Mamapapa
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2007
So we left our twins with Grandma last week and DH & I took just DS7 back to Disney. You couldn't pay me to bring one year old twins down there! After Hurricane Irene, our 7 day vacation was shortened to 6 days and this is what I learned....
1) Forget body odor, holy gas batman! Did I miss the free beans give away Disney is doing?! I swear, I have never had such an issue dealing with flatulence in my life. One family of four got on the bus, sat in the back row and proceeded to pass gas letting the air intake behind them pull it in and then pump the wonderful aroma throughout the entire bus like the main street bakery with fresh baked cookies. It was awful!!!
2) Going from Deluxe (Poly) to Value (PopCentury) is not hard! I felt the deluxe rooms are bigger, but the value rooms are cleaner. Our shower, toilet and walls were in much better shape then at the Poly. That shower was gross and scary. I'm 5'5" and the shower head was at my neck level. Nice to see the value resort can get it right and allow me to take a nice shower in the morning without having to duck!
3) Never eat at the PopCentury food court. Food is ok at best and it's very dirty since there's no way Disney could keep up with the mass amount of people who go through there. It's pure chaos.
4) Try the PopCentury arcade, we had tons of fun in there for 30 minutes!
5) The buses at PopCentury are great. Never waited more then 7-8 minutes for a bus, even after Fantasmic and Wishes. My new favorite quote is "if you can see the floor, we can fit some more"!
6) Being a Mom of twins, I understand the need for double strollers. But why on earth do people need to bring their double joggers that are bigger then my first car?! Jeep makes a really nice double umbrella, takes up much less room, runs over less people and takes a fraction of the time to fold up and get on a bus!
7) I'm ready for the flames, but there were many things that DH and I did based on recommendations of others that we simply didn't like.
Toy Story: waited in line for 46 minutes (better then standing outside in the pouring rain!) for a 5 minute ride that made my DH feel "dirty". Seriously. Didn't the imagineers try the ride out before they put it in production, men truly have an advantage if you know what I mean! DS loved it so it was worth waiting for.
Fantasmic: first night, sat in pouring rain with ponchos, got 20 minutes in, Ariel almost fell off her rock and show was cancelled due to weather. Went back a couple nights later and honestly, I was not impressed. Thought there was way too much of that movie on a waterfall crap and not enough actual show. I got bored a bunch of times!
Wishes: my apologies to the die hard wishes fans, but I don't get this one either! Don't get me wrong, it was good. But it is not something I want to brave stampedes for nor did it move me to tears.
Lion King Show: it was cute, but not great. I thought the funniest part was when they needed more dancers for the final scene so they monkeys stood in one spot and clapped left to right. Seriously, they are acrobats, not dancers. And it's very obvious they can't dance when you put them on the floor with professional dancers!!!
8) Buy the ponchos, and bring a giant Ziploc bag. We would put the ponchos on and as we walked on to a ride, roll them up and stuff them in the Ziploc bag. Took them back out as we exited and put them back on. Worked perfect.
9) Don't believe the "it only rains for less then an hour a day in Florida, so don't believe the weather report you read online" crap! It rained. It rained A LOT. We used our ponchos every day. But it wasn't a non-stop rain either, nor did it even remotely come close to ruining our vacation. If anything, it made it a fun adventure! With no little kids and no strollers, the rain is very easy to deal with, and the parks are a lot less crowded! So bring your ponchos and be prepared to use them. Oh yeah, bring extra shoes too. Yours will get soaked and started making those squishy squeaking noises.
10) Get ADR's for Crystal Palace before park opening. I did this based on a DisBoard tip and it was AWESOME! Park was empty when we got there, food was fantastic. By far one of the best breakfast buffets I have ever been too, and DS ended up loving the Pooh characters that I thought he wouldn't care about. Best part is we got out at 8:50am and got to listen to the opening ceremony from the tomorrow land bridge. Got to be first in line for Space Mountain!
11) Rain Forest Cafe does NOT take the DDP for breakfast. Tusker House does and the food is pretty good there, plus there's Mickey. Loved the Jamba Juice.
