My wife and I hadn’t been to WDW since 1997. We’ve had 3 beautiful boys since then and have been waiting until they were old enough to appreciate a trip. At 6, 4, and 2, we decided this was the year. We just got back and I have some reflections on my first trip in almost 8 years…
General
Paint and general state of repair
I was concerned after reading a lot of talk implying that the place is falling apart. I didn’t go out of my way to look for chipped paint and such, but this didn’t jump out at me as being a big problem.
CM Quality
I was concerned after talks of scaled back training. Happily I still found plenty of wonderful CMs who were full of magic. But I did notice a higher percentage of “duds” than in past trips.
Attraction Problems
I seemed to notice more problems than in past trips. We had several mid-ride stoppages, which were no big deal – we even liked being stopped right in front of Madame Leota for 5 minutes or so. Worse was getting all the way to the load area and having the ride shut down, 3 times, twice on Soarin’ (I know, it’s the soft opening price you pay) and once on Test Track. These were kinda hard on the kids, but they sure loved these when we finally did get to ride.
Here are a couple “Where in the World” shots for you experts
http://photoalbums.wdwmagic.com/showphoto.php?photo=14148&size=big&cat=500&page=1
http://photoalbums.wdwmagic.com/showphoto.php?photo=14147&size=big&cat=500&page=1
Special Meals
Chef Mickey’s character dinner:
Loved by all. Well worth it.
Rainforest Café at AK:
Expensive, mediocre food, dark, loud, and cold – scared my 2-year-old. My fault, I should’ve known better on this one.
Spoodles (no kids):
My wife and I had a wonderful experience here 8 years ago, and we loved it again! Great food, great place, and our internet identity since 1997!
Coral Reef:
Really expensive, and the kids were just not as impressed as I’d hoped with the aquarium. My meal was 30 bucks for a hunk of fish and 2 asparagus sprouts. Can’t win ‘em all.
Cinderella’s Royal Table for character breakfast:
I know this is more for little girls, but at 2, 4, and 6, my boys loved it. Good food, awesome one-of-a-kind experience!
Miscellaneous
The biggest challenge was keeping our 2-year-old happy. I was hoping he’d like theater presentations, since many of the rides he can’t go on. Unfortunately he didn’t at all. On the upside, we had our niece with us to help with babysitting, and we combined Fastpass with Rider Switch (aka Baby Swap) as much as possible – wow do you have something when you can combine these. Our 4 & 6-year-olds (not too mention us adults) got to go on classics like SM and BTM twice in a row with little or no wait, time and again. This will be missed on our next trip.
Epcot
In Spaceship Earth, who’s playing football in the one TV scene? It seemed to me it might be an old NFL game with the Browns and ???
So many people have commented on the burning Rome smell that I was really looking forward to this, but as we passed it all I could think of was turkey legs – apparently 8 years between turkey legs was too much for me!
Regarding IllumiNations ROE, it’s probably been talked about and I missed it, but I sure miss some things from previous versions. I remember spectacular lasers and lighting from the different nations. Oh well, the show is still great all in all.
We didn’t see any Living Statues, do they still do this?
It was great to catch Soarin’ in previews. It was very cool once we actually got to ride, but twice they had to shutdown due to audio/video synchronization problems.
The Epcot tram “narrator” rattled off the parking lot sections in order. I thought they were cool, but I wish I had written them down. Is this close?:
Create, Amaze, Journey, Imagine, Discover
Animal Kingdom
This park wasn’t even open the last time I went, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was really pleasantly surprised. We spent a whole day here and had a ball. The kids loved the animals, Kali River Rapids, DINOSAUR, and DinoLand altogether. I know a lot of people put DinoLand down because it’s a carnival, and as such not up to Disney standards. But I looked at it this way, it’s a diversion – it’s something different, and my kids loved it. As long as Disney has no plans of building more carnival-based areas (which I don’t think they do), I saw nothing wrong with having one.
Festival Of The Lion King was great!
Expedition Everest looks amazing. I'd seen the pictures, but when I saw it in person the scale of this attraction became obvious – this is going to be a big deal! Can’t wait to ride, whenever we finally get to go back.
Magic Kingdom
As magical as ever. Highlights for us included having all 3 kids get haircuts on Main Street (with painted Mickeys), a Dapper Dans performance right in front of us as we had a makeshift picnic on the curb outside the Main Street Bakery, and the overwhelming joy of passing on my appreciation for my favorite place on the planet to my kids for the first time.
As someone told me in an earlier thread, at the Barber Shop they can only “paint”, they can’t shave images in, such as Mickey. Mikael (I think that’s how he spells it) told me that he once shaved a Nike swoosh in someone’s hair and was told (firmly) that he was never to do that again due to infringement issues. Same with Mickey, believe it or not. He wanted to decorate the shop with Mickey’s somehow and couldn’t because they would have to pay an artistic division of Disney (animation I guess) royalties for the use of the image!
It was really cool when Main Street historian “Noah Lott” came into the shop and gave a “performance” just for us – just one of the magic little things you find nowhere else.
Very trivial question: Anyone know why “it’s a small world” isn’t capitalized?
Disney Studios
ToT was the consensus overall WDW favorite among my wife, myself, and my 6 and 4-year-olds. The more the kids went on it, the more their apprehensions melted into delight. My 6-year-old is especially proud of the picture we brought back that shows him with his arms up (he had to work up to this), which he has already taken to school and shown to his class.
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster we had not experienced before. Great ride with an outstanding take-off, but way too short.
Kids also especially loved Playhouse Disney - Live On Stage, and meeting The Incredibles.
