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Also, pics from MK and Wishes the other night     
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Feb 12, 2017 01:51
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| # ? May 25, 2024 13:43 |
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That castle shot is so clutch. You've got a great eye.
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Feb 12, 2017 02:10
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Absolutely gorgeous.
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Feb 12, 2017 02:35
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Just got home from our first ever trip to WDW. I'd been to Disneyland a few times in the late 90s/early 00s as a kid, and the gf has never been to anything Disney. We did a decent amount of research, reading blogs and whatnot, and since I don't feel like going back to work I'm going to procrastinate by sharing some notes on things that I thought the online Disney hivemind assumed was obvious and doesn't ever reference, didn't really make clear, or we thought was completely wrong about. About WDW in general -I was expecting hordes and hordes of whining kids, and had prepared for it, telling myself that anyone who goes to frigging Disney World and gets irritated by children is a moron. It was a complete non-issue though. Kids at WDW are amazingly behaved compared to kids at the ski resort, which is the only other place I encounter zillions of children. -After a few hours of confusion, and then some time on wikipedia, I learned about a whole new aspect of suburban American culture previously unknown to me: competitive cheerleading. Who knew? -The resorts are beautifully manicured (PO and the Epcot resorts anyway) to a ridiculous extent. The square footage devoted to (beautifully kept) gardens and foliage and whatnot is insane. I guess I'm used to mostly traveling in urban settings where land costs are such that this sort of thing is impossible. So when the Disney blogs say that such and such hotel has "pretty nice" gardens, they mean "on par with the gardens outside a castle in the Loire Valley". -Unfortunately, the rooms themselves (at least at POFQ) are on par with a decently kept motel, which was surprising. Not a major deal for us as we spent every waking minute in the parks, but it killed any chance of us shelling out for an on property Deluxe resort if we go back and feel like pampering ourselves. -I think the Disney "community" is completely out to lunch on the state of food at WDW. While I'm sure it's miles better than it was 20 or 10 years ago, it's just not good enough in general to be a selling point in our opinion. Sure, it's nice to be able to grab passable food for lunch and dinner for a week instead of McDonalds and Burger King style stuff, but it's 2017, that isn't good enough to be a selling point. Our hospital serves fresh bread and craft beer now! Counter service food is on par with (and prepared similarly) to any of the lowest end national sit-down chains, and the cheaper table service stuff is on par with bland chain "gastropub" stuff. After we ate at Tiffins, (which was the only thing we had all week with any sort of thought provoking flavours) we bailed on spending any more money than we had to to keep ourselves fed. I'm sure the higher end stuff is really really good, but I'd save my time and energy for the parks and instead have a $400 night out back home that will be twice as good as the ultra high end WDW stuff. I guess if your regular visits to WDW are the only time non-chain restaurants are available to you (but come on, food culture has blown up so much that any town with even a Walmart has interesting food nowadays) it makes sense, but other than that I just don't get it. It's like how people rave about certain airports having good food now. I mean, I'm glad there's real restaurants and not just a Wolfgang Puck anymore, but that doesn't mean I'm going to go out of my way to eat at the airport. -Stopping at Trader Joe's on the way in saved us such an unbelievably large amount of money and time. The cheaper airfare to Tampa vs Orlando paid for the rental car four times over already, but being able to stop for groceries saved us again that much as well. Tropical fruit is so amazingly good and cheap in Florida, we stuffed ourselves with bananas and oranges and yogurt (oh my god is dairy and meat and gas cheap in the USA) every morning, and never even set foot in our hotel cafeteria. The drive from TPA to WDW and back was super easy and fast, even with our return trip being 3-5pm on a Friday. Would do again. -It's really really crowded at the parks, but with good preparation, you can definitely feel like you accomplished everything you want to in a day, and the crowds are basically a non issue as you know you're a step ahead of them. The same cannot be said for getting to and from the parks... -While the Disney buses are the best way of getting around, they still suck. It's just that driving around in your rental car is even worse. There are never enough buses (the number of buses they have for peak hours would barely be acceptable for off hours considering all their riders are shelling out thousands of dollars), and for some reason, despite knowing how to intelligently design a queue for 8 million people wanting to go on Space Mountain, the bus stops are horrendously designed. The stress of running behind schedule is compounded by the stress of knowing the disorganized mayhem of people trying to get on the bus before it fills up when it finally comes. Dwell times are terrible, the