We’ve returned from our vacation at Walt Disney World. In this episode, we go over what worked with the plan and challenges we faced during the vacation. This includes the crowds, travel, staff, rides, food and many other things. Be sure to check out all of the planning that Angie did in our Disney World Vacation Plan.
While we ended up being too busy to provide updates during vacation, we will produce mini-episodes with the day to day/ride by ride reviews.
Transcript
Suburban Folk 0:00
This is the Suburban Folk podcast, Episode Three, our review of our Disney World vacation.
I’m looking forward to having some real talk with some real folks. Hey, this is Greg with the Suburban Folk podcast. And we have finished our Disney vacation. So we’re going to take some time to review what worked in the plan, what didn’t work, what surprises came up and any other challenges that we faced, I thought to kick us off, we would talk about what I’ll call the people of Disney because it was definitely a significant part. While not a significant part but a noticeable part of the trip. We talked about the T shirts and definitely is the case that everybody likes to wear all of their either uniquely made t shirts or like us, I think every day we saw at least what three four people that had the same shirts on that we did so you kind of give them a thumbs up but I think Think 95% of the people probably had on some sort of Disney t shirts.
Unknown Speaker 1:06
True. I would agree with that.
Suburban Folk 1:08
And I didn’t even say Angie is back with me again. Again, this is sort of a, the aftermath of our episode two. So she’s going to help me along and the things that we remembered again, what went well and what did not go well. So my favorite part of the people were you have like people tattooed up from head to toe, and then they’ve got their Mickey Mouse t shirt on, and all walks of life of folks. But all coming together with the Disney stuff. I’ve never been to Comic Con but that’s kind of what it felt like to me is that these are people that you wouldn’t otherwise know that they’re Disney folks. But man once they get there, they’re they’re all in for the vacation. So what do you think similar
Unknown Speaker 1:50
to? Yeah, there were a lot of people.
Suburban Folk 1:53
Well, and I know you had commented on another cool thing as far as walks of life, were concerned about There were people from all over.
Unknown Speaker 2:02
Yeah, there. There did seem to be the week we went. I mean people from a lot of people from you’re just all over the place coming.
Unknown Speaker 2:12
Lots of strollers, lots of scooters. Oh, let’s talk about that.
Suburban Folk 2:17
That’s right. I didn’t even think of that specifically the scooters. So, Angie, I think was our curse for that. Because you mentioned either day one or day two, that you didn’t notice the scooters. And then I guess that was the thing that people would talk about that got in the way. And that sort of opened up the floodgates. It seemed like my day four or five. In particular, we’re running for the bus one day and there were like three scooters lined up and the bus could only take one at a time I think, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 2:43
maybe two but they were together.
Suburban Folk 2:45
Yeah. And and it you know, again, kudos to those folks for not letting the accessibility stop them that they still went into the vacation but they were everywhere. And I guess it should also be very obvious that the story Are all over the place as well, we sort of assumed that it was even more so because all of the school age kids would have been back in school at that point. So maybe it was even more obvious. People like us that have toddlers, pre k age kids. But man, these these sort of stroller parks are stroller designated area.
Unknown Speaker 3:20
There’s basically stroller parking everywhere. And you can only park in the stroller parking and the cast members tend to move your strollers and organize them while you’re gone. So it gets a little hard to find the stroller then like you can’t just park your stroller by the ride. It has to be in the stroller parking,
Suburban Folk 3:36
right? And you know one thing as far as we’re going to go through the prep items that we talked about before but one that I will say was key that I didn’t realize was going to be key was the lights that you put on to the strollers because there were a couple of these end of night shows where if not the whole park let’s call it at least the majority of the park are waiting for the shows that happen. So when they end Everybody’s rushing out almost like a rock concert of some kind where you’re being funneled to a particular place. And when it’s that dark, having the lights on the stroller was key to being able to actually find where our stroller was at. So kudos on that one, I would definitely endorse that particular tip. Now knowing how massive these these stroller parking areas are, and as far as then going from the people to the staff, there definitely is a noticeable difference. We were we actually before recording this. We’re at our local theme park and we’re talking about Okay, what’s the comparison to another theme park staff versus the Disney staff and definitely a noticeable difference in how courteous they are knowledge probably, and just sort of being down to business as far as getting people on the rides for the people doing that. I think the food service was relatively quick as well. Yeah. But in particular for the rides, I mean, you get on, they have those like yellow tabs and they say pull it to make sure that you’re in whereas other theme parks, it’s that they will check you themselves and somewhat slowly and I think every single roller coaster had three coasters going at least at a
Unknown Speaker 5:18
time, everything was just more efficient. I mean, there’s really no comparison that Kings Dominion in every way shape and form Disney’s a zillion times better than Kings Dominion. I mean, just the efficiency alone of the staff. They they actually walk like they have a purpose to get people on and off the rides. And they know they know what they’re doing compared to Kings Dominion. So, I mean, I guess there’s year round staff versus seasonal staff is probably the biggest issue there. But, I mean, it’s just it’s just a huge difference. And, yeah, the guest experience, I would say,
Suburban Folk 5:54
Well, of course, you know, I’m gonna throw some shade at some other named entities. So I was gonna leave out the Theme Park name but uh, if you want to throw a little shade there, that’s fine. As far as the specific theme park which again they’re owned by you know see your point who was national you know company so I assume they’re all run in a similar way but but yeah especially for the What do they call them line cues i think is the official name when you talk about ride and they’re huge I mean that’s sort of a Disney thing that when the parks are as you know max capacity that they take you through all these different areas, but those lines are mean way less as far as wait time there then compared to other parks just because they seem to keep on moving and
Unknown Speaker 6:40
yeah, they actually know how to load and unload people efficiently I think
Suburban Folk 6:43
Yeah, yeah. So that was and then especially which we’ll talk about crowds a little bit more in general but the amount of people it seemed like there were outside of the rides and then when you got onto the rides seem to cycle pretty quickly.
