Magic? Not this time

[yaytezIOA]

We went to Epcot this morning. The last time we did an extended vacation at Disney was in 2000 - when we did 3 days at Universal and 12 days at Disney. Since then we have done extended 7 - 10 day vacations exclusively at Universal. We have gone to Sea World and KSC, but always seemed to run out of time for Disney. We always told ourselves - next time. And since we go so often, we always believed we would go to Disney "next time."

How the kids have changed in 6 years. An hour into Epcot, my kids were begging "can we PLEASE go back to Universal?"

We got there at rope drop. Ran and got fast passes for Mission Space and then got in line for Test Track, which was already at a 50 minute wait. Of course, (not Disney's fault), as soon as we got to the loading area, Test Track goes down. Another half hour wait, and we finally get to ride. It is now 10:45 - only 10 more minutes left on our Mission Space fast pass. I forego Mission Space in order to go pull fast passes for Soarin'. Next available was 3:48 - 4:48. Line for Soarin' was 105 minutes. Lines for everything else were around 45 minutes to an hour.

We decided to go walk to Japan to see if we could move up our Teppanyaki ADR's. Nope - no cancellations, so nothing available. It is now 11:45am and the kids did not want to stay till our 2:15 ADR's. Hulk was calling them

They are soooo spoiled with FOTL. They just did not want to wait in any lines at all. When test track went down, they wanted to leave and just come back. Sorry kids - no can do here. We can't just leave and come back in the Express line.

I was cracking up because my 16 year old teen, who has never read the DIS boards, was making comments much like the most brainwashed Disney addict. He was pointing out all the trash and saying how dirty Epcot was - that Universal was so much cleaner. How old and tired it looked, that there were only little kids and no teens, etc. I then realized I had raised some pretty brainwashed Universal kids

My 10 year old proclaimed Mission Space and Test Track "lame," although Test Track used to be his absolute favorite ride. He has been asking to go back on it since he was 4.

I tried to tell my kids what we tell everyone here - you can't judge Disney on one day or especially just a couple of hours and especially one park. You have to give it a chance. But DH and all the kids (including nieces and nephews) just wanted Mummy, Dueling Dragons and Hulk. Riding in a clam shell to find Nemo had no appeal to them. So we cancelled our ADR's and headed "home."

Yikes - and here I thought I was raising kids who would appreciate ALL the parks in Orlando. But obviously, they are as rabid about Universal as some of the most dedicated Disney people.

Hopefully tonight, when we go back for the big reunion party with the special viewing of Illuminations, they will rediscover at least some of the Disney love they had when they were younger.

But until then, my family just doesn't see the magic at Disney like they do at Universal

 

[lborne]

We had an opposite experience. We've taken our sons (now 3 and 8) to all the parks - Universal, IOA, SeaWorld and Busch Gardens. But by far, we've spent the most time at Disney parks. Last year, my 8yr old begged to go to Universal now that he was able to go on some of the more thrilling rides. We had (and still have) Disney annual passes, so was not interested in spending money on Universal tickets. But, low and behold, Universal sends me a free ticket in the mail with a coupon on the purchase of additional tickets. So for his 8th birthday, I took him for a surprise visit to Universal and IOA.

Now granted, I would never have gone in June on a weekend, but the ticket was about to expire and we had to be in Orlando that night anyway to pick MIL and FIL up at the airport. The lines were long. Very long. They try to sell you a fast pass kind of FOTL ticket (I guess the Front of the Line thing you were talking about - I thought it stood for Fruit of the Loom). First, they wanted an outrageous price for it and second, they could not sell me any as they only sell a certain number each day and were already sold out.

At Disney, my wife and I have a system and we know how to work the fastpasses. We usually go on slow park days and know which rides will have the long lines, etc. I don't think we've ever waited more than 20 minutes for anything at any Disney park. So needless to say, my son was a bit disapointed in how few rides we actually got to go on. After a 60 minute wait for Jurrasic park, he asked if we could go to a Disney park - any Disney park.

However, having said all that, I can see where US and IOA would have more appeal to teens. I especially feel IOA is geared exclusively to teenage boys.

I suppose it is a good thing that not everyone likes just Disney or US, or else the parks would be even more crowded.

Thanks for your report.

 

[yaytezIOA]

Thats lesson one, never go to any park in the summer on a weekend. You are a glutton for punishment. And at disney you have to have a "system" dont you? Otherwise it just doesnt work. Well, I guess we've learned that people do like different things and there are different strokes for different folks.

