Hello everyone! I just got back from Florida and so I will resume work on your requests! to all of you new folks joining this crazy thread, please take a second to read the rules, allow yourself enough time to make requests as it may take me a while to get to you while I service those ahead of you
As a personal note, to all of you about to go to the world I'll leave you a few tips I learned while I was there. This is my 3rd trip to WDW/Universal Studios Florida and I was pleasantly surprised with everything going on. Be our Guest restaurant is very nice, I was fortunate enough to be invited for their fast pass/lunch program, and I must say it didn't go without problems. Even after I had made my time reservation and food selections a month prior, it disappeared the day of, so if you have one of those, make sure it still shows before going, otherwise they will turn you away, and will not fix it for you if you wait until the last minute, I was able to go to their booth 2 hours prior and luckily they were able to fix my issue.
I absolutely love fast pass plus! I don't understand the issues some people are having with it, or why they despise it so much, but I made my 3 selections for each park 2 months in advance, and they were all there for each day I was at every park, no hassles, no issues. also once you finish your 3 selections you can always go to a kiosk and the Cast Members will give you a 4th selection with no hassles! it definitely saves a lot of walking going back and forth to gather paper passes and it allowed us to concentrate in maximizing fun! We did not catch any seven dwarves mine train fast passes so we stood in line on standby, the times were pretty crazy right after opening going to 60 mins almost at rope drop and going up until 190 mins.. to me that was pretty crazy considering it's officially fall and thus most kids should be in school, but alas... that's what it was... so we decided to get a cappuccino float, and wait in line at 75 mins, to my surprise, it wasn't 75 mins, I clocked it at 38 mins, so even if the time seems long you'll be surprised how quickly it goes! and the fans help a lot! Same goes for Anna and Elsa, my niece and I stood in line at 80 minutes but it only took 50 mins.
At universal, I was very impressed with what they've done with Diagon Alley, the amount of details is so massive that you feel like you're actually there! the interactive wands are a little pricey at almost 50 bucks, but the joy the kids get making spells around the park does make up for it, heck! even I smiled when I activated a water fountain using a spell! Disney could really learn a lot from universal on this one. The wait times at the escape from gringotts ride were awful! and when they say 120 minutes, they mean 120 mins, sometimes more because the ride tends to break down A LOT! so be prepared to wait! don't try to do that ride first thing when you get to the park, everyone else already has that idea, instead ride the hogwarts express to the forbidden journey or do transformers or the mummy, men in black and the simpsons, as those tend to be 5 to 10 minutes right at opening, and they will climb up at 30 to 60 minutes after 1 or 2 pm. The Gringotts ride will not go down below 90 minutes. But I will say, that ride is worth the wait completely, best ride at both resorts
People always ask me which is better, if DLR or WDW, I love
Disneyland! I visit that park at least 7 weekends a year and because of that we know lots of tips about which fast passes to get, the quiet areas to enjoy a snack and catching radiator springs racers fast passes, most of the rides are the same, but I have to admit there's something about WDW that captures you, that it truly makes it possible for you to forget about the real world. At Disneyland I love the haunted mansion and pirates, at the Magic Kingdom I love the Jungle Cruise and Splash Mountain. It's hard to say which is better, because in my case, they both compliment each other, but if we ask my wallet, Disneyland will always win
