TexanInBrazilandBackAgain
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2018
Okay, finally! We have been planning this trip and rescheduling it since May 2019. That got bumped to December 2019. Then to May 2020, but then, Covid. So then Dec 2021, but then, we got Covid. So finally now, May 2022, we just got back. yay!!
First up -- we had to call and get our expired, unused tickets applied to the purchase of new tickets. Easy-peasy once I got a person on the phone. We upgraded from a 3-day ticket to a 4-day ticket (non park hopper) and paid the difference. Done!
Our itinerary was:
Thurs May 12 -- Animal Kingdom
Friday May 13 -- Hollywood Studios
Saturday May 14 -- Magic Kingdom
Sunday May 15 -- Epcot
Per the suggestion/tip of the cast member on the phone that helped with the tickets, we stalked Oga Cantina reservations and then rearranged our park days to accommodate that once we got it. As we did not do any of this until about 3 weeks before our trip, we felt pretty fortunate to get the reservation at all, but we got it! yay!
We did not do Park Hopper, LL, or Genie+ at all -- with 5 people, it just wasn't feasible. We were prepared for waits in line &/or skipping stuff; as it turned out, we didn't have more than an hour wait for things, nor did we have to miss anything we had on our "must do" list. We did skip some of our "would be nice, but not necessary" stuff. We did take midday breaks each day except for Thursday/Animal Kingdom. We stayed off-site, but close (Crestwynd Bay Townhomes, via an AirBnB rental).
We did use Genie, primarily for the tip board to check wait times, and largely disregarded the order/arrangement that Genie laid out for us. It kept adding things like sit-down lunches vs. mobile ordering, or character things we weren't interested in, or shows we didn't ask to do, etc. so rather than follow all of that we just looked for what had the shortest wait and headed there.
Also used the app for mobile ordering, and love the "order food" feature that lets you select to mobile order *then* choose a place -- it showed all of the pick-up time options, and we'd just scroll to find the soonest time, open that menu, place our order, head that way, tap "here" on the way over and by the time we got there, our food would be ready to pick up. We were able to get indoor seating each place, as well. We brought water bottles and refilled them in the water fountains.
Day-by-Day reports below as replies to this thread, broken down by park.
First up -- we had to call and get our expired, unused tickets applied to the purchase of new tickets. Easy-peasy once I got a person on the phone. We upgraded from a 3-day ticket to a 4-day ticket (non park hopper) and paid the difference. Done!
Our itinerary was:
Thurs May 12 -- Animal Kingdom
Friday May 13 -- Hollywood Studios
Saturday May 14 -- Magic Kingdom
Sunday May 15 -- Epcot
Per the suggestion/tip of the cast member on the phone that helped with the tickets, we stalked Oga Cantina reservations and then rearranged our park days to accommodate that once we got it. As we did not do any of this until about 3 weeks before our trip, we felt pretty fortunate to get the reservation at all, but we got it! yay!
We did not do Park Hopper, LL, or Genie+ at all -- with 5 people, it just wasn't feasible. We were prepared for waits in line &/or skipping stuff; as it turned out, we didn't have more than an hour wait for things, nor did we have to miss anything we had on our "must do" list. We did skip some of our "would be nice, but not necessary" stuff. We did take midday breaks each day except for Thursday/Animal Kingdom. We stayed off-site, but close (Crestwynd Bay Townhomes, via an AirBnB rental).
We did use Genie, primarily for the tip board to check wait times, and largely disregarded the order/arrangement that Genie laid out for us. It kept adding things like sit-down lunches vs. mobile ordering, or character things we weren't interested in, or shows we didn't ask to do, etc. so rather than follow all of that we just looked for what had the shortest wait and headed there.
Also used the app for mobile ordering, and love the "order food" feature that lets you select to mobile order *then* choose a place -- it showed all of the pick-up time options, and we'd just scroll to find the soonest time, open that menu, place our order, head that way, tap "here" on the way over and by the time we got there, our food would be ready to pick up. We were able to get indoor seating each place, as well. We brought water bottles and refilled them in the water fountains.
Day-by-Day reports below as replies to this thread, broken down by park.