princessesandpascal
"Guys, I want a castle."
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2012
- Messages
- 224
We just returned today from a fantastic stay from May 4-12! The travel party was myself (21) and my mom. Wanted to share some tips and thoughts from our week as these threads were so helpful in our planning:
The Good:
FP+: We always hated FP+ running so this took a lot of that away. We made FPs at the 60 day mark and got everything we wanted, but also could make a lot of decisions on the fly. We love the system and are so happy with it. The only thing Disney needs is more kiosks: We were near the teacups and had to walk all the way back to where Stitch was to make another FP, and had the same problem out by Splash.
The Resort: For the third time, Pop Century pulled through and reminded us why we come back. Clean place, friendly CMs, good food (for having to be quick enough to feed that many people). We love it and we already miss it!
Weather: The weather was gorgeous. Only one instance of rain we were in: our first full day in which we were caught in a shower rope-drop walking to Soarin' at around 8am. Sunny, very hot, but do-able. Definitely big fans of the early May weather.
SDMT: We went in with no expectations and came out loving it. Really smooth and we felt the rocking sensation. Wouldn't wait without a FP but we FP'ed it three times and were very happy with it.
The Garden Grill: Our favourite meal of the trip, my mom's request for Mother's Day dinner. The characters, food, and service were incredible and we can't give enough rave reviews about this place. Our favourite place to eat in WDW!
Characters: We had some great character experiences. Our longest wait of the trip was for BH6, we waited about an hour exactly. The waits are consistently long but really worth it. We had FP for Anna and Elsa, but also waited standby the night of PM EMH, around midnight we only waited 10 minutes for the sisters, so I highly recommend dropping by late at night. We also saw Gaston who was a hoot (among others!). Talking Mickey was phenomenal, but saw pretty high waits much of the time.
CMs: We had some amazing CMs that stood out above the rude ones. Most of the older CMs were respectful and full of magic and we were pleasantly surprised to see some really kind and enthusiastic college-age CMs. We have a long list of names that we are going to give Disney for their awesome service.
The Bad:
Photopass: Rude photographers, photos not showing up in our account, very disappointed in the PP and MM service. Still trying to get our A&E photos after the CM rudely told us they were there last night only to log in today and have them be gone.
DCP/Younger CMs: So many of the young CMs we encountered were more focused on their friends than the guests. We had a young Photopass photographer spend so much time talking with his friends that he ran out of time and refused to take our photo while we stood patiently waiting as we thought that his friends were getting a photo (they weren't). That said, a lot of the young CMs were wonderful: our favourite CM of the trip, a GRM tour guide named Lowell who we have been raving about for days, was young and fantastic. But so many young CMs were more focused on themselves than on the guests. I'm young myself: so I know how much fun it must be to work in the happiest place on earth with your friends, but we were often disappointed.
Crowded Walkways: Walking anywhere was like playing Frogger. It was way more crowded than we thought. Surprisingly the lines weren't too bad (we walked onto Dinosaur over and over at around lunch on an EMH day in AK) but the people were in mobs and hardly watched where they were going for travelling between rides.
All things considered, we had a fantastic trip!! If anyone has questions, I'll do my best to answer them!
The Good:
FP+: We always hated FP+ running so this took a lot of that away. We made FPs at the 60 day mark and got everything we wanted, but also could make a lot of decisions on the fly. We love the system and are so happy with it. The only thing Disney needs is more kiosks: We were near the teacups and had to walk all the way back to where Stitch was to make another FP, and had the same problem out by Splash.
The Resort: For the third time, Pop Century pulled through and reminded us why we come back. Clean place, friendly CMs, good food (for having to be quick enough to feed that many people). We love it and we already miss it!
Weather: The weather was gorgeous. Only one instance of rain we were in: our first full day in which we were caught in a shower rope-drop walking to Soarin' at around 8am. Sunny, very hot, but do-able. Definitely big fans of the early May weather.
SDMT: We went in with no expectations and came out loving it. Really smooth and we felt the rocking sensation. Wouldn't wait without a FP but we FP'ed it three times and were very happy with it.
The Garden Grill: Our favourite meal of the trip, my mom's request for Mother's Day dinner. The characters, food, and service were incredible and we can't give enough rave reviews about this place. Our favourite place to eat in WDW!
Characters: We had some great character experiences. Our longest wait of the trip was for BH6, we waited about an hour exactly. The waits are consistently long but really worth it. We had FP for Anna and Elsa, but also waited standby the night of PM EMH, around midnight we only waited 10 minutes for the sisters, so I highly recommend dropping by late at night. We also saw Gaston who was a hoot (among others!). Talking Mickey was phenomenal, but saw pretty high waits much of the time.
CMs: We had some amazing CMs that stood out above the rude ones. Most of the older CMs were respectful and full of magic and we were pleasantly surprised to see some really kind and enthusiastic college-age CMs. We have a long list of names that we are going to give Disney for their awesome service.
The Bad:
Photopass: Rude photographers, photos not showing up in our account, very disappointed in the PP and MM service. Still trying to get our A&E photos after the CM rudely told us they were there last night only to log in today and have them be gone.
DCP/Younger CMs: So many of the young CMs we encountered were more focused on their friends than the guests. We had a young Photopass photographer spend so much time talking with his friends that he ran out of time and refused to take our photo while we stood patiently waiting as we thought that his friends were getting a photo (they weren't). That said, a lot of the young CMs were wonderful: our favourite CM of the trip, a GRM tour guide named Lowell who we have been raving about for days, was young and fantastic. But so many young CMs were more focused on themselves than on the guests. I'm young myself: so I know how much fun it must be to work in the happiest place on earth with your friends, but we were often disappointed.
Crowded Walkways: Walking anywhere was like playing Frogger. It was way more crowded than we thought. Surprisingly the lines weren't too bad (we walked onto Dinosaur over and over at around lunch on an EMH day in AK) but the people were in mobs and hardly watched where they were going for travelling between rides.
All things considered, we had a fantastic trip!! If anyone has questions, I'll do my best to answer them!
