• 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

I went w/ a friend who is from India once and he had to stop every 2 hours to get coffee. It was 86 degrees and he was all about some coffee.
 
Eventhough I have not been back since around 2000, I do remember having to plan out meals early. For instance, if you're at Studios in the morning, you better go to the restaurant first to get ressie where you want to eat. My sister and I always wanted the Sci-Fi drive in place or Mom's.

Sci-Fi Drive In sucks. The food is bad and the movie trailer loop is too short.
 
Sodium prob in the 2000mg range?
 
nonsense. it's turkey. it's healthy.

they are tasty, though. we usually split one between a few ppl.
 
nonsense. it's turkey. it's healthy.

they are tasty, though. we usually split one between a few ppl.

I can see that.

Also, the minimum walking we did at Disney was 7mi. One day, we hit 13mi, largely because we were doing the card game at MK.
 
We ate at the Brown Derby at MGM tonight. Lobster Bisque and Rack of Lamb. Quite tasty.

Tusker House tomorrow for lunch.

MGM is good, but it is more "show" focused.
 
Last edited:
You're going to have a nice time eating at Tusker House. Make sure you're hungry. The food overall at Animal Kingdom has improved significantly over the last few years. Two years ago, Tusker House was the only think I'd look forward to eating. Now they've got a few good counter service options in Africa and on the way to Asia. The stuff in Dinoland is solid as well.
 
Tusker house was great. We didn't realize it was a character lunch also. Most of the food has been average, except the Brown Derby and Tusker House.
 
We ate last night at Shutters, the restaurant int he Caribbean Beach Resort. It was a solid meal. I would rank our sit down meals.

Brown Derby/Tusker House 1A/1B
Shutters
Garden Grille at Epcot
Liberty Tavern at MK (Wasn't that impressed with this meal)

Quick service was all pretty much what you would expect.
 
I've always wanted to try Garden Grille. The problem is about 80% of the best places to eat in all the parks are in Epcot. Up that to 95% during Food & Wine or Flower & Garden when they bring in the small plate kiosks. Sunshine Seasons is great counter service and I think we've only eaten there 2 or 3 times.

As far as adult stuff in the parks, for some reason Disney only recently figured out that adults like to drink alcohol and will pay good money to do so in the parks. Disney recently announced that four restaurants in World Showcase will stay open after Illuminations until 11 with a $35 fixed drinks and appetizer menu.

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/epcot/after-hours/

Admission to Epcot After Hours Wind Down costs just $35 per Guest—tax and gratuity not included—and comes complete with one (1) beverage and a delectable selection of light snacks.
The price is ridiculous but at least they're getting the idea. If they expanded the concept, they could really do damage building on Go's idea above.

Yes exactly. They need to expand the Star Wars and have a Star Wars world, aka the Wizarding World of HP.

Then go all out on the Halloween/terror motif, create some scary ass rides and put them near the big attractions near Tower of Terror. Two birds, one stone. Maybe even call it the Land of Villains.

After the last Fantasmic of the evening, block off that area, bring in a beer truck and serve small plates at the counter service. Anybody 21+ can pay for a wristband for a set number of drinks and access to that area still midnight. Extend the blocked in area over to Toy Story and they could name their price. People would pay a premium to ride that straight for 3 hours between beers.
 
Don't understand why the MK is the only one to stay open late night. I think it is the least adult park.
 
Because it's the #1 most visited theme park in the world and #8 most visited tourist attraction in the world. It has by far the most attractions of any park, so it requires more hours to do everything.
 
Some quick info for anybody planning a trip this summer.

Magic Kingdom
-The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride opens May 28. It's a roller coaster between Goofy's Barnstormer and Big Thunder Mountain in intensity and has a 38 inch height requirement. It will be the most popular ride in the park this summer so use your FastPass+ wisely.

-God forbid you have daughters who love Frozen. Anna and Elsa are at Magic Kingdom now after being at Epcot Norway after the movie came out. Wait times now in the calm before the summer storm are between 3-4 hours. It's guaranteed to be that bad over the summer. As far as I can tell, you can't get a FastPass+ for it. Godspeed.

Animal Kingdom
-Had dinner at Tusker House on Sunday night for the first time since my 21 month old was born. Had a great time. Worth every penny to have a nice buffet meal at a place that doesn't mind crazy kids. One of my favorite things about late dinner at Tusker House is that the park is basically empty when after dinner because the park closes around dusk. It's neat to be the only people still in the park. It's a unique experience that won't last long because Disney is actively working to make Animal Kingdom an all-day park. We got there on Sunday around 1:00 and plenty of people were leