fiasco32
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2017
Sitting at home snuggled up by the fireplace reminiscing about our just-completed trip to DW. Despite a few hiccups, we had a great time and I wanted to share some broad observations.
Quick overview of our trip:
We're a family of four (Dad, Mom, 8-year-old princess and 9-year-old prince). Booked at WL in a courtyard view bunkbed room. Did 6 parkhopper days with the DDP. We also booked EMM on our first morning and DAH on our last night.
Observations:
Crowd Sizes
Last year (our first time at WDW) I was very surprised by the crowd sizes, as I understood January to be "off-season." This year I went in with tempered expectations, which helped ease frustration when crowds swelled. Our Sunday at MK and Monday at HS were absolutely packed. LOTS of foreign teenage tour groups. Crowds seemed to lighten up just a tad as the week went on. Epcot on Tuesday seemed particularly light, as I noticed throughout the day that the standby line for FEA was only at 35 minutes at noon.
Fast Passes
Probably my biggest complaint of the whole trip would be the FP lines. I understand longer lines for TSMM and ToT in HS because there are refurbishment/mechanical issues there, but I would say we experienced MUCH longer FP lines this year than last year overall. At one point, the Haunted Mansion FP line was approaching 45 minutes. We waited a shorter time than than for our FoP FP! Seems crazy to have such long FP lines in January. I also found it absolutely impossible to find FPs within the next hour like I did last year. My strategy last year was to schedule our last FP to end around 1-2 pm, then just find the best FPs around the park for the rest of the day. This year, around 1-2 pm, the only FPs available were either for the much less popular/kiddie rides, or not available until 5-7 pm, creating a very large window where I was scrambling to find stuff for us to do.
Shows
Saw HEA for the first time. It was nice but I wasn't necessarily blown away. Not noticeably better than Wishes, IMO. Also saw Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage for the first time and was very impressed. The woman who played Belle sounded EXACTLY like in the animated movie. Great performance.
Frozen Sing Along was really good, but I wish they would let the actors ad-lib more. I saw a performance last year where the historians ad-libbed quite a bit and it was an absolute riot.
We also really really enjoyed the Monsters Inc. laugh floor. The comedians who do the show are very talented and I found myself sad it was so short. The audience participation with the video screen is sooo good, we left kicking ourselves that we only got to watch it once. IMO this is one of the most underrated things at MK.
I continue to be irritated at people who don't follow the directions to move all the way down the row when filling the theater. It's one of my biggest pet peeves about going to shows at Disney. WDW does an excellent job of building their theaters so there are no bad seats, but there are always entitled people who think they are owed the middle seats.
Extras
As said above, I splurged for both EMM on our first morning, as well as DAH on our last night. Great experiences with both and well worth it. Doing these allowed us to ride 7DMT a grand total of 15 times over the course of our trip! All with very minimal waits. If you can afford either/both of these events, I would say pull the trigger, but don't go into expecting zero waits on EVERY ride. WDW does a good job capping these events at a reasonable number, but no matter what you do, people are going to flock to certain rides.
We also used the Minnie Van service a handful of times. Generally positive reviews...the CM drivers were very friendly and were really good at gauging how much friendly conversation to have or not have. The one bummer was after DAH I had planned to hail a Minnie Van to avoid taking a shared bus, but the Lyft app searched and searched for literally 15 minutes and I could never hail one. That was frustrating as that's the one time I really thought it would be the most convenient.
At most parks, the Minnie Van pulls up closer than Ubers and taxis can, but that's not the case at AK. Not sure why that is, but it seems silly.
