Here now: how our plans are working

[WaterLinds]

We've just got one park day in the books so far, but I thought I'd share our experience while it was still fresh enough for me to remember it. Our plans/strategies worked well for us today, although they won't be for everyone--our group includes grandparents (pretty energetic ones!), a six year old, and a two year old who is just recovering from illness and not up for much yet. Between that and the fact that it is unexpectedly hot this week (I know, many of you go in summer and deal with real heat, but we left two feet of snow and landed in a 90 degree heat index! Our bodies weren't quite ready for that jump), we wanted to pace ourselves.

We rope dropped Epcot this morning. Arrived maybe 8:20-8:30, through security, plenty of time to pop up to the ticket window to activate our Canadian tickets. Not at the very front of the crowd, but it wasn't insane. Headed for test track first, the posted standby wait was 30 minutes, the actual was maybe 20? Got a rider swap pass for later, then booked it to Soarin. Posted time was 20 minutes, actual was 30-40. Nearly missed the breakfast window at Garden Grill--they seated the half of our party who were not on the ride and those of us riding dashed in moments later.

FP for living with the land--standby was posted at 45 minutes at that point, so it was nice to walk on. Then the other half of our group rode Soarin with the swap passes. Headed to Mission Space, which we had a FP for--I think orange was posted at either 20 or 30 minutes at that point? Then the other half of the group rode TT.

Took a quick break to recharge in the AC at Innoventions then popped over to WS. Short stop for photo op with Donald in Mexico (got lucky, line was short), then FP for FEA. Posted wait was 80 minutes at that point. Out of curiousity I checked what was left for 4th FP then (it was 2:00 already) and I believe the only things fully booked were TT, FEA, and the character spot? So our plan to rope drop TT and FP FEA felt like a good one based on that evidence.

By then it was 2:30-3:00 pm and we were ready for the pool, so we called it quits. We had initially planned for some early evening park time today but everyone was exhausted and we have two early mornings coming, so we just relaxed instead.

I had initially hoped to get a few more attractions in overall, but I also felt like our touring strategy and FP got us through the busiest attractions about as efficiently as possible for our particular group. We had never used rider swap before and I don't think I fully accounted for the extra time that would eat up. Overall everyone was satisfied with what we got to do, I think. Thanks everyone here for help with the rope drop strategy especially!

Tomorrow we're off to AK, so I'll try to update with how our Touring plan work out there.

 

[Eccle]

Glad you had a good day. What sort of time did you get to Soarin this morning? On Tuesday we're planning to do Joy and Sadness and Baymax at rope drop then go to Soarin hoping to catch it before the queues build too much.

The heat hit us a bit today too. Hope your plans for Ak tomorrow go smoothly, we are planning to try and make 7am!

I agree on rider switch too, we haven't used it before either and it does add on time, I am ending up with lots of tickets waiting for me to go back another time because by the time one group went through, time was getting tight to get to something else and it was easier just to move on than to wait for me to go back through, at least for things that I'm not overly bothered about

 

[mamamelody2]

Sounds like a great day! I'm glad your trip is off to a good start!

 

[Davey Jones II]

45 minutes for Living with the Land?? That's usually a walk on.

P.S.: I'm Canadian too, in Montreal. Glad someone escaped this horrific winter.

 

[DisneyFive]

Sounds like a great day!

Dan

 

[WaterLinds]

Glad you had a good day. What sort of time did you get to Soarin this morning? On Tuesday we're planning to do Joy and Sadness and Baymax at rope drop then go to Soarin hoping to catch it before the queues build too much.

The heat hit us a bit today too. Hope your plans for Ak tomorrow go smoothly, we are planning to try and make 7am!

I agree on rider switch too, we haven't used it before either and it does add on time, I am ending up with lots of tickets waiting for me to go back another time because by the time one group went through, time was getting tight to get to something else and it was easier just to move on than to wait for me to go back through, at least for things that I'm not overly bothered about

It would have been at least 9:30 before we got to Soarin--probably closer to 9:45? Moving 6 people around is way harder and slower than moving the 3 we had last time! You'll probably be fine getting to Soarin without much wait. Good luck!

I hope you had a great AK day today. Wasn't it insane there?! We had a blast, and although it was crazy crowded we managed to get done what we wanted without a lot of waiting and with plenty of breaks. I'm going to try to write up the whole experience quickly, but it's late and we are doing EMM tomorrow, so...sleep needs to happen.

 

[Eccle]

Glad you had a good day. It was really crazy crowded today, this is my 4th trip and I think that's the busiest I have seen a park. We had a good day too although were all suffering a bit with being hot and tired, not helped by the crowds. We got most things we wanted to done, apart from EE, we didn't arrive until 7.15, and so got to EE just after 8 and the queue was 40 min, with hindsight we should have gone straight there ahead of Dinosaur and Primeval Whirl, but I was trying to minimise walking. I have also underestimated how long it takes to get around in a bigger group (there are 9 of us), and how long it takes doing rider switch.

