wickedgood
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2013
- Messages
- 27
You guys seriously had me questioning whether or not I should even go ahead with this trip but I'm really glad that I did.
Basic info...
Number of guests: 2 adults (honeymoon!)
Room: Port Orleans - Riverside
Date: Monday, 2/24 - Saturday, 3/1
Dining Plan: None
Dining Reservations booked prior to arrival: None
FastPass+ selections prior to arrival: None
Note: Although we booked an on-site room and received magic bands in the mail prior to our trip, we DID NOT purchase park tickets in advance and therefore did not make any fastpass+ selections in advance.
OK, so we arrived at MCO Monday afternoon and hopped right on the magical express with a simple tap of our wrists at the desk and no more than a pleasantry or two exchanged with the cast member. When we got to the resort we checked in at the front desk (we did not check-in online), got our room assignment, and tapped into the room (we tested both of our bands) with no problems whatsoever.
We headed to our first park, EPCOT, around 4 p.m and purchased 5-day tickets at the ticket window. They gave us a card, which we tapped to enter and then immediately scanned to our account once we got through the gate. This whole process took no longer than 5 minutes. We had only planned on doing World Showcase but checked out the fastpass for Soarin' and Test Track just for the heck of it. They were both still available, so we grabbed a 5:00-6:00 reservation for Test Track. Headed over there at 5:30 and tapped in with no problem and walked straight to the design area with no wait. No problems tapping to design the car and again to retrieve the car before the ride either. The whole process worked flawlessly.
During the rest of the week we visited all four parks and were able to tackle all of the major attractions (and most of the smaller ones, too) using a combination of fastpasses (which we selected each morning on our bus ride over to the park) and stand-by, without ever waiting longer than 20 minutes for anything (except for a 25-minute wait to see Buzz & Woody at Hollywood Studios), and without ever arriving at any park before 11 a.m.
On our fourth day we decided to add a 6th day to our ticket. This took about 3 minutes at the ticket window and worked flawlessly for entrance.
On our fifth day we went to Magic Kingdom and tried our luck with a Be Our Guest lunch fastpass before leaving our room in the morning. At about 9:30 a.m. we successfully made a reservation for 12:05 p.m. and ordered our food without incident. Again, no issues whatsoever.
We charged everything to our room during the whole trip and it was so convenient. We never encountered any grumpy cast members, never got stuck waiting in a long fastpass line, and never even saw anyone else in lines ahead of us having any problems with their bands. Everything worked perfectly.
And to those who will say, "well it's February...": We went to Disney World last year at a very similar time (late January), with very similar weather, nearly identical crowd indicators on easywdw, and we showed up before the park opened every day. We slept late this time, spent less time in line, were able to do a lot more than we did last time, and had a much better experience overall.
So, yeah... FP+/magic band worked for us.
Basic info...
Number of guests: 2 adults (honeymoon!)
Room: Port Orleans - Riverside
Date: Monday, 2/24 - Saturday, 3/1
Dining Plan: None
Dining Reservations booked prior to arrival: None
FastPass+ selections prior to arrival: None
Note: Although we booked an on-site room and received magic bands in the mail prior to our trip, we DID NOT purchase park tickets in advance and therefore did not make any fastpass+ selections in advance.
OK, so we arrived at MCO Monday afternoon and hopped right on the magical express with a simple tap of our wrists at the desk and no more than a pleasantry or two exchanged with the cast member. When we got to the resort we checked in at the front desk (we did not check-in online), got our room assignment, and tapped into the room (we tested both of our bands) with no problems whatsoever.
We headed to our first park, EPCOT, around 4 p.m and purchased 5-day tickets at the ticket window. They gave us a card, which we tapped to enter and then immediately scanned to our account once we got through the gate. This whole process took no longer than 5 minutes. We had only planned on doing World Showcase but checked out the fastpass for Soarin' and Test Track just for the heck of it. They were both still available, so we grabbed a 5:00-6:00 reservation for Test Track. Headed over there at 5:30 and tapped in with no problem and walked straight to the design area with no wait. No problems tapping to design the car and again to retrieve the car before the ride either. The whole process worked flawlessly.
During the rest of the week we visited all four parks and were able to tackle all of the major attractions (and most of the smaller ones, too) using a combination of fastpasses (which we selected each morning on our bus ride over to the park) and stand-by, without ever waiting longer than 20 minutes for anything (except for a 25-minute wait to see Buzz & Woody at Hollywood Studios), and without ever arriving at any park before 11 a.m.
On our fourth day we decided to add a 6th day to our ticket. This took about 3 minutes at the ticket window and worked flawlessly for entrance.
On our fifth day we went to Magic Kingdom and tried our luck with a Be Our Guest lunch fastpass before leaving our room in the morning. At about 9:30 a.m. we successfully made a reservation for 12:05 p.m. and ordered our food without incident. Again, no issues whatsoever.
We charged everything to our room during the whole trip and it was so convenient. We never encountered any grumpy cast members, never got stuck waiting in a long fastpass line, and never even saw anyone else in lines ahead of us having any problems with their bands. Everything worked perfectly.
And to those who will say, "well it's February...": We went to Disney World last year at a very similar time (late January), with very similar weather, nearly identical crowd indicators on easywdw, and we showed up before the park opened every day. We slept late this time, spent less time in line, were able to do a lot more than we did last time, and had a much better experience overall.
So, yeah... FP+/magic band worked for us.
