IHaveAFatCat
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2011
- Messages
- 31
So, if you are "not a Disney person" and have been wondering about going or not? Are you really missing out on something? Is it worth it? etc? etc? Here are my overall impressions of my trip:
Of course I should clarify I am not a disney person - not much of a fan of the movies or characters. Never went as a kid. Husband never went as a kid. Neither of us never had a desire to go. We looked into going in the past and whenever we saw the prices on the website for the whole package, we never wanted to spend that much. But we had racked up so many points that we realized we could use free airfare, 8 nights in a hotel free, and a free rental car for a week. So, no brainer, we decided to go since the kids are good ages and had heard so much about it from friends and thought it was "THE" place to go.
Overall, thumbs up! It was fun! If you have a chance to go and it's in your budget, do it! Go with the flow, and enjoy!!
But I would not say it was the "greatest" vacation. It is hard for Disney to live up to all the hype. If I had paid full-price for the whole week, I think I might have felt a bit ripped-off. But at the same time, knowing what I know now, I could probably go again and have more fun and be ok with the cost of everything. But, I'd be ok never going again either.
My honest advice to someone who finds the cost of a Disney vacation to really be a stretch - skip it and don't ever think twice about what you're missing. You can go on better rides with minimal wait and have more fun at any small, local ride park. You can get better food at restaurants in your own area or at most other vacation spots. You can get Disney paraphernalia at any mall store or on line. You can have just as much family fun and a more relaxing time on any other vacation. Don't break the bank, you will probably be let down.
On my trip, the drawbacks were that we were staying off park. BUT knowing what I know now and how we like to vacation, I'd probably still stay off park and probably rent a condo for the space, kitchen and laundry. But I certainly can't complain about being off park because thanks to free points, we were in a mini suite with kitchenette and the hotel had free breakfasts. We ate breakfast there every morning and only kept a few drinks and snacks in the room. We were gone by 8am daily and returned to room by 8pm on average - so literally only slept and showered there! Laundry facility would be nice in order to pack incredibly light and do a load of laundry mid-trip.
I think you would have a blast if you just went full-tilt and stayed in a luxury Disney resort and had enough advance time to get some good restaurant reservations. I think the moderate disney resorts are probably worth it, but also probably equal in quality to off-park accommodations. And cost-wise I bet you can do better off-park. If you're looking to go budget, I think I'd definitely do the budget Disney hotels and a meal plan over off-park, cheap hotels - my guess is the cleanliness, niceness of pools, security staff at Disney, and convenience of busses and monorail is going to be better than any budget, off-park hotel.
Truth be told, park food is crummy. Just realize you'll be eating chicken fingers or burgers or iceburg lettuce with chicken daily. Yes, the food is over-priced for the quality, but it's typical vacation spot prices, if you ask me. We aren't big eaters, so we didn't load up on ordering at the counter service places and we didn't feel it was too expensive. I carried mini water bottles in my backpack thru the park and it was no hassle to carry and it did save us since water bottles were, I think, $2.75 at the parks. If you go in the heat of summer, I think you'd go thru a lot more water than we did. But I also had no problem paying like $6 for a slushi or an ice cream if kids wanted it - it's vacation after all. I carried some slimjims and mini cliff bars and while we'd have been fine without them, but I think they did diffuse a near melt down once or twice as a distraction to hand to a kid. The sit-down restaurants in the parks are nothing special either. The food is on par with something like a TGIFridays but the cost is higher. Just suck up the cost and eat the not-so-great food, you'll feel better after sitting for a bit and having someone serve you anyway. We did not do any of the resort restaurants (because we booked the entire trip just a few weeks prior to going and didn't know people make dinner reservations 180 days in advance! and also didn't want to pack nicer clothes) and while their menus definitely look better, the cost seems high compared to restaurants I'd eat at in Boston for the quality, but whatever, it's vacation.
