Just back from a 5 day trip! This trip was me, my DS10, my sister, her DH, DD9, DS7, DS2, DS3mos. I was nervous about a trip with so many kids, having really only done WDW recently with my DS10. But my sister asked me to help plan and execute this trip, and I'll take any excuse to go to Disney World, so I swallowed my nerves and took the plunge!
We stayed 1 night at AoA / Pop (Cars family suite for them, standard Pop room for us) before switching to a 2BR AKL standard view villa (Jambo House) with rented points. We exclusively used Disney transportation with some Lyft thrown in here and there. We had 5 day park-hoppers. No dining plan.
I thought I'd organize this post as Hits / Misses / Stray Observations, so here goes:
The Hits:
1. The hotels. They were awesome! The Cars suite is so stinkin' cute, and my sister's family had a great view of the lake. My sister did comment that it felt a lot smaller than she thought it would, and I agreed with that, but it was perfectly adequate for their family's needs for a single night. I don't think it would have been enough space for them for longer. Our Pop room was clean and functional and we had a lake view as well. It was nice that we could go for this cheaper room and still be close to my sister's family. This combo (Pop + AoA) really works well for big families with different room size needs. This was also my first time walking through the common areas at AoA and holy cow, were they awesome! We didn't have time to swim in the Big Blue Pool but it looked amazing, and the Cozy Cone pool is such a dash of nostalgic glory for all things Cars and Route 66.
Although we had only booked a standard view at AKL, we landed a partial savanna view! My sister had commented before this trip that she really wanted to have "giraffes with her coffee" but didn't want to spend the $400 dollars extra for the view......well she got giraffe coffee anyway. We had giraffes wandering through our backyard in the mornings and evenings, as well as several species of antelope pretty much all day. It was incredible. This room size was also more in line with what my sister really needed for her family, and the connecting studio was more than enough for me and my son. We actually ended up using our couch / TV as a living room because they had the pull-out bed and chair in use the whole time. My sister put her 2yr old's kid in the hallway of their 1BR and kept the infant in a bassinet in the bedroom with them.
2. The cast members: With one exception I'll talk about later, all our cast member interactions this trip were wonderful. This was in contrast to the past few post-pandemic trips, in which it had seemed to me like Disney was still struggling to fill positions and not all cast members were at the top of their game or happy to be there. This time, that was NOT the case. From the bus drivers to the attraction staff to the people working the QS dining rooms, everyone went out of their way to make our trip special, make guests smile, and just generally be great humans. One cast member even offered to buy my nephew ice cream when he noticed him trip and fall at Animal Kingdom; another security staff member told jokes to everyone waiting to be scanned and have their bags searched; we had not a single bad experience with wait staff. It was really quite exceptional.
3. Epcot. With most of the construction walls down, low to manageable wait times for many of the rides our little ones could enjoy, the Festival of the Arts Food booths to sample, and beautiful weather to wander the World Showcase, I think this was just about everyone's favorite park. It was certainly the adults' favorite! We would all say our best memory was the sunny afternoon spent in the World Showcase, stopping to linger in Italy while the kids watched the juggler, drinking limoncello cocktails and treating the kids to gelato. The older kids loved collecting the postcards at Kidcot stops and our 2yr old absolutely LOVED It's a Small Mexico. We topped this day off with a visit to Moana's Journey of Water, which was an especially big hit with 7yr old and 2yr old, but which we were all really impressed with.
4. Disney coasters. My DS10 has been absolutely terrified of coasters and refused to ride them in the past, but at
Disneyland a couple of months ago he rode the Gadget Coaster and thought "maybe this could be kind of fun after all." Well this time, he rode BTMRR, SDD, and SDMT......and LOVED them. This kiddo has done a complete 180 and now says his favorite park is Magic Kingdom because it has Big Thunder. Mind you, this is a kid who always chose Animal Kingdom because he preferred the tamer thrills of a wildlife walk-through. But on this trip he actually turned to me and asked, "Am I becoming a young thrill-seeker?" Yep kiddo, I think you are!
5. Food. We ate at Roundup Rodeo, Jiko, Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar, Topolino's Terrace breakfast, Yak & Yeti, and a number of quick-service locations. We also did some breakfasts in the room. We did not have a single bad meal, but Jiko and Topolino's were particular stand-outs for excellent food, as you'd expect at these prices! But it occurred to us that there are few places where you can have a meal of this quality, tailored to adult palates, accompanied by excellent wine lists, AND find the staff only too happy to accommodate your 5 kids ages 10 to 4 months. Disney really stands out for this.
The Misses:
1. Hollywood Studios: Two huge expansions later, and this park is still a hot mess. We spent very little time here, because after waking up at the crack of dawn to make early entry for SDD, waiting through most of early entry time to ride it, then riding MFSR, every ride in the park had close to an hour-long wait. This was on a day with what I would classify as average crowds. My sister's family and my son are HUGE Star Wars fans, so I took the 2-year-old to the Disney Junior show while they wandered that land for an hour, and then we left. On a previous night, we had entered the park to eat at Roundup Rodeo and ride RotR, which we paid to do. We had Park Hoppers so the calculation is a little tricky, but I reckon we paid about $200 per person >3, or $1200 total, to ride 3 rides and take the 2-yr-old to one show. Yes, I know there are other shows we could have done, but the 2-yr-old could not sit through them. The kids would have loved MMRR, TSMM, and AS2 but no way could they have handled the waits--and the adults didn't want to. We will not be returning to this park until Disney gets a handle on this.
2. Capture Your Moment photographers. My sister's family was yelled at in DHS by a Capture Your Moment photographer when they inadvertently wandered into her (unmarked, un-cordoned-off) shot. The EXACT SAME THING happened to me TWICE at the Magic Kingdom on a previous trip, so this seems to be a consistent issue for guests. In these locations where they are doing the shoots, there is no indication that a photo shoot is going on, and the photographer is often 10-15 feet from the subject. In crowded conditions, it's easy to miss that someone is taking a photo. Why doesn't Disney provide signage or something to these cast members so they don't have to yell at and get grouchy with guests? This was the single bad cast member interaction we had on this trip.
3. Buses with a 2-yr-old and an infant. It's not that the bus service is bad. We rarely waited more than 10-15 minutes for a bus, and we usually got a seat. That's much better than most city public transit systems I've used! But by the time you get to the front of the park, schlep your way to your stop, wait for the bus to arrive, wait for it to load (add 5 additional min per ECV), wait for it to do any stops before your stop at the hotel, and get to your stop -- well, you're looking at an hour park-to-room. There were several days on which the 2-yr-old and infant REALLY could have used a nap back at the room, but the thought of a 2-hr round trip needed to make it happen was too exhausting for the adults! I now understand why people pay $700 a night to stay on the monorail.
4. The line for the skyliner in the morning at Pop / AoA. Thirty minutes just to get on the Skyliner in the morning. Ugh. (But I guess it was better than the buses!)
Stray Observations
1. My DS10 has always had a freakishly long attention span and laser focus, such that he was able to sit through 2-hr movies with us at age 2. Disney shows were never a problem. This gave me an unrealistic expectation of what an average 2-yr-old could handle in terms of sitting through shows, which led to me assuring my sister that her 2-yr-old would be fine at FotLK, which led to our 2-yr-old having a meltdown after about 10 minutes when we wouldn't let him crawl down the bleachers to touch the "mammoth."
2. The character interactions at Topolino's are so fun! I love their artist costumes. My sister commented to me that she hadn't cared about doing a character meal because she didn't get what all the fuss was about, but when she saw how excited her 2-yr-old got especially, and when SHE started fangirling when Minnie came out, she finally "got it." We got a wonderful picture of the whole gang with The Big Guy himself!
3. I love the queue and the whole atmosphere of Remy, but I'm pretty meh on the ride. Our whole group was glad we did it during EEH, but no one had any reaction bigger than "that was kinda cute." Definitely not worth waiting more than 20-30 min for.
4. I really wish there was more
Encanto stuff in the parks. My husband is Colombian, so my son is half-Colombian, and this would be such a neat way to help him connect more to that part of his heritage. (Disney / LMM did a really great job honoring the culture in this movie, similar to
Coco.)
5. Our group mix turned out to be good because I was on hand to help with the 2-yr-old and infant during the day, but I could also stay later in the park with the 7, 9, and 10-year-old for EEH. This was how we got in rides on SDMT, PPF, and TT -- which ended up being my 9-year-old niece's favorite ride.
6. With the exception of a couple of tired toddler meltdowns and typical sibling squabbling, the kids did way better than I was expecting. Yes, we had to keep my 7-yr-old nephew from climbing everything in sight, but that is par for the course with him, and every single kid really tried to be on their best behavior, and wound up finding something they really loved in the parks. My niece, especially, was gung-ho for Disney after this trip. I would like to do a trip with just her, my son, and my sister at some point.