 

[Disneyfan18951]

Sorry you had such a bad time at Epcot. I hope the rest of the evening was better.

Just as an FYI, you can use a fast pass after to one hour window just not before ie... your return time is 1:00-2:00 and you show up at 2:30 they will still accept the fast pass.

another side note.... If you go often I would skip times like Thanksgiving week it is just way too crowded. We went in 2004 and our last park day was the Saturday before Thanksgiving and I couldn't believe the difference in crowds.

I am heading down 12/2 and am curious was the Wonders of Life pavillion open??

 

[back2disney]

Your kids are probably too old (mid to late teenagers I'm guessing) to appreciate Disney as much anymore.

Disney and Universal are both special in their own way.

If your kids were picky enuough to notice trash then take them to Six Flags for 1/2 a day then they will be dying to go back to disney...

 

[MagicForMe]

Ran and got fast passes for Mission Space

Test Track and Soarin' are the headliners at Epcot. There was no need to run for FPs for Mission Space. The crowds are easily absorbed on that and the lines are rarely long anymore. Also, a little bit of research would have told you that if you got FPs for Test Track early you would (almost certainly) have got 'free' surprise FPs for Mission Space. Happens all the time.

then got in line for Test Track, which was already at a 50 minute wait.

Wow! Was there something unusual happening at Epcot? During the first hour, Test Track is very rarely 50 minutes (unless it's Christmas or peak summer time). That is almost unheard of.

A little bit of research would have told you to get FPs first for Soarin. Practically everyone does that. Then either do TT standby or get FPs as soon as you can (max one hour after your Soarin FPs) and with the TT FPs you have your Mission Space FPs. Simple!

he was pointing out all the trash and saying how dirty Epcot was - that Universal was so much cleaner.

Is this a joke. Epcot is spotlessly clean. Always is. Where exactly was the dirt?

Hopefully tonight, when we go back for the big reunion party with the special viewing of Illuminations, they will rediscover at least some of the Disney love they had when they were younger.

I suspect you'll be back to tell us how bad that was.

One other thing, about the FOTL. That privilege comes if you pay the minimum rate of 250 dollars per night for a Universal hotel room. They stopped doing the free express passes and now charge up to 120 dollars for a family of 4 to get Express passes - and all for only one chance to do each ride.

Disney will never become elitist. They would never isolate their offsite guests like Universal does. They know better than to treat their customers like that. THANK goodness!!

 

[Fan2CSkr]

Test Track and Soarin' are the headliners at Epcot. There was no need to run for FPs for Mission Space. The crowds are easily absorbed on that and the lines are rarely long anymore. Also, a little bit of research would have told you that if you got FPs for Test Track early you would (almost certainly) have got 'free' surprise FPs for Mission Space. Happens all the time.



Wow! Was there something unusual happening at Epcot? During the first hour, Test Track is very rarely 50 minutes (unless it's Christmas or peak summer time). That is almost unheard of.

A little bit of research would have told you to get FPs first for Soarin. Practically everyone does that. Then either do TT standby or get FPs as soon as you can (max one hour after your Soarin FPs) and with the TT FPs you have your Mission Space FPs. Simple!



Is this a joke. Epcot is spotlessly clean. Always is. Where exactly was the dirt?



I suspect you'll be back to tell us how bad that was.

One other thing, about the FOTL. That privilege comes if you pay the minimum rate of 250 dollars per night for a Universal hotel room. They stopped doing the free express passes and now charge up to 120 dollars for a family of 4 to get Express passes - and all for only one chance to do each ride.

Disney will never become elitist. They would never isolate their offsite guests like Universal does. They know better than to treat their customers like that. THANK goodness!!

I paid $149 a night to stay at Royal Pacific last month.

 

[alfredromero1975]

Did you get a chance to visit any other WDW parks? For your family, I think Disney-MGM Studios and Magic Kingdom might be best.

 

[pjhootch]

I tried to tell my kids what we tell everyone here - you can't judge Disney on one day or especially just a couple of hours and especially one park. You have to give it a chance. But DH and all the kids (including nieces and nephews) just wanted Mummy, Dueling Dragons and Hulk. Riding in a clam shell to find Nemo had no appeal to them. So we cancelled our ADR's and headed "home."

You're not alone in this experience. We have gone to Disney every couple of years for about 12 years with our youngest kids. Once or twice we've gone to Disneyland instead, since that is where I grew up and took my grown daughter pretty often. The kids love Disneyland best, even though they went to WDW first. They've always enjoyed the florida trips and have a good time while we're there but it just isn't their first choice anymore.

