Just returned.. January 2-6 trip report taking on Disney with our two college girls and a tween

[mom3girls2007]

We just returned yesterday from five fun days at the Disney parks. We surprised our youngest daughter, who turned 12 on January 1, with the news the morning of her birthday that we were taking her to Disney World for her birthday! I'd been planning the trip for months, and it was so hard not to tell her, especially as time drew near throughout Christmas events with family members, and with her twin older sisters returning from their first semester at college and joining us for the trip. So we all couldn't wait to tell her the morning of her birthday. She was so surprised she just kept saying "Today?...we are going today?...Today?...Wait, Today?" Lol.

Our family includes my twin daughters 18, my husband (46) me (45) and my dd 12. This was our third trip to Disney World, the first time we visited was post 9-11 in 2002 when our twins were 5, we walked on every ride multiple times as still not many people were traveling. The next time was when our oldest were 12, and our youngest 4, over Memorial Day week, which despite huge crowds we never really waited in long lines using Tour Guide Mike tactics. In between these trips we've also visited Universal Studios twice, most recently in 2012 to check out the new Harry Potter attractions. So with seven years between Disney trips, it was time to go back! All my girls love Disney, and my youngest had been begging to go for some time.

Here are the highlights of our trip:

Where we Stayed:

The Yacht Club -- I got a great rate through Orbitz with an additional 15% off already discounted Disney prices (beginning January 2) and also I'm sure because it is being refurbished. We debated staying at a moderate with two rooms but instead chose to stay all in one room at Yacht Club for about the same price. We had stayed before at Beach Club and remembered loving walking to Epcot and the boat to Hollywood Studios. We loved the Yacht Club, however, the need for renovations is showing. We actually had to change rooms the first night as we came home from the parks to take showers and go to dinner and had no hot water! The front desk sent someone up immediately and within an hour and half when they figured they couldn't fix it quickly we were in a new room with an upgraded view of the quiet pool. Yes, it was annoying to pack up quickly and move but Disney handled it so efficiently and pleasantly I can't really complain. Our new room was in great condition, a better location, and the view was great. Where we noticed the need for renovation was mostly in the hallway carpeting, it seemed worn, and in the rooms some of the furniture is showing it's age with nicks, etc. Otherwise we really enjoyed this hotel, and liked it better than the Beach Club. We found it quieter and more relaxing overall in the lobby and hallways than the boisterous and brighter Beach Club. Also, we found bus service good all week, never waiting more than 10 minutes for transportation. Boat service was slow though. With the Osborne Lights at the Studios, the boats were crowded and we had to wait for a second boat to get there, because by the time the boat got to Yacht Club dock it was full from people coming from Epcot and Boardwalk. Also returning from the Studios very crowded.

Our Schedule:

Day 1: Animal Kingdom, then Hollywood Studios to see Osborne Lights

We had actually arrived the night before Jan. 1, staying at a hotel near the airport, and woke up this morning and went to Animal Kingdom. Wow! Crowds galore. This was supposed to be a 7 crowd day at Animal Kingdom, but a 10 out of 10 crowds overall at WDW. It really showed, we could barely walk through the masses of people. Thankfully, we had reserved our three Fast Passes through the new Fast Pass plus system. We arrived at 9:30 with a Fast Pass for Safari at 10. After Safari, we went to Lion King, at 11 a.m. and then to the Finding Nemo show at 12. We had FP for Everest at 1, then lunch reservations at 1:20 at Yak and Yeti. Following lunch we had a FP at Dinosaur at 3. By 3 p.m. the park was so packed that our FP line took 20 minutes at Dinosaur. Our last ride of the day my dd 12 was begging to ride Primevil Whirl so while the wait said 50 min! we decided to wait anyway. I'm glad we did this, it only took 30 minutes in line and this was her favorite ride at the park! We ended the day with a walk through the India Animal Trail to see the Tiger, and at It's Tough to Be a Bug, which we walked right into despite the crowded park. We had never seen this show, and enjoyed it, but there were so many small children screaming in terror from it in the theater, we didn't know whether to be horrified or amused by it. We felt bad in particular for the two year old right by us who was not happy! We received a text after the show that our room was ready at the Yacht Club so we decided to leave and check in. We enjoyed Animal Kingdom! It is so well themed and the shows in particular are awesome. We had a really good day there, but my dd 12 felt it needed more rides. This would be a theme she'd repeat this week!

