Just Back! Learn from my Experiences/Mistakes 4/15-4/23

[AnnaS]

We tried Yak & Yeti too last October and will definitely be back.

Always switch up.

We are DVC but twice we stayed in a studio three nights and then moved to a 1BDR - would be tough to do this the other way around. Great review. Thank you.

 

[Shellyb84]

We made the same mistake with our split stay. We went from the Poly to CBR - bad idea! I knew it would be though, but we had to arrange it that way to get the Poly nights in, otherwise it wouldn't been a mod all the way.

 

[AngiTN]

Yeah, I was told long ago to never go down when you split stay, always go up.

 

[Mom2Stitch]

I'm cracking up reading your TR - I could've written 85% of it myself. Trip dates? Check. Central OH? Check. Tried Y&Y for the first time? Check. (Friends have informed me that I need to bump another ADR so that we can return next trip!)

We were so lucky with the weather. It rained once - started just after we got under the bus awning at AK and stopped just before we disembarked at MK. It was a little hot walking the WS the last day, but only compared to the last week, not compared to, say, July.

The ride capacity thing was a major issue. I watched them transferring vehicles off on multiple rides despite the lines. We had an incident at AK where a CM voluntarily apologized (unprompted) for the wait at Safari, telling us, "Due to budget cuts, we can't run the number of vehicles we need to for the size of the line." This was earth day, mind you, and AK was as busy as we'd ever seen it - 105 minutes for Safari maybe 90 minutes before park close (when it's normally a walk-on.) We go over Christmas week and even then the park usually empties by late afternoon. I think a lot of folks had arranged to be there for ROL and then were unable to switch things out at the last minute.

Overall, crowds weren't bad, but wait times were weird. We often saw Jungle Cruise as the longest line at MK (95 minutes?!) and 7DMT down to 30-40 minutes at peak times. When does THAT happen?

Sounds like you had a wonderful trip. We've been to Yak and Yeti before and I want to go back, but DH doesn't care for it. Will have to wait until I can take DS, he loves it too.

Shame on Disney for making so many cuts that it makes a CM feel the need to apologize! I get that they are spending a lot right now on additions and upgrades, but I don't believe for one second they are losing money.

 

[BudgieMama]

DHS really does seem like a shell of itself. I thought people were exaggerating when they said this exact thing, but I have to agree. We managed to do everything we wanted in the park on two separate days, one day we rope dropped it and rode TT twice, RRC, TSMM, GMR, ST and met a bunch of characters and had lunch at Sci Fi and were gone by 12:30. The other day we came over around 4 for characterpalooza and had trouble filling the time until Fantasmic and the SW fireworks (which we did by meeting characters, watching VOTLM, the Frozen show and riding TT and ST some more).

My thoughts for DHS were something very similar to this, so I'm hoping it will work as well for us as it has for you. That's really helpful to read! Thanks!

 

[lovethattink]

Thanks for sharing! Sounds like you had a great time. Appreciate your tips. Would you mind adding your dates to the thread title?

 

[lustergirl]

OP: I feel your pain. I stayed at AS Sports around the same time last year and never again. I didn't do my research to find out that there was a cheering competition going on and it was CHAOTIC. Noise all night long and they stuck me on the 3rd floor in the hoops building surrounded by teenagers who security was called on quite frequently. The buses were terrible as well and I have never experienced this at this resort before. For my upcoming trip I purposedly changed the dates to be in the 2nd week of May to avoid thisz.

 

[monorailrabbit]

We were about as far as you could get from the bus stop even though I'd put 'close to transportation' on my online check in application.

Seems like lately they don't pay much attention to check in requests... or else they just simply can't accommodate them... frustrating. But I'm glad you had a great trip! Glad you found some fun characters too at HS but bummer on the run. Although I might have died at the change to meet R2! Thanks for the great report!

 

[BusySpeechMom]

Hi! Is there a big difference in Yak and Yeti QS and table service? Other than the obvious that one is QS and the other table service. ;-)

 

[WEDWDW]

I think Flower and Garden is now a better event than Food and Wine.

If Disney would bring back daily Concerts and open the Festival Center daily again,it would be NO CONTEST!

