Just taking some down time this evening.
We are staying at Pop Century in one of the refurbished rooms (80's building). The refurbished rooms are amazing. We are a family of 4. Two adults and two Disney adults (13 & 16). We are park people so don't spend a ton of time in the room. But the refurbished room is great. Two Queen sized beds works great. Much of our luggage is under the bed and the place is really workable. Lots of plugs and lots of cupboards and shelves to store things. If you can grab a refurbished room, I would highly recommend.
We also were offered the $15/night to forego mousekeeping. We decided to give it a try. This is working really well for us. We actually prefer not to have someone come in everyday. Seems pretty easy to get new towels and toilet paper/soap, etc. For us the $170 gift card is a great bonus.
We are also doing free dining. We are Canadian so got the slightly earlier free dining dates (August 13th). The Quick Service dining plan works for the way we like to do the parks. The food court in Pop is okay, but Art of Animation food court is much better. A lot more variety. It take us 5-10 minutes to walk over to AoA and have some dinner (when we aren't in the parks).
We also took advantage of the free dining Bouceback offer for 2018 (which became available earlier this week). Very easy to book. I worry that Disney will change the Quick Service dining plan when free dining is announced in April 2018. Last year they changed Moderates to the QS plan. I worry that Disney will change the free dining at Value resorts to perhaps just 1 QS meal/day. So taking advantage of the Bouceback for next year means we are locked in for 2 QS meals + 2 snacks for Pop next year.
On Tuesday (August 15), we went to Magic Kingdom. We had an 8am BoG breakfast. Was out of breakfast around 8:40 and were held adjacent to 7DMT. Around 8:50 we were moved to the stand by line at 7DMT and held. Extra morning magic was on Tuesday morning. So I guess they were continuing to let EMM people in. Around 8:55 they let us and we walked on 7DMT. So that was great. I wasn't sure what EMM was going to do to us and wait times at 7DMT. When we got off 7DMT around 9:05, the rope drop crowd had arrived and the wait times were over 60 minutes, so we headed off to do other rides.
We did Animal Kingdom today (Thursday August 17th). We were at the park around 7:20 am. We were basically second in line. I took all the bags and the rest of the family went to the no bags line. They opened the security check point at around 8:00am. Then they let us through the turnstiles around 8:20. Even though we were about second in line at the turnstiles, we ended about 50 people back where they held us at the bridge to Pandora. We are brisk walkers but people were running to get to Pandora. Around 8:45, they started to walk us to Pandora. We went to FoP and got there around 8:55. The ride might have been glitching because we were stuck on the "banshee" for a while. We got out at 9:15 and there was about a 40 minute wait at Navi (FoP had a 220 minute posted wait at 9:15, so if you aren't there prior to rope drop I would pick some other ride in the morning). We got in line at Navi. It was actually about a 30 minute wait. Then we went off to Everest with about a 25 minute wait. All in all a great day. If we hadn't gotten held up slightly at FoP, probably could have done Navi and Everest with lower wait times.
We are booked for the August 25th MNSSHP. So we will be going the first night. I will update with details of that party. Starting to see Halloween merchandise in Magic Kingdom, but obviously, the exclusive stuff won't be out until the party.
We are staying at Pop Century in one of the refurbished rooms (80's building). The refurbished rooms are amazing. We are a family of 4. Two adults and two Disney adults (13 & 16). We are park people so don't spend a ton of time in the room. But the refurbished room is great. Two Queen sized beds works great. Much of our luggage is under the bed and the place is really workable. Lots of plugs and lots of cupboards and shelves to store things. If you can grab a refurbished room, I would highly recommend.
We also were offered the $15/night to forego mousekeeping. We decided to give it a try. This is working really well for us. We actually prefer not to have someone come in everyday. Seems pretty easy to get new towels and toilet paper/soap, etc. For us the $170 gift card is a great bonus.
We are also doing free dining. We are Canadian so got the slightly earlier free dining dates (August 13th). The Quick Service dining plan works for the way we like to do the parks. The food court in Pop is okay, but Art of Animation food court is much better. A lot more variety. It take us 5-10 minutes to walk over to AoA and have some dinner (when we aren't in the parks).
We also took advantage of the free dining Bouceback offer for 2018 (which became available earlier this week). Very easy to book. I worry that Disney will change the Quick Service dining plan when free dining is announced in April 2018. Last year they changed Moderates to the QS plan. I worry that Disney will change the free dining at Value resorts to perhaps just 1 QS meal/day. So taking advantage of the Bouceback for next year means we are locked in for 2 QS meals + 2 snacks for Pop next year.
On Tuesday (August 15), we went to Magic Kingdom. We had an 8am BoG breakfast. Was out of breakfast around 8:40 and were held adjacent to 7DMT. Around 8:50 we were moved to the stand by line at 7DMT and held. Extra morning magic was on Tuesday morning. So I guess they were continuing to let EMM people in. Around 8:55 they let us and we walked on 7DMT. So that was great. I wasn't sure what EMM was going to do to us and wait times at 7DMT. When we got off 7DMT around 9:05, the rope drop crowd had arrived and the wait times were over 60 minutes, so we headed off to do other rides.
We did Animal Kingdom today (Thursday August 17th). We were at the park around 7:20 am. We were basically second in line. I took all the bags and the rest of the family went to the no bags line. They opened the security check point at around 8:00am. Then they let us through the turnstiles around 8:20. Even though we were about second in line at the turnstiles, we ended about 50 people back where they held us at the bridge to Pandora. We are brisk walkers but people were running to get to Pandora. Around 8:45, they started to walk us to Pandora. We went to FoP and got there around 8:55. The ride might have been glitching because we were stuck on the "banshee" for a while. We got out at 9:15 and there was about a 40 minute wait at Navi (FoP had a 220 minute posted wait at 9:15, so if you aren't there prior to rope drop I would pick some other ride in the morning). We got in line at Navi. It was actually about a 30 minute wait. Then we went off to Everest with about a 25 minute wait. All in all a great day. If we hadn't gotten held up slightly at FoP, probably could have done Navi and Everest with lower wait times.
We are booked for the August 25th MNSSHP. So we will be going the first night. I will update with details of that party. Starting to see Halloween merchandise in Magic Kingdom, but obviously, the exclusive stuff won't be out until the party.
