Well, we’re heading out after 8 wonderful days. We feel content and happy with our trip.
Sitting on the Sunshine Flyer at the Poly as I start this post. I will use this as a way to summarize our trip and maybe give some additional tips and information that we learned after eight days of using G+ and visiting the parks this year. I’ll also probably ramble a bit.
In summary, even though I don’t like paying for the G+ service, and the overall massive cost increase over the last couple of years,
I feel like we have our happy place back.
We visited during this same time last year when things were standby only, and if it went back to that we would never visit again. Sounds harsh but it just didn’t work for us versus trips with paper FP, FP+, or now G+.
Our touring style:
We are moreso night owls than morning people. If we don’t need to rope drop, we won’t. Thankfully due to G+, we did not rope drop once this trip and still got more done than I expected. If you read the daily reports we did
A LOT. So thankful. For us, still not nearly as good as the old FP+ system, but is workable.
G+:
I will not do Disney right now without G+. I cannot state that enough. It saved us massive time every day, with possibly the exception of AK.
We prepurchased G+ for every day. (That’s not an option now, and must be purchased each Day of your trip if you want it.) For us, the only park where I question its value is Animal Kingdom. Looking back, I would not purchase it for AK, and purchase the $ILL for FOP instead. We waited in a two hour line for FOP at the end of the night and that was not magical. Even though I
loathe the idea of $ILL, it’s the nature of the beast right now and I would pony up for it, but not get G+ at AK. Personally, if I am paying for G+ I feel that ALL rides should be included. None of this $ILL nonsense. Just because they can, doesn’t mean they should IMO.
G+ waits on average were under 10 minutes, and most of the time under 7. Overall they were faster than the old FP+ system by a bit.
Our G+ strategy:
You will need to be flexible, make adjustments, call audibles, etc. It’s part of the G+ game.
Optimally it was important to figure out when we planned to get to the parks. The earlier the better but rope drop was not necessary. I’m not arguing its advantage. Rope drop does get you a head start, but also has its drawbacks, which for us was sleep, energy and overall happiness.
For us, we tried to time that first G+ window generally before the second G+ booking window, which is two hours after park open. You are able to tap into your first G+ before that 2 hour window, and immediately book another. Then keep rolling like that. It constantly puts you ahead of all those people who at 7am booked a G+ for later in the day and had to wait until two hour after park open.
Don’t forego using G+ for less popular rides. Many times you can book a G+ window very close to the current time for less popular attractions, then when you tap in, immediately book another one, and so forth. This can
easily save 15 to 40 minutes each secondary ride at peak hours. Those times savings really add up. This is ESPECIALLY true at MK, and remember you can tap in five minutes early
Watch those popular rides. They will start pushing out in the day. Work them around your schedule. Sometimes they will be more than two hours out and you will have to wait 2 hours to rebook but that is how it goes. It’s better to book them than miss them. We had afternoon breaks so typically when we were done in the parks after lunch I would try to find a popular ride for dinner time or after and then stack more every two hours for our return while back at the resort.
Set alarms or reminders. As soon as I booked a G+ I would set an alarm for 1 hour and 58 minutes later to remind me that I could book another soon (if we hadn’t already tapped into our most recently booked G+ and booked another).
G+ Booking windows:
Just a general note to remember that windows are an hour long, with a five minute early grace period and I think a 10 or 15 minute late grace period. For instance if you are looking for a 5 PM time slot, a 4:00-5:00pm would work, as well as a 5:00pm-6:00, and anything in between. Work those windows to your advantage. We tapped in five minutes early on a number of occasions so that I could look another G+ right away
Be aware of those times in the day that are two, four, six hours after park open. Those are generally times when a lot of guests can book G+ again because that is their two hour window. For instance, if Magic Kingdom opens at 9 AM and the first additional booking window is 11 AM, at 10:45am BTMRR might be sitting at 1 PM and
slowly crawling later at five minute intervals, but as soon as 11 PM hits it will start taking off and easily jump by an hour later within seconds. It is like that for the popular attractions at those two hour intervals. That’s why booking your fiirst G+ selection before the two hour park interval can really make a difference. You are able to pull your second G+, or more, before a lot of guests have a chance to even book their second.
Buses and transportation:
Excellent. Our average bus wait was less than 10 minutes. Our longest wait was around 20 minutes our very first day to AK, but we had
just missed the previous bus (watched it drive away
)
We were fortunate to stay at a monorail resort and that was amazing for Magic Kingdom especially, as well as Epcot. Our average wait to Magic Kingdom was less than five minutes and Epcot 10 minutes or less.
Park hours:
Loved the fact that we had more typical park hours again. Magic Kingdom is open until 11 PM (woohoo!) and Epcot and Hollywood studios until 9 and I think 8 PM for Animal Kingdom . Those additional one to two hours in the evening make a huge difference. A lot of the little kids can’t make it that long and it really helps with the attraction wait times.
Dining and food:
Hard to find anything to complain about here. We have dined at many many sit down and quick service locations at Disney over the past 12 years, and this year felt that the quality has not degraded and everything was still very good. Our ADR‘s tend to be at places that don’t break the bank like buffets tend to do. We like to go places where we can order entrées, share entrées etc. One highlight was steakhouse ‘71 this year. We loved the wave in that location before and Steakhouse’71 for lunch was a very fun new experience with high quality offerings. If you have any questions about these places from our trip let me know,
MK area: Steakhouse’71, Jungle Skipper Canteen, Kona Cafe, QS: Columbia Harbour House, Pecos Bills, Capt’n Cooks, Plaza Ice cream parlor, Aloha Isle.
HS area: Kimonos, Brown Derby, QS: ABC Commissary, Backlot Express.
EP area: Nine Dragons, Via Napoli, Beaches n Cream QS: French patisserie
Mobile order:
Mobile order might be a love or hate thing. We love it, but our kids are old enough to order for themselves. I would bring up the QS location, choose the time window we wanted to dine, and then hand the phone to the various members of our family and they would just add their items to the order and by the time we were done I would just submit the order. As we were getting close to the QS location I would hit the button that we were there and prepare the order. Much better than standing in line and I like the fact that the mobile order on the app shows pictures of the food items
Cast Members:
Overall cast members were very good. I will say that they seem to have lost a little of their magic luster. I think it is the fact that there are a lot of new hires. Hopefully over time that special magic will return once they get more seasoned.
Resort:
The Polynesian (renting DVC) was wonderful and the deluxe studios thankfully fit our family of five just fine. The two showers are a HUGE PLUS especially with two daughters. Really helps with getting ready in the morning, or at night to clean off. We don’t have a ton of extra space in the room but it is enough for us. If you typically stay moderate level, I would highly recommend looking into renting DVC for a similar(ish) cost. Canceling is less forgiving but renting DVC can pack a good “bang for the buck”
I will update this post throughout the day with random info as I think of it.
-Dan
Now we know.
