Disney Post 14 - Recap and What We Learned

I know most of you are sick of Disney blogging by now, so I promise this is the last one!  Let me start with the recap.

Park rankings:
1) Magic Kingdom
2) Hollywood Studios
3) Universal Islands of Adventure - This was a close call! Close to being number 2.
4) Animal Kingdom
5) Epcot
6) Universal Studios

Favorite Rides Disney:
Todd - Tower of Terror
Deanna and Alia - Expedition Everest
Lawson - Star Tours
Camilla - Anything that gently flies, ie. Dumbo, Aladdin, etc.


Favorite Rides Universal:

Todd - Revenge of the Mummy

Deanna - Despicable Me

Alia - Harry Potter

Lawson - Harry Potter

Camilla - Cat in the Hat

 Favorite Characters:

Todd - Captain America, Stitc

Deanna - Mr. Incredible (Not sure why she said that - she lives with him every day!) ;)

Alia - Pluto

Lawson - Belle (he may deny this)

Camilla - Ariel

 Favorite Themed Land:

Probably Harry Potter for everyone, New Fantasy land a close second.

Favorite Restaurant or Counter Service:

Todd - Be Our Guest (The BBQ place in Animal Kingdom gets an honorable mention for serving honest-to-goodness real BBQ.)

Deanna - Three Broomsticks

Alia - 'Ohana

Lawson - 'Ohana?

Camilla - Anything with treats

Favorite Snack:

Butterbeer!!  And it's not close.

Attractions we wanted to see but didn't:
Some of these we skipped because we rode that at Disneyland but they would have been sun to ride again.  Some we skipped because they are minor attractions and we rode the major ones over and over.
- Disney Railroad
- Enchanted Tiki Room
- Country Bear Jamboree
- Hall of Presidents
- TTA/People Mover
- Carousel of Progress
- Sum of All Thrills
- Epcot Films - we only saw a few
- Gi-Tar Dan
- Maharaj Jungle Trek
- Flights of Wonder
- Boneyard playground
- Great Movie Ride
- Stunt Shows - These are the things I wanted to see most that we didn't get to see, but unfortunately HS just has too many other awesome rides that we rode over and over.
- Voyage of the Little Mermaid
- Backlot Tour

What we knew already but was emphasized by experience:

- The two best things you can do to ride as many rides as possible - go during off peak times and get there before park opening!  Most people aren't willing to get up early on vacation, meanwhile we've ridden Tower of Terror seven times before they get out of bed!  :)

- It's humid in Florida, even when it's not hot.

- Characters are a surefire way to kill you're touring time, but are somehow irresistible.

- Universal hotels are definitely worth the cost.  The extra hour at HP and the express pass are invaluable!

- It's worth it to stay as long as you can.  The ticket costs only go down the more you buy and since you're paying to get out there you might as well see everything you can while you're there.  If/when we go back after the HP expansion, we would love 3 days at Universal/HP, 3 days at MK, 2 at HS and 1 at AK +/- 1 at Epcot depending on time of year.  That's 10 days!  Plus, we would love to have 1-2 days of just resort time interspersed between the parks to relax, recover and swim.  Obviously two weeks is a long time and the whole darn thing is so expensive that it probably won't happen that way.
- Having a rental car was worth it - for us.  Some people may be fine with Disney transportation.

What we learned:

- For us, the naps in the hotel were not worth it.  Better for us to have kids sleep in the stroller and do relaxing, longer attractions in the afternoons.

-You need to eat a LOT to tour hard at Disney.  Seriously.  We were usually eating a hobbit-like second breakfast by 10 am or so and the only days we had family tension were days when we didn't eat our second meal until noon or so.  Seriously, eat.

- Disney does not want you to have 3 kids.  They want you to have 2 kids only and stop.  Everything there seems to be designed for 4 people.

- Butterbeer is worth every cent and every calorie.

Thanks for sticking with me through all of my Disney posts!  We had an amazing trip creating memories with our family!

Disney Post 13 - Disneyland vs. Disneyworld

I bet you thought I was done posting about Disneyworld!  Not yet!

