is! If I told you what our 2 week Easter break cost you'd

We saved long and hard for that holiday! Yes, certain things are very reasonable for Uk visitors to the US - clothes and eating out - but only because we are used to paying in £ at least what you pay in $, if not more.

But no matter what deals you find after long evenings slaving over a hot internet browser a US holiday is not a cheap vacation for UK visitors - and we have no option of driving! And DLP is even more expensive!

 

[DISUNC]

..to DISUNC - unfortunately it isn't 5 dollars to the pound (how I wish it was) - it's only 1.75 and it's still very expensive for a family of 6 to come over from the UK - mainly due to the airfares in July and August (UK school holidays)...

Thanks for the info! Still 75% isn't a bad exchange rate!!
I hope everyone is feeling better. It hurts to fly with a ear infection...OUCH!

 

[DISUNC]

DISUNC - try paying £500 per person for a flight (not far short of $900) and tell me how dirt cheap it is! ....:

OK I WONT!!! Sorry! AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

 

[homer424]

Why? We've gone 3 times (00,04,05) and each time took my son out of school for the week. We never had a problem with the school in that regard.

Some schoo districts are very strict on time off. Take mine-DD is only allowed 7 unexcused (no dr's note) days a year. Anything over 7 days you must appear in court to argue why you have exceeded it-and vacations don't count. It is crazy. My DD has very severe allergies so often I let her stay home to rest one day if they are bad and I won't go to the dr for that because he can't do anything. Nor will I take her to the dr if she just has a cold. Taking her out for a week would eat up 5 days and then she would only have 2 days of unexcused left. I believe they instituted this because there were such a severe amount of unexcused absences through the district they needed to crack down. But for the kid who is ALWAYS in school, it seems extreme. I would love to take her every year in May again-that was my most favorite trip!

 

[Shelby5514]

... It did not shower at all 'till our 6th day...

I had to re-read this line. When I read it the first time I thought you had said 'I did not shower at all 'till our 6th day' and

I guess I need some more caffeine!

 

[pdchris]

Some schoo districts are very strict on time off. Take mine-DD is only allowed 7 unexcused (no dr's note) days a year. Anything over 7 days you must appear in court to argue why you have exceeded it-and vacations don't count. It is crazy. My DD has very severe allergies so often I let her stay home to rest one day if they are bad and I won't go to the dr for that because he can't do anything. Nor will I take her to the dr if she just has a cold. Taking her out for a week would eat up 5 days and then she would only have 2 days of unexcused left. I believe they instituted this because there were such a severe amount of unexcused absences through the district they needed to crack down. But for the kid who is ALWAYS in school, it seems extreme. I would love to take her every year in May again-that was my most favorite trip!

I feel sorry for you. It's ridiculous. Here we go again with some people in power automatically assuming that just because a few parents don't enforce attendance, they assume all parents are that way. Is your's a large school district? I lvie in a small town so I guess we're a little more lenient.

 

[jrogers345]

Just got back yesterday. Very, very crowded after noon. We had to get to the park of choice by 9AM and leave by noon or the heat and the crowds were unbearable. 96 every day and humid. It did not shower at all 'till our 6th day, which was very strange. When it did rain, it poured for at least an hour on our 6th and 7th day. People were drenched even with ponchos! At Epcot the Soarin attraction would run out of fast passes by 1pm. One day I walked over from the BWV to get four passes and was astonished to see the fast pass machines shut down , even though the park didn't close 'till 7pm . The people there were in line with a 90 MINUTE standby time posted. There were pushy and rude people there who had no regard for park rules and these people for the most part were Spanish speaking people. There were many foreign accents throughout the parks, which showed just how popular Disney is. There was also huge groups of teens from Brazil , who all appeared well mannered. I've never seen this many differnet groups of nationalities during previous visits (this was our 7th in a little over 4 years at WDW). We stayed at BWV had lunch there every day except one day which was at the Crystal Palace, it was good, but the breakfast is much better there. We would go to the pool between 2-4 pm because of the heat and even the pool was very crowded most days. Dinner as always is the best at LeCellier and Brown Derby. We also ate in Italy and it was good, not great. Three years ago this rest. had strolling opera singers sho were fantastic. Now all they have is one guy with an accordian and he plays one song and then takes a break! Teppanyaki was good as usual and great fun. Park Fare at the Floridian our last night. Not good for the money at all. Very limited fare they should call it. The bill came to the same as when we at at Lecellier and BD. We had a great time, but had to limit our park time due to the crowd size and heat. We would not go back in the month of July again due to these factors. We do have a 7 year old DS and brought his ll year old cousin for company, so we have to adhere to the school calendar. The next summertime visit will be the last week of August. I have heard the crowds are smaller and it is not as hot; but maybe a hurricane or two. I'll take it!

I had read a long time ago that July is the month that South Americans come and that they are rude and pushy (by our standards).

 

[sbelyo]

I think she said it was 5 US dollars for every 1 UK pound! BIG DIFFERENCE!

The heat must have gone to her brain....

1.00 GBP United Kingdom Pounds = 1.78534 USD United States Dollars

It's relatively half price.

 

[jrogers345]

GoofyMax- Sorry your trip wasn't all you hoped it would be. If I only had a youngish child, I would DEFINITELY take him out of school and go in Jan/Feb. We used to do this all the time for up to 2 weeks. We did this until he (my oldest was in 6th grade) It was the best. The parks were relatively empty. Now he is a freshman and those days are over. It goes sooo fast.

I also started going during August, Thanksgiving, and Pres weekend this year just to get a few trips in and not have my oldest miss much school. I REALLY miss those days when he was in grade school & I have NO regrets about pulling him out for those fabulous trips.

Just something to think about.

Lives4Disney

I've taken advantage of school holidays to go with my daughter. Just take her out of school 1 day before holiday so she doesn't miss much.

 

[a Really Bad Egg]

My two or three cents....

We have to go (because we choose not to miss school and youth sports) in late July/early August.

It is hot and the crowds are huge, but we learned how to deal with it. We do the Park Hoppers, go to the parks early, back to the resort for the afternoon, and then to the parks for dinner and evening rides.

The foreign visitors are intriguing and nice to see. The ride waits are not an issue if you expect it and have a touring plan. And the heat - that's why we take our suits and go swimming - that's what you do on vacation, right?

I have to say, for us it would not be WDW if it wasn't steamy and all our friends from around the world weren't there - in line - with us.

By the way...we had a blast during our trip 7/26-8/2. And who would complain about being at WDW? We won't - and didn't - even when Charlie blew through last summer. It could be worse - not being there at all!