Okay, so now I'm home and going to do some typing!! These thoughts are in no particular order except the order that I'm thinking of them.
First off, the Rise of the Resistance single rider thing was a real surprise. Hadn't seen it posted by
@wdwmagic so we didn't expect it at all. You skip all the pre-show before the hanger deck with all the stormtroopers, and obviously the wait is dependent on specific numbers in other parties, but certainly got us on a ride we wanted to do and saved some time. Although going down a couple back halls wasn't terribly great show. The ride vehicle I was in was all people who had never ridden and were at least somewhat into Star Wars. And, MAN was that enjoyable. I kinda want to do single rider and find a way to guarantee that I'm always on with newbies. Kylo Ren in A mode!! It's been quite a while since we have experienced that.
I'm going to miss MuppetVision terribly. Personally, I think it is one of the best all-around WDW attractions. From the moment you walk into the building and the 'key is under the mat' (I actually quite miss the posters that were on the walls of the outside queue - the original ones talking about 3D and even the later ones that parodied famous movie posters) to the moment you get up from your seat, the immersion in the 'world' created by the attraction is just excellent. If it is in a random theater at some point, it will still be wonderful, but having the animatronics in the theater and all the theater interactions are what makes it so exceptional. And, unless you get into the pre-show room right after the last show loaded, you are entertained pretty much the entire time. I have entertained the idea of handcuffing myself to a seat in the theater or possibly trying to run off with the penguin who plays the Flight of the Bumblebee solo...
The food lines at Festivals are outrageous. I'm assuming that having Test Track in full refurb and Remy going down quite a bit while we were there impacted things, but either Epcot needs to have more booths at these events to thin out the crowds or get more attractions going so people have more to do than wait in line for food. Also, a few of the queues were set-up a bit poorly (looking at you Pastoral Palate). I'm sure that the actual solution will be to create FoodPass or Lightening Lunch or Goodie Plus that will cost $50 a day for 10 skip the line passes at food kiosks and double lines everywhere.
However, the food at many of the booths was really excellent. I wish we had more time to try some more savory options, but our plans involved lots of desserts and drinks, so perhaps next time (which is February when we are at Princess). So, despite the waits being a bit much, the quality of food and drinks was quite good in our opinions. Definitely a little higher than I was expecting.
Lightning Lane Plus or whatever the heck it is all called now... I have no problem with people wanting to spend an additional $100-$300 to avoid lines. Go for it. I might even do it some time if we have a day we really want to go all out. I DO have a problem with the implementation at times. If you are limiting the LLs to a certain number in a specific time window, you can't allow people show up any time after the window opens (up to hours late) as it kills the ratios that actually could make it work. If you do that, then you don't get the poor CM who has to let 40 LL people through only to aggravate 150 people in the regular line.
9pm-11pm at Magic Kingdom was most excellent. We didn't do any of the really big headlines, but we did do quite a few C and D tickets and didn't really wait in any lines at all. Didn't cost a thing except being in the park with some energy after fireworks time.
The Disney Broadway dinner package CAN be an amazing deal. At least for us! Package is $63 and you get an alcoholic drink, main course, and dessert. Mixed drink at about $18, dessert at about $13. So, if you get a $32 main course you break even. The individual pizzas and pasta dishes are not the good deal; however, any of the main courses are really quite good - so if you fancy chicken parmesan, branzino, or filet of beef you will save some $$ AND get reserved seating for the concert, which is certainly a good perk. For the three of us, it cost $189. The cost of our dinner without the package would've been $201. And, we definitely enjoyed all our food - enough to fill us all enough to basically do a 2 meal day. Heck, our reserved seats got us next to a Broadway star who we got to chat with a bit.
We've now stayed at Coronado Springs twice, but both for short times. I really like the resort. Good food options, nice rooms. And that positive reaction is even with a random 4:25am wake-up call! I'm not sure that it feels really 'Disney' though. Definitely not enough busses/space on busses with the large number of rooms now that the tower is there and only a single bus serving the whole resort.
Hard to believe, but this was our first time ever eating at Kona Cafe. For us, the two appetizers and drinks was a pretty good deal and enough food to fill us up pretty nicely. The backscratcher is a winner drink (and love getting an actual backscratcher).
I don't think people give it enough credit - everyone just complains about the busses - but the transportation system as a whole is pretty impressive. Most small cities don't have even close to the level of public transit that Disney does and, for the most part, they do pretty darn well with it. Yeah, we got stuck on a crazy crowded bus going to Magic Kingdom one morning. But, between busses, monorail, skyliner, and fleet of rideshare vehicles, they've got pretty darn good transportation.
But enough deep thoughts on things at WDW in general... we had a great trip. Our daughter really enjoyed finally being able to legally adult at Disney and we enjoyed spending some adult time with her!!