Enjoy EMM, we're at Epcot tomorrow

 

[WaterLinds]

45 minutes for Living with the Land?? That's usually a walk on.

P.S.: I'm Canadian too, in Montreal. Glad someone escaped this horrific winter.

Yup, everything was packed and fast passes were mostly gone by lunchtime, even for less popular rides. When I first booked the FP for Living with the Land it seemed silly to me, but we wanted to do it while we were in the Land pavilion for breakfast anyway, so I scheduled it then--and when I saw that wait I was glad I had!

We are very pleased we picked this week to get away and get some sunshine. Personally I'd prefer it about 5
-10 degrees cooler, but given what it's like at home I can't complain!

 

[WaterLinds]

Quick notes on our AK day before I drop off...I see TP is now reporting it as a 10 there today, which sounds about right. It was nuts. They extended the park closing hour at some point after opening this morning!

Our plans worked well, though--our main limiting factor was our own energy rather than lines.

Arrived about 7:30, went straight to Na'vi. Posted wait was 45 minutes but it was less than 20 actually. We all really liked the ride--sure wouldn't want to wait hours, but it's really lovely in there. Then our first group did FOP.

We headed to the gorilla trail next. It was packed with people, so not as fun for the kids as I had hoped, but they still saw a few neat things.

FP for safari after, it was getting warm by then (10-ish) but many of the animals were still active. Great views of elephants and giraffes especially.

Tusker house ROL breakfast next--they seated us about 10:45, so we "brunch"--breakfast was out to start, lunch was put out soon after. It was perfect, the kids were excited for bacon and Mickey waffles, the adults got some of the veggies we'd been craving, we were all totally stuffed after. And had the ROL tickets, which with the crowd levels was a very good thing.

3 of us rode EE with FP next. I then added/modified remaining FP for late afternoon to get on Kali--there was a lot of movement, and by working in small groups and refreshing I pretty quickly got us all Overlapping times (initially it was showing no availability at all). We ended up dumping them later due to exhaustion/scheduling, but it was nice to see that if you use the app well you can often get what you want!

After that it was ice cream and head for the hotel pool, we were HOT and the park was packed.

We headed back around 5, the rest of our party got to do FOP. There was a technical problem with one theatre, and we were the unlucky ones about the board there--we had to sit through the avatar matching and instructional videos in their entirety twice, because they moved us to another theatre and started it over! So it took forever. Got out and met the others at Satuli for a rushed but delicious dinner, and flew to the 7:15 ROL. (.With a few minutes to soak in Pandora at night, so pretty!) It was standing room only when we got there, so we were very glad for our dining package tickets.

Meandered out slowly, took in the Tree of Life Awakenings, etc.

We would have enjoyed doing 2-3 more things, but it would have been too much for all of us today. Given the crowds, heat, and our energy levels I think we definitely made the most of our time.

 

[WaterLinds]

MK report from today...

We had EMM tickets to start our day. We must have just missed a bus from POFQ, because we waited about 20 minutes, and that was after some delay in herding a few of our group...we were towards the back of the EMM/PPO crowd, so it was closer to 8 by the time we arrived in Fantasyland. The big kid still got 4 rides on SDMT, and both kids got a turn on Pooh and PP, the younger one had a carousel ride. We popped in for a quick nibble midway through the hour, then did a few of the rides again and set off for Haunted Mansion before returning for our full breakfast. (I had hoped to do two rides in that 9-10 window, but can't hold the focus of my group at all. The youngest got a trip on IASW while I gathered the others, at least!) After breakfast we did Dumbo standby, I think it was 20ish minutes?

We had had morning FP for half the group at Splash and half at Space, but both were down, so we ended up with one anytime FP for everyone in the group. We used our Pirates FP and then big kid and I rode Splash. It was around 1:00 by then, so while we were in line there (really slow FP line, Maybe 30 minutes--there seemed to be frequent small delays) everyone else headed back to the hotel. Big kid and I finished the ride, then he met Peter Pan and Tink with about a 5 minute wait for each and we returned as well.

We went back to the park around 5. We had FP for Buzz, that line moved very quickly. We were then going to use our remaining anytime FP for Space, but the line was back to the Peoplemover! So we hopped in the peoplemover line instead, which was long but at least moving--until it broke down and we bailed on that line. Astro Orbiter was at 45 minutes, so we walked towards fantasy land. Working one at a time I was able to get Barnstorm FP for 2 (also posted at 45 minutes), then Tea Party for 3 (didn't see the posted time, definitely over 30 minutes?).

