Luv Bunnies
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2006
- Messages
- 9,136
We just got home late last night from a 10-day trip. A few quick thoughts/observations:
- This was our first off-site stay in a townhome at Windsor Hills. It was awesome. I don't think we will ever stay on-site again with our entire family. There were five of us for most of the trip - DH, myself, two teenaged boys and my sister. With three bedrooms and three bathroom, everyone had their own space. On break days, it was nice to just hang around the living room. The boys had a PS2 in their room and enjoyed retreating upstairs to play games. I loved, loved, loved having a washer/dryer for such a long trip. We did laundry at least every other day. It was easy to wash clothes or towels and nice not to have piles of dirty stuff sitting around.
- I had purposely planned the trip for early August rather than July to avoid the tour groups. My strategy worked. Our first park day was August 1 at Epcot. I saw one group of girls with matching backpacks, but they weren't touring as a group. They were in smaller groups of 4-6. I would seem them occasionally in line for a ride. We saw them together at the end of the day in line for Spaceship Earth, but we were leaving the park at that point. The next day, I saw one tour guide with a flag at DHS, but she didn't have a group with her. They must have been around somewhere but we didn't see them. By August 3rd at MK, we didn't see any groups or flags anywhere. I guess they had all gone home by then.
- Fastpass - Since we were staying offsite, we didn't have FP+ or access to EMH. It didn't affect us at all. We planned our park visits for non-EMH days. We were able to get FPs whenever we needed them. The FP lines moved quickly. In many cases, FP was practically a walk-on when the stand-by line was an hour or more. It's not hard to use FPs within the one-hour window as long as you do a little planning. If we had a lunch ADR, we simply didn't get an FP that would conflict with it. Also, at DHS, we skipped the morning run for TSM FPs. Instead we started at TOT and RNR. By the time we made it to the TSM FP machines, there were no lines and the return time was still reasonable (around 3:00 p.m.).
- Weather - It was hot, hot, hotter! We've lived in the San Francisco Bay Area all our lives and we are self-proclaimed weather wimps. We only have a few little heat waves each year and we usually have near zero humidity. We are simply not accustomed to the kind of heat and humidity during a Florida summer. Still, we chose to travel in August since our boys are both in school and I work on a school schedule. We carried little fans that we used frequently when standing in lines. The heat seems to be worse when you're not moving. My sister and I bought magic towels and carried them in ziplocks. It's nice to have something wet and cool to wipe your face once in a while. We wet them down in restrooms and sometimes dropped a few ice cubes in the bags.
We were expecting the afternoon thunder showers, and we got caught in several. We had cheap rain ponchos and got used to ducking under an overhang when it starting raining hard. We only had one huge shower at Epcot last week that soaked us despite the ponchos. We needed to get to Soarin to use our FPs on time, so we just put on the ponchos and slogged through the puddles. As my sister put it, it was an adventure! Other days, it rained a little but didn't bother us. It's kind of nice to get rained on a little when you're so hot.
Overall - We had a great time. The parks were crowded, but we were still able to get things done. Having lunchtime ADRs is essential if you want to eat in a particular restaurant. They were turning away walk-ins everywhere we went. We had lunch ADRs at the Plaza, Yak and Yeti and Sci-Fi. It's so nice to sit down mid-day in the AC and not have to fight counter service lines to get food. We took the Monorail one day from MK to the Contemporary and had lunch at the quick service place. It was quiet, not crowded, and cool there. Nice break from a very busy park.
We're talking about taking another trip when DS14 graduates from high school. He's just starting his freshman year next week. A trip for us means a cross-country trek so we don't do it very often. Next trip: Disneyland at the end of next year for my birthday. I will start planning that trip now!
- This was our first off-site stay in a townhome at Windsor Hills. It was awesome. I don't think we will ever stay on-site again with our entire family. There were five of us for most of the trip - DH, myself, two teenaged boys and my sister. With three bedrooms and three bathroom, everyone had their own space. On break days, it was nice to just hang around the living room. The boys had a PS2 in their room and enjoyed retreating upstairs to play games. I loved, loved, loved having a washer/dryer for such a long trip. We did laundry at least every other day. It was easy to wash clothes or towels and nice not to have piles of dirty stuff sitting around.
- I had purposely planned the trip for early August rather than July to avoid the tour groups. My strategy worked. Our first park day was August 1 at Epcot. I saw one group of girls with matching backpacks, but they weren't touring as a group. They were in smaller groups of 4-6. I would seem them occasionally in line for a ride. We saw them together at the end of the day in line for Spaceship Earth, but we were leaving the park at that point. The next day, I saw one tour guide with a flag at DHS, but she didn't have a group with her. They must have been around somewhere but we didn't see them. By August 3rd at MK, we didn't see any groups or flags anywhere. I guess they had all gone home by then.
- Fastpass - Since we were staying offsite, we didn't have FP+ or access to EMH. It didn't affect us at all. We planned our park visits for non-EMH days. We were able to get FPs whenever we needed them. The FP lines moved quickly. In many cases, FP was practically a walk-on when the stand-by line was an hour or more. It's not hard to use FPs within the one-hour window as long as you do a little planning. If we had a lunch ADR, we simply didn't get an FP that would conflict with it. Also, at DHS, we skipped the morning run for TSM FPs. Instead we started at TOT and RNR. By the time we made it to the TSM FP machines, there were no lines and the return time was still reasonable (around 3:00 p.m.).
- Weather - It was hot, hot, hotter! We've lived in the San Francisco Bay Area all our lives and we are self-proclaimed weather wimps. We only have a few little heat waves each year and we usually have near zero humidity. We are simply not accustomed to the kind of heat and humidity during a Florida summer. Still, we chose to travel in August since our boys are both in school and I work on a school schedule. We carried little fans that we used frequently when standing in lines. The heat seems to be worse when you're not moving. My sister and I bought magic towels and carried them in ziplocks. It's nice to have something wet and cool to wipe your face once in a while. We wet them down in restrooms and sometimes dropped a few ice cubes in the bags.
We were expecting the afternoon thunder showers, and we got caught in several. We had cheap rain ponchos and got used to ducking under an overhang when it starting raining hard. We only had one huge shower at Epcot last week that soaked us despite the ponchos. We needed to get to Soarin to use our FPs on time, so we just put on the ponchos and slogged through the puddles. As my sister put it, it was an adventure! Other days, it rained a little but didn't bother us. It's kind of nice to get rained on a little when you're so hot.
Overall - We had a great time. The parks were crowded, but we were still able to get things done. Having lunchtime ADRs is essential if you want to eat in a particular restaurant. They were turning away walk-ins everywhere we went. We had lunch ADRs at the Plaza, Yak and Yeti and Sci-Fi. It's so nice to sit down mid-day in the AC and not have to fight counter service lines to get food. We took the Monorail one day from MK to the Contemporary and had lunch at the quick service place. It was quiet, not crowded, and cool there. Nice break from a very busy park.
We're talking about taking another trip when DS14 graduates from high school. He's just starting his freshman year next week. A trip for us means a cross-country trek so we don't do it very often. Next trip: Disneyland at the end of next year for my birthday. I will start planning that trip now!
