civileng68
<font color=teal>That May scare the poopy out of m
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2003
- Messages
- 3,011
I just returned from one of my periodic trips to Disney World. This one being over the 4th of July.
We made sure to see EACH of the 3 major fireworks displays. Here is how they ranked to me personally and to each of my family members, which also agreed with me.
1)Epcot
2)Magic Kingdom
3)MGM Studios
Let's start with MGM and the Magic Kingdom. MGM had a great show, however, just like the Magic Kingdom, it was just too short. MGM did a nice finale along with the Magic Kingdom, except each's finale was only about 10 seconds long, if that.
The Magic Kingdom's perimeter fireworks are amazing. The Magic Kingdom listed that they would be doing FITS for the 4th. However they did not do FITS or Wishes but a completely special show, which was nice, but just too short.
Epcot. Now this is a whole different story. Just amazing. Unreal, shocking, mind blowing, paralyzing. Just incredible. Words cannot truly describe it. They did a finale that just really surpassed even my high expectations. It just cannot be put into words. One must see it.
Crowds were so so high. However, I can say that I found there to be worse overall crowds during spring break's last week in March. Times for Splash ran high but I noticed many times Fastpasses were still available late at night.
Soarin is just amazing.
My favorite restaurant San Angel Inn really disappointed this trip. Just average if not below average food.
The Garden Grill has reopened obviously and WOW it's great! It's a littel different too! Before you just were brought all of your food. You didn't order but were brought a little of everything. The problem with this was if you only liked 2 of the 4 things, you wasted the other and kept asking for more, which caused more waste as they only bring everything. This time it's different. You order what you want and you get ALL YOU CAN EAT of that. I had all you can eat steak! The dessert, chocolate fondu, is "ok". The chocolate was watered down and not served on a true fondu dish which kept it hot. I thought the previous dessert of strawberry shortcake was better.
Overall the restaurant is a major upgrade and now my favorite, well behind liberty tree Tavern.
Priority Seating: Disney has a MAJOR issue on their hands here and I really hope something is being done about it. It is AMAZINGLY obvious that the Priority Seating is being abused. We got our main PS's ahead of time but as with anyone, you may want dinner on the "fly". Well NOTHING was really available. We fortunately got in somewhere except a couple of nights. However Disney allows anyone to reserve as many PS's as they like with NO financial penalties (unless using Fantasmic Dinner Package).
Example: We did Fantasmic Dinner package at Mama Melrose. I was told that it was the last available and our time slow was the only one available (which was early). Well, when we got there, and by the time we left, the restaurant NEVER reached more than 50% full.
FAntasmic Dinner Package: While this seems to be a great idea, we had to show up NO LATER than 8:30 and we showed up at 8:29, and the stadium was NOT full by ANY means and the Dinner package seating was on the very far right side, but we actually got BETTER seats by just sitting where we wanted. It really was nothing all that needed. This was on July 2.
Last night, the park was open until 11:00 pm, however, NEARLY everything shut down by 10:00pm. The train was no longer operating, Tiki Room is closed at 9:00, and nearly every individual standing sales station was closed. I really didnt understand it.
Overall I was very impressed with the CM's who were so pleasant as always and the park for being so busy was SO clean.
About Stitch. I never saw it because of the bad reviews, but I have to admit, while the storyline is just really boring and goes nowhere and seems to struggle to exist, I really found it cute and entertaining just for the cute factor. The stitch anamatronic is AMAZING it is so detailed and fluidly moving.
Lucky the dinosaur. while this is pretty neat, I didn't see the big deal. To me it seemed to do pretty much the same thing. The ability to walk was amazing but it really didn't impress me all that much.
Fantasmic had a few changes (ok only the die hards would notice this), but during the show there is 1 scene with pyrotechnics (only a second) that did not have them before. At the end when Mickey is atop the mountain, the lasers that came out below him, creating a wall of green are no longer used (at least not during our visit).
Wheelchairs. My father requires a wheelchair and I can say that it is truly disappointing how rude people are to those in wheelchairs. The walkway up to the land building has a special lane for those in wheelchairs, but so many people used it we could barely get through it to get my father in the building.
I feel Disney should (in wide areas) create Handicap only lanes. When we were leaving the parks it was nearly impossible for us to move. My father acually sat in the handicap area for the 4th show at Epcot and others there were talking about it and said they have to wait until the crowds are dimmed down before they can even leave because they don't want to be running over people, which is nearly unavoidable in crowds since people step right in front of the chairs.
