Thoughts about WDW from DL vets

JasonMak2000

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jun 17, 2017
I really enjoy reading about WDW vets thoughts about DL before and after their first trips. Thought it would be interesting to see what the DL faithful think of WDW for a change. Not necessarily looking for which you think is better, ( DL just has too many good things going for it :smooth:) but are there aspects of disney world that you like or were surprised by. What parks,rides,restaurants, resorts do you like or get excited about? If you have never been, what things sound intriguing? If travel expenses were not an issue would you want to go more often?
 
We've been to DW twice and DL 4-5 times in the last 7 years. I feel like DW is more of a vacation. There are so many resorts to choose from (onsite and off) and so much to do besides the parks. Hanging around the resort all day was so relaxing! I can't imagine having a non park day in Anaheim. I was surprised how much I liked Epcot. I thought it would be lame but now want to go back to spend more than 1 day there! Really would like to see Flower and garden show. I liked the ride in the big golf ball and Figment! I loved how there was stuff for kids to fiddle with at the end of rides and in line. Way more little kid play areas! Magic kingdom just felt too spread out and like it was missing rides . We loved AK! Safari ride was wonderful! And expedition Everest was a great coaster. The Nemo show was awesome. We stayed at the AK lodge one trip and it was great! The African food buffet was the best buffet I've ever had. I really want to check out the water parks next trip.

Really didn't like FP plus. And how hard it was to get a lot of rides in during one day. I'm sure there are ways around it of course. How can you pick restaurants at 6 months if you don't know what FP you can get til 60 or 30 days?! And who really wants to plan restaurants at 6 months prior? Was also not a fan of the buses. Will probably rent a car next time. Yep there will be a next time!
 
DH and I are DLR vets and have our third WDW trip coming up Nov-Dec 2018. On our first WDW trip we were amazed at how big WDW is. We knew it was big, but wow, it's huge. So spread out. The four parks are so far from each other. The resorts are so spread out. You don't really get it until you are there in person.

Disneyland will always be our "home" park, but WDW has so much more to offer. There is absolutely no way you can do everything you want to do in one trip, even if you're there for 2-3 weeks. Our first trip was 14 days (we got annual passes). It was meant to be our once in a lifetime trip to WDW. Well, that didn't last long. We did a split stay at Port Orleans French Quarter and Wilderness Lodge. Both resorts were amazing. We loved being in the Disney Bubble the whole time we were there. We had an absolute blast!

We tried out a lot of restaurants. There are so many table service restaurants to choose from at the parks and several of the resorts. Our top favorite restaurants are Tusker House at AK and Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater at DHS. Our favorite park is Animal Kingdom and favorite ride is Kilimanjaro Safari. We love the theming of this park. We really like Epcot, especially World Showcase. Our favorite ride at Epcot is Spaceship Earth. At Magic Kingdom we like PeopleMover and Carousel of Progress (we wish they were both still at Disneyland). We did Disney After Hours at MK and had a fantastic time. All the rides were walk-ons. It was so cool walking around MK with so few people around.

If travel expenses were not an issue we would definitely go to WDW more often.
 
I have been to wdw once, many years ago. Took some bad advice from people and only went to Epcot. I wasn’t impressed. I loved the night time show. Fireworks maybe. Do they have an indoor light show too? Or did they?

I would love to see some of the attractions DLR doesn’t have. RESTAURANTS sound amazing there.

It’s not an expense issue. It’s a time with kids on flights issue. Plus my kids have sensory issues. Dragging them across the country would cause mass hysteria. Lol

My biggest fear is taking an hour to get to a park. Yikes!

Their FP system isn’t appealing.
 


I’m from SoCal, lived 15 mins from DL my whole life, have APs for the last 8 years. It was my DREAM to visit WDW and I finally did for the first time last year. Then we went back again this year and joined DVC. We’re already booked for next year. Safe to say that I absolutely loved it!!

There are similarities especially with MK and DL but semi different. I love the other parks and Disney springs! There are so many amazing food choices and restaurants that we had and still need to try. We went in August both times and while it wasn’t a deal breaker, yeah we would have preferred California’s weather. Haha. It sucked when the pools would close since we did a lot of relaxing at our resort.

Amazing enough, we haven’t even seen any shows yet! There’s just so much to do and so much more being added. They have the room to do it! At DL they really don’t, they just remove and replace or retheme.

I don’t have a preference. I just absolutely love both parks now.
 
I am a WDW vet who now considers DLR my home park (DH is still attached to WDW). For years we were CMs at WDW but since we moved to CO 8 years ago we have been to DLR 9 times (twice to WDW in that time).

I love WDW, don't get me wrong but it is so much work! I like pre-planning (for me it is half the fun of traveling) but even in-park it was a bit stressful. That is one big difference, at DLR I maybe book a couple of dinners and shows but that is it. So it is more relaxing. I do like the Disney "bubble" at WDW, once we get there we do not leave property (at the same time I like going around CA on our DLR trips). Dining is another thing I like at WDW - so much variety! We usually go for 10 days and eat at different places every meal.
The weather in FL is miserable - one of the reasons I wanted out of there ;). So humid and prepare yourself for the 4PM rain.
 
I grew up with Disneyland and on my trips to WDW I always note the following:

  • "All this extra space and they fill it with NOTHING. MK may be bigger than DL, but it has so much less substance in it."
  • "Meet and Greets are not attractions."
  • "This place looks like Disney but doesn't often feel like Disney."
  • "Too many parks, too few attractions."
  • "The dining plan is a rip-off." (keep in mind that Disneyland's DP is worse!)
  • "This park is dirty and rundown."
  • "Reserving dining reservations six months in advance is ridiculous."
  • "Themed queues == not enough attractions, so they're trying to distract you while you rot in line for hours, instead of creating more capacity."
The difference between DL and WDW is that DL feels like a park that a daddy built for his daughters, while WDW feels like it was built by an executive committee for the WalMart/'Murica crowd.
 


I went to WDW in 2016, it was my first time back since 1991. Since I love planning trips, it was fun for me to set up what park we were going to do what day, where to eat our table service meal, booking fast passes. Overall I found the process quite enjoyable and was able to get everything I wanted to do done. I was coordinating it for both me and my ex-DH, and my sister and her fiance and their 3 kids. Trying to find things that make everyone happy was a challenge but it all seemed to work out okay. I liked the magic bands how they were used as your park ticket, your room key, the meal plan etc. That said I don't want FP+ coming to DL anytime soon but I wouldn't mind magic bands to serve as the room key, just seemed way more convenient.

We went in June so it was hot, but not unbearable. But walking down main street at the Magic Kingdom was surreal. Yes the castle is bigger but I felt like I was in an alternate universe where everything was just slightly different. I even felt like Main Street was shorter there than at DL. The only ride I will give the edge to at WDW is Splash Mountain only because of the story telling aspect. But I found myself missing the DL rides, and really missing Indy (Dinosaur was fine but it's no Indy ride) and even missing the Matterhorn no matter how painful it is. I also didn't care for the busing back and forth between resorts, the buses were never on time, and even though we tried to leave with plenty of time, on our first day there we almost missed our Cinderella's Royal Table reservation because it was so late. The other real issue we encountered was closing out Hollywood Studios, it took forever to get a bus and get back to the hotel. I think with the line of people for our resort we waited almost an hour? The queues were nice to a look at and offered something different to look at.

Disney Springs has it hands down over DTD. I loved all the shopping and food options there. I know most people don't go to Disney for the shopping but when we took a rest day to switch hotels hanging out out Disney Springs was a nice way to spend the time.

However, overall I enjoyed it and wouldn't mind going back, it's just difficult to fly to the other side of the country. But I can't wait to come home to the DLR in 12 days!
 
