ransom
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2006
- Messages
- 4,026
DW and I recently got back from our two-week vacation at VWL. We continued the relaxed vacation style we've developed over the years, no longer the go-go-go park fiends we used to be. Now going to WDW actually feels like a vacation! 
We went to the parks from rope drop until shortly after lunch on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. We went back for Illuminations once and the new Star Wars fireworks once. We spent the evening at MK on the middle Saturday, taking in Wishes that night.
We spent most of the rest of our non-park time at VWL, but we did do some resort hopping to Fort Wilderness, the monorail resorts, etc. The new-to-us resort we visited this time was OKW, where we had dinner at Olivia's (the food was passable, but the service was bad).
The construction at VWL didn't affect us much, really. Even during the day, we could barely -- and only occasionally -- hear it in our room (we were on the construction/Bay Lake side, but near the end of the hall). The only real disruption was not being able to go the back way to Roaring Fork and the boat dock. No big deal. (That's not saying I'm happy about all the tree removal. I'm not. But the construction itself wasn't disruptive to our stay.)
Actually, because of the construction, half of the cash rooms at the Lodge are out of service (I assume they're being turned into DVC rooms). So everything was easier -- Roaring Fork was never crowded, the lobby was quieter, etc. Heck, when coming back from our late night at DHS, our full-to-the-rafters bus only had a total of five people getting off at WL. The rest were headed on to Fort Wilderness. I've never seen anything like that happen before.
(By the way, there seems to be a new mid-day route for some buses - there's now a back-woods/direct route from WL to Fort Wilderness that stops at a much smaller bus stop not terribly far from the new VWL construction, then turns around and comes back to exit through WL's gate and then goes on to the park.)
We had a good time at the parks. The first week, the place was unexpectedly busy. Touring Plans had predicted moderate crowds, but we got max crowds! So that first week, we got very little done beyond our FastPass+ selections (despite being there for rope drop every time). To be fair, we refuse to wait more than 20 minutes for any ride. But still, this was an unexpected wrinkle!
But, no matter. We just enjoyed our resort all the more. The weather was absolutely perfect! 80s, low humidity, sunny, with a nice breeze. Just wonderful for sitting at the pool, sipping something refreshing.
By our Saturday evening visit to MK, we noticed that the crowds had started to decrease. So we took advantage of the Disney app to figure out which of our favorite rides had short enough lines, and thereby got in a few more rides -- three FastPass+ attractions, plus three others. And Wishes!
Our second week continued to see us visit more attractions on our park mornings than we had the previous week. I think we maxed out at about 10 rides visited on the last Thursday (an MK day). That may not sound like a lot, but we did that without really trying and with getting back to VWL after lunch. And, for us at this point, 10 rides is a lot. http://www.***********.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif The rides are the spice for us these days, not the entree.
As far as all the recently-discussed cutbacks, price hikes, after-hours price gauging, and so on: we didn't notice much. Just more of the same, really: some food portions were smaller, some prices were higher, etc. The main thing for us was the loss of the biscuit from the adult breakfast at VWL. It may not seem like much, but we look forward to that biscuit. It's not something we eat at home, so it's something we allow ourselves to enjoy while on our annual WDW trip. Because of the biscuit being cut, most days we just breakfasted in our room using the stuff we bought at Publix. (We used to buy breakfast at Roaring Fork every single morning we weren't booked elsewhere, so Disney's number crunchers should notice. Whether it'll matter, I don't know. But Mickey's Big Data Computron will know our spend went down significantly this trip.)
Other than the biscuit, we didn't really notice much in the way of cost-cutting. Some things were better in small ways, some things were worse in small ways, and overall the place is more crowded and the ways they're dealing with that are sometimes to our liking and sometimes not.
Oh, one good thing that was new-to-us was the bus stop monitor at VWL. We'd seen the first one crop up quite a while back at the Grand Floridian, and I was glad they'd finally installed one at VWL. Not a huge thing, but it was nice.
I say it wasn't a huge thing, because we almost never waited for a bus. I mean that literally. When we walked up, the bus would already be there, loading passengers. Happened almost all the time at VWL, and most of the time at the parks. It was uncanny. By the end of the two weeks, we were kind of blase' about it. As we were walking out of Epcot on our final Friday, going all the way around to Bus Stop 1, a bus turned the corner for the long stretch to the back. I told DW, "Guess whose bus that is?" And it was: it stopped at #1. By the time we got there, the last person in line was just stepping on. We didn't even have to hurry. Perfect timing.
So, overall, we had a great trip. We rode all the rides we cared to, saw the nighttime shows we cared to, had great transportation experiences, enjoyed fantastic weather up until the middle of the second week (when it did get more humid and cloudy, with some rain in the evening) and spent a lot of time relaxing. It was a fantastic vacation and we can't wait until next time, when there will be a lot of new stuff for us to do!
We went to the parks from rope drop until shortly after lunch on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. We went back for Illuminations once and the new Star Wars fireworks once. We spent the evening at MK on the middle Saturday, taking in Wishes that night.
We spent most of the rest of our non-park time at VWL, but we did do some resort hopping to Fort Wilderness, the monorail resorts, etc. The new-to-us resort we visited this time was OKW, where we had dinner at Olivia's (the food was passable, but the service was bad).
The construction at VWL didn't affect us much, really. Even during the day, we could barely -- and only occasionally -- hear it in our room (we were on the construction/Bay Lake side, but near the end of the hall). The only real disruption was not being able to go the back way to Roaring Fork and the boat dock. No big deal. (That's not saying I'm happy about all the tree removal. I'm not. But the construction itself wasn't disruptive to our stay.)
Actually, because of the construction, half of the cash rooms at the Lodge are out of service (I assume they're being turned into DVC rooms). So everything was easier -- Roaring Fork was never crowded, the lobby was quieter, etc. Heck, when coming back from our late night at DHS, our full-to-the-rafters bus only had a total of five people getting off at WL. The rest were headed on to Fort Wilderness. I've never seen anything like that happen before.
(By the way, there seems to be a new mid-day route for some buses - there's now a back-woods/direct route from WL to Fort Wilderness that stops at a much smaller bus stop not terribly far from the new VWL construction, then turns around and comes back to exit through WL's gate and then goes on to the park.)
We had a good time at the parks. The first week, the place was unexpectedly busy. Touring Plans had predicted moderate crowds, but we got max crowds! So that first week, we got very little done beyond our FastPass+ selections (despite being there for rope drop every time). To be fair, we refuse to wait more than 20 minutes for any ride. But still, this was an unexpected wrinkle!
But, no matter. We just enjoyed our resort all the more. The weather was absolutely perfect! 80s, low humidity, sunny, with a nice breeze. Just wonderful for sitting at the pool, sipping something refreshing.
By our Saturday evening visit to MK, we noticed that the crowds had started to decrease. So we took advantage of the Disney app to figure out which of our favorite rides had short enough lines, and thereby got in a few more rides -- three FastPass+ attractions, plus three others. And Wishes!
Our second week continued to see us visit more attractions on our park mornings than we had the previous week. I think we maxed out at about 10 rides visited on the last Thursday (an MK day). That may not sound like a lot, but we did that without really trying and with getting back to VWL after lunch. And, for us at this point, 10 rides is a lot. http://www.***********.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif The rides are the spice for us these days, not the entree.
As far as all the recently-discussed cutbacks, price hikes, after-hours price gauging, and so on: we didn't notice much. Just more of the same, really: some food portions were smaller, some prices were higher, etc. The main thing for us was the loss of the biscuit from the adult breakfast at VWL. It may not seem like much, but we look forward to that biscuit. It's not something we eat at home, so it's something we allow ourselves to enjoy while on our annual WDW trip. Because of the biscuit being cut, most days we just breakfasted in our room using the stuff we bought at Publix. (We used to buy breakfast at Roaring Fork every single morning we weren't booked elsewhere, so Disney's number crunchers should notice. Whether it'll matter, I don't know. But Mickey's Big Data Computron will know our spend went down significantly this trip.)
Other than the biscuit, we didn't really notice much in the way of cost-cutting. Some things were better in small ways, some things were worse in small ways, and overall the place is more crowded and the ways they're dealing with that are sometimes to our liking and sometimes not.
Oh, one good thing that was new-to-us was the bus stop monitor at VWL. We'd seen the first one crop up quite a while back at the Grand Floridian, and I was glad they'd finally installed one at VWL. Not a huge thing, but it was nice.
I say it wasn't a huge thing, because we almost never waited for a bus. I mean that literally. When we walked up, the bus would already be there, loading passengers. Happened almost all the time at VWL, and most of the time at the parks. It was uncanny. By the end of the two weeks, we were kind of blase' about it. As we were walking out of Epcot on our final Friday, going all the way around to Bus Stop 1, a bus turned the corner for the long stretch to the back. I told DW, "Guess whose bus that is?" And it was: it stopped at #1. By the time we got there, the last person in line was just stepping on. We didn't even have to hurry. Perfect timing.
So, overall, we had a great trip. We rode all the rides we cared to, saw the nighttime shows we cared to, had great transportation experiences, enjoyed fantastic weather up until the middle of the second week (when it did get more humid and cloudy, with some rain in the evening) and spent a lot of time relaxing. It was a fantastic vacation and we can't wait until next time, when there will be a lot of new stuff for us to do!
