Visited WDW! From a DL veterans perspective (Food & Attraction comments - a detailed analysis)

[Model3 McQueen]

I applaud your ingenuity. As I live in Florida, I purchase a case of water at the supermarket for $4.99 and take it with me in the car. A 20oz bottle in WDW costs $3.50. But since you had to fly to the opposite coast, you got a better deal with $3.00 from Amazon.

I appreciate that, thank you. We actually got the idea from a few members on this forum and Disney themselves said to do it. I guess it's me being "Self-entitled" not wanting to spend 3.50 on a single bottle.

For future reference, we were told that so many people ship things to the hotel that they started charging 10 bucks for it. Still not bad IMO. They also recommend we use housekeeping for trash and toiletries if you opt out. I'm guessing because they don't want to haul many big loads of trash out after we leave.

 

[Model3 McQueen]

Cheap bottled water is just as nasty as Disney water, I'll grant you that. Aquafina or bust.

Which Is The Purest Bottled Water?

Several month's ago I got a little water measuring device that came with the new Water Filter I purchased. The device measures Total Dissolved Solutions ( TDS ) in the water ( it tells you exactly how purified water really is ). Ever since then, I have been measuring all of the water I purchase...

www.lovingfit.com

It wasn't toooo bad it did what we set out to accomplish, without tasting bad. We had oatmeal in our room so even though we didn't have a microwave, the coffee machine worked just as well.

I enjoyed reading your report. I think your were very fair in your comparisons. I love both parks. Our last trip to WDW was 2016, and out last trip to DL was 2017.
I agree with most of your comparisons. I find it hard to compare the two parks, because the experiences are so different at each park.
I love the total immersion into Disney at WDW, and the ease of using magicbands, and reserving restaurants and fastpasses, but I also love the feel of DL. It just makes me happy to be there. It is so "Walt." I miss Toon Town at WDW, so I really enjoy spending time in Toon Town at DL. It is just fun to be there.
I only disagree on your food comparisons. I did not enjoy the Quick Service food at all when we were in DL. The hamburger we got at the Cozy Cone was inedible, and I am not a picky eater. I have never seen so much pepper on one burger patty in my life. I tried to scrape it off, but there was just to much. I also felt like the choices were very limited.
However, we did enjoy Steakhouse 55, and the character breakfast at The Plaza. We also had a character dinner at Goofy's Kitchen. It was the worse character meal ever. The selections on the buffet was not that great. There was no rhyme or reason to the way the characters made there way around the tables. We waited there forever after we had finished our meal, and never saw two of the characters come to our section. There were 2 groups sitting near us.The kids at both tables were in tears because these 2 character kept ignoring our section, and visited other sections multiple times.
Maybe we picked the wrong quick service places to eat. Other than the food, loved, loved, everything else at DL.

Thank you so much. There is one thing i'll say for sure.. post vacation depression hit me and my lady HARD. We would love to go back sometime soon

Maybe... I feel like I ate at all of the "best" Disneyland quick service locations based on reviews and general consensus I found online, but I still wasn't impressed.

@Nobia Williams @CaptainAmerica here's another thing I just thought of.. our favorite restaurant at Disnyland is Carnation, which is down Mainstreet. The food here is great, and we don't have to make a reservation days out in advance. And this is where I think I failed to do dining correctly at WDW. Maybe quick service is bad all around, and since we didn't do reserved dining, we didn't get great food options?

Okay. I accept your explanation provided you got on NRJ in a reasonable amount of time. During the holidays I had a FP for FOP so I got in the queue for NRJ more than an hour before because I had time to kill. Never again. It's a nice ride. Just not worth a long wait to look at screens and see one AA toward the end.

Awesome! I couldn't get a FP for FoP that was just too hard, even 60 days in advance. If you're at AK at park opening, the line jumps close to 2 hours fairly quickly. We waited maybe 40 minutes for NRJ, and I think that's an okay amount of time to wait for that ride compared to the joke DINOSAUR! and with Everest needing some attention, but that too was never really above 45 - 60 minutes.

Even if it's just a neon light show and one kick-butt AA, I did enjoy NRJ.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

@Nobia Williams @CaptainAmerica here's another thing I just thought of.. our favorite restaurant at Disnyland is Carnation, which is down Mainstreet. The food here is great, and we don't have to make a reservation days out in advance. And this is where I think I failed to do dining correctly at WDW. Maybe quick service is bad all around, and since we didn't do reserved dining, we didn't get great food options?

We don't do much table service dining these days. My daughters are young and even though they're well behaved at restaurants, we find it just takes too much time out of our day with naps and early(ish) bedtime.

I have a handful of QS locations at WDW that I really enjoy. Be Our Guest, Columbia Harbour House, Cosmic Ray's (dinner only), Tangerine Cafe, Yorkshire County Fish Ship, Sunshine Seasons, Katsura Grill, Flame Tree Barbecue, Harambe Market, Satu'li Canteen, and Fairfax Fare off the top of my head. Our favorite of all is probably The Polite Pig.

 

[Cosmic Commando]

EPCOT felt like the biggest park of them all. I'm not sure if this is necessarily true but we had a good time here.

This is always a handy photo for comparing resorts. This is Epcot and DLR at the same zoom level:

 

[Model3 McQueen]

This is always a handy photo for comparing resorts. This is Epcot and DLR at the same zoom level:

View attachment 350177

Very cool. World Showcase Lagoon helps make it feel larger. Crazy to see it's that much bigger than DL park.

 

[DisneyNittany]

Glad you liked the Dolphin. While it's not "Disney", the wife and I both love it, since we're Marriott folks and can use points to stay there. We love the location mostly, since we spend a lot of our nights walking around World Showcase.

 

[Model3 McQueen]

Glad you liked the Dolphin. While it's not "Disney", the wife and I both love it, since we're Marriott folks and can use points to stay there. We love the location mostly, since we spend a lot of our nights walking around World Showcase.

Thank you. I actually wished we had stayed there to be honest. I mean the rooms were a lot nicer @ Coronado, but I just can't argue with the location and transportation options. I think Coronado was slightly cheaper too, only slightly.

 

[Jedi Stitch]

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the major reasons has to do with that, outside of a couple of exceptions, almost no visitors to DL stay at a Disney resort, while most of the ones at WDW likely do. There are also a couple of things on the WDW MB that Disneyland doesn't offer. They probably figure it's not going to be bring the return on the investment dollars that they would want. That's usually what it comes down to, is $$

But yes, I'm agreed with you, it would be really nice to see them bring them to Disneyland. After using them on the last couple of trips I've no desire to visit WDW without them again. They were very very nice.

Sir Willow. I am a fan, I have watched many of your Utube videos. Thank you for the reply, made my day.

 

[Model3 McQueen]

I am a DL vet as well and visited Disney World a few months back. I agree with a lot of what you are saying however I did greatly prefer the WDW Space Mountain and Big Thunder. I thought the track layouts were much better than Disneyland. DL's Space Mountain is just going through a downward helix in the dark while Disney World's has much more thrilling and dynamic drops and lifts.

I also agree that Disney World's Haunted Mansion is much better for the same reason you mentioned, the intro. It is an excellent addition to the ride.

For me the big let down was the Mine Train. I absolutely love Snow White too so it wasn't due to that. The ride was just very slow and did not swing much. I am not sure if maybe I rode it on a down day but it barely swung at all, I never even felt it. Even our ownride video shows as much. Is it supposed to swing a lot?

I really like Disneyworld's Space Mountain. There's a different feel to it, in a good way, but man is it rough lol. Both times we rode were on the track to the right.

I sat front row on Big Thunder too I think that was a sin. I LOVE front row over at DL BTMRR, but it didn't have the same oomph in WDW if that makes sense. The trains vibrate at WDW more as well IMO. I probably should've done this one again but the line was always long.

I felt the Mine Train swing but it was very minimal. I think the real fun lies in the turns. It's also a very smooth ride, and the cave part was really cute. We rode this twice, and honestly I felt a little more swing the second time. Not sure if was your car or maybe you didn't really notice it the first time like us?

 

[Model3 McQueen]

Totally agree that DW SM is definitely roughter thats for sure.

I did ride Big Thunder at DW in the back so that may be why our experiences were so different.

I did love the cave and animatronics of Snow White but the ride and movement to me were much tamer than any other generic cut and paste kids coaster, I'd much rather be on the Gadget Coaster at Disneyland (in terms of the movement).

Small World also had some advantages and disadvantages vs DL.

For us Pirates was the big surprise. We were both expecting a lot and did not know going into it that it would be half the length of Disneyland's ride. It just felt so off. I'm actually amazed the Disney World version is even a beloved attraction.

100% agree, Pirates of the Caribbean at WDW isn't even in the same league as DL's. It was almost like a joke. We didn't do Small World but I wish we did hahaha I guess I falsely figured it was the same thing as DL's.

 

[A.D.D. Boy]

I just love hearing the excuses from the DL fans, lol. You guys have awful nighttime entertainment right now. HEA is better than anything at DL since RDCT, Epcot is getting TWO new shows in the next year (even though its current 20 year show is still the best Disney has ever made), Rivers of Light for all its flaws is a gem, and of course our Fantasmic! hasn't been ruined like yours has. So I still think we still win. Even without a nighttime parade we are STILL better because PTN isn't even in operation right now and the last time I checked, it had an entire unit removed. So yeah, take a few seats because you have nothing to stand on

“Lighten up, Francis...”