TJDisneymama
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2012
some things I wondered about before our trip that others may find helpful.
1) booked an 8:05 am BoG on an EMM day. DD10 and I shared Gaston's Feast - it was plenty of food for us, but I am on a diet so don't eat much. it would not be enough for big eaters. Done with our meal about 8:30, walked back and forth from Pooh to Peter Pan to see if they would let us get on before park opened at 9:00 but they would't. So we waited in the line for Peter Pan (short line, like 10 people) and they let us enter the queue right before 9:00, so still well before the rope drop crowd arrived. After we got off, went straight to pooh which had about a 5 minute wait. i was thrilled to get these 2 done early and without wasting a FP on them. I will always do the 8:00 BoG for future trips.
2) Also had BoG for dinner (it was my bday). They brought me a special plate of grey stuff shaped like mickey and a b-day card signed by Beast and Belle.
Got the strip steak which I always get (although I swear when itifirst opened it was filet??) and wasn't as good as in the past. Very fatty. But still pretty good.
3) Heat - felt unbearable. But, as we survived and did not melt into a puddle, I guess it was bearable after all, lol. We left the parks around noon time, then went back around 4-5:00 to avoid the worst heat. We did a lot of ducking into shops for a minute while walking from one attraction to the next.
4) Soarin at Rope drop - arrived to Soarin about 9:05, it had a 10 minute wait posted which was pretty accurate. We got on Living w/ the Land around 9:30.
5) Pick a pearl in Japan - if you're going to do it, go pay and get your number right away. We dillie dallied around watching a bit before paying. Then we had like 1/2 hour wait for our # to come up. We each got our pearl into rings as we are not necklace wearing people. They were pretty reasonable - DDs was just a plain (silver? stainless steel? I dont' even know) band for about $30. Mine was a little nicer for $80 with a little (CZ?) on each side of the pearl.
6) LOTS Of photopass opportunities - DD and I ended with almost 400 shots in just 5 park days.
7) Rivers of Light - disappointing. we left halfway through. Esp. as we had just seen fantasmic the previous evening which is a million times better. I wouldn't waste time on this.
8) Flight of Passage - awesome. I think the preshow stuff is a little too long/unnecessary. If they cut it down to half the time, maybe there wouldnt be 200 minute waits...... I was concerned about motion sickness on this, and I did have to close my eyes a few times, mostly when you are flying fast and lots of stuff around you. Similar to the Mickeys Philharmagic film when Donald is flying on the magic carpet and he flies straight down and then through the town - I have to close my eyes on that too or I get a bit woozy.
9) Navi River Journey - cool, but somewhat lame. Definitely NOT worth a long wait. We went at the end of the night right before park close and it had 25 minute wait posted, but was really more like 5-10 minutes.
10) Pandora - we never got through the entire movie, just the first half, but the land at night is really cool. I'd definitely go back just at night.
11) Tusker House for dinner - didn't love the food selection. There wasn't much that I liked and I'm not that picky. A lot of exotic (Asian? African?) dishes. I know that's how it should be but usually these places have more Americanized versions of dishes. I wouldn't do dinner here again. I like to do character meals for the characters (and also we got the Rivers of Light passes with this one) but in the future I'll probably stick to breakfast here.
12) Fireworks dessert party @ MK - loved it. Good selection of desserts, and the reserved viewing section is perfect. Definitely worth it not to have to fight the crowd for a good spot. I don't know if the party was sold out or not but there was plenty of empty space in our section. I was expecting to be elbow-to-elbow with the other party goers but there was a LOT of space between us.
13) Buses - i really felt a difference with the bus wait times (mostly talking about from the resort to the parks). when I first started going regularly (6 years ago), we never waited more than 5-10 minutes for a bus. Each trip, i feel like the wait tiime for buses gets longer and longer. This time the norm was more like 20 minutes, sometimes even longer. I used Lyft a bunch of times when I just did not want to deal with waiting 20 minutes for a bus.
14) CRT - ate lunch here for DDs bday. They brought her a special cupcake with a candle and the waitress (and me) sang Happy Birthday.
15) Hollywood & Vine dinner - we've done this a few times since they went to the seasonal format and really like it. Much better selection of food that we like here. I will continue to do this one.
16) Rose and Crown for dinner - first time eating here. Got the burger. It was really good. And we had awesome outdoor seating. would have been perfect for viewing Illuminations (if it wasn't 5:00 pm, lol).
17) DD10 REALLY enjoyed the passport book around the World Showcase. She'd never done it before.
Thats all I can think of for now. If I think of anything else, I will add later. Any questions, let me know.
