Originally Posted By sjhym333 Decided to head to the parks today mid-morning with my son. I have a MagicBand but he doesn't yet so I made FP+ reservations for the MK. I will talk more about that later but here are some observations from today. The parks were very very busy. Spring break has begun and it showed in the parks. There must be no one left in Louisiana based on the number of LSU hats and tshirts we saw. There we line outside most of the Fast food restaurants in the parks today for people waiting to get in to order. Once you got in the door you still had to wait on line to order. Many of the doors had CM's stationed at them funneling people through one entrance. When we stopped for lunch at the Tomorrowland Terrace the guest in front of us said that the lines for food were some of the longest waits they had on this visit. We FP'd Pooh. After waiting for a few minutes that ride stopped, was evacuated and the queue emptied. The guy in front of us said the same thing had happened yesterday and a CM told me that Pooh goes down a lot more then it should. Hmmm. We had FP'd for Pooh and when the queue was emptied we were handed a paper FP for any attraction in Fantasyland which we used later for Pooh. My son commented that it was sad that the Castle entrance is no longer open because of the shows going on. And now for some FP+ observations: Despite all the complaining I could have gotten FP's for every major attractions in any of the parks when I left my house at 11:45. We chose the MK but it was also true for the other 3 parks because I checked before I made my selections. I got FP's for Big Thunder, Pooh and Jungle Cruise and our Big Thunder FP was for 1pm not bad for a busy day. My son is not on FP+ yet. I had been told by several CM's that we could go to a Kiosk and they would just copy my FP times to my sons ticket. Not exactly true. They could to that as long as all the times we still open. They weren't so the CM had to make choices for my son and then adjust my times a little for us to ride together. Looking forward to my son being on FP+ so we could just make our reservations together. A FP+ hint...the Kiosk in Liberty Square in the old Hall of Presidents shop was the least crowded all day in the MK. Others seemed very busy but there we only 3 people ahead of us. As the day went along the kiosk lines decreased. The kiosk CM's are amazing. They are helpful, knowledgable and tried to be accomodating. The guy that helped us worked hard to make the times work for us. Another hint we got from the guy is that times open up all the time during the day as people make changes. So one minute the earliest Big Thunder time was 3pm and a few moments later there was a 1:20 time. He said that is pretty much the norm as he kept refreshing his screen to watch for earlier times for us. It is very helpful to be prepared before you get to a Kiosk. Part of the reason there are long lines is that people were unaware of the system and how it works and were not ready when they reached a CM. Think of it like standing on a long line for fast food and the person doesn't even look at the menu till they reach the register. We saw that a lot at the Kiosks. Even though a CM handed people a paper with instructions and a list of attractions many people were not ready to make choices which makes the line move slow. One of the things I have enjoyed about FP+ is riding attractions I would otherwise skip. We usually choose one large attraction (like one of the mountains) and then 2 that we normally wouldn't ride. All in all a great day at the parks
Originally Posted By sjhym333 Should have also mentioned that we also went to EPCOT today for the Flower and Garden Festival. Flow and Garden has always been one of my favorite things that EPCOT does but I was disappointed in this years festival. Over the past couple of years Disney has realized that there is money to be made in those booths that line World Showcase and there seemed to be several more out for Flower and Garden. It almost looks like a mini Food and Wine. While Disney does the topiary thing extremely well (the Muppet one was great) every year there are less and less actual displays out in the park. The usual ones are the like the butterfly aviary but besides the beefed up gardens and topiaries the days of sponsors setting up displays throughout the park seems to have diminished a lot over the years. One last thought. The monorails to the MK and hotels are closed from 11:30 to 7pm. We took a bus to the MK from the old tram turn around near the EPCOT monorail. It was one of the fastest trips to the MK we have ever taken. They had buses lined up and the left quickly and didn't stop till they got the MK. Our return trip we took the ferry. Always a nice ride but it was rather chilly today.
Originally Posted By sjhym333 One final, final thought. We stopped into O Canada with Martin Short. A forgotten hidden gem for us and many guests I suspect. A lot of fun and worth stopping into the next time your there.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros Thanks for giving an update on FP+. I think a real trick is going to be knowing which kiosks to go to, since the lines will move very slowly, especially early in the day. When I was there a few weeks ago, we noticed that there was absolutely no wait at the Jungle Cruise kiosks (despite ong lines at the Adventureland entrance and breezeway), so we checked our times there as we exited the ride; it was still early in the day so the park wasn't especially busy yet, but that location is hidden pretty well from the main walkway That's a shame that it sounds like Flower & Garden is deteriorating. I really enjoyed it during my trip several years ago due to all the unexpected additions that made it very fun and approachable (even though I have relatively little interest in gardening). I saw a lot of kiosks set up a few weeks ago, which made me wonder what exactly their plan was for the festival, since there's only so many grow-your-own-food type things they can do
Originally Posted By sjhym333 Yeah I noticed that both parks had busy kiosks and slow kiosks. The trick is to figure out which ones are which. The line for FP return for Jungle Cruise was very very long. Took us 20 mins to board a boat. The standby line was 40 mins. My son and I thought about doing Test Track at EPCOT but the standby line was over 100 mins and the Single Rider line wait time was posted for 40 mins. 40 mins!!! There are still some great things about Flower and Garden but there are many more food booths out this year and there were the usual big amount of topiaries but the actual sections of Garden exhibits in the park itself seemed smaller. The area between Africa Outpost and Germany had a Florida fresh food booth. Between Morocco and France was a small kids playground and play area.
Originally Posted By Autopia Deb You may have seen so many LSU hats etc because a lot of people get the heck out of Dodge for Marti Gras. Ironic, leaving one tourist crowd for another, but WDW IS more kid friendly as no one is flashing for beads there ;-).
Originally Posted By sjhym333 Interestingly enough one of my 3 degrees is from LSU. I am a proud Tiger. I understand not doing Mardi Gras in New Orleans but there are some great family friendly festivities in the surrounding areas
