BOTL76
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2009
- Messages
- 209
Hello Disney Fans,
Been here since May 2nd, and our trip is winding down, and on our "down day" wanted to share some thoughts on our trip.
This is our 5th trip to Disney since 2007 (3 onsite, 2 offsite).
I will try and keep it focused on some major topics so here goes:
There are 5 of us in our family (adult son 20, daughters 3 and a half, 8 months) and we are joined by relatives with their 5 year old son. Sharing a house offsite at Windsor Hills, our 2nd time at WH.
Staying offsite:
while we love the magic of staying onsite with Disney, we can't beat the price and amenities of staying offsite for our travel party. A 4 bedroom house with our own pool/hot tub at WH for 179 a night. We won't return to onsite until our girls are older and only to use it for a special occasion. The driving time from WH to all Disney locations has ranged from 8 mins (AK) to 17 mins (MK). Very reasonable and we haven't faced any "local" traffic issues.
Weather
after a long winter in Toronto (and I know most have had worse across Canada), we are 28-35C each day here which has been good, but a bit cautious for us with the young ones. Overall I can't complain as this is what we were expecting, and we duly note how much easier it is to get drained from the heat! Overall we have lucked out with only rain on the first 2 days and has been sunny and clear for 4 straight days!
Park/crowd levels
We have visited HS, MK, AK and both I of A and the Studios.
We follow touringplans, and while I understand the science and accuracy of that site, there is something for us to think that a park (MK) rated 3 out of 10 when we went was way more busier than that. Mentally I thought it felt like a 7 or 8 out of 10 just in the sense of the crowds. Yes I know it might have only been a 5 to 8 minute wait more for certain rides, but that adds up and some were easily at 40 minutes plus most of the day.
Of all we visited the Studios was the least busy and had lots of fun going on rides that frequently we walked right up to or a max 10 min wait.
Fastpass +
still a fan of the old school method, but have lucked out that picking in our 30 day window in advance had us set up at all the Disney parks quite well. I know that isn't the case for others, so overall in our first time using it for us it definitely helped. For example we had a FP+ for Winnie the Pooh between 3:30 and 4:30pm yesterday, when we got there for around 4pm the stand by line was well over 35 mins. We got on in 5 mins, perfect for us with the young ones.
Other stuff
Our Adult Son tested the single rider theory for us. He would go single rider while at the same time while another adult family member would go the standby route. We did this for RnRC in HS and transformers in the Studios. Interesting to note that both rides our family member that went through the normal stand by line beat him by at least 10 mins, even 20 mins on RnRC.
We have been the first week of May before. Outside of the much needed heat to get through our winter and cold spring blahs, we think we are going to avoid coming this time of year for how young our girls are. Parks are way more crowded than we expected and just the navigating with 2 strollers is quite a feat on its own to make your way through the parks with how crowded the foot traffic is. We prefer going in November and December (not during any of those respective holidays in those months) so already starting to plan for that!
We flew out of Buffalo on Southwest and saved $650 round trip compared to flying out of Toronto (this includes accounting for the difference in the dollar exchange).
So on this down day going to go jump in the pool now, thanks for letting me share eh!
Been here since May 2nd, and our trip is winding down, and on our "down day" wanted to share some thoughts on our trip.
This is our 5th trip to Disney since 2007 (3 onsite, 2 offsite).
I will try and keep it focused on some major topics so here goes:
There are 5 of us in our family (adult son 20, daughters 3 and a half, 8 months) and we are joined by relatives with their 5 year old son. Sharing a house offsite at Windsor Hills, our 2nd time at WH.
Staying offsite:
while we love the magic of staying onsite with Disney, we can't beat the price and amenities of staying offsite for our travel party. A 4 bedroom house with our own pool/hot tub at WH for 179 a night. We won't return to onsite until our girls are older and only to use it for a special occasion. The driving time from WH to all Disney locations has ranged from 8 mins (AK) to 17 mins (MK). Very reasonable and we haven't faced any "local" traffic issues.
Weather
after a long winter in Toronto (and I know most have had worse across Canada), we are 28-35C each day here which has been good, but a bit cautious for us with the young ones. Overall I can't complain as this is what we were expecting, and we duly note how much easier it is to get drained from the heat! Overall we have lucked out with only rain on the first 2 days and has been sunny and clear for 4 straight days!
Park/crowd levels
We have visited HS, MK, AK and both I of A and the Studios.
We follow touringplans, and while I understand the science and accuracy of that site, there is something for us to think that a park (MK) rated 3 out of 10 when we went was way more busier than that. Mentally I thought it felt like a 7 or 8 out of 10 just in the sense of the crowds. Yes I know it might have only been a 5 to 8 minute wait more for certain rides, but that adds up and some were easily at 40 minutes plus most of the day.
Of all we visited the Studios was the least busy and had lots of fun going on rides that frequently we walked right up to or a max 10 min wait.
Fastpass +
still a fan of the old school method, but have lucked out that picking in our 30 day window in advance had us set up at all the Disney parks quite well. I know that isn't the case for others, so overall in our first time using it for us it definitely helped. For example we had a FP+ for Winnie the Pooh between 3:30 and 4:30pm yesterday, when we got there for around 4pm the stand by line was well over 35 mins. We got on in 5 mins, perfect for us with the young ones.
Other stuff
Our Adult Son tested the single rider theory for us. He would go single rider while at the same time while another adult family member would go the standby route. We did this for RnRC in HS and transformers in the Studios. Interesting to note that both rides our family member that went through the normal stand by line beat him by at least 10 mins, even 20 mins on RnRC.
We have been the first week of May before. Outside of the much needed heat to get through our winter and cold spring blahs, we think we are going to avoid coming this time of year for how young our girls are. Parks are way more crowded than we expected and just the navigating with 2 strollers is quite a feat on its own to make your way through the parks with how crowded the foot traffic is. We prefer going in November and December (not during any of those respective holidays in those months) so already starting to plan for that!
We flew out of Buffalo on Southwest and saved $650 round trip compared to flying out of Toronto (this includes accounting for the difference in the dollar exchange).
So on this down day going to go jump in the pool now, thanks for letting me share eh!
Thanks for sharing! 