 

[Sevey13]

Hi! Is there a big difference in Yak and Yeti QS and table service? Other than the obvious that one is QS and the other table service. ;-)

I've eaten QS, not TS. I had no problem with the QS although the meals aren't set up to be quite as shareable as perhaps the TS stuff is. The seating area for the QS is very nice, and there are some nooks and crannies to scope out behind the building with fountains and stuff.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

We are so looking forward to our Yak and Yeti ADR in a few weeks! Glad to hear you had a great meal!

Do you guys have the Landry's points card? Costs $25 one time to sign up but you immediately receive a $25 credit. You'll receive birthday gifts of $25 each year that is good for a month. Landry's also owns rainforest cafe and T-Rex. You also earn points on food and merchandise that eventually add up to an additional $25 off your meal.

We too have become fans of Yak and Yeti and Nine Dragons. Surprising to me as I had my worse meal ever at the Yak and Yeti QS but the TS location is quite good

And that's a shame about the characters on the 10K
for the 5K we had Ezra and Sabine, R2D2, 2 Storm Troopers and something else it feels like I'm missing, in addition to the ones you had

We didn't stop for any since I was just on a roll and wanted to finished

DH and I are staying at POR for our first time next weekend. Looking forward to it

Congrats on your race!! I heard about Ezra and sabine, I was super disappointed they weren't on our course because I was dressed as chopper, the droid from rebels.

Where was Characterpalooza? Our plans for our two days at HS are very similar!

They appear right before the entry to the park. Kenny the pirate has their exact times on his character locator app (I believe he is the only one with that info who posts it). His app is $7 for the year but it is definitely worth it, oftentimes it's more accurate than the mde app and gives you hints about funny things to say or do to have a better character interaction.

Agree. I think Flower and Garden is now a better event than Food and Wine. The food was as good and perhaps better. And it is way less crowded. I literally (and I know that this is now the world's most overused word), but I mean literally did not encounter a single "line" at any booth. I walked up an ordered without a person in front of me 9 consecutive times over the course of a couple days. And the butterfly exhibit was neat. And the whole park just bursts with colors. Loved, loved, loved Flower and Garden.

Agreed. We never really waited either. Epcot is just so beautiful with all the flowers, I almost hate to see it any other time of the year.

Gotta do it....

O-H!

I-O!!

World Showcase tour? I must learn more about this!

It's pretty new. PM me if you want more details.

I-O!

(Not the person who started the thread, but also a Buckeye!)

Go bucks!

I'm cracking up reading your TR - I could've written 85% of it myself. Trip dates? Check. Central OH? Check. Tried Y&Y for the first time? Check. (Friends have informed me that I need to bump another ADR so that we can return next trip!)

We were so lucky with the weather. It rained once - started just after we got under the bus awning at AK and stopped just before we disembarked at MK. It was a little hot walking the WS the last day, but only compared to the last week, not compared to, say, July.

The ride capacity thing was a major issue. I watched them transferring vehicles off on multiple rides despite the lines. We had an incident at AK where a CM voluntarily apologized (unprompted) for the wait at Safari, telling us, "Due to budget cuts, we can't run the number of vehicles we need to for the size of the line." This was earth day, mind you, and AK was as busy as we'd ever seen it - 105 minutes for Safari maybe 90 minutes before park close (when it's normally a walk-on.) We go over Christmas week and even then the park usually empties by late afternoon. I think a lot of folks had arranged to be there for ROL and then were unable to switch things out at the last minute.

Overall, crowds weren't bad, but wait times were weird. We often saw Jungle Cruise as the longest line at MK (95 minutes?!) and 7DMT down to 30-40 minutes at peak times. When does THAT happen?

We were also at AK on earth day and it was slammed. I'm pretty sure most of the people thought rivers of light was still happening. We overheard guests asking the poor cast members where they could get rol fast passes. That park was just so packed. We left after we meet Joe rohde at 1 and ate at akl and hung out there for a while before we attempted to return.

Sounds like you had a great time! I am so excited for our first Yak and Yeti meal in 14 days!

Do you guys have a Landry's card? If not, see my comments about it above.

Sounds like you had a wonderful trip. We've been to Yak and Yeti before and I want to go back, but DH doesn't care for it. Will have to wait until I can take DS, he loves it too.