Having been to both Disneyland and Disneyworld as an adult (once each), I feel fully qualified to give my opinion on which one is better!  Of course, I'm not qualified at all and this post is mostly for myself, but hey.  Anyway, these are obviously just opinions, so I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks if they have been to both.  (By the way, Disneyland includes the Disneyland park and Disney's California Adventure.  Disneyworld refers to all 4 parks and resorts, not just the Magic Kingdom.)

First of all, let me say that if you love a wide variety of amazing resorts, or if you love Epcot, then it's not even close.  DW wins hands down.  They have all kinds of amazing places to stay, while DL has one really nice resort and two pretty nice resorts.  And there is nothing like Epcot at DL.  So, if you love those things, that's the end of the argument   

Fortunately for me, neither of those things are true.  I love the parks and the resorts are nice, but we tend not to spend too much time there.  And as I mentioned before, we liked Epcot, but didn't love it enough that we would be sad to go to a Disney park and not do Epcot, if that makes any sense.

So, with that out of the way, let's break it down.  These lists are based on my knowledge and experience and may be inaccurate.  To me, something is "important" if I would have come home from the trip, heard about the attraction and then kicked myself for not having ridden it.

Important attractions that are in both parks and are essentially the same:

Haunted Mansion

Peter Pan

Little Mermaid ride
Tea Cups

Splash Mountain

Big Thunder Mountain

Cinnamon Rolls

Steel Roller Coaster (Many would completely disagree with this, but the Rockin' Roller Coaster and California Screamin' are very similar big, fast, steel coasters but one is a dark coaster and one is not.  Since you don't really go to Disney to ride a regular coaster, it's basically a wash for me.)

Jungle Cruise (can't remember where we liked this one better honestly)

Bug's Life and Muppet Movies

Turtle Talk with Crush

Raft Ride

Toy Story Mania

Important attractions that are in both parks but better at DW:

Tower of Terror - I honestly don't remember a huge difference between the two but supposedly it's bigger and better at DW.

Cinderella Castle - this is a matter of taste, but most people prefer the larger castle in DW

Dumbo

Important attractions that are in both parks and better at Disneyland:

Small World

Pirates of the Caribbean 

Space Mountain

Fantasmic

Buzz Lightyear Astroblasters

Soarin' (because of the que and because hey, you're actually in california for the ride)

Jedi Training

Important attractions that are only at Disneyworld (this obviously doesn't include every minor ride):

New Fantasyland including Enchanted Tales with Belle.

Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom and Agent P

Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor

Everest

Illuminations

Beauty and the Beast show

Tree of Life

Festival of Lion King

Nemo

Animals (although, to be fair since DL is smaller, you could just drive down to the San Diego Zoo if you wanted a really fantastic animal experience - which we actually did)

Dinosaur (I don't think Deanna liked this enough to put it on a list as important)

Important things that are only at Disneyland:

Cars Land including Radiator Springs Racers (Some would say Test Track is similar to RSR and goes faster so is better, but not having ridden RSR I would say most people think it is a better ride than Test Track even if you think they are equivalent types of rides, so I'm leaving it here)

World of Color show

Matterhorn

Ferris Wheel

Indiana Jones ride

Grizzly Mountain

Carthay Circle Theater replica

Tigger Tails

Aladdin show (which is my favorite Disney park show so far)

Nemo Sub ride

Let's break down the other aspects of a visit to Disney.

Weather:
DW is hot and humid with a long hurricane season.  DL is hot and dry with no hurricanes.
Winner: DL, and it's not even close.

Food:
There is a much greater number of restaurants and quick service places at DW but in general we liked the food quick service places at DL well enough and we liked Blue Bayou better than any place at DW.  Plus, DL has mangoes!  But, DW has Cinderella's castle and generally a bigger selection of character breakfasts.
Winner: It's a wash.

Travel:
This is where DL has a HUGE edge.  You can stay on property or off property and be within a 15 minute walk of both parks.  The entrance to both parks is directly across from each other.  Downtown Disney is a few minutes away.  DW can take an hour to get to the park.  And the travel system can be byzantine with crazy buses, boats and monorails.

So, which park wins?  Well, I think that depends on your situation.

Who is Disneyland best for?
Families with very young kids - it's just so nice to have the flexibility of walking back to your hotel at a moments notice.
First timers - DW can be overwhelming.  If you've never been to either before, it's much easier to plan and naviagte DL than DW.
People who want the "original" Disney, built by Walt himself.
People who don't have a long time for their vacation - You can see everything at DL in 2-3 days.  Even with a full week, we felt like there was still so much to do at DW that we didn't get to see.