As a DL vet our family took a WDW trip in September 2017. We were shocked at how far apart the parks were. We knew it wasn't a quick walk like a DL but the buses were often 25-30 minutes apart and packed so you would have to wait at least one bus fell. They were probably running less buses due to it being a slower time of the year, but that made it almost impossible to efficiently park hop. The shows were a little underwhelming, I guess compared to the Frozen show at DCA my expectations were a little too high, but the shows were good but not amazing like Frozen.

We did thoroughly enjoy AK, especially Pandora. That land is absolutely amazing and Flight of Passage is easily the best theme park attraction I have ever experienced. Expedition Everest and the Safari were also amazing. Hollywood Studios reminded me of DCA, with Tower of Terror and all. Rock 'n Rollercoaster was lots of fun as well. With all the new stuff going into that park (Toy Story Land, Galaxy's Edge, new Mickey & Minnie ride) I can see HS becoming a two-day park very soon. EPCOT was really disappointing to us, but we're ride commandos and there are just not a lot of headliner rides there. And some of the rides you keep waiting for something amazing to happen, but it never does.

We did really enjoy Magic Kingdom, but you have to change you're view of what you think the park (especially Fantasyland) should look like. Small World facade indoors? No village look? Two Dumbo's (that was actually really smart)? Once you get over that it's a great park.

I know I sound like I'm nit-picking, but we really had an amazing time. Even though we got chanced out a day early due to Hurricane Irma (if any East Coaster complains about Ee, we were able to do everything we wanted in the parks within the 5 days we had in the parks, and were able to do certain things multiple times. Honestly, Pandora alone would have made the whole trip worth it.
 
There is no doubt that the disney bus system leaves a lot to be desired. We drive or rent a car when we fly just to avoid the buses and save time. It's great to have that"free" transportation option, but it is the least efficient way around property.
 
Yeah it was kinda funny. We rented a car since we ended up having to fly home from Atlanta instead of Orlando, and it was the greatest unplanned event we could stumble upon. It saved us so much time. Then a few months later they announced the real time bus arrival times had been linked to MDE, which would have been great when trying to leave the resort in the mornings to time when the bus would actually be arriving as opposed to having to walk to the bus terminal to find out.
 
The difference between DL and WDW is that DL feels like a park that a daddy built for his daughters, while WDW feels like it was built by an executive committee for the WalMart/'Murica crowd.

Though I might have chosen a bit different wording here, BINGO!

DLR's got that quaint, beautiful feel to it.

My husband and I took our first WDW trip back in February and we actually had an amazing time and will go back in a few years, but we still love Disneyland best. I was in love with Disneyland before I ever set foot in the park. I was initially pulled in by the return of Captain EO (yes, seriously, I love MJ), but I love everything about DLR and I came to love Walt Disney as a person and as an immensely successful business enterprise (I have a BS in Business Administration).

Back to WDW, there were many things we loved. I am THE planner and my husband was given information by me about our trip and many opportunities to give me input, but he was overwhelmed at POR alone when we first arrived, haha. He also was amazed at how wooded the WDW property is, given we are used to DLR. We really enjoyed all 4 theme parks and were really surprised that we loved Hollywood Studios as much as the other 3! Maybe I'll get flamed for this, but with the exception of the Japan and Mexican pavilions, I was personally a little underwhelmed by World Showcase in Epcot. I actually love Future World more. Animal Kingdom was really great and my husband's favorite park. Magic Kingdom is great, BUT it's just not Disneyland and comparison is inevitable. I missed my Matterhorn real bad there. We ate at Coral Reef, Sci-Fi Drive In Diner, and Sanaa and loved all 3, especially Sanaa. Animal Kingdom Lodge is awesome and I'd love to stay there sometime and I know my husband would, but cha-ching!

The buses were pretty great for us except for one day when we ended up waiting maybe 20 minutes for one to show up.

We took a day off from the parks to take the boat from POR to Disney Springs and had a great day there as well.

Long story short, loved WDW, but DLR still has our hearts.
 