buses must spend more time unloading and loading than they do on the road. It's horrifically frustrating how inefficiently the system is run. -In addition to the buses, the existing infrastructure around the parks, especially Magic Kingdom (parking lots, roads, monorail, ferries, etc.) cannot handle the amount of people trying to get out of the park towards the end of the day. I was made to be ready for massive crowds in the park, and they didn't bother me, but it taking over an hour to get back to the resort hotel (that you paid extra to be at for the convenience) after a long day at the park is awful. Plan your day to not try and exit the park until at least 30 minutes after closing, and even then it's busy. All the park guides will optimize your itinerary to avoid an extra 30 seconds in this lineup or that lineup, and then no attention is paid to how not to be stuck waiting for 45 minutes for a bus. After the first day we were both constantly dreading our future bus rides. -Disney Springs is awful. It's a giant outdoor mall with a handful of fun shops (that you can find elsewhere) surrounded by gift shops and lovely chain restaurants. We took the (lovely) boat ride down there and noped the gently caress out of there ASAP. I guess an outdoor mall is nicer than an indoor mall? About the attractions -You absolutely have to ease people who have never done a Disney park into the hokey Disney stuff slowly. Day 1, we did PotC and Jungle Cruise out of the gate, and that was not a great idea. We went back and did them on day 4 (after we'd experienced stuff like Country Bears and the Tiki Room) and she "got" them then. -Surprisingly, all the old classics mostly held up to my memories from 20 years ago. Jungle Cruise, Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, etc. PotC was a bit of a let down, the Jack Sparrow addition is dumb. I assume this is something that people were massively pissed about 10 years ago when they put him in.  I've read that PotC at WDW doesn't hold a candle to the one at Disneyland, so maybe that's it. Haunted Mansion kind of fell flat for us too, not sure why.-Jungle Cruise needs louder speakers or quieter motors. Couldn't hear anything at all on 2 of our 3 cruises. The one we could hear on was perfect though. Just straight 10 minutes of stream of consciousness mumbling, rather than one-liner - pause - one-liner - pause - one-liner. -Splash Mountain is the best. Perfect combination of a fun thrill ride and awesome Disney characters. Also perfect that as soon as the sun goes down the lineup disappears. On both of our nights at MK we "watched" the fireworks from the front row of a comfy log vehicle, it was great. People are sissies about being wet, it was still 20C out! -WDW is missing a whole bunch of the Fantasyland dark rides I remember from DL. Mr Toad, Alice in Wonderland, etc. I was all set to run around doing them all as soon as the park opened, but aside from Peter Pan and Little Mermaid there's none there. Kind of killed Fantasyland for me. -Mine Train was our least favourite of all the coasters at WDW. It was like a sanitized, smoother version of the clunky but awesome Thunder Mountain. I was really worried Everest would be a similar sanitization of the clunky but awesome Matterhorn, but it was fantastic. Best coaster at WDW by far, especially the first time, as we didn't have any idea about the "twist". -Speaking of which, Animal Kingdom is great. The safari is great, the shows are great, Everest and Dinosaur are great (I love a good themed lineup/preride) and except for 11-3 had no lines, and the theming in general at the park is great. The park is so big it feels empty at all times. Not sure how I feel about it "going mainstream" with the addition of Pandora, I assume it will be much more crowded going forward. -Epcot was a letdown with the exception of one ride. As mentioned above, World Showcase offers decently varied but overpriced food in a lovely setting that would be fine (if unspectacular compared to any other food festival held in a major Western city in the past 10 years) if it didn't cost $100 to get in. The state of WoT was really sad. It's even more disappointing that you can see so much potential for it to be absolutely amazing, but it's almost insulting that they make people pay to go in there at the moment. They need some eccentric bazillionaire with a completely out there utopian fantasy to step up to the plate and rebuild the place in their image. Put all the current "we used to be cavemen but now we do space stuff" from WoT (and Tomorrowland) in "90sSpaceLand" and start again from scratch. Bonus points if it's someone like Richard Branson or Elon Musk or some other self promoting psychopath with completely out there politics and visions of the future. I want to walk in and be amazed at the weird poo poo someone predicts we'll be doing as a society in 50 years. -Mission: Space is possibly the most amazing theme park ride I've ever been on. Most of the Epcot guides put it in the "do this while there are big lines elsewhere if you feel like it" section along with S:E and the shows and whatnot. We were at ropedrop, rushed to Test Track only to find it closed so we decided to just kill some time in WoT until WS opened. We went in not having any idea what the attraction was, were a bit confused at all the crazy warnings, and then once we blasted off I was wondering what the hell was going on and how I was pulling so many Gs. It's an incredible ride. If they could update the video, and make it a little longer and less "oh no, a space iceberg!" I'd go back to WDW for that alone. Someday they have to reprogram the thing to offer a "red" mission with even higher Gs and maybe a real time trip to orbit. I'd pay so much money for that experience. Having read how the ride works, I don't see any technical reason they couldn't do something like that (but of course a ton of social/financial/legal reasons they couldn't!). How is this ride not at the top of the list for must do stuff at WDW. I'd never even heard about it! -Soarin was incredibly underwhelming. I remember being underwhelmed by Soarin over California when it opened as well. It was interesting enough, but I'd put it in the same category as all the other "spend 15 minutes in an air conditioned theatre during the hottest and most crowded part of the day". Certainly wouldn't line up for it. Kronk doing the pre flight briefing was great though. Overall, the trip was a ton of fun, and none the "complaints" I listed actually detracted from the experience, they were more just notable in that these things that seemed incredibly obvious to us (and we rarely agree with each other on what we like and don't like) weren't widely available information. It helped that the weather was absolutely perfect (~25 and sunny with a light breeze and barely any humidity), and there was freezing rain back home that stranded co-workers on highways for 24+ hours. Kreez fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Feb 12, 2017 |
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Feb 12, 2017 03:26
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I'll be working out of the Tampa call center, which is stuff I like to do so I'm excited
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Feb 12, 2017 13:09
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Empress Brosephine posted:I'll be working out of the Tampa call center, which is stuff I like to do so I'm excited With luck it's not quite the shitshow that is the Orlando call center.
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Feb 12, 2017 14:26
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Probably is but I'll put in my time and transfer out hopefully.
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Feb 12, 2017 18:08
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Kreez posted:-After a few hours of confusion, and then some time on wikipedia, I learned about a whole new aspect of suburban American culture previously unknown to me: competitive cheerleading. Who knew?  The Bring it On series has 5 movies (4 of them Direct to DVD)Also a Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23mm7NIp6zo There are few things I enjoy more than these little subcultures that eat up peoples entire lives. And understand I'm not throwing shade; I debated for 8 years of my life.
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Feb 12, 2017 18:15
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Kreez posted:Food and ride stuff I agree about the food. Maybe it's because I live in a big city but it's always funny to me to see all the discussion about the restaurants and whether curry is too "adventurous" or not. I like Disney restaurants that have fun theme and atmosphere, but the food is just overpriced fuel. Fun desserts though! I wish there were more dark rides at WDW! I love the dark ride section of Mine Train and I'm excited to do Frozen!
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Feb 12, 2017 19:43
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The food is obviously overpriced but as an example some of the food I've had at the T Rex has been genuine 10/10 some of the best food I've ever had. The food and wine festival is the only Disney food that baffles me. Extremely expensive and the few times I've tried out the food it has ranged from decent to completely awful.
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Feb 12, 2017 21:21
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Kreez posted:-I think the Disney "community" is completely out to lunch on the state of food at WDW. While I'm sure it's miles better than it was 20 or 10 years ago, it's just not good enough in general to be a selling point in our opinion. Sure, it's nice to be able to grab passable food for lunch and dinner for a week instead of McDonalds and Burger King style stuff, but it's 2017, that isn't good enough to be a selling point. Our hospital serves fresh bread and craft beer now! Counter service food is on par with (and prepared similarly) to any of the lowest end national sit-down chains, and the cheaper table service stuff is on par with bland chain "gastropub" stuff. After we ate at Tiffins, (which was the only thing we had all week with any sort of thought provoking flavours) we bailed on spending any more money than we had to to keep ourselves fed. I'm sure the higher end stuff is really really good, but I'd save my time and energy for the parks and instead have a $400 night out back home that will be twice as good as the ultra high end WDW stuff. I guess if your regular visits to WDW are the only time non-chain restaurants are available to you (but come on, food culture has blown up so much that any town with even a Walmart has interesting food nowadays) it makes sense, but other than that I just don't get it. It's like how people rave about certain airports having good food now. I mean, I'm glad there's real restaurants and not just a Wolfgang Puck anymore, but that doesn't mean I'm going to go out of my way to eat at the airport. While not everything is stellar, and a lot of it is a bit overpriced, there are a lot of very good places to eat at WDW if you know where to go.