We stopped briefly in the lobby because we did online check in, then opened our door with the magic bands (cool!). After a brief rest, we got ready to go to Hollywood Studios to see the Osborne Lights. We had to wait 30 minutes to catch the second boat from the Yacht Club to the Studios, then we finally arrived. We had reservations that night for dinner at 50's Prime Time Cafe. Yum! The food was really good, and when she was bringing out desert, the waitress even directed the dining room to sing Happy Birthday to my dd, complete with a birthday candle on her Peanut butter chocolate layer cake! (delicious by the way)



The Osborne Lights were packed. We were herded into the area in a great mass of people, and moved slowly through the crowd to take it all in. This is an amazing spectacle. We really enjoyed seeing it and spent a lot of time taking pictures, etc. We did ride the Great Movie ride since it was walk on, but did not try any other rides this night. We made our way to the live music stage and picked a spot for the Star Wars Fireworks to end the night. Again, a great show by Disney! A very successful first day overall!



Coming Up: Day Two -- Hollywood Studios then Dinner at Be Our Guest!

 

[Stargazer9]

I'm in!! Loving your report!!

 

[mom3girls2007]

Day Two -- Hollywood Studios then Dinner at Be Our Guest

We woke up early Day 2 to try and arrive at the Studios earlier than Animal Kingdom the day before. We were learning quickly that with four girls getting ready, we had probably outgrown our days of one hotel room! Despite two sinks outside the bathroom, it took time to get everyone ready. With our first FP of the day at Toy Story at 10 a.m. though, we didn't sweat it too bad. We got to the boat launch at 9:15 and were at Hollywood Studios by 9:35 a.m. Once again the crowds were large, and it took ten minutes to get through security and into the parks. Once inside, we didn't arrive to Toy Story until right at our FP time. By then, the wait was already 90 minutes for this ride. We rode Toy Story with our FP, then gathered outside to determine our next move. Our other FP were Frozen Sing a long and Tower of Terror, both after lunch. I had downloaded the Touring Plans app with wait times and we determined that we should next try Star Tours before it got even more crowded, so we headed that direction. When we arrived the wait that was 30 minutes on our app was already 40 -- at 10:35 a.m. We waited in line however, as we knew it would just get longer through the day. It did take the full 40 minutes to wait in line, but everyone enjoyed this ride, especially since we had just seen Star Wars the week before!

After Star Tours we only had 20 minutes before our noon lunch reservations at Sci Fi Dine in, so we decided to check in early for our reservation since we didn't have time for any other attractions. Sci Fi was busy outside, with multiple families inquiring then being turned away for no reservations. We waited just ten minutes to be seated after checking in. I had prepared the family that the food here wasn't supposed to be the greatest, it was really the atmosphere we wanted to experience. We were surprised that the food was very good. My family all had build your own burgers and really enjoyed them, and I had the Salmon BLT, also very good. Our waiter again was excellent, and the atmostphere was so cool with the car tables and the bizarre old movies. The one thing we found odd was that it is so quiet in there! It's like everyone is afraid to talk loud because they are watching the movies. But they are really just trailers not movies? I don't know if it's just me but I just found it odd that we were all whispering!