I really enjoy reading about WDW vets thoughts about DL before and after their first trips. Thought it would be interesting to see what the DL faithful think of WDW for a change. Not necessarily looking for which you think is better, ( DL just has too many good things going for it :smooth:) but are there aspects of disney world that you like or were surprised by. What parks,rides,restaurants, resorts do you like or get excited about? If you have never been, what things sound intriguing? If travel expenses were not an issue would you want to go more often?


Animal Kingdom is amazing! I wish we had something like that here. We also enjoyed the amount of table service restaurants to choose from.

I prefer the DL Resort but there are amazing aspects to WDW.
 
I wish I knew exactly how many times I have been to DL. My first trip was in 1965 at age 8. My last trip was day before yesterday.
My only trip to WDW was last year. It is a whole different mindset.
1) WDW takes a whole lot more planning due to the distance between the parks.
2) WDW has a whole lot more to offer in total, however it is spread out among the parks.
3) We were amazed at how ill prepared WDW was for rain. We were surprised how many attractions and kiosks closed because it was raining. In 47 years of operations they haven't figured out how to weather proof?
4) We were surprised at how late the parks open at WDW. DL is open at least an hour earlier.

Our immediate impression of WDW was we were glad we went, but not sure we will go back.
What we prefer about DL is that if you stay at the Grand Californian, you can be in DCA in minutes (3 minutes for us Tuesday morning from our room to the park). We stayed at the Grand Floridian at WDW and it was a longer trip depending on your timing with the monorail or boats. At DL you can exit a ride in DL and be on a ride in DCA in 10 minutes. We went from our hotel room to Splash Mountain (with a Fast Pass) to Grizzly River run (walked right on) and back to our hotel room to get dry clothes in 45 minutes.
 
I've been to WDW twice, and my observations are:
  • LOVE the Disney bubble
  • The dining experience is a much bigger deal - requires a lot of planning, but I enjoy it very much
  • LOVE LOVE LOVE the rides I miss from the old days at Disneyland - PeopleMover, Carousel of Progress, Bear Country Jamboree
  • Like the MagicBands instead of park tickets
  • Dislike FP+ process - Disneyland FP is far better
  • Wish parks were closer, so parkhopping was more convenient (bus can eat up a lot of time)
  • Always feel like I've missed so much at the end of my visit
 
Regular to both. I am a Disneyland local and go several times a month (at least), but head down to WDW twice a year (for a total of about 21 days per year there and 20+ visits total overall).

What I generally tell people when they ask why I would go all the way to FL when Disneyland is right here include:
  • it is a true vacation (eating in restaurants, staying in the resorts, relaxing at pools) whereas I often stop at Ralphs or Target to do some errands coming home from Disneyland. I can really unplug too whereas work thinks nothing of calling when I am "only" at Disneyland since it is still local.
  • We love the Animal Kingdom. I could ride the safari all day. This last trip had a 5 safari day for us. Pandora is also amazing and we do enjoy the animal trails.
  • We love Epcot. And more specifically --- eating at Epcot. Le Cellier, Chefs de France, and Teppan Edo are some of our favorites!
  • The resorts - love AKL and having a safari view (where else can I walk on my balcony and see giraffes first thing in the AM?), Wilderness Lodge (just because we love it there), Boardwalk and/or Beach Club (love walking to Epcot).
  • We joined DVC and love having the option to stay in the nice accommodations down in WDW.
Of course, there are downsides and things we miss when we go there:
  • Proximity of DCA to DL and the pain of hopping at WDW. We typically just skip hopping most of the days at WDW.
  • Ride Comparisons - As much as I try not to compare the rides, I do that every time. Disneyland pretty much always wins the comparisons hands down. Can I say how much I hate Buzz in MK?
  • Buses - this is kind of pro and con. I like not having to rent a car and deal with parking and tram hassles. And for the most part, the buses are ok. We did have barely so-so bus service at Boardwalk last week and Contemporary last year. But Pop in the spring was great.
I will continue with my twice annual trips and visiting DL regularly. We are a Disney family and I have made many friends over the years because of Disney.
 

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