Just back from a trip this week with multiple revelations for future travel. Here goes:
Transportation - We had Southwest flights booked for Saturday 3/9 from Houston. After arriving at the airport early in the morning, our flight posted a slight delay. Then around 9 AM it was cancelled entirely. Ended up driving 10 AM to ~ 3 AM 3/10 to avoid missing the first part of our vacation, as with spring break there were no flight options available until Sunday / Monday at the earliest. The drive home really wasn't bad - we left at 4:45 AM to beat the traffic and let kids sleep the morning away. Worked to perfection - took about 13 hours back home, arrived about 5 PM. In fact worked so well that we probably don't plan to fly anymore. Since we have to drive a good distance to Houston, flying only saves a little time and with the kids being older and more able to withstand the long drive it seems like the way to go!
BLT - Has become our first choice at Disney world. Not wild about the theme, but you can't beat the location or the 1BR with two full bathrooms. Even managed to briefly open my eyes on 3/10 at 6:55 AM to book Tron VQ and some Genie plus selections.
Rather than go day by day, some observations park by park:
MK - The Tron VQ line tends to be pretty long, especially later in the day. Wish they would call the groups more slowly, but I assume this helps them with park crowd management on busy days. We rode a couple of times, and our whole crew of 5 thought it was ok - worth the VQ wait but not worth a $20 LL... Rest of the park was crowded but most days we managed to do Space Mountain, Big Thunder, Haunted Mansion, and Pirates along with a trip back to hotel mid day for swimming. Can't recommend enough the Wednesday extra hours... only my middle child was willing to do the 11P - 1A shift, but we managed to ride Jungle Cruise just before closing at 11, Aladdin, Haunted M, Space Mountain, and Seven Dwarves twice.
HS - This park is insane at the moment. No Rock N roller really leaves that park in a tough place on very crowded days. Booked slinky at 7 AM and got 2:35 PM return time for 3 of the party and tower in the morning. Since we had afternoon plans, tried to get guest experience to give us an earlier Slinky but they can't modify that one. Switched us all to tower. 50s Prime time for lunch - the fried chicken there is quite good! Toy Story mania had a decent Genie plus return time so we did that, then switched over to making MK evening LL. No real desire to ride Rise as we've done it multiple times - it's outstanding and well worth either a rope drop, wait, or LL if you can swing it. But it's primarily a story ride and we've done it enough now. Smuggler's run was a pass too - the queue and line area are amazing, we don't much care for the ride itself. All in, don't see a lot of utility to HS right now for repeat visitors, but there are can't miss attractions there if it's your first time, or first time since the Star Wars was added. We only went once this trip.
AK - Love this park! Ended up going twice - always enjoy the Safari, Avatar is an exceptional ride, and Everest.
Epcot - Got a handful more Guardians rides in, Soarin', Test Track (kids finally old enough for single rider which is great here - saves booking Genie plus or a long wait. Since vehicles take three per row the single rider moves fast). Did Remy once and Frozen twice - again, deluxe resort extra hours are a must from 9-11 Monday. You can either hit Frozen and Remy multiple times, or do the 6 PM Guardians distribution and get an extra ride on it.
Now for the big takeaway. The kids are growing up and while they still enjoyed it (ages 14/11/8), they've done everything quite a few times. They had by far the most fun at the pool so we did that every afternoon. We have a stay booked for the summer at Beach Club - I'm very excited to try that out and given how the kids are progressing with Disney, very happy to try the resort with the best pool on property (at least according to many reviews). They've also have indicated that they prefer the beach and want to try some other vacation options. From my end, I still really don't love Genie plus. I spend a huge amount of the vacation on my phone, stressing about getting the right times, pushing lightning lanes around, and making sure we get to the right times without having to walk all over the park. It's added a good amount of expense and I find it makes the regular lines wait times more erratic - I really struggle waiting in them when they move so slowly. So we do mostly LL, but just generally the system has taken some of the enjoyment out of it for me. As such, we're planning to try Aulani and Hilton head over the next couple of years. I hope by then we'll be ready to try the world again... but if not it is great that DVC has some other options for us to use points on!
I would be really curious to see if anyone else has been through this same transition where Disney World went from absolute favorite vacation to maybe a pass for a few years as the kids hit the teen years. How did you manage that and did you find perhaps that a few years break from the World refreshes the experience for you?