After lunch we made our way down to Tower of Terror -- where my 12 year old took one look and said "no way am I going on that!" Despite being assured by her older sisters that it was a great ride, she dug in her heels and refused to go. She was interested in going on Rock and Roll Roller coaster, but the wait at 1 p.m. was 90 minutes. This was when I got out my phone and first changed my FP on the My Disney Experience App. We changed hers and mine to Frozen Sing a long, and changed the Frozen Sing a long we had for everyone else to Indiana Jones. I really liked the ability to change our FP as we went throughout the day through this app! After the older girls rode Tower of Terror, we all went to Indiana Jones show which was a complete full house. It was a great show, but afterwards my daughter was like, "Are there no other rides here?" She really wanted to ride more rides but with just five choices and one she refused to ride, that didn't leave many options. When she realized our only other options at the Studios were the Frozen show (which she felt too old for) The Muppet show (we went and weren't really impressed) and the Great Movie Ride, which we had actually ridden the night before, she was ready to leave -- at 3:00 p.m. We had to convince her to go to Beauty and the Beast, which the older girls remembered and wanted to see, but she was ready to leave! Overall, we found Hollywood Studios needs some work. I know Disney is making plans to expand Star Wars and Toy Story lands, and this is much needed. As it stands there is not much to do at this park, unless your family really enjoys the shows. The energy of the park is great with the live music, the actors and skits on the street, etc., but if you have a tween who really loves rides this may not be the park for you. We left after the Frozen fast pass at 3 p.m. which we found somewhat cute with the four year olds singing along in the audience but obviously my girls were all too old for it. One of my older girls really wanted to see this show and left disappointed. "It's just singing along with a movie screen! That was so weird!" I had to agree, while the spectacle at the end of this show with Elsa coming out and snow falling from the sky was something to see, the rest of it was just odd we thought!

After we returned to the hotel for a break and to get ready for our 9:30 p.m. reservations at Be Our Guest. When we left for Magic Kingdom at 8 p.m., it was 54 degrees and light rain. We grabbed our raincoats and ponchos though and hoped the rain would allow us to be able to ride some rides before our reservation! Magic Kingdom at night was beautiful, with the lights on the Cinderella Castle and the Christmas lights up and down Main Street. We went through the castle to Fantasyland and we were right about the rain, we walked right on Peter Pan and Winnie the Pooh before arriving at the Beast Castle for our reservation.

At Be Our Guest, we were seated right away, on the outside edge of the Grand Ballroom. This was not an ideal table as we could see from our seats all the people coming and going from the lobby and waiting for tables. But my girls loved going to this place. The older two grew up with Belle as a favorite princess and were oohing and ahhing over the details more than my 12 year old. Our waiter arrived and everyone ordered their food. That's when the meal started to go downhill. It was clear our waiter was over booked. In addition to a table of 10 right next to us, it appeared he had at least four other tables. We waited a long time for our food, but at least it was surprising good. We had planned to order desert but our waiter never came back to offer it to us until 20 minutes after finishing our food, so instead we just asked for our check to leave. He kept apologizing to us as he was bringing our check and I felt a little sorry for him but the entire experience left a lot to be desired. $150 for dinner plus tip in what basically is a big loud dining hall wasn't really what I had envisioned. Still we did enjoy taking a peek in the other rooms and getting our picture with the Beast. My older girls want to send their suggestions to Disney -- "Lumiere should be standing in the middle singing "Be Our Guest" to everyone" or, "Belle and the Beast should be dancing!" We then hurried out to see if we could catch any more rides before leaving. We ended the night walking on "it's a small world" before leaving to rest for Epcot the next day!

 

[mom3girls2007]

Day 3: Epcot! and a Early Evening on the Boardwalk

We woke up on our Epcot day to cold and rain. We consoled ourselves that 54 degrees was better than 30 at home and dressed warmly with our rain gear and headed out. We arrived at the back entrance of Epcot and I guess we must have looked like a little threatening all in our black raincoats because we were immediately flagged by security which made ALL of us go through the metal detectors! It was raining steadily but not heavily when we walked through Epcot on our way to Soarin'. We had a 10 a.m. FP and made it to the Land in time to eat breakfast at Living with the Land. The building was the only place at Epcot that was packed that morning, people were standing in line already for Soarin' with a 100 minute wait. While we were making through the FP line one of my daughters looked at the line and said, "why would you ever come to Disney without a FP?" I had to laugh, I have two total Disney vacation planners in the making. The 12 year old loved Soarin', but it made my other two a little motion sick! We then made our way to Living with the Land which we all found really interesting, if not exciting. After, we headed out to cloudy but just misting rain to the other attractions.

