Just a few thoughts after our recent trip. We were in the parks for 4 days before our cruise. We have two kids ages 12 and 14 (plus dh and myself). We've never done park hoppers before (we usually go every 2 years, and DisneyLAND the other years). In the past we've felt hoppers weren't necessary, but this trip with having only 4 days we were all wishing we had hoppers. I think as the kids get older and you understand the transportation system better, it doesn't seem as daunting as it once did. We had opted not to do DHS and double up on Magic Kingdom days. But to my surprise my kids both opted to forgo our Epcot day as well in lieu of a 3rd day at MK. They really only like Test Track and Soarin' at Epcot and while I love the countries, the kids really don't. This is where hoppers would have come in handy! Note to self for next time!
We stayed at the Disney Swan since the main focus of the trip was the cruise, and this was an add-on, we could stay on Starwood points here and save a little money. I am pleasantly surprised with how much I liked this hotel. The location is good, we enjoyed walking down the Boardwalk. My family got involved in a group beach volleyball game for 4 hours and had a blast. We didn't automatically get Magic Bands at this property, and chose not to purchase them (we didn't have bands from last trip, no idea where they went). After having to pull out 4 tickets to scan at each fp entrance and make sure they were put away and not dropped/lost, since this was admission tix as well, I was wishing we had just done the MB's. Even just for FP's, it would have been SO much more convenient. Another note to self for future!
We used the buses which are just part of the Disney Transportation. At both MK and AK, leaving, we seemed to wait a very long time for a bus. We noticed buses around us coming twice for other resorts and all other queues cleared out before we could get a bus. This was the most frustrating. Not sure if this is the norm, but was our experience every day. Not sure if the Swan/Dolphin just rank lower on the transportation scale since they aren't Disney?? The night coming from AK at about 9:00pm- we didn't get back to hotel for 1.5 hrs. That was the worst wait.
It rained. A LOT! More than the typical afternoon rains. The parks didn't clear out nearly as much as we had expected. At least it cooled it off! I hated the thought of the rain, and caused a crimp in plans, but honestly, it was not a big deal. We went with the flow and I realized it wasn't worth stressing over. We still had fun! One particularly bad rain day we were at AK, and noticed that Everest was closed down almost all day due to rain. It was supposed to be our first ride of the day standby, but it started off closed in the morning, wasn't sure exactly why, it opened for a bit and then closed with rain, and later that evening was still closed, someone said it had flooded. We left for a bit for dinner at WL, and was looking to book EE on FP for later, I had told the kids if we could get an FP we could go back to ride it, since they were so disappointed in missing it all day. at 4:30pm I was trying to get that FP when FOP popped up with a 7:30 FP for all 4 of us! (We hadn't been able to get this at all during our FP window, and I had been trying!). So we opted to go back for that, as EE was still showing closed, and FOP was worth it! Low and behold after we got off FOP EE opened up! It had a 30 minute posted wait, but really took about an hour. I think crowds flooded in once it opened. We ended up spending more time in AK than we ever have in the past and really enjoyed the Pandora addition, which I wasn't too excited about, but it really is a cool area!
Waits were crazy most of the day, (it is July after all
We did rope drop each day and like our past experiences found we could still get a lot done in the first 2 hours. Big Thunder is a favorite and was walk on for the first 30 min, even though it showed posted wait of 15 minutes. We were shocked how many people were using FP for this right at park opening. I really wanted to tell them a better FP strategy, but minded my own business. We got stuck on Little Mermaid in MK for 30 min, they had to walk us out. Not one I would have expected to get stuck on. We were right in front of Ursula singing "Poor Unfortunate Souls" on endless loop, very fitting, LOL. But at least it was a cool break from the heat! Oh, my DD had pushed the lap bar down so tight that my legs were pinned! Not a big deal until you're stuck and then it's really awful! Never push your bar down that tight in case you get stuck
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Happy to answer any questions!
We stayed at the Disney Swan since the main focus of the trip was the cruise, and this was an add-on, we could stay on Starwood points here and save a little money. I am pleasantly surprised with how much I liked this hotel. The location is good, we enjoyed walking down the Boardwalk. My family got involved in a group beach volleyball game for 4 hours and had a blast. We didn't automatically get Magic Bands at this property, and chose not to purchase them (we didn't have bands from last trip, no idea where they went). After having to pull out 4 tickets to scan at each fp entrance and make sure they were put away and not dropped/lost, since this was admission tix as well, I was wishing we had just done the MB's. Even just for FP's, it would have been SO much more convenient. Another note to self for future!
We used the buses which are just part of the Disney Transportation. At both MK and AK, leaving, we seemed to wait a very long time for a bus. We noticed buses around us coming twice for other resorts and all other queues cleared out before we could get a bus. This was the most frustrating. Not sure if this is the norm, but was our experience every day. Not sure if the Swan/Dolphin just rank lower on the transportation scale since they aren't Disney?? The night coming from AK at about 9:00pm- we didn't get back to hotel for 1.5 hrs. That was the worst wait.
It rained. A LOT! More than the typical afternoon rains. The parks didn't clear out nearly as much as we had expected. At least it cooled it off! I hated the thought of the rain, and caused a crimp in plans, but honestly, it was not a big deal. We went with the flow and I realized it wasn't worth stressing over. We still had fun! One particularly bad rain day we were at AK, and noticed that Everest was closed down almost all day due to rain. It was supposed to be our first ride of the day standby, but it started off closed in the morning, wasn't sure exactly why, it opened for a bit and then closed with rain, and later that evening was still closed, someone said it had flooded. We left for a bit for dinner at WL, and was looking to book EE on FP for later, I had told the kids if we could get an FP we could go back to ride it, since they were so disappointed in missing it all day. at 4:30pm I was trying to get that FP when FOP popped up with a 7:30 FP for all 4 of us! (We hadn't been able to get this at all during our FP window, and I had been trying!). So we opted to go back for that, as EE was still showing closed, and FOP was worth it! Low and behold after we got off FOP EE opened up! It had a 30 minute posted wait, but really took about an hour. I think crowds flooded in once it opened. We ended up spending more time in AK than we ever have in the past and really enjoyed the Pandora addition, which I wasn't too excited about, but it really is a cool area!
Waits were crazy most of the day, (it is July after all
We did rope drop each day and like our past experiences found we could still get a lot done in the first 2 hours. Big Thunder is a favorite and was walk on for the first 30 min, even though it showed posted wait of 15 minutes. We were shocked how many people were using FP for this right at park opening. I really wanted to tell them a better FP strategy, but minded my own business. We got stuck on Little Mermaid in MK for 30 min, they had to walk us out. Not one I would have expected to get stuck on. We were right in front of Ursula singing "Poor Unfortunate Souls" on endless loop, very fitting, LOL. But at least it was a cool break from the heat! Oh, my DD had pushed the lap bar down so tight that my legs were pinned! Not a big deal until you're stuck and then it's really awful! Never push your bar down that tight in case you get stuck. Happy to answer any questions!
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