Just back - my highs and 'lows'

[Sencybil]

Highs – Things that were better than I was expecting

Food
All of it exceeded my expectations. Yum yum yum.

Art of Animation
Stayed a night here at the end and was worried that, particularly coming from 2 weeks at a deluxe, it would be a let down. Very surprised at how nice it was – beautiful landscaping, feeling of space, pretty setting, huge pool, great food court. Rooms (little mermaid) very good. Only tiny negative was audible noise from next door, but everything else was great.

Magic bands and FP+
(will do a separate post on this)

Queues
With FP+ and knowledge gained here and on easywdw, I think we only waited more than 15 mins once for a ride, and usually less than 10. (Although we were more ‘do everything once’ rather than ‘do headliners as many times as possible’ people). Our longest wait was 40mins for Safari (and we only did that because the sign said 10min standby wait), and queuing to get in to Animal Kingdom – definitely not enough entry gates there.

Visiting other resorts
We ate at a number of other resorts so got a chance for a nosey around, which I found really enjoyable. Favourite was Jambo House – amazing lobby! And we viewed the savannah animals with night vision glasses which was a lot of fun.

Pirates’ League
This was excellent! Good value for the experience and our makeup lasted all day.

Tipping at Buffets
I know, sounds odd as a ‘high’, but I was expecting to feel resentful of the tipping at buffets. But my goodness, those servers work so hard. They brought us more drinks than a normal table service (we always had water, a soda and coffee and sometimes 2 different soft drinks), and they cleared 5+ plates for each of us (yes, we eat a lot!). They work around a sea of uncontrolled kids and they keep on smiling and apologising for being in your way. They deserve their tip more than standard TS servers.

Restaurant wait times
We were always seated within 10 minutes of checking in.

Hoop de Doo
Stands out in my memory as being a wonderful evening.

Mediums – none of these are ‘Lows’ but they did fall below what I was expecting...

Transport
I think we were unlucky, but in the first 5 days we waited 25 minutes plus for a bus from SSR to our chosen park. On 2 of those occasions, several buses came for the parks we weren’t going to. So its not so much that there aren’t enough buses, but they’re not evenly regulated. Stopped using buses after that. Also found the monorail surprisingly slow, lots of stop / starts / system reboots / unexplained delays. Worst experience was travelling back from POR to SSR. Got a boat immediately to DD but then very stupidly thought the best option was to take a bus as we were right next to the bus stop and it was late and dark. Took 1hr 20 mins for the whole journey - to travel a distance of about 1 mile as the crow flies. Maybe because I work for Transport for London where we are very focussed on reliability and passenger information, but I just found the whole system incredibly frustrating.

SSR rooms (we had a studio)
I knew what I was getting, but somehow when we arrived it seemed quite disappointing. Probably made worse by coming from Hilton Grand vacations 1 bed which was huge, but really, a deluxe hotel where only 1 person can have water / book / specs by the bed? Also storage is inadequate. We managed OK for 2 adults and a child (because I had packing cubes so could effectively utilise the shelves next to the TV), but 4 adults would be extremely challenging in this room class. On arrival our allocated room was in a good building location, but literally 3m from our balcony was the road where all the buses go past. Not a pleasant environment at all (wanted to be able to sit there while dd had naps or went to bed earlier). We asked to change but had to make do on the first night, then got moved to a ‘view’ of a tree but at least facing the golf course. There is such a huge disparity, some rooms have beautiful outlooks over the lakes, but others face the car parking or roads. I’d rather it was like other resorts where there is a price differential for different views, at least then you’d be getting what you paid for. Can’t understand why anyone would pay even discounted rack rate for these rooms though (without free dining).

SSR / Downtown Disney construction
The construction is having a negative effect on SSR. When we asked to change rooms we were offered a water view in Congress park so went to check it out. Really noisy – piling going on, and a view of hoardings, cranes and construction machinery. (Of course not all rooms at Congress Park are affected so much). Also the closure of the walkway at that end of the resort is a big disadvantage. People do walk that way anyway (I did it once), but it feels uncomfortable as you either cross the highway where there is no crossing, or cross the flow of busses into DD with no crossing.

Fireworks – preferred viewing
(Again, have to stress this isn’t a low, just slightly below what I was expecting). Nice to be in an uncrowded area, but definitely not the best viewing spots – particularly for Illuminations. I’m sure it’s worthwhile if you’re there at a busy time, or if you seriously dislike crowds, but for us we’d have been better off just finding our own spots (as we did on other nights) 10 mins before the show.

Character Dining
Food was very good, but I found the atmosphere chaotic – a total zoo. Akershus was the worst, if they could have got us in and out in 30mins they’d have been happy. Character interaction was not enough to make these worthwhile. (Again with 1 fairly shy child we probably got less interaction than more outgoing kids would. Prince Charming and Lady Tremaine at Park Fare chatted a bit and were good but otherwise it was a photograph and move on)

Sorry, that reads like the lows outweighed the highs, but that’s only because I feel the need to give more explanation for the negatives. Everything not mentioned was great too, hope to put up a trip report in a week or two.


Sencybil xx

 

[Cinderella]

Thanks for the feedback. It sounds like you had a great time with a lot more pros than cons. It is a shame that the transport at SSR is so slow. I used to be a DVC member there but I sold several years ago for personal reasons. I do agree that the villas are more impressive than the studios though.

Looking forward to your feedback on magic bands and FP+. We are going next year and all the changes and half year advance planning is a bit overwhelming.

 

[jen_uk]

Overall, Sounds like a brilliant trip

 

[pampat]

I wondered how the preferred area for fireworks worked. My sister is there at the moment and the Wishes preferred area is round by the landing dock. How would they see the projections on the castle from there?

Pam

 

[Sencybil]

Yes, its not a great view of the projection, and the fireworks are off centre from there. The view is obscured by a tree, hanging flower baskets and umbrellas. The first 2 families there get pretty good seats but for everyone else it will be partially blocked. Still better than the FP+ area though!

Another night we arrived in MK about 8:40 (running late as usual). Walked up main street and had no problem getting a spot right outside the Bakery for the projection show. For the fireworks we moved a tiny bit further up (without feeling like we were infringing on others) and I must have had 8 - 10ft in front of me before the next group of people. I was thrilled!

Illuminations preferred area is the Morocco boat landing. Its very far away from the final position of the globe, and our spot was too close to the canopy over the pier. Again, the first couple of families would have had a reasonable view, but there were lots of spaces next to the railings all around WS as we were heading into the reserved area, I wish I'd just picked one of those. We had a better view the first time we watched it from Italy. There were some poles in the way there but they didn't have too much of a negative effect (I didn't make too much effort that night to find a really good spot as I was thinking it didn't matter as we had preferred viewing later on). Also both nights the wind direction was similar, with the smoke heading over Morocco.

I would recommend the reserved seating for Fantasmic though. The first time we saw it we had a F! dining package pass (a really good use of dining plan credits), and the second time I got FP+ reservations. We had great seats both nights.

I also had a FP+ for the MSEP, which got us curbside. That was nice. Pretty much everyone had 'front row' space in the reserved area and almost everyone stayed sitting down so the view was good. We went to Typhoon Lagoon that morning, so I wasn't 'wasting' a FP+ and MK was open to 1am when wait times were really low for everything. It was fabulous!

Sency xx

 

[sammie1884]

Sounds like you had a fab time overall. Glad you liked AoA. We will be there Thursday, cant wait!