Then we headed to the HEA dessert party, which was great. We had an excellent spot for watching the show, which exceeded my expectations, and Tink flew, so an extra exciting end. Quick and easy exit from the park via the backstage route.

So, another successful day on the whole, but some wrinkles in there. The high rate of ride breakdowns this week has been disappointing--I know MK had a bad day yesterday too. Also, the couple times in the day that it was just me and big kid--we covered so much ground so much faster! No stroller, no looking around for the rest of our group, etc. I need to remember to factor in extra time for all that when we're all together.

Tomorrow we'll do MK again, we have switch passes for Splash and FP booked for Space, Big Thunder, and Buzz again, so hopefully we can do those and a few other things. We have to checkout tomorrow so I'm not sure I can wrangle everyone for rope drop but fingers crossed--at least we'll be heading to some lower wait time stuff first, and hopefully the FP rides won't break down! We have to hit the road for the actual relaxing part of our vacation by early to mid afternoon, so hopefully we can have a worthwhile day first.

 

[Haley R]

I can’t believe how many things are breaking down. I hope it improves when we arrive in two weeks.

 

[WaterLinds]

I can’t believe how many things are breaking down. I hope it improves when we arrive in two weeks.

That was what I said reading January reports! I really thought things would be better by now. I hope they are for you.

But despite all that we have still had a lot of fun by having good plans (and enough understanding of the system to make it work when plans change!). Good luck to you!

 

[WaterLinds]

And I see now that TP has yesterday at a 9 at MK, rather than the forecast 7. That feels about right! Fingers crossed we actually get a 7 (or lower?!) today...

 

[Haley R]

And I see now that TP has yesterday at a 9 at MK, rather than the forecast 7. That feels about right! Fingers crossed we actually get a 7 (or lower?!) today...

I hope you get your 7 today! lol

Our highest day says 6 so I guess we will see how that goes

 

[aliciamakino]

I hope you get your 7 today! lol

Our highest day says 6 so I guess we will see how that goes

Where can you look up the TP?

 

[Haley R]

Where can you look up the TP?

Are you asking where you can see the crowds? On touring plans I click dashboard and scroll way down to where it says crowd tracker.

 

[aliciamakino]

Are you asking where you can see the crowds? On touring plans I click dashboard and scroll way down to where it says crowd tracker.

thank you!

 

[WaterLinds]

Where can you look up the TP?

The crowd tracker mentioned above will show you their prediction (you can also view the crowd calendar for that). In the crowd calendar section there's also a link for historic crowds, that's where you can find what their actual rating for each day was after the fact.

Will be interested to see what the tracker says for today! I'd guess it was a bit lower than yesterday, although there were still issues with rides going down so that always ups the crowd level in TP's model.

From our list we encountered a closure on BTMR that resulted in anytime FPs for us, and it had a few short pauses when we later did get on it. Splash shut down while my husband and son were on board, it did eventually resume but they were sitting about 20 minutes. Small world had some kind of delay near the end of our ride, we even ended up going backwards very briefly. Under the sea stopped three times in our one ride! All very brief, at least. The carousel even sat for quite a long time at one point! I wondered if Buzz had problems, too--we had FPs but the FP line was past Monsters Inc, so we didn't use them. We used our Space FPs nice and early so I don't know if that had problems again today--actually, when on the PeopleMover we heard an announcement inside Space about a stoppage, but my husband was inside it then and he didn't report any slow downs.

Despite that long list of hiccups, we fit a lot in and my son declared it the best day of his life so far! We were WAY later arriving than I hoped (one kid slept in, we decided to drive instead of bus, packing up the room always takes longer than you think, etc), but even with a 10 am start we managed:
Space x 2 (rider switch)
PeopleMover x 2
Carousel of Progress
Flying Carpets
BTMR x 2 (rider switch)
Splash (rider switch from yesterday)
Philharmagic
Small world
Carousel
Under the sea

Plus lunch at Skipper Canteen and a Dole Whip break!

Kids would have liked to do Astro Orbiter but I never saw it below 40 minutes, and their other interest was Speedway (which I managed to get single overlapping FPs for at one point), but when given a choice they picked Dole Whip instead.

Everything on the list that was FP-able was done with either FP or rider switch. The standby lines were almost all outrageous (I know the arriving after 10 didn't help us on that!). Our plan to have early FPs for the headliners and then try to pick up or modify extras for the "smaller" rides worked well with these crowds.

We already expect to be back next March, so I'm filing some of what I learned this week away to help that trip go even more smoothly.

And now I'm going to sleep! Thanks again, DISfriends, you made me look like a rock star vacation planner to my family.