May 7-13 2023 - The Longest Meal and Fastest Minute

[mgarbowski]

Really loved your Trip Report. Thank you.

DD (adult) & I were there in May and we totally agree with so much of what you said (a couple things we didn't experience ie. Biergarten/V&A (though DD was there with an X-husband who turned out to be a real piece of work so the experience deteriorated).

Again, thank you for the report. Can't wait to read more. You have a very easy, interesting readable style.

PS: We have been going since literally Disney World opened.

Thank you.

 

[mgarbowski]

Animal Kingdom Notes

Not a lot to add to the bare listing of activities. AK seems to be our easiest park to manage outside of its size, which can make walking back and forth a pain. During a low crowd week, it's even easier. We managed to get LL for every ride we wanted.
Both D18 and I missed the photo spot on Dinosaur! Usually the car stops, then the dino roars, and you look up and flash/snap. But the sequence was different somehow and the flash went off while neither of us were looking. Though somehow everyone else in the car managed to look
up at the right time.



That's it for AK. This was also the day for Victoria & Albert's and Moonlight Magic, so we finished up pretty early and relaxed at the room before heading back out.

 

[mgarbowski]

Magic Kingdom Notes
We did 2 days in MK. The second was our last day before travel home day, and also after a late night, so we were pretty tired and cut it short. But we did mostly everything we wanted with Genie+ and easy crowds, thought it felt as if we could have been more efficient. One attraction we did not make was the Tiki Room. I had the hat and everything.

D18 and I rode Tron 3 times: once with a boarding group, twice with paid Lightning Lanes. On the day with 2 rides, our BG unfortunately was called both while we were at lunch and overlapping with the paid LL. I then made the mistake of entering the BG line first because the LL time ended later, but of course we spent so much time waiting on the BG line we nearly missed the LL window even with the 15 minute extension. In retrospect it was an obviously bad decision even with what I should have known at the time. I think we made it by less than 5 minutes. Good thing we did not need or use the lockers, which probably would have made us late.
Tron itself is fast: on our last ride I timed it and the actual ride portion last almost exactly one minute from when you launch to when you come to a stop. As such, $20 per LL (I'm guessing more on busier days) is a lot. I'm not sure we'll do it regularly on future visits, and even less likely to buy it twice. But the BG experience was not great either, with the lack of control over whether you get a group, the number, and when they call you. Plus obviously it's nice not to wait.

Interesting that Disney seems to take 2 simultaneous pictures at the same time from each side. They're not just a flip of the same image. Easy to tell because I have a watch on my left wrist and MB+ on the right. Also my daughter looks much cooler and happier than I do.


My least popular Magic Kingdom opinion is I hate the parades. I would eliminate them with no hesitation. To be clear, I don't dislike the parade as entertainment, though I don't enjoy it much either. I hate the disruption. I hate not being able to walk at even the normal theme park pace hindered by normal theme park crows, because almost all of some main walkways are given over to the parade. I hate not being able to cross Main Street, or to get from the Splash/Thunder mountain area to say Pirates. It was bad enough before FP+ and G+ Now you are required to be in certain locations at certain times, and 3 times in 2 days we had to disrupt what we were doing to hustle across the park to get on the other side of the parade path before we got stuck. Once we had to do it carrying drinks and churros. Humbug.

I bought ice cream at Auntie Gravity's and the menu threw me. The chocolate milkshake was listed slightly apart from the rest of the menu and I missed it. It's not objectively bad design, but I was tired and it was enough to throw me off. Also, I'm 98.73% certain they also used to have vanilla shakes as well, and even if that's not true, why don't they? So I got vanilla soft serve, but it could have been better in 2 different ways.

Carousel of Progress felt like they were saving a little money on the AC. It wasn't hot, but shaded enough towards warm that it negated part of the attraction's purpose.

Jungle Cruise is a lower priority for us. But we did it this time and were reminded how much a good skipper can add to it. While we were waiting a boat came in and the skipper kept up his patter and his passengers were howling. We didn't get him. But our skipper was pretty good and she delivered one line in particular with real verve that really sold it.

 

[BostonEd]

Carousel of Progress felt like they were saving a little money on the AC. It wasn't hot, but shaded enough towards warm that it negated part of the attraction's purpose.

You know, during my April trip, none of the air conditioning felt too strong. I thought perhaps it was because it wasn't quite super hot out yet. But there were more than a few times I was thinking "seems like it should be cooler in here."

 

[mgarbowski]

Final Assorted Notes
I was sent 2 experience surveys during my trip. One for Disney Springs and one for Moonlight Magic. Both were closed and unavailable 2 days after my trip ended. I understand they was fresh opinions but I'm not filling out surveys during my vacation. I also received a resort survey which I tried to take but I abandoned it part way through when it would not let me choose "0" as a value for how many times I used Early Entry.

The entrance to the OKW resort has just one lane in at the gatehouse. I think it's the only DVC resort that has this limitation. Some resorts have a second entrance with just one lane, but I think every other has at least one entrance where guests who already checked in can bypass the gatehouse and use a card or band to open the gate. It was rarely an issue. I think only once did we have more than 3 vehicles in front of us as we approached the gate. Most times the gate agent just waved us through when we said we were staying there without scanning or checking the name. I guess OKW it's less of an issue because OKW lacks a destination pool or restaurant, does not really work as alternate parking to a park or DS, and has really little else to draw in a lot of people who just want to look around. I'm sure there's some, but not so much it creates any issues.

I seem to have taken a photo of a pair of urinals in the Victoria & Albert's mens room. I have no idea why. It is too well composed to have been an accident. In fact I seem to remember I almost turned back to retake it to center it a bit more perfectly, but someone came in and I didn't want to look too weird. But it is thoroughly uninteresting to me now.It's a nice enough bathroom, but not among the most amazing ones I've been in, and the pair of urinals is pretty mundane. I guess I saw something at the time, but not now.

Here's another photo of D18 and me being not ready for the photo spot in Space Mountain, plus someone I hope was living his best life.


As a contrast, here we are in first Mine Train and then Everest nailing it, to show we aren't complete ride photos incompetents.


Finally, a ride photo from Pirates of the Caribbean featuring 6 rows of people who have never been in my kitchen.

That's it. Thanks for reading.

 

[BostonEd]

Finally, a ride photo from Pirates of the Caribbean featuring 6 rows of people who have never been in my kitchen.

I realize they take up a lot of space, but being able to select your photo at the end of the ride would prevent so many of these problems. And you wouldn't have to worry about your MB running out of batteries, etc.

Did you contact the photo pass people to try and find your boat? I did for a couple of my missing photos, and they were able to track them down!

 

[mgarbowski]

I realize they take up a lot of space, but being able to select your photo at the end of the ride would prevent so many of these problems. And you wouldn't have to worry about your MB running out of batteries, etc.

Did you contact the photo pass people to try and find your boat? I did for a couple of my missing photos, and they were able to track them down!

We didn't try. I have in the past and it usually works, but for this one we didn't care enough. Sometimes we get both our photo and another car or boat. That happened this trip on Tron Lightcycle. My favorite was a few years back when I received about 6-8 photos of another family on a walkway in Epcot. Some were wearing t-shirts with the name of their family business and I half thought about contacting them in case they did not get them and Disney could not fix it. But then I decided that was potentially too awkward and stalkery so I just deleted them.

 

[DisneyyDaydream]

Finally, a ride photo from Pirates of the Caribbean featuring 6 rows of people who have never been in my kitchen.

I cannot stress enough how much this tickled my funny bone