BLT Spring Break Trip

broncofan

Earning My Ears
Joined
Sep 21, 2008
Messages
53
Just back from a trip this week with multiple revelations for future travel. Here goes:

Transportation - We had Southwest flights booked for Saturday 3/9 from Houston. After arriving at the airport early in the morning, our flight posted a slight delay. Then around 9 AM it was cancelled entirely. Ended up driving 10 AM to ~ 3 AM 3/10 to avoid missing the first part of our vacation, as with spring break there were no flight options available until Sunday / Monday at the earliest. The drive home really wasn't bad - we left at 4:45 AM to beat the traffic and let kids sleep the morning away. Worked to perfection - took about 13 hours back home, arrived about 5 PM. In fact worked so well that we probably don't plan to fly anymore. Since we have to drive a good distance to Houston, flying only saves a little time and with the kids being older and more able to withstand the long drive it seems like the way to go!

BLT - Has become our first choice at Disney world. Not wild about the theme, but you can't beat the location or the 1BR with two full bathrooms. Even managed to briefly open my eyes on 3/10 at 6:55 AM to book Tron VQ and some Genie plus selections.

Rather than go day by day, some observations park by park:

MK - The Tron VQ line tends to be pretty long, especially later in the day. Wish they would call the groups more slowly, but I assume this helps them with park crowd management on busy days. We rode a couple of times, and our whole crew of 5 thought it was ok - worth the VQ wait but not worth a $20 LL... Rest of the park was crowded but most days we managed to do Space Mountain, Big Thunder, Haunted Mansion, and Pirates along with a trip back to hotel mid day for swimming. Can't recommend enough the Wednesday extra hours... only my middle child was willing to do the 11P - 1A shift, but we managed to ride Jungle Cruise just before closing at 11, Aladdin, Haunted M, Space Mountain, and Seven Dwarves twice.

HS - This park is insane at the moment. No Rock N roller really leaves that park in a tough place on very crowded days. Booked slinky at 7 AM and got 2:35 PM return time for 3 of the party and tower in the morning. Since we had afternoon plans, tried to get guest experience to give us an earlier Slinky but they can't modify that one. Switched us all to tower. 50s Prime time for lunch - the fried chicken there is quite good! Toy Story mania had a decent Genie plus return time so we did that, then switched over to making MK evening LL. No real desire to ride Rise as we've done it multiple times - it's outstanding and well worth either a rope drop, wait, or LL if you can swing it. But it's primarily a story ride and we've done it enough now. Smuggler's run was a pass too - the queue and line area are amazing, we don't much care for the ride itself. All in, don't see a lot of utility to HS right now for repeat visitors, but there are can't miss attractions there if it's your first time, or first time since the Star Wars was added. We only went once this trip.

AK - Love this park! Ended up going twice - always enjoy the Safari, Avatar is an exceptional ride, and Everest.

Epcot - Got a handful more Guardians rides in, Soarin', Test Track (kids finally old enough for single rider which is great here - saves booking Genie plus or a long wait. Since vehicles take three per row the single rider moves fast). Did Remy once and Frozen twice - again, deluxe resort extra hours are a must from 9-11 Monday. You can either hit Frozen and Remy multiple times, or do the 6 PM Guardians distribution and get an extra ride on it.

Now for the big takeaway. The kids are growing up and while they still enjoyed it (ages 14/11/8), they've done everything quite a few times. They had by far the most fun at the pool so we did that every afternoon. We have a stay booked for the summer at Beach Club - I'm very excited to try that out and given how the kids are progressing with Disney, very happy to try the resort with the best pool on property (at least according to many reviews). They've also have indicated that they prefer the beach and want to try some other vacation options. From my end, I still really don't love Genie plus. I spend a huge amount of the vacation on my phone, stressing about getting the right times, pushing lightning lanes around, and making sure we get to the right times without having to walk all over the park. It's added a good amount of expense and I find it makes the regular lines wait times more erratic - I really struggle waiting in them when they move so slowly. So we do mostly LL, but just generally the system has taken some of the enjoyment out of it for me. As such, we're planning to try Aulani and Hilton head over the next couple of years. I hope by then we'll be ready to try the world again... but if not it is great that DVC has some other options for us to use points on!

I would be really curious to see if anyone else has been through this same transition where Disney World went from absolute favorite vacation to maybe a pass for a few years as the kids hit the teen years. How did you manage that and did you find perhaps that a few years break from the World refreshes the experience for you?
 
Last edited:
I will make it simple: Going to the parks everyday has been something we have never done with kids. There is a lot to do in Disney so we are never really bored of the parks. Try less park days more pool days and a nice dinner at DS...... you can expand to Boats, Bikes and many other when needed. There was a lot more years ago like drive a race card, Parasailing and just about anything you wanted to do.
Other things we would like to do more cruises as we do this as well but after COVID not as much for the reason you state in the first paragraph although we are very close to 2 ports the options have not been good. There are many options for vacations however we have always managed to fit at least one Disney vacation in a year although we would have no issues with skipping in favor of a cruise if that had to be.
 
Same here. While on a recent trip to Disneyland, it was really apparent that, if you don't go to the parks, there's just not a lot to do compared to the diversity of non-park activities at WDW.
We love to visit the themed WDW resorts, pool days, and Disney Springs and sprinkle the park days in between.
 
When our kids were younger (3 or 4 years old) we went to WDW about once every two years. We mixed in Disney cruises in place of WDW a couple of times, so there were a couple times when there were three or so years in between WDW trips. And we would do beach rentals the other years. When my kids hit their early to mid teens we started making WDW an annual trip. Then we bought into DVC because it made sense. My oldest daughter is now in college and was super bummed that she couldn’t come with us in February because she had classes. Both of my kids love WDW trips.

IMO, both of my girls love WDW because we didn’t do it all the time when they were younger. It’s good to take a break sometimes. Then the excitement builds for the WDW trips. Also, when we go to WDW now we do a lot of pool/relaxation time. I think that’s important because of how chaotic a WDW trip can be. For example, we may hit a park in the morning and then come back to the resort around noon to just chill by the pool. That keeps everyone energized during the trip.
 


















DIS Tiktok DIS Facebook DIS Twitter DIS youtube DIS Instagram DIS Pinterest

Top