LOL, I am really fortunate and do not limit my vacations to DLR and WDW. E.g., I am headed to Barcelona and Prague next week for 8 days. And France (and maybe England) in November. Thinking about Italy in April. Thanks for the Clint Eastwood pun.
I think DW and I are thinking more trips to favorites like NYC and Las Vegas and less to Disney for awhile. We have been wanting to visit Austin and New Orleans. She has never been to Yellowstone and I have not been for almost 20 years. And Mt Rushmore. She has been and I have not. With less Disney trips we may prioritize some or all of those.
For the time being I have no plans to visit Siberia though.
My father also travels a lot for work. He is going to New Orleans and my mom is tagging along. She went many years back and LOVED it. She's excited to go back.
My DH also REALLY wants to go to Mt Rushmore. There isn't much else to do over there though, but it is on our travel list.
This isn’t unusual for soarin. I remember a few years back it being open during emh to regular guests.
That was my first thought. Soarin is often reported as open before opening. Incidentally, any time I've tried to go on before opening it didn't appear open.
About the comments on rides breaking down, I have experienced that in the past like many of you but on this trip it was not an issue for us. I can't remember any breakdowns except for a few where we got Multi-Experience FP and and those just happened thru the app and did not impact us really.
I think ride break downs have been better this year than last. There were a lot more complaints last spring/summer about constant ride break downs. Indy was having trouble but they closed it (for the week we were there) to do some fixing. I also noticed they have Matterhorn and BTMR closing at different times this SUMMER. I believe Disney is working on sprucing up the rides to prevent break downs and extended closures next summer when everything needs to be running at MAX capacity for SW opening.
We visited the week before you and I agree with a lot of what you said. We had a good time, but the crowds were more than I wanted. I was very disappointed they did that. I am also disappointed in their choice to remove the Photographers from the popular princess M&G. The pictures I got with Anna and Elsa were not as good as the ones they would have taken. They did have a great interaction with DD2 though, and she is still talking about, they gushed over her curls. I didn't bother to take my DD2 to see the Princesses in PFF this time because I knew the pictures would be awful. I took her earlier in the year, but she was still shy with the characters, so it was a disappointment.
We plan to take the kids to do some other SoCal things next year. Probably a Spring trip, and then a summer trip with Time Share. We are going to take them to
LEGO land, need to do it before the oldest is too old. Also have plans to go to the zoo, Sea World, and animal park (ticket that allows for all 3). We may take them to Universal, but that is undecided. I know that I am going to be dying to see SW land and it's immersive feel, and we missed out on Pixar Pier (Screamin was a favorite), but I really want to wait until our youngest is at least 4 to go back. The ride swapping and stroller get to you after three kids. We also went to
Disneyland more on this DAP than we did the previous two times we had DAPs. We got a little Disney burnout. I think we need an 18 month to 2 year break, even though there will be times when I'm itching to go back.