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Feb 12, 2017 21:44
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You probably should have given Disney Springs a better chance. If you really disliked the food in the parks (which it usually is aggressively mediocre), you would have been pretty happy with dining at springs. I'd argue that the best restaurants on property are in Disney Springs now and there's a lot of value to be found on the menus as well. That said, yes, Springs is miserable during the day, highly recommend going there around dusk to shop and get a bite.
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Feb 12, 2017 23:30
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couldcareless posted:You probably should have given Disney Springs a better chance. If you really disliked the food in the parks (which it usually is aggressively mediocre), you would have been pretty happy with dining at springs. I'd argue that the best restaurants on property are in Disney Springs now and there's a lot of value to be found on the menus as well. Some of the Disney Springs and resort restaurants are some of the top rated in the Orlando area, in fact.
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Feb 13, 2017 01:01
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Kreez posted:
Jumping on the bandwagon here to say that you should try California Grill, Artist Point, and Victoria & Albert's if you want to see what Disney can offer for fine dining. Tiffins is really no more expensive than comparable meals out at nice places, and the food is definitely as good if not better. The high end stuff like California Grill or Artist Point is nowhere near $400, that's only Victoria & Alberts which is a world class rated place that you would be hard pressed to beat at the same price point in most cities. Not to mention, you seem to be forgetting that Disney is a vacation and like any vacation people like to go all out and have a lot of cheat meals if they normally eat very healthy, spend big, indulge, or dive in to the full experience, whatever that is for them. Before living here, our sit down meal each day when we were at Disney was a great mix of good to fantastic food, nice time to unwind and relax from the hustle and bustle of the parks, and an entertaining experience with all of the themeing, not to mention great service. ...and everything tastes better when it's shaped like Mickey. Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Feb 13, 2017 |
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Feb 13, 2017 01:07
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I've found the table service food I've had in the parks to be good and I've always been happy with it. I'm not sure if I've eaten at the top tier places though. The quick service food is fine. It's moderately expensive, around the same as fast casual places where I live. By skipping breakfast at the resort you skipped mickey waffles (some resorts have character waffles instead) which, I mean, what were you even doing not having those at least once. I doubt they'd add a red team to mission space. Originally there was no orange team and green team, the whole ride was at the orange team level. They added green team because people were getting sick. From wiki: quote:Several people have been taken to local hospitals for chest pain and nausea after riding. Most who complained of these symptoms were over 55 years old. Two people have died after completing the ride, although due to pre-existing conditions — one, a 4-year-old boy, with an undiagnosed heart condition, and the other, a 49-year-old woman, from a stroke due to high blood pressure. Count me among the people who don't get the fuss over Soarin though. I've always felt underwhelmed by it.
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Feb 13, 2017 01:18
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Oh yeah, definitely n-thing California Grill. That place redefined sushi for me.
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Feb 13, 2017 01:19
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Dren posted:I doubt they'd add a red team to mission space. Originally there was no orange team and green team, the whole ride was at the orange team level. They added green team because people were getting sick. A person with a heart condition also died on it, but I don't remember if that was before or after they added the green level. It was their own fault for ignoring the posted and announced warnings of course.
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Feb 13, 2017 01:26
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Bottom Liner posted:A person with a heart condition also died on it, but I don't remember if that was before or after they added the green level. It was their own fault for ignoring the posted and announced warnings of course. I think all of the deaths occurred pre-Green, but every one of them was due to a pre-existing condition that would have been exacerbated by any intense theme park ride (or just coincidentally killed them during or shortly after riding).
