I thought I would throw out a pretty brief topical trip report. I really appreciate all this board offers and hope some of my comments help others. Let me know if I missed something that might be of value to you and I'll opine. Thanks for reading!
Fast Past FP+ - it was awful for us. So much planning in advance and then if even the minor hiccup occurs in your plans, you probably miss out. Weather killed one day and the kids being sick hindered another.
And because we stayed off site, we never got to go on 7DMT, A&E, Rockin Roller Coaster or Space mountain. When we were at the park, lines ran at least 60-90+ minutes for each of them, which just weren't worth it and 7DMT broke down twice as far as we heard.
For example, When we got here, we had sick kids so we lost a day in the park (fortunately Animal Kingdom) but we lost Safari, Kilamanjaro, and Character meets. When we tried to rebook another day, all that was left was kind of crap, so we didn't even bother going to AK.
Another issue we noticed with FP+ is that lines for everything were long. Even rides historically that were never long were now running 30+. For example, Small world was running on average 25-45 minutes. Crazy. I think it's because when you can't get a premium FP ticket, you just take whatever they have and then those FP lines get filled up and the stand by lines take forever. It was just so annoying.
Also, the line management by staff seemed poor and unorganized.
Gone are the legacy FP days that were awesome and allowed folks to decide the day they arrived rather than the stress of planning a month out. boo.
Anna & Elsa Sing Along at HS. I only comment on this because I really like Frozen; like how much my kids like it. I expected a lot from this show, but all it really is is a large screen video of the sing along version of Frozen narrated by two incredibly crass and uninteresting people who think they're funny. There's a brief Anna Elsa cameo and then it ends with one song that's lipsinked. But Crass is probably an understatement. Some of their jokes were not meant for kids. Too adult, some offensive. It was just pretty tacky and horrible. Fortunately my kids were too young to understand, but I thought it was a big disappointment and showed how little planning went into this show and how Disney continues to drop the ball on supporting good family values. Shame on Disney for such hasty rubbish. Total junk.
All of the other rides/shows we were able to go on were good to great as expected.
Crowds. We thought crowds were moderate to low. For mid-October, it was great. But then given how low we thought crowds were, lines were a nightmare if you didn't have FP's. 30 minutes for Smallworld! 45 for Pirates? I don't remember ever waiting 45 minutes for Pirates in 25 years of going and many Easter breaks. As we noted above, we think FP+ sucks.
Crowd calendar websites were all slightly to totally off, FYI.
Weather. Mid October...started very hot for a midwesterner. Ended, perfectly. Cool front came through and we had two days of low 80's and no humidity. Awesome overall.
Golf - Magnolia I played Magnolia one day. Course was in great condition. Staff was fantastic. I got grouped up with some great fellas. Super enjoyable, wished I had more time to play another round.
Dining: Grand Floridian Cafe. Meh. Was once a favorite lunch spot for us, this time, service was awful, food was just okay. I got the FL Burger, which historically was a champ, this time, unmemorable. My wife got the cobb and liked it but nothing spectacular.
Dining: Citricos. Usually a favorite of ours. It was a disappointment. We had one of the THE WORST Waitresses on the planet. I don't really want to go into it except for the first time in my life I requested another server because she was so obnoxious.
Our new waiter was awesome and save the day. The food was okay, nothing spectacular: we both ordered the braised ribs. The heirloom tomato salad, though, was amazing. Tiramisu was meh and the chocolate cake was great. Overall, annoyed and won't go back for a while.
Dining: Victoria & Alberts. I surprised my wife for our wedding anniversary with this one. Yes, it went well. Amazing, totally worth it. It ran $565 with tip, Kobe Beef add on, and one wine pairing. Yep, I can't believe I said that, but that was the damage and I also can't believe I would say that I'd definitely do that again. We've dined well in our life time and never came close to such a great experience. Highly recommended on the bucket list.
Dining: BlueZoo. Awesome. As usual. As expected, non-Disney restaurants rock. Disney dining is kind of crap in our opinion. We've all but given up. All of our non-Disney dining is amazing. Disney dining is always a problem. For the money, it's better to rent a car and go off site.
Dining: Hollywood Brown Derby. Again, another historical favorite. This time, great food, horrible service. I ordered the filet and it was great, as it has been every time. Wife ordered the burger. Also great. Kid food sucked, as usual at Disney. (We normally order them Apps for meals rather than kid food). Service was poor. Our waitress was slow, annoyed by our requests, brought me a chilled Pinot...***. Somewhat pathetic individual that seemed uninterested in the fact she actually has employment when so many others do not. Anyway, good food, horrible service. I would go back for the food.
Dining: Bahama Breeze (Arlo Bronson). Awesome as usual. Great food, great service, great price. Can't beat it for the value. We go every year.
Food and Wine. So much better to go on a Monday than weekend (like we did last year) if you have kids. No swearing, people are nicer. Crowds were still high, but not a bunch of drunks running around dropping F-bombs around 4 year olds. Food was okay, nothing memorable. Beer was great though. Service was okay, nothing memorable. It was a fun event and would go again even though the food is just okay.
HS place you can get beer: The worst waiter ever. Tried to get a beer and malts. He ignored us for a while; took three other orders before us (we were there first), then asked me "now what do you want?". Total DBag. We didn't tip him. Got our malts, which were good. But bartender was horrible.
Cast Members and Service. This shouldn't be a suprise...some of the worst service we've had in years. Most cast members were either average or poor at their jobs. Not including VA which had absolutely wonderful staff and servers. All dining staff except at BlueZoo were average to horrible, which is pathetic for what we pay to go there. It just continues to prove why we spend less money onsite dining than off or at grocery stores. No other noticable standouts other than photographers and the golf course.
All that said, it continues the trend we've seen each year for the past 7 (definitely the past 20 years that I've been) years...noticably worst each time. Anecdotal, I know, but I think the trend is representative of others.
MNSSHP: Super cool. Disney rocked it. Not much to say about it other than it's very cool, but very crowded and with little kids, hard to really appreciate. Better to wait to kids get older.
Kids Nite Out Babysitting: We used them for our anniversary night. Always excellent. No problems. Texted progress reports; got both our kids to sleep, stayed longer because we stayed out longer. She was great. We use them every time.
Wyndham Bonnet Creek: Thanks to this board, we've become converts. We really like this place. It's definitely not a Disney feel, but it's so convenient and value-added. It was super crowded though this time. A lot more expensive than we've historically paid for Fall trip. Staff was nice. Room was fine...I don't think the rooms are amazing; crappy construction quality and shoddy housekeeping, but compared to what you would pay to Disney, there's actually no comparison, WBC wins all day. Although given the noticable increase in price we paid this year over past years, we may branch out next time and explore other offsites.
Kingdom Strollers. We rent a stroller and crib from them each year. They're great. nothing but good things to say about the quality of their stuff.
Catch all
We had fun overall because our kids had fun and don't observe the things we observe. We've gotten used to being disappointed with Disney dining and cast members, so we just roll with it and have as much fun as possible because you make it what you want it to be.
If we could see things through our kids eyes, we'd be here all the time, but that's not reality. The magic we knew 10-20+ years ago is long gone. Annoying, but we still will come back again some day simply because it's fun. We just don't stay on site anymore or really want to dine on site.
FP+ is a deal killer for us though. Lines, planning, the stress of it all was just so annoying that we won't come back next year or so, although hopefully we'll muster up the excitement to come back in the next two to three years. Bummer for me to say that because we do like the "idea of Disney trip". Alas, there's so many other fun things to do on the planet, and Disney won't miss us I'm sure.
Again, hope this helps. Thanks again to the board for helping us have fun where we can. Please let me know if I can opine in any other ways.
Cheers!
Fast Past FP+ - it was awful for us. So much planning in advance and then if even the minor hiccup occurs in your plans, you probably miss out. Weather killed one day and the kids being sick hindered another.
And because we stayed off site, we never got to go on 7DMT, A&E, Rockin Roller Coaster or Space mountain. When we were at the park, lines ran at least 60-90+ minutes for each of them, which just weren't worth it and 7DMT broke down twice as far as we heard.
For example, When we got here, we had sick kids so we lost a day in the park (fortunately Animal Kingdom) but we lost Safari, Kilamanjaro, and Character meets. When we tried to rebook another day, all that was left was kind of crap, so we didn't even bother going to AK.
Another issue we noticed with FP+ is that lines for everything were long. Even rides historically that were never long were now running 30+. For example, Small world was running on average 25-45 minutes. Crazy. I think it's because when you can't get a premium FP ticket, you just take whatever they have and then those FP lines get filled up and the stand by lines take forever. It was just so annoying.
Also, the line management by staff seemed poor and unorganized.
Gone are the legacy FP days that were awesome and allowed folks to decide the day they arrived rather than the stress of planning a month out. boo.
Anna & Elsa Sing Along at HS. I only comment on this because I really like Frozen; like how much my kids like it. I expected a lot from this show, but all it really is is a large screen video of the sing along version of Frozen narrated by two incredibly crass and uninteresting people who think they're funny. There's a brief Anna Elsa cameo and then it ends with one song that's lipsinked. But Crass is probably an understatement. Some of their jokes were not meant for kids. Too adult, some offensive. It was just pretty tacky and horrible. Fortunately my kids were too young to understand, but I thought it was a big disappointment and showed how little planning went into this show and how Disney continues to drop the ball on supporting good family values. Shame on Disney for such hasty rubbish. Total junk.
All of the other rides/shows we were able to go on were good to great as expected.
Crowds. We thought crowds were moderate to low. For mid-October, it was great. But then given how low we thought crowds were, lines were a nightmare if you didn't have FP's. 30 minutes for Smallworld! 45 for Pirates? I don't remember ever waiting 45 minutes for Pirates in 25 years of going and many Easter breaks. As we noted above, we think FP+ sucks.
Crowd calendar websites were all slightly to totally off, FYI.
Weather. Mid October...started very hot for a midwesterner. Ended, perfectly. Cool front came through and we had two days of low 80's and no humidity. Awesome overall.
