Just back from a quick trip 11/10-11/13

[10MoreMinutes]

We had a great time! There were five of us - me (age 30), my SIL (age 24), her friend (age 25), my friend (age 30), and her husband (age 35) - and we stayed in two renovated rooms at Pop Century.

We got to Pop around 1 pm on Friday and headed to Disney Springs around 2:30. This was our only long wait for a bus on the whole trip...we waited 30 minutes for a bus to show up. I knew going in that it was going to be crowded, and that was very much the case. We did the Christmas Tree Trail, which was cute but crowded, and met up with some of my friends that live in the area for dinner at Raglan Road at 6:30. The food and drinks were great, and the entertainment is always fun. The service left something to be desired, but overall it was a good experience despite an inattentive server.

On Saturday, we went to Epcot. On a holiday weekend, which also happened to be the last weekend of Food and Wine. Y'all, it was CROWDED. With good time management, we still managed to do all the rides we intended to do. Our FPs were for Living with the Land (which we didn't need...the standby time was only 5 minutes), Spaceship Earth (which we *did* need...it was starting to rain and the standby line jumped to 60 minutes as we scanned in), and FEA. We also watched Reflections of China, the Voices of Liberty, and the American Adventure in between eating from the Food and Wine booths. And really, despite the long lines for the booths, they moved pretty quickly. I had originally wanted to stop at a few more of the booths, but ended up nixing them because of the lines.

We ate at Spice Road Table for dinner (checked in at 8 for an 8:30 reservation and we were seated immediately...the outdoor seating never filled to capacity while we were there). Everything tasted amazing and they were super accommodating about us staying to watch IllumiNations, even encouraging us to move to an empty table closer to the railing when the show as about to start.

Sunday: We went to Magic Kingdom. We did seven rides between 8:10 and our first FP at 9:45. We had lunch at Columbia Harbour House-the lobster roll was great, but the chips were really greasy, and they seemed to be having issues with mobile order pick-ups. The crowds picked up after lunch, but we still rode everything we intended to ride. We checked in almost an hour early for dinner at BOG and were seated about 10 minutes before our original reservation time. This dinner was outstanding! The food was great and the server (Saleem) was perfect. After dinner, we headed out, as MVMCP was starting and we weren't staying for it.

Monday: This was our AK day. We walked on to NRJ, which was pretty but definitely not worth any kind of long wait imo. We also walked on to Everest, Primeval Whirl, and Dinosaur before EMH ended. Our only extensive wait was to meet Mickey and Minnie (posted wait time was 35 minutes, the Lines app had an expected wait time of 21 minutes, but we actually waited 45 minutes). Lunch was at Flame Tree Barbecue, which was surprisingly good. Crowds were picking up and we were exhausted after lunch, so we watched Festival of the Lion King, did the Safari (with a FP), and watched Finding Nemo before heading back to the resort to pick up our bags and start the 4-hour drive home.

Overall, it was a great trip, with very few complaints (and none that I would consider major complaints)! I was expecting higher crowd levels because of the holiday weekend/end of Jersey week/last weekend of F&W, and it still ended up being more crowded than I expected. With good time management, though, we did everything we intended to do. There were a couple of outstanding CM interactions that I intend to email guest relations about (Saleem at BOG, Matt at Flight of Passage), and we never came across a CM with a bad or indifferent attitude.

 

[mousehouse23]

I'm glad to hear you had such a fun trip! It sounds like you went into it with the right attitude concerning crowds. I can't imagine how crazy it must have been at Epcot on a Saturday during F&W. Sounds like you kept your good humor, though.

Thanks for the great trip report! I enjoyed reading it.

 

[10MoreMinutes]

I'm glad to hear you had such a fun trip! It sounds like you went into it with the right attitude concerning crowds. I can't imagine how crazy it must have been at Epcot on a Saturday during F&W. Sounds like you kept your good humor, though.

Future World wasn't actually that bad, but World Showcase was totally bananas...it was a sea of people in all directions. It helped that it was our first park day so no one had sore feet yet, and the sporadic rain showers kept the heat mostly in check. We still had a great time though.

 

[tjlamphere]

Future World wasn't actually that bad, but World Showcase was totally bananas...it was a sea of people in all directions. It helped that it was our first park day so no one had sore feet yet, and the sporadic rain showers kept the heat mostly in check. We still had a great time though.

We were at WDW from 11/4 - 11/11. Crowds at Epcot were huge because of the F&W Festival....lots of drunk people...it was a drunkfest.....never saw so many shirts that were related to drinking around the World. We had a great time, but was more crowded than I had expected. We hope to go back next October with the expectation that the crowds won't be quite as bad. And we also had some amazing interactions with CMs.....we found them all to be patient, accommodating, helpful, knowledgeable and generally fantastic. The Disney Magic lives. (I had fun giving FP to people....we could not use them and the people we gave them too were so excited and appreciative...it is great to be able to sprinkle some pixie dust yourself....WDW is a magical place, crowded or not.)

 

[10MoreMinutes]

We were at WDW from 11/4 - 11/11. Crowds at Epcot were huge because of the F&W Festival....lots of drunk people...it was a drunkfest.....never saw so many shirts that were related to drinking around the World.

We noticed the Drinking Around the World shirts too...seems like every other group we saw in World Showcase had them. I didn't notice too much inappropriate drunkenness, but there were definitely some that were getting too close to the line for my comfort.

And we also had some amazing interactions with CMs.....we found them all to be patient, accommodating, helpful, knowledgeable and generally fantastic.

I was a little concerned at the uptick in reports of indifferent or rude CMs, but I'm glad you had good experiences like we did!

 

[DisneyFive]

What did you think of the new Pop rooms? Specifically the noise? Were you on a lower floor? Just wondering, with the new harder flooring, if it was easier to hear people walking and moving around in the room above you?

Dan

 

[pattyw]

Nice trip report! Please let us know how the new POP rooms were! Would like to try them out on a future trip!

 

[CinderellaDream]

What did your group order at Spice Road Table? We are trying SRT on our next trip for the first time and just wondered which menu items were must do's.

 

[10MoreMinutes]

What did you think of the new Pop rooms? Specifically the noise? Were you on a lower floor? Just wondering, with the new harder flooring, if it was easier to hear people walking and moving around in the room above you?

Dan

Nice trip report! Please let us know how the new POP rooms were! Would like to try them out on a future trip!

I already knew I liked the new Pop rooms, as I'd stayed in a test room for this refurb last January. My only complaint is that the floor gets dirty so quickly (that was my complaint last January too). If we hadn't declined housekeeping, we may not have noticed that, though. On the positive side, there was plenty of storage and counter space for us to unpack completely (although we were only there for 4 days/3 nights...any longer and the drawer space may be an issue). We left the murphy down all the time and never missed the table and we still had room to move around without getting in each other's way (there were 3 of us in the room), and the beds were really comfortable. And there were plenty of outlets so we could all charge our electronics every night with no problems. I would absolutely recommend trying to get a renovated room!

I was on the 3rd floor. We had a connecting door in our room and could definitely hear noise from next door, although not loud enough to make out actual words. I didn't hear anything above or below us, with the exception of the toilets flushing (those are super loud...we could hear that intermittently but it never actually woke me up).

I never heard construction noise from the buildings (10 and 6 were being worked on while we were there), but when we were at the resort yesterday afternoon, we could hear loud, echoing construction noise from the lake, so that might be something to keep in mind if you take resort breaks in the afternoon.

 

[10MoreMinutes]

What did your group order at Spice Road Table? We are trying SRT on our next trip for the first time and just wondered which menu items were must do's.

I had the lamb sliders and they were fantastic. The hummus fries that came with them were cooked a little inconsistently, but they weren't bad. My friend had the calamari and it was also really good, and the last person in our group had the skewers...I think one was chicken and one was beef...and he liked them. Between the three of us, we also ordered one of each of the desserts. The baklava was a little greasy, but still really good. The chocolate pyramid with ice cream was good, but nothing really special. The pistachio and saffron custard was the best of the three...it was so good!

Of the things we tried, I'd recommend the lamb sliders and the pistachio and saffron custard.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Fun read. You got a lot done with a short trip at a very crowded time. As you said.... “good time management.”

Thanks for sharing your trip!