Hiccups and Pixie Dust
Our son started to get sick our third day and by Wednesday night was in really rough shape and had to stay at the hotel while I took our daughter to MK for the evening. At 3 am the next morning he was up complaining of an ear ache, so I googled "Disney urgent care" and was surprised there's not one on property. Booked him an appointment at an urgent care just off property and they got him some antibiotics for an ear and throat infection. He took his first dose and immediately started to feel better, so mom and son joined me and daughter at Hollywood Studios mid-morning. I asked at Guest Services if we could move our morning FPs to the afternoon since they were missing out, and they were nice enough to not only let me and my daughter use our morning FPs (ToT and TSMM) but gave us three extra FPs for the whole park for the afternoon. Great customer service.
A couple more pixie dust moments: CMs at one of the stores giving my daughter a full set of "Mater the Greater" pins when she got excited that she found one while pin trading with them. Another CM at the FoP gift shop literally pulled a pin off the rack and gave it to my daughter when she told her which pin she had been looking for all week.
We also continue to work through frustration with Lost & Found. My son set down his brand new Captain Phasma die-cast action figure in the Mickey/Tink store in Main Street and realized it about 30 seconds after we walked out of the store. We ran back in and it was already gone. I asked the CM at the counter, who told me they had found it and a different CM had immediately walked it over to City Hall. We went over there, and no one could find it. We figured it might take them a while to get it in the Lost/Found bin, so we went back two hours later, but still no luck. They gave me a number for the general Lost/Found office at the TTC, which I called the next morning. Still nothing. Just called this morning. Still nothing.
It would be one thing if it was lost and we were hoping for someone to turn it in, but when the CMs confirmed it was found and now Disney can't locate it, that's pretty frustrating. Having to leave Florida and drive the 9 hours back home without his brand new toy was not a fun way to end the trip for our son (although I've tried to turn it into a teachable moment for him as it was his fault for setting it down in the store).
One other uncomfortable moment involved a CM in Star Wars Launch Bay trying to pressure my son into trading one of his pins. I like to allow my son to speak for himself in situations like this, but the CM was being inappropriately high pressure and I finally had to tell him myself that my son didn't want to trade. In hindsight, I wish I had reported the incident, but we were in a hurry to get to our next FP.
Hope this post isn't too long. Tried to keep it to only in-park observations!
Quick overview of our trip:
We're a family of four (Dad, Mom, 8-year-old princess and 9-year-old prince). Booked at WL in a courtyard view bunkbed room. Did 6 parkhopper days with the DDP. We also booked EMM on our first morning and DAH on our last night.
Observations:
Crowd Sizes
Last year (our first time at WDW) I was very surprised by the crowd sizes, as I understood January to be "off-season." This year I went in with tempered expectations, which helped ease frustration when crowds swelled. Our Sunday at MK and Monday at HS were absolutely packed. LOTS of foreign teenage tour groups. Crowds seemed to lighten up just a tad as the week went on. Epcot on Tuesday seemed particularly light, as I noticed throughout the day that the standby line for FEA was only at 35 minutes at noon.
Fast Passes
Probably my biggest complaint of the whole trip would be the FP lines. I understand longer lines for TSMM and ToT in HS because there are refurbishment/mechanical issues there, but I would say we experienced MUCH longer FP lines this year than last year overall. At one point, the Haunted Mansion FP line was approaching 45 minutes. We waited a shorter time than than for our FoP FP! Seems crazy to have such long FP lines in January. I also found it absolutely impossible to find FPs within the next hour like I did last year. My strategy last year was to schedule our last FP to end around 1-2 pm, then just find the best FPs around the park for the rest of the day. This year, around 1-2 pm, the only FPs available were either for the much less popular/kiddie rides, or not available until 5-7 pm, creating a very large window where I was scrambling to find stuff for us to do.
Shows
Saw HEA for the first time. It was nice but I wasn't necessarily blown away. Not noticeably better than Wishes, IMO. Also saw Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage for the first time and was very impressed. The woman who played Belle sounded EXACTLY like in the animated movie. Great performance.
Frozen Sing Along was really good, but I wish they would let the actors ad-lib more. I saw a performance last year where the historians ad-libbed quite a bit and it was an absolute riot.
We also really really enjoyed the Monsters Inc. laugh floor. The comedians who do the show are very talented and I found myself sad it was so short. The audience participation with the video screen is sooo good, we left kicking ourselves that we only got to watch it once. IMO this is one of the most underrated things at MK.
I continue to be irritated at people who don't follow the directions to move all the way down the row when filling the theater. It's one of my biggest pet peeves about going to shows at Disney. WDW does an excellent job of building their theaters so there are no bad seats, but there are always entitled people who think they are owed the middle seats.
Extras
As said above, I splurged for both EMM on our first morning, as well as DAH on our last night. Great experiences with both and well worth it. Doing these allowed us to ride 7DMT a grand total of 15 times over the course of our trip! All with very minimal waits. If you can afford either/both of these events, I would say pull the trigger, but don't go into expecting zero waits on EVERY ride. WDW does a good job capping these events at a reasonable number, but no matter what you do, people are going to flock to certain rides.
We also used the Minnie Van service a handful of times. Generally positive reviews...the CM drivers were very friendly and were really good at gauging how much friendly conversation to have or not have. The one bummer was after DAH I had planned to hail a Minnie Van to avoid taking a shared bus, but the Lyft app searched and searched for literally 15 minutes and I could never hail one. That was frustrating as that's the one time I really thought it would be the most convenient.
At most parks, the Minnie Van pulls up closer than Ubers and taxis can, but that's not the case at AK. Not sure why that is, but it seems silly.
Hiccups and Pixie Dust
Our son started to get sick our third day and by Wednesday night was in really rough shape and had to stay at the hotel while I took our daughter to MK for the evening. At 3 am the next morning he was up complaining of an ear ache, so I googled "Disney urgent care" and was surprised there's not one on property. Booked him an appointment at an urgent care just off property and they got him some antibiotics for an ear and throat infection. He took his first dose and immediately started to feel better, so mom and son joined me and daughter at Hollywood Studios mid-morning. I asked at Guest Services if we could move our morning FPs to the afternoon since they were missing out, and they were nice enough to not only let me and my daughter use our morning FPs (ToT and TSMM) but gave us three extra FPs for the whole park for the afternoon. Great customer service.
A couple more pixie dust moments: CMs at one of the stores giving my daughter a full set of "Mater the Greater" pins when she got excited that she found one while pin trading with them. Another CM at the FoP gift shop literally pulled a pin off the rack and gave it to my daughter when she told her which pin she had been looking for all week.
We also continue to work through frustration with Lost & Found. My son set down his brand new Captain Phasma die-cast action figure in the Mickey/Tink store in Main Street and realized it about 30 seconds after we walked out of the store. We ran back in and it was already gone. I asked the CM at the counter, who told me they had found it and a different CM had immediately walked it over to City Hall. We went over there, and no one could find it. We figured it might take them a while to get it in the Lost/Found bin, so we went back two hours later, but still no luck. They gave me a number for the general Lost/Found office at the TTC, which I called the next morning. Still nothing. Just called this morning. Still nothing.
It would be one thing if it was lost and we were hoping for someone to turn it in, but when the CMs confirmed it was found and now Disney can't locate it, that's pretty frustrating. Having to leave Florida and drive the 9 hours back home without his brand new toy was not a fun way to end the trip for our son (although I've tried to turn it into a teachable moment for him as it was his fault for setting it down in the store).
One other uncomfortable moment involved a CM in Star Wars Launch Bay trying to pressure my son into trading one of his pins. I like to allow my son to speak for himself in situations like this, but the CM was being inappropriately high pressure and I finally had to tell him myself that my son didn't want to trade. In hindsight, I wish I had reported the incident, but we were in a hurry to get to our next FP.
Hope this post isn't too long. Tried to keep it to only in-park observations!
We've gotten a Macbook charger by mail from WDW that my daughter left in our room. It took a few weeks, but we got it!