Unknown Speaker 6:57
Yeah, for as crowded as the parks. The ride times were not bad when we were there. And with some planning and the use of fast passes strategically, we really didn’t wait for anything at all more than a couple minutes, except maybe some of the characters that didn’t have fast passes. But other than that, even even the rides that had weights that they just it felt different because they were moving, the lines were moving. It felt like things were moving progressively. So
Unknown Speaker 7:29
it was just better.
Suburban Folk 7:30
Yeah, yeah, I would, I would tend to agree with that. Now, something maybe that was working against our favor, which of course we have no control of is the weather. And we talked before about the hurricane threat, which was absolutely nothing and not only was it nothing, I guess a typical Orlando week. Let’s say you’re going to get some amount of rain we had drops. I mean, I think there were two different days that it
Unknown Speaker 7:59
really didn’t rain. Although not intents and purposes
Suburban Folk 8:02
so then we talked about you know, the preparation and having the shower curtain and all that stuff for the for the stroller and actually I think I guess it did start to rain when we went into the character dinner at the very end. I
Unknown Speaker 8:13
think it was starting to but it didn’t actually rain. Yeah,
Suburban Folk 8:15
so we were able to bring it inside in case it did. But uh, that ended up being something that we did not experience. But as far as the heat is concerned, I will say definitely for myself by about day three when it was mid 90s. For those first three days, I was starting to lose it a little bit as far as you know, getting from ride ride doing we’re doing keeping the kids you know, sort of where they needed to be that that started to get a little strenuous. Now it it got cooler by I guess Florida standards by the end of the week, just the cloudiness of the day is helped. And actually I think even the parks that we went to were not quite as not not quite as much gogogo as the first Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 8:54
I mean, I feel like the 96 degree days got to be hot. I mean they were fine because a lot of the brides are indoors but overall hotter than 8990 degree days honestly those were those are probably fine
Suburban Folk 9:07
yeah,
Unknown Speaker 9:07
yeah they weren’t bad there was so much mix of indoor outdoor and stops for lunch breakfast whatever that it was. It was fine it didn’t really bother me with the heat. Man I don’t think the time of the year would necessarily determine me again as far as temperature I think it would just be wearing when the crowds are lowest.
Suburban Folk 9:27
Yeah which let’s get that before we sort of go back through all of the preparation items so crowds we’ve talked about before again, any other year let’s call it this September early September is prime time because most kids are going back to school it’s before their major holiday stuff. I guess that goes on. You were checking the crowd levels from sites that track that kind of thing day over day and I don’t was ever over one for any Park
Unknown Speaker 9:52
know every path we went to on all the days we are there was a crowd level one. They were actually predicted to be a lot higher. But because of the Star Wars opening, but just like in California, the crowds did not materialize. And they were all crowd level ones the whole week we were there. And I didn’t think you know, a week two weeks later, you couldn’t really blame that on the hurricane anymore. Probably in some reading I was doing it has more to do with Disney raising their ticket prices too much and or people just staying away because they were worried about crowds of Star Wars. Right.
Suburban Folk 10:28
Which we’ll get into the our thoughts about the Star Wars attraction and what it was to begin with, but, but the other thing I know we were talking about, like if this is a one. Yeah, I don’t know why I want to be there.
Unknown Speaker 10:42
No, no, I mean, the rides are fine, though. We didn’t have any issue with wait times or anything like that. It was more just like there were a lot of people in strollers everywhere still. Yeah,
Suburban Folk 10:54
yeah, that we’re all over the place. And again, that’s something else I know we’re going to talk about shortly is the Transportation Commission. iterations. And I think that’s probably where we felt it the most as far as the crowds and getting to where we wanted to be. And, you know, again, as far as the mass transit is concerned if, if that’s what one looks like the, you know, the monorail the
Unknown Speaker 11:16
process? Well, I mean, that being said, that may not change a lot, because statistically they say, with the Disney properties, even during the local times, the Disney hotels themselves are like 90 95% booked, it’s the outside hotels then that account for the increase in population during the holiday times. So even at the most crowded times, because the Disney properties the amount of people staying in those will really not increase by at time. You don’t see that increase in population on the Disney buses and the monorail and that sort of thing, because those are probably the people using it right. So it may not be as much of an exponential exponential increase as you think but I mean, there are offsite people using the Disney transportation getting rid part two, part two. So it’s some, but it may not be quite as much as you think.
Suburban Folk 12:06
Yeah. So my first couple days I I not being in Disney for 25 some odd years. I liked him to more like Las Vegas where, you know, it’s fun to do all the the crowd, people watching for a while, but then by the end it starts to become a little bit of a drag as far as you know, you’re trying to get to where you’re going and that kind of thing. But you just want to have a clear path and don’t want to deal with sort of the big move in crowds. So yeah, I think even that got a little easier just from the standpoint of figuring out the parks figuring out where we were how much time it took, I know when we had to get to dinner, the one night where we ended up having to go through Epcot that took way longer than we thought I think we left maybe an hour before the dinner reservation and it was a What’s the name of that? The beach,
Unknown Speaker 12:57
we get to the beach club and that was probably Probably an error on my part. So FYI, if you’re trying to get Beach Club is a is a hotel that’s outside of Epcot within walking distance. The rookie mistake I made was that all these hotels that are within walking distance to Epcot, they’re located outside of the world showcase through the international gateway, not where buses and monorails drop you off. They drop you off at the entrance to Epcot outside the main entrance. And there’s no path for you to walk around outside of Epcot. So we actually had to go through security through Epcot out the world showcase to the beach club that way, which just took longer because we had to get through security and all that for a second time after we had already gone through it the first time to get on the monorail. Yeah, yeah. And I think actually over the next year that that may improve because I heard that there’s not going to be double security one You’re on the monorail once all the construction around app cuts done that you can get off right into Epcot and not have to go through security a second time.
