Stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge 4n/5d
Stayed offsite for the rest of the time
Visited MKx3, HSx3, AKx1, Epx1
My first time with MDE
AK Lodge:
We stayed at the Lodge with a Savana View (the big circle, not the number 3). If possible, you want this view, not the Arusha because you will likely be looking across at other balconies (if you prefer privacy). There are a lot of trees in the Savana view which gives you the privacy from the other balconies but does block the view a little. As far as seeing animals, I think they are about the same. The Arusha view may be a little better because there are not so many trees. They put the secret feeding places in front of the balconies so you’ll see plenty of animals, not a huge variety, but a lot of animals. Make sure to take binoculars. If you have night vision take them. If not they have a viewing each night. The animal factor was cool. My wife and Kid freaked out when they looked outside and saw a giraffe and zebra 50 ft away. I enjoyed waking up in the morning and having breakfast watching the animals. The Boma buffet was okay. I would have liked to try more African food, there wasn’t much and what was there had a lot of Indian-type stuff, curry, etc. It was an expensive resort but I am glad we stayed there. I doubt we’d ever stay there again.
Magic Kingdom: FP-Thunder Mtn, Splash Mtn, Space Mtn (had 7D another day)
I had BOG reservations for Monday 8am with plans to go on 7D before RD but screwed up because the park opened at 8AM. I don't know if they've always opened early because I don't like going to MK early in the week. We were going with family so Monday was the best for the group. The day we had the 7D FP was the easiest day to tour. 7D is a blessing and curse, if you don't go on it you can walk on any of the mountains 2-3 times in the first 30 min and maybe 20min or less wait for the next 30-60 min. We went to Space Mtn 3 times and Buzz 2 times. Me and my son ended up going on 7D during the show (we've seen it a bunch). MDE dropped from 70min to 45min when we went and we were off within 30 min. With the new FP+ our old touring plans were not very effective. With MDE people see ride times and spread out more. The good thing is I guess not many people use their 4th FP+, or at least not effectively. We got FPs 10-15 min out for a bunch of rides like Pooh, Small World, Haunted Mansion, etc., when they had 30+ min waits, some an hour. And they would let us in 5-10 min early so it was FP-walk-ride-FP-walk-ride-etc. If you want to try for 7D as your 4th FP its possible (no guarantees), but if you try before noon you have a chance to get a 7pm or later FP. This means you can't use FP for the rest of the day. Also mountains and Peter Pan go quick. I think this is what most people did which allowed us to use our extra FPs for the other rides while they waited 30+ min. I like the Kiosks next to Philharmonic, never waited more than 5 min. Also, the ones next to Buzz are good, I think most use the ones next to Stitch, they seemed much busier. The ones next to Frontier Land was hit and miss. One day we went to Fantasy Land at RD. We almost got stomped until we split from the mob going to 7D. There were only a few people there for the first hour. We rode rides almost 20 times, sometimes we didn't even have to get off. Never could get a reservation for dinner or lunch at BOG. We walked up for lunch at like 1-2pm and they let us in straight away. Its only a few dollars more than other table service places but DEFINATELY worth it for ambiance, experience and food.
Conclusion: 7D at RD is NOT a good idea. Use the fact that 70-80% go to 7D and Frozen at RD to your advantage. If you want to ride any mountain or Peter Pan after the first hour you need a FP, otherwise walk-on multiple times the first hour. A good plan would be to get FP for 7D, Space Mtn, and Peter Pan (I think the tiers allow these 3 together). You'd need to get them 60 days in advance, they are hard to get. If you had these, go on Thunder and Splash Mtn at RD then repeat or maybe some other rides, get in your 3 FPs. If you can't get a 7D FP another idea would be to get earliest FPs you can, then try to get an evening FP for 7D. Go back to resort and rest. You can try to change your time or if you couldn't get a 7D FP get another and change it on MDE to 7D if you can. Come back for a 7-8pm 7D FP, stay for show, then other rides will be short lines or you can FP them. This allows you to eat outside MK (unless you can get a BOG reservation).