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Feb 13, 2017 04:29
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The new bar in Wilderness Lodge looks fantastic.
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Feb 13, 2017 20:56
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One thing no one tells you about working for Disney is how expensive it is when you have to buy outfits JUST for one time things lol.
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Feb 15, 2017 00:34
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couldcareless posted:The new bar in Wilderness Lodge looks fantastic. The menu for it looks very foodie-centric and interesting. I might have to pop over there and try it.
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Feb 15, 2017 15:35
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Empress Brosephine posted:One thing no one tells you about working for Disney is how expensive it is when you have to buy outfits JUST for one time things lol. Yay Traditions. Also who wants a sky gondola from Epcot to Studios, cause we are probably getting that.
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Feb 15, 2017 17:03
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:Yay Traditions. I'm open to new scenic transportation, yes. And any new ways to get to epcot to cater to my alcoholic self is always a plus.
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Feb 15, 2017 17:05
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:Also who wants a sky gondola from Epcot to Studios, cause we are probably getting that. I wonder if a sky gondola would break down more or less often than the monorail.
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Feb 15, 2017 17:29
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:Yay Traditions. Traditions AND familiarity visits!!
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Feb 15, 2017 18:07
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Sky Gondola sounds so drat awesome and makes a ton of sense with the future of WDW re Hollywood Studios and EPCOT expansions. We saw Marty Sklar speak at the art festival this week and he was talking about how much EPCOT will be changing in the next few years. No details, but it's safe to say they have big plans.
Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Feb 15, 2017 |
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Feb 15, 2017 19:19
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Bottom Liner posted:Sky Gondola sounds so drat awesome Yeah for real I am so down with this already
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Feb 15, 2017 19:20
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:Yay Traditions. Me, I want that.
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Feb 15, 2017 21:20
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I am envisioning a sky boat on a wire, is that about right? Because that sounds pretty neat. Even more so if I can stare at the parks and resorts instead of the forest. Thanks to google I'm envisioning the correct thing now. That would still be awesome but I wonder the wait times and capacity.
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Feb 16, 2017 03:14
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Holy moly, a new town center and a 17 story 500 room addition to Coronado Springs, and new waterfront dining/shopping being added to Caribbean Beach. https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/b...-beach-resorts/
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Feb 16, 2017 22:47
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Is Coronado that popular that they need that many more rooms? Unless they're pushing the convention center aspect more.
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Feb 16, 2017 23:09
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Braksgirl posted:Is Coronado that popular that they need that many more rooms? Unless they're pushing the convention center aspect more. I, for one, welcome anime conventions to Disney.
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Feb 16, 2017 23:32
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I went to Disneys Coronado Springs last week and it wasn't that busy.  A huge tower at Disneys Coronado Springs will be weird.
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Feb 16, 2017 23:40
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At least it's different. They don't have many tall hotels. I appreciate the style, reminds me of a vegas strip hotel which is somewhat appropriate given it's more of a conventioneer hotel.
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Feb 17, 2017 00:13
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The last time I stayed there on vacation there was a convention for Jimmy John's managers and people were passed out everywhere every single night on the walk back to my room. Let's amp that up with a larger convention presence. Anime cons would be loving hilarious.
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Feb 17, 2017 00:13
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Tim Whatley posted:The last time I stayed there on vacation there was a convention for Jimmy John's managers and people were passed out everywhere every single night on the walk back to my room. Let's amp that up with a larger convention presence. Anime cons would be loving hilarious. Especially when they attack Disney Springs.
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Feb 17, 2017 00:40
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You say Anime Convention, I say Furry Convention. So many confused grandmas, straining to remember which film the hyper-technicolour LSD dream wolf fox with 9' longer ears and suspiciously large pouch is from.
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Feb 17, 2017 00:54
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You joke, but 2 years ago Disney Springs was overrun by furrys that were in town for a convention and it was incredibly awkward seeing them weird out all of the Disney guests that had no clue what was going on.
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Feb 17, 2017 01:01
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I'm sure WDW security was going insane trying to make a decision on what to do about that situation
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Feb 17, 2017 01:19
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| # ? May 25, 2024 13:43 |
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I wonder if the tower will visible from any of the parks. I know they're usually pretty anal about the sightlines.
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Feb 17, 2017 01:35
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