Shame on Disney for making so many cuts that it makes a CM feel the need to apologize! I get that they are spending a lot right now on additions and upgrades, but I don't believe for one second they are losing money.

It really confuses me why they need to do that.

My thoughts for DHS were something very similar to this, so I'm hoping it will work as well for us as it has for you. That's really helpful to read! Thanks!

We did had our fast passes set for that morning at DHS, we fp tsmm and concentrated on TT and rrc and gmr at park opening.

OP: I feel your pain. I stayed at AS Sports around the same time last year and never again. I didn't do my research to find out that there was a cheering competition going on and it was CHAOTIC. Noise all night long and they stuck me on the 3rd floor in the hoops building surrounded by teenagers who security was called on quite frequently. The buses were terrible as well and I have never experienced this at this resort before. For my upcoming trip I purposedly changed the dates to be in the 2nd week of May to avoid thisz.

We were lucky in that we weren't disturbed at night, it was just bad trying to walk along the football field path because everyone and their mother was out there practicing on it.

Seems like lately they don't pay much attention to check in requests... or else they just simply can't accommodate them... frustrating. But I'm glad you had a great trip! Glad you found some fun characters too at HS but bummer on the run. Although I might have died at the change to meet R2! Thanks for the great report!

We'd meet r2 at several star wars weekends before, which is why we didn't go crazy over him. His line was also pretty long.

Hi! Is there a big difference in Yak and Yeti QS and table service? Other than the obvious that one is QS and the other table service. ;-)

We like the counter service yak and yeti, but they are definitely leagues apart.

We had our yak and yeti ADR for park close, so we didn't miss any park time. It's very lovely on the inside and the menu offers a lot of different choices. Also, the ts will be a lot more expensive but you do get to sit inside with air conditioning. I don't believe the counter service has any indoor seating.

 

[monorailrabbit]

We'd meet r2 at several star wars weekends before, which is why we didn't go crazy over him. His line was also pretty long.

That's awesome that you got to meet him! I'm still bummed we will never be able to experience Star Wars weekends. I keep hoping someday I'll get to meet R2!

 

[AngiTN]

I just signed DH and I up for the World Showcase tour for next weekend. I've been wanting to do it for a while and he told me to find a tour for our trip (he loves all their tours). We are going to do Backstage Magic on my birthday trip in August so I picked World Showcase tour this time.

 

[mrzrich]

For future reference if you are in the HomeRun section at Sports it might be faster to walk across the parking lot to Music. If you are in the Mighty Ducks section at Movies you are almost definitely closer to the Music Bus

 

[TheFloatingBear]

Just popping in quickly as I'm up to my eyeballs in baseball and dance recital misery, but I agree about AK on 4/22! Sorry we didn't bump into each other, lol, although I did run into another DISer...

I haven't pieced it all together yet, but I would say this is the first time I came home from a Disney trip where I wish I could get a mulligan. We had a lot of fun, but it seemed more stressful and I feel like I made some mistakes - I mean, there's always stuff you miss, etc., but I haven't felt quite this way before... like I said, some of it I can identify why but in other ways haven't fully processed it yet, but wish I could have some days back! Glad you had a great trip!

 

[thelittlemermaid2]

Thanks for the great review! It's awesome to see people who love Yak & Yetti as much as I do... which is a lot!

 

[ElaineB55]

I just returned from another great Disney trip. Our dates were 4/15-4/23. We did a split stay, the first couple nights at Port Orleans Riverside and the rest at All Star Sports.

I just wanted to share some things with everyone in case they can help you plan your trip!

Food:

-We tried Yak and Yeti, we'd been there before but not for about 3 years. It was the best meal we had all trip! They've trimmed their menu down to one page and really focused on those items and wow, does it show! I had the dragon roll for 2 as my dinner, and it was really good. My boyfriend got the chicken tikka masala and it was seriously out of this world. I cannot recommend Yak and Yeti enough.

-Some of you may be surprised, but our second best meal was Nine Dragons! I really want to have the General Tso's Chicken Dumplings right now...soooo good. I had the kung pao shrimp and it was excellent and had a very smokey flavor. My boyfriend had the sweet and sour pork which he enjoyed, but he admitted mine was better.