Despite having a FP, we could of walked right on Nemo, we rode it and then made our way to the Ellen Energy ride which my girls remember and which hasn't changed...AT ALL (I mean this not in a good way...they really need to update this ride!). I think this is the same ride we took our then 5 year olds on. We also made it to Figment, the Pixar movies, and Mission Space and Spaceship Earth, both which the 12 year old really liked. Test Track was showing a 90 minute wait all day so we skipped it. We completed touring the front part of Epcot by 1 p.m. and headed to the World Showcase to find lunch. All in all, we all found Epcot huge, more walking than we remember and some of the rides really outdated. It was the park my 12 year old liked better than my 18 year olds though, as the rides and attractions they did have were new to her but not to them. We went to the Innovations Pavillion to check out "Sum of All Thrills" but by the time we found it, the wait to design our own roller coaster was 60 minutes. Also the girls took one look at the simulator waving people back and forth in the air and decided it would make them sick. Other than this new exhibit, I have to agree it was disappointing to find that there were not any other new attractions at Epcot since we last visited 7 years ago!

We found food at the World Showcase at Morocco where my husband and I split the lamb platter, and the girls found Chicken Teriyaki meals at Japan, then made our way to America to check out the American Experience presentation. Before the show we enjoyed the singers in the lobby and headed into the theater. I thought the movie was great, but my ENTIRE family beside me slept through the movie (so proud of my patriots!). After waking them up we decided it was time for a break and headed back to the hotel, obviously we needed the rest!

We did not have any dinner reservations for this night and everyone was so tired after resting we opted to walk over to Boardwalk where we were able to eat at ESPN Zone and my husband got his college basketball fix. We turned in early.. the next day was Magic Kingdom and we wanted to be prepared!

 

[mom3girls2007]

Day 4: Magic Kingdom, finally!

We decided to do Magic Kingdom last based on the crowd calendars from both Easy WDW and Touring Plans, who both advised crowd levels would go down following the weekend. Our first day at Magic Kingdom, however, the crowds seemed heavy! After all the space at Epcot, we arrived a half hour after rope drop at Magic Kingdom to heavy crowds getting through security and down Main Street. My FP's for this day began at 10 at Peter Pan, then Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride at 11:15, followed by Space Mountain at 12:15. When we saw the throngs of people headed toward Fantasyland, we changed our plan. Since we had ridden Peter Pan basically as a walk on two nights before. we headed left through Liberty Square towards Big Thunder Mountain instead. On our way we saw that Haunted Mansion had a 10 minute wait so we hopped into line. This que went quickly and we all agreed it is still a great ride, exiting and making our way toward Big Thunder Mountain. I was trying to change our FP on the app while we walked to Big Thunder Mountain, but when we got there, the wait was only 15 minutes. So we hopped into line, and I changed our Peter Pan FP to Splash Mountain in the afternoon. After Big Thunder Mountain, we made our way to Adventureland, standing in line for Pirates of the Caribbean and riding it all before our FP at Seven Dwarfs at 11:15! We made our way to Fantasyland and rode the Mine Train with our FP. At 11:15 Fantasyland was packed, and the Seven Dwarfs ride was 90 minutes, with our FP we waited maybe 5. I am really enjoying the new FP+ system! Although we had totally mastered the old system the last time we had visited, collecting multiple FP throughout the day, I have to say knowing I have the reservation already and being able to change it as needed really made our touring less hectic. We rode Seven Dwarfs, and this became my dd 12 favorite ride! She loved it! She was having the best day ever at MK.



At 11:15 we had already ridden five major rides with two FP to go. It was a great morning! We continued in Fantasyland riding the Tea cups, and then making our way to Space Mountain. This FP like took much longer, the stand by line was 100 minutes long at 12 p.m., and the ride kept having delays. Later that day it would close completely for an hour or two. We rode it without incident, and all enjoyed the ride but all agreed that they liked Big Thunder Mountain and Seven Dwarfs more than Space Mountain. We hopped on Buzz Lightyear (25 min) than the People Mover with no wait than made our way to the entrance of the park for lunch at the Polynesian and Kona Cafe. When I had made this reservation, I had thought we'd be ready to take a break at 1:45 for a late lunch, but my dd 12 did not want to leave. She loved Magic Kingdom! With some persuading we left, easily caught the monorail with no wait for the quick ride over to Polynesian where we enjoyed a great lunch of Teriyaki Steak, sticky wings, and shrimp skewers, and split the chocolate volcano dessert. I tried to order the Ohana Banana Bread pudding but they said it was only avialable at dinner! I have to say that all the food we had throughout the week at Disney was consistently good, if expensive. I had debated the dining plan, but we chose to pay OOP, and we are glad we did. My daughters ordered water instead of soft drinks to drink and often split meals or ordered appetizers as a meal, and my 12 year old often ordered a kids meal with no incident and we came at least $500 ahead than if we had the dining plan for all five of us. Best of all we never felt overstuffed.

