Just returned from my very first WDW visit. (5-19 Aug)

We spent 2 weeks at the Caribbean Beach (Barbados island) with our two daughters 5 and 3. Being a bit sceptical I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy WDW but knew my daughters would love it: I was proven wrong I thoroughly enjoyed it and wanted to stay another week (which is unheard of for me by the second week of a holiday I'm usually itching to get back home).

Here are a few ramblings in no particular order:

1: Fastpass: what a glorious idea
2: Child swap what an even better idea. My wife usually waited with the 3 yr old on certain rides that she couldn't/wouldn't go on and as soon as I'd finished she went on with my eldest who loved the fact she got two rides.
My eldest always loved the fact that we "cheated" by using the fastpass to get to the front of the ride.
3: The bus system was good but at times they got overcrowded and when you're traipsing a "stroller" (I'm turning American) around it can get a bit tedious. So as we had a car we loved the fact that, due to staying on the resort, we had free parking at the parks so could come and go as we pleased in the car.
4: Absolutely loved the "talk with Crush" at Epcot sealife, so much so that we dragged our daughters back there a few days later to see it again: our daughter even got picked out for a question so that was an added bonus especially as I caught it all on video.
Noticed subtle but funny differences in the two shows btw.
5: Can recommend the following restaurants which served very good food: Hollywood Brown Derby at MGM and if you go to SeaWorld the Shark Underwater Grill.
6: As our daughters loved meeting the characters a bonus at Epcot is going early: whilst everyone else is heading for Test Track and Soarin' we stumbled upon the "meet and greet" area and were literally the only ones in there. Particularly amusing was the amount of time Chip & Dale spent with our two: dancing & joking around. The camera man said he'd never known anyone get so long with them.
7: Disney certainly know how to put on a show: Lion King at the Animal Kingdown a particularly enjoyable one, which again we saw twice. Also, Beauty and the Beast (inc the Barber Shop Quartet like singers beforehand) was very good and as for Fantasm (?) at Epcot and the finale at magic Kingdom well these truly are worth the wait.
8: Early hours for people staying on the resort is again a brilliant idea and well worth getting up early for to avoid the queues.
9: We decided to treat our daughters to the "breakfast with the Princesses" at Epcot. Again this was a treat that our daughters loved but I was a bit set aback by the final price (not inc the picture) as only one evening meal throughout the 2 weeks for the 4 of us was more expensive and that was the excellent Sharks underwater grill.
10: Why don't they have a Tinkerbell as a character in the park: I know in the film she is a fairy and only a few inches tall but you extend reality on everything else why not that? My daughter kept asking for Tinkerbell.


Anyway a thoroughly enjoyable time was had by all and I wouldn't hesitate to come back again.

 

[KnK]

Thnaks....Only 16 more days until I get until I get to enjoy the Magic!

 

[DisneySam]

Thanks for the trip report! Glad you and your family had such a nice time at WDW!

 

[CAPTAIN HOOK]

Didn't see you in the parks :lol: - while at SeaWorld I can recommend the Dine With Shamu meal.

Nice report - glad you and the girls had a great time

 

[New2WDW]

Great report, thanks for posting it. Now it sounds like you are hooked liked the rest of us!

 

[gcn504]

Few other thoughts/ramblings as I've had a few more days to reflect:

1: This tip is probably listed somewhere else but we took the Animal Kingdom African Safari twice, the second time in an "Early magic Hours" start so were on there about 8.30, even though this was only about 1.5 hours earlier than the previous time, we saw many more animals at that earlier time. Obviously going later when its hotter the animals find shade but our second trip at the earlier time, maybe just luck, produced much better results than even the 10am trip.

So from my experience the earlier the better.

2: The Wolfgang Puck restaurant at Downtown Disney deserves a mention, the food was very good.

3: In hindsight I wish I'd read up on the Photopass or someone at the resort told us a bit more about it. Obviously, we took our own photos & video, some 300+ photos and 5 hours of video (still to sort and edit). However, we had photopass cards given to us at the first character meet and then passed it over at most opportunities. My point here is on several occasions I tried to look at the pictures and find out about printing them (at MK town hall and the place in Toontown): my own fault here but it was always mobbed so I gave up.

So upon my return to the UK I used the website to find out about them and look to get some. So the problem here is you have the added expense of shipping to the Uk and can only have prints in 5 x 7.

You can put them all on a CD for about $99 and although there are only about 10 which I'm interested in (of the 90 odd) for the amount it would print and ship those pictures I may as well get them on the cd.

Here's an idea for Disney: why don't you allow buying just the jpg (electronically) over the internet (they obviously disable the right click mouse on the photo page)? This way it saves me the hassle of waiting for ages for them to be shipped to the UK?

The thing here is I'm more likely to buy that way than forking out $99 + $20 for shipping of the CD - so they would make money as I may well give up on the idea of ordering the cd.

Just a thought.

4: Another small tip, our youngest loved the shows but sometimes didn't like the loud explosions (the car stunt show at Mgm was excellent btw) and covered her ears quite a lot. After the second show of this happening we brought out some earplugs they give you on planes. Job done she was as happy as larry at the shows after that.

5: Here's a small moan about "other" people. So, I take my eldest girl to the Storytime with Belle: i'm sitting in the front row with her (seats were red hot btw I had her sit on a couple of baseball caps to help). So I say to Ellie: "I'm going to sit here with you for a while and then move to the back so that other children can sit at the front." So as the show nears I stand up to let other children sit down then along comes a rather large lady with 2 of her equally large for their age children and proceeds to sit where I was sitting but gets all 3 of them in the space (I'm 12stone/168lbs so not that much of a gap). I felt really sorry for Ellie as they proceeded to squash her up and after being virtually the first person there she had a terrible view (she was having to look around them)

Now I don't mind her kids squeezing into the gap but she could have had the decency to do what I did so other children behind her could see, it wasn't if her kids were really young.

As I stood at the back, it had got busy at this stage, I was fuming.

I have to say that this was the only "other people" incident that got to me aside from that I didn;t experience any other issues with other people: queues etc.

6: Special mention to a Disney lady (wish I'd got her name) - as I was walking out of Mickeys house with my 5 year old we had gone into the tent to meet Mickey but the queue was huge, so we walked out. As we do so, walking through the garage area, she says to Ellie "did you see Mickey" she replies the queue was too long. So kind lady takes my daughter round the back and straight to the front of the queue. She didn't have to do that but it's those things that give you a warm fuzzy feeling about Disney.


We all had a wonderful time and we're running out of people to tell now!

 

[DisneyBride94]

Wow...that's so cool about her getting to the front of the line for Mickey!

I need to find some ear plugs for my son (6) this year...he is very sensitive to loud noises and explosions...thanks for the thought...

I'm glad you loved it as much as your kids. We feel the same way.