Suburban Folk 14:07
Yeah Can I say that just reminded me of totally unrelated story but the best security story was on the monorail for me and I forget if we were going to dinner I want to say we were but the guy in front of us had his backpack ready to go and was being searched and really sold us down but security took out a can of bud ice and I think I don’t know whatever else he had, but I’m thinking like really weird. Like, you’re not going to try to drink this on the monorail Are you gonna like
Unknown Speaker 14:37
be like your smash smuggling but ice and Magic Kingdom? That’s awesome.
Suburban Folk 14:42
Well, yeah, it’s not like you’re gonna tailgate in the parking lot of Magic Kingdom. So I’m not sure where it was going. But it was you know, not only was it beer, it was the fact also that it was but ice that made it extra awesome for me. So, you know, that was that was sort of a good chuckle I had at least while we’re waiting to get to the monitoring for a particular day, so the other things that we didn’t really cover in the last podcast, because it would be very specific for us or wherever somebody is traveling from. So we’re small, medium sized airport, where, you know, you’re basically only getting direct flights to the large hubs. And at this point, Orlando is such a big vacation destination. I feel like most airports of any size you can get some sort of a flight there. So we ended up going down on Jet Blue, which I know for me was the first time that I’ve ever flown on Jet Blue and then on the way back was Southwest. Both flights were not only on time, but I think a little bit early. Neither flight was at capacity in particular the Southwest flight it seemed like every other seat was open. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 15:50
there was plenty of room plenty of luggage space. They were on time we get caught on both flights probably in and a half an hour early JetBlue had good snacks They had monitors to watch movies on on each back of the seats. So I think both both hotel or both airlines were for good. Yeah, better than your standards.
Suburban Folk 16:10
Well, and of course, so I set that up specifically. So the shade that I have no problem throwing his American Airlines, I think it’s pretty much the most flights that we get. And so right before boarding the JetBlue flight, I’m walking the kids up and down the terminal, just, you know, keep them occupied for a while. And there were three, maybe even four other American flights to completely different parts of the country like Dallas, Miami and Chicago, I think every single one of those flights was at least an hour or more delayed, and I just gotta roll my eyes, because that’s always my experience with them as well. So I was happy that we were on the other airlines at least that we were that at least our first go at it. They were again, not only on time, but we’re actually early for us to get off the plane which was really, really advantageous. I think. For getting down there because it was. Let’s see, what time did we land? Probably? Nine o’clock. Was it that like?
Unknown Speaker 17:08
Yeah, yeah, we landed about eight o’clock. Okay, we’re supposed to land at 830. But we landed at eight. Yeah,
Suburban Folk 17:13
so by the time we got to the buses, it was probably 945
Unknown Speaker 17:18
when and get to the Disney Resort we are going to have probably till 9:30am at a time I got to our hotel was closer to actually 945 or so. Right.
Suburban Folk 17:27
Right. So anyway, so so kudos to our airlines and again obviously for anybody that is planning a vacation you’re sort of, I don’t wanna say stuck with but it’s going to depend on the airport you’re coming out of and who is the hub and who has most of them but but those worked out very, very well for us. Going into some of the preparation items, one of the things we talked about was the meal plan and I know I joked that I was just going to be walking around miserable because we had to eat you know any and everything all the time. I don’t think I was too too miserable. But we definitely were having to eat a lot during during this trip. And I did not realize that it was it wasn’t a usable religion for the day was users it for the week. So we definitely racked up quite a few of the snack credits through the end of the week as well as some of the quick service meals. So, and the food was good, I think in all places I wouldn’t say it’s not like world class, but it’s not supposed to be it’s a theme park. They’re not the only they can only get it to a certain level. Is that fair?
Unknown Speaker 18:34
Yes. I mean, all the food was good. I mean, there was some food that was I would say really good. Some was good. It was much better than our local theme parks. But, you know, it wasn’t like you were going to a great restaurant in New York City, you know, wasn’t at that level.
Suburban Folk 18:53
Right. So, yeah, yeah, I would I would agree. And I don’t know if maybe one of those You get sick of anything right after you have it for a certain amount of time. And if it was some of that, like, the breakfast we had the first morning with bells, castle bells, I’m sure it’s called something different.
Unknown Speaker 19:10
Your guest okay.
Suburban Folk 19:12
I thought was really, really good. And then I don’t know maybe later like the Woody’s toy but toy box or what he’s
Unknown Speaker 19:20
Yeah, the Toy Story
Unknown Speaker 19:23
was good. I mean it’s fine.
Unknown Speaker 19:26
I mean it was all everything was acceptable. I mean, there was no bad food really. But um, but there we just had probably too much of it.
Suburban Folk 19:33
Yeah, so I would say
Unknown Speaker 19:35
one of our children didn’t even have a meal plan. So I mean, she doesn’t eat much but you know, still, there were three adults and two kids and we honestly probably could have split two or three meals for most meals and been fine. So we just had a little bit little bit too much food for the eaters that we were so I think next time we probably would not not do the meal plan unless it was like a free meal plan. time period or something like that, right?
Suburban Folk 20:01
Yeah, I agree. And the only other critique that I would have is the breakfast options were slim and none. And what added insult to injury to that is like, there were stands that had, you know, a breakfast sandwich or other things like that, but they weren’t part of the meal plan.
