Two Trips: Prizefight!

[KristaMV]

After reading and following so many threads, I thought I'd post my own trip report, as I'm in the position that my family took two trips within a few months of each other, but did things very differently. The contrast really provided me with lots of insight regarding what worked better, at least for our family.

For some background, we're a family of 4 (DH, me, and 5 year old twin girls). We traveled in September, 2013 for our first family trip to Disney World, and then again in January, 2014 for a conference.

Both trips were similar length (6 vs. 7 days), we stayed on property for both, and visited the 4 major parks but not the water parks. But the similarities end there...

Things we did differently:
Disney transportation only vs. renting a car
Caribbean Beach Resort vs. Art of Animation
Dining plan vs. not
In-laws vs. just the family
Stroller rental vs. bring our own
September vs. January
Legacy FP vs. FP+
No magic bands vs. magic bands

just to name a few.

So I plan to contrast as many of those differences as I can, and maybe help a few families planning future trips that are debating some of these things!

--Krista

 

[KristaMV]

Magical Express vs. rental car - Arrival

So, you might have various different reasons for getting a rental car; what I want to talk about here is purely the arrival experience when you use Magical Express or rent a car.

Magical Express (September):
In September, we used only Disney transportation, which meant ME from the airport. Our flight was significantly delayed, we were tired, but it was our first trip to Disney World as a family (my first trip there in 20 years, and the rest of my family's first trip there ever). So there was something very wonderful and magical about walking up to the ME area of the airport, being welcomed with smiling faces, not having to grab our bags, and being driven to our resort. There were no worries about directions, tolls, or parking.

But it's not all ponies and rainbows. Really, ME is just a bus. Unless you're lucky, the bus can be sitting at the airport for at least a little while, waiting for others to ride with you. You're expected to tip the driver (something that I hadn't thought to research before we went the first time). And bags will not arrive at your hotel room until about 3 hours after your arrival. If some sort of airline issue occurred with your bags, it's potentially more of a hassle to deal with it that long after the flight and once you're no longer at the airport.

Total cost: $5 to tip the driver, otherwise free with Disney resort stay.
Total time: 1 hour.


Rental cars:
It's difficult to separate the pure arrival experience from our reasons behind wanting a rental car, but I'll try. We rented a car from Budget, which is one of the on-airport car rental agencies. We grabbed our bags, and went downstairs to the car rental counter. There were no lines, check-in took just a few minutes, and we walked across the street to our rental car. Pretty effortless.

On the downside, we had to get our own bags. In addition, with 5-year olds in car booster seats, we had to either bring our own (which is what we did) or rent them (at significant additional cost). Lugging our 3 full-size suitcases, 2 carry-ons, stroller, and car seats from baggage, down to the car rental area, and then out to the rental cars wasn't really lots of fun.

Driving to Disney world is easy. The only big frustration was the tolls, which are clearly to trap tourists. $3.75 worth of tolls, each way. The exit toll from the turnpike was exact change only, meaning that if you didn't have exact change (we didn't) you had to take a little envelope and mail them the money within 10 days. So for us, not wanting to cut it close and pay exorbitant penalties from the rental car agency, we needed to write a $0.75 check, find a place to buy a stamp, and mail it while on our vacation. I could rant on and on about the ridiculousness of this. If Florida would like to encourage my tourism dollars being spent there, then they can stop doing stuff like that. Enough about that.

Total cost: $3.75 in tolls, $249 for the rental car (which isn't really fair since the rental car wasn't JUST used to get from the airport to Disney), gas.
Total time: 45 minutes.

Winner: Magical Express for just the arrival/transport to Disney World. It was convenient, easy, and free. This seems obvious to me, but if you don't have a good reason for a rental car, you certainly don't need one to get from the airport.


--Krista

 

[KristaMV]

Phew...this is a tough one.

We were wowed by the AoA. From the moment we walked in, we were immersed in Disney. Plus, our room was extremely comfortable. But - we got a suite here, and had a single room at Caribbean Beach. That's not really a fair comparison!

Caribbean Beach:
This was my first trip to Disney in 20 years, and the first for my DH and DD's. So there was somewhat of a "wow" factor just involved in walking onto Disney property. That aside, CB overall didn't really impress us.

The check-in area is the "Custom House" - it's quite far removed from the rest of the resort, so I hope you don't have to go back there. We did have to: to pick up our stroller rental, to get charging privileges added to our KTTW card, to check in our bags. It's just one of the most inconvenient places you might need to go at this resort. Then, once you check in you have to hop on another bus to get to your room.

Rooms in my opinion are no better than anything I've seen at any value resort. They're motel-style rooms, with two double beds, a table, and a bathroom. The bathroom is ridiculous, having a tiny tiny separate area with a tub and toilet, separated with a door from two vanities. The only separation of the vanities from the rest of the room is a curtain. That's sub-par in my opinion even from some cheap motels I've stayed at. Our family of 4 was tripping all over each other. The two double beds were just not big enough for two adults to sleep in comfortably (and neither me or my husband are overweight).

The pool is nice, as is the food court. But it's quite a hike from nearly all of the rooms, and we were staying in one that was supposedly "close" to amenities. Who wants to take a bus to go swimming or get a cup of coffee?

The spread-out nature of this hotel also meant that taking the buses anywhere else on property took forever, too. We found the bus stop that was the last one before it left property, but this meant getting on a nearly always full bus. Transportation just was not efficient at this resort.

Theming was just OK. Caribbean decor is just not that exciting.

IMO Caribbean Beach needs either a major rehab or to be downgraded to a value resort and guests charged accordingly.


Art of Animation:
Animation Hall (where you check in, eat, and shop) is centrally located. It was easy to pop down there for anything we wanted. I don't think you would say the same if you were staying at the Little Mermaid rooms, but everybody else was pretty centrally located.

Theming is beautiful and present all over the resort. We walked under the log holding Simba, Pumba, and Timon to get into our building. There was a hyena playground, and also a Nemo playground near the pool.

Our room (Lion King suite) was gorgeous as well, down to every detail. I can't overstate how comfortable these rooms are for a family of 4. The separate bedroom makes evenings, when the kids go to bed at 9pm, so much more pleasant. We bought food at a supermarket so we could have breakfast +/- lunches, and had a relaxed morning each morning without having to rush out the door to go get breakfast.

The pool area is attractive and fun. I'd give the Caribbean Beach the edge here, since it has water slides, but they're both fun.

The only catch here in a competition between the two is that the only fair comparison is two adjoining rooms at Caribbean Beach vs. Art of Animation. That's where cost comes in. Some people feel that the family suites are too expensive at AoA. But you need to do a fair comparison - this is the equivalent of TWO standard rooms. Frankly, I wouldn't pay the premium for two rooms there - it's just not worth it. When we stayed at AoA, the average price per night was $242. If you got two rooms at CB when we were there, it would have been $428.


The winner: Art of Animation, for making everything about this trip comfortable and pleasant. Despite its status as a "value", it was a far better resort than the "moderate" we stayed at just a few months ago.



Score: September - 1, January - 1

 

[wiigirl]

Following along!

 

[KristaMV]

Yay!

 

[KristaMV]

OK, I'm not going to get into a huge debate here regarding the whole system. I will touch upon that maybe at a future point...but here I just want to compare the physical magic band in comparison to the KTTW card.

KTTW:
In September, our resort had not yet converted over to magic bands. We each were issued our KTTW card, which for anyone who hasn't been there gives you room access, theme park admission, fast passes, meal plan, and any room charging. This was all via RFID technology, using the same scanners as currently used for the magic bands. I did not find that there were too many issues with it being difficult to scan the cards. Any charges made to the room required entry of a pin number set up in advance.

Each and every time you leave your room, you have to remember to bring all of the cards. On our first day in the theme parks, I remembered mine (my husband brought his) but we forgot to bring our kids' cards. So we had to stand in line at guest services for 30 minutes to get replacement cards printed. Kind of a damper on our first day in the magic kingdom, when the kids were chomping at the bit to get inside, as were the rest of us.

That experience made me kind of anal about it - I had a special pouch in my backpack for the cards, and I would check six or seven times on the way to make sure I had them. Then I would check throughout the day to make sure I hadn't dropped them.

Also, to get fast passes, you had to insert the card into the machine for each person in the party. To be honest, it just got a little silly and confusing to have to collect them all up (our party consisted of our family of 4, plus my mother and mother-in-law), run to get a fast pass, bring back the fast pass slips and sort through all the cards. Not a huge deal, just a little annoying.


