Originally Posted By Goofyernmost Let me start off this thing by attempting to make it clear that the opinions expressed, by me, are just that, my opinions. I am not, under any stretch of the imagination, attempting to put down, ridicule or otherwise offend those of you that feel differently. I really can see the other side…I just don’t always march to that beat. OK, that said…here are my observations, both good and bad, about my recent (last week) venture to WDW. As some of you know this is my 21st trip from Vermont to the House of the Mouse. I have, for many years, been enamored by the Disney Corporation and its operations way back to when Walt himself was the guiding force. Some of you also know that in all those trips, this was the first time that I have stayed on site. I chose POP Century because it was the newest and a value resort and I knew I would never spend the money required to go to any of the other resorts on property. I bought into the Buy 4 get 7 special and said, what to heck…let’s give it a try. My plan included a $200.00 Gift Card (no charge) that I intended to use to pay for my meals. I do see that going solo does have its advantages with this plan. I only have to supply food, etc. for myself. That certainly helps but I can see where that might not help much with a family. Why? Because Disney food prices are outrageously high. It is a good investment for Disney to give out the card because when you take markup into consideration, especially on food, the $200.00 probably costs them, conservatively, $50.00. The food was self serve, on paper plates with plastic silverware, assembly line processed and usually cold by the time you got it paid for, got your beverage and got settled at your table. That brings me to another joke…the infamous “buy a cup and get your drinks free for the duration of your stay at the resort. First, the cups cost $13.00. I noticed that they also contain many Coke logo’s on them. That means that the cups cost Disney next to nothing, if not nothing. The soda dispensers are bulk and my guess is that Disney gets a really good rate on that as well. If you want to use them consistently, you must walk about a gazillion miles back and forth to refill them. When you add ice, if you actually get 4 ounces of soft drink, you rank right up there with David Copperfield when it comes to magic. I suppose if you make enough trips it is worthwhile, but you must remember that I am basically lazy and walking that far isn’t worth it to me. Instead I had them put a refrigerator in my room. $10.00 per day for about 2 cubic feet of space. You couldn’t even put a gallon jug in it. If you did the door wouldn’t close. I think the resort is fine for families. The kids seemed to really enjoy it. The huge bowling pins, yo-yo’s, cell phones, bowling pin shaped swimming pools, etc. all were a fantastic piece of eye candy for everyone, not just kids. I was concerned about the room size. It was the smallest hotel room I had ever been in. It was small to begin with but when the architect decided to offset the doors it took, at least, another 5 square feet out of the rooms interior. The rooms were clean and the Mousekeepers were quick and did a fine job. The staff (excuse me…Cast Members) were friendly and those that spoke English were very helpful. I spoke with one man whose job it was to pick cigarette butts out of the ashtrays in the designated smoking areas. I said that this must not be the finest job on site. He just smiled and said, well, it’s part of the job, so I do it! You gotta love that “whistle while you work” attitude. I had rented a car when I arrived in Orlando, because I felt that I might need to make an escape at some point during the week. (I was right) I did use the bus system a few times without much hassle. I probably took 6 or 7 rides and found that 1 driver was involved with the passengers. He held a trivia contest on the way back from MK (I won two stickers…watch out Alex Trebek), the rest were all business, look straight ahead, drive and don’t say a word. One of the highlights of the trip was the “Backstage Magic Tour” that I signed up for. They split us up into two groups and my tour guide was a very knowledgeable, upbeat, Whoopy Goldberg look alike named Monica. She had enough “spirit” to make up for hundreds of others that didn’t. The tour had its high points and its low points but overall was quite good. We spent a lot of time in one of WDW’s laundry facilities that I thought would be a snore but turned out to be very interesting. What a system. It took in parts of Epcot (American Adventure and the Cast Member building) and then to DHS for an extended look at costume design and building. Then to way backlot and the fabrication and mechanical building were sets are built, ride vehicles repaired and all the general machining work that is necessary to keep the park operating. Finally to MK and the Utilidors. Lunch was at Wilderness Lodge…good food and an extremely manic waitress for entertainment. Fun! Now the parks…I didn’t go to DHS this trip. I ran out of time. As I suspected might happen…I needed to spirit away from the Mouse and just did some random wandering around the area outside the WDW property. My feet were on fire and I needed to rest them, so I put the pressure on another area of my anatomy and just rode around. I was at Animal Kingdom on Thursday. It was a beautiful day, in the upper 70’s with a nice breeze. That was good because as most of you know, AK is the largest park, area wise, there. It requires a lot of walking. There were a lot of people there and it was difficult to maneuver about. I did the things I liked the most…Bugs Life, Dinosaur, Safari and Everest. Well folks, I finally found a ride that I am too old for…Everest. Once will be my only time on it. Just a little too intense for an old man. Nice day overall but since it was my first time utilizing my feet all winter…they gave out on me by about 3 PM so I caught the bus back to POP and called it a day. Friday was the Backstage Magic Tour…see above! Saturday, I went exploring off site for awhile and then went to MK in the afternoon. I won’t say it was a mistake but I have never been to MK when it was that crowded. It was odd because there didn’t seem to be long waits for the attractions but it was impossible to move around outside of them. Just massive amounts of humanity. The thing that surprised me the most was the TTA. In all my years of going there I never saw them use the Q set ups. It was always up the ramp and then directly on the ride. Not this trip, they actually had people waiting on the ground before being able to go on up. Since I had seen “Wishes” a number of times in the past, I just snuck out as it was starting up. I caught the bus, won my stickers and returned before the mad rush. I took my cue from Saturday and decided that Sunday would be a good day to hit the roads again and stay away from the parks, so I did. Monday took me to Epcot. I finally realized that Epcot is fast becoming my favorite park. I love every attraction in Future World and most everything in World Showcase. Ellen was closed (bummer) but I hit Spaceship Earth (twice), Mission Space, Test Track, Nemo, and the land with, of course, Soarin’. When I entered the line for Soarin’ the sign said that standby was 20 minutes. About a third of the way in it was obvious that it wasn’t even close to correct. By about mid point they made the announcement that it was actually 50 minutes. That wasn’t correct either. From the time I entered the line until I was on the ride was a little over 60 minutes. In World Showcase I checked out the new Mexico ride featuring Donald Duck…not an improvement over the old ride, I’m afraid. American Adventure was great, as usual. Impressions of France also a winner. I finally got to see the British Invasion at Great Britain and I felt that the new Oh, Canada film was a really vast improvement over the old one. Tuesday was back again to MK to hit the attractions I had missed on Saturday and revisited some of my favorites. Beautiful day, everything worked and looked flawless. Loved it. I used up the last of my “Gift Card” for lunch and skipped out before the 3 O’clock parade started. I had seen it during the Backstage Magic Tour. Went back to the resort, did some laundry and started packing for my Wednesday departure of the resort. I didn’t return home on Wednesday and instead had booked a room offsite to kind of unwind and use as a departure location for an early flight on Thursday. I was determined to stay at the resort until I absolutely had to leave at 11 AM. Funny thing…at about 10:45 I departed my room to find a group of Mousekeepers anxiously awaiting my departure. As I closed the door I was asked if I was done with the room, I replied that I was and they literally swarmed in to get it ready for the next wave. BTW, on Tuesday night the Spring Breakers took over the resort and pool and partied like it was 1969. Overall, a very nice trip. I couldn’t have ordered better weather. Except for the fact that the counter service restaurants in the parks seemed to be mostly all closed, everything was operating and looking good. As a single, I don’t believe that I will stay on site again. There was not magic there for me, just concern that I was being overcharged for everything. It’s just the miser in me. I know I am lucky to be able to break the grip of winter here in the Northeast and head on down to warm air and green grass, so it is hard to be negative about anything. There really wasn’t much to be negative about.
Originally Posted By CarolinaDisneyDad Excellent trip report. Makes me want to go back. Questions... Did you get ADRs for dining or were you able to walk up?.... I've heard spring break is packed. Were the wait times manageable or were you using fast pass?...Could you see any of the constuction on SM from TTA. Thanks for your trip report. They are always great to read.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros That tour sounds like it was pretty cool. How much was it? I'll be out there in May, and we're looking for some little 'extra' things to make it extra special, since there are 3 of us who have birthdays right around then. That sounds like the kind of that that would be really fun to do.
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Originally Posted By Goofyernmost >>>Awesome...now go to Mouseplanet and remember.. Obama sucks.<<< ??????What?????
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost The tour costs $217.00. If you have a Visa Disney Rewards credit card there is a $43.00 discount. Park admission is not required. (I would think not) It's a full eight hours. I am the wrong person to ask about ADR's. I didn't make any and I didn't walk in either. I stayed pretty much with the resort cafeteria and the counter service at the parks. The only exception was I had the lunch buffet at the Tusker House in AK. That was a walk in with about a 5 minute wait. I didn't use a single fastpass and the only one I might have needed it for was Soarin'. I was able to take advantage of the single rider line at Test Track and the rest were basically short waits. Construction hadn't started on TTA or SM yet. There was some activity going on at the old Skyway ride building next to SM, but that was it.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost NOTICE...I guess that post number 4 (the original) was removed as I was typing in the question (what?) Sorry, it doesn't make much sense now and it didn't then either. In the words of Gilda Radner..."Never Mind".
Originally Posted By CarolinaDisneyDad Thanks Goofyernmost, sounds like the crowds were pretty manageable. I've been considering a trip in April and was curious about crowd levels this time of year.
Originally Posted By MPierce Nice report Gofyernmost. I had the same issues as you did with the counter service restaurants in the Parks. Staying on property definetly isn't for every body. With the buy 4 get 3 free deal, and a $200 gift certificate it makes sense then.