Epcot: FP-Test Track, Nemo, Space
We stayed in Orlando the first night and went straight to Epcot an hour before rope drop. We checked in online the day before but did not go to the hotel that morning. There were issues, I'll post a thread about magic bands and MDE later. At open the crowd split between Test Track and Soarin'. We walked onto Soarin' and I looked at the MDE app and it said 25min Test Track. We rushed over and it was 50min. Don't make this mistake. We should have went on Soarin' again with 20min wait. Both TT and Soarin' were long the rest of the day. TT single rider was short/walk on most of the day. All other was 20min by watching MDE app. We barely were able to get a 7-8pm Test Track as our 4th FP. I think Soarin' was done for the day. The other rides had FP availability but didn't feel we needed them. We had an early dinner so we could get a place to watch Illusions. My wife and M-I-L saved our spots watched our spots while my son and I went to ride TT 2 times with the FPs. I asked her to try and get a table in the La Cantina, she said it was full so got a place on the bridge. I thought it was a little too close to La Cantina, but view was not obstructed too much. I was watching tables and people got up within 45 minutes of show on outside tables but couldn't make it over in time. Lesson, if you don't mind standing/leaning get a place, get a spot on the bridge far away from La Cantina more than an hour before the show and have someone wait NEXT TO THE TABLES in La Cantina. I think you'll have more than a 50% chance of snagging a table for the show. We did the Perry adventure which allowed us to tour the whole showcase. My 7-yr old loved it. He took his nap during the American Show. We ate at Chef du France, we wanted to try French and it was good. The menu for the meal plan is different which was disappointing. The staff was snobby French with accents (like one would hope) but very kind and fun to talk to. They even tolerated American s trying to speak broken French. They were the only ones in ALL of WDW that admitted that the magic bands had issues. I can definitely appreciate the whole Disney smoke and mirrors, never lose the magic, never break character mantra, but sometimes it’s nice for someone to tell you the truth. In true Disney fashion, which may just BE the magic still, the Disney French were the ones to poo-poo the magic bands, everyone else towed the Disney line.
Hollywood Studios FP-various
Toy Story is crazy. FP or go on it at RD. The best plan is to get FP (not in this order) for ToT, Star Wars and either ToyS or RnR (RD the one you don't get). Get them out of the way early and you can easily get FPs to shows and Muppets. Be mindful of show times and order and you can easily get done early and still get a FP to Fantasmic (unless you have VIP which is STILL much better). Our VIP tix night got rained out and they told us they were good for 5 days. Note, even if you have FP for a show, get there 20-30 minutes BEFORE the window if you want good seats. The FP just guarantees a seat, not necessarily a good seat. If you are late for the window they WILL NOT let you in via FP, you have to go standby.
Animal Kingdom: FP Everest, Dino, Kilamanjaro
We’re not big fans of the Kali river ride, so we didn’t FP or go. We went straight to Everest at RD and walked on 3 times in a row, then waited 15 min for Whirl and 15 min for Dino. I think we could have walked on Everest then Kali once each. The park has A LOT of construction going on. Our old tour plan worked fairly well. We got a FP for Lion King pretty easy. This was one of our last days and we were tired. We did most everything but Kali by ~2pm and went home.
That is the end of the report pretty much, this is just a rant…
As far as magic bands, logistically they have a lot of potential for Disney. I don’t like to wear a watch but it didn’t bother me. My favorite part was I didn’t have to worry about a room key when I went swimming at the resort. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to ride the major attractions multiple plus times like we did before.