-Flower and Garden food booths: I don't think we had a bad dish here. I remember the DIS Podcasters saying that they thought the food quality was better than at the Food and Wine and I agree with that.

-we also tried the Skipper's Canteen. We thoroughly enjoyed the food, that mac and cheese was so amazing. I can also see how the food wouldn't be for everyone.

Hotels:

We did make one big mistake here. If you are going to switch resorts mid trip, always switch up. We went from Port Orleans Riverside down to All Star Sports which seemed like a sizable downgrade and difference.

We stayed in the Alligator Bayou rooms which must have been renovated pretty recently. I really enjoyed the little bed that folds down from under the TV and the Princess and the Frog artwork was so cute. I liked how rustic the room looked and got a kick out of the wood 'paneling' in the shower.

The resort was quiet and very peaceful and beautiful. We didn't really use the buses here a lot and preferred to drive. I know lots of people like buses at WDW, but we never seem to have good luck with them.

The All Star Sports, on the other hand, was not peaceful or beautiful. Don't get me wrong, I like parts of Sports and usually don't mind staying there. We were there the weekend of a pretty big dance competition. We didn't have any problems with loud people at night, but it is kind of odd to be walking around your resort and have to dodge dance/cheer groups practicing.

We also didn't use the buses here much. We were about as far as you could get from the bus stop even though I'd put 'close to transportation' on my online check in application.

Fastpass +:

It worked out for the most part. Though, my opinion might stem from the fact that we had a much more relaxed trip than usual and focused on things other than rides. Disney had just allowed people to start booking their 4th FP online, which was both helpful and annoying.

Helpful because we park hop a lot and this way we could get a fast pass before even being in our evening park. It was also good because we couldn't constantly check for better fast passes.

It was annoying because I believe there is less fastpass availability with this online booking, since you don't have to be in the park to book I think this meant that any available fastpasses were taken pretty quickly.

RunDisney:

We participated in the 10k Dark Side race. We managed to somehow earn ourselves a spot in Corral B, which was so nice because it wasn't very crowded and we could actually find running room.

The course was ok, we got to run through Future World and a bit of DHS. It ended at WWOS which was kind of boring, but understandable since that doesn't interfere with the operations of any parks.

I was very disappointed in the characters on course. If you don't count the characters before the race, there were an exact total of 3 Disney sponsored characters on the course: Chewbacca (who you can meet in DHS), R2 and Darth Vader. The 501st was there for the event and they saved the day, but it isn't like Disney had to pay them so I still felt let down by the lack of characters on course. RunDisney had also set up a couple backdrops for pictures. There was one with the Emperor's chair and I stopped to ask if the Emperor was on a break and I was told no, it was just his chair.

Crowds:

It is just a fact of life that Disney doesn't have any low crowd times anymore. Sure, you might get lucky and chance upon a random dead week, but it is tough to plan for. I really don't think the crowds were even that bad for this trip, what made it worse was it seemed that Disney was running rides with much less capacity than they should. For example, we were in line to ride Dinosaur and it was taking longer than advertised. We got to the loading area and saw that only one side of vehicles were loading. I have never seen an entire side of that ride shut down, and I've been on Dinosaur half an hour before close when it was a walk on. Many rides just weren't loading all vehicles and it was pretty sad and frustrating.

Random highlights of the trip:

I got to meet Joe Rohde at AK on Earth Day. He had artwork available to purchase and get signed, all proceeds went to the conservation fund. I'm so glad I did this because he was so nice and genuine.

We took the World Showcase tour at Epcot and I have to highly recommend this if you are a fan of the Showcase. We learned so much about all the countries, it was amazing.

DHS really does seem like a shell of itself. I thought people were exaggerating when they said this exact thing, but I have to agree. We managed to do everything we wanted in the park on two separate days, one day we rope dropped it and rode TT twice, RRC, TSMM, GMR, ST and met a bunch of characters and had lunch at Sci Fi and were gone by 12:30. The other day we came over around 4 for characterpalooza and had trouble filling the time until Fantasmic and the SW fireworks (which we did by meeting characters, watching VOTLM, the Frozen show and riding TT and ST some more).