Unknown Speaker 20:19
Yeah, that was the annoying part, you know, meal plan snack credits, which we got to have a day, generally, anything that was like $5 $6 was a snack credit. So you know, you could get a giant cinnamon bun or an ice cream float for breakfast, and that cost six $7 and that’s a snack credit, but then they would have a breakfast sandwich somewhere that was $5 and you couldn’t use a snack credit for that. So I think they kind of get you in that way and that you can’t use the snack credits for breakfast. So if you really want like a more legitimate breakfast, none of your your meal plan really qualifies. For that,
Suburban Folk 21:00
yeah, I’m in the breakfast foods. I’m using that loosely, that we did have where I mean,
Unknown Speaker 21:09
everything was just sugar, sugar, sugar, but weren’t a lot of like more savory options in terms of Yeah, things
Suburban Folk 21:16
like that pineapple cheesecake crazy. And it was one. I had the cinnamon button not for breakfast, but I mean, I guess that would be
Unknown Speaker 21:24
I mean, I had a dole whip on pineapple upside down cake for breakfast, which was amazing. But, you know, not the best choice. Yeah,
Suburban Folk 21:30
but when you’re sweating, you know? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 21:32
it was good. I did not mind.
Suburban Folk 21:35
Well, yeah, from that standpoint, but it doesn’t necessarily stick with you, let’s say through the rest of the day. So that would be one thing I changed like you said, obviously, of course, as our kids get older, and just from even a cost standpoint in general, unless they had a deal like you said it would probably make more sense to make use of even though I’m in the kitchen that we had was more than
Unknown Speaker 21:56
Yeah, we had a regular kitchen. So I think if we were going to do it in the future. We’d say at a similar place and then eat breakfast in the room. And any other time, I think we would go in the future, the parks would probably open at normal time, I think this two months span is probably unique in history and that the parks were opening at six or 7am every day, do the Star Wars opening. And I doubt given the low attendance will ever do that again. So I think you know, any other time we go, the parks are going to be opening at the normal eight, nine o’clock where we would have more time in the room to have a regular breakfast. And then you know, I’d consider packing a bunch of snacks, and then you know, maybe getting something to kind of share in the parks or a snack there, and then having a more hearty dinner that we’re actually hungry for by the time we get there. Right.
Suburban Folk 22:45
Yeah, yeah, emphasis on that. It feels like you’re just eating all day. I mean, it’s
Unknown Speaker 22:49
so hot out. You don’t even really want to eat by the time you get to the meal. Yeah,
Suburban Folk 22:53
yeah. And I actually Well, I’m sure I noticed that the most on the last day because we were in Epcot, and we had to spend all those other snack credits that we had leftover. And I was happy with the food that we had at one of ocher shoes. Is that how we say it?
Unknown Speaker 23:06
Yeah, Chris shoes, I think is the Norway.
Suburban Folk 23:09
So I was very interested in trying a lot of the food. But we had eaten so much during the Food and Wine Festival at that point that it was not painful to get through more of it, but it was not as enjoyable as it
Unknown Speaker 23:21
really wasn’t enjoyable. I did not love the food there. I mean, it was fine. But it wasn’t my favorite. But I think I was also so full that I just wasn’t really interested in eating anything. But the time we got to that time period. Right,
Suburban Folk 23:32
right. So the next item is the fastpasses, which we used almost call it almost exclusively for any rides. I mean, there’s maybe a handful of things where they don’t have them of course,
Unknown Speaker 23:45
yeah, but um, we also were there the first things we did in the mornings before we actually got to where we were using our fast passes. Most guys didn’t need fast passes. I mean, half the rides there that weren’t there. super popular headliners didn’t even need fast passes. Because they were walk ons the whole time, right? And you basically walk on like rides like the teacups or small world The Barnstormer, the Little Mermaid ride like all of those rides were walk ons the whole time. You know, we were there as long with all the shows you didn’t need fast passes for any of those. I mean, even even bigger rides like Thunder Mountain, we didn’t use a fast pass for the first day and the wait was maybe 10 or 15 minutes, right. So I mean, I know and probably higher crowd times the fast passes are more crucial. And we definitely were glad to have them for the busier rides. But most things we did we didn’t really even need a fast pass for right.
Suburban Folk 24:42
Well, but the ones that walk out like small world I definitely remember that and some of the other sort of classic rides didn’t seem to be that much of the draw. But early on, you’re talking specifically the those extra magic hours. I know for those we couldn’t get them then it wasn’t Jimmy Even after everybody was letting
Unknown Speaker 25:01
Yeah, even for the first hour to the parks were open. I mean, the wait times were not long. I mean, then that being said the whole time we were there during the days the wait times never got that long for even a lot of the more popular rides. Yeah.
Suburban Folk 25:14
Well, I mean, I guess that’s relative.
Unknown Speaker 25:17
I mean, like, where we’re talking some of the rides, where a 40 minute wait is, you know, crazy low. And that sounds insane to say that, but if you’re talking about things like Slinky Dog dash, the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train where the weights can be two hours and busy time periods. The whole time we were there, they might have been 3040 minutes, which I would not have waited for for those rides, right. And we had fast passes. So we didn’t have to, but people were just talking about how low the weights were for those two. So
Suburban Folk 25:51
but at least just for the benefit of the Fast Pass anyway, we can say that the ones that were 40 to 50 minutes, where we were using the fastest I’m thinking of the mind train. Yeah they say this a lot of time it was let’s say it shaved off at least 20 minutes per per ride is probably a fair assessment for the for the long ones
Unknown Speaker 26:09
at least I mean seven doors Mine Train we we we might have waited in line five minutes for that the same of Slinky Dog right and certain Fastpass lines get you more ahead than others like I think seven dwarfs Mine Train and especially Slinky Dog you basically get right on 1000 Fastpass but seven or Thunder Mountain I was that one along with Splash Mountain there was still maybe like a five or 10 minute wait after you got to the merge point with those. It wasn’t quite as walk on the road, but still you never we never waited, waited for much at all. And after the time period we were there after I got my first three fast passes. I was unable to get things for for later in the day. Like if we were switching parks or right and kind of use some of the techniques I learned to try to move up You’re fast past times when she grabbed a new Fastpass and I was able to grab last minute fast passes for all sorts of things from Everest and the safari ride at Animal Kingdom there was a lot of availability for those we did store and again a couple times and have caught because fast passes were available at Epcot, we pretty much could have got last minute fast passes for everything. But the frozen ride and Magic Kingdom last minute fast passes. I saw them all for pretty much everything was seven doors Mine Train. So I know we got on Peter Pan again one day because I was able to get more fast passes for it. So it was it was fairly easy to use their system. And you know, I think unfortunately, a lot of other people visiting didn’t quite realize how the system worked and didn’t use it to its full capability.
Suburban Folk 27:54
Well, that’s I guess kind of what I’m getting at is so the official recommendation even though the crowds for us were low. Is Fastpass know it learn it? Love it use it? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 28:03
I mean you have to have a plan and have to get the fast passes for the more popular rides and then know how to use their system to get more. And you can be most efficient that way.
Suburban Folk 28:14
Yeah, yeah, I agree. So
Unknown Speaker 28:18
it just shocks me that people I saw wandering around like having literally no clue. And they would walk up to the Fastpass entrance of the rides and really not even know what a Fastpass was, like, how how are you coming to Disney World and you don’t know this?
Suburban Folk 28:32
Well, although you know what that reminded me of the I saw somebody with you know, like, I’m done adulting type of shirt. And what struck me with that is I’m thinking, Well, yeah, I get it because vacation, not adulting but the amount of preparation and planning and strategy. It’s like, it doesn’t seem like a childlike thing in general. So it’s like, you’re gonna have to do a little bit of adulting just to get around here and you know, make the most of your trip. So
Unknown Speaker 28:56
maybe it’s that then I was on the other hand, like hey, you know what, if they Don’t know what they’re doing.
Suburban Folk 29:03
Right, exactly. Hopefully that’s why people are listening to us and using some tips. Right. So dinner reservations is something we hit before. I don’t think you know, other than make sure you’re on time. Interestingly enough, the first night we went by a family whose little boy fell, and we sort of saw off the side of our out of our eye that he was noticeably bleeding pretty well. So Angie, being a physician, I kind of, you know, said, Hey, should you go check that out? So she did, and her mom is actually retired nurse. So I actually we were running, not behind, but we were right at our reservation. So I actually had to go into that restaurant and say, Hey, can we you know, we’re here put us on the list. But oh, by the way, we’re trying to be good citizens, good Disney citizen. And Angie’s back tending to a kid that’s out there so that I know that was one that sort of slowed us down a little bit and plus, we have the show About an hour afterwards that we had to kind of rush the waitress along a little bit.
Unknown Speaker 30:06
Yeah, and out of all the restaurants I mean, everything was actually pretty quick but that one night it was just super slow with the service and getting seated and everything.
Suburban Folk 30:14
Yeah. And then of course we mentioned the beach club just that was the first time we use the monorail if I’m not mistaken and then like you said, we just didn’t realize that there was no direct route and so we ended up having to just sprint through Epcot to get to the to the beach club on the other side. So I don’t know we were maybe a couple minutes.
Unknown Speaker 30:35
Only a couple of minutes but it was fine.
Suburban Folk 30:38
Yeah, so I guess the only lesson learned at all was nobody hassled us in any
Unknown Speaker 30:41
wow I’m sure people are late all the time. Sure. So probably more than we were right.
Suburban Folk 30:46
So you know, I didn’t have any you know, real thoughts as far as you know, when did you dinner reservations or anything like that? I know you were really on top of when to get the reservations and but also I will say though, didn’t strike me in hindsight, that Do they do walkins any of these places?
Unknown Speaker 31:03
Um, well, I think that’s one of the downsides people will say about Disney World is that you have to have your reservations and everything plan six months out. So it’s pretty hard to just be spontaneous there and go somewhere. You can’t you know, you can’t just walk into restaurants and wants this quick service. Yeah, like, you can’t just say like, Oh, I’m gonna eat at a Honda night and go like, that’s just not gonna happen. Yeah,
Suburban Folk 31:24
but at the same time, I feel like that first restaurant for example, why am I forgetting the name? But what was it called
Unknown Speaker 31:29
mama Melrose
Suburban Folk 31:30
it seat because I know our comment was seemed like there were some tables open when we got it. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 31:35
And then they all got Phil, but we got there early. Five.
Suburban Folk 31:39
Yeah. And of course, I only noticed it that night because we had a show to go to. Yeah, looking around like, hey, yeah, exactly. Other than that, the California grill I just I don’t remember. I wasn’t really paying attention to how
Unknown Speaker 31:52
Yeah, everything else was pretty full. I mean, I think when we were getting there like with our seedings, everyone was crying. Getting there at the same time. So it seemed empty for the first couple minutes and then everything kind of filled up.
Suburban Folk 32:05
Right? Right. So So find your reservations, make sure you get on it as quickly as you can. So you get the places that you want, I think would be the main takeaway there. The the app itself and I just have my note of the ride app, I know it has a different name that you can tell tell the folks what the official name of it is, but
Unknown Speaker 32:25
I think they just call it my Disney experience with AMD. But
Unknown Speaker 32:31
it was it was fine.
