We got back on Friday... what an incredibly magical trip! Disney just does it like no other. The constant entertainment and excitement is everywhere you turn. Shows, parades, singing, dancing, laughing... it's indescribable. We could have easily spent days more there and still not covered it all. We missed so much!
Initial thoughts to share:
1) RSR is worth the trip alone. That ride is so much fun and definitely lives up to the hype. We hit it first thing in the morning at rope drop twice, rode it and then I ran to get fast passes for later in the evening. By 10am the passes were already gone so it's pretty crazy. Lines were 1.5-3 hr during the day.
2) Maters Tractors was so much fun. Don't miss it!
3) Breakfast at Flo's is wonderful AND affordable. We all ordered the kids waffles plate and it was plenty for each of us (even dh who loves big breakfasts)
4) Carsland is fun but by far the busiest place to be. BUT most are happy to be there and are patient and friendly. CMs are always great there.
5) We were there 5 days but I swear I could have used another 2 or 3. Days 2-4 FLEW by. I seriously don't remember them. We missed Animation Academy and Aladdin and I'm so sad
. Ah well, means we just have to go back soon right
6) The drinking in DCA really bothered us. I NEVER would have thought I would have to deal with drunks at Disney. I couldn't help but think about how disappointed Walt would be. We didn't see it much mind you but one queue had a group of swearing, groping young adults that were obviously intoxicated and late in the evenings, people started to get noisy. It was really sad and disappointing. It was like being in Vegas, seeing people walking around with beer and wine.
7) The new Tangled show was awesome! We loved it and wish we had caught the Belle one too.
8) Fast passes are life-savers. We tried to always have one on the go (or two when possible). It was so nice to walk right by that LONG Indy line every day.
9) Minnie and Friends is so worth it. My kids loved it, even my 10 year old... even though she likely wouldn't admit it out loud
. It was so nice to have one on one attention from so many characters without having to wait in a line in the hot sun. Plus, the food was wonderful. The make your own omelet was so good!
10) Rides that rarely had lines: Monsters Inc, Ariel, Mater's Tractors, Buzz... we always knew we could avoid lines for a little while by hitting one of these.
11) Best thing we did was bring along a water bottle and TONS of those Nestea single packs. We filled it up at every fountain, poured in a packet of flavouring and never had to buy a single drink. The water without flavoring is just nasty...
We saved SO much money this way.
12) Take LOTS of pictures and have the CMs take pictures of your family whenever possible. They don't mind and you will never regret it.
13) I have officially come to the conclusion that all Shuttle companies are terrible. We had yet another poor experience with yet another Shuttle company. He told us AFTER driving us to LAX that his credit card machine was broken. We had no more cash. My husband asked him to swipe our card in front of him and he swiped it the wrong way and wouldn't listen when my dh tried to call him on it. We had to raid both my daughters leftover money and scraped up just enough. He was going to make everyone else wait for us to find an ATM at the airport. Just ridiculous. Bunch of crooks I tell you.
14) Doubletree by Hilton at Orange was okay. Service was excellent and the rooms were very nice but we had enough issues that we likely wouldn't stay there again. The biggest one being the shuttle and the distance from Disney. It was too inconvenient. Also, our smoke detector went off at 7am one morning for no reason and they had NO idea when we reported it (thank goodness it wasn't a real fire) and they had to shut off the water another day for repairs. Price and service were excellent though.
15) Get hoppers. We hopped every single day. It was nice to have that option when one park was too busy or the kids wanted to hit their favorites at the end of each day. So worth it.
16) Cozy Cones: We literally got a treat from here every day. My dh and girls got the ice cream and I LOVED the pretzel bites there. They were so soft and the cheese dip is to die for.
17) We missed the main parade at Disney and I'm sad we did. It was just so packed and people started filling main street hours before it started. I've heard so much about it though so hope to catch it next time. We caught many other shows there like the newsboys and the Pixar Parade, oh, and DJ's dance party. All great!
18) Fireworks are AWESOME! We caught them after Fantasmic our first night just at the Rivers of America and could see it just fine (except Tinkerbell, which we could only catch glimpses of).
19) Food everywhere was great. We never had anything we didn't like. I think my fav was the broccoli and cheese soup on the Wharf. So good! My dh was up sick all night after eating the seafood chowder the second time though.
20) Weather was cool in the mornings and at night so we made good use of the lockers to hold our sweaters. I highly recommend them.
21) Our first ride on our first day was POTC and it broke down about 1/6th of the way in... and they forgot about us! The boat 2 in front of us got stuck shortly after the second fall. They unloaded the 2 boats in front of us, said they would be back for us and 30+ minutes later, we finally just got off the boats ourselves and walked out the nearest exit. When we opened the door, the repair guys were there, literally hiding from us. I guess they knew they weren't allowed to usher us out and rather than come and tell us they hadn't forgotten about us, they just hid until we walked ourselves out. It was a huge waste of time during first morning and a total bummer.
Thats all I can think of for now but I'm sure I'll add more later. All in all, we can't wait to go back to do everything all over again and more importantly, all the things we missed!
We'll be the loud ones there Mon - Thursday.
