Trip Report And we're off, Finally!!

It's here! Our Disney mini family reunion. After 8 months of coordinating and sometimes logistical hiccups, it's finally play time in our favorite place.

List of characters Me, my sons, my sister in law, niece and nephew.
Home for the next 8 days: Old Key West.
Arrived home Tuesday 9/5.

This trip report maybe a little "scatter brained", I'm posting quasi "live" and in living color so please forgive me if sentences seem like I've been drinking
It's also a bit of a fact finding mission, there has been a lot of chatter about dirty bathrooms, ride breakdowns and nasty cm's. I wanted to know if that is our experience.
So on with the show.....

 

[eliza61nyc]

 

[littleroo]

What a gorgeous picture of Canada!! Loving all the great meals!

 

[Dory71]

Love me some Via Napoli carciofi pizza!!

 

[eliza61nyc]

Welcome back everyone. I apologize for the delay, 2 days after returning home I decided to have knee replacement surgery. Whew, while I am very grateful for the wonderful doctors here in my hometown of Philadelphia, oy Vey does this hurt. Well I'll have a new bionic knee for my next Disney trip. since I have plenty of down time it's on with the show....

Magic Kingdom day:
So I totally admit to being a pixie duster, lol Magic kingdom is simply a wonderful place. from the moment you step onto main street, its happiness in real life.
The day started off perfectly, we have breakfast reservations at Olivia's and had a wonderful surprise as
Donald and Goofy were hanging out at our resort.

Olivia's is a hidden gem imo, food is always delicious and service exceptional. My niece is lactose intolerant and it was not a problem tweeking her order to make it non dairy.

we did an early reservation and had the restaurant almost entirely to ourselves.
after breakfast we did a quick change and it was off to Magic kingdom

 

[littleroo]

I hope you are feeling better! I have many friends with knee replacements. They all said it is a game changer. Good luck!!

 

[Figgy1]

Welcome back everyone. I apologize for the delay, 2 days after returning home I decided to have knee replacement surgery. Whew, while I am very grateful for the wonderful doctors here in my hometown of Philadelphia, oy Vey does this hurt. Well I'll have a new bionic knee for my next Disney trip. since I have plenty of down time it's on with the show....

Magic Kingdom day:
So I totally admit to being a pixie duster, lol Magic kingdom is simply a wonderful place. from the moment you step onto main street, its happiness in real life.
The day started off perfectly, we have breakfast reservations at Olivia's and had a wonderful surprise as
Donald and Goofy were hanging out at our resort.
View attachment 746950View attachment 746951

Olivia's is a hidden gem imo, food is always delicious and service exceptional. My niece is lactose intolerant and it was not a problem tweeking her order to make it non dairy.
View attachment 746954View attachment 746955View attachment 746956

we did an early reservation and had the restaurant almost entirely to ourselves.
after breakfast we did a quick change and it was off to Magic kingdom

Good luck with your new knee

 

[eliza61nyc]

So this seems to be as good as time to comment on the whole genie plus thing. Magic Kingdom was the only park we elected to use Genie Plus. Now I'm not going to rehash if it's Disney being greedy or not. It's here and I doubt it's going away any time soon so my comments are more on the ease of use and whether its worth picking up.

1. We are not park commandos so we tend to concentrate on riding our favorites (HM,PoTC, space mtn). I did not find Genie plus any harder to use than running to get fast passes. My kids and relatives are all 20 somethings, they live with their phones in their hands so the argument that it keeps you attached to your phone is not true In my case. lol it took my 24 yo all of 3 secs for him to pick our next genie plus.
2. we are fortunate that we can go during slower (relatively speaking) times 7 dwarfs mine train and slinky dog dash were truly the only rides that consistently had 60+ minutes wait time and often it was over 90 minutes. I will say my major complaint is that if you are going to force folks to buy genie plus it should include ALL the rides. we did not purchase any individual lightening lanes.
3. virtual que. we had no trouble booking our Tron ride but I'm not a fan simply because you have no control over when your boarding group is called. one day we got an early boarding group, next day we didn't get on the ride until 3 pm.

 

[eliza61nyc]

So happy that the trams are back at MK. come on Disney, you really need all the trams back in action

 

[Tiggerish]

Love those photos with Donald & Goofy at OKW. They really show your family's joy at being together at WDW.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Best of luck with the new knee!

 

[fractal]

Good luck with the bionic knee!

Appreciate all the tidbits and observations.

 

[eliza61nyc]

Thanks everyone for the well wishes on the knee, lol my orthopedic surgeon was saying how I may have to give up marathon running, but since I didn't do that in any of my previous lives, I should be good


Magic Kingdom continue.....
A bit on crowd level. one reason why MK is my favorite park is that IMO it has a better crowd "flow". walking onto Main street can be very deceiving, you get through the arches and think "OMG, look at all these people" but once you break off into the different lands it spreads out. 7 dwarf mine train was the proverbial fly in the ointment, it stayed around 75-90 minutes standby.
35-40 seem to be the sweet spot for every thing else. I also love the "colors" in Magic Kingdom. every lands was clean, no trash on the ground and fresh.
We got a chance to see the flag lowering which was very cool.

View attachment 747185

 

[mpaulam]

Hope you have a quick and easy recovery with the knee.

Go Birds!