1) booked an 8:05 am BoG on an EMM day. DD10 and I shared Gaston's Feast - it was plenty of food for us, but I am on a diet so don't eat much. it would not be enough for big eaters. Done with our meal about 8:30, walked back and forth from Pooh to Peter Pan to see if they would let us get on before park opened at 9:00 but they would't. So we waited in the line for Peter Pan (short line, like 10 people) and they let us enter the queue right before 9:00, so still well before the rope drop crowd arrived. After we got off, went straight to pooh which had about a 5 minute wait. i was thrilled to get these 2 done early and without wasting a FP on them. I will always do the 8:00 BoG for future trips.
2) Also had BoG for dinner (it was my bday). They brought me a special plate of grey stuff shaped like mickey and a b-day card signed by Beast and Belle.
Got the strip steak which I always get (although I swear when itifirst opened it was filet??) and wasn't as good as in the past. Very fatty. But still pretty good.3) Heat - felt unbearable. But, as we survived and did not melt into a puddle, I guess it was bearable after all, lol. We left the parks around noon time, then went back around 4-5:00 to avoid the worst heat. We did a lot of ducking into shops for a minute while walking from one attraction to the next.
4) Soarin at Rope drop - arrived to Soarin about 9:05, it had a 10 minute wait posted which was pretty accurate. We got on Living w/ the Land around 9:30.
5) Pick a pearl in Japan - if you're going to do it, go pay and get your number right away. We dillie dallied around watching a bit before paying. Then we had like 1/2 hour wait for our # to come up. We each got our pearl into rings as we are not necklace wearing people. They were pretty reasonable - DDs was just a plain (silver? stainless steel? I dont' even know) band for about $30. Mine was a little nicer for $80 with a little (CZ?) on each side of the pearl.
6) LOTS Of photopass opportunities - DD and I ended with almost 400 shots in just 5 park days.
7) Rivers of Light - disappointing. we left halfway through. Esp. as we had just seen fantasmic the previous evening which is a million times better. I wouldn't waste time on this.
8) Flight of Passage - awesome. I think the preshow stuff is a little too long/unnecessary. If they cut it down to half the time, maybe there wouldnt be 200 minute waits...... I was concerned about motion sickness on this, and I did have to close my eyes a few times, mostly when you are flying fast and lots of stuff around you. Similar to the Mickeys Philharmagic film when Donald is flying on the magic carpet and he flies straight down and then through the town - I have to close my eyes on that too or I get a bit woozy.
9) Navi River Journey - cool, but somewhat lame. Definitely NOT worth a long wait. We went at the end of the night right before park close and it had 25 minute wait posted, but was really more like 5-10 minutes.
10) Pandora - we never got through the entire movie, just the first half, but the land at night is really cool. I'd definitely go back just at night.
11) Tusker House for dinner - didn't love the food selection. There wasn't much that I liked and I'm not that picky. A lot of exotic (Asian? African?) dishes. I know that's how it should be but usually these places have more Americanized versions of dishes. I wouldn't do dinner here again. I like to do character meals for the characters (and also we got the Rivers of Light passes with this one) but in the future I'll probably stick to breakfast here.
12) Fireworks dessert party @ MK - loved it. Good selection of desserts, and the reserved viewing section is perfect. Definitely worth it not to have to fight the crowd for a good spot. I don't know if the party was sold out or not but there was plenty of empty space in our section. I was expecting to be elbow-to-elbow with the other party goers but there was a LOT of space between us.
13) Buses - i really felt a difference with the bus wait times (mostly talking about from the resort to the parks). when I first started going regularly (6 years ago), we never waited more than 5-10 minutes for a bus. Each trip, i feel like the wait tiime for buses gets longer and longer. This time the norm was more like 20 minutes, sometimes even longer. I used Lyft a bunch of times when I just did not want to deal with waiting 20 minutes for a bus.
14) CRT - ate lunch here for DDs bday. They brought her a special cupcake with a candle and the waitress (and me) sang Happy Birthday.
15) Hollywood & Vine dinner - we've done this a few times since they went to the seasonal format and really like it. Much better selection of food that we like here. I will continue to do this one.
16) Rose and Crown for dinner - first time eating here. Got the burger. It was really good. And we had awesome outdoor seating. would have been perfect for viewing Illuminations (if it wasn't 5:00 pm, lol).
17) DD10 REALLY enjoyed the passport book around the World Showcase. She'd never done it before.
Thats all I can think of for now. If I think of anything else, I will add later. Any questions, let me know.