We've been tossing in a day at Universal since IOA opened, and the kids have increasingly been uninterested in going to WDW. THis year all three want to skip it and just do a couple of days at Universal. Our kids aren't even "spoiled" with FOTL because we haven't stayed on Universal property or payed for the extra pass. They just prefer it all the way around.

 

[tksbaskets]

My teens (almost 16)LOVE Disney but I must admit we send the least amount of time at EPCOT. Perhaps because it's not MY favorite park

They are boys and much prefer the rides at MGM with the Rockin Roller Coaster and TOT. Magic Kingdom and AK are next in that order, although with expedition Everest AK may go up past MK. I'll let you know next month.

We've never taken them anywhere but WDW when we are in Orlando so they have nothing to compare. We do have Cedar Point here so they are coastered to their hearts content in the summer.

As long as DH and I are paying, it will be Disney for our family. We don't want to be anywhere else.

TK

 

[macraven]

i paid $149 for royal pacific last month and last october 05 only paid $179 for hard rock hotel.

don't know when that one poster went and paid $250 a night or which hotel.
portafina bay hotel is cheaper than the hard rock since last year.

when i stay at disney at the values, it's $99 plus tax per night.

i found the hotel at UO much better for the additional 50 i paid there last month.

 

[yaytezIOA]

I suspect you'll be back to tell us how bad that was.

One other thing, about the FOTL. That privilege comes if you pay the minimum rate of 250 dollars per night for a Universal hotel room. They stopped doing the free express passes and now charge up to 120 dollars for a family of 4 to get Express passes - and all for only one chance to do each ride.

Disney will never become elitist. They would never isolate their offsite guests like Universal does. They know better than to treat their customers like that. THANK goodness!!

Illuminations was nice. Not worth the hour long wait to get out of the park at the end of the night, but hey...its a crowd.
As far as the FOTL, there is no need really for it any other time, but we enjoy the relatively cheap prices at the UO resort for its hotels quite often, and FOTL is just an added "bonus". Disney couldnt become "elitist" as they would offend too many of the loyal if they did, and there are just way too many hotels to even try....FP would be an hour long...oh wait...forgot.
We didnt try any other parks because EPCOT was that crazy, and its supposed to be one of the least populated parks. We didnt see a point in AK as we go to Busch Gardens quite often, nor did we see a point at MGM...since it really doesnt seem like that great of a movie park. Thanks though for the suggestion...and maybe I should have bought the books and spent all that money planning out, but again, I thought it was just a theme park. And I enjoyed things myself...never did say that I disliked it..my kids didnt
Some people really do get offended if disney has an off day dont they?

 

[macraven]

i spent 10 full days at disney in late sept/early oct.
i was getting bored on the 6th day. i really enjoyed some of the things such as tower of terror, everest expedition and soaring.

i took busses everywhere and boy, was that time consuming.
it really ate up my park time, nevermind the amount of waiting just to get on the bus.

i went to animal kingdom so i could do the everest ride. left there for the bus stop to get back to my hotel. from my hotel took another bus to get to mgm so i could ride tot....

i know i could have taken a bus from ak direct to mgm but that bus never came. i was at the all star bus stop for 40 minutes before my bus came. the one for mgm never did show up while i was there.

just for me to do 2 special rides it took me over 2 hours just to get to those parks. it's just not worth it. no ride is worth wasting that much time on in mho. i did not want to have to rent a car just to drive to the parks. then i would have to deal with the parking and cost of a rental.
it's not like i could walk to the parks, they are so spread out and that would be impossible. so, i'm stuck with the busses when i am at disney.

i can remember going to disney when it was just the magic kingdom. it was very doable then but it didn't take more than a day to do it all.

it's a shame the bus service is not as dependable to get you where you want to go within a reasonable amount of time.

all that down time really took away from the pleasure of being on vacation.

i almost lost my 5:00pm ohana adr over the bus service. i was at the bus stop at 3:55 one afternoon from my hotel. (when i made my adr, i was told to give myself one hour for transportation to get to the poly for ohana's.)

i guess late afternoon the busses don't run as frequent as the bus did not arrive until 4:25. then it had to stop at the other two sister resorts.
i did not get to the magic kingdom until 4:55. had to run to the monorail to catch the resort line to get to the poly. did not make it to ohana until 5:15.

i checked in and was told i was late but they would seat me if i waited.
i know i was late but did not think it would have taken me from 3:55 until 5:15 using the bus service to reach my destination. that's more than the hour i was told to give myself time for.

i could have taken a taxi from the hotel to the poly. just didn't think it would have been necessary since i was told disney bus service is fine.

it's not easy to relax when you have to worry about "is the bus going to get me there in time" feeling.