Suburban Folk 32:33
And that’s connected to the
Unknown Speaker 32:35
we didn’t have any like major snafu use of it. I know people complain about downtime with it and things not working. But I think we were there at pretty much a slower time, so I didn’t have any major issues.
Suburban Folk 32:47
And one other item that was a significant part of our trip was the rider swap. I think we covered that in the prep episode, that we have four year old who could get Quite a few of the rides two year old who she was able to get on all of the ones that did not have a requirement, let’s say, and then three adults, so two adults could go, and then one would stay with the younger one, and then the other person would go. And so it was great for the older one who got the extra ride in our youngest didn’t have major, major issues. I know one of my critiques of that strategy was that of course, we were limited to the immediate area of wherever that ride was. So some of the areas had more things for her to do while we were on the ride some areas maybe not so much. And I guess for the rider swaps, you do have a longer period of time so if you didn’t want to do it back to back, you did have some flexibility to not go back but for us for what made the most sense, of course is to do that back to back riding now with the fast passes. It made it as easy as possible, but more your thoughts as far as the rider swap, would you do it the same way we We do that any differently. I know of course, we have talked about what that would look like, once they’re older and both can get on more rides.
Unknown Speaker 34:05
Yeah, I mean, I think we’d have to do it the same way we did this past trip if we were going to do it again. It’s just really no other way to do it. Unless one of the adults just doesn’t want to ride up.
Suburban Folk 34:15
Yeah, I think that would be probably the alternative. I think that we’ll get into more specifics later as far as depending on the ride, but there are certain shows or things like that, for example, each not each park at least three of the parks that I can think of had a 3d show with, you know, certain things going on like you do the 3d. They were all very, very similar like Animal Kingdom had the Bug’s Life one and Magic Kingdom had the Mickey one little harmonic Yeah, thing going on. And then there was the month at one, I think, a Hollywood studio. So I will say some of them sort of ran together for me, so I wouldn’t have necessarily minded missing.
Unknown Speaker 34:52
You know, I mean, I think the first trip we did kind of everything and then the next trip, we can know what we like and skip A lot of the shows and stuff that we’ve done before, but maybe hit on the rides, and then if all of us can ride the rides will spend less time doing rider swap. And I think just the strategy of getting through the parks next time and you know, whenever that happens to be whenever Emily’s tall enough to ride everything, I think it’ll be much more efficient. Yeah.
Suburban Folk 35:21
But at least as far as the writer swap process itself, I don’t think we had any issues at any point as far as them registering the magic band of the person. Oh,
Unknown Speaker 35:31
no, it all work. They all knew what they were doing. And I mean, that’s another thing. Like, there was so many cast members that you tried and everybody had a process. They knew what they were doing. The cast members were not the issue. I mean, it was more of the other people in the park that were the issue not knowing what they were doing. And China, they mean really like they would hold up the line because they would try to argue about having fast passes, when they didn’t have a Fast Pass where they had no clue what a Fast Pass was. So they’d be trying to go through the Fast Pass line. Just it was mostly the public the general public that was the problem not Disney,
Suburban Folk 36:04
right? Although I don’t feel like we have that a ton. I mean, we did have it.
Unknown Speaker 36:09
I mean it was like but if there were any holdups it was just because of that. So,
Suburban Folk 36:14
so we hit all the big preparation items, just a nod to maybe some of the other things that I know you packed along. For example, I joke that we had, you know, a Tums and other stuff to be prepared for all of the amount of food that we were going to have and I didn’t use any of that stuff until the end of the trip, which I wish I had been using beforehand. Again, just going back to the amount of food and what we had something else actually, that just struck me for the meal plans was the drinks course I joked and said, You know, I get as many of those as I possibly could. Going back to the weather. I you’re so tired and hot, quite frankly, you know, trying to get from place to place and so on. It’s almost like if you have more than a drink, as Especially at lunch, I mean, you’re just gonna be down and out. So it was not necessarily a lounge type of vacation where you’re even looking to have you know, more than like an a drink with your with your meal. So even though it seems like a good thing to have, I think it was nothing that was necessarily a high. Having the drinks with the overall package I think we could have done was just water and fine. Yeah, well, actually, you know, that point. I know, I did not drink nearly enough water for the first couple days. It could even you know, feel dehydrated for a little bit. So yeah, that’s I know, it was a very obvious one. But make sure you drink a whole heck of a lot of water while you’re out there because it is hot, you will feel it. And again, with eating all the other stuff and just what you’re doing, it could definitely get to you. So again, some of the other notes that we had had before the autograph books. I know it’s something that we talked about, we ended up getting those pretty much filled up. As far as with the characters were concerned, we talked about the character meals, which is where I’d say the bulk of those got filled out and the kids were able to meet the various characters. So seemingly, I know they can be kind of pricey, but made sense to be able to frankly avoid some of the lines for the other characters to be able to do that and I think the kids got a kick out of that. Any other sort of the preparation items that we didn’t cover that stuck out that you know was a thank goodness we did this thing?
Unknown Speaker 38:33
Um, I mean, nothing, nothing I can think off hand. I think the kids liked the pennies. They like to do like the penny prash machines, and we got a bunch of those that we brought home with us as little souvenirs. Yeah.
