2nd trip to disney and all 4 parks :)

hello all
i just returned from my trip .. i followed the crowd calendars and have to report they were not accurate for every day . My family is made up of 2 parents and 3 daughters all late teens, also took one of my brothers and his 6-month expecting wife-and it was there first trip to the World and first trip to a major park. We went to EPCOT on memorial day and the crowds were what i expected heavy but not totally unbearable, we were able to ride everything except Test Track. we did not time our fast passes out well enough and before we knew it all the fast passes were gone and standing in line for the length of the cue was not an option with expecting mother in out mist.
I love EPCOT and every thing was just as i had left it after my previous trip except the new RFID entry system .. it is fantastic the learning curve was instant and so much faster than the old style and i could not believe that some of the lines were totally empty even with cast members on hand with signs to wave more towards them.
Tuesday found us in the Kingdom because the crowd calendars seemed to show a favorable day but i guess that everyone else read the calendars also and so everyone else was also there. we were able to ride/do everything in tomorrow land .. first time in MILF and it was great i did not feel like i was left out in a kids only show .. i laughed threw it all. dinner at Cosmic Rays was nuts we had to wait until after 1:00pm to get in and beable to eat at a table but as always the food was great.
we walked in to fantasy land and the lines were out of hand and fast passes were already gone for most rides .. as we walked to frontier land to ride the steam boat i noticed the the haunted mansion was reporting a 240min cue but the line looked much longer. steam boat ride was awesome we did not do that the last trip, and we found lots of things to take pictures of during the ride and i spent some amount of time to watching the machinery on the boat it was so calming watching things work .. lots of stress left on that ride and my wife and i decided that we had no real chance at enjoying anymore of the day there and since we had park hoppers we would come back to the kingdom later in the week to watch "wishes" and the fireworks.
finished our day in the kingdom by letting our girls mail post cards to the grandparents and i had planned to give my wife a ring (her original had broke) while at the castle but with the crowds being what they were i had to settle on a quite place under the train station .. even with the crowds I love the Kingdom and was disappointed but not mad with how it had turned out.
we took Wednesday off to enjoy our resort and rest up for the trip. We were staying at our timeshare at Bonnet Creek it is worth the trip by its self if you cant stay Disney and have the chance i recommend staying there.
well time to turn in i will finish report tomorrow

 

[WDW_Emily]

I was at the MK on Tuesday as well and the crowds were crazy! It was better during the day of the 24 hour event. We were able to go on Peter pan, and Splash before 10am and then after that everything was long lines, Dumbo said it was 20 minutes but it was really 60 minutes, around 1pm the whole little mermaid section of new fantasyland closed making crowds in that area crazy. Haunted Mansion the whole day was around an hour wait the whole day. We watched the parade at 3pm where it rained. After that we decided to go back to our resort and head back to MK for fireworks later. Once we were back we decided we didn't want to go back to those crowds so we went to EPCOT instead and there were no crowds. at 7pm Test Track had a wait for 40 minutes, Soarin was around the same wait and everything else was walk on.

 

[Master Yoda]

One thing to remember is the crowd calenders are not unlike weather reports. They both use past data and trends to try and predict the future. Because of this they will not always be correct. They also look at the parks as a whole. One section might be packed while others are not. Certain parts of the park will fill up very quickly. FantasyLand is the poster child for this. If you really want to do Fantasyland quickly and easily you have to be there the second the park opens. The place can go from ghost town to packed to the walls in a matter of an hour or two. Since the expansion opened, I do not even walk into Fantasyland past 10:30 AM.

 

[Zipadeelady]

Curious @tedsgibson what crowd calender did you use?

 

[tedsgibson]

well new to posting here and so i don't know how to tag .. Zipitidoda i looked at more than one but mostly followed "undercover Tourist" and yes Master Yoda i new that the calendars were a gamble at best but on the bus ride back to resort i overheard others talking about the calendars, i had not thought that the whole world would be simi-savy and look for tips like i did so i think that the calendar may have worked against me because if i had done the opposite thing on Tuesday i would have been in the good but i think it held true on the other days .. cause the truth is summer has started and it was same week as a holiday and on the eve of a price hike .. but my family still had a great time .. yes i had frustrating moments but it was a success in my eyes.

 

[tedsgibson]

ok to continue my story and thank you all for the comments, .
we took Wednesday off from the parks to rest and enjoy our resort, this worked out well becasue it rained a good part of the morning .. and not like the little rain drops that occur inland we experienced very large coastal rain, i felt for those in the parks that morning. We went to Down Town Disney about 5:30pm .. could almost walk from the resort it is just over a mile but we did drive .. the parking lot was relatively empty .. the rain started again and so i dropped everyone off in front of Planet Hollywood and i was able to park in the 5th row from the building directly in front of Planet Hollywood .. we were seated without reservations within :15min .. had a great time my kids wore out VJ requesting songs and had a great time running around with there aunt taking pictures of everything if you are needing something to do to kill time while Down Town stop in here for a few minutes and look around .. 3 levels of movie props and more .very well done and very child friendly i thought .. in fact one of the songs my kids requested they were told they could not play because there was not a approved edited version.. i know that Disney has some standards and i felt it was shown here. we left and walked towards World of Disney we walked in to a few shops.. the atmosphere was amazing, bands playing in the street .. if you want to shop for Disney Wold of Disney is the place .. WOW it is so well done . the store is divided up in to departments and even thou we were shopping this did make us feel like we were able to shop more effectively, outside the store was a temporary tattoo artist and my brother and his wife got matching tats .. i walked in to Ghirardelli with my girls .. free samples were being given out at the door and this prompted me to buy .. at the stage we found a high school choir singing and under the stars it was very cool ..
Thursday found us at Animal Kingdom .. and we managed to get there in time for rope drop.. very worth it, we were able to hang out in the "Oasis" and take lots of pictures and watch all of them as long as we wanted and still we were on the safari ride before 10:00am and all the animals were waiting for us to see them .. it was so cool there were so many out and the trucks were stopping for for pictures at oneplace on the savanna i could see 7 trucks at once .. it was very cool .. i rushed threw planet watch the last time and this time with we took it slow and really explored ..there was almost no other guest in that part of the park and the cast members could not wait to answer questions .. my youngest thinks that all animals need her to pet them so the petting zoo was a big event. off to Asia to eat at Yak and Yettie, i of course let the wife order while i got fast-passes for Kali River Rapids ... this worked out perfect we ate re-soaked in sun screen .. put our back packs in our extra large zip-lock bags and on to the rapids .. it is a great ride . smoke was working but no smell .. but i have a good imagination.. it is so much fun it could be twice as long .. we are not thrill seekers so we passes on Everest and moved on to the shows and to ride Dinosaur.. only a :10min wait ..what the heck some how we did not ride this the last time we were here but it is a very good fun ride .. i could see it being to intense for some .. my oldest would have been in my lap for most of the ride if not for the seat belt, .. it is well worth the walk to ride .. we were done about 5:00pm and we had planned to catch a Disney Buss to a Disney resort to eat but there was only a :10min wait at the Rain Forrest Cafe at Animal Kingdom so we ate there .. jumped a bus to TTC and grabbed a monorail to Epcot to see how long the Cue was for Test Track .. to long for us so we went to the Kingdom for the Parade, Wishes and the fireworks ..
well it is late .. i will get day 4 in here tomorrow