Walt Disney World and Disneyland(s) Discussion

evenflow said:

Planning a trip to WDW with the girlfriend for new years eve week. Probably packed but hopefully still fun.

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That would be great! Yes! go with it! I'm sure it will be so much fun! My family had a wonderful experience in WDW and we wish to try another trip again. Lots of amazing and beautiful spots in there.

evenflow said:

Planning a trip to WDW with the girlfriend for new years eve week. Probably packed but hopefully still fun.

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My NYE experience a while back:

They started passing out horns in Epcot literally around 4 PM. So the park was JAM PACKED, and almost everyone started blowing the horns nonstop. I don't want to tell you how to live your life, but chances are you might have a similar opinion : a crammed park sucks. A crammed park filled with thousands of people blowing horns for hours sucks more than the human brain is able to comprehend.

At about 7-8, my wife and I realized it was either leave the park, or have our trip ruined by the inevitable trial for our murdering another person.

We went over to Downtown. This is the perfect medium. You get a good sized crowd - more than you'd like on a random day, but a nice large crowd to make you feel part of a NYE celebration. The Downtown stage has stuff set up for NYE fun, if you like that stuff. But most importantly, there's an official countdown.*

Where you want to be at midnight is fully up to you, obviously. But being at Downtown with your SO - I can fully recommend that as a wonderful balance of fun crowds but lacking the "I wonder if the plastic fork I got from that food stand could kill multiple people" aspect.

*Regarding the countdown. My girlfriend (now wife) were mulling around with a handful of people. One person said, "Huh. It's 5 seconds before midnight." Sure enough, it was. So we all looked around and let out a confused, "Uh... yay?" And did some half-hearted kissing. We thought NYE was kind of ruined. A few minutes later, the stage got the "Official Disney" countdown going. So we got to be part of the big celebration, despite the fact that Disney didn't give a fug - they celebrated midnight on their own terms. So at 12:03 we got to be part of the "ball drop". My gf and I didn't care - as far as we were concerned we got to be part of two "midnights", one small and one big.

cokebabies said:

My NYE experience a while back:

They started passing out horns in Epcot literally around 4 PM. So the park was JAM PACKED, and almost everyone started blowing the horns nonstop. I don't want to tell you how to live your life, but chances are you might have a similar opinion : a crammed park sucks. A crammed park filled with thousands of people blowing horns for hours sucks more than the human brain is able to comprehend.

At about 7-8, my wife and I realized it was either leave the park, or have our trip ruined by the inevitable trial for our murdering another person.

We went over to Downtown. This is the perfect medium. You get a good sized crowd - more than you'd like on a random day, but a nice large crowd to make you feel part of a NYE celebration. The Downtown stage has stuff set up for NYE fun, if you like that stuff. But most importantly, there's an official countdown.*

Where you want to be at midnight is fully up to you, obviously. But being at Downtown with your SO - I can fully recommend that as a wonderful balance of fun crowds but lacking the "I wonder if the plastic fork I got from that food stand could kill multiple people" aspect.

*Regarding the countdown. My girlfriend (now wife) were mulling around with a handful of people. One person said, "Huh. It's 5 seconds before midnight." Sure enough, it was. So we all looked around and let out a confused, "Uh... yay?" And did some half-hearted kissing. We thought NYE was kind of ruined. A few minutes later, the stage got the "Official Disney" countdown going. So we got to be part of the big celebration, despite the fact that Disney didn't give a fug - they celebrated midnight on their own terms. So at 12:03 we got to be part of the "ball drop". My gf and I didn't care - as far as we were concerned we got to be part of two "midnights", one small and one big.

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Thank you for the heads up. Still looking into it.

Unrelated note. When i went to Disney years ago we got the meal plan and it financially seemed fair and made a lot of sense. I looked at it now and it no longer seems the case. Does anyone know if they changed it. Doesn't look like a good deal anymore.

evenflow said:

Unrelated note. When i went to Disney years ago we got the meal plan and it financially seemed fair and made a lot of sense. I looked at it now and it no longer seems the case. Does anyone know if they changed it. Doesn't look like a good deal anymore.

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I haven't had a chance to read it through yet but if anyone else has knowledge on it I'd be interested too.
https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/planning-guides/in-depth-advice/disney-dining-plan/




More pics... Pirates of the Caribbean celebrated its 50th anniversary last month so I tried to take new pics.

evenflow said:

Thank you for the heads up. Still looking into it.