We checked in online but since we did not go to the hotel our magic bands didn’t work. We had to go to Guest Service several times. I was not very impressed. We got to the resort late and all the bellboys were unloading a big truck. I parked right in front and no one came over so I went to check in and everyone else went to the gift shop to get… something. I texted them and told them the room number. The online check in told us they would text us our room number but they never did. No bellboys to be found so I took some suitcases up so Mom could start getting everyone showered and ready for bed as it was late. I figured someone would see me hauling suitcases and rush over to help… NOPE. In fact two bell boys passed me in the lobby but didn’t see me because they were buried in their phones. When I came back down I asked one of the bellboys if I could borrow their cart. He said no. I asked if he would help unload my luggage. He said he couldn’t, that I needed to find someone outside to give me a card and all my luggage had to be processed and unloaded and taken up by a different person. Still couldn’t find anyone outside so I made another trip. As I was unloading the 3rd time a cast member came up and asked if he could help. When he saw how much luggage he said he’d go get a cart and unload properly. He unloaded it and took it into their little room and a guy came up to the desk and told me to go to the room and he’d have someone take it up in a little while. I told him I already took two loads up and didn’t get the right suitcase with the pajama’s and I wasn’t going to face my wife for a third time without them. I waited a few minutes and he found someone to take it up with me. After everyone was in bed I took the magic bands down along with the receipts where we had to pay for our food (we were on the meal plan but couldn’t use our magic bands). The concierge quickly got a manager and they comp’d the food and made sure all the magic bands were working and reset our pins. The manager apologized and said she would give us a FP for the next day, just go on any ride outside our normal FP window and they would let us through. I aksed how it would work and she said just do it and tell her if there were any issues. We tried it the next day and it did not work. We went to a person at the FP Kiosk and they said we didn’t have any extra FPs from our resort. At that point I figured the magic at Disney was fading. That evening we were able to get an extra FP for Buzz and me and my son went there while my wife went to check us in for our reservation at Tony’s. My son was with my sister and his croc (shoe) came off and as the ride spun around it flew out. He was yelling at me to get it but there wasn’t anything I could do but watch it slowly go out of site. This is where things turned around. We told the cast members when we got off if they could go get it. They said they could not until the park closed, but wrote us a coupon for $25 to get new shoes. We tried to find some at the store across from Buzz with no luck and were running late to dinner so rushed over. The food was good at Tony’s (I read it was like Mam Melrose but thought Mama Melrose was MUCH better). The waitress was great. When she saw my son without a shoe she asked him what happened and he explained. It was fun and funny. At the end she showed up with the check and some flip flops. My son doesn’t like flip flops, but it was a magical gesture that we truly appreciated. Only at Disney would this happen. So we went to find some shoes on Main Street. We found some Mickey Crocs. He had some just like it and loved them (Mickey lights up) but they were too small now. They were $40 so we thought it was worth paying the extra $15. When we got to the register they insisted to give them to us for free. Okay, I think, now THIS is the Disney we have all come to love. We get back to the hotel and I asked for the manager to report about the FP, but she wasn’t there. I told the guy at the desk what happened and that she said to tell her if it didn’t work. He said she’d be in the next day or I could leave here a note. I wrote a note but didn’t hear back the next day. I didn’t hear anything back so that next night I went to see if she was working. This concierge was much better (Chriztina from Bulgaria) and apologized and added 3 FPs and showed me how they show up on MDE and how they worked. We must have talked for almost an hour about what there was to do at the hotel magic bands, MDE, some tips on how to use them, etc. She saw me a few times throughout our stay and she called me by name and asked how everything was going. I think Disney has slipped a little by letting a few bad apples in, but there are still a lot of good people at Disney.
When I saw them testing Magic Bands a few years ago I decided to stay away for a few years. My wife wanted to go back so I figured we’d make a test trip and see how the magic bands and MDE has changed WDW for the better or worse. I’m still on the fence. I think WDW has forever been changed, some good and some bad. FP are now distributed more fairly for the big attractions so those of us who rode them all multiple times in a day because we knew how will probably not get to do that again. There is still some advantage for those of us who do our homework and know how to use the system. The magic bands captured all our pics on the rides and we didn’t have to scan them at the end. I think there is a lot more potential with the technology. I could have went to the park without my wallet. We’ll see if and how they make this happen. MDE software is some of the best software I’ve ever used. It is robust, easy to use, and let’s you do so much more than I would have ever thought of. There may be some VERY small bugs, but VERY impressive what it can do without being slow or buggy like so much software out there today. Kids writing code are getting lazy and sloppy these days. Of course allowing someone to check in online and not turning on their magic bands without checking in physically at the hotel is just dumb, not a software issue. So there is some common sense stuff they need to fix. I am an engineer not an IT guru, but I know enough to realize this is next level stuff.
My thought is if you like thrill rides, go to Universal. If you want the Disney experience and can tolerate less thrill rides than before, WDW is still a good place to go.
Hope you enjoyed the read. Good luck at WDW!!!
