Worst advice you got

[mom2rtk]

A note about the FP debate, it seriously almost did ruin an incredible trip when it rolled out last spring. Major fur flying in our family due to the tiers, who got to pick that etc?! However, they really worked it over, it is SO much better, loading Stand By is so much better, but it did have growing pains for sure. I recommend it all the live long day now, especially to FLR who have no idea why we go all week long and stand in all those horrible lines yadda yadda... (We live here..so we don't really stand in any lines -closing day Art of Animation not withstanding- why would we...)

I can see that maybe the glitches are better now.

But how are your family's tiering issues better now?

 

[honeybunches]

It's really interesting how one person's "best advice" can be another person's "worst"!

Yes, so true. We love park hopper tickets, and added the water park option this time. It works for us, but I can see how it might not be someone else's style to park hop. On our first trip, we wanted to stay at a deluxe so we chose WL. After trying various mods/values in later trips, we found that we like the bus service and other amenities better at mods. I doubt we'll stay at a deluxe again unless we get a phenomenal discount at a monorail resort.

ETA another one. For us, MNSSHP was a total waste of time and money. I kept reading all these wonderful stories about how much fun it is, and I just bought into it. Ordered custom shirts from Etsy for the kids and got them all excited for how much fun it would be. I totally forgot that my kids don't care about meeting characters, getting candy, or parades and fireworks. They basically only want to ride stuff. Many of the rides we wanted were closed. I didn't make ADR for dinner because we were going to get CS, but the lines were SO long. We just wandered aimlessly until about 9:30, when we finally left and went to The Wave asking for a table in desperation. They couldn't believe we didn't like the party, but kindly seated us and fed us even though they were about to close. It was the worst night of our trip!

 

[Robo]

For us, MNSSHP was a total waste of time and money...
I totally forgot that my kids don't care about meeting characters, getting candy, or parades and fireworks.
They basically only want to ride stuff.
Many of the rides we wanted were closed.

That surprises me.
I'm not saying that you should like MNSSHP, but
MOST attractions in MK are open for the parties and generally have shorter lines than during the day.
It's easier to list the few attractions that are NOT open during MNSSHP.

Not open:
Tom Sawyer Island
Hall of Presidents
Railroad
Riverboat
Tiki Room
Jungle Cruise
Carousel of Progress
Ariel's Grotto

 

[honeybunches]

Not open:
Tom Sawyer Island
Hall of Presidents
Railroad
Riverboat
Tiki Room
Jungle Cruise
Carousel of Progress
Ariel's Grotto

Right, but if THOSE are the rides my kids wanted and they were closed, we just milled around avoiding the ones we didn't want to ride. See?

 

[kmoore7]

Adding my two cents again.

The whole "your kids are too young" never made sense to me. "They won't remember it". What?

My oldest-37- wont take his DS5 yet because of that line of thinking. Ok, I don't agree,but, to each his own.

Too old for Disney? My DD 22 would strongly disagree with that one.

We pick our vacation weeks in January, work rules and such, and the kids get bummed if WDW isn't on the agenda for that summer. I guess we've created another generation of Disney geeks

 

[HulkBuster]

Tom Sawyer and riverboat and railroad aren't open at night anyway and hall of presidents and carousel of progress are not usually popular with kids

 

[magicbob]

Lesson Learned: Don't try to be early on EMH morning

I'm a Disneyland veteran who's going to WDW for the first time next summer. We always try to be early for EMH at Disneyland, but I've seen several posts not to do the same at WDW. Why is that? TIA.

To clarify, I think it's good advice to be early for morning EMH if you are eligible for EMH (and as PP indicated, many hop to another park once it starts to get more crowded). The thread I linked to was about offsite guests arriving early to MK for "regular" opening on an EMH morning.

The good advice in that thread was to avoid the AM EMH park altogether if you are offsite. The bad advice was that it made little difference as long as you arrived before 11am on an EMH morning.

 

[Delirium]

Right, but if THOSE are the rides my kids wanted and they were closed, we just milled around avoiding the ones we didn't want to ride. See?

But, surely you can admit that most people's definitions of popular rides/attractions at MK include the following, which are open:

• Space Mountain
• Buzz Lightyear
• Tomorrowland Speedway
• PeopleMover
• Haunted Mansion
• Peter Pan
• It's a Small World
• Dumbo
• The Many Adevtures of Winnie The Pooh
• Little Mermaid Ride
• The Barnstromer
• Mickey's Philharmagic
• Big Thunder Mountain
• Splash Mountain
• Pirates of the Carribean
• Alladin's Carpets

Throw in the fact that the Halloween parade is much better than the regular one and I personally think that the Halloween Party is a great way to spend a night at MK because the lines are short. And, we don't do the trick or treating or the characters either.

 

[Danny K]

The worst advice I got was that a week at disney world was too much and 4 days is more then enough. 3 days is perfect. That is horrible advice for a first time visitor.

 

[honeybunches]

But, surely you can admit that most people's definitions of popular rides/attractions at MK include the following, which are open:
Throw in the fact that the Halloween parade is much better than the regular one and I personally think that the Halloween Party is a great way to spend a night at MK because the lines are short. And, we don't do the trick or treating or the characters either.