12) Don't put your camera and phone in the butt pocket of your shorts in August. It's hot, you will sweat, including your butt, and then your camera and phone will have butt sweat on it. Eww....
13) August heat is manageable and it's worth suffering through for the incredibly low crowd levels. Just drink tons of water and keep going on attractions that have air conditioning. Turns out DS loved the President show since he had learned about a lot of them in school. DH took a nice nap...
14) Check out easywdw.com, that guy was dead on in his park recommendations. The one day we didn't listen to him and went to MK anyways, it was crowded. But all the days we followed his guide, we had 5-10min waits for almost all rides! Got to walk on and ride BTMR three times in a row!
15) You'll be surprised at how much Spanish you actually remember from those four years back in high school once you hear it non-stop!
16) PhotoPass photographers are bored. Very bored. And they get very excited if you ask them to take photos of you making funny faces or with funny poses. You get a lot more photos that way too.
17) The steak at Tony's is amazing and the serving size is huge. I have no idea what kind of potatoes they serve with that, but they were awesome too.
18) Bring flip-flops for the kids even if you're a socks/sneaker Mom like me. They need them to walk to the pool, the concrete walk ways are hot!
19) Always offer to help a Mom in need, you have no idea what her story is. I helped a 8-month pregnant Mom with a double stroller, tons of packages, her 10yo nephew, 5yo daughter and 3yo daughter onto the bus. Turns out they were there to celebrate 5yo daughters end of chemo treatment. She was so thankful for my help and was such a nice woman. If you're reading this, I hope your daughters next round of tests confirm her remission!
I guess that's all for now, overall we had an awesome trip and a little hurricane and some rain didn't keep us down! I would go back the same time of year simply because the crowd levels were so low. We made it on every major ride in all four parks in 2.5 days. This gave us the chance for the first time ever to liesurly explore WDW at our own pace, it was amazing! It was so nice to not feel like we had to rush, and to be able to change our dining plans on a whim since every restraunt (except Sci-Fi!) had tons of openings. It was a great time and I can't wait until we can go back in four years as a Family of Five. I'm already starting to think about where we might want to stay for that trip!....
1) Forget body odor, holy gas batman! Did I miss the free beans give away Disney is doing?! I swear, I have never had such an issue dealing with flatulence in my life. One family of four got on the bus, sat in the back row and proceeded to pass gas letting the air intake behind them pull it in and then pump the wonderful aroma throughout the entire bus like the main street bakery with fresh baked cookies. It was awful!!!
2) Going from Deluxe (Poly) to Value (PopCentury) is not hard! I felt the deluxe rooms are bigger, but the value rooms are cleaner. Our shower, toilet and walls were in much better shape then at the Poly. That shower was gross and scary. I'm 5'5" and the shower head was at my neck level. Nice to see the value resort can get it right and allow me to take a nice shower in the morning without having to duck!
3) Never eat at the PopCentury food court. Food is ok at best and it's very dirty since there's no way Disney could keep up with the mass amount of people who go through there. It's pure chaos.
4) Try the PopCentury arcade, we had tons of fun in there for 30 minutes!
5) The buses at PopCentury are great. Never waited more then 7-8 minutes for a bus, even after Fantasmic and Wishes. My new favorite quote is "if you can see the floor, we can fit some more"!
6) Being a Mom of twins, I understand the need for double strollers. But why on earth do people need to bring their double joggers that are bigger then my first car?! Jeep makes a really nice double umbrella, takes up much less room, runs over less people and takes a fraction of the time to fold up and get on a bus!
7) I'm ready for the flames, but there were many things that DH and I did based on recommendations of others that we simply didn't like.
Toy Story: waited in line for 46 minutes (better then standing outside in the pouring rain!) for a 5 minute ride that made my DH feel "dirty". Seriously. Didn't the imagineers try the ride out before they put it in production, men truly have an advantage if you know what I mean! DS loved it so it was worth waiting for.
Fantasmic: first night, sat in pouring rain with ponchos, got 20 minutes in, Ariel almost fell off her rock and show was cancelled due to weather. Went back a couple nights later and honestly, I was not impressed. Thought there was way too much of that movie on a waterfall crap and not enough actual show. I got bored a bunch of times!
Wishes: my apologies to the die hard wishes fans, but I don't get this one either! Don't get me wrong, it was good. But it is not something I want to brave stampedes for nor did it move me to tears.
Lion King Show: it was cute, but not great. I thought the funniest part was when they needed more dancers for the final scene so they monkeys stood in one spot and clapped left to right. Seriously, they are acrobats, not dancers. And it's very obvious they can't dance when you put them on the floor with professional dancers!!!
8) Buy the ponchos, and bring a giant Ziploc bag. We would put the ponchos on and as we walked on to a ride, roll them up and stuff them in the Ziploc bag. Took them back out as we exited and put them back on. Worked perfect.
9) Don't believe the "it only rains for less then an hour a day in Florida, so don't believe the weather report you read online" crap! It rained. It rained A LOT. We used our ponchos every day. But it wasn't a non-stop rain either, nor did it even remotely come close to ruining our vacation. If anything, it made it a fun adventure! With no little kids and no strollers, the rain is very easy to deal with, and the parks are a lot less crowded! So bring your ponchos and be prepared to use them. Oh yeah, bring extra shoes too. Yours will get soaked and started making those squishy squeaking noises.
10) Get ADR's for Crystal Palace before park opening. I did this based on a DisBoard tip and it was AWESOME! Park was empty when we got there, food was fantastic. By far one of the best breakfast buffets I have ever been too, and DS ended up loving the Pooh characters that I thought he wouldn't care about. Best part is we got out at 8:50am and got to listen to the opening ceremony from the tomorrow land bridge. Got to be first in line for Space Mountain!
11) Rain Forest Cafe does NOT take the DDP for breakfast. Tusker House does and the food is pretty good there, plus there's Mickey. Loved the Jamba Juice.
12) Don't put your camera and phone in the butt pocket of your shorts in August. It's hot, you will sweat, including your butt, and then your camera and phone will have butt sweat on it. Eww....
13) August heat is manageable and it's worth suffering through for the incredibly low crowd levels. Just drink tons of water and keep going on attractions that have air conditioning. Turns out DS loved the President show since he had learned about a lot of them in school. DH took a nice nap...
14) Check out easywdw.com, that guy was dead on in his park recommendations. The one day we didn't listen to him and went to MK anyways, it was crowded. But all the days we followed his guide, we had 5-10min waits for almost all rides! Got to walk on and ride BTMR three times in a row!
15) You'll be surprised at how much Spanish you actually remember from those four years back in high school once you hear it non-stop!
16) PhotoPass photographers are bored. Very bored. And they get very excited if you ask them to take photos of you making funny faces or with funny poses. You get a lot more photos that way too.
17) The steak at Tony's is amazing and the serving size is huge. I have no idea what kind of potatoes they serve with that, but they were awesome too.
18) Bring flip-flops for the kids even if you're a socks/sneaker Mom like me. They need them to walk to the pool, the concrete walk ways are hot!
19) Always offer to help a Mom in need, you have no idea what her story is. I helped a 8-month pregnant Mom with a double stroller, tons of packages, her 10yo nephew, 5yo daughter and 3yo daughter onto the bus. Turns out they were there to celebrate 5yo daughters end of chemo treatment. She was so thankful for my help and was such a nice woman. If you're reading this, I hope your daughters next round of tests confirm her remission!
I guess that's all for now, overall we had an awesome trip and a little hurricane and some rain didn't keep us down! I would go back the same time of year simply because the crowd levels were so low. We made it on every major ride in all four parks in 2.5 days. This gave us the chance for the first time ever to liesurly explore WDW at our own pace, it was amazing! It was so nice to not feel like we had to rush, and to be able to change our dining plans on a whim since every restraunt (except Sci-Fi!) had tons of openings. It was a great time and I can't wait until we can go back in four years as a Family of Five. I'm already starting to think about where we might want to stay for that trip!....
I have complained to my DH every time that he wins by default. Shame on me for continuing to try so hard though...maybe I'll win next time!
i ever saw on the boards!!!!!!!!!!lmfao!!!!!!!!