Unrelated note. When i went to Disney years ago we got the meal plan and it financially seemed fair and made a lot of sense. I looked at it now and it no longer seems the case. Does anyone know if they changed it. Doesn't look like a good deal anymore.

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I think fully apples to apples, the dining plan is at best break even and at worst paying for stuff you might not buy.

I am still a fan. My reason is that - even if the dollar value is only "close" - I like having it paid off ahead of time. Getting those giant post-Disney bills sucks. When I pre-pay for the dining plan, I'm still in "going to WDW" mode. That's a good thing. Getting the credit card bills after? That's a bad thing.

But your memory isn't deceiving you - it used to be a LOT more valuable.

cokebabies said:

I think fully apples to apples, the dining plan is at best break even and at worst paying for stuff you might not buy.

I am still a fan. My reason is that - even if the dollar value is only "close" - I like having it paid off ahead of time. Getting those giant post-Disney bills sucks. When I pre-pay for the dining plan, I'm still in "going to WDW" mode. That's a good thing. Getting the credit card bills after? That's a bad thing.

But your memory isn't deceiving you - it used to be a LOT more valuable.

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Thanks for the info. I guess more research is needed.

More pics from Disneyland... you've already seen the Main Street Electrical Parade but here it is again...




























Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar
Shipwreck on the Rocks



New Third Edition Shrunken Zombie Head




Star Wars Land progress






Pirates 5 sneak peek

Last of my Disneyland pics before I head to florida.

Tower of Terror is pretty much Guardians of the Galaxy now. Grand opens May 27.









I brought my baby GROOT toy for a photo




New droids





Protocol droid building





Kylo Ren on a temper tantrum




alright that's it! Maybe i have some universal hollywood pics....

Coheteboy said:

Last of my Disneyland pics before I head to florida.

Tower of Terror is pretty much Guardians of the Galaxy now. Grand opens May 27.

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evenflow said:

Planning a trip to WDW with the girlfriend for new years eve week. Probably packed but hopefully still fun.

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I went with my family for Dec 24, 25, 26 expecting crowds. I don't like crowds. I have a hard time suffering rudeness or excessive stupidity and those are hard to avoid gathering humans in large numbers. We planned the use of fast passes carefully and booked dinners, bought a meal plan. Yes, it was expensive, but the systems they have in place for people using those options mean crowds are no issue. I would recommend spending the extra money for those things. Did it cost me extra? Yes, not an insignificant amount. Totally worth it imo though! I don't think we waited for more than 10 mins for anything. I was super happy and we did EVERYTHING we wanted to.

I am leaning towards the meal plan. She is not. She will probably win out haha

evenflow said:

I am leaning towards the meal plan. She is not. She will probably win out haha

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Sorry if I missed it, are you staying on site? If so, a partial meal plan may be a good compromise and I think the hotels give free drinks (pop, juice, water, hot chocolate, coffee, tea) all the time. I'm not sure since we were on the meal plan and it may have been included. Super convenient and you get what you pay for (good portions, good quality...some places you get more than others so you should choose the restaurant carefully...likely I didn't like the Pirates of the Carribean restaurant for value but around the corner was a different place where you could get more bang for your buck).

Yes staying on site. I didn't know they had a partial plan. I will look into that now. Thanks!

I'm back from three days in Orlando but it felt way longer. My goal for the entire weekend was: see Frozen ride, visit Abracadabar on the Boardwalk, visit Trader Sam's Grog Grotto at the Polynesian, visit Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar at Disney Springs...... and at Universal do King Kong and Fallon and Toothsome Chocolate Emporium.

Here's a quick summary of my three days.

Friday
Went to Epcot. Didn't have tickets and didn't bring my Disneyland annual pass. I was only going to go two 1/2 days (Friday and Sunday) so $275 was kind of a lot... but there's a chance I'll be back in August for potentially more days so another $275+ made it seem clear that I should just upgrade my disneyland pass to a Premier dual coast pass. They made a phone call to verify my existing pass and was able to present me with a new Premier Pass that expires in April 2018. Total cost of that: $1439, $680 of that was newly added. Pricey start compared to a $275 two day park hopper but I'm thinking long-term.

