VandVsmama
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2011
We just got back home from a 6/9-6/16 trip to WDW (first ever!). It's been a fun vacation and a learning experience. Here's what I learned this past week. Thought y'all might find this info useful!
Weather:
On the podcast, when they say "it rains, expect it," they're not kidding. We're from AZ. I found it a sweatier version of our Arizona summer monsoon rains. It rained daily, often in late afternoon/early evening. So bring an umbrella and/or poncho so you're prepared. I carried them every day into the park and I'm glad we did!
Weather Part 2:
If you're like us and not used to the humidity, be prepared to sweat. I'm talking about even standing in an A/C space and we would be sweating. I think I've lost a few pounds from all that. LOL. It sapped our energy a lot. Adjust accordingly.
Dealing with the heat:
General park touring:
Weather:
On the podcast, when they say "it rains, expect it," they're not kidding. We're from AZ. I found it a sweatier version of our Arizona summer monsoon rains. It rained daily, often in late afternoon/early evening. So bring an umbrella and/or poncho so you're prepared. I carried them every day into the park and I'm glad we did!
Weather Part 2:
If you're like us and not used to the humidity, be prepared to sweat. I'm talking about even standing in an A/C space and we would be sweating. I think I've lost a few pounds from all that. LOL. It sapped our energy a lot. Adjust accordingly.
Dealing with the heat:
- By 11 am, I thought it was stifling and unbearably hot. We often didn't leave the park for our PM break until 1-3 pm (not on purpose, things just took more time than we had planned).
- For us, the Froggs Toggs cooling towels didn't do a thing. They just made us feel more sticky & humid. Back home in AZ, we use them frequently at swim meets in the warmer months of the year. But for our bodies in Orlando, it felt like the towels were just adding to the humidity.
- The $3 fans I bought at Cost Plus Imports? BEST THING EVER! ODD's broke in the a.m. of our Animal Kingdom day (which was our last park day).
- battery-operated fans - bring extra batteries. These things used up batteries something fierce, especially when we were using them all day. YDD's broke (the 1 we'd brought from home), so I plunked down $20 for the WDW version. Expensive, but $$ well spent.
- Stay hydrated & force your kids to drink even when they say they're not thirsty. Animal Kingdom was brutal in terms of the heat. There's no breeze or air flow in that park. YDD & I both started to feel nauseous on Fri a.m. in AK because of this. That wiped YDD out for almost the rest of the day...like, she laid in bed for a few hours before she felt human again.
- Those drink flavor things? Test them at home ahead of time so you know that the ones you're bringing are flavors that your kids actually like. I didn't do this. Big mistake. YDD hated the taste of the free water, so we ended up spending a small fortune on bottled water for her.
- Body Glide on our feet & other parts prone to chafing was a life saver.
- We thought this park hardly had any shaded outdoor seating.
- Lots of attractions are very far apart from each other. Lots of walking. Wish this park had some sort of transportation available like MK does.
- The heat was a kind of a killer.
- Had lunch at Via Napoli & almost ALL of the CMs there are Italian. The pizza was phenomenal. We should have shared the individual size instead of the next size up. Got a salad for 2 as well...huge amount of salad. The arancini were out of this world. Our cute Italian waiter said that the arancini are the real deal, made just like back home. ODD said it was like heaven in your mouth. The arancini appetizer is something like $13. IT'S WORTH THE $$ FOR THIS!
- #1 thing we really loved about Epcot? The Voices of Liberty in the American Pavilion. Beautiful singing. You shouldn't miss it. Really.
- Some rides here have FP, but you really don't need them if you plan well and if you don't need to go on those rides between 12-5 pm.
- The mobile ordering never seemed to be operational at any of the QS locations I was going to use it at, so we just ended up ordering the good old fashioned way. Wasn't a big deal since we often ate lunch early or late so we avoided the lunch rush. But keep in mind that glitches can happen, so plan accordingly.
- The flat bread pizzas at Pinocchio's in Fantasyland are...BLEH...disgusting. But it was well air conditioned and we got to watch people get on It's A Small World, so that was neat. The tables by the windows to IASW are coveted. We were there shortly before 11 am and had our pick of tables. 15-20 min later? Those tables were all taken.
- The train never ran after fireworks. That was a little frustrating on the evenings that we were really worn out. At Disneyland, we often use the train for transportation to save our tired feet. So we had to hoof it from the Fantasyland train station all the way to BTMRR 1 night.
- The Fantasyland meet & greet for Minnie Mouse & Daisy Duck always had a much longer line than the Goofy & Donald Duck one. We didn't mind because we've never somehow managed to meet Donald at Disneyland, so we only waited 10 min in the Standby line for it at about 1:00 pm on Tuesday this past week.
- The fireworks dessert party was totally worth the $$$$ we spent on it. Wonderful experience. It was great. It offered a wide range of food options, so everyone in our family was happy. I wouldn't pay for this every trip, but I'd rather pay the $$$ for this over 1 of the other parks' evening entertainment options.
General park touring:
- A lot of people here on the boards use Touring Plans and now I see why! I'm so glad that we used TP. It was very helpful. Aside from the 52 min we waited at 10:20 pm on Fri night to get on FOP a second time, we didn't wait more than 20 min for any attraction thanks to this app/tool. I consider the subscription fee $$ well spent!
- Getting to the park (whichever park it was) early in the day was tiring, yet oh so useful because by 11:30 am each day (w/a reg park opening of 9:00 am daily), the lines for a lot of attractions were 45-60 min long.
- TP had us go on headliner rides really early in the day and then I noticed a trend of not as popular attractions later in the morning. We stuck to the plan and that worked very well for us.
- TP also had a feature where you can mark each step of your plan as completed as you go and you can recalculate the itinerary. I used this a lot because things took long to walk to then we thought or we'd stop to look in a store or something, so we were often running a tad "behind schedule." This feature was great because it helped us avoid standing in a queue for long periods of time.
- FP "refresh" - I did this a bit at other posters' suggestions & comments that I'd read here. This helped us move around our FP a bit on the fly because we changed our plans a little bit each day.
- Afternoon breaks - were really essential to us to deal with the heat, to deal with the afternoon crowds, and to deal with the Theme Park Fatigue that started to settle in after the 2nd day.
- Many ride wait times go down during fireworks - Not only DURING fireworks, but starting 1 hr BEFORE fireworks because everybody starts to stake out their real estate for fireworks viewing. This means that the wait times for almost all of the Fantasyland rides from 8 pm on through the end of the night drop like a rock compared to the 45-60 min waits the rest of the day. We waited 5 min to meet Ariel, then WALKED on to Ariel's ride next door. Walked on to Enchanted Tales with Belle. Mad Tea Party was a walk on (it's much faster than at Disneyland!). IASW was posted at ~ 5-10 min, etc., etc. Of course, Peter Pan & 7DMT were still long, but not 2 hr long.
- People are not joking when they say that it takes time to get around WDW. It's 1 thing to read about it, but it's something else to experience it for yourself. On Thurs a.m., we were going to take the bus from ASMusic to MK...mostly because the bus deposited you right at the MK park entrance instead of having to get on a monorail or ferry boat. But the departure time for the bus kept changing. SO much so that the departure time had changed by 10-15 min and we were still waiting. We got frustrated and just ended up driving (we'd rented a car for the week) and we got there faster than that ASMusic MK bus did.
- Distance-wise, things are not that far away, but when WDW tells you to allow up to 90 min to get to an ADR, you need to heed their advice and really allow for that much time to get places. I didn't realize how much we'd been spoiled out in Disneyland just walking 8 min from the Howard Johnson's to the park entrance! LOL!
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