Hey Everyone,
I thought I'd pass along a few thoughts from our recent trip. We were in WDW 24-29 October staying at the Shades of Green. It was a trip designed to give our granddaughters (ages 4 and 2) their first taste of the magic of Disney. We did a few "Big People" rides, but mostly focused on their adventure. We did 4 actual park days and hopped three of those. The following are few points of interest and/or tactics we used. Keep in mind, it was our first attempt and
Genie+ and ILL$, so it took a little getting used to. Plus, it was different than if we were touring for ourselves and not the girls!
1) The parks were pretty busy over all. Utilizing EE by being in a Premium Resort was well worth the earlier starts. It especially worked well at MK. Most folks doing EE seemed to be focused on the bigger rides or heading towards 7DMT. We went straight to Peter Pan's Flight. Then crossed over to It's a Small World. Both rides completed by the time the park opened for Rope Drop. I had a LL for Pirates and then the adults took turns on Splash Mountain. From there we back-tracked to the Carousel and finally went all the way over to Carousel of Progress. By then it was 1045 so we headed to Chef Mickey's for our 1120 brunch. Afterwards we did a pool break and nap time for an hour before heading back to MK for a few more rides, some people watching and then the fireworks. We thought the show was pretty good. For those with young kids, we had ear muffs for them and both chose to wear them after the first few fireworks went off. Overall the day was quite awesome.
2) We utilized ILL$ in EPCOT to make sure the girls could get on Frozen without much of a wait. It worked great and well worth the extra bucks to not wait in line. EPCOT was pretty crowded around the Food and Wine booths, but overall it seemed like pretty short lines. We had LL for Soarin', again splitting the adults. We purchased Genie + that day because we started in Animal Kingdom that morning and it allowed us to do quite a few rides without wait, especially with EE. I was able to secure LL in EPCOT before we ever hopped and the ILL$ was bought early in the morning knowing we would be eating in Germany that evening. It made timing of things quite easy. For the record...the entertainment in Germany was great...the girls really loved it.
3) ILL and Genie+ are excellent ways to utilize hopping. We did EPCOT one morning with a hop to Hollywood Studios and between those two methods we were able to do everything we wanted and be done by 1900 and able to get the girls back for an evening swim before lights out.
4) I was a little worried about having to be on my phone too much, but it was less intrusive than I thought. It was nice however having the wait times at your finger tips.
5) The use of masks was pretty standard by most people on the transportation and in the buildings/rides. Some rides, like the Safari, did not require a mask be worn.
6) we never used the food order via online except once (in England) and it worked nicely. Food was almost instantly available. The food booths were busy but the food was good and a reasonable price for most items.
I'm sure I have some valuable info but time is short so I'm going to leave it here and answer any questions that come up with specific things in mind. Oh yeah, a lot of shows were back...Beauty and the Beast...Lion King...Frozen Sing a Long...all pretty good but not quite the same with a lack of parts of the original shows. Overall, we were very pleased with the entire trip...well, except Sea World but that's for another thread. Cheers!