Who is Disneyworld best for?
One timers - DW is so huge and has so much variety to offer, if you're only going to do Disney once, might as well go big.
People who love resorts or Epcot.
Families with teens - with more stamina than little kids, you can get to experience the greater variety of DW; also, teenagers love HP so you can take a quick trip to the HP park
People who have a long time for their vacation

Who else is Disneyland best for?  Me!  The smaller size and the weather are enough to tip me over to generally prefer DL to DW.  It's like a super concentrated dose of Disney without the humidity.  I think, all things being equal, I would prefer to go back to DL rather than DW.  In fact, Deanna and I might just do that for our 15 year wedding anniversary this year!

Now, that being said, we also LOVE Harry Potter and the Harry Potter park, so when the expansion is open, we are definitely heading back to Florida to vist HP and DW again!

Disney Post 12 - Final Days

For our last full day in the World, we decided to sleep in and relax - no park time that morning.  We woke up late, took our time getting ready and then did something even more intense than touring a theme park - shopping!  We headed to downtown Disney and spent more than an hour scouring the Disney Store for the best and most affordable souvenirs.  We didn't even go into the nearby Lego store!  

That night Deanna and I went out for a romantic Disney date.  We had previously hired a sitter to come to the room and take care of the kids (like we did for Harry Potter with just Camilla) and we headed back to Epcot.  We hung out, took in World Showcase some more and ate delicious snacks.

Oh yeah, it was romantic for sure.

We also headed to the France Pavilion and went to dinner at a French restaurant there called Chefs De France.  Unfortunately we were too late for the appearance of the most famous chef (Remy from Ratatouille) but it was still nice to have a nice night out by ourselves.

We topped off our time at Epcot watching, "Illuminations, Reflections of Earth."  It is yet another impressive Disney nighttime spectacular with music, lasers, fireworks, a rotating, floating globe that shows video and coordinated illumination of the World Showcase pavilions.  It also had a special "Christmas tag" at the end with narration by Walter Cronkite.

And while we were gone the kids loved getting their faces painted and making animal balloons with the babysitter!

The next morning we finished off our Disney experience with a fantastic character breakfast at 'Ohana, a Lilo and Stitch themed restaurant at the Polynesian resort.

What's a trip to Disney without Mickey waffles!

Stitch is my favorite, so I was happy to get a picture with him!  Notice the matching Mickey shirts D picked out for us the day before at the Disney store.

Parting was pretty much just sorrow, without the sweet, especially since we came home to a blizzard which doubled how long it took us to drive home from the airport!

Our time in Orlando was fantastic and hopefully we created lifelong memories for our oldest two children.  We can't wait to do it again! 

Disney Post 11 - Hollywood Studios

The next morning we got up bright and early once again to head to Disney's Hollywood Studios!

The first thing Lawson and I did was to rush to the Jedi Training Academy sign up.  At Disneyland they pick you out of the audience (at least when we were there) so it was nice to be guaranteed a spot.  (The one at Land is better because it has Vader AND Darth Maul, but that's a discussion for another post.)

We tried to head to Toy Story, but it was closed for an hour or two so we got fast passes to come back.  Toy Story is one of our favorite rides, in part because it's just plain awesome, but also because everyone gets to ride it, so there's no sitting outside waiting.  We got to ride it twice by the end of the day.

 Then D took the girls to meet some characters while I finished signing Lawson up for Jedi Training. Alia had really been looking forward to meeting Pluto.

We met up with them at the character spot and Lawson and I got to say hi to Goofy.

Then, we headed over my favorite right in all of Disneyworld - the Tower of Terror!  This ride starts out with an incredibly cool, creepy theme and then moves you into an "elevator shaft" where it proceeds to randomly drop you up and down.  It's FANTASTIC!  The creepiness, the repeated falling sensations, the screaming of the other riders - I love it!

D and Alia loved it too and are on the right hand side of the picture here, although I like the girl in the back who is poking her sister in the eye.

At one point during the day we were doing the child swap for this ride and when D and Alia got done, they told the cast member they were doing child swap, who thought they meant they needed to be taken to the ride, so they got to go straight back on the ride without waiting!!  I was so jealous!

