Review of Western’s Summer 2016 trip

All great things must come to an end, and the same goes for every Disney trip.  After the 20th trip for the Western clan (Tory, Michell, Tanner, and Morgan and a few less for Mason and Tinely) we are still learning.  We have gained a lot of knowledge, which has enabled me to share a lot on the blog, but the learning is never finished.  Just as Walt said “Disneyland will never be completed….”, the same holds true for knowledge on any subject.

Trip Details:

Arrival: 8:00 am Saturday June 4th

Departure: 11:00 am Friday June 10th

Accommodations: Hilton Grand Vacation Sea World

Parks visited: Saturday – Magic Kingdom; Sunday – Magic Kingdom; Monday – Animal Kingdom; Tuesday – Magic Kingdom; Wednesday – Epcot; Thursday – Hollywood Studios; Friday – Magic Kingdom

Exciting moments of the trip:

#1 – Mason was able to ride 7 Dwarf Mine Train for the first time (and 2nd, and 3rd).  This was the first time he was tall enough, but interestingly enough, I am not sure that he was measured.  Please do not take this as advice that you can take a youngster and they will not measure him/her, I think it was just ironic.  The fact that it happened 3 times is rather interesting.  The first time was completely understandable, as we were one of the first ones in the park, and on the ride.  As a result, we practically ran past the areas of the ride in which they check for measurement.  I am sure the cast members would not want to deal with the possibility of holding up the entire line to measure one kid, or pulling us out of the line to do so.  I have no idea how we got past measurement the next two times; or maybe I just do not remember if he was measured.

The funniest part of this experience come from Mason himself.

So… Mason, did you like the ride?

Mason: NO.

Mason, do you want to go again?  Mason: NO.

The next day – Mason, do you want to ride?

Mason: YES

Mason, did you like the ride this time?

Mason: NO

Do you want to ride again ?

Mason: YES

Mason, is the only reason you ride the ride is so that you can watch the video when we get home?

Mason: YES

#2 – Another exciting moment was Mason riding Kali River Rapids for the first time.  Every trip we have had, it is always an exciting moment when a child grows tall enough to ride a new ride.  This was Mason’s trip in that regard as he was able to ride two new rides for the first time.

#3 – We were able to meet Olaf on this trip for the first time.  Olaf just started doing meets about a month ago and we were excited to meet him.  I must say that he was slightly on the strange side.  Olaf met his guest, snapped a quick picture, then he moved aside as if he was going to leave.  He came back in to the middle of the room as we left the room for the next guest.  I am not sure that I understand this behavior at all.  None of the other characters act like this (except maybe Kylo Ren which is understandable as he is a villain).  Disney cast member/characters are trained extremely well.  I would want to imagine that this was on purpose and not just the experience with “this”Olaf, but I still cannot understand why Olaf would act this way.

#4 – Joy and Sadness were also just added to the character meeting list a month or so ago.  Although the line was quite long (we will discuss more later on this), it was quite neat to meet them for the first time.

#5 – Disney Springs was quite awesome.  Over the past couple years there has been a ton of changes, construction, and updates occurring at Disney Springs.  Most notable for any visitors was the lack of parking and the distance of the one parking lot (after it was completed).  It was great relief on this trip to see that much of the construction is complete and many of the new stores are open.  Both of the parking garages are now complete, and are very convenient to the shops and stores.  Since my family is a big fan of the Under Armor brand, it was fun to see their two story store in Disney Springs and take pictures with the Incredible Hulk, dressed up in Under Armor gear.  It was neat to see the newest shoes and golf collection in person.  Those items have not made it to the Marshall’s stores or the outlets yet (lol). The store is defiantly fun to look at, but you will not dare catch me their with a wallet.

#6 – Watching Morgan and Riley skip with Alice is always fun.  It was the third time that Morgan was able to do this, but it is definitely quite special since this is a special little treat we have seemed to find.  It really never gets old and it is a great experience to share with friends.