Suburban Folk 38:46
And that was also ended up being good going back to the rider swap that that gave our youngest something to do while she was waiting for us to get off the ride. So it sort of was a dual, dual purpose for that. So So that was really the preparation. And indeed I’ve talked to him we’re going to extend the Disney World experience into multiple mini casts will call it in the future. So we’re not going to go through every single detail of the itinerary like we did as far as the prep is concerned. But you know, going into in some of the highlights of the trip, what met our expectations, maybe what wasn’t what we thought it was going to be. Maybe let’s start with galaxy’s edge. You already mentioned the crowds indeed were not what they originally were anticipated to be. And I’ll start with the Millennium Falcon right we got on pretty quickly I ended up doing that one twice. It kind of going back to what I’m saying of each Park, it seems like has a similar type of ride. So this one felt similar to like the Star Tours ride a little bit like the mission space ride and Epcot. And even the other ride that I was looking forward to the flights of passage, which was previewing one of my favorite rides. It kind of was in that same vein, so I didn’t know that there was anything all that special.
Unknown Speaker 40:08
Yeah, I mean, that’s just the motion simulator. Right? Right. I didn’t think it was that amazing, right? And that’s kind of distracting having to like press all the buttons and everything. And I would rather just like non arrived and not have had to deal with that. Yeah.
Suburban Folk 40:20
Which again, the quick story for that, that. I think the first time I wrote it with your mom, she said, all the buttons are just for show. And then we ended up getting a good score because people that were driving did a good job, even though we weren’t pressing the buttons were supposed to. And then we went again and I was driving with our son and we realized that definitely did matter what buttons you press because we ended up wrecking the whole ship and I don’t know, I don’t think he gave a point score but we got about the lowest score there possibly could be. So one FYI for anybody that goes and rides that the controls actually do, give you a ranking at the end of it and then does actually move the whole scenario. Later itself like we were banging back and forth because apparently we’re hitting asteroid things like that but other than that there wasn’t much else there other than just food the the build a droid and build the lightsaber which we had already not planned to do so there really wasn’t much else there for us to do so I wouldn’t I mean it’s fine to walk through but I don’t think there was anything there that you know as a Star Wars fan that I was super blown away by or anything like that if anything else and if we talked about that Star Tours and the Jedi training were probably more memorable as far as in the in the Star Wars world than than anything around the new galaxies edge but what stuck out to you as far as whether it be rides, characters, you know, we’ve hit a lot on the meals that were highlights or even the things that weren’t what you expected.
Unknown Speaker 41:55
Um, I mean, I guess as far as Hollywood studios, I think I think we in general, like Toy Story early on the best. All the rides in there were good and they had a lot of the characters the kids liked. The food was good. So kind of everything about that land was what we liked. I mean Magic Kingdom. I think the kids liked a lot of the characters there. We did a lot of meet and greets snick Dr. I’d Space Mountain what she really liked. And then Epcot. I mean, maybe those kids weren’t super thrilled with that, that park. But the second time, the second day we went we realized there were a lot more characters there over in world showcase than we had realized. So they were able to meet Mary Poppins and Leela poo and Ana and Elsa. And so they really enjoyed that the second day and then Animal Kingdom to that one. I think the Lion King show was really good and the safari ride was good and I really enjoyed our meal there at tusker house so we’ll kind of get into the details of the rides and food specifics later right
Suburban Folk 43:14
yeah. And yeah, I would say that well kind of referencing back to what I was looking forward to like I mentioned flights of passage the avatar ride it was was really cool that was definitely the standout as far as the rides were concerned all together. Interestingly enough, it was the same height requirement as Space Mountain and Everest the roller coaster but our oldest was not able to get on that one for whatever reason. So it seems like maybe it was a bumped up by maybe half an inch or something
Unknown Speaker 43:46
like that. They’re, they’re measuring sticks just aren’t.
Suburban Folk 43:54
So kudos to him. He actually took it really, really well. To get on that ride was that
Unknown Speaker 44:00
Fine because he was looking forward to Space Mountain and Everest but hadn’t really heard about flight of passage. So he didn’t really care too much. Right?
Suburban Folk 44:07
Right. And as far as the dinners were concerned, ohana, I thought was was pretty good. And the California grow I think was also pretty good tusker house. Yeah, was was good. So actually, I don’t think I have any complaints about it either. There’s again, maybe the first one, like we have mentioned is just because we were rushed a slow
Unknown Speaker 44:27
Yeah, yeah, the food was fine. The food was good. But yeah, I felt kind of rushed eating it because it took forever for it to even get there. Yeah,
Suburban Folk 44:34
and I think we both agreed, of course, one of the things we’re looking forward to is just watching the kids interaction with the characters which didn’t disappoint, especially even at the very beginning with Mickey and Minnie was one of the first things that we were able to do. My only critique is that every single character has some sort of like waiting space. It’s almost like a ride like they’ve got a line and they’re only out there for a certain amount of time. You don’t really see the only time you see Characters walking around the parks is when they’re on their way It seems like to wherever their designated area happens to be. So, you know, going back again 30 years when I was little and and experienced Disney, and there were characters that were out and about, that doesn’t seem to be a thing anymore. So I don’t know why that has changed necessarily, but I
Unknown Speaker 45:23
mean, I think they probably just had to otherwise. I mean, people would have no way of, I mean, people wanted to have the characters autographs and if they’re just in the middle of the park, how are they not going to get mobbed by 100 people at once, you know?
Suburban Folk 45:39
Well, maybe I’m sure there have been people that have studied it more than myself. That would be interesting to see, I guess a huge mob of Do you think that’s a mob of kids or a mob of Disney people that don’t have kids?
Unknown Speaker 45:53
Probably parents with kids.
Suburban Folk 45:55
Let’s, let’s hope at least anyway so that is Pretty much it as far as the trip is concerned. So what do you think? Would you go back? Yes. And why is that?
Unknown Speaker 46:11
I mean, I just thought the trip as a whole was great. I liked the rides the food. I mean, I think if we went back, it’d be nice to spend a little more time at the resort and the pool and just exploring that. So maybe a little more downtime next time. And also, I would like our youngest daughter to be, I think I would say when she hits 40 inches would be a good time to go back because that that’ll get her on most of the rides. There’s really only a handful of rides that are over over 40 inches where the height requirement is higher. So I think that will get around enough where she was minimally having to sit out for anything at all right, right. So I’m thinking probably, you know, two years down the road would be a good time to go back.
Suburban Folk 47:00
I’m voting for more like three years. I think.
Unknown Speaker 47:03
We’ll see.
Suburban Folk 47:05
We’ll see what other travel plans are on the horizon? Yeah, I’m sure I’m sure. So, yeah, and I would agree similar, it was overall good experience. I think that our itinerary might just for as much stuff as we did, maybe would be even more well suited for kids just a few years older than ours as far as being able just to keep up and doing when you do, and, again, that that rider swap not having to do that once. You know, we’re all able to get on at the same time. We did, you know, two days, relatively speaking for each Park. Close at least anyway, I would think we could bang out almost every single park in a day one. Yeah, a little bit older. And again, you know,
Unknown Speaker 47:45
I mean, or I mean, I think I would probably still do seven or eight days, but you’d really be able to be done earlier and have more time. Although we we started early. So I guess if you’re not stopping until nine o’clock, you may not be able to do all that much. But anyway, I I think going back, we could cut a lot of like the shows and just the stuff that we know we’re not really interested in seeing again out, and that would save a lot of time. Yeah.
Suburban Folk 48:15
And Oh, and I almost forgot. The biggest recommendation that we would have is, you know, I mentioned the monorail and you know, and also back to the preparation that the the driver that you had.
Unknown Speaker 48:32
Yeah, yeah, by far probably the best money we spent was using a private transportation service a couple times. I mean, that saves so much time. We could literally walk out of our hotel and then be at the park. In 15 minutes, we went to animal kingdom and Hollywood Studios. So otherwise, we spent a good you know, 45 minutes trying to get somewhere with the bus situation. So that that was nice. And I think moving forward, even if you stayed at a less expensive resort or even somewhere off property, if you use them, you would still end up saving a ton of money. You know, just just by using them and maybe staying somewhere not quite as convenient. Yeah.
Suburban Folk 49:20
And to be clear, I only say this because somebody that I was chatting with about our vacation, and I described that and the first thing they said was the minivan like,
Unknown Speaker 49:29
No, I mean, it was kind of like taking a minivan except it was somebody we had booked ahead of time. Yeah, so it was a similar vehicle as a minivan. They just had like a large suburban SUV, but you had it all scheduled, so you didn’t have to worry about being able to grab a minivan when the park closed last minute because I’ve heard that it’s next to impossible. And their price point was roughly the same as a minivan so it was really nice, having an all booked ahead of time and then we just had to worry about pain and tipping at the very And we didn’t have to do anything like on a day by day basis. And they already had the car seats installed when we they picked us up there was no scrambling to get that done. They knew what they were doing of that. It was just a good experience as far as that was concerned. So I would I would highly recommend using a service like that. Now when the kids are older using just a standard Uber lift would probably be
Unknown Speaker 50:25
fine.
Unknown Speaker 50:27
And it would be a fraction of the price but with the car seat situation I think you’re kind of limited to either the public transportation from Disney or or a minivan or somebody private and next time we go we will definitely be using them anywhere that we can’t walk.
Suburban Folk 50:44
Yeah, and for those that are uninitiated when we’re saying minivan we’re not talking about like a Dodge Caravan it is Mini is an Minnie Mouse van. They’re actually it’s like a landed with their lift, right?
Unknown Speaker 50:58
It’s like a large SUV. That’s painted polka dot that has car seats available. Right? So that’s basically like a lift that has right more women car seats, right? price it higher. Right. So and
Suburban Folk 51:09
yeah, so So shout out to Orlando and Heidi for the service that we were able to get through them. And like you said, we would probably up the amount of times that we would show up with some of the
Unknown Speaker 51:19
Yeah, and we’ll actually be using them in February when we go on our cruise they’re going to drive us to and from the port for that.
Suburban Folk 51:26
And that is a terrific segue. So and that’s really the overview like I mentioned in she’s agreed to do some separate casts on the rides, the characters, the dinners. So for those that have enjoyed some of these specifics, you can get really into the nitty gritty when when she has a chance to go and do that. And the next set of travel episodes that will have will be likely on the Disney Cruise which we have scheduled for the beginning of next year. So we’ll do a similar review of the preparations that went into that as well as of course the review after we go on to that trip some other just overall updates and things that are going to be coming in future episodes we’ve got some financial episodes scheduled and ready to go so that will be in the next few weeks as well as coming off of the amount of food and everything that we had I’m wanting to do some health and fitness episode so I’m getting some folks lined up to be available to talk to to get all that stuff right back in order to work off all the food that was eaten in this particular vacation and preparation for well the holidays as well as then a cruise right after that because anybody that’s been on a cruise knows what happens for as far as the food is concerned and you know the the lack of exercise that typically happens there. So any any final thoughts again for for the Disney World vacation?
Unknown Speaker 52:56
I think I covered it
Suburban Folk 52:57
right. And so if anybody listening has any questions Or any specifics if they do have anything plan, you can email us at Greg at Suburban folk.com. Or you can go to the website at Suburban folk.com and either comment on the podcast page, or any of the other links that are on the page, we would be sure to get you any other information back. And again as we continue to create future episodes, if you have an interest in either a question comment for a particular episode, or if you’d even like to participate in a cast, by all means, let us know that as well. So until next time, cheers.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai