pjhootch
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2005
- Messages
- 500
Animal Kingdom Lodge- it was great. The pool was wonderful. Boma was very good and honestly, the fast food place, Mara, was tasty too. Express check in worked like a charm. I got the text with my room number before we even left home for the airport (we are in the midwest)- which was amusing. The bus rides to the parks were all very reasonable. We never waited long and never had trouble getting a seat. We did go very early most mornings and left in early evening before the crush began to exit the parks.
Our magic bands worked without a hitch. I thought we might get tired of wearing them, or annoyed, but it really wasn't a big deal. Charging worked, the room door worked, tickets worked. It was all good and no downside.
Crowds. More than I expected this time of year. We got very lucky with the weather this past week. It was cool the day we arrived and very tolerable for the whole trip until yesterday. It started out about 81 and increased daily to 90. Yesterday got a bit toasty (but we were at Universal by that point
). But back to the crowds. For some reason I tolerate crowds better when the weather is cooler. So as the week went on I got crankier about being around a lot of people. There was nothing dramatic and no specific problems. We've been this time of year in the past and crowds were lighter. I'm not talking about the post crash era specifically. For those of you going during a time when you already know the crowd levels will be high, I do not envy you. Wait times were about what I would expect given the number of people we ran into. I did notice some really significant discrepancies between MDE posted wait times and actual wait times. For instance, we rode Winnie the Pooh with a posted wait time of 35 minutes. It took us 6 minutes to get into the ride car. I watched the 7DMT wait time reach 2 hours at one point but don't know if it was accurate or not. We rode space mountain when the posted wait was 35 minutes. It took us 17 minutes. Those were the two that really caught my attention.
Rope Drop. When exactly does that happen? lol. I can tell you it didn't happen at 9 a.m. on any morning we arrived. We had an 8 a.m. BOG breakfast and by about 8:45 a.m. fantasy land was FULL of people. The people still in the restaurant who thought they were going to be corralled until 9:00 a.m. got an ugly surprise when they came out before 9:00 a.m. and lines at PP and 7DMT were already formed.
FP+. ehhh. We used a couple of the FP I scheduled. I think... Toy Story Mania, Rock n Roller Coaster, 7DMT, Everest and Soarin. Since we did 4 parks in 4 days, we clearly came nowhere near the 12 I had scheduled. I read someone else's review that they were there the same days we were, and not only used all their FP but managed to schedule additional FPs after their initial 3, and found some still available. I have no idea how they did that. I wanted to re-schedule things and checked to see if could change on at least 2 days. Both times there were still FP available, but not for anything I would want to do- or that had any kind of a standby line at all. Basically we used 5 out of 12. The app didn't seem to work consistently while we were there.
Magic Kingdom. We noticed that Pirates and HM both were looking spruced up since our last visit. I generally don't pay much attention to refurb schedules so don't know when it happened last, but it was a welcome surprise. Those are two old favorite rides.
We used the 7DMT FP for obvious reasons. Good thing too. It was fun- while it lasted. I had read it was short, and I knew some people were not impressed. However, I tend to be pretty easy going about rides and expectations so was expecting to love it. But no. I mean, I didn't hate it and I am glad I did it. But when we came to a stop my husband (who knew NOTHING about the ride) said "Is that it?" ha ha. We took the exit and looked with pity at all the people standing in the 110 minute line. If I waited 2 hours for that ride, I would HATE it. Since we used a FP+ it was okay. But I won't bother with it again unless there is no line and nothing else I want to ride.
Animal Kingdom. Great and fun and love the animals, as always. I have to say the crowds were a drag here. Just too many people crammed on too many narrow pathways and too few shaded places to sit.
Epcot Flower and Garden. It was nice and calm. Flowers and butterflies don't seem to lend themselves to drunken debauchery the way food and wine do. Epcot was good. We did use a FP for Soarin here. I think that is the only one we used at Epcot. Epcot was not a rope drop day so we didn't ride test track. I had planned to do that at RD, but let the family sleep in instead. The standby lines for TT were too long for me after all these years. People seemed more laid back and happy at Epcot. It could be due to the large amount of open space there. People don't seem to feel quite so on top of each other there, even when it is crowded.
Hollywood Studios. There isn't much to say. Probably because there isn't much to do. ;-) We've been at Christmas when there at least the lights going on. We aren't big show people or parade folks. We like rides and interactive things more than sitting and watching something. Even so, we've done a few shows there for lack of anything else to kill time before a dinner reservation. That is really what it comes down to for us at this point. RnRC and ToT. I'm really not convinced that those 2 things are really worth the $$, time and effort. The kids (grown up kids) said they want to skip it next time.
Which really brings me down to the question a lot of other long timers have been posing on this board. Are we going back to WDW? I'm not really sure. We had a great vacation and enjoyed ourselves. There was nothing horrible, nothing we got upset about. On the way home my husband and I talked about the idea of just doing Disneyland if we get the urge to Disney again. I grew up on the west coast and started going to DL in 1967 so it is familiar and comfortable, even after all these years.
It isn't a big "we are never going back" decision. It isn't like we came home disappointed, because we didn't. We really enjoyed the trip. It just seemed that we spent tons more money than ever before, and although we had a good time... in the end, it just felt like too much money for what we actually wound up doing.
Our magic bands worked without a hitch. I thought we might get tired of wearing them, or annoyed, but it really wasn't a big deal. Charging worked, the room door worked, tickets worked. It was all good and no downside.
Crowds. More than I expected this time of year. We got very lucky with the weather this past week. It was cool the day we arrived and very tolerable for the whole trip until yesterday. It started out about 81 and increased daily to 90. Yesterday got a bit toasty (but we were at Universal by that point
). But back to the crowds. For some reason I tolerate crowds better when the weather is cooler. So as the week went on I got crankier about being around a lot of people. There was nothing dramatic and no specific problems. We've been this time of year in the past and crowds were lighter. I'm not talking about the post crash era specifically. For those of you going during a time when you already know the crowd levels will be high, I do not envy you. Wait times were about what I would expect given the number of people we ran into. I did notice some really significant discrepancies between MDE posted wait times and actual wait times. For instance, we rode Winnie the Pooh with a posted wait time of 35 minutes. It took us 6 minutes to get into the ride car. I watched the 7DMT wait time reach 2 hours at one point but don't know if it was accurate or not. We rode space mountain when the posted wait was 35 minutes. It took us 17 minutes. Those were the two that really caught my attention.Rope Drop. When exactly does that happen? lol. I can tell you it didn't happen at 9 a.m. on any morning we arrived. We had an 8 a.m. BOG breakfast and by about 8:45 a.m. fantasy land was FULL of people. The people still in the restaurant who thought they were going to be corralled until 9:00 a.m. got an ugly surprise when they came out before 9:00 a.m. and lines at PP and 7DMT were already formed.
FP+. ehhh. We used a couple of the FP I scheduled. I think... Toy Story Mania, Rock n Roller Coaster, 7DMT, Everest and Soarin. Since we did 4 parks in 4 days, we clearly came nowhere near the 12 I had scheduled. I read someone else's review that they were there the same days we were, and not only used all their FP but managed to schedule additional FPs after their initial 3, and found some still available. I have no idea how they did that. I wanted to re-schedule things and checked to see if could change on at least 2 days. Both times there were still FP available, but not for anything I would want to do- or that had any kind of a standby line at all. Basically we used 5 out of 12. The app didn't seem to work consistently while we were there.
Magic Kingdom. We noticed that Pirates and HM both were looking spruced up since our last visit. I generally don't pay much attention to refurb schedules so don't know when it happened last, but it was a welcome surprise. Those are two old favorite rides.
We used the 7DMT FP for obvious reasons. Good thing too. It was fun- while it lasted. I had read it was short, and I knew some people were not impressed. However, I tend to be pretty easy going about rides and expectations so was expecting to love it. But no. I mean, I didn't hate it and I am glad I did it. But when we came to a stop my husband (who knew NOTHING about the ride) said "Is that it?" ha ha. We took the exit and looked with pity at all the people standing in the 110 minute line. If I waited 2 hours for that ride, I would HATE it. Since we used a FP+ it was okay. But I won't bother with it again unless there is no line and nothing else I want to ride.
Animal Kingdom. Great and fun and love the animals, as always. I have to say the crowds were a drag here. Just too many people crammed on too many narrow pathways and too few shaded places to sit.
Epcot Flower and Garden. It was nice and calm. Flowers and butterflies don't seem to lend themselves to drunken debauchery the way food and wine do.
Epcot was good. We did use a FP for Soarin here. I think that is the only one we used at Epcot. Epcot was not a rope drop day so we didn't ride test track. I had planned to do that at RD, but let the family sleep in instead. The standby lines for TT were too long for me after all these years. People seemed more laid back and happy at Epcot. It could be due to the large amount of open space there. People don't seem to feel quite so on top of each other there, even when it is crowded.Hollywood Studios. There isn't much to say. Probably because there isn't much to do. ;-) We've been at Christmas when there at least the lights going on. We aren't big show people or parade folks. We like rides and interactive things more than sitting and watching something. Even so, we've done a few shows there for lack of anything else to kill time before a dinner reservation. That is really what it comes down to for us at this point. RnRC and ToT. I'm really not convinced that those 2 things are really worth the $$, time and effort. The kids (grown up kids) said they want to skip it next time.
Which really brings me down to the question a lot of other long timers have been posing on this board. Are we going back to WDW? I'm not really sure. We had a great vacation and enjoyed ourselves. There was nothing horrible, nothing we got upset about. On the way home my husband and I talked about the idea of just doing Disneyland if we get the urge to Disney again. I grew up on the west coast and started going to DL in 1967 so it is familiar and comfortable, even after all these years.
It isn't a big "we are never going back" decision. It isn't like we came home disappointed, because we didn't. We really enjoyed the trip. It just seemed that we spent tons more money than ever before, and although we had a good time... in the end, it just felt like too much money for what we actually wound up doing.
But we know that going in so there aren't any surprises or regrets that went along with our plans for food.
