Rich T
Well-Known Member
Now let’s rank MK’s classic-style dark rides!
1) Pan
2) Pooh
But MK’s getting Smellephants, so yay?
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The Miscellaneous Thought Thread
- Thread starter mickEblu
- Start date
1) Pan
2) Pooh
But MK’s getting Smellephants, so yay?
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
Pan loses points for having an unshaded and long queue.
So are you saying if it wasn’t for that it would deserve the #1 spot?
Lol and let’s not even talk about the fact that we also have Pooh and Roger.
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
It's definitely a classic at every Disney park. My personal would be toad but for an objective view I'd say Peter Pan.
DrAlice
Well-Known Member
Agree 100%! I could allow for switching of Pan and Toad, but Alice feels like the most complete of the FL dark rides.
Ha! We created a story for that room on this last trip. Not only is it a dungeon, but there are doves/pigeons are all over her dining table! The story goes like this: "Once upon a time a beautiful princess let birds hang out on her dining table. The next day she came down with Salmonella poisoning and died. The end."
(It was really hot and we were really tired and a bit loopy.
)
I’d say if you want to look at it objectively on what’s the better and more complete experience I’d say that’s Alice but Pan is definitely more popular mostly due to the ride system. It’s also shorter and goes downhill after the Neverland scene. They also ruined the London scene during the 60th refurb.
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
I also prefer the old London scenes with the twinkling yellow lights.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
As far as Peter Pan vs. Toad, I have this to say:
Both experiences involve hell, but one ride's hell is a fun finale to a ride, and the other one involves a long, slow, often-unshaded line.
Therefore, the only logical conclusion is that Toad is superior!
Both experiences involve hell, but one ride's hell is a fun finale to a ride, and the other one involves a long, slow, often-unshaded line.
Therefore, the only logical conclusion is that Toad is superior!
waltography
Well-Known Member
I only have two (non-consecutive) days and figured I'd prioritize the parks that are most unlike Disneyland/DCA, so I'm prioritizing AK and Epcot; I may park hop to MK on my AK day towards the evening just to see the castle though.
waltography
Well-Known Member
This is so interesting! If I had to rank them I'd probably go Toad, Snow, Alice, Pan, and Pinocchio. A lot of my meh reaction towards Alice and strong reaction to Snow is because Alice doesn't have a good finale, in my opinion, but Snow's finale just works for me; with Pan, it's the absurd wait times and the kids city carpet London.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
I think that's a wise choice. I love Animal Kingdom and think it's the best WDW park, and part of that is that it's comparatively relaxed. Definitely take it slow, appreciate the ambiance, walk the animal trails (especially the main ones in Africa and Asia), and appreciate all of the beautiful non-Dinoland spaces the park has to offer. It's not a perfect park, but I really think part of the reason people don't get it is that they want to treat it the same way they treat Disneyland or Magic Kingdom, and it's just not meant to be taken in that way. (Don't feel like the Nemo show is mandatory; it's not as good as many WDWers think it is and it's a giant time suck. And last I heard, people don't love the changes they've made since reopening.)
It'll be tough because Disney insists on running the thing near the very beginning or very end of the operating day as if the thing is some wretched failure, but do seek out Impressions de France at Epcot. It's from 82 and sometimes feels it, but it's like a beautifully filmed and scored postcard of France in the 80s. Make time for American Adventure too and the remaining vestiges of OG Epcot, like Living with the Land and Spaceship Earth.
With Magic Kingdom, a fair amount of this may well end up disregarded, as you may or may not have much time to see the park. A lot of the better parts of the park are things that people are likely to skip or put into the "if we have time" category, like the Treehouse, TSI, a very old-school Riverboat journey, etc. The OG Country Bears and COP play on, and the Peoplemover still runs. If time/interest allows, their Mansion is worth doing and is IMO superior to the DL original. Likewise, MK's Space Mountain is worth doing for its sheer difference from DL's and its wilder, more Matterhorn-esque profile. Happily Ever After is an excellent fireworks show. Take a walk through their Adventureland-it's much bigger than Disneyland's and is a completely different take from any other Adventurelands around the world. While I'm sure time won't permit it, Liberty Tree Tavern are lovely, distinctly MK dining experiences.
I like AK for sure but a case can be made for picking DHS over Epcot. Yes DLR has a lot of the DHS attractions but you know that you can knock out that park in a day and do it a leisurely pace. You can leave there feeling like you did the whole park. If you were to find yourself in Orlando again for work three days you could completely skip DHS where you won’t be able to do that with Epcot. Unless of course they build another Must Do ride in the meantime.
Or let’s say you go back to WDW one day and want to knock out the Universal parks too. It could be nice to eliminate DHS off the to do list and have another day at Universal or to double up on MK or Epcot. Ultimately though if you see yourself going to Orlando/ WDW multiple times then it doesn’t really matter and you should just go to the parks you want to go to the most.
Another option is just doing both days at Epcot?
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PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
So last week, I was at Disneyland. THIS week, I visited two regional (excellent) amusement parks in PA: Kennywood and Knoebels. Now, those parks are wonderful and highly recommended, but what I really want to talk about is something that struck me: FOOD. And how for all ongoing problems the resort is having, DL actually still comes out ahead here. By a lot.
I first noticed this at Knoebels. Now, Knoebels has a wide variety of what is essentially delicious, fattening fair-type foods. It has a reputation that it generally upholds as being a park with fairly low/reasonable pricing, and good quality for the price. But as I discovered, there are exceptions to every rule, as I learned when I ordered a specialty garlic burger (but mostly of a 'fancy aioli' variety of specialty burger), which was $10. I didn't realize until my food was ready that it didn't come with fries-which were $4 extra. Now I love Knoebels, but $4 extra for basic unseasoned fries? Here?!? Absolutely not! Had I purchased the fries, my total would have been around $14-which amounts to only $1.50 or so cheaper than the Potato and Cheddar Burger I had last week at Hungry Bear-currently listed on DL's website as being $15.49, with fries included. And you all know exactly where Disneyland is-Knoebels is in the middle of Appalachia near no large cities. The largest town nearby has about 12,000 people in it, and all towns are separated by acres of mountains or farmland. And the price for a specialty burger was almost the same as one from Disneyland.
Kennywood, meanwhile, is in a suburb of Pittsburgh-and both of my meals there yesterday started at $15.99. A brisket combo meal included two sides for that price-but those sides were fries and mac and cheese that wasn't ready at the time of ordering, and when the M&C was finally ready, I saw one of the workers bring out, to my horror, a giant sealed plastic bag of Kraft-like food substance that was opened and poured into the serving pan before being given to me and all others waiting for it. Realistically, this park cannot be the only place where the sides come like this, but I had never seen a giant vat of processed industrial sized bag of side (or 'side product') just dumped into a heat lamp serving area, so it was a bit jarring and shocking. Needless to say, I got my second park meal at the franchised Primanti Bros, which was priced similarly (perhaps a tad more expensive), but I figured was a safer option!
So while I lament some lost menu options or choices of the past, I have to say that compared to at least two parks I otherwise adore, but realistically compared to many more parks I've been to and have had much worse food experiences at, Disneyland's counter service food is actually pretty darn good by comparison! By the standards of amusement/theme parks today, the pricing at DLR for CS food is pretty reasonable, there's a much greater variety of options, and in many instances the quality is, in fact, better. Sometimes by astonishing margins.
TL;DR: As much as DLR counter service could be better, the way things are right now, DLR's counter service food is better than most CS food at most other parks by orders of magnitude, with very comparable pricing!
I first noticed this at Knoebels. Now, Knoebels has a wide variety of what is essentially delicious, fattening fair-type foods. It has a reputation that it generally upholds as being a park with fairly low/reasonable pricing, and good quality for the price. But as I discovered, there are exceptions to every rule, as I learned when I ordered a specialty garlic burger (but mostly of a 'fancy aioli' variety of specialty burger), which was $10. I didn't realize until my food was ready that it didn't come with fries-which were $4 extra. Now I love Knoebels, but $4 extra for basic unseasoned fries? Here?!? Absolutely not! Had I purchased the fries, my total would have been around $14-which amounts to only $1.50 or so cheaper than the Potato and Cheddar Burger I had last week at Hungry Bear-currently listed on DL's website as being $15.49, with fries included. And you all know exactly where Disneyland is-Knoebels is in the middle of Appalachia near no large cities. The largest town nearby has about 12,000 people in it, and all towns are separated by acres of mountains or farmland. And the price for a specialty burger was almost the same as one from Disneyland.
Kennywood, meanwhile, is in a suburb of Pittsburgh-and both of my meals there yesterday started at $15.99. A brisket combo meal included two sides for that price-but those sides were fries and mac and cheese that wasn't ready at the time of ordering, and when the M&C was finally ready, I saw one of the workers bring out, to my horror, a giant sealed plastic bag of Kraft-like food substance that was opened and poured into the serving pan before being given to me and all others waiting for it. Realistically, this park cannot be the only place where the sides come like this, but I had never seen a giant vat of processed industrial sized bag of side (or 'side product') just dumped into a heat lamp serving area, so it was a bit jarring and shocking. Needless to say, I got my second park meal at the franchised Primanti Bros, which was priced similarly (perhaps a tad more expensive), but I figured was a safer option!
So while I lament some lost menu options or choices of the past, I have to say that compared to at least two parks I otherwise adore, but realistically compared to many more parks I've been to and have had much worse food experiences at, Disneyland's counter service food is actually pretty darn good by comparison! By the standards of amusement/theme parks today, the pricing at DLR for CS food is pretty reasonable, there's a much greater variety of options, and in many instances the quality is, in fact, better. Sometimes by astonishing margins.
TL;DR: As much as DLR counter service could be better, the way things are right now, DLR's counter service food is better than most CS food at most other parks by orders of magnitude, with very comparable pricing!
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CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
Last time I went to Magic Mountain and inside Knotts the food was abysmal and pricier than Disney as you mentioned.
That being said the plastic bag macaroni and cheese is likely to be even in Disney restaurants behind the scenes.
I'd be willing to bet the majority of food there is frozen and reheated. It's just common practice sadly, although not unique to Disney by any means.
MoonRakerSCM
Well-Known Member
Getting into Vegas soon... I'll report back on the ball....
waltography
Well-Known Member
Thank you for this perspective! I'm excited to enjoy AK most precisely because of how you described it; I felt like it'd be the perfect way to dip my toes into WDW. And if Impressions du France is playing towards the end of the day, all the better I think - I'm staying in the Epcot Resorts Area so would be heading out for the day anyway!
I'm actually considering adding on a Disney After Hours ticket for Epcot depending on when my work ends. The DAH hours are from 10pm to 1am and I figured I could knock out a good bit of my must-dos then so I'd have a more leisurely full Epcot day. Still not perfect, but I really don't want to leave WDW without having done Epcot.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
I'm sure there's some/plenty of 'reheated plastic bag buffet product' at Disney too, but I've never seen them do that with my own eyes, so it's much easier to pretend it doesn't happen!
My in-park Knott's food experiences are limited, but I remember liking Ghost Town Grill years ago. I know they've refreshed a few of their menu options at the park over the past few years, including adding in some standard 'CF BBQ' restaurants that have popped up like weeds in the last decade and I usually have decent experiences with. At the very least, it feels like CF is trying to bring more options to their parks, and I've found their meals at these newer places are decently worthwhile (while I have less experience with Knott's specifically on this front, the difference in food quality at parks like Cedar Point and Kings Island today vs. what it was ten years ago is pretty incredible). I'll get my chance in a few months to try more of the offerings in-park when I come back for Scary Farm. Mostly I've stuck to the Chicken Dinner restaurant in the past, though my meal this summer was marred by a server who didn't show up for ten minutes and couldn't be bothered to check in on me much beyond that. Not something I'll need to do again in October.
As a rule, I don't eat at Six Flags parks unless I have absolutely have no other option. I've had maybe one decent food experience in the last decade.
More places than not just follow the Six Flags model, and by comparison, Disney is drowning in quality options! Even the lower tier table service restaurants aren't that out of line with pricing most of the time!
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NobodyElse
Well-Known Member
Just a minor editorial fix to keep things extra magical.