bdiddy
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2008
We went to WDW last summer in June for a week. Here were the pros & cons from my point of view.
Positives:
Negatives:
- got to stay 1 night at Animal Kingdom Lodge in a savanna view room. That was amazing. I'd be thrilled to stay there in that room a whole week.
- stayed the rest of the time at All Star Music. Saw Donald AND Goofy at that resort on the same day. Despite it being a value resort, we enjoyed our stay there. Plenty of fun activities to do, which was great on our one "we're not going to the parks today" day. Even made Mickey tie-dye tshirts at the pool (you had to pay for them of course).
- Really enjoyed Hoop Dee Doo Revue at Fort Wilderness. SO much fun. Worth the $$$ we paid for it. I wouldn't mind staying some day at Wilderness Lodge, I think.
- Country Bear Jamboree
- Hall of Presidents
- Flight of Passage ride in Animal Kingdom
- fireworks dessert party at Magic Kingdom w/garden viewing. That was worth the $$$.
- got to ride 7 Dwarfs Mine Train a couple of times. That was a lot of fun
- Tomorrowland in Magic Kingdom (although DL's Space Mtn is a better ride)
- Loved the food in the Italian restaurant in Epcot
- Riding Splash Mtn with no wait 5 min before MK closed one night and walking through an empty Adventureland.
Despite all of that, I WOULD like to go to WDW probably once more. I'd love to stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge for an entire week with that savanna view. And if we go again in a hot time of year (which is almost the entire year in central Florida), I think that my general plan would be to do way fewer park days. Something like this:
- the FP system. DL's FP system is superior. I really REALLY do not like having to decide 2 months ahead of time what time I'm going to go on certain rides.
- It seemed like EVERYTHING at MK had a FP for it.
- Every character meet & greet had a FP. It made it almost impossible to do meet & greets in that case unless you had a FP or were willing to wait an hour to take a picture with a character. Yes, we've been spoiled by our spontaneous character interaction experiences at DL, so this was a big negative for us.
- Quick Service food, in general, really kind of sucked there.
- Hard to get Table Service reservations. It seemed like eating was a huge deal for a lot of park guests at WDW. We enjoy eating as much as the next person, but for our family, it's not a massive event. It's not the main attraction.
- Getting places takes forever. Especially to Magic Kingdom. The distance might not be that far, but the free transportation just seemed to take a long time. Good thing we didn't park hop.
- The weather - California wins on this, hands down. We live in AZ and knew it would be humid. So we knew what we were getting into. But it still wiped us out.
- The heat in Animal Kingdom. We didn't make it past noon on our one AK day because of the heat. We were all starting to feel nauseous and heat sick because of the weather in that park that day. Would love to have spent more time exploring all of the animal trails in AK, but we all felt like we were going to throw up.
- Epcot - Future World felt like a sad & ugly 1980s Silicon Valley business park. And it seemed like it took forever to walk from one attraction to another in this park. The International section felt like it was more about food and shopping. We pretty much hated Epcot. I wouldn't really want to go back to that park, to be honest.
- Our check in experience at All Star Music was bad. It was our first time ever checking into a WDW resort. I even told the CM that. He didn't even say "Welcome." Maybe he was having a bad day, but his attitude just really left a lot to be desired. He didn't offer First Visit buttons even after I specifically asked if they had any.
- There were a couple of great CMs here and there, but generally speaking, the CMs' attitudes were in the realm of "I'm here to collect a paycheck." The kids and I wore our First Visit buttons the entire time and not once did any CMs (other than at Animal Kingdom Lodge) notice the buttons and say anything to us, ask us if we were enjoying our visit, etc. The CMs at DL, in general, just seem WAY more happy to be there. However, the CMs at WDW seemed very grumpy and unhappy.
- Don't understand what the big deal is about Disney Springs.
Arrival day
park day
rest day
park day
rest day
park day
etc.
Regarding the animal trails at Animal Kingdom, we just got back from our 6th visit to WDW a few weeks ago and this was the first time we did the animal trails! We are usually there in the summer and it’s just so stinking hot and humid. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the animal trails were and we really enjoyed them. So if you ever have a chance to go back, go when it’s cooler and do them for sure!
And I have a funny DL story related to the heat. Our first visit was in July of 2017 and it was probably 85ish on our days there and it was definitely hot and the sun was hot but it was nothing like Florida - there was no humidity! I kept telling my husband that I can stay out in this all day! Anyway....we kept hearing what I assume were locals in line near us complaining how hot and miserable it was. My husband and I kept exchanging looks and I was thinking “Clearly these people have never been to WDW in the summer because this is great!” Haha! So you Californians definitely have us beat with the weather for sure!