mrsincredible3
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2013
- Messages
- 301
Just thought I would share our experience since this board was so helpful in planning our trip! We had a wonderful trip, it exceeded our expectations!!! We loved FP+! With two little ones in tow, it allowed use to have rough plan for the day and minimize backtracking and criss-crossing the park. We had DS6 and DS15 months with us. It took two days for DH's magic band to work properly. It allowed him park and room access but not charging privileges, which was extremely inconvenient as we split up often with the kids. DHS guest services could not fix the problem, and Animal Kingdom Lodge tried to fix it to no avail. they finally got their "IT team" on it and eventually they worked. Once they works properly we loved them. It really did feel like a resort experience - no wallets to worry about in the parks, it was easy.
I had booked all of our FP+ in advance and was fortunate to take advantage of the "glitch day" by booking both TT and Soarin for our Epcot day. When trying to move around FP+ on the day of, there were many spots in the morning. At 10:30 on our Hollywood studios day i tried to move my 1pm TOT FP earlier, but the only remaining spots were for the evening, so i didn't ride it. We did one full day at MK, one full day and Epcot, and the rest of our days were partial days in the parks with resort/swim time. This worked well with the kids. We rented a double stroller and let the baby nap in the stroller, he did great! MK and AK it was easier to move things around during the day. I wish they would remove the tiers at HS and EP. Also i wish they would allow you to cancel some of your FP+. On our HS day, the only one we utilized was TSM - our ST and TOT went to waste, I would have liked to have canceled them so someone else could pick them up. I don't understand why it is mandatory to have three selections made for each park. Seems there should be a way to fix this.
Rider swap: We used this a lot and it was great. I organized our day so that we rode things the baby couldn't ride while he napped in the stroller using the rider swap pass, often using FP+ for these rides as well. DH was impressed with how easily the week went and how much we were able to do. We did arrive every single day before rope drop - either to wait at the gates or have an 8am breakfast in the park (AK and HS). Mornings were blissful - cool and not crowded. By afternoon, it was hot, crowded and the kids were kind of done. One note - we were unable to use rider swap on rides without a height requirement. We tried to get one at Haunted Mansion, they said no it's a family ride, everyone can ride. I said so you are going to force my infant on the ride, or one of us can't ride? DH chose to take the baby on the steamboat instead as we didn't think it was appropriate for the baby (turns out we got stuck on that ride, so it could have been disastrous). At the speedway in MK, they also said our child was big enough to ride (requirement is 32 inches), even though i protested saying he is only 31 inches and an infant (didn't want our car to get bumped and have his head thrown around). The CM made me lower DS15 months to measure him, although i think he felt sort of ashamed when he saw DS can't even stand on his own, and certainly didn't make the cut off, so we did use swap on this ride. We did NO evening parades/fireworks, and put the kids to bed close to their regular bedtimes - this enabled us to utilize a morning touring plan daily.
Lodging: We stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge - it was fantastic! Relaxing, clean, great food, the kids loved the animals. I highly recommend.
Food: I'll just briefly share where we ate with any menu standouts. DS6 had requested a princess meal.
Liberty Tree tavern - My favorite lunch of the trip! BLT and toffee cake were excellent!
CRT - fantastic! Great character interaction with both of my BOYS!!! My son had in depth conversations with each princess, even got a kiss from snow white! Both boys loved it, and DH and i thought the food (filet) was quite good and enjoyed the ambience.
Be our guest (lunch with FP) - Great! loved my pork dish and strawberry cupcake. DS loved the kids grilled cheese. and the baby devoured his masters cupcake :good vibes
Ohana - favorite meal of the trip, will return. We liked everything!
Boma - EXCELLENT for both breakfast and dinner. Breakfast french toast bread pudding was hands down my favorite thing i ate the whole trip.
Jiko - The food and service was EXCELLENT! Our children were not! No more fancy disney dining for us!
Sanaa - service a little slow, but food was delicious
Garden Grill - Good. Good character interaction although we had to get someone to get mickey to stop for us as we were done eating and hadn't seen him yet. my son loved chip n dale. The food was quite good, but the restaurant wasn't revolving. Probably won't return to this one.
Les Halles - everything here was great!
Tusker house breakfast - the buffet was very good, though not as good as Boma. CHaracter interaction felt very staged and rushed. I won't return to this one.
Hollywood and Vine breakfast - this was a spur of the moment not in our plan experience. Buffet and characters were better than i expected. DH loved the little parade and meeting sofia. Baby loved the characters and music.