Stayed offsite for the rest of the time
Visited MKx3, HSx3, AKx1, Epx1
My first time with MDE
AK Lodge:
We stayed at the Lodge with a Savana View (the big circle, not the number 3). If possible, you want this view, not the Arusha because you will likely be looking across at other balconies (if you prefer privacy). There are a lot of trees in the Savana view which gives you the privacy from the other balconies but does block the view a little. As far as seeing animals, I think they are about the same. The Arusha view may be a little better because there are not so many trees. They put the secret feeding places in front of the balconies so you’ll see plenty of animals, not a huge variety, but a lot of animals. Make sure to take binoculars. If you have night vision take them. If not they have a viewing each night. The animal factor was cool. My wife and Kid freaked out when they looked outside and saw a giraffe and zebra 50 ft away. I enjoyed waking up in the morning and having breakfast watching the animals. The Boma buffet was okay. I would have liked to try more African food, there wasn’t much and what was there had a lot of Indian-type stuff, curry, etc. It was an expensive resort but I am glad we stayed there. I doubt we’d ever stay there again.
Magic Kingdom: FP-Thunder Mtn, Splash Mtn, Space Mtn (had 7D another day)
I had BOG reservations for Monday 8am with plans to go on 7D before RD but screwed up because the park opened at 8AM. I don't know if they've always opened early because I don't like going to MK early in the week. We were going with family so Monday was the best for the group. The day we had the 7D FP was the easiest day to tour. 7D is a blessing and curse, if you don't go on it you can walk on any of the mountains 2-3 times in the first 30 min and maybe 20min or less wait for the next 30-60 min. We went to Space Mtn 3 times and Buzz 2 times. Me and my son ended up going on 7D during the show (we've seen it a bunch). MDE dropped from 70min to 45min when we went and we were off within 30 min. With the new FP+ our old touring plans were not very effective. With MDE people see ride times and spread out more. The good thing is I guess not many people use their 4th FP+, or at least not effectively. We got FPs 10-15 min out for a bunch of rides like Pooh, Small World, Haunted Mansion, etc., when they had 30+ min waits, some an hour. And they would let us in 5-10 min early so it was FP-walk-ride-FP-walk-ride-etc. If you want to try for 7D as your 4th FP its possible (no guarantees), but if you try before noon you have a chance to get a 7pm or later FP. This means you can't use FP for the rest of the day. Also mountains and Peter Pan go quick. I think this is what most people did which allowed us to use our extra FPs for the other rides while they waited 30+ min. I like the Kiosks next to Philharmonic, never waited more than 5 min. Also, the ones next to Buzz are good, I think most use the ones next to Stitch, they seemed much busier. The ones next to Frontier Land was hit and miss. One day we went to Fantasy Land at RD. We almost got stomped until we split from the mob going to 7D. There were only a few people there for the first hour. We rode rides almost 20 times, sometimes we didn't even have to get off. Never could get a reservation for dinner or lunch at BOG. We walked up for lunch at like 1-2pm and they let us in straight away. Its only a few dollars more than other table service places but DEFINATELY worth it for ambiance, experience and food.
Conclusion: 7D at RD is NOT a good idea. Use the fact that 70-80% go to 7D and Frozen at RD to your advantage. If you want to ride any mountain or Peter Pan after the first hour you need a FP, otherwise walk-on multiple times the first hour. A good plan would be to get FP for 7D, Space Mtn, and Peter Pan (I think the tiers allow these 3 together). You'd need to get them 60 days in advance, they are hard to get. If you had these, go on Thunder and Splash Mtn at RD then repeat or maybe some other rides, get in your 3 FPs. If you can't get a 7D FP another idea would be to get earliest FPs you can, then try to get an evening FP for 7D. Go back to resort and rest. You can try to change your time or if you couldn't get a 7D FP get another and change it on MDE to 7D if you can. Come back for a 7-8pm 7D FP, stay for show, then other rides will be short lines or you can FP them. This allows you to eat outside MK (unless you can get a BOG reservation).
Epcot: FP-Test Track, Nemo, Space
We stayed in Orlando the first night and went straight to Epcot an hour before rope drop. We checked in online the day before but did not go to the hotel that morning. There were issues, I'll post a thread about magic bands and MDE later. At open the crowd split between Test Track and Soarin'. We walked onto Soarin' and I looked at the MDE app and it said 25min Test Track. We rushed over and it was 50min. Don't make this mistake. We should have went on Soarin' again with 20min wait. Both TT and Soarin' were long the rest of the day. TT single rider was short/walk on most of the day. All other was 20min by watching MDE app. We barely were able to get a 7-8pm Test Track as our 4th FP. I think Soarin' was done for the day. The other rides had FP availability but didn't feel we needed them. We had an early dinner so we could get a place to watch Illusions. My wife and M-I-L saved our spots watched our spots while my son and I went to ride TT 2 times with the FPs. I asked her to try and get a table in the La Cantina, she said it was full so got a place on the bridge. I thought it was a little too close to La Cantina, but view was not obstructed too much. I was watching tables and people got up within 45 minutes of show on outside tables but couldn't make it over in time. Lesson, if you don't mind standing/leaning get a place, get a spot on the bridge far away from La Cantina more than an hour before the show and have someone wait NEXT TO THE TABLES in La Cantina. I think you'll have more than a 50% chance of snagging a table for the show. We did the Perry adventure which allowed us to tour the whole showcase. My 7-yr old loved it. He took his nap during the American Show. We ate at Chef du France, we wanted to try French and it was good. The menu for the meal plan is different which was disappointing. The staff was snobby French with accents (like one would hope) but very kind and fun to talk to. They even tolerated American s trying to speak broken French. They were the only ones in ALL of WDW that admitted that the magic bands had issues. I can definitely appreciate the whole Disney smoke and mirrors, never lose the magic, never break character mantra, but sometimes it’s nice for someone to tell you the truth. In true Disney fashion, which may just BE the magic still, the Disney French were the ones to poo-poo the magic bands, everyone else towed the Disney line.
Hollywood Studios FP-various
Toy Story is crazy. FP or go on it at RD. The best plan is to get FP (not in this order) for ToT, Star Wars and either ToyS or RnR (RD the one you don't get). Get them out of the way early and you can easily get FPs to shows and Muppets. Be mindful of show times and order and you can easily get done early and still get a FP to Fantasmic (unless you have VIP which is STILL much better). Our VIP tix night got rained out and they told us they were good for 5 days. Note, even if you have FP for a show, get there 20-30 minutes BEFORE the window if you want good seats. The FP just guarantees a seat, not necessarily a good seat. If you are late for the window they WILL NOT let you in via FP, you have to go standby.
Animal Kingdom: FP Everest, Dino, Kilamanjaro
We’re not big fans of the Kali river ride, so we didn’t FP or go. We went straight to Everest at RD and walked on 3 times in a row, then waited 15 min for Whirl and 15 min for Dino. I think we could have walked on Everest then Kali once each. The park has A LOT of construction going on. Our old tour plan worked fairly well. We got a FP for Lion King pretty easy. This was one of our last days and we were tired. We did most everything but Kali by ~2pm and went home.
That is the end of the report pretty much, this is just a rant…
As far as magic bands, logistically they have a lot of potential for Disney. I don’t like to wear a watch but it didn’t bother me. My favorite part was I didn’t have to worry about a room key when I went swimming at the resort. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to ride the major attractions multiple plus times like we did before.