Things that did not go well and things we have learned from:

#1 – EPCOT!!!   Oh Epcot!   We have skipped Epcot the last few trips because we really just do not see the point in going there.  We decided to go back again because we really liked the idea of seeing the old Soarin’ for the last time, and getting to meet BayMax, Joy, and Sadness.  The problem with Epcot is that for any other family with kids, that is also the only reason they are there as well.  While there are 40 to 50 different attractions in the Magic Kingdom, there is only 5 things to do in Future World for the youngest kids.  Character Spot, Bay Max, Nemo, Inside Out Characters, and Spaceship Earth.  Now, we all know that 7 Dwarf Mine Train can get a 1.5 hour wait, but you could always go see Philharmgic with no wait at all. Or you can go visit the characters in the back with a 10 or 20 min wait on most days.   The problem with Epcot is that if you do not want to wait 1.5 hours for Inside Out, or Bay Max, the shortest wait we could find was 30 min for Nemo.  We have rode Nemo several times without a wait (and I would continue to do so), but I would never wait 30 min for that ride.   Then you add the fact that Test Track and Soarin also have 1.5 hour waits for the bigger kids. Oh Epcot, you drive me crazy.  Maybe the addition of Frozen can help spread the crowds.

#2 – Please Disney, make your park and magic hour times 180 days in advance, or at least 30/60 days in advance.  As all Disney fans know (and Disney newbies find out quickly), the 180 day mark is the day you have to schedule meals if you want any of your first picks, and 60/30 days is the time period to book fastpass+ if you are On Property/Off Property.  The problem is that you practically have to determine your park schedules really far in advance.  When Disney decides to change opening hours and magic hours a week or two before your trip, there is little you can do to change your plans in response.  This really caught us by surprise when every park we picked had morning Magic Hours on the days we were intending to go.

#3 – Stay away from Morning Magic Hours during busy times of year.  Do to #2 just above, our family was forced to try out morning magic hours at 3 of the 4 parks.  Since we do not stay on property, we are technically not eligible for morning magic hours.  Much to my surprise, the $1 billion dollar magic band project is not able to know if I am an on property guest.  Not that I would recommend anyone try to sneak in, but we were able to do it for the first, and possibly last time on this trip.  In my opinion, if there were 5,000 people during my trip that take my personal advice of being the first at the parks each day, I believe 4,500 went to the park with Magic Hours.  I can defiantly say that by 9 o clock, the parks were more crowded then what I typically see by 10am even on the most crowded days.  Either the parks were super duper busy, or my 5,000/4,500 analogy above is right on point.

#4 – Another first for us was to experience a tropical storm on our trip.  Tuesday night, a tropical storm rolled in and caused us to alter our plans.  Our original plans were to experience Animal Kingdom at night for the first time.  We were to ride the Safari at night with a Fastpass+ then watch the Jungle Book show.  Interestingly enough, the Tropical Storm practically missed us.  As the rest of Florida was getting pounded, we just received a little rain and a tiny bit of wind.  Every time I looked at the radar, it looked like Disney was in the eye of the storm.  Rain all over, and a little opening over Disney.  Our Fastpass+ were canceled, so it appears that the show did not happen that night; maybe me feel a little better about our decision not to go to the park that night.  I asked a few other guest for there opinions on the new Safari at night and the show.  It seems that the consensus is as follows:  The Safari is not really at night, because even at 9 pm during the sumner, there is daylight.  If you do go on a day that is overcast and it gets darker a little earlier, you are not able to see very much on the Safari.  The Jungle Book show was made because of the problems that they have experienced with the River Of Light show.  While the Jungle Book show is not terrible, it does not come close to what expectations are for the Rivers of Life show.   One thing that was mentioned is that Expedition Everest and Kali River Rapids is awesome at night.  I was told that the park empties out as the last show starts each night.  After the show ends, they let everyone take one last ride on Expedition Everest.  The line tends to mover very quickly and it is very cool from what the others have told me.

The worse day at Disney is always better then a day at work.  It was not a memorable trip for me, but Disney is always fun.  Just being able to get away from the normal day to day and to experience a week with my kids is always great.  The end of one Disney trip always has me looking forward to our next.  For the first time that I can remember (a lot of first for the 20th trip right?) we do not have another Disney trip planned.  We have discussed the next trip, but there is a lot of uncertainty of when it will be.  There will be a lot of new things to look forward to, many of which occurred this weekend.  Please look for my next couple post about the new things at Disney for the summer and please share with friends.  Sharing is caring.

New Disney Announcements

Just last week I reported that there were more updates to come this week.  Although there have been a few clarifications since last week, there have not been any new announcements.  Last week, I provided many sneak peaks and updates here for all the big announcements.  Since all the announcements were coming through fast and furiously, the information I provided skipped through much of the detail and really just provided the BIG news.  I will attempt to provide a little more details today and a better summary (less the cool video previews.  If you would like to see all the video previews, you can go here and see them all.