We all had such a wonderful time. Of course we’re now all dealing with the post-WDW blues. I guess that just means it’s time to start saving for our next trip.
General
Paint and general state of repair
I was concerned after reading a lot of talk implying that the place is falling apart. I didn’t go out of my way to look for chipped paint and such, but this didn’t jump out at me as being a big problem.
CM Quality
I was concerned after talks of scaled back training. Happily I still found plenty of wonderful CMs who were full of magic. But I did notice a higher percentage of “duds” than in past trips.
Attraction Problems
I seemed to notice more problems than in past trips. We had several mid-ride stoppages, which were no big deal – we even liked being stopped right in front of Madame Leota for 5 minutes or so. Worse was getting all the way to the load area and having the ride shut down, 3 times, twice on Soarin’ (I know, it’s the soft opening price you pay) and once on Test Track. These were kinda hard on the kids, but they sure loved these when we finally did get to ride.
Here are a couple “Where in the World” shots for you experts
http://photoalbums.wdwmagic.com/showphoto.php?photo=14148&size=big&cat=500&page=1
http://photoalbums.wdwmagic.com/showphoto.php?photo=14147&size=big&cat=500&page=1
Special Meals
Chef Mickey’s character dinner:
Loved by all. Well worth it.
Rainforest Café at AK:
Expensive, mediocre food, dark, loud, and cold – scared my 2-year-old. My fault, I should’ve known better on this one.
Spoodles (no kids):
My wife and I had a wonderful experience here 8 years ago, and we loved it again! Great food, great place, and our internet identity since 1997!
Coral Reef:
Really expensive, and the kids were just not as impressed as I’d hoped with the aquarium. My meal was 30 bucks for a hunk of fish and 2 asparagus sprouts. Can’t win ‘em all.
Cinderella’s Royal Table for character breakfast:
I know this is more for little girls, but at 2, 4, and 6, my boys loved it. Good food, awesome one-of-a-kind experience!
Miscellaneous
The biggest challenge was keeping our 2-year-old happy. I was hoping he’d like theater presentations, since many of the rides he can’t go on. Unfortunately he didn’t at all. On the upside, we had our niece with us to help with babysitting, and we combined Fastpass with Rider Switch (aka Baby Swap) as much as possible – wow do you have something when you can combine these. Our 4 & 6-year-olds (not too mention us adults) got to go on classics like SM and BTM twice in a row with little or no wait, time and again. This will be missed on our next trip.
Epcot
In Spaceship Earth, who’s playing football in the one TV scene? It seemed to me it might be an old NFL game with the Browns and ???
So many people have commented on the burning Rome smell that I was really looking forward to this, but as we passed it all I could think of was turkey legs – apparently 8 years between turkey legs was too much for me!
Regarding IllumiNations ROE, it’s probably been talked about and I missed it, but I sure miss some things from previous versions. I remember spectacular lasers and lighting from the different nations. Oh well, the show is still great all in all.
We didn’t see any Living Statues, do they still do this?
It was great to catch Soarin’ in previews. It was very cool once we actually got to ride, but twice they had to shutdown due to audio/video synchronization problems.
The Epcot tram “narrator” rattled off the parking lot sections in order. I thought they were cool, but I wish I had written them down. Is this close?:
Create, Amaze, Journey, Imagine, Discover
Animal Kingdom
This park wasn’t even open the last time I went, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was really pleasantly surprised. We spent a whole day here and had a ball. The kids loved the animals, Kali River Rapids, DINOSAUR, and DinoLand altogether. I know a lot of people put DinoLand down because it’s a carnival, and as such not up to Disney standards. But I looked at it this way, it’s a diversion – it’s something different, and my kids loved it. As long as Disney has no plans of building more carnival-based areas (which I don’t think they do), I saw nothing wrong with having one.
Festival Of The Lion King was great!
Expedition Everest looks amazing. I'd seen the pictures, but when I saw it in person the scale of this attraction became obvious – this is going to be a big deal! Can’t wait to ride, whenever we finally get to go back.
Magic Kingdom
As magical as ever. Highlights for us included having all 3 kids get haircuts on Main Street (with painted Mickeys), a Dapper Dans performance right in front of us as we had a makeshift picnic on the curb outside the Main Street Bakery, and the overwhelming joy of passing on my appreciation for my favorite place on the planet to my kids for the first time.
As someone told me in an earlier thread, at the Barber Shop they can only “paint”, they can’t shave images in, such as Mickey. Mikael (I think that’s how he spells it) told me that he once shaved a Nike swoosh in someone’s hair and was told (firmly) that he was never to do that again due to infringement issues. Same with Mickey, believe it or not. He wanted to decorate the shop with Mickey’s somehow and couldn’t because they would have to pay an artistic division of Disney (animation I guess) royalties for the use of the image!
It was really cool when Main Street historian “Noah Lott” came into the shop and gave a “performance” just for us – just one of the magic little things you find nowhere else.
Very trivial question: Anyone know why “it’s a small world” isn’t capitalized?
Disney Studios
ToT was the consensus overall WDW favorite among my wife, myself, and my 6 and 4-year-olds. The more the kids went on it, the more their apprehensions melted into delight. My 6-year-old is especially proud of the picture we brought back that shows him with his arms up (he had to work up to this), which he has already taken to school and shown to his class.
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster we had not experienced before. Great ride with an outstanding take-off, but way too short.
Kids also especially loved Playhouse Disney - Live On Stage, and meeting The Incredibles.
We all had such a wonderful time. Of course we’re now all dealing with the post-WDW blues. I guess that just means it’s time to start saving for our next trip.