Magic Bands:
There are a lot of negative emotions swirling around on the boards about MB and FP+. Again, this is really regarding the bands themselves, not about FP+.

I absolutely loved having the bands rather than a card. It's a much more physical reminder that yes, you do have your band on than a card in your pocket. I found the bands comfortable (though one of my DDs did not and was chomping at the bit every day to get it off). Going down the hall for ice I didn't have to remember to grab my card - it was on my wrist.

A big complaint I've seen is that they're finicky in regards to exact placement on the scanning devices. I did find that they were not so error-proof as the cards used to be, but my 5-year-olds figured it out after about 3 tries. IMHO the complaints regarding this are overblown. I rarely saw a line held up specifically because magic bands wouldn't scan.

I also felt pretty good about the fact that my banded child, if lost, could be identified with use of the magic band much more readily than before, since before they wouldn't have been carrying their bands around.

The only negative I ran into was that it became a little awkward for a few situations - most importantly, getting the entrance gate at our resort open. My DH put the band usually on his right arm, because he wears a watch on the left wrist. But when he was driving, that meant that the band was too far away to be able to get the gate open. He had to either take his band off, or more commonly I would take off mine and hand it to him.



In summary, being able to use one item (whether it's a card or a band) all over Disney property, for ANYTHING, is wonderful.

I personally found the band much more convenient than being worried about always having to worry about your card.

Winner: Magic Bands

Score: September - 1, January - 2

 

[KristaMV]

September was hot. Real hot. We absolutely expected that, and were not surprised or upset. But with temperatures in the mid-90s every day, that pool sure felt great. My girls aren't really old enough for us to take full advantage of the water parks, but we certainly would have if they were a little older.

The hot weather makes it rather unpleasant while walking around the park, but quite pleasant for swimming and when entering air-conditioned relief. It also makes it easy to pack - just pack for hot, and you'll be all set.

January was cold. Now, I'm from just north of Boston, and at the same time we were in Florida we were experiencing temperatures of 0-15 degrees back home. In Florida, the early mornings were around 35 degrees, going up to a high of 55 - 70 degrees. So I was not complaining - but there's something weird about wearing pants and coats in Florida. Maybe it's the palm trees swaying in the crisp breeze. Maybe it's the steam coming off the heated pool. We did go swimming twice. Why? Well, 5-year-olds get something in their mind that will be fun, and we decided to humor them. We didn't count on them enjoying it.

But, it was very pleasant to walk around the parks, which is what we were doing most of the time. Packing was pretty difficult - we had to bring a spectrum of clothes, for all different weather and indeed daily usually needed to dress in layers that we could remove as the day warmed up from 35 to 70 degrees.

I'm really having trouble calling this one - I'm actually leaning toward enjoying the hot weather better than the cold. Maybe we'll try a poll?

For now, I'll give the win to September.

Score:
September - 2, January - 2

 

[KristaMV]

September: We relied entirely on Disney transportation on this trip, starting with Magical Express and then for all of our needs. I had not been to Disney in 20 years, and back then I was a kid and everything was ponies and rainbows. Not unlike lots of visitors, I found the bus system slow and crowded. Other factors were involved:
1) It was so hot that sitting at the bus stop for any length of time was kind of miserable.
2) The Caribbean beach resort has something like 7 bus stops. We were lucky enough to be situated very close to both the first stop on the way in and the last stop on the way out, so we didn't have to go through all of those stops. But sometimes we left from the food court and did have to spend a lot of time still at the resort before even getting on our way.
3) We had a rather bulky rented stroller.

All of this combined meant that it did take something like an hour to get anywhere, any time. When we tried to go back to the hotel in the middle of the day for pool time, it was about a 4-hour proposition, including 2 hours of travel time. So we decided to try it differently the next time...

January: We rented a car. It helped that my work paid for it as I was there for a conference. But even out of pocket it was only $250 for a Jetta for the week (we could have gone smaller and therefore cheaper and probably still been very happy). The car gave us freedom. We could run over to a supermarket for breakfast food and snacks. When we all got a cold we could go to CVS rather than paying resort prices for cold medicine. We could choose to drive to and from the theme parks if the mood struck us, drive to Downtown Disney for dinner, or even dine off property if we chose (we didn't).

Driving to Epcot is wonderful; though they provide trams we didn't even need them on either of the days we went. Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom generally require a tram from the parking lot, but it's a fairly easy, quick trip. Magic Kingdom is another story - you park at the TTC and take a tram to the monorail, then the monorail to the park. After we tried this once, we never did it again and took buses to the Magic Kingdom.

The only negative I found was that Florida charges exorbitant tolls from the airport. Clearly, this is a "tourist tax." And I think I mentioned in the Magical Express post that they have an un-staffed exact change only toll booth getting off the turnpike to go to Disney World. Either Florida doesn't want tourists or doesn't want them to drive. Or they just want to suck every last dollar from them and don't care how inhospitable they seem.

Regardless, absolutely having the car rental was great and I would do it again.


Winner: Car rental

Score: September - 2, January - 3

 

[KristaMV]

We were sitting at the airport, waiting for information about our severely delayed flight, when my heart dropped. We had planned to bring our own stroller, had packed carefully and thoroughly for our trip, and had forgotten the stroller. After my initial panic, I started looking up stroller rental on my phone and realized how cheap and easy it is to rent one. In a few minutes, I had set up the stroller to be dropped off at our hotel the following day.

We rented with Orlando Stroller rentals, which has nice strollers and is very reasonably priced. We got a City Mini Double for $80 for the week. It was delivered to our hotel's bell station as described, and when we left, we left it with the bell station.

On the January trip, we were trying to streamline expenses so we brought our own. This we used through the airport and then gate-checked.

Your decision about what to do is probably more of a personal one, and depends a lot on what kind of stroller you already have and how upset you would be if it was damaged by the airline.

The ideal stroller for Disney is: lightweight, folds easily, folds small, has a big sun shade, under-stroller storage, reclines, is relatively narrow, is easily maneuverable, and has a comfortable ride (big wheels +/- shocks).

Our rented stroller folded easily (but not small), had a big sun shade, under-stroller storage, reclined, was narrow, and was maneuverable with a comfortable ride. So it fit most of the bill.

Our own stroller is a double umbrella one (Jeep double). I'll tell you, I love this stroller, and it's a real workhorse. It's lightweight, folds easily, folds small, reclines, is narrow, and is maneuverable. It does not have a comfortable ride, and has no under-stroller storage. The sun shades are a joke, but we do have a separate add-on shade and hang-on-the-back storage compartment.

Personally, I found either option just fine. It was nice to bring our own and be able to have the kids ride in the stroller all the way through the airport. They're five, so walking is just fine. But they're slow and always somewhat underfoot, and their voluntary use of the stroller means they're contained in a potentially busy and crowded airport.

I didn't love a few things about the City Mini - I mean, it folded easily, but was quite heavy and cumbersome to bring aboard the Disney buses. It required one whole person to carry it, so doing any of the parks as a solo parent would be difficult, while my husband had very little trouble gong solo to the parks with our lighter, smaller umbrella stroller. If you can power through the travel with the City Mini it certainly provided a more comfortable experience for parent and child during the time in the park. Once back to the hotel - it took up some serious space in the already cramped hotel room!

Finally, when renting a stroller I'd definitely recommend considering where you're staying and the source. Our stroller was NOT dropped off at our hotel ROOM as I've heard some say happens. Maybe you can arrange that, but we didn't see that anywhere. At Caribbean beach, this means a separate trip to the Custom House in the morning, which was honestly not great. Consider this when you decide when to have the stroller delivered and picked up. At other resorts this wouldn't be an issue. Also, not all stroller rental companies are "approved" by Disney, and so they may only be able to drop off with you there present to sign for it. Orlando Stroller Rental is "approved" so not an issue.

Oh, and I wouldn't consider in a million years renting a stroller from Disney unless I was absolutely desperate. You can only use them within the park, they're ridiculously expensive ($27-31 a day for a double), and they're hard plastic, uncomfortable for the kids. I kind of assume that people who did that either did not know how easy it was to set up an offsite stroller company, hadn't thought about a stroller until they got to the park and then were desperate, or just plain didn't care.

Winner: Our own stroller, just because there were no great advantages to the stroller rental and it was cheaper.

Score: September - 2, January - 4

 

[KristaMV]

We did our first Disney trip with my mother and my mother-in-law. The second time, it was just me, DH, and the kids. Which was "better"?

It really depends how you define better.

With both trips, I planned the whole thing, and though I was happy to have input I didn't demand that anyone else do anything. What I didn't realize was...Oh the pressure that put on me!

Every single thing we did, everyone was looking to me for what we were doing next. "When are we meeting?" "Where are we going?" "What's next?" I honestly didn't really want to plan the whole thing to within an inch of our lives, but no one could or would make any decisions or give me any input, so I was the cruise director. That's clearly a dysfunction of our family, but beware of that if you're considering inviting others!

Also, my mom and MIL didn't necessarily understand the dining plan and park tickets the way that I did. So although I had told them they didn't have to worry about it, they wanted to understand it all nevertheless. So I had to engage in several circular conversations where I explained it, they didn't get it, and if they just trusted me we could have avoided the whole waste of time anyway.

On the bright side, those extra people helped out when the kids fell asleep and we needed extra hands to carry kids and the stroller on and off of buses.

When we went by ourselves, I really have to admit that it was just as smooth, and much more relaxed. I didn't have to be the cruise director and constantly answer questions about what we were doing or whether the meal we were going to should count towards our table service credits or pay out of pocket.

The winner: I'm going to sound like a mean-spirited wench when I say that having just our family there was the best. But it was. So there, I said it.

BUT, I would absolutely have my mom and MIL back, I would just do it differently. I'm not sure how yet, but I'd figure out a way to place less of the pressure on me. Maybe have everyone plan a day?

Score: September - 2, January - 5

 

[funnycat]

What a fun post! They both sound like great trips.

 

[KristaMV]

They were! I'm kind of surprised that January is coming out ahead...but still more differences to talk about so we'll see!

 

[Carable]

This is a genius way to do a trip report, thank you! Your insight is so helpful. I'm excited to read the rest!

 

[KristaMV]

We all flip for joy over "free" dining. And it's a great discount! So of course, in September, that's what we did - dining plan all the way.

In January, dining was not free and we were trying to go more low-budget in other ways, so we skipped the dining plan and just paid as we went.

The REAL costs:
Don't be deceived that free dining is really free. They talk about this on the podcast all the time. When you get free dining, you don't get any other discounts. It's generally a good discount, though, so I'm not saying it's bad. You just need to figure it out, and that's kind of hard to do.

Original package price (room, dining, park tickets): $3436.54
After dining discount: $2564.34 (free dining saved us $872.20)

The room-only discount would have been: $300.83 (20% at that time)
That's basically what we calculated "free" dining actually cost us. But don't forget gratuities and any out-of-pocket meals we still had to pay for: $289.40

Total dining costs on that trip therefore were $590.33

In January, doing everything out of pocket, and doing a little supermarket shopping, we paid a total of $596.50.

BUT, in September we got a daily table service meal, quick service meal, and a snack. In January, we stuck mainly to quick service and snacks. So in terms of the quality of the meals and the "value" we got for almost the same amount of money, hands down it's easy to say using the dining plan gave us much more value.

I will say this, though...it was very freeing to not worry at all about dining reservations, or about making sure we used all of our dining credits. In January we just ate when we were hungry, grabbed a snack when something seemed yummy, and were entirely relaxed about it. On the flip side, when we did do a table service meal and paid for it out of pocket, we really felt it was exorbitantly expensive for what you got. We ate at Sanaa, which was lovely and we really enjoyed it. But our meal totaled $110! There are many many very high-quality Indian restaurants with excellent "theming" in my neck of the woods in Boston, and we rarely spend any more than $40. It seems that $30 per entree is considered "reasonable" for table service at Disney, which almost everywhere else in the world other than possibly New York City or other major cities would be a luxury meal.

SOOOO......when all's said and done, we spend almost exactly the same amount of money for dining both times, and definitely felt that the September trip, on the dining plan, gave us more and better food. Going off the dining plan did not save us money. But, if you really want to be cost-conscious, you could save more than we did - we just kind of got what we wanted to get instead of thinking about money.

Winner: the dining plan

Score: September - 3, January - 5

 

[KristaMV]

Here we go. I've been avoiding this one, because this topic creates such passion, anger, and loyalty among various fans and detractors that I wasn't sure I should even get into it. But I, too, have strong opinions.

I have seen thread after thread about the merits and horrors of each. No one seems to ever have changed their mind based upon any posts, and I don't expect to change anyone's mind, either. I'm just going to give you my opinions.

First, understand that I can't say I really ever believed in legacy FP nor had much experience with it. My last trip before the September one was 20 years ago (1994) when everyone just stood in old-fashioned lines. You know what? That was just fine. The whole idea of skipping a line, even with a legitimate "system" kind of makes me uncomfortable. But AT LEAST it's not a privilege you purchase for unlimited line jumps (the way I believe they do it at Universal, and also at a theme park closer to me, Sesame Place). Of course, there's talk that FP+ will become that way (the ability to purchase extra FP's per day). I don't necessarily feel that FP or FP+ are truly "equal" systems, as visitors who are not technologically savvy, don't speak English, or may have any other issues can't take the same advantage as FP "power users".

Legacy FP bothered me for a few reasons, in the situation I'm in. I do not like to get up at the crack of dawn on my vacation, run into the park, and run to FP booths to get the maximum number per day. As much as those that want to spend their vacation this way feel they're entitled to use up all the fast passes by getting up early and running around the park riding certain rides over and over again, I felt resentment that because I wasn't willing or able to do that, I might not get to ride a ride even ONCE without waiting in a line, because all the fast passes were already gone. I also found it annoying to have to go to the FP kiosks near the attractions (but not always easily found) but not be able to ride that particular ride for sometimes a few hours. Since I traveled with a family containing young children and grandparents, it was always me or my husband doing the "running." The reward of skipping a long line was worth it in the end, and we had to "play the game" if we didn't want to stand in a ridiculously long line.

I also feel very strongly that FP ruined the lines on most attractions. A line would have been 20-25 minutes, but because so many people return with their fast passes and are all ushered in, stopping the standby line, the standby line reaches over an hour.

So, like I said, I'm not a fan of FP but we played the game.

FP+ using the MDE app was much more relaxed. Despite all the complaining (dare I call it whining) about people worried they have to plan everything in minute detail, this is not necessarily true. I booked fast passes for everything the night before we went to each park, not 60 days in advance, not 30 days; and I got everything I wanted except one (we made the mistake of visiting Hollywood Studios on the Sunday of President's Day weekend and couldn't get a FP for Toy Story Mania. My kids were slightly disappointed since the standby line was 60-90 minutes and we decided not to do it, but there are enough other things to do there that it ultimately wasn't that big of a deal.)

So, with FP+ you can book in advance but you don't have to; you can change your fast passes which you couldn't do before; you can schedule FP's while you're waiting in line for another attraction; you can check wait times and make changes on the fly; and you don't have to run around the park to get them.

We did not park hop, but if we did I do feel a valid concern is the lack of park hopping ability. That should be changing soon, from what I hear. But it's not a dealbreaker.

The ONLY negative was the tier system. When we went to Epcot, for example, it was January, so the lines were short for everything except Test Track and Soarin'. The first day, we selected Soarin' for our FP, and basically didn't need any other fast passes because all of the others were options where the standby wait was 0-10 minutes. Fortunately, we were going back so we got the Test Track FP the next time. If there hadn't been the tier system I would have used only two FP's for each day and might have done Soarin' and Test Track both days.

I don't think it's unfair to limit you to three per day, and I don't think it's unfair to limit you to one fastpass per ride. If you want to ride a ride 6 times, go for it. But you can only use a FP for one, allowing more families to experience the ride rather than just walking away because all the FPs are gone and the wait is >2 hours.

And another opinion that I have is that if you want to ride a particular ride over and over again, you most certainly can but you'll need to plan your trip differently. Arriving early in the morning (like you probably always did), riding a few times before hoardes of people arrive at 11am, and then waiting to ride again until later when parades/fireworks are over are all options for you. For those of us that want to ride everything just once, I believe FP+ is much better. I believe that those that don't work this way can still have a great time with some minor modifications. But change is hard.

Agree or disagree with me. But FP+ was way better for us with a few minor exceptions.

Score: September - 3, January - 6

 

[KristaMV]

FYI I do understand that both times of year I went were supposedly "low crowd" times. But we did experience FP+ on President's Day Weekend, when they were turning away off-property guests at the MK. It was quite crowded over that weekend, and still standby lines were not so horrible and FP+ worked better than the old system for me.