AK on Earth Day was very odd. The park was very packed and we kept hearing people asking about Rivers of Light. We actually ended up leaving midday because it was just too crowded.

I think we hit the jackpot on Orlando weather. I don't think we had more than one day go above mid 80s. There was very little humidity and it actually got a bit chilly at nighttime.

Anyone have any questions feel free to ask

Why would Disney not fill the attractions to full capacity as the P noted at Dinosaur? I have been seeing this by other posters and just don't understand the concept.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

That's awesome that you got to meet him! I'm still bummed we will never be able to experience Star Wars weekends. I keep hoping someday I'll get to meet R2!

I really hope they bring SWW back after all the construction is over. Even though we are getting a SW land, SWW was something different and special. So many SW characters were brought out, I feel like there were at least 30 if not more. There were all the actor meet and greets and the stage shows...if you ever get a chance to go to a SW celebration (convention) definitely do that! You'll get to meet R2 for sure at one of those.

I just signed DH and I up for the World Showcase tour for next weekend. I've been wanting to do it for a while and he told me to find a tour for our trip (he loves all their tours). We are going to do Backstage Magic on my birthday trip in August so I picked World Showcase tour this time.

Oooh Backstage Magic I'm very jealous. That is my ultimate dream tour. I think you'll really enjoy the World Showcase tour, you'll have to let me know what you thought

For future reference if you are in the HomeRun section at Sports it might be faster to walk across the parking lot to Music. If you are in the Mighty Ducks section at Movies you are almost definitely closer to the Music Bus

That is a good idea, and I think we were definitely closer to the Music bus stop.

Just popping in quickly as I'm up to my eyeballs in baseball and dance recital misery, but I agree about AK on 4/22! Sorry we didn't bump into each other, lol, although I did run into another DISer...

I haven't pieced it all together yet, but I would say this is the first time I came home from a Disney trip where I wish I could get a mulligan. We had a lot of fun, but it seemed more stressful and I feel like I made some mistakes - I mean, there's always stuff you miss, etc., but I haven't felt quite this way before... like I said, some of it I can identify why but in other ways haven't fully processed it yet, but wish I could have some days back! Glad you had a great trip!

What was your experience like on Earth Day??

We were there about 20 minutes before rope drop hoping to get a wristband to meet Joe Rohde. We were about 20 groups back from the entrance though and we could see some people sprinting when they got in (presumably for wristbands). I was very pleasantly surprised when we got to the gift shop and there were still plenty of wristbands left. We talked to one girl who got one 20 minutes after park opening. We ended up buying a $55 cotton top lemur print that Joe had done (all proceeds went to the Disney Conservation fund). It was really fun to meet him and he was so nice and genuine.

After we got our wristbands we ended up in a 30 minute safari line, bleh, never waited that long. By the time we got off the ride I believe it was almost 10:30 and the park was just so swamped. We took the train to Rafiki's for the special Jiminy Cricket meet and ended up waiting 45 minutes We ended up being very grumpy after that and not knowing what to do until we met with Joe around 1, then we left and went to AKL to have lunch and settle down. We returned and even though the park was still busy we managed to meet a lot of characters, some who don't normally meet like Meeko and Terk. We walked the Asian and African animal trails, watched Flights of Wonder and FOTLK then used a FP for Dinosaur and KS. I had schedule one really close to park close because I wanted to see the hyenas. We did end up seeing one but only for a few seconds.

I know what you mean about wanting a mulligan, I've had a few of those trips myself. It is ok to feel that way, but I can almost guarantee the next trip will be better!

Why would Disney not fill the attractions to full capacity as the P noted at Dinosaur? I have been seeing this by other posters and just don't understand the concept.

Some people believe it is because of cuts due to Shanghai. The DL and WDW parks management were told to cut costs wherever they could this fiscal quarter to help make up for their cost overruns. I think this is a pretty accurate viewpoint, there are some good articles talking about it but I can't recall any, hopefully someone else will provide a link.

 

[MinnieMSue]

Another Buckeye saying hi! I work at OSU. Anyway glad you had a good trip. We were there end of March. Ate at Yak and Yetti for the first time and really liked it too.