momof4fans
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2013
- Messages
- 489
Hello, I wanted to do a quick mini trip report. Nothing very long as I don't think I can remember it all.
My family consists of myself (Stephanie), my DH (Robb), my DS17 (Sam), DS16 (Matt), DD8 (Kailtin) and DD6 (Lauren). We had 5 day park hoppers from August 2nd - August 6th. We stayed across the street at the Park Vue Inn. This was our 3rd trip since 2011
Crowds: My title says it all! If you aren't there early plan on waiting in long lines. We arrived at the gates at 7:30am each morning. We had access to one Magic Morning but didn't use it. We stayed at the parks too late to make it work. We found that DCA started letting people in several minutes before DL. In DL most people went straight to Peter Pan. In DCA most people went to RSR. We also went to DCA on and EE day (which we didn't have) and had a great morning riding lots of rides. But the people kept flooding in and by early afternoon the lines were getting long. The evening crowds at DL blew our minds! I felt like I was at a European soccer game. Absolutely packed in like sardines. Not enjoyable at all! Scary really.
Food: We had a lot of really good eats on this trip. The places I can remember are:
Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen - Expensive but it was delicious!
Paradise Garden Grill -
Pacific Wharf - Love the bread bowls with soup or salad!
Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta -
Cafe Orleans - Love this place! How can you beat meat in a donut?
Flo's V-8 cafe -
Smoke Jumpers -
Blue Bayou - Highlight of the trip, great meal, awesome ambiance with a water side table.
Wine Country Trattoria - The food is average here, but nice location
The French Market - My DH didn't like it but the rest of us liked it.
My DD's were happy as long as they could get Mac & Cheese, chicken nuggets or spaghetti. Corn Dogs and Churros are also family favs.
Rides: My family basically rides everything. I avoid a few because of motion sickness so I was the FP runner. My DD's weren't quite ready for Screamn' this trip but did everything else. My husband and boys will ride anything. We had quite a few breakdowns this trip. On Tuesday, August 4th we arrived to find Goofy's down, Grizzly River was down when we got to it and Screamn' went down. When our FP for RSR finally matured, it was down too. That was a bummer. Although RSR worked out great because we wanted to ride it at night anyway. On Thursday Screamn' was down again for a long time. My boys never rode it that day. In DL we faired better. Splash was down for a bit one day and Pirates was down also. I had read somewhere that if a ride went down it was a good idea to hover around for a bit. That was good advice as Pirates opened up within a few minutes and we walked right on. We loved Big Thunder but preferred that back as it goes much faster.
Entertainment: We tried really hard to pack a lot of non-ride entertainment in. We all feel like the entertainment aspect of Disney is very special. We saw or did:
Mickey and the Magical Map - Great show! Very entertaining, just the right length, nice theater.
Fantasmic - Great show, super entertaining (better than World of Color) wish we could sit and watch
Aladdin - Amazing show! So well done. I never get tired of watching it. And it's comfy.
Paint the Night Parade - Very neat parade, extremely bright!
Fireworks - Amazing fireworks! The projections are really neat.
Anna & Elsa Boutique - My DD's had a makeover here. It's about half the cost of the BBB so that's a plus but no air conditioning in the salon! What???
Not enough seating for the moms to watch, no Photopass photographer. Great hairstyles! We all liked them so much better than BBB. The stylists were very nice too.
Mickey's Soundsational Parade - A very nice traditional parade.
Pixar Play Parade - I just love this parade! I guess because my DS's grew up watching pixar movies.
The Tiki Room - One of my all time favs. Such a cute show in a nice air conditioned room.
The Animation Academy - They took my favorite thing out of here: The Toy Story Zoetrope. Very sad
Weather: I thought I was going to die from the humidity. We are from the dry, arid desert in Northern Nevada. 60% humidity on a 90 degree day was no bueno!
Even the cool mornings felt muggy. We rode Ariel's a lot
Overall we had an amazing trip. We got there early, rocked the FP's. Got 5 in one day (6 if you count Buzz since it was disconnected.) We rode just about everything we wanted to. We did some things we'd never done like the canoe's and Pirates lair (that was beastly hot but the kids loved it.) We shopped a lot and came home with lots of special things
I had Photopass+ but I don't think there were as many photographers this time around. I avoided getting a picture in front of the castle. There were 10,000 people in the background. I got some good pictures though and I still think it's a deal simply because of the ride photos. I would say 5 days is plenty of time to do just about everything. Id be happy to answer questions if I'm able.
Stephanie
My family consists of myself (Stephanie), my DH (Robb), my DS17 (Sam), DS16 (Matt), DD8 (Kailtin) and DD6 (Lauren). We had 5 day park hoppers from August 2nd - August 6th. We stayed across the street at the Park Vue Inn. This was our 3rd trip since 2011
Crowds: My title says it all! If you aren't there early plan on waiting in long lines. We arrived at the gates at 7:30am each morning. We had access to one Magic Morning but didn't use it. We stayed at the parks too late to make it work. We found that DCA started letting people in several minutes before DL. In DL most people went straight to Peter Pan. In DCA most people went to RSR. We also went to DCA on and EE day (which we didn't have) and had a great morning riding lots of rides. But the people kept flooding in and by early afternoon the lines were getting long. The evening crowds at DL blew our minds! I felt like I was at a European soccer game. Absolutely packed in like sardines. Not enjoyable at all! Scary really.
Food: We had a lot of really good eats on this trip. The places I can remember are:
Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen - Expensive but it was delicious!
Paradise Garden Grill -
Pacific Wharf - Love the bread bowls with soup or salad!
Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta -
Cafe Orleans - Love this place! How can you beat meat in a donut?
Flo's V-8 cafe -
Smoke Jumpers -
Blue Bayou - Highlight of the trip, great meal, awesome ambiance with a water side table.
Wine Country Trattoria - The food is average here, but nice location
The French Market - My DH didn't like it but the rest of us liked it.
My DD's were happy as long as they could get Mac & Cheese, chicken nuggets or spaghetti. Corn Dogs and Churros are also family favs.
Rides: My family basically rides everything. I avoid a few because of motion sickness so I was the FP runner. My DD's weren't quite ready for Screamn' this trip but did everything else. My husband and boys will ride anything. We had quite a few breakdowns this trip. On Tuesday, August 4th we arrived to find Goofy's down, Grizzly River was down when we got to it and Screamn' went down. When our FP for RSR finally matured, it was down too. That was a bummer. Although RSR worked out great because we wanted to ride it at night anyway. On Thursday Screamn' was down again for a long time. My boys never rode it that day. In DL we faired better. Splash was down for a bit one day and Pirates was down also. I had read somewhere that if a ride went down it was a good idea to hover around for a bit. That was good advice as Pirates opened up within a few minutes and we walked right on. We loved Big Thunder but preferred that back as it goes much faster.
Entertainment: We tried really hard to pack a lot of non-ride entertainment in. We all feel like the entertainment aspect of Disney is very special. We saw or did:
Mickey and the Magical Map - Great show! Very entertaining, just the right length, nice theater.
Fantasmic - Great show, super entertaining (better than World of Color) wish we could sit and watch
Aladdin - Amazing show! So well done. I never get tired of watching it. And it's comfy.
Paint the Night Parade - Very neat parade, extremely bright!
Fireworks - Amazing fireworks! The projections are really neat.
Anna & Elsa Boutique - My DD's had a makeover here. It's about half the cost of the BBB so that's a plus but no air conditioning in the salon! What???
Not enough seating for the moms to watch, no Photopass photographer. Great hairstyles! We all liked them so much better than BBB. The stylists were very nice too.Mickey's Soundsational Parade - A very nice traditional parade.
Pixar Play Parade - I just love this parade! I guess because my DS's grew up watching pixar movies.
The Tiki Room - One of my all time favs. Such a cute show in a nice air conditioned room.
The Animation Academy - They took my favorite thing out of here: The Toy Story Zoetrope. Very sad
Weather: I thought I was going to die from the humidity. We are from the dry, arid desert in Northern Nevada. 60% humidity on a 90 degree day was no bueno!
Even the cool mornings felt muggy. We rode Ariel's a lot Overall we had an amazing trip. We got there early, rocked the FP's. Got 5 in one day (6 if you count Buzz since it was disconnected.) We rode just about everything we wanted to. We did some things we'd never done like the canoe's and Pirates lair (that was beastly hot but the kids loved it.) We shopped a lot and came home with lots of special things
I had Photopass+ but I don't think there were as many photographers this time around. I avoided getting a picture in front of the castle. There were 10,000 people in the background. I got some good pictures though and I still think it's a deal simply because of the ride photos. I would say 5 days is plenty of time to do just about everything. Id be happy to answer questions if I'm able.Stephanie
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