After lunch we headed back to MK and made it back just in time for the Festival of Fantasy Parade. We watched it from Main Street and continued touring the park.

We headed back to the hotel at 6 p.m. and rested a couple of hours before walking to Epcot to catch Illuminations, than dinner reservations at Via Napoli at 9:15 pm. With reservations so close to the end time of Innovations, it was hard to find a good place to watch it from Italy. We squeezed in a spot however and made our reservation with time to spare! We were excited to eat Pizza that we heard was very good, but we all just found this pizza average. The wood fired crust is good, but the toppings and sauce didn't have much flavor. It was all just "ok" and at $60 for two larges, expensive. Still was a good experience to eat in the World Showcase, and we left dinner to explore extra magic hours and what we could accomplish. We rode the Mexican Cabelleros ride (almost empty!) and headed to Test Track, and all of us agreed it was one of the BEST rides at Disney. The entire ride, from designing your own car to the ride itself had to be in the top five attractions we experienced. If only the rest of Epcot was as updated! We called it a night and headed back to the room ready for our final day at Magic Kingdom!

 

[mom3girls2007]

Day 5: Last Day and Final Thoughts

It was finally our last day at Disney. The forecast called for 72 degrees and sun but instead once again we woke to 57 and cloudy. We headed to Magic Kingdom again for a great day, but took our time since we had accomplished so much the day before, arriving at 10 and knowing we'd be going to EMH that evening. It was another great day and the park seemed half as full as the day before. I'm not sure if it was because people stayed away because of MK EMH or what, but we found it much less crowded.



We repeated our plan of the day before, starting at Big Thunder Mountain and making our way around the park with Three FP. Today however, we also had an Anna and Elsa FP which I booked because my girls do love the Frozen movie and I thought they might find it fun and the FP is hard to get. I told them I thought we should change it, as really, they were too old, but they were like, "no we want to get our pictures taken with them!" So the three of them went, while my husband and I waited. They emerged from the meet and greet red faced and laughing. "OMG! All the kids around us were like three years old and then we met Anna and Elsa and we were like the same age! That was so awkward! They were all in character asking if we had ice powers or chocolate powers and I just wanted my picture taken! Oh what were we thinking?!" We all had a good laugh and agreed maybe they should have left it for the four year olds. We had another great day, and stayed until EMH were over. We literally took in almost every ride and attraction and couldn't believe how much the park emptied out for evening EMH. What a great benefit. EMH was something we had never done before as we had always had a young child with us, and now we're converts. We ate quick service meals for our last day and overall had a fantastic end to our trip.

Final thoughts -- It was a great, fun trip! We wished the weather would have been a bit warmer but cooler is definitely easier to tour than 95 plus degrees! Also, I wish we would have avoided the weekend crowds by arriving a little later like January 3 instead of January 1, it really is easier to tour when the parks aren't packed. We enjoyed the new FP+ system, the My Disney Experience app, and the Magic Bands, that all made the overall park experience easier. We're glad we didn't do Dining Plan, what we had to eat was more than enough for all of us. And definitely do advanced dining reservations, I had no reservations the last day which was fine but when I tried to add something the final day in the park it was impossible to find a good time. Definitely easier to cancel than find a reservation once there.

Finally, we love Disney but we all agree that Disney may be phoning it in a bit lately -- it seems like many of the attractions (besides at Magic Kingdom which is the best park by far) at the other parks are dated or too few. And the tickets are very expensive! After visiting Universal recently, Disney really should take note of their competition. We've had just as fun at Universal with more impressive rides. The Disney experience is still good, but their appeal is slipping as my children age. We'll be back I'm sure to check out the new Star Wars, Toy Story and Avatar lands for sure, hopefully it will be sooner than 7 years! Thanks for reading!

 

[wiscbugs]

Enjoyed the report. We were there from Dec 27-Jan 2 and it was in the 80s and sunny everyday until Jan 2 when it was much cooler.