• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Disney World Tips and Tricks

Is "little bofunk" a young you or your son? If it's the latter, you're older than I thought.
 
Biff Tannen thinks bofunk is referring to himself in the third person.
 
Speaking of photos with characters, scored one with Jasmine today. Posted on the Facesbook of you're a friend.
 
923, I've got two child swap passes we didn't use that are good until the end of the month. They're basically the same as Fastpasses for up to 3 people for Test Track at Epcot and Primeval Whirl at Animal Kingdom. PM me your address if you want them.
 
Last edited:
Nice. The red snapper at Boatwright's was solid. I'm looking forward to doing more nice dining now that the boys are older.
 
Just returned from a week at WDW. NEVER going in summer again. Either 1000 degrees or torrential thunderstorms (which shut down many rides). Animal kingdom was awesome. New fantasy land also very good. Will post more tomorrow.
 
Yeah, don't go in the summer. It's great for your kids to have perfect attendance and all, but summer is a tough time time to go to Disney World or anywhere in FL for that matter. We have the season pass and can't go back until mid-August and I'm perfectly fine with that.
 
The weather is bad, but my bigger issue is the crowds.
 
Yeah, don't go in the summer. It's great for your kids to have perfect attendance and all, but summer is a tough time time to go to Disney World or anywhere in FL for that matter. We have the season pass and can't go back until mid-August and I'm perfectly fine with that.

Sidebar: I get the impact of good attendance for the older kids, but does it really matter to pull your younger kids for a vacation in the middle of a school year?
 
last time we went during spring break, but this time our kids breaks didn't line up. in hindsight should've gone then anyway. Crowds and weather were much worse.

We had a great trip except for the day at Hollywood Studios which was a near-total bust. Kids refused to ride Tower of Terror or Rockin Roller Coaster, Great Movie Ride was broken, and it rained all day. Star Tours was cool. Both days at Magic Kingdom were awesome; we pushed through the weather and did all the rides and attractions. Mrs. 923 geeked out on disneytouringplans.com or some such website and put together really smart plans. The new Fastpass system really puts a premium on planning ahead. I think if you just show up and try to get Fastpasses day of and go from there, you would end up wasting a lot of time and standing in a lot of lines.

The new Be Our Guest restaurant is really cool. It's beautifully decorated like the inside of Beast's castle. You go through a line and place your order and pay. Then they either give you a "magic rose" or link your order to your Disney wristband (we didn't have the wristbands). You take the magic rose to any table you want. There are three enormous dining rooms. The central one looks like the big dance hall from the movie, the "West Wing" is all dark and looks like the Beast's ripped up bedroom, complete with rotating rose in a glass case, and the last is an airy room with lots of images from the movie and a big central rotating statue of Beauty and the Beast. Then servers with carts come to your table, guided by the GPS locator in the magic rose/magic band. It was pretty neat. Food was good too, and for Disney, reasonably priced. I paid $14 for a quite good salad nicoise with seared tuna - that would probably be $12-13 at just about any restaurant. They have killer French onion soup, too.
 
Also, I highly recommend Akershus in the Norway area of Epcot. It's pricey, but the food is delicious and plentiful and several princesses circulate around for pictures with the kiddos.
 
Disney really seems to have stepped up their food quality and nutrition in the past few years.
 
i have a bit of a rant about all the people in scooters.

First, let me be clear, I want handicapped people to be able to enjoy Disney and I have no problem with enduring some inconvenience so that handicapped people can have access. But holy shit, Magic Kingdom was FULL of motorized scooters driven by people who, as far as I can tell, were simply fat and/or old. There were also several delays on the rides while they stopped them to get people in and out of their scooters. Whenever it would rain, all the scooter people would park their scooters under all the available overhangs and arches and really clog up traffic. The crowds were such that the scooters couldn't maneuver freely even without the rain, so they just sort of push their way through the crowds. One old bastard almost ran my daughter over, and kept pushing his scooter through a huge crowd regardless of anyone around him.

I was thoroughly tired of scooters by the time we left. I don't know a good solution that Disney can implement without getting sued, but it sure would be nice if they could limit the number of scooters in the park on really crowded days or something like that.
 
i have a bit of a rant about all the people in scooters.

First, let me be clear, I want handicapped people to be able to enjoy Disney and I have no problem with enduring some inconvenience so that handicapped people can have access. But holy shit, Magic Kingdom was FULL of motorized scooters driven by people who, as far as I can tell, were simply fat and/or old. There were also several delays on the rides while they stopped them to get people in and out of their scooters. Whenever it would rain, all the scooter people would park their scooters under all the available overhangs and arches and really clog up traffic. The crowds were such that the scooters couldn't maneuver freely even without the rain, so they just sort of push their way through the crowds. One old bastard almost ran my daughter over, and kept pushing his scooter through a huge crowd regardless of anyone around him.

I was thoroughly tired of scooters by the time we left. I don't know a good solution that Disney can implement without getting sued, but it sure would be nice if they could limit the number of scooters in the park on really crowded days or something like that.



201152489198.jpg
 
Disney really seems to have stepped up their food quality and nutrition in the past few years.

This has been the biggest improvement over the last five years. Epcot is still heads above the rest but Animal Kingdom is catching up.

923, did you do a reservation for Be Our Guest? It was a 90 min wait last time we went.

touringplans.com is great. The guy who runs it is out of Greensboro. I'll post more about it later.
 
This has been the biggest improvement over the last five years. Epcot is still heads above the rest but Animal Kingdom is catching up.

923, did you do a reservation for Be Our Guest? It was a 90 min wait last time we went.

touringplans.com is great. The guy who runs it is out of Greensboro. I'll post more about it later.

No, we just jumped in line. They said it was an hour wait but it didn't take that long, maybe 30 minutes. They can really move people through that thing thanks to the whole "magic rose" service system. Very streamlined.
 
Good to know. Maybe we will try that next time although waiting 30 minutes with two toddlers is asking a lot. We end up eating at Cosmic Rays pretty much every time we go to Magic Kingdom.
 
My wife booked the condo directly with the owner, probably through VRBO or something like that. If you google Windsor Hills Resort rentals there's a bunch of hits. Several of the owners have their own websites. I don't think anyone actually lives there, basically all the owners rent them out for Disney tourists and it's totally set up for that. There's a nearby grocery store, a big central pool with a big waterslide in addition to the "personal" pool behind each condo, etc.

Diamond Parking as far as I can tell is just a member benefit of AAA, although maybe you have to buy your Disney tickets through them to get it, I'm not 100% sure. The wife is the Disney nut and has handled 100% of the planning for this voyage.

HUGE recommendation for Windsor Hills. We paid $700 for a three bedroom place for the week, decorated for Disney, pool in backyard, nice community pool, etc. It's less than 10 minutes to any park gate and in/out was a breeze.
 
My only "advice" is just a lucky thing that happened to me. First day at Magic Kingdom, showed up right when parking lot opened, only had $100 bill. Lady said "go ahead, I can't break that yet". Boooya, $20 saved.
 
Back
Top