We checked in online but since we did not go to the hotel our magic bands didn’t work. We had to go to Guest Service several times. I was not very impressed. We got to the resort late and all the bellboys were unloading a big truck. I parked right in front and no one came over so I went to check in and everyone else went to the gift shop to get… something. I texted them and told them the room number. The online check in told us they would text us our room number but they never did. No bellboys to be found so I took some suitcases up so Mom could start getting everyone showered and ready for bed as it was late. I figured someone would see me hauling suitcases and rush over to help… NOPE. In fact two bell boys passed me in the lobby but didn’t see me because they were buried in their phones. When I came back down I asked one of the bellboys if I could borrow their cart. He said no. I asked if he would help unload my luggage. He said he couldn’t, that I needed to find someone outside to give me a card and all my luggage had to be processed and unloaded and taken up by a different person. Still couldn’t find anyone outside so I made another trip. As I was unloading the 3rd time a cast member came up and asked if he could help. When he saw how much luggage he said he’d go get a cart and unload properly. He unloaded it and took it into their little room and a guy came up to the desk and told me to go to the room and he’d have someone take it up in a little while. I told him I already took two loads up and didn’t get the right suitcase with the pajama’s and I wasn’t going to face my wife for a third time without them. I waited a few minutes and he found someone to take it up with me. After everyone was in bed I took the magic bands down along with the receipts where we had to pay for our food (we were on the meal plan but couldn’t use our magic bands). The concierge quickly got a manager and they comp’d the food and made sure all the magic bands were working and reset our pins. The manager apologized and said she would give us a FP for the next day, just go on any ride outside our normal FP window and they would let us through. I aksed how it would work and she said just do it and tell her if there were any issues. We tried it the next day and it did not work. We went to a person at the FP Kiosk and they said we didn’t have any extra FPs from our resort. At that point I figured the magic at Disney was fading. That evening we were able to get an extra FP for Buzz and me and my son went there while my wife went to check us in for our reservation at Tony’s. My son was with my sister and his croc (shoe) came off and as the ride spun around it flew out. He was yelling at me to get it but there wasn’t anything I could do but watch it slowly go out of site. This is where things turned around. We told the cast members when we got off if they could go get it. They said they could not until the park closed, but wrote us a coupon for $25 to get new shoes. We tried to find some at the store across from Buzz with no luck and were running late to dinner so rushed over. The food was good at Tony’s (I read it was like Mam Melrose but thought Mama Melrose was MUCH better). The waitress was great. When she saw my son without a shoe she asked him what happened and he explained. It was fun and funny. At the end she showed up with the check and some flip flops. My son doesn’t like flip flops, but it was a magical gesture that we truly appreciated. Only at Disney would this happen. So we went to find some shoes on Main Street. We found some Mickey Crocs. He had some just like it and loved them (Mickey lights up) but they were too small now. They were $40 so we thought it was worth paying the extra $15. When we got to the register they insisted to give them to us for free. Okay, I think, now THIS is the Disney we have all come to love. We get back to the hotel and I asked for the manager to report about the FP, but she wasn’t there. I told the guy at the desk what happened and that she said to tell her if it didn’t work. He said she’d be in the next day or I could leave here a note. I wrote a note but didn’t hear back the next day. I didn’t hear anything back so that next night I went to see if she was working. This concierge was much better (Chriztina from Bulgaria) and apologized and added 3 FPs and showed me how they show up on MDE and how they worked. We must have talked for almost an hour about what there was to do at the hotel magic bands, MDE, some tips on how to use them, etc. She saw me a few times throughout our stay and she called me by name and asked how everything was going. I think Disney has slipped a little by letting a few bad apples in, but there are still a lot of good people at Disney.
When I saw them testing Magic Bands a few years ago I decided to stay away for a few years. My wife wanted to go back so I figured we’d make a test trip and see how the magic bands and MDE has changed WDW for the better or worse. I’m still on the fence. I think WDW has forever been changed, some good and some bad. FP are now distributed more fairly for the big attractions so those of us who rode them all multiple times in a day because we knew how will probably not get to do that again. There is still some advantage for those of us who do our homework and know how to use the system. The magic bands captured all our pics on the rides and we didn’t have to scan them at the end. I think there is a lot more potential with the technology. I could have went to the park without my wallet. We’ll see if and how they make this happen. MDE software is some of the best software I’ve ever used. It is robust, easy to use, and let’s you do so much more than I would have ever thought of. There may be some VERY small bugs, but VERY impressive what it can do without being slow or buggy like so much software out there today. Kids writing code are getting lazy and sloppy these days. Of course allowing someone to check in online and not turning on their magic bands without checking in physically at the hotel is just dumb, not a software issue. So there is some common sense stuff they need to fix. I am an engineer not an IT guru, but I know enough to realize this is next level stuff.
My thought is if you like thrill rides, go to Universal. If you want the Disney experience and can tolerate less thrill rides than before, WDW is still a good place to go.
Hope you enjoyed the read. Good luck at WDW!!!
