CuteKatCar
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2002
- Messages
- 712
Just returned an hour ago. Sad to be home. 
We were upgraded at the CR to a Castle-view tower room on the 8th floor. A very nice surprise!!! The elevators in the CR are tremendously fast. The resort is a favorite of ours. We never had a problem getting a chair at the pool. The caesar's salad at the Food and Fun Center was not good (on par with McDonald's old one). The CM's were all nice.
The Poly was really nice too. Our first time there. We were in Samoa, 2nd floor overlooking the volcano pool/lagoon. Very nice view. All the cm's were great there. It's a beautiful resort. And yes, the map makes the resort seem so huge. I could walk to the GCH in 3 minutes.
What I've noticed since my last trip in 2001:
Parks still very clean.
CM's not as friendly as they used to be. Sorry, but I even had a few snotty ones. Just not as friendly when you ask a question. I asked a CM in a store in AK if there were any towels on sale, and she wasn't very pleasant. I then asked if anything else was on sale - she points to 2 things and acts like I'm bothering her. (I was lucky enough on 2 previous trips to get beach towels on sale for $10.00 each). I asked again at the Emporium in MK and the CM walked around the store with me looking for things.
Not much on sale at the stores anyway!!
Have people gotten more rude in the past 2 years? There seemed to be a lot more line cutters this time!!
Twice we were on line for characters and told the character had to go in. My other experiences were that the CM would stop anyone else from getting in line. We were in Morocco in the room with Aladdin and Jasmine. There were some teenage girls ahead of us. That's it. NO ONE ELSE IN THE ROOM. When it was the last teenage girl's turn for a picture, the CM says, this is Jasmine's last picture - she has to go now. Normally, I don't say anything, I do understand they need a break. But, it was just my 2 girls (7 and 10) and me. I was shocked. I just looked at the CM and said "We are the only other people here in the room". Luckily, my girls are older, but I could have seen a little girl get very upset.
It was gay days. My girls did not notice a thing. We were at MGM yesterday which was on the gayday schedule and it was fine. Today we left the Poly only to go to the GF for lunch and it was gayday at MK. There were red shirts all over (on the monorail and walking into MK so I bet MK was REALLY crowded), but my kids didn't even notice (and my 10 yr old knew about it). I know others had questioned it. Disney did put a letter in our room stating they were expecting a crowded day at MK on Sat, so they were having EMH at MGM and Epcot that day. We didn't go to any park that day since we were leaving. It didn't bother us.
Crowds: I just read someone else's post who was at Spectro the same night as us. They said it was very crowded. We didn't think so. Main St. was quite manageable after the parade (we sat on Main St. near Walt and Mickey's statue in the center). Our previous experience at Spectro was Main St. was like sardines and it took us an hour to get out of the park. Tinkerbell's flight is as much of a must-do as any ride, IMHO. It's captivating!!
Of course, the headliners all had the longest waits. I did see 90 mins. on Test Track. 60 on SM. You must do Fast Pass. And check the Fast Pass ticket. It states right on there when you can get another one.
The night we watched Illuminations, you didn't even need to save a spot. We did, anticipating a crowd. There was no one behind us. Seriously!! You know how parades and shows get to be 5 and 6 people deep. Illuminations was not crowded at all. We stood right on the bridge in front of Italy.
Heat: Ok, there were times I was freezing!! I mean it. When the rains came, I could have used a sweater!! It would cool things off and then you'd have to go into air conditioning. We did have one night of hours of rain and I had a sweater set on and I was cold at the CR and in the monorail. Other than that, it was hot. Not humid, but hot enough. The constant cloud cover made it bearable. I'm not a good one to ask about the heat, because I don't like being cold. But, I have to say, I had the heat on in the room a few times!!
My DH and I agreed that MGM at night was really crowded. We arrived one night at 6:30. Went right over to RnRC. Fast pass sold out. Stand-by 50 min. We wanted to ride it again so we got in stand-by line. After 20 min, we barely moved. And the FP line was long and people just kept coming. All the CM did was let the FP line through. Which is the privilege of getting a FP - so use it!! We did end up getting off the line and that's how we ended up back there on Friday (we didn't want to go on one of the gayday scheduled days because we thought it would be too crowded). We got our FP for RnRC, walked right on to Catastrophe Canyon (it was just starting). Got FP for Little Mermaid, rode RnRC, ate, shopped and did Mermaid. We were done in 2 1/2 hours.
The saddest part of the whole trip, believe it or not was not having to come home. It was that my girls are big. They have lost some of the magic that comes with being an excited little kid at WDW who believes in all the characters. That excitement of seeing the characters is gone. Oh, a glimmer or two showed once in a while (Minnie brings it out in you
), but for the most part, that chapter of my life is over. My 7yr old has never had much interest in a lot of the "magical" stuff, but my older DD's excitement would rub off on her. It made me sad. I see the roller coaster part of my life unfolding.
All in all, another great trip at WDW. We're thinking about doing the cruise next time. Now that my kids are a little older..........
Anna
We were upgraded at the CR to a Castle-view tower room on the 8th floor. A very nice surprise!!! The elevators in the CR are tremendously fast. The resort is a favorite of ours. We never had a problem getting a chair at the pool. The caesar's salad at the Food and Fun Center was not good (on par with McDonald's old one). The CM's were all nice.
The Poly was really nice too. Our first time there. We were in Samoa, 2nd floor overlooking the volcano pool/lagoon. Very nice view. All the cm's were great there. It's a beautiful resort. And yes, the map makes the resort seem so huge. I could walk to the GCH in 3 minutes.
What I've noticed since my last trip in 2001:
Parks still very clean.
CM's not as friendly as they used to be. Sorry, but I even had a few snotty ones. Just not as friendly when you ask a question. I asked a CM in a store in AK if there were any towels on sale, and she wasn't very pleasant. I then asked if anything else was on sale - she points to 2 things and acts like I'm bothering her. (I was lucky enough on 2 previous trips to get beach towels on sale for $10.00 each). I asked again at the Emporium in MK and the CM walked around the store with me looking for things.
Not much on sale at the stores anyway!!
Have people gotten more rude in the past 2 years? There seemed to be a lot more line cutters this time!!
Twice we were on line for characters and told the character had to go in. My other experiences were that the CM would stop anyone else from getting in line. We were in Morocco in the room with Aladdin and Jasmine. There were some teenage girls ahead of us. That's it. NO ONE ELSE IN THE ROOM. When it was the last teenage girl's turn for a picture, the CM says, this is Jasmine's last picture - she has to go now. Normally, I don't say anything, I do understand they need a break. But, it was just my 2 girls (7 and 10) and me. I was shocked. I just looked at the CM and said "We are the only other people here in the room". Luckily, my girls are older, but I could have seen a little girl get very upset.
It was gay days. My girls did not notice a thing. We were at MGM yesterday which was on the gayday schedule and it was fine. Today we left the Poly only to go to the GF for lunch and it was gayday at MK. There were red shirts all over (on the monorail and walking into MK so I bet MK was REALLY crowded), but my kids didn't even notice (and my 10 yr old knew about it). I know others had questioned it. Disney did put a letter in our room stating they were expecting a crowded day at MK on Sat, so they were having EMH at MGM and Epcot that day. We didn't go to any park that day since we were leaving. It didn't bother us.
Crowds: I just read someone else's post who was at Spectro the same night as us. They said it was very crowded. We didn't think so. Main St. was quite manageable after the parade (we sat on Main St. near Walt and Mickey's statue in the center). Our previous experience at Spectro was Main St. was like sardines and it took us an hour to get out of the park. Tinkerbell's flight is as much of a must-do as any ride, IMHO. It's captivating!!
Of course, the headliners all had the longest waits. I did see 90 mins. on Test Track. 60 on SM. You must do Fast Pass. And check the Fast Pass ticket. It states right on there when you can get another one.
The night we watched Illuminations, you didn't even need to save a spot. We did, anticipating a crowd. There was no one behind us. Seriously!! You know how parades and shows get to be 5 and 6 people deep. Illuminations was not crowded at all. We stood right on the bridge in front of Italy.
Heat: Ok, there were times I was freezing!! I mean it. When the rains came, I could have used a sweater!! It would cool things off and then you'd have to go into air conditioning. We did have one night of hours of rain and I had a sweater set on and I was cold at the CR and in the monorail. Other than that, it was hot. Not humid, but hot enough. The constant cloud cover made it bearable. I'm not a good one to ask about the heat, because I don't like being cold. But, I have to say, I had the heat on in the room a few times!!
My DH and I agreed that MGM at night was really crowded. We arrived one night at 6:30. Went right over to RnRC. Fast pass sold out. Stand-by 50 min. We wanted to ride it again so we got in stand-by line. After 20 min, we barely moved. And the FP line was long and people just kept coming. All the CM did was let the FP line through. Which is the privilege of getting a FP
- so use it!! We did end up getting off the line and that's how we ended up back there on Friday (we didn't want to go on one of the gayday scheduled days because we thought it would be too crowded). We got our FP for RnRC, walked right on to Catastrophe Canyon (it was just starting). Got FP for Little Mermaid, rode RnRC, ate, shopped and did Mermaid. We were done in 2 1/2 hours. The saddest part of the whole trip, believe it or not was not having to come home. It was that my girls are big. They have lost some of the magic that comes with being an excited little kid at WDW who believes in all the characters. That excitement of seeing the characters is gone. Oh, a glimmer or two showed once in a while (Minnie brings it out in you
), but for the most part, that chapter of my life is over. My 7yr old has never had much interest in a lot of the "magical" stuff, but my older DD's excitement would rub off on her. It made me sad. I see the roller coaster part of my life unfolding. All in all, another great trip at WDW. We're thinking about doing the cruise next time. Now that my kids are a little older..........
Anna
). He saw a new whole side of WDW after 30 some trips...the romantic side. They enjoyed the beach at the Polynesian at night, saw three sets of fireworks in one evening, etc.. So don't worry...that's lots of magic ahead of you but perhaps just another kind.
