Just back 1/31-2/6

[MickeyWaffles]

All aboard the Tragical Express! So sad to be home. Overall, we had an amazing visit.

Crowds: Overall very comfortable! Some long lines but many very reasonable lines even midday. I’d go at this time again in a minute. Really enjoyable. We did everything we wanted to do (and lots of things multiple times.) Great success with getting additional FPs for our group of 9 (most of our 3rd FP were done by 12 or 1pm.)

Cast members: We had some really great cast members. Some who really went above and beyond interacting with kids. Overall, great cast experiences. We had one very rude cast member at FOP. I know everyone has bad days, but I did the DCP and the way this CM spoke and acted was rude, snarky and out of line. I’ll share the full story in another post soon!

Magical Moment: The kids were picked to be Imagination Institute scientists, sign the guestbook, and “help” send off a Journey Into Imagination ride vehicle which was awesome for them - they love Figment.

Characters: there seemed to be more Disneyland-style character appearances this trip. Unscheduled characters walking through lands, no organized line, etc., the way it used to be at WDW when I was a kid. I noticed this much more this time than on other trips in the last 10 years. This is was in addition to the normally scheduled meet & greets.

Memory Maker/Photopass: There are a handful of photos that never showed up. Sending photo recovery forms today.

Weather: Weather can be iffy this time of year, but we only had one miserable day (2/1). It was cold and wet with a steady mist of rain all day. At least it wasn’t downpours though! The rest of the days were clear with temps ranging from 60s to 80s. Layers are so key at this time of year!

Park hoppers: hoppers work best for us. We love spending a half day somewhere, hopping somewhere else, or just hopping to another park for their night show and a treat. We hopped around quite a bit this trip.

Overall, it was an amazing time and I can’t wait to go back!

 

[Robo]

DHS:
What time did you arrive in the morning(s) at DHS?
Did you ride Rise of the Resistance?
Millennium Falcon?
Slinky Dog?
Toy Story Mania?
Tower of Terror?
Rock'n'RollerCoaster?

 

[MickeyWaffles]

DHS:
What time did you arrive in the morning(s) at DHS?
Did you ride Rise of the Resistance?
Millennium Falcon?
Slinky Dog?
Toy Story Mania?
Tower of Terror?
Rock'n'RollerCoaster?

We did HS on Sunday from 4:00-7:30 and on Wednesday until 3:00pm.

We spent Sunday at Epcot and hopped to HS late afternoon. We had an Oga’s Cantina reservation at 4:30 and after that got into a 40 minute line for Smuggler’s Run at 5:15pm. It was actually only 25 minutes! We also rode ToT that evening (there was tons of FP availability.) The park crowd was very light Sunday night, maybe due to Super Bowl?

We also spent part of the day at HS on Wednesday. My husband and brother in law did Rise (I stayed back with the kids to let them sleep and got to HS for our first FP - Star Tours at 9:00.) The guys left BLT via Uber at 6:45 am, were in the park at 7:30. DH’s app never updated but BIL’s did - they got group 67 which ended up being the last group called that day (so lucky!) They were not at the head of the rope drop pack but hit RNRC and waited about 30 min. I did RNRC with my sister in the early afternoon in the single rider line, took about 30 minutes (standby was 65). We had advance FP for Slinky Dog on Wednesday and some of us were lucky to snag Toy Story Mania as a 4th FP with refreshing. Some of our groupdidn’t care to ride Toy Story Mania.

It all worked out much better than I was expecting!

 

[AngiTN]

Wow, really?
I've not noticed that anywhere but at HS, in GE.
Can you elaborate more on where you saw roaming characters.
I love interacting with them when they are roaming out in DL

All aboard the Tragical Express! So sad to be home. Overall, we had an amazing visit.

Crowds: Overall very comfortable! Some long lines but many very reasonable lines even midday. I’d go at this time again in a minute. Really enjoyable. We did everything we wanted to do (and lots of things multiple times.) Great success with getting additional FPs for our group of 9 (most of our 3rd FP were done by 12 or 1pm.)

Cast members: We had some really great cast members. Some who really went above and beyond interacting with kids. Overall, great cast experiences. We had one very rude cast member at FOP. I know everyone has bad days, but I did the DCP and the way this CM spoke and acted was rude, snarky and out of line. I’ll share the full story in another post soon!

Magical Moment: The kids were picked to be Imagination Institute scientists, sign the guestbook, and “help” send off a Journey Into Imagination ride vehicle which was awesome for them - they love Figment.

Characters: there seemed to be more Disneyland-style character appearances this trip. Unscheduled characters walking through lands, no organized line, etc., the way it used to be at WDW when I was a kid. I noticed this much more this time than on other trips in the last 10 years. This is was in addition to the normally scheduled meet & greets.

Memory Maker/Photopass: There are a handful of photos that never showed up. Sending photo recovery forms today.

Weather: Weather can be iffy this time of year, but we only had one miserable day (2/1). It was cold and wet with a steady mist of rain all day. At least it wasn’t downpours though! The rest of the days were clear with temps ranging from 60s to 80s. Layers are so key at this time of year!

Park hoppers: hoppers work best for us. We love spending a half day somewhere, hopping somewhere else, or just hopping to another park for their night show and a treat. We hopped around quite a bit this trip.

Overall, it was an amazing time and I can’t wait to go back!

 

[MickeyWaffles]

Wow, really?
I've not noticed that anywhere but at HS, in GE.
Can you elaborate more on where you saw roaming characters.
I love interacting with them when they are roaming out in DL

I love that too.

Yesterday, Peter Pan was out in Fantasyland (not unusual obviously) but spent a ton of time interacting with guests outside of his line. We caught him marching around a drain that was roped off (in a square) and he was recruiting kids to march around what he called the “box of danger.” He did this for a looong time.

Chip & Dale were roaming around Frontierland, which we’ve seen before, but the vibe was different. We saw Pluto out for his morning walk, and Suzy and Perla, the mice from Cinderella. It felt like they were meandering more rather than walking with a purpose.

I guess how I’d explain it is on their way to their meet and greets, instead of walking on a mission to their post, characters like Pooh and Tigger would stop and give more hugs, photos, etc.

We do a lot of character meets and to us it felt like they spent a lot more time getting from here to there. Often when we see the characters on their way somewhere, they don’t stop to mingle. This was more than the wave & walk.