Disney Day 4 – Magic Kingdom

We were very excited today to try to get off to an early start.  Our friends were going to need to get on the road about midday, so it was very important to get in the park early and get a lot done as fast as possible.  We started off the day by getting off the monorail at about 8:30, about 30 minute before the scheduled park opening.  As expected, the park opened early, at approximately 8:45.  We were not able to get all the way up on the rope as hoped, but we made due.

Rope drop at Magic Kingdom deserves its own blog post, but to keep this short I will explain briefly here.  Do to large amounts of guest running at rope drop when Anna and Elsa moved to the Magic Kingdom, Disney instituted an organized walk of sorts to Anna and Elsa’s meet and greet and Fairytale hall.  The cast members hold a rope across the tunnels on both sides of the train tracks, and slowly walk guest into the park, up main street, through the castle, and around the carousel.  This morning, when the cast members completed the walk around the carousel, the guest following them continued to walk around the stroller parking, while my son, his friend and myself were able to walk through the stroller parking to be the first person in line for Anna and Elsa.  Of course, we were not actually the first, because those eating breakfast in the park are already in line before we got there.   But a 5 minute wait for Anna and Elsa is about as good as it gets.

This was a great start to the morning as we were really on top of things.  Unfortunately this is probably the busiest day that I have ever been to Disney, and the lines got long very fast.  The following is a list of the attractions we were able to experience before leaving the park just after noon:

Meet and greet with Anna and Elsa

Meet and greet with Rapunzel and Cinderella

Pirates of the Caribbean

Splash Mountain

Under the Sea

Space Mountain

After riding Space Mountain, we decided to head out of the park with our friends.  They were leaving to go back to Houston and we would have one more day in the park before leaving ourselves.  13 people moving around a crowded Disney World is not something that should be expected to go smoothly, but for the most part, it did.  What was more amazing is that 8 out of the 13 were 10 and under.  It was a lot of fun and we hope they can come back with us again sometime.  The kids had a blast together.

After leaving the park, we went to Disney Springs to walk around for a while.  One of our favorite places in Disney Springs is the Ghirardelli Ice Cream shop.  We were really looking forward to sharing an Earthquake with our friends, but there really was not any time since we were at the parks so much.  We decided to get the earthquake anyway, even with a few less people.  The Earthquake is a large Ice Cream platter with 8 scoops of ice cream, 8 toppings, whip cream, and 8 cherries.  I originally thought that this would be much too big for 7 of us to share (since 4 were under 8), but it went pretty fast.  I am now wondering if we would have needed two if our friends could have joined us.

After eating our ice cream, we went to Once Upon a Toy.  Although we let our kids go in the shop on each trip, it is rare we buy anything there anymore, because our kids have been so many times.  Since I found the Disney Infinity characters on sale, I decided to let my oldest have one.  Of course, that upset my daughter since he already had a lightsaber on the trip and she did not have anything.  My daughter ended up asking for a lightsaber, and then my youngest wanted one as well.  We had quite an awesome experience at the toy shop building a lightsaber.  I was struggling to figure out how to build the Darth Vader lighsaber for my daughter, so we asked an employee for help.  I soon began to notice that the employee we asked for help was digging deep into the containers and coming out with the correct piece every time.  I was looking at the pieces sitting on top and could not figure it out on my own.  Not long after that, I realized that the employee, Erik, was blind.  I felt like it was an honor to have his help.  I am amazed at how the Lord takes away some of our abilities, but in turn makes our other abilities amazingly stronger.  Erik was awesome with helping both Morgan and Mason with their light saber

After leaving Disney Springs, we decided we would take it easy and prepare for an early and possibly busy last day.  We went back to our room and wound up with more cool event for the night.  As we allowed my daughter to crawl around the room (which she just started about a week ago), we turned and noticed that she pulled up on a high chair and was standing.  This was quite a cool moment as my older daughter took her first steps at Disney World five years ago.  Disney is definitely in our blood, with one child taking the first steps and now one pulling up for the first time.  Family vacations defiantely create memories that last a lifetime.

 

 

Disney Springs Update – 30 New Tenants

 

Beginning May 15 there will be several new shops opening at Town Center.  The shops will not all be opened at once, but will be opening in phases.  The following are a list of new tenants: