So…we returned from the world on Wednesday night and rather than a long drawn out report I just really felt like some bullet points were better (and easier) to put down.
First off we stayed at Coronado Springs Resort and it was a great trip with wait times that were entirely bearable. FLE looks great and the busses ran very smoothly with no real crowding and no waits any more than 15 minutes. I’ll break down my thoughts by location. Questions are welcomed.
Coronado Springs
Very happy with the resort and this was our second consecutive stay with them. Everything was great except our Brit neighbors arrived in the overnight hours and then thought it was acceptable to Skype on their tablet outside the room quite loudly at 4:50AM. They raised quite a racket as well getting settled but I just chalked it up to time differential. Two nights later I had to call the front desk though as there was a gaggle of folks outside on the second floor walkway at 2:00AM laughing and talking loudly…sorry folks, I have my limits!
They changed the menu offerings at Rix Café as well as pepper market. Rix breakfast is honestly pretty bad now and the morning sandwiches no longer come with croissant but rather on a doughy roll. You cannot get a sandwich with sausage and the kids choice is a breakfast biscuit…no other choices for kids. It was all pretty inedible and we only ate there one morning. The pastry offering was equally downsized and they only had croissants offered one morning (out of eight) otherwise you had a choice of bagel or sugary donut/muffin/cinnamon bun. On the plus side Pepper Market is now a CS meal instead of a sit down for breakfast, lunch, and dinner but their offerings have been equally downsized and although we found better selections that were palatable there as compared to Rix we did miss the previous menu choices but were willing to trade off for the sake of not having to use a sit down meal off the dining plan to eat a decent meal at the resort.
Check-in was smooth; the room was clean and kept so throughout the trip by mousekeeping. The grounds were great as usual and busses ran regularly.
Epcot
Water pressure was down throughout all the parks and it was hard to even get your hands washed properly. Fountains even seemed to be flowing less than usual and the fountain in the “graveyard” at the entrance under SSE was barely trickling most of the time and was even shut off at one point.
- Empty spaces…inexcusable. WOL, Odyssey, second floor of Imagination are all empty unused and forgotten. Corporate events be damned this is not what Disney’s standards should be for the prices of the parks.
- UOE…desperately needs help. It is just old and tired and although some attractions can be seen time and again this one is just wearing thin for us. The snake like creature that Ellen is supposed to be swatting at was not moving at all so she was just swinging into thin air. Other than that the attraction was working fine
- Mission Space…rode both green and orange. Everything working AOK there and wait times were under 10 minutes. I do wish the ride was somehow randomized for different experiences or that your input (or lack thereof) would effect the outcome but for what it is the ride holds up. One thing I always get distracted by though is watching Gary Senise eyes clearly reading off of a teleprompter instead of having memorized his lines. I am probably one of the few that notices this but once you do it is hard not to focus on it.
- Test Track 2.0… I actually like the new version better (don’t hate me). I thought that even though they chose to use the same track layout that the new visuals were more fun. I did not have anything against the old version either and I know there are folks who wanted it to stay the same but in terms of freshening up I like it. The queue however is honestly awful. I thought there was no way they could make it worse but they managed to. Placing a line that goes around two prototypes, hanging some pictures on the wall and giving folks four “interactive” screens that nobody seems to be able to figure out how to do anything with along with the incessant music loop coming down from overhead made the wait more like purgatory.
- Soarin’…as stated time and again on these boards desperately needs either re-mastering of the film or even better yet a new digital projection system with a film that is not a reheated west coast attraction.
- Living with the Land…the greenhouses were very empty with few plants to see and the fish tanks were empty for the most part as well. Nothing to see here folks…moving on.
- SSE…I miss Jeremy Irons AT&T version….that is all
- Innoventions…enjoyed The Sum of all Thrills with DD and I would recommend this little known attraction as long as the wait is 20 minutes or less as it is over in a flash but still a neat experience. The efficiency house (or whatever it is called) is not bad but the guide kind of phoned it in and the whole thing just seemed too “put on” for me.
- DW enjoyed an iced coffee from Starbucks….HERACY!
World Showcase
- Enjoyed two good meals there, one at Biergarten and one at San Angel Inn. I do have to say that the service at San Angel was awful though. My wife ordered two appetizers as her meal, the first round of food that arrived was my dinner and her Cesar salad…we waited a few minutes more and then flagged down the waitress to inquire where DD’s dinner and the other half of DW’s was. She thought my wife only wanted the one item and not both and had no clue about DD meal or where it was. 15 minutes later those items arrived. Then we had to flag her down once again for another round of drinks and dessert for DD and finally had to flag her down once more to get a check. Other tables around us were equally as frustrated so it was not just us. For the first time I can remember I totally jilted the wait staff on a tip and I think I only gave 5% just to have not been a total jerk and to get my point across. The whole experience took 2 hours and we barely made Illuminations.
