pixarmom
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2009
- Messages
- 6,932
Thanks to everyone for all the great advice on this board! We are the WDW vets / Newport Beach regulars who visited DL from August 21-23 before our week at Newport. Here's our list of thoughts and thanks:
1) GCH. Wow - how close can one possibly be to the parks? Great location, and location is the most important factor to us in choosing a resort. Thanks to everyone on this board and that thread for the information and advice!
2) Early mornings/wait times. You all are not kidding - seems like nobody wakes up early at DL. We were at DL on Sunday morning at 6:30am and we were the only people in line at security. It was our boys' first visit, so they were super excited when a CM asked our family to open the park! Our oldest was the first through the turnstiles and I have wonderful video of our boys going down main street with nobody else around them. It was an amazing first visit! We thought it might get crowded after MM, but no! We walked onto rides (all the FL rides, Splash, Haunted Mansion, Pirates,, Buzz, everything!) for hours after opening. Amazing! The next morning, we walked onto Nemo and Buzz, and then got over to DCA for rope drop and walked on to Toy Story. With the exception of ToT, the wait times were great the entire trip. Thanks to everyone who encouraged us to use our WDW strategies and not give up on an August DL visit!
3) DCA is WONDERFUL! We loved it. Perfect for all of our boys - ages pre-school to pre-teen - something for everyone. Our boys all labeled the Pixar Parade "the best parade ever." And they usually dislike parades - so this is a huge compliment coming from them. I couldn't believe that we could get a front row spot for the parade on a Saturday in August by arriving just 5 minutes before the parade started. They also loved Glow Fest, even though I thought I would want to stay away - the music was peppy, and I thought the atmosphere was very appropriate for our pre-teens. Finally, after months of our oldest saying he didn't want to see WOC, he changed his mind less than 48 hours before arrival. Thanks to these boards, we followed the directions for getting FPs for the 11:15 show and the directions for getting a spot in the wet zone - WOW - they loved it. We pulled FPs at 5pm with no wait and by showtime we had an unobstructed view in the wet zone. Again, they dislike shows of any kind, so this means a lot coming from them. Thank you!!!
4) Rides in general. We are still loyal to WDW, but we preferred so many of the actual rides at DL. Splash is the first example that comes to mind, but most rides were either tied or better than WDW in our opinion.
5) Crowd control. I was thinking it was going to be crowded and miserable, and I was entirely surprised. Even when crowds got heavy at night, DL had very easy paths for people moving around. Never felt stuck or boxed in, which was great - because we've felt that way in Magic Kingdom at night and were nervous about nights at DL and DCA. So we were very impressed by crowd management at DL.
6) Premier Pass. Not a single problem with my Premier Pass. Everyone recognized it and processed the discount efficiently. I upgraded from my WDW AP, so I don't have a photo. As a result, I needed to show my ID a couple times, but I didn't mind that at all. One CM said that if I don't want to show my ID, I could go to AP processing to get a photo, but that was optional.
I won't go too much into negatives, but we had some not-so-great experiences with CMs, the GCH pool was crazy crowded and we found the ToT fastpass line to be not-so-great (others agreed, including several guests who responded to that with profanity.)
The WDW/DL comparison: Most will have a favorite, and much of the reason we are a WDW family is that we have a family history together there. There are many things that we like more at WDW, and a few things we like better at DL. But we absolutely loved our DL visit - it exceeded our expectations! We'll be back to DL again after Cars Land opens. Thanks again to everyone!
1) GCH. Wow - how close can one possibly be to the parks? Great location, and location is the most important factor to us in choosing a resort. Thanks to everyone on this board and that thread for the information and advice!
2) Early mornings/wait times. You all are not kidding - seems like nobody wakes up early at DL. We were at DL on Sunday morning at 6:30am and we were the only people in line at security. It was our boys' first visit, so they were super excited when a CM asked our family to open the park! Our oldest was the first through the turnstiles and I have wonderful video of our boys going down main street with nobody else around them. It was an amazing first visit! We thought it might get crowded after MM, but no! We walked onto rides (all the FL rides, Splash, Haunted Mansion, Pirates,, Buzz, everything!) for hours after opening. Amazing! The next morning, we walked onto Nemo and Buzz, and then got over to DCA for rope drop and walked on to Toy Story. With the exception of ToT, the wait times were great the entire trip. Thanks to everyone who encouraged us to use our WDW strategies and not give up on an August DL visit!
3) DCA is WONDERFUL! We loved it. Perfect for all of our boys - ages pre-school to pre-teen - something for everyone. Our boys all labeled the Pixar Parade "the best parade ever." And they usually dislike parades - so this is a huge compliment coming from them. I couldn't believe that we could get a front row spot for the parade on a Saturday in August by arriving just 5 minutes before the parade started. They also loved Glow Fest, even though I thought I would want to stay away - the music was peppy, and I thought the atmosphere was very appropriate for our pre-teens. Finally, after months of our oldest saying he didn't want to see WOC, he changed his mind less than 48 hours before arrival. Thanks to these boards, we followed the directions for getting FPs for the 11:15 show and the directions for getting a spot in the wet zone - WOW - they loved it. We pulled FPs at 5pm with no wait and by showtime we had an unobstructed view in the wet zone. Again, they dislike shows of any kind, so this means a lot coming from them. Thank you!!!
4) Rides in general. We are still loyal to WDW, but we preferred so many of the actual rides at DL. Splash is the first example that comes to mind, but most rides were either tied or better than WDW in our opinion.
5) Crowd control. I was thinking it was going to be crowded and miserable, and I was entirely surprised. Even when crowds got heavy at night, DL had very easy paths for people moving around. Never felt stuck or boxed in, which was great - because we've felt that way in Magic Kingdom at night and were nervous about nights at DL and DCA. So we were very impressed by crowd management at DL.
6) Premier Pass. Not a single problem with my Premier Pass. Everyone recognized it and processed the discount efficiently. I upgraded from my WDW AP, so I don't have a photo. As a result, I needed to show my ID a couple times, but I didn't mind that at all. One CM said that if I don't want to show my ID, I could go to AP processing to get a photo, but that was optional.
I won't go too much into negatives, but we had some not-so-great experiences with CMs, the GCH pool was crazy crowded and we found the ToT fastpass line to be not-so-great (others agreed, including several guests who responded to that with profanity.)
The WDW/DL comparison: Most will have a favorite, and much of the reason we are a WDW family is that we have a family history together there. There are many things that we like more at WDW, and a few things we like better at DL. But we absolutely loved our DL visit - it exceeded our expectations! We'll be back to DL again after Cars Land opens. Thanks again to everyone!