I didn't know where the camera was on this one.

Or this one...

We also really loved the Rockin' Roller Coaster as well.  Other than being in the dark, it's a pretty standard modern steel coaster, which is to say that it's completely awesome!  You start on a straight track and then are accelerated rapidly to top speed before you shoot up a hill in front of you.  You could see the cameras taking pictures of everyone during the acceleration, so Alia and I planned a nose picking picture.  Well, she couldn't reach her face because of the shoulder harness.  And I tried to pick my nose and make a face at the same time but the acceleration completely messed up what I was trying to do, so we got this picture instead:

Still, it's one of my favorites of the whole trip!

Here's D and Alia riding the same ride:

While Alia and I rode, Lawson, Camilla and Deanna had some fun in the gift shop.

Since Lawson is not a thrill seeker, his absolute favorite part of the day was all the Star Wars stuff he got to do.  One of his favorite things was the Jedi Training Academy.  Isn't this stage incredible with the giant AT-AT and the Ewok village in the background?  My inner 10 year old loves this stuff!!  

The Jedi Training Academy takes young kids (almost always boys it seems like), gives them a toy light saber and Jedi robes and then trains them how to use a light saber.  And, coincidentally, just as they finish learning how to use their light saber, Darth Vader and two Storm Troopers show up for a fight!

Here's the video of Lawson's battle!

Then, of course, there is the Star Tours ride.  It's a 3D motion type ride which uses a random sequence of movie clips made just for the ride that take you throughout various adventures in the Star Wars galaxy.  Again, I'm not a big fan of 3D in general, but much like the Spiderman ride, the 3D here is crisp and fantastic!  The Studios has so many other great rides that the line here was never long, so we rode it over and over.  We all loved it!  

At the end of the night, we went back for one last Star Tours ride.  D took the older two kids in while I stayed out with a sleeping Camilla.  The opening sequence of the ride always involves one of the audience members being photographed and put up on the screen as a "rebel spy."  Well, this time they chose Lawson as the rebel spy.  So, at the beginning of the ride, Darth Vader announces that they are looking for the spy and a big picture of Lawson's face pops up on the screen.  The cherry on top?  Lawson was PICKING HIS NOSE when they took the picture.  D and the kids found this absolutely hilarious, as I'm sure everyone else in the audience did as well.  That ride also had a sequence of clips we had never seen before.  This was probably the pinnacle of Lawson's time at Disney!

One thing we did not do enough was utilize our PhotoPass to do magic shots.  In each park, if you ask the photographers, they will do shots which insert Disney icons into the picture, like the one we took pointing at Stitch.  Fortunately we were able to get shots of us fighting Darth Vader!

We also loved the speeder outside the ride!

We also spent a long time in the Star Tours gift shop.  The kids got to make their own little Star Wars guys, make light sabers and generally go oooh and aaah at all the cool Star Wars gear they had.

Like these awesome hats.

Once again, we did not plan on spending a lot of time meeting characters, but the Studios had some really cool ones like the Incredible, Wreck It Ralph and Sorcerer Mickey, so we went ahead and waited in line for them.  That's a surefire way to kill your touring time, but the waits weren't too bad and we all really enjoyed it.

Warning, staring directly into the biceps may cause blindness.

It surprising to me how many bikini wearing princesses there are walking around Disney.

We also saw the Beauty and the Beast stage show this day, which was good, but not near as good as Lion King or Nemo over in Animal Kingdom.  The style of the show was almost more slapstick comedy than earnest love story.

Right next to the show is the Fantasmic night time show which is really fantastic.  There are lights, characters, water effects and a really cool HUGE dragon at the end.  I loved it, Deanna liked but didn't love it.

After Fantastmic we headed over to the major Studios Christmas display - the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights!  This is ridiculous display of lights that absolutely blankets one whole section of the park.  Spectacle is truly the best word to describe.  Unfortunately, it's so awesome that pretty much everyone in the park goes to see it, so the crowds are absolutely crazy.  With a stroller it is ridiculously hard to move.  It reminded me of the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade in New York.

This is about as much space as we had around our stroller all night.

Despite the crowds it was fantastic to behold and yet another way that Disney really goes all out for Christmas.