Back from WDW. Got miserably sick (combined with my first ever panic attack) on the very first day. EMTs called, and I was wheelchaired out of the park. Disney comped our sit down meal, sent us back to the hotel with tons of food and water and desserts, and paid for the taxi back to the hotel. Broke my fever overnight. Felt 95% better the next two days. Sick again on our last day.
Overall, we had a great time though. I concur with others, Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lanes are a must to avoid the lines. Spring Break crowds were awful, as expected, combined with 90-degree heat....I refused to wait in any line longer than 40 min. Genie+ and ILL made that possible.
The souvenir shop got us. Otherwise, our planned "budget trip to Disney" would've been mostly a success. We did one sit-down meal. The rest of the time, we just made sandwiches and ate snacks or shared quick service meals. It can be done.
For now, I think the big family trip is bypassing the cruise and will opt for WDW. Unfortunately, the only time we can all get together is the week of Christmas. It's going to be jam-packed. But at least it won't be in the 90s. Does anyone know if the resorts heat the pools in the winter time? Orlando can get quite "cold" at times.
We were there on Tuesday. It was the opening of Tron and one of their band days. My kids are young enough (1,2,6,8) that they’re still pretty satisfied only spending a day at Magic Kingdom and then we spend the rest of the week at the beach near Tampa.
I’ll second that Genie Plus/LL is a must. We rode everything we wanted to and used one to meet Mickey for my son. The only thing we had an issue with was that we had used the LL to book Peter Pan as soon as the park opened, but there were mechanical issues during our time to use it. We checked with a park employee and they basically comp you an additional LL experience to use as a replacement at any time.
I’m not a Disney guy. Never grew up going, but my wife did and my kids are still into it. It’s really grown on me. Can’t beat watching the fireworks over the castle with your family. Or seeing your son meet Mickey and Woody for the first time. Or your daughters meet the princesses. The memories make it all worth it and I find myself agreeing to go back every time it comes up in discussion. I’m not sure we’ll ever do a full week—I still think you can get the most out of Disney in 2-3 days. Animal Kingdom is avoidable if you’ve ever been to a Zoo in your life—UNLESS your kids are into meeting all the characters—and mine really aren’t.
You basically know you’re going to pay out the ass for food and souvenirs, but I will say that they’ve streamlined a lot of their processes to make the park experience as smooth as possible. Their quick service food is pretty solid—up there with ballpark food, IMO. We’ve done “Chef Mickey” in the past, but that was mostly a gimmick to meet characters and the food was only mid-level buffet quality.
And I’ll second the fact that it was hot as hell in Orlando early last week. Luckily we brought our own water in preparation and they have bottle fill areas around the park.
Glad you got on your feet and still got to enjoy your trip!