Grand Floridian cafe - lunch - a surprising find. Delicious food in a lovely and relaxing setting, very nice after a boring at the MK.
Overall we loved everywhere we ate and did not have a single bad meal.
Please feel free to ask any questions about FP+, rider swap, etc. We are already discussing returning next year .i'm going to need advice!
I had booked all of our FP+ in advance and was fortunate to take advantage of the "glitch day" by booking both TT and Soarin for our Epcot day. When trying to move around FP+ on the day of, there were many spots in the morning. At 10:30 on our Hollywood studios day i tried to move my 1pm TOT FP earlier, but the only remaining spots were for the evening, so i didn't ride it. We did one full day at MK, one full day and Epcot, and the rest of our days were partial days in the parks with resort/swim time. This worked well with the kids. We rented a double stroller and let the baby nap in the stroller, he did great! MK and AK it was easier to move things around during the day. I wish they would remove the tiers at HS and EP. Also i wish they would allow you to cancel some of your FP+. On our HS day, the only one we utilized was TSM - our ST and TOT went to waste, I would have liked to have canceled them so someone else could pick them up. I don't understand why it is mandatory to have three selections made for each park. Seems there should be a way to fix this.
Rider swap: We used this a lot and it was great. I organized our day so that we rode things the baby couldn't ride while he napped in the stroller using the rider swap pass, often using FP+ for these rides as well. DH was impressed with how easily the week went and how much we were able to do. We did arrive every single day before rope drop - either to wait at the gates or have an 8am breakfast in the park (AK and HS). Mornings were blissful - cool and not crowded. By afternoon, it was hot, crowded and the kids were kind of done. One note - we were unable to use rider swap on rides without a height requirement. We tried to get one at Haunted Mansion, they said no it's a family ride, everyone can ride. I said so you are going to force my infant on the ride, or one of us can't ride? DH chose to take the baby on the steamboat instead as we didn't think it was appropriate for the baby (turns out we got stuck on that ride, so it could have been disastrous). At the speedway in MK, they also said our child was big enough to ride (requirement is 32 inches), even though i protested saying he is only 31 inches and an infant (didn't want our car to get bumped and have his head thrown around). The CM made me lower DS15 months to measure him, although i think he felt sort of ashamed when he saw DS can't even stand on his own, and certainly didn't make the cut off, so we did use swap on this ride. We did NO evening parades/fireworks, and put the kids to bed close to their regular bedtimes - this enabled us to utilize a morning touring plan daily.
Lodging: We stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge - it was fantastic! Relaxing, clean, great food, the kids loved the animals. I highly recommend.
Food: I'll just briefly share where we ate with any menu standouts. DS6 had requested a princess meal.
Liberty Tree tavern - My favorite lunch of the trip! BLT and toffee cake were excellent!
CRT - fantastic! Great character interaction with both of my BOYS!!! My son had in depth conversations with each princess, even got a kiss from snow white! Both boys loved it, and DH and i thought the food (filet) was quite good and enjoyed the ambience.
Be our guest (lunch with FP) - Great! loved my pork dish and strawberry cupcake. DS loved the kids grilled cheese. and the baby devoured his masters cupcake :good vibes
Ohana - favorite meal of the trip, will return. We liked everything!
Boma - EXCELLENT for both breakfast and dinner. Breakfast french toast bread pudding was hands down my favorite thing i ate the whole trip.
Jiko - The food and service was EXCELLENT! Our children were not! No more fancy disney dining for us!
Sanaa - service a little slow, but food was delicious
Garden Grill - Good. Good character interaction although we had to get someone to get mickey to stop for us as we were done eating and hadn't seen him yet. my son loved chip n dale. The food was quite good, but the restaurant wasn't revolving. Probably won't return to this one.
Les Halles - everything here was great!
Tusker house breakfast - the buffet was very good, though not as good as Boma. CHaracter interaction felt very staged and rushed. I won't return to this one.
Hollywood and Vine breakfast - this was a spur of the moment not in our plan experience. Buffet and characters were better than i expected. DH loved the little parade and meeting sofia. Baby loved the characters and music.
Grand Floridian cafe - lunch - a surprising find. Delicious food in a lovely and relaxing setting, very nice after a boring at the MK.
Overall we loved everywhere we ate and did not have a single bad meal.
Please feel free to ask any questions about FP+, rider swap, etc. We are already discussing returning next year .i'm going to need advice!