I didn't say that popular rides weren't open. If you will read my post, you'll note that I said "For us." My kids wanted to go to Jungle Cruise, Carousel, and Hall of Presidents. We didn't think the lines at other "popular" rides were shorter, either, on that particular night. We also don't watch the parades, so for us it didn't matter that it was better. Really, it's all a matter of opinion. I'm glad you enjoy the Halloween Party. Many people do. It just wasn't our thing. Not trying to debate, just answering the OP's question about the advice we took. It probably works for other people, just not for us.

 

[Simba's Mom]

As I think more about it since I posted last, the worst advice I ever got was advice I gave myself! That was "Let's go on AstroOrbiter! It looks like fun!" You see, I'm terrified of heights. DH gave me an "Are you kidding?" look, but he went with me. The whole time we were on it, I alternated between screaming and yelling "I can't believe I actually wanted to go on this!"

 

[GaryDis]

The whole "your kids are too young" never made sense to me. "They won't remember it". What?

Would it make more sense if it were phrased this way: Suppose you only had one chance to go to WDW between the kids being born and the kids going off to college. At what age would you choose to take them?

 

[ILoveMyDVC]

Would it make more sense if it were phrased this way: Suppose you only had one chance to go to WDW between the kids being born and the kids going off to college. At what age would you choose to take them?

It's true. It's wonderful to see a toddler's joy when they encounter a character or a water fountain but I think most children do not remember - they remember through the pictures and video. It's not real memories.

Eight - I pick 7 - 9 years as the perfect age group if you only get one chance. We've done the whole arc. Started the kids at 18 mos and 15 mos and have continued at 24 and 22 years.

 

[mom2AidanAndEli]

Would it make more sense if it were phrased this way: Suppose you only had one chance to go to WDW between the kids being born and the kids going off to college. At what age would you choose to take them?

We thought we'd only get to do Disney one time and we definitely waited for the kids to be "old enough". To us that was 5 and 7. We had to find that sweet spot where they were both old enough to go on rides, enjoy themselves, still believe in magic, and have the stamina for long park days. This worked perfect for us. Of course, there have now been 4 more trips since then and trip #6 oming up next month!

I think the right age is definitely one of those personal choice--no right or wrong answer. Personally, I'm glad we did what we did. If we had known we'd be back many times, maybe we would have started earlier. But I have to say I see parents with tiny, tiny ones at DW and think I'd never want to do that! Personal choices!!

And, no, the kids don't really remember the trips they go on at 1 or 2 or 3 years old. They remember through story telling, through pictures and videos, through people reminiscing, etc. You may say that doesn't matter to you, and that's perfectly fine. But you certainly can't argue that your now 12 year old remembers the trip they took when they were 2. They "remember" because you've talked about it and looked at pictures of it for the past 10 years!

 

[Magpie]

I didn't say that popular rides weren't open. If you will read my post, you'll note that I said "For us." My kids wanted to go to Jungle Cruise, Carousel, and Hall of Presidents. We didn't think the lines at other "popular" rides were shorter, either, on that particular night. We also don't watch the parades, so for us it didn't matter that it was better. Really, it's all a matter of opinion. I'm glad you enjoy the Halloween Party. Many people do. It just wasn't our thing. Not trying to debate, just answering the OP's question about the advice we took. It probably works for other people, just not for us.

No, no, you must be made to understand how wrong you are. Now listen while I explain again why it was actually the best night of your life.

 

[TwinPrincessMermaids]

I can see that maybe the glitches are better now.

But how are your family's tiering issues better now?

Well we have learned with certain people in our group, do NOT book RnRc. Book TSMM (because rope drop was a massive failure as a family) and then single rider Rc. (Which incidentally had been shut down that week during the FP+ roll out because they were and I quote "too busy". What I really think was because they rolled it out that week or week prior, they didn't know how to load FP, SB and SR all together...) Anyway now they have SR for Rn which means we FP TSMM and that solves that problem. Same for TestTrack and Soarin. Not something that helps others necessarily but it does currently help us, as AP holders, we can swap out days and tiers and now that we live here, we no longer feel the drama of "that was the only DHS day we have!!!" Etc... And for a fact, the SB lines were SOOO bad last year, but with the specific scheduling recommendations now, SB lines are SO much better than they were at the roll out. Solid B+ for improvement for what was an original failure of massive proportions...

 

[sarahrdh]

Not advice but....

"It's a once in a lifetime trip!"

Not for us! Hoping we can make it a yearly thing, maybe every other at the most! I would be sad if it was once in a lifetime..... I'm only 29!! I have the whole rest of my life ahead of me, and I want WDW to be a big part of it!

I also found the kitchen sink containing park bag to not get much use. Though I DO love the $1 ponchos- we didn't get rained on but we wore on splash....didn't need it there but wished we wore them on Kali a few days before! Lol!! Next time, I'll take a backpack probably.

 

[SimonSez]

We probably did less last August than we've ever done before. Having said that however, we had other issues that kept us from doing everything we wanted, so can't really blame FP+ for all of it...maybe if we were better time managers...

Worse advice was on the disboards saying how bad FP+ was. You could only ride 3 rides and had to wait in line 45min for everything else. Umm, No, we did more on our last trip in December than we ever did before.

 

[SimonSez]

Bad advice, I'm probably the one who gave it

 

[sarahrdh]

Oh and also to buy cheap misting fans ahead of time.....I did, and my kids were BEGGING for the $18 park fans!!! We ended up buying 3, and I'm glad we did, they were a million times better! We had 2 faulty ones but no trouble exchanging at the nearest kiosk. I had 3 happy kids that didn't mind keeping us cool either! They made a few friends while waiting outside H&V by keeping them cool too!