Golf - Magnolia I played Magnolia one day. Course was in great condition. Staff was fantastic. I got grouped up with some great fellas. Super enjoyable, wished I had more time to play another round.
Dining: Grand Floridian Cafe. Meh. Was once a favorite lunch spot for us, this time, service was awful, food was just okay. I got the FL Burger, which historically was a champ, this time, unmemorable. My wife got the cobb and liked it but nothing spectacular.
Dining: Citricos. Usually a favorite of ours. It was a disappointment. We had one of the THE WORST Waitresses on the planet. I don't really want to go into it except for the first time in my life I requested another server because she was so obnoxious.
Our new waiter was awesome and save the day. The food was okay, nothing spectacular: we both ordered the braised ribs. The heirloom tomato salad, though, was amazing. Tiramisu was meh and the chocolate cake was great. Overall, annoyed and won't go back for a while.
Dining: Victoria & Alberts. I surprised my wife for our wedding anniversary with this one. Yes, it went well. Amazing, totally worth it. It ran $565 with tip, Kobe Beef add on, and one wine pairing. Yep, I can't believe I said that, but that was the damage and I also can't believe I would say that I'd definitely do that again. We've dined well in our life time and never came close to such a great experience. Highly recommended on the bucket list.
Dining: BlueZoo. Awesome. As usual. As expected, non-Disney restaurants rock. Disney dining is kind of crap in our opinion. We've all but given up. All of our non-Disney dining is amazing. Disney dining is always a problem. For the money, it's better to rent a car and go off site.
Dining: Hollywood Brown Derby. Again, another historical favorite. This time, great food, horrible service. I ordered the filet and it was great, as it has been every time. Wife ordered the burger. Also great. Kid food sucked, as usual at Disney. (We normally order them Apps for meals rather than kid food). Service was poor. Our waitress was slow, annoyed by our requests, brought me a chilled Pinot...***. Somewhat pathetic individual that seemed uninterested in the fact she actually has employment when so many others do not. Anyway, good food, horrible service. I would go back for the food.
Dining: Bahama Breeze (Arlo Bronson). Awesome as usual. Great food, great service, great price. Can't beat it for the value. We go every year.
Food and Wine. So much better to go on a Monday than weekend (like we did last year) if you have kids. No swearing, people are nicer. Crowds were still high, but not a bunch of drunks running around dropping F-bombs around 4 year olds. Food was okay, nothing memorable. Beer was great though. Service was okay, nothing memorable. It was a fun event and would go again even though the food is just okay.
HS place you can get beer: The worst waiter ever. Tried to get a beer and malts. He ignored us for a while; took three other orders before us (we were there first), then asked me "now what do you want?". Total DBag. We didn't tip him. Got our malts, which were good. But bartender was horrible.
Cast Members and Service. This shouldn't be a suprise...some of the worst service we've had in years. Most cast members were either average or poor at their jobs. Not including VA which had absolutely wonderful staff and servers. All dining staff except at BlueZoo were average to horrible, which is pathetic for what we pay to go there. It just continues to prove why we spend less money onsite dining than off or at grocery stores. No other noticable standouts other than photographers and the golf course.
All that said, it continues the trend we've seen each year for the past 7 (definitely the past 20 years that I've been) years...noticably worst each time. Anecdotal, I know, but I think the trend is representative of others.
MNSSHP: Super cool. Disney rocked it. Not much to say about it other than it's very cool, but very crowded and with little kids, hard to really appreciate. Better to wait to kids get older.
Kids Nite Out Babysitting: We used them for our anniversary night. Always excellent. No problems. Texted progress reports; got both our kids to sleep, stayed longer because we stayed out longer. She was great. We use them every time.
Wyndham Bonnet Creek: Thanks to this board, we've become converts. We really like this place. It's definitely not a Disney feel, but it's so convenient and value-added. It was super crowded though this time. A lot more expensive than we've historically paid for Fall trip. Staff was nice. Room was fine...I don't think the rooms are amazing; crappy construction quality and shoddy housekeeping, but compared to what you would pay to Disney, there's actually no comparison, WBC wins all day. Although given the noticable increase in price we paid this year over past years, we may branch out next time and explore other offsites.
Kingdom Strollers. We rent a stroller and crib from them each year. They're great. nothing but good things to say about the quality of their stuff.
Catch all
We had fun overall because our kids had fun and don't observe the things we observe. We've gotten used to being disappointed with Disney dining and cast members, so we just roll with it and have as much fun as possible because you make it what you want it to be.
If we could see things through our kids eyes, we'd be here all the time, but that's not reality. The magic we knew 10-20+ years ago is long gone. Annoying, but we still will come back again some day simply because it's fun. We just don't stay on site anymore or really want to dine on site.
FP+ is a deal killer for us though. Lines, planning, the stress of it all was just so annoying that we won't come back next year or so, although hopefully we'll muster up the excitement to come back in the next two to three years. Bummer for me to say that because we do like the "idea of Disney trip". Alas, there's so many other fun things to do on the planet, and Disney won't miss us I'm sure.
Again, hope this helps. Thanks again to the board for helping us have fun where we can. Please let me know if I can opine in any other ways.
Cheers!
