Friday, April 4, the 6 am alarm came all too soon but the lyre of our last Disney Day at MK fueled us to get out of bed.
Ate in the room and on the road by 7 am. Got a close parking spot at TTC and were the second people in the line we we're in. At 8, they let us through the turnstiles and up to the railroad bridge. We were in the front row. Dh teased me about the merits of waiting 90 minutes to get into the park just to save time in lines. I told him there's something magical about being the first ones in line to get into the park. One family near us were confused thinking it was EMH day. Oops, they thought it was Thursday. They had a British accent... Maybe they lost track if days during their travels? Another group was ticked off that EMH wasn't every day and argued with the CM that it wasn't clearly communicated by Disney. Whatever...
We chatted with the CM for a bit and she did a good job of trying to ease the frustrations of those misinformed groups. We head over to Space Mtn first and learned there's a new rope drop procedure. You can only get so far into Tomorrowland and they hold the whole group until 9 am exactly with CMs walking ahead of the crowd, until the crowd overtakes them. I don't understand the logic of this but I'm not a crowd control expert. However, IMO this contributes to Space's line ballooning in wait time so quickly when you have everyone stacked up like that. It was chaos. But still, we were on in minutes.
Our touring plan was:
Space
Mermaid
Philharmagic
Small world
Haunted mansion
Pirates
Dole whip (longest line if day at 10-15 minute wait)
Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse
Sleepy Hollow ice cream cookie sandwiches for lunch during castle stage show (it's vacation tradition, they're Huge and only $4.19)
Laugh Factory (3 of our jokes were used)
TTC (2x)
Tom Sawyers Island
Festival of Fantasy parade (sat by LTT)
Splash (FP'd - SB was 50 min)
Break back at hotel 4-7. Ate room service, swam, napped
Returned to MK - it was 7:45 as we entered. I tried staking out a spot for the six of us while dh and kids did a few rides. I was getting crowded out w/o their extra bodies to hold their ground. And people made negative comments about me trying to do this. Since when is it unacceptable to have just one or two people save spots for a family? I didn't know that. So I texted them to come back. They'd only done Stitch during that time.
It was 8:30 when they got back. So we played the Family Feud app while we waited. MSEP was great. We stood up to wait for celebrate the Magic and Wishes from our same spots. The 11 pm parade spectators rushed the curb before our butts left the pavement. Crazy! Some lady tapped me on the shoulder and was rattling at me in a foreign language. I have no clue what she was saying but I didn't move and I told my kids to plant their feet and hold their ground after waiting there since 7:45. Celebrate the Magic was phenomenal. First time we saw it and we were all in awe.
Afterwards, we used FPs to rude Big Thunder (SB was only 10 mins). Then walked onto Haunted Mansion and Laugh Factory where there was a magical moment when my dd3 got picked out of crowd to talk to monster Marty. He asked her what she wanted to be when she grows up an she said, "A Disney Imagineer."
The monster's expression and response was very cute and sweet. A very tender-hearted moment.
We ended our night the way we started it, with a rude on Space Mtn. (Pretty much a walk-on).
Walked through the castle and took pics with the Indian on Main Street (tradition). Watched the Goodnight Kiss from right in front of the train station, then departed via monorail.
Was a magical day/night.
Notes:
When switching BTMR to a later time during the day, I selected 8:30-9:30 and it automatically switched to 10-11 after I hit "done." It worked out tho. We just went to the earlier parade instead if the later one. I think that was the better choice for us In Hindsight.
Around 10:30, I tried moving our afternoon Space, BTMR and Splash FPs to earlier or later so we could get to our break sooner but no other Space or Splash FPs were available. We were a party of 6. Changed Space to diff things throughout the day but never ended up needing it as all rides were walk on after Wishes (except PP with a posted 45 minute wait) and dh had no desire to do that one.
Throughout the day, there were still lots of people in the FP kiosk lines. Idk how they compare to pre-offsite booking but I found them to be longer than what I'd want to wait in to book FPs.
We used a similar touring strategy both days as we have in the past. Hit rope drop at a recommended park, do our fave headliners first, have a general ride list order in mind, build in breaks midday and hit up rides again in the 90 minutes before close.
We avoided EMH this time since we were offsite. We also toured in a more consecutive fashion, moving from one land to the next. And we stuck together more since there was no need to traverse the parks to grab FPs and come back later. I'm usually the FP runner and I appreciated this the most bc I also probably cherish the little moments of family time the most.
Also, we did not see the enormous amounts of FPers being let onto rides in front of SBers. Again, maybe we got lucky and found ourselves one step ahead of the crowds during a lull between Spring Break and Easter weeks.
Dh said he thinks this was one of our best Disney trips. We can count on one hand how many lines we had to stand in over 20 minutes. I had been prepping them for the worst based on the wait times I was seeing the week before our trip, the pics on here and the horror stories posted here. He now thinks I'm crazy! There were times we did feel one step ahead like when we walked onto HM and as we exited a mass crowd entered. Or when we walked into Laugh Factory and were the only people in there but when we looked behind us five minutes later the preshow room was packed.
My net opinion on FP+ is neutral. I like what I think it could be at it's optimal efficiency but the technological malfunctions we encountered on Tuesday were dissatisfying. Also, we found we only got value out if one FP each day and I was left feeling like that was due to a combo of short SB wait times and the current rules/constraints of the system.
As a group, we did everything we wanted to and then some. Individually, we all make compromises for the sake of family consensus. (Ie, I would've like to do BTMR or Splash again but the family didn't want to get wet and wanted the hotel swim break more). The rest of the fam wasn't interested in FOF but was willing to take ride time out of their day to watch it we me and dd3. I pretty much categorize the choices we must make for FP+ the same way I do compromises for the family. You simply prioritize, make the best choices you can with the info you have, be willing to adapt and be flexible and roll with a potentially less than perfect outcome but determine to enjoy the journey knowing that we may not be able to do, see, experience all that life (or Disney) has to offer and that is okay.
