Trip Report Family Trip For the Books- and a call to action

I’m doing this trip report as a follow-up to the pre-trip report- “the worlds on fire, let’s go to Disney World”.

I’ll do a by day break down, however, I wanted to start with a cheat sheet overview-


Wins: Pandora
Toy Story Land
Skyliner
CMs for restaurants, transportation, hotels
Rode Soarin with one of my favorite musicians!
Met Kyle Pallo!
Rope Drop- Animal Kingdom/ Hollywood

Losses:
Memory Maker
Hollywood Studios CMs
Rope Drop- Magic Kingdom

Pushes:
Galaxy’s Edge
Rope Drop- Epcot

 

[jharvey]

Day 6 Hollywood Studios (Thursday June 3,21)
Park Hours: 9am-8pm

Following our routine, we were at the skyliner station by 6:15am and found ourselves about 20 people back. We were in position, wife on the app, me on the atomic clock site, by 6:55am. We counted it down, and at 7am, we got boarding group 2.

Skyliner started letting us board by 6:40am. A quick stop at CBR and then straight off to DHS. The line was a bit longer today, but we were through the tapstiles by 8:15am(ish). We decided to let the masses run to new family favorite Slinky dog, and we instead went straight to TSMM. From there, our itinerary shook out as follows-

Day 6
TSMM
Smugglers
Rise of the resistance
One man’s dream
Lightning McQueen racing academy
Alien swirling saucers
TSMM
Star tours
Smugglers
Slinky Dog

We did Sci-fi for lunch. We liked it, as always. We’ve never done 50s, and I’m thinking next time we might try to mix it up a little.

I’ll add pictures below, but I want to say, I’d give the day a 6/10. Lowest day of the trip, and the reasons are varying degrees of petty on my part. But-
1. Memory maker was still working against us
2. Star tour cm was training a coworker and a comment was made by this nearly reformed fat man that struck me as condescending/ fat-shaming adjacent
3. Last ride of the night- we are closing down slinky dog. We get to near boarding and I play the day card and take the back row. My daughters, especially my middle child are not pleased with that decision. As we are preparing to load, I notice the seat behind me, the last on the train, is empty. I look at the cast member and begin to ask if my daughters can take the seat. The cm says, “sir, take your seat”. I replied by asking if it’s ok if my daughters move to that row. Cm’s response, “sir, I said take your seat”. I took my boy talking in stride and we rode the ride.

I get it. It’s hot. You have to deal with idiots all day. I’m a big boy, I can, and have, taken no for an answer. What I have a hard time with is behaving as if I am a child who is beneath you.

Note: I forgot to mention on our first DHS day, but the CMs at rise of the resistance are amazing. Our first ride involved an empire CM that worked us over like a comedian doing crowd work. Very cool aspect of the attraction.

 

[jharvey]

More day 6 pics-

 

[jharvey]

For those not versed on crowd numbers vs reality of wait times, I have something anecdotal to share. One of the above Hollywood pics is us in by far the longest line of the trip. About 10-15 after park close, the line for the Skyliner was wrapped around to roughly the piggly wiggly. From the time we got in line it took 12 minutes to get loaded into our skyliner car. They do mix groups, when possible, in the evenings, but there were several instances this trip in which crowd control / line eating was most impressive. First was at Big Thunder- that was amazing- and the rest were with the Skyliner.

 

[Runbevo83]

If you are a calamari fan, that alone is worth the price of admission. The burgers are legit too- the filet sliders are amazing. I’ll cheat on my taxes before next trip in order to afford a steak there.

OMG Filet sliders, you're killing me!

 

[jharvey]

Day 7: Magic Kingdom (June 4,2021)
Park hours: 8am-9pm

Last day, so we were only planning to stay until lunch then head back. I’m going to do this one a little different. First, an intense hate of mine is anything that can be considered a shot being taken against WDW. And I detest Karens. With that said, on day 7, I got petty and I was Karen adjacent.

recap- memory maker was convinced I only had two kids. CMs at DHS spent the last half of the previous day alternating between what I perceived to be a swipe at my weight and just being low grade rude.

Last day/travel day, I’m already in a glass case of emotions. We do our usual thing of getting to the bus stop nearly 2 hours early for rope drop.

We get in and I make a last minute audible. Let’s just skip the made rush to 7dmt. My wife and brother love coffee, I’ve never touched the stuff myself, but treat yo self. We get snacks and what not and start to head to Frontierland. Splash isn’t part of rope drop, but it’s a favorite, and is going away relatively soon for reasons. We didn’t do it the second MK day of the trip, so, let’s do it this morning. BTMRR is next door. We can ride it, and then hop in line for splash. Reality check- big Thunder is down. And the line to splash is ungodly with an open for that still about 30-45 minutes off, at best. So, pirates... Down, not sure when it comes up. Jungle cruise, ditto.

Before you do to me what I would do to you if the rolls were reversed- I know nothing is promised with rope drop. But something should be available. It should not be a pressure relief valve that allows them to queue everyone up first thing. Between that, the previous issues, and I’m sure the 6 hour drive back to reality played no part in this, I decided to call it a day. And, not wanting to let my inner Karen get me banned from my happy place, I let my wife go to customer service. She goes down the list and asks if we could just refund for the day if we leave immediately. They said yes, but the refund would be modest at best. After about 15 minutes, the agreed upon fix was 3 anytime fast passes, and one free / non-expiring park day for everyone in the group. So, hate me if you want, I hated just typing that.

Day 7:
Buzz
Splash with FP
Splash with FP
Philharmagic
Pirates with FP

and, to make it even more interesting, a brief shut down, at the most opportune time ever, and...



At best, I’m usually in the low 200k range. The gods were smiling on Karen this day.

 

[jharvey]

With all that said, this trip is our favorite ever. Returning to Pop for the first time in 8 years a treat. The skyliner was amazing. Disney Springs is the closest we will get to a 5th gate for a while, and I’m cool with that. The negatives, and there were a couple, were nothing compared to the positives.

Notes for next time: probably staying at CBR. Stayed there before and liked it, but it looked so much better after the refurb. We initially booked it for this trip before having to change with the addition of my brother. 7 days/6 nights is the perfect length for a stay. And if they don’t bring FP back, I’m burning this mother down.