You have a great trip and report back when you get home. You will love it. Really take your time and take in everything. Soak it all in. We've been home for 5 days and are all ready to go back.
Well, since you asked... just got back last night. Overall, a fantastic trip, and I really appreciate the help from folks on this thread. We're already thinking about when we can swing a trip back. I think most of this has already been touched on somewhere in this thread (or elsewhere), and YMMV...
The good:
-- Lansky. Any company willing to let me stop at In-n-Out on the way to Disney gets an A+ in my book.
-- VGC. We asked for first available, got the text about 2:30 while killing time at the pool. Turned out to be 4th floor theme park view! Overall, I just like the VGC vibe (well, all Peter Dominick Disney resorts, really).
-- Early entry. Just wish it were longer. So easy to knock out everything you want in Fantasyland, or get to your rides of preference. Less is open for early entry at DCA, but that was fine with us as the 3yo was happy to just ride Mater five times in a row.
-- The parks are just so convenient. We're a mid-day break family with the kids, so the easy GC access was awesome. It's so easy to bounce in and out of the parks, or from one park to another.
-- Where there are rides at both DL and WDW, I generally preferred the DL versions. Pan, Small world, MMRR... just the little extras set them apart.
-- Cars is a favorite of our 3yo, so Cars Land was phenomenal. And Toon Town was great for the kids too. Nothing like either of those at DW.
-- The CM were generally great.
-- It didn't feel overly busy (though, Friday night it definitely picked up).
The bad:
-- It did seem like a lot of rides were down, a lot of the time. There's a lot down for refurbishment too, but at least you can plan around those. Got to be a running joke that as soon as I'd book a LL for Incredicoaster it'd go down by the time I got there. Even most of things to do on Tom Sawyer Island were closed.
The shoulder shrugs:
-- Character breakfast at Plaza was a mixed bag. The Minnie photo op outside was great, and there were a good range of characters inside (particularly the "rare" ones, like Max and Suzy). But the tables were super-cramped. The characters kept trying to squeeze between the tables, but there wasn't room and we just kept asking them to stay out and we'd come to them instead.
-- On the quick serve menus, the kids power packs were supposed to come with carrots. But they only did about half the time. Sometimes they gave us an extra mandarin, sometimes not. Not the end of the world, but with picky little kids it was a bummer to miss out on one of their favorite veggies.
-- The WDW/
MDE/MB+ suite is just more functional for us than the DL app/MB+. It was easy enough to adapt, though it felt weird to actually need room keys and credit cards. And given the kids and the mix of LL rides, we didn't use LL at DL as much or in the same way as we do at DW.
-- We'd planned three park days, but probably needed four. We didn't get to many of the shows, for example. But we were pretty relaxed about it too, between hotel breaks and not rushing from one ride to another.
