Just Back - stuff you might wanna know

[mommy3girls]

We have 11 more sleeps (my girls and I are counting down) until our first trip to Walt Disney World. Fingers crossed for warmer weather and lots of sunshine....

 

[yost1931]

We just got back late last night. Agree with all that was said.
The weather on Saturday was awful.

Wait times at TSM were anywhere between 60 and 110 minutes. Soarin was also around an hour in the afternoon. We fast passed both of those but had no need to get fast passes for anything else. We walked onto Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise and everything in Fantasyland one morning. Took about 2 hours to ride about 7-8 rides. Awesome!

I thought that Epcot was crazy on marathon day. We parked there, but went to the Magic Kingdom. The monorails were all backed up. That night we headed back to Epcot for dinner and thank goodness we had an ADR. There were no walk ups and I heard a CM say there was no availability anywhere in Epcot that evening due to the marathon.

We had a great time. The cold could not keep us down. We were in Disney! I can't wait to get back for another trip.

 

[jemimabean]

Thanks for the update! We're heading that way at the end of the month, and posts like this make me super excited.

 

[MHTeacher]

Sounds like you had a wonderful trip. We were at Yacht Club 12/29-1/1, two weeks ago. It was our first time to stay there and we loved the resort. Kids want to stay there again in May. I thought the location was great; different from the Poly, but great nevertheless.

Glad to hear you had a great time.

 

[MJMcBride]

A CM told me the last night for the Osbourn lights was the 4th .

It was. We were there from the 3rd to the 10th and saw the lights on the 4th

I don't like the Xmas decor up so late. I just wasn't in the christmas mood anymore and wanted the old music (especially at Epcot)

 

[MJMcBride]

I thought that Epcot was crazy on marathon day. We parked there, but went to the Magic Kingdom. The monorails were all backed up.

Everything was backed up to ridiculous levels. Frankly, I would like to see the Marathon removed from the list of events

http://www.mouseextra.com/2010/01/12/a-call-to-end-the-marathon-madness/

Thats just my 2 cents

 

[LisaPisa]

We leave next week and I've been thirsting for exactly the info you just provided - especially your take on green vs. orange. To do or not to do has been my haunting question for months. I'm so glad for your input! I'm def going GREEN!

 

[snowwhitenyc]

I am just back tonight...for a bit of an update, the weather is improving (and looks better every day in the coming week) and the Christmas decorations are starting to come down. There was a crane behind the castle this morning and it looks like they got a lot of the lights down last night. It was a nice bonus for the marathoners to get to see the decorations, but I definitely agree about the music! SOOO happy to be away from Rudolph, White Christmas, etc.

I had a bit of a different experience this weekend. This was my fourth visit to the World in a year and I couldn't believe how empty it felt. We were at Epcot on marathon day and did absolutely everything we wanted with no waits at all. That night we went to the Magic Kingdom for EMH -- we got there just before 8 and after the fireworks the park emptied out so much I was afraid I had misread the schedule...there was NO ONE there. We walked on to every single ride...in 3 hours I thought we'd get through about half of the rides we wanted to do, but we managed to do everything!

Sorry to hear that some ran into marathon-related tie-ups. To us it seemed that Disney handled the marathon really well, I was impressed with how smoothly things ran (except for the sleet at the start of the half -- my friend who ran it really hated that)...but perhaps staying at an Epcot resort gave me a different kind of experience.

 

[aidtrismommy]

Just got back last night. I also agree with OP about most things except we encountered large crowds at MK on Monday night. There were several tour groups there that night, all in Fantasyland. It was almost impossible to walk through that area. It was our last night and we had already done everything anyways so it didn't effect us much, but I have to admit that I find the chanting annoying. (It was also a Spectro night, so I knew it would be busy) We watched the parade from the fire station and left right after to avoid the crowds heading to the busses and it worked out just fine. Saturday was the start of the Marathon and it took us an hour to get to the MK from SSR. It was long and annoying (we knew that would happen also because we go the same time every year) The parks themselves were not busy, the roads were just congested and they were detouring MK and Epcot busses to the TTC. We ended up going to Epcot because the monorail to MK was very backed up. Epcot was dead, we walked onto everything. It was also very cold and sleeting so I am sure that kept people away. We spent hours in innoventions, did some rides, and took the boat to DHS for dinner at 50's prime time. DHS was also dead (except TSM still had a70 min wait) I took my boys to the Animation place to see the incredibles before we left and we saw Frozone, Chip and Dale, Sorcerer Mickey, Pooh, Pocohontas and Meeko, and Goofy with NO lines . We just walked up to ALL of them. There were probably 10 families in there doing the same thing. It was a nice surprise.

 

[TLinden16]

I'm going to move this over to our trip report board.