I LOVED Downtown Disney for the evening atmosphere and we ate there 3 nights. I liked going in and out of shops and we aren't big buyers, and my kids did not even want t-shirts or much stuff, so we didn't spend big here either. You can save money on meals here if you do the counter service like Wolfgang Puck express or the Earl of Sandwich. But again, we are not big eaters, so the one night at Wolfgang Puck Express, dh and I got a salad each, split a pizza, and we got 2 kids' pizzas and they still didn't finish them between 3 kids. Kids' meals came with a milk or juice, I paid for one extra juice, dh got a soda, and I drank a water still in my bag and I think the entire meal for 5 cost only $60! But then we got sundaes at Ghirardelli for about $8 each! Yum! We tried some Cuban restaurant which was good. We ate at a mexican restaurant in Epcot which was good. We ate at Yak and Yeti in Animal Kingdom and it was good. We did not do any character meals. No meals "stood out" in terms of deliciousness, basically it's just food and you're tired and glad to be sitting down. I guess my favorite meal besides Ghirardelli ice cream was a sandwich from Earl of Sandwich! Second would be the chinese dumplings at the food festival stand in Epcot. Dh and I could have passed on our sit down mexican dinner at Epcot and just done the food festival stands all day, but the kids weren't into that and needed to sit and eat by them. I think the restaurant menus at Epcot in general looked the best out of all the parks.
The parks are interesting. I thought the feel of the crowds at the parks really varied. Epcot is more adults and seemed like a higher class of folks, lots of Europeans here too. Then Animal Kingdom crowds looked a little more intelligent on average. Magic Kingdom, well, let's just say you see the real America! Be prepared for INSANE crowds at the parade and fireworks and do your best to avoid fist fights breaking out upon exiting the park after fireworks! Just know it'll take over an hour to exit the park, so go with the flow and smile and be polite or else someone might punch you trying to get on the monorail! We went from October 14 - 22, and while I have no basis for comparison, if that is considered a non-crowded time, then I can't imagine going at a more crowded time, just would not be my idea of fun for a vacation.
For parks we went to Animal Kingdom first and it was a good place to start because it's small and supposedly doesn't get as crowded. It was perfect, saw tons of animals, except for the Dinosaur ride that freaked kids out for rest of trip so we had to do a lot of strong encouraging to get them on lots of other rides. Went to Magic Kingdom second day. Fun, but the rides are honestly really tame and especially the very little kid rides have insane wait times for like a 30 second ride. Pretty much every ride ends in a souvenir store, and thankfully my kids aren't that into Disney stuff and also don't throw fits if I say no. Younger dd and ds got a buch of trinket stuff. Oldest ds wanted nothing but a trip to the Lego store on the day we returned home - gotta love him! Luckily, the kids weren't into character greets and autographs - I was happy about this and would not want to spend my days waiting in lines to see characters. DD did pin trading and it was fun. I think I paid about $40 for her lanyard and pins to start, but she and I had fun getting trades. DH and I liked Epcot best and I could see adults going alone and having a great time there. The kids thought it was good. There are some good rides and the waits were short. The one inside the golf ball is actually cute because they make this little video of you at the end. DD went on it with me 3 times for the video! A lot of the rides in the parks aren't so much rides as just sitting in a moving cart and watching animatronics stuff. A lot of it is looking pretty out-dated, if you ask me.
Non-Disney stuff: LOVED Gatorland. Cost $91 for a family of 5. All my kids were too small for the zip line weight limit, so saved money on that. They didn't care about the train so saved money on that. Feeding the gators is awesome so definitely pay for the hot dogs and feed. Lots of other animals, neat to see, we like that kind of stuff. This is the only place I bought a tshirt for myself. The shows are funny - gator handlers play up a red-neck stereotype.