- Illuminations…I like this show so IMO it was good as usual except that an entire quadrant of Russia on the globe was totally dead throughout the entire performance.
- Garden Grille…we were able to bump up our reservation by almost two hours due to rain keeping people from making their ADR’s. Quite different from seven years ago though. The food was good enough but would rather be able to order specific dishes than have the family style menu that they now offer where as I tell my daughter…”you get what you get and don’t get upset.”
Animal Kingdom
Not too much to report here outside of what is posted on the boards about the Disco Yeti, hating of Dinorama, Dinosaur effects on and off again etc.
We did have a very nice experience with a cast member named Lilly who chose us for a guided tour of Majarajah Jungle Trek. She afforded us a great experience and it was great to see a cast member who “gets it”.
Hollywood Studios
- Tower of Terror…first time out for this attraction with DD (10) and DW. We all loved it and rode it probably 12 times during our stay. I have to say that this attraction is far better at night since there is no light coming into the elevator shaft giving you orientation or indication of going up or down. We never rode it with the lap bars but we loved the seatbelts since you actually felt yourself lifting off the seat and the belt holding you down. The best rides are when it starts you off with a drop before a lift…didn’t know that was possible until our fifth ride and it was a shocking surprise! The randomization of the ride was great and the themeing of the boiler room was beyond a home run. Never waited more than twenty minutes but most were less than ten or a walk on.
- Rock ‘n Rollercoaster…great ride and never miss it. Wish you could just bypass the recording studio portion and get in line but everything holds up with this ride time and again…but still trying to figure out how it fits into DHS…not going to look a gift horse in the mouth though so..moving on.
- Walt Disney One Man’s Dream…underrated experience IMO. Yes, it is more a museum than anything but I have a sincere admiration for Walt. DD actually wanted to do this attraction and when we went in to watch the movie and left she asked to go back in because she was not finished looking at the exhibits…a very proud moment I can tell you because my ten year old understands that this attraction park did not just happen…it was brought into being by a man and his dreams and tenacity beyond what is really seen nowadays.
- TSMM…didn’t even bother. No less than 60 minute wait times with no FP available and if experience has taught me anything it is that 60 minutes quickly turns into 90+ with breakdowns. Just not worth the wait IMO.
- TGMR…rode it for the sake of tradition but we were very pleasantly surprised that the second Alien was working on the right hand side of the scene and we never even knew there was supposed to be an active fire scene in the western shoot out. We have ridden this ride probably ten to twelve times in the past and never seen fire or smoke or even knew there was supposed to be…a nice surprise to say the least!
Magic Kingdom
Looked great overall and the maintenance dept seems to have stepped up from our visit last year. Clean and everything was working well. FLE looks great and looking forward to SDMT opening. I only wish that just once we could visit in the fall without a crane in all of our pictures of the castle.
- Enchanted Tales with Belle…although definitely geared for kids eight and under I highly recommend this to experience the technology with AA that they have risen the bar to. When you enter you get to see The Wardrobe and that in itself is pretty impressive…but just wait until you meet Lumier! Not going to spoil it but I will just say that you should do it once to see it.
- Ariel’s Undersea Adventure…not too shabby either. Good for kids and a people eater since it uses the Omnimover system. The queue is VERY well themed with some interactive scenes with projected holographic crabs. It is kind of classic Disney and there are no real new technologies being implemented but still cute for the kids. I will say that in the opening scene Scuttle AA was not working at all on two of the three times we rode and one of the evil eels had a dead eye on all rides we took.
- Be Our Guest…we ate there for dinner and what can I say…WOW. Themeing was great, service was too and the food was awesome. I was told by our server that the architect that designed the restaurant was eating there that evening and a quick scan around the room bore out the table of four who were clearly not on vacation. Got our picture with Beast and headed out into the evening pleasantly stuffed.
- CRT…another great experience. Our second time there but the first go-round seven years ago DD came down with pink eye and a fever during breakfast so this was a do-over. Food and everything was great.
- Splash Mountain…refurb looks great! Colors are vibrant and the first two days we rode it everything was working AOK. The last two days we rode the dancing fountains in laughing place were either barely or not working at all though. All in all a good refresh but it would be nice if they could get all effects working
- SGE…OK, so we finally did this attraction. I braced for the worst after hearing all of the bad on the forums. It was not all that bad…and, it was not all that great either. DD said the chili dog breath made her nauseas though. Don’t think we need to go again but not as bad as I expected.
- Dole Whip…Finally tried it! OK, I get it now…that thing is killer! DW agreed that it was very good and worth doing every trip.
- BTMRR…refurb looks great and the interactive queue items are very well done so that they do not seem out of place.
- Rapunzel bathroom area… looks very nice and is a pleasant improvement to the defunct skyway station that used to occupy that area. Nice opening to a previously congested bottle neck.
- Pork Shank at Gaston’s…YUM!!! I ate the whole thing myself and enjoyed every last bit of it. You definitely have to be a fan of the taste of lightly seasoned pork but if you are then it is quite good and moist throughout.
Additional random thoughts…
- Put down the electronics and back away!
A personal pet peeve of mine but our addiction as a society to electronica seems to be getting to epidemic proportions. At one point I watched a couple where she was on her smartphone the whole time in the queue while he (think 25-ish) played Nintendo DS and then at one point while playing pulled an iPad out of the backpack while playing the DS to look up cheats I believe...umm, why even go to Disney. Other times I watched parents ignore their kids who just seemed like they wanted attention while they talked to someone about where they were or what their plans were…so much imagined drama. Then there are the parents who give over the phones to the kids to keep from having to relate to them. I guess I just don’t get going on vacation as a family but not connecting like a family while on vacation.
- ECV usage seemed at an all time low to me although I had to chuckle at one point when I saw an entire family (mom, dad, one kid) each on their own with a second kid riding shotgun on mom’s lap. Now I guess it is possible they all needed them but highly unlikely.
- On past trips I had never seen anyone use GAC’s but on this trip I saw it used no less than 10 times mostly by people who appeared (I stress APPEARED) to be perfectly fine. A coincidence that there are ads on Craigslist for ways to beat lines…I think not. Disney is going to have to address this somehow that does not violate ADA or it will become out of hand rather quickly IMO.
Well, that about sums it up. A great trip overall and it was wonderful family time together. We were planning on booking a trip next October but since they were not offering any bouncebacks for then and since there are so many little things that I found to be critical about we are thinking perhaps a different venue for a while to see if they finally decide to pull back on the aggressive DVC outbuild and start internalizing a little more on guest satisfaction for all guests by getting the parks in better order and filling empty buildings with value added attractions. FLE was a great start so we really hope they make it a trend to “plus” the parks.
First off we stayed at Coronado Springs Resort and it was a great trip with wait times that were entirely bearable. FLE looks great and the busses ran very smoothly with no real crowding and no waits any more than 15 minutes. I’ll break down my thoughts by location. Questions are welcomed.
Coronado Springs
Very happy with the resort and this was our second consecutive stay with them. Everything was great except our Brit neighbors arrived in the overnight hours and then thought it was acceptable to Skype on their tablet outside the room quite loudly at 4:50AM. They raised quite a racket as well getting settled but I just chalked it up to time differential. Two nights later I had to call the front desk though as there was a gaggle of folks outside on the second floor walkway at 2:00AM laughing and talking loudly…sorry folks, I have my limits!
They changed the menu offerings at Rix Café as well as pepper market. Rix breakfast is honestly pretty bad now and the morning sandwiches no longer come with croissant but rather on a doughy roll. You cannot get a sandwich with sausage and the kids choice is a breakfast biscuit…no other choices for kids. It was all pretty inedible and we only ate there one morning. The pastry offering was equally downsized and they only had croissants offered one morning (out of eight) otherwise you had a choice of bagel or sugary donut/muffin/cinnamon bun. On the plus side Pepper Market is now a CS meal instead of a sit down for breakfast, lunch, and dinner but their offerings have been equally downsized and although we found better selections that were palatable there as compared to Rix we did miss the previous menu choices but were willing to trade off for the sake of not having to use a sit down meal off the dining plan to eat a decent meal at the resort.
Check-in was smooth; the room was clean and kept so throughout the trip by mousekeeping. The grounds were great as usual and busses ran regularly.
Epcot
Water pressure was down throughout all the parks and it was hard to even get your hands washed properly. Fountains even seemed to be flowing less than usual and the fountain in the “graveyard” at the entrance under SSE was barely trickling most of the time and was even shut off at one point.
- Empty spaces…inexcusable. WOL, Odyssey, second floor of Imagination are all empty unused and forgotten. Corporate events be damned this is not what Disney’s standards should be for the prices of the parks.
- UOE…desperately needs help. It is just old and tired and although some attractions can be seen time and again this one is just wearing thin for us. The snake like creature that Ellen is supposed to be swatting at was not moving at all so she was just swinging into thin air. Other than that the attraction was working fine
- Mission Space…rode both green and orange. Everything working AOK there and wait times were under 10 minutes. I do wish the ride was somehow randomized for different experiences or that your input (or lack thereof) would effect the outcome but for what it is the ride holds up. One thing I always get distracted by though is watching Gary Senise eyes clearly reading off of a teleprompter instead of having memorized his lines. I am probably one of the few that notices this but once you do it is hard not to focus on it.
- Test Track 2.0… I actually like the new version better (don’t hate me). I thought that even though they chose to use the same track layout that the new visuals were more fun. I did not have anything against the old version either and I know there are folks who wanted it to stay the same but in terms of freshening up I like it. The queue however is honestly awful. I thought there was no way they could make it worse but they managed to. Placing a line that goes around two prototypes, hanging some pictures on the wall and giving folks four “interactive” screens that nobody seems to be able to figure out how to do anything with along with the incessant music loop coming down from overhead made the wait more like purgatory.
- Soarin’…as stated time and again on these boards desperately needs either re-mastering of the film or even better yet a new digital projection system with a film that is not a reheated west coast attraction.
- Living with the Land…the greenhouses were very empty with few plants to see and the fish tanks were empty for the most part as well. Nothing to see here folks…moving on.
- SSE…I miss Jeremy Irons AT&T version….that is all
- Innoventions…enjoyed The Sum of all Thrills with DD and I would recommend this little known attraction as long as the wait is 20 minutes or less as it is over in a flash but still a neat experience. The efficiency house (or whatever it is called) is not bad but the guide kind of phoned it in and the whole thing just seemed too “put on” for me.
- DW enjoyed an iced coffee from Starbucks….HERACY!
World Showcase
- Enjoyed two good meals there, one at Biergarten and one at San Angel Inn. I do have to say that the service at San Angel was awful though. My wife ordered two appetizers as her meal, the first round of food that arrived was my dinner and her Cesar salad…we waited a few minutes more and then flagged down the waitress to inquire where DD’s dinner and the other half of DW’s was. She thought my wife only wanted the one item and not both and had no clue about DD meal or where it was. 15 minutes later those items arrived. Then we had to flag her down once again for another round of drinks and dessert for DD and finally had to flag her down once more to get a check. Other tables around us were equally as frustrated so it was not just us. For the first time I can remember I totally jilted the wait staff on a tip and I think I only gave 5% just to have not been a total jerk and to get my point across. The whole experience took 2 hours and we barely made Illuminations.
- Illuminations…I like this show so IMO it was good as usual except that an entire quadrant of Russia on the globe was totally dead throughout the entire performance.
- Garden Grille…we were able to bump up our reservation by almost two hours due to rain keeping people from making their ADR’s. Quite different from seven years ago though. The food was good enough but would rather be able to order specific dishes than have the family style menu that they now offer where as I tell my daughter…”you get what you get and don’t get upset.”
Animal Kingdom
Not too much to report here outside of what is posted on the boards about the Disco Yeti, hating of Dinorama, Dinosaur effects on and off again etc.
We did have a very nice experience with a cast member named Lilly who chose us for a guided tour of Majarajah Jungle Trek. She afforded us a great experience and it was great to see a cast member who “gets it”.
Hollywood Studios
- Tower of Terror…first time out for this attraction with DD (10) and DW. We all loved it and rode it probably 12 times during our stay. I have to say that this attraction is far better at night since there is no light coming into the elevator shaft giving you orientation or indication of going up or down. We never rode it with the lap bars but we loved the seatbelts since you actually felt yourself lifting off the seat and the belt holding you down. The best rides are when it starts you off with a drop before a lift…didn’t know that was possible until our fifth ride and it was a shocking surprise! The randomization of the ride was great and the themeing of the boiler room was beyond a home run. Never waited more than twenty minutes but most were less than ten or a walk on.
- Rock ‘n Rollercoaster…great ride and never miss it. Wish you could just bypass the recording studio portion and get in line but everything holds up with this ride time and again…but still trying to figure out how it fits into DHS…not going to look a gift horse in the mouth though so..moving on.
- Walt Disney One Man’s Dream…underrated experience IMO. Yes, it is more a museum than anything but I have a sincere admiration for Walt. DD actually wanted to do this attraction and when we went in to watch the movie and left she asked to go back in because she was not finished looking at the exhibits…a very proud moment I can tell you because my ten year old understands that this attraction park did not just happen…it was brought into being by a man and his dreams and tenacity beyond what is really seen nowadays.
- TSMM…didn’t even bother. No less than 60 minute wait times with no FP available and if experience has taught me anything it is that 60 minutes quickly turns into 90+ with breakdowns. Just not worth the wait IMO.
- TGMR…rode it for the sake of tradition but we were very pleasantly surprised that the second Alien was working on the right hand side of the scene and we never even knew there was supposed to be an active fire scene in the western shoot out. We have ridden this ride probably ten to twelve times in the past and never seen fire or smoke or even knew there was supposed to be…a nice surprise to say the least!
Magic Kingdom
Looked great overall and the maintenance dept seems to have stepped up from our visit last year. Clean and everything was working well. FLE looks great and looking forward to SDMT opening. I only wish that just once we could visit in the fall without a crane in all of our pictures of the castle.
- Enchanted Tales with Belle…although definitely geared for kids eight and under I highly recommend this to experience the technology with AA that they have risen the bar to. When you enter you get to see The Wardrobe and that in itself is pretty impressive…but just wait until you meet Lumier! Not going to spoil it but I will just say that you should do it once to see it.
- Ariel’s Undersea Adventure…not too shabby either. Good for kids and a people eater since it uses the Omnimover system. The queue is VERY well themed with some interactive scenes with projected holographic crabs. It is kind of classic Disney and there are no real new technologies being implemented but still cute for the kids. I will say that in the opening scene Scuttle AA was not working at all on two of the three times we rode and one of the evil eels had a dead eye on all rides we took.
- Be Our Guest…we ate there for dinner and what can I say…WOW. Themeing was great, service was too and the food was awesome. I was told by our server that the architect that designed the restaurant was eating there that evening and a quick scan around the room bore out the table of four who were clearly not on vacation. Got our picture with Beast and headed out into the evening pleasantly stuffed.
- CRT…another great experience. Our second time there but the first go-round seven years ago DD came down with pink eye and a fever during breakfast so this was a do-over. Food and everything was great.
- Splash Mountain…refurb looks great! Colors are vibrant and the first two days we rode it everything was working AOK. The last two days we rode the dancing fountains in laughing place were either barely or not working at all though. All in all a good refresh but it would be nice if they could get all effects working
- SGE…OK, so we finally did this attraction. I braced for the worst after hearing all of the bad on the forums. It was not all that bad…and, it was not all that great either. DD said the chili dog breath made her nauseas though. Don’t think we need to go again but not as bad as I expected.
- Dole Whip…Finally tried it! OK, I get it now…that thing is killer! DW agreed that it was very good and worth doing every trip.
- BTMRR…refurb looks great and the interactive queue items are very well done so that they do not seem out of place.
- Rapunzel bathroom area… looks very nice and is a pleasant improvement to the defunct skyway station that used to occupy that area. Nice opening to a previously congested bottle neck.
- Pork Shank at Gaston’s…YUM!!! I ate the whole thing myself and enjoyed every last bit of it. You definitely have to be a fan of the taste of lightly seasoned pork but if you are then it is quite good and moist throughout.
Additional random thoughts…
- Put down the electronics and back away!
A personal pet peeve of mine but our addiction as a society to electronica seems to be getting to epidemic proportions. At one point I watched a couple where she was on her smartphone the whole time in the queue while he (think 25-ish) played Nintendo DS and then at one point while playing pulled an iPad out of the backpack while playing the DS to look up cheats I believe...umm, why even go to Disney. Other times I watched parents ignore their kids who just seemed like they wanted attention while they talked to someone about where they were or what their plans were…so much imagined drama. Then there are the parents who give over the phones to the kids to keep from having to relate to them. I guess I just don’t get going on vacation as a family but not connecting like a family while on vacation.
- ECV usage seemed at an all time low to me although I had to chuckle at one point when I saw an entire family (mom, dad, one kid) each on their own with a second kid riding shotgun on mom’s lap. Now I guess it is possible they all needed them but highly unlikely.
- On past trips I had never seen anyone use GAC’s but on this trip I saw it used no less than 10 times mostly by people who appeared (I stress APPEARED) to be perfectly fine. A coincidence that there are ads on Craigslist for ways to beat lines…I think not. Disney is going to have to address this somehow that does not violate ADA or it will become out of hand rather quickly IMO.
Well, that about sums it up. A great trip overall and it was wonderful family time together. We were planning on booking a trip next October but since they were not offering any bouncebacks for then and since there are so many little things that I found to be critical about we are thinking perhaps a different venue for a while to see if they finally decide to pull back on the aggressive DVC outbuild and start internalizing a little more on guest satisfaction for all guests by getting the parks in better order and filling empty buildings with value added attractions. FLE was a great start so we really hope they make it a trend to “plus” the parks.