We made sure to see EACH of the 3 major fireworks displays. Here is how they ranked to me personally and to each of my family members, which also agreed with me.
1)Epcot
2)Magic Kingdom
3)MGM Studios
Let's start with MGM and the Magic Kingdom. MGM had a great show, however, just like the Magic Kingdom, it was just too short. MGM did a nice finale along with the Magic Kingdom, except each's finale was only about 10 seconds long, if that.
The Magic Kingdom's perimeter fireworks are amazing. The Magic Kingdom listed that they would be doing FITS for the 4th. However they did not do FITS or Wishes but a completely special show, which was nice, but just too short.
Epcot. Now this is a whole different story. Just amazing. Unreal, shocking, mind blowing, paralyzing. Just incredible. Words cannot truly describe it. They did a finale that just really surpassed even my high expectations. It just cannot be put into words. One must see it.
Crowds were so so high. However, I can say that I found there to be worse overall crowds during spring break's last week in March. Times for Splash ran high but I noticed many times Fastpasses were still available late at night.
Soarin is just amazing.
My favorite restaurant San Angel Inn really disappointed this trip. Just average if not below average food.
The Garden Grill has reopened obviously and WOW it's great! It's a littel different too! Before you just were brought all of your food. You didn't order but were brought a little of everything. The problem with this was if you only liked 2 of the 4 things, you wasted the other and kept asking for more, which caused more waste as they only bring everything. This time it's different. You order what you want and you get ALL YOU CAN EAT of that. I had all you can eat steak! The dessert, chocolate fondu, is "ok". The chocolate was watered down and not served on a true fondu dish which kept it hot. I thought the previous dessert of strawberry shortcake was better.
Overall the restaurant is a major upgrade and now my favorite, well behind liberty tree Tavern.
Priority Seating: Disney has a MAJOR issue on their hands here and I really hope something is being done about it. It is AMAZINGLY obvious that the Priority Seating is being abused. We got our main PS's ahead of time but as with anyone, you may want dinner on the "fly". Well NOTHING was really available. We fortunately got in somewhere except a couple of nights. However Disney allows anyone to reserve as many PS's as they like with NO financial penalties (unless using Fantasmic Dinner Package).
Example: We did Fantasmic Dinner package at Mama Melrose. I was told that it was the last available and our time slow was the only one available (which was early). Well, when we got there, and by the time we left, the restaurant NEVER reached more than 50% full.
FAntasmic Dinner Package: While this seems to be a great idea, we had to show up NO LATER than 8:30 and we showed up at 8:29, and the stadium was NOT full by ANY means and the Dinner package seating was on the very far right side, but we actually got BETTER seats by just sitting where we wanted. It really was nothing all that needed. This was on July 2.
Last night, the park was open until 11:00 pm, however, NEARLY everything shut down by 10:00pm. The train was no longer operating, Tiki Room is closed at 9:00, and nearly every individual standing sales station was closed. I really didnt understand it.
Overall I was very impressed with the CM's who were so pleasant as always and the park for being so busy was SO clean.
About Stitch. I never saw it because of the bad reviews, but I have to admit, while the storyline is just really boring and goes nowhere and seems to struggle to exist, I really found it cute and entertaining just for the cute factor. The stitch anamatronic is AMAZING it is so detailed and fluidly moving.
Lucky the dinosaur. while this is pretty neat, I didn't see the big deal. To me it seemed to do pretty much the same thing. The ability to walk was amazing but it really didn't impress me all that much.
Fantasmic had a few changes (ok only the die hards would notice this), but during the show there is 1 scene with pyrotechnics (only a second) that did not have them before. At the end when Mickey is atop the mountain, the lasers that came out below him, creating a wall of green are no longer used (at least not during our visit).
Wheelchairs. My father requires a wheelchair and I can say that it is truly disappointing how rude people are to those in wheelchairs. The walkway up to the land building has a special lane for those in wheelchairs, but so many people used it we could barely get through it to get my father in the building.
I feel Disney should (in wide areas) create Handicap only lanes. When we were leaving the parks it was nearly impossible for us to move. My father acually sat in the handicap area for the 4th show at Epcot and others there were talking about it and said they have to wait until the crowds are dimmed down before they can even leave because they don't want to be running over people, which is nearly unavoidable in crowds since people step right in front of the chairs.