LOVED Discovery Cove. Pricey, but worth it. Get there before the doors open so you get an early dolphin swim time. The lagoon for snorkeling is so neat. The manta rays are awesome. I've never done "real" snorkeling so this just made me want to book a vacation to someplace in the islands. The food is kinda bad for what you are paying, but you get breakfast and lunch and it's all you can eat or drink. I believe the drinks (alcohol) were free too, so you could really get your money's worth on beer, but dh and I didn't have a drink. If you really wanted to get your money's worth, you could eat lunch twice, at like 11am and again at 3pm... but again, we're not big eaters. I did notice people loading up on the free bags of chips and the granola bars and bottled water... so you could score on snacks for your hotel room if you're into that. We left at 5pm and ended up at Downtown Disney again that night for dinner.
Kennedy Space Center was not worth it. Maybe we were just having an off-day, but I thought it was so out-dated. I can't understand how they can make a fascinating topic so boring. My son totally wanted to go after doing a report on Neil Armstrong, studying in school, etc, but my kids wanted to leave after about an hour of being there! Plus two things were closed - the early space exploration exhibit and the meet an astronaut - so we felt ripped off. We ended up driving around the preserve land nearby and saw manatees and walked on the beach. We saw a gator on the side of the road and tons of birds.
We had free tickets for either SeaWorld or Aquatica from the Discovery Cove visit, but we didn't have time for either one and WISH we could take the KSC day back to do one of those instead. We never made it to Hollywood Studios (and didn't get a water park tickets for any of the Disney water parks) because kids wanted to do Magic Kingdom again on last day. Our week looked like this: 1) Animal Kingdom, 2) Magic Kingdom, 3) Discovery Cove, 4) Kennedy Space Center, 5) morning at Gatorland and afternoon-to-fireworks at Magic Kingdom, 6) Epcot, 7) Magic Kingdom.
If we were to do it again, I think I'd get tickets to Cirque du Soleil and the pirates dinner show. We opted out of that because we thought we'd be so exhausted from the parks that it would end up being just a very expensive nap for the kids! But, I think they could have managed it in retrospect.
This may sound like a negative trip report but I don't mean to be at all - like I said, we had FUN! Almost enough fun to actually considering going again and paying full price!! But if you're a non-Disney person, I think you'll appreciate the honest opinions.
Of course I should clarify I am not a disney person - not much of a fan of the movies or characters. Never went as a kid. Husband never went as a kid. Neither of us never had a desire to go. We looked into going in the past and whenever we saw the prices on the website for the whole package, we never wanted to spend that much. But we had racked up so many points that we realized we could use free airfare, 8 nights in a hotel free, and a free rental car for a week. So, no brainer, we decided to go since the kids are good ages and had heard so much about it from friends and thought it was "THE" place to go.
Overall, thumbs up! It was fun! If you have a chance to go and it's in your budget, do it! Go with the flow, and enjoy!!
But I would not say it was the "greatest" vacation. It is hard for Disney to live up to all the hype. If I had paid full-price for the whole week, I think I might have felt a bit ripped-off. But at the same time, knowing what I know now, I could probably go again and have more fun and be ok with the cost of everything. But, I'd be ok never going again either.
My honest advice to someone who finds the cost of a Disney vacation to really be a stretch - skip it and don't ever think twice about what you're missing. You can go on better rides with minimal wait and have more fun at any small, local ride park. You can get better food at restaurants in your own area or at most other vacation spots. You can get Disney paraphernalia at any mall store or on line. You can have just as much family fun and a more relaxing time on any other vacation. Don't break the bank, you will probably be let down.
On my trip, the drawbacks were that we were staying off park. BUT knowing what I know now and how we like to vacation, I'd probably still stay off park and probably rent a condo for the space, kitchen and laundry. But I certainly can't complain about being off park because thanks to free points, we were in a mini suite with kitchenette and the hotel had free breakfasts. We ate breakfast there every morning and only kept a few drinks and snacks in the room. We were gone by 8am daily and returned to room by 8pm on average - so literally only slept and showered there! Laundry facility would be nice in order to pack incredibly light and do a load of laundry mid-trip.
I think you would have a blast if you just went full-tilt and stayed in a luxury Disney resort and had enough advance time to get some good restaurant reservations. I think the moderate disney resorts are probably worth it, but also probably equal in quality to off-park accommodations. And cost-wise I bet you can do better off-park. If you're looking to go budget, I think I'd definitely do the budget Disney hotels and a meal plan over off-park, cheap hotels - my guess is the cleanliness, niceness of pools, security staff at Disney, and convenience of busses and monorail is going to be better than any budget, off-park hotel.
Truth be told, park food is crummy. Just realize you'll be eating chicken fingers or burgers or iceburg lettuce with chicken daily. Yes, the food is over-priced for the quality, but it's typical vacation spot prices, if you ask me. We aren't big eaters, so we didn't load up on ordering at the counter service places and we didn't feel it was too expensive. I carried mini water bottles in my backpack thru the park and it was no hassle to carry and it did save us since water bottles were, I think, $2.75 at the parks. If you go in the heat of summer, I think you'd go thru a lot more water than we did. But I also had no problem paying like $6 for a slushi or an ice cream if kids wanted it - it's vacation after all. I carried some slimjims and mini cliff bars and while we'd have been fine without them, but I think they did diffuse a near melt down once or twice as a distraction to hand to a kid. The sit-down restaurants in the parks are nothing special either. The food is on par with something like a TGIFridays but the cost is higher. Just suck up the cost and eat the not-so-great food, you'll feel better after sitting for a bit and having someone serve you anyway. We did not do any of the resort restaurants (because we booked the entire trip just a few weeks prior to going and didn't know people make dinner reservations 180 days in advance! and also didn't want to pack nicer clothes) and while their menus definitely look better, the cost seems high compared to restaurants I'd eat at in Boston for the quality, but whatever, it's vacation.
I LOVED Downtown Disney for the evening atmosphere and we ate there 3 nights. I liked going in and out of shops and we aren't big buyers, and my kids did not even want t-shirts or much stuff, so we didn't spend big here either. You can save money on meals here if you do the counter service like Wolfgang Puck express or the Earl of Sandwich. But again, we are not big eaters, so the one night at Wolfgang Puck Express, dh and I got a salad each, split a pizza, and we got 2 kids' pizzas and they still didn't finish them between 3 kids. Kids' meals came with a milk or juice, I paid for one extra juice, dh got a soda, and I drank a water still in my bag and I think the entire meal for 5 cost only $60! But then we got sundaes at Ghirardelli for about $8 each! Yum! We tried some Cuban restaurant which was good. We ate at a mexican restaurant in Epcot which was good. We ate at Yak and Yeti in Animal Kingdom and it was good. We did not do any character meals. No meals "stood out" in terms of deliciousness, basically it's just food and you're tired and glad to be sitting down. I guess my favorite meal besides Ghirardelli ice cream was a sandwich from Earl of Sandwich! Second would be the chinese dumplings at the food festival stand in Epcot. Dh and I could have passed on our sit down mexican dinner at Epcot and just done the food festival stands all day, but the kids weren't into that and needed to sit and eat by them. I think the restaurant menus at Epcot in general looked the best out of all the parks.
The parks are interesting. I thought the feel of the crowds at the parks really varied. Epcot is more adults and seemed like a higher class of folks, lots of Europeans here too. Then Animal Kingdom crowds looked a little more intelligent on average. Magic Kingdom, well, let's just say you see the real America! Be prepared for INSANE crowds at the parade and fireworks and do your best to avoid fist fights breaking out upon exiting the park after fireworks! Just know it'll take over an hour to exit the park, so go with the flow and smile and be polite or else someone might punch you trying to get on the monorail! We went from October 14 - 22, and while I have no basis for comparison, if that is considered a non-crowded time, then I can't imagine going at a more crowded time, just would not be my idea of fun for a vacation.
For parks we went to Animal Kingdom first and it was a good place to start because it's small and supposedly doesn't get as crowded. It was perfect, saw tons of animals, except for the Dinosaur ride that freaked kids out for rest of trip so we had to do a lot of strong encouraging to get them on lots of other rides. Went to Magic Kingdom second day. Fun, but the rides are honestly really tame and especially the very little kid rides have insane wait times for like a 30 second ride. Pretty much every ride ends in a souvenir store, and thankfully my kids aren't that into Disney stuff and also don't throw fits if I say no. Younger dd and ds got a buch of trinket stuff. Oldest ds wanted nothing but a trip to the Lego store on the day we returned home - gotta love him! Luckily, the kids weren't into character greets and autographs - I was happy about this and would not want to spend my days waiting in lines to see characters. DD did pin trading and it was fun. I think I paid about $40 for her lanyard and pins to start, but she and I had fun getting trades. DH and I liked Epcot best and I could see adults going alone and having a great time there. The kids thought it was good. There are some good rides and the waits were short. The one inside the golf ball is actually cute because they make this little video of you at the end. DD went on it with me 3 times for the video! A lot of the rides in the parks aren't so much rides as just sitting in a moving cart and watching animatronics stuff. A lot of it is looking pretty out-dated, if you ask me.
Non-Disney stuff: LOVED Gatorland. Cost $91 for a family of 5. All my kids were too small for the zip line weight limit, so saved money on that. They didn't care about the train so saved money on that. Feeding the gators is awesome so definitely pay for the hot dogs and feed. Lots of other animals, neat to see, we like that kind of stuff. This is the only place I bought a tshirt for myself. The shows are funny - gator handlers play up a red-neck stereotype.
LOVED Discovery Cove. Pricey, but worth it. Get there before the doors open so you get an early dolphin swim time. The lagoon for snorkeling is so neat. The manta rays are awesome. I've never done "real" snorkeling so this just made me want to book a vacation to someplace in the islands. The food is kinda bad for what you are paying, but you get breakfast and lunch and it's all you can eat or drink. I believe the drinks (alcohol) were free too, so you could really get your money's worth on beer, but dh and I didn't have a drink. If you really wanted to get your money's worth, you could eat lunch twice, at like 11am and again at 3pm... but again, we're not big eaters. I did notice people loading up on the free bags of chips and the granola bars and bottled water... so you could score on snacks for your hotel room if you're into that. We left at 5pm and ended up at Downtown Disney again that night for dinner.
Kennedy Space Center was not worth it. Maybe we were just having an off-day, but I thought it was so out-dated. I can't understand how they can make a fascinating topic so boring. My son totally wanted to go after doing a report on Neil Armstrong, studying in school, etc, but my kids wanted to leave after about an hour of being there! Plus two things were closed - the early space exploration exhibit and the meet an astronaut - so we felt ripped off. We ended up driving around the preserve land nearby and saw manatees and walked on the beach. We saw a gator on the side of the road and tons of birds.
We had free tickets for either SeaWorld or Aquatica from the Discovery Cove visit, but we didn't have time for either one and WISH we could take the KSC day back to do one of those instead. We never made it to Hollywood Studios (and didn't get a water park tickets for any of the Disney water parks) because kids wanted to do Magic Kingdom again on last day. Our week looked like this: 1) Animal Kingdom, 2) Magic Kingdom, 3) Discovery Cove, 4) Kennedy Space Center, 5) morning at Gatorland and afternoon-to-fireworks at Magic Kingdom, 6) Epcot, 7) Magic Kingdom.
If we were to do it again, I think I'd get tickets to Cirque du Soleil and the pirates dinner show. We opted out of that because we thought we'd be so exhausted from the parks that it would end up being just a very expensive nap for the kids! But, I think they could have managed it in retrospect.
This may sound like a negative trip report but I don't mean to be at all - like I said, we had FUN! Almost enough fun to actually considering going again and paying full price!! But if you're a non-Disney person, I think you'll appreciate the honest opinions.