Transportation - We had Southwest flights booked for Saturday 3/9 from Houston. After arriving at the airport early in the morning, our flight posted a slight delay. Then around 9 AM it was cancelled entirely. Ended up driving 10 AM to ~ 3 AM 3/10 to avoid missing the first part of our vacation, as with spring break there were no flight options available until Sunday / Monday at the earliest. The drive home really wasn't bad - we left at 4:45 AM to beat the traffic and let kids sleep the morning away. Worked to perfection - took about 13 hours back home, arrived about 5 PM. In fact worked so well that we probably don't plan to fly anymore. Since we have to drive a good distance to Houston, flying only saves a little time and with the kids being older and more able to withstand the long drive it seems like the way to go!
BLT - Has become our first choice at Disney world. Not wild about the theme, but you can't beat the location or the 1BR with two full bathrooms. Even managed to briefly open my eyes on 3/10 at 6:55 AM to book Tron VQ and some Genie plus selections.
Rather than go day by day, some observations park by park:
MK - The Tron VQ line tends to be pretty long, especially later in the day. Wish they would call the groups more slowly, but I assume this helps them with park crowd management on busy days. We rode a couple of times, and our whole crew of 5 thought it was ok - worth the VQ wait but not worth a $20 LL... Rest of the park was crowded but most days we managed to do Space Mountain, Big Thunder, Haunted Mansion, and Pirates along with a trip back to hotel mid day for swimming. Can't recommend enough the Wednesday extra hours... only my middle child was willing to do the 11P - 1A shift, but we managed to ride Jungle Cruise just before closing at 11, Aladdin, Haunted M, Space Mountain, and Seven Dwarves twice.
HS - This park is insane at the moment. No Rock N roller really leaves that park in a tough place on very crowded days. Booked slinky at 7 AM and got 2:35 PM return time for 3 of the party and tower in the morning. Since we had afternoon plans, tried to get guest experience to give us an earlier Slinky but they can't modify that one. Switched us all to tower. 50s Prime time for lunch - the fried chicken there is quite good! Toy Story mania had a decent Genie plus return time so we did that, then switched over to making MK evening LL. No real desire to ride Rise as we've done it multiple times - it's outstanding and well worth either a rope drop, wait, or LL if you can swing it. But it's primarily a story ride and we've done it enough now. Smuggler's run was a pass too - the queue and line area are amazing, we don't much care for the ride itself. All in, don't see a lot of utility to HS right now for repeat visitors, but there are can't miss attractions there if it's your first time, or first time since the Star Wars was added. We only went once this trip.
AK - Love this park! Ended up going twice - always enjoy the Safari, Avatar is an exceptional ride, and Everest.
Epcot - Got a handful more Guardians rides in, Soarin', Test Track (kids finally old enough for single rider which is great here - saves booking Genie plus or a long wait. Since vehicles take three per row the single rider moves fast). Did Remy once and Frozen twice - again, deluxe resort extra hours are a must from 9-11 Monday. You can either hit Frozen and Remy multiple times, or do the 6 PM Guardians distribution and get an extra ride on it.
Now for the big takeaway. The kids are growing up and while they still enjoyed it (ages 14/11/8), they've done everything quite a few times. They had by far the most fun at the pool so we did that every afternoon. We have a stay booked for the summer at Beach Club - I'm very excited to try that out and given how the kids are progressing with Disney, very happy to try the resort with the best pool on property (at least according to many reviews). They've also have indicated that they prefer the beach and want to try some other vacation options. From my end, I still really don't love Genie plus. I spend a huge amount of the vacation on my phone, stressing about getting the right times, pushing lightning lanes around, and making sure we get to the right times without having to walk all over the park. It's added a good amount of expense and I find it makes the regular lines wait times more erratic - I really struggle waiting in them when they move so slowly. So we do mostly LL, but just generally the system has taken some of the enjoyment out of it for me. As such, we're planning to try Aulani and Hilton head over the next couple of years. I hope by then we'll be ready to try the world again... but if not it is great that DVC has some other options for us to use points on!
I would be really curious to see if anyone else has been through this same transition where Disney World went from absolute favorite vacation to maybe a pass for a few years as the kids hit the teen years. How did you manage that and did you find perhaps that a few years break from the World refreshes the experience for you?
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