 

[Bobb-O]

There is more magic at Universal Studios than at Disney

I think DW fell in love with me again when I said that at Animal Kingdom Lodge. As Universal Studios lovers, we knew we would likely never leave USF to go to WDW, but we figure that we would give it one more try so we planned a special weekend trip. Actually expensive hotel as compared to the Hard Rock but low Delta airfare.

Arrived at Orlando Friday afternoon, got the car, and drove to Animal Kingdom Lodge - nice hotel but just not Hard Rock Hotel. We then drove to City Walk to see show at Hard Rock Live. Realized that we should have stayed at Universal but alas it’s too late.

Two days of parks – day one Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom. Routine rides, plenty of fun, but just not the ambiance at USF. What was most crazy is that Disney doesn’t even have front of line proveledges for on site guests and those fast-pass kiosks empty very quickly. That would never happen at Universal Studios! Actually liked Animal Kingdom but went thru it in about three hours and Magic Kingdom had no magic. It was been there done this before. I could sing the songs because I have heard them for 30 years.

Day two it rained – a lot. We got soaked to the skin. Had to walk across all of EPCOT because you cant get bus at International Gateway (or so they said). Then waited 30 minutes for bus to arrive. That's it, I blow and yell out 'This doesn't happen at Universal Studios.' I know it might, but its never happened to us.

Rest of the trip was fine, We really were not impressed with Animal Kingdom Lodge. The Hotel was very expensive. But, we kept looking northeast. Its not too far is it? DW and I drop hints then finally just say, want to go get dinner at Emeril’s? Our eyes light up! And breakfast at Hard Rock Kitchen before we fly home YES!

So we caved, and saved the vacation. When we made the reservations and the CM didn’t say “Have a magical day” we knew we were home.

Back to HRH (where we belong) in 3 weeks.

 

[Bobb-O]

bump - bump

 

[macraven]

Bobb-O

i absolutely do love the hard rock hotel. it is the best for us, it seems like home.

i do both parks but start with disney and then transfer over to hrh.
i get spoiled by them with the fotl and being called by my name whenever i pick up the phone in my hotel room and just hit the the star key.
it wows me.

i have to end my trips at universal due to the great hotels they have.
i think if i started at universal and then switched to disney resorts, would not work for us. that fotl spoils us.

 

[yaytezIOA]

Its not even the fotl access that does it for me at the hotels. Its just really the overall value of the hotel. I can get a room at say PFB for 169 off peak. Bay view, big room. Plenty for us and the kids. Just the overall atmosphere, the love thats put into it. I just dont feel that at the cookie cutter places, even the moderate ones, at disney.
HRH is reall outstanding because of the fun atmosphere and the steady pace, you feel like you go down to your brothers kitchen with all the stuff they have all the time for the grabbing.
And RPH...just a slow down. Thats all I can say there. I love it. I am very biased, but when you get treated like this you become biased.

 

[jemiaule]

Day two it rained – a lot. We got soaked to the skin. Had to walk across all of EPCOT because you cant get bus at International Gateway (or so they said). Then waited 30 minutes for bus to arrive. That's it, I blow and yell out 'This doesn't happen at Universal Studios.' I know it might, but its never happened to us.

Wow, it doesn't rain at Universal? Whoda thunk?


Sorry, just joshing ya...that just struck me as very, very funny.

 

[the Dark Marauder]

Fascinating...

 

[marivaid]

You'd have to pay me to go back to Universal.We didnt buy the Express thing and waited at least half an hour for each ride.They were not worth it. I thought Twister especially was a complete joke.Waited 35mns to get in, saw a couple trash cans on fire and then when we were shown out, DM and I looked at each other and said at the exact same time, "You gotta be kidding me?".
We tried to see a few shows but the schedules were horrible.The whole day, we were either too early or too late.No time schedule anywhere to be found. No one to help you find one. It was February and the park was not crowded at all, even deserted in some places.
At the end of the day we decided that, alright, we can tell people that we've been to Universal. Can we please GO now? Took the obligatory photo in front of the ball thing and left as fast as we could.

Oh yeah we went back on July 4th to see the fireworks at City Walk. Story time at retirement homes is more exciting than this. They had music blaring from a big boombox and some guys in Mardi Gras costumes (HUH?? It's JULY 4TH!!!).At 10pm DM begged to leave and I was happy to oblige.