-It was about 1pm now, Walked into Epcot and Spaceship Earth had a standby of 15 minutes. Doable.
-Then saw Mission Space was 10 minute standby. Did that and decided I'm getting too old for this sort of thing.
-Test Track had a standby of 60 minutes but single rider was only 10. Done! Maybe they should just convert this fully into a TRON ride?
-Went to Mexico and had to see the audio animatronics of Gran Fiesta, 5 minute standby.
-Norway and Frozen.... it said 60 minutes, but it was closer to 45. Awesome, doing pretty good.
-China was next and I was starving so had some spicy chicken at Lotus Blossom Cafe. It was terrible.
-Walked through the rest of World Showcase, exited through the back and took a boat to the Boardwalk.
-5pm got to Abracadabar... had two drinks, waitress now follows me on instagram, and back on the boat to Epcot.
-Took the Monorail to the Polynesian Hotel and found Trader Sam's Grog Grotto. It was packed but was able to take one spot on the center table. 5 gals celebrating a birthday took up the rest of the table so that turned out to be decent company. Three drinks later, it was about 8:30... maybe? I lost track.
-I could take the monorail back to Magic Kingdom because they close at 11pm, but I'm holding a ton of mugs that my coworker requested so I opted to go to Disney Springs and the Hangar Bar instead just to get all the mugs in one go.
-It was actually 11pm by the time I got to Hangar Bar because transportation at Disney World is a cluster F. I remember that you USED to be able to take a bus to Downtown Disney from the transportation center but now you gotta take it from the hotel... so I walked back to the Polynesian and waited for a bus.
-Few more drinks and wings later my Friday was done. Way too much drinking.


Saturday: Universal Orlando
-No hangover but I got a late start. Arrived at Universal Orlando at 10:30am only to realize that both parks close at 6pm due to grad night. Yikes. Toothsome Chocolate Emporium was open for brunch so I decided to just get some food first. THIS PLACE IS AWESOME! It's a steampunk chocolate factory restaurant/bar/dessert place. Really dug it.
-1pm and I went into Islands of Adventure first. Thankfully someone at Universal gave me a free Express pass that cuts the line of everything except Harry Potter. Did Hulk coaster in 10 minutes, then King Kong twice. This ride is really really cool. Waited 20 minutes for the Raptor Experience, just a photo opp. Walked through Hogsmeade... and the train to Universal Florida was half an hour so decided to walk it instead. Rode Cat in the Hat on the way out.
-3pm Universal Florida... three hours to go. Hit up Fallon, which was probably the longest virtual wait ever for an actual decent ride. Then spent the remaining hour and a half in Diagon Alley. Gringotts is still one of the best things they've done.
-6pm parks closed, hit up Toothsome for a sundae and two more cocktails. It was packed but i found a spot at the bar again.

-9pm arrived at Magic Kingdom. It took half an hour on uber and then another half hour on the ferry. Just in time for Wishes Fireworks. Following that, did Haunted Mansion (fastpass), Pirates, Big Thunder (fastpass), and finished the night with People Mover.



Sunday: Disney's Hollywood Studios
-I thought it would be good to do all the Star Wars stuff for myself and see the differences. Met BB-8 in 20 minutes, saw the March of the First Order, some of A Galaxy Far Far Away, and just walked around. Then back to Disney Springs for lunch at Hangar Bar and.... several more drinks. Then it was time for my flight home.

And that's that. I have 1500-2000 photos to weed through so that's to come.

Sounds like a fun time. Looking forward to the photos.

Anyone have an extra Funko Pop Jolly Roger purchased at the park today that they'd like to sell? Please PM me. Thanks.

Well went to go book today and all the hotels are sold out. I guess i screwed that up and waited too long.

Try "Vacations by the mouse" or there is a website that sells a period in people's Disney hotel time shares but I forget the name. We knew a couple who used it and they saved a bundle.

ForeverYoung said:

Try "Vacations by the mouse" or there is a website that sells a period in people's Disney hotel time shares but I forget the name. We knew a couple who used it and they saved a bundle.

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I ended up calling Disney directly and found a few rooms on the property. They didn't have pricing for park tickets or meal plans yet but they said package deal prices can be adjusted later as long as the room is reserved now. Looks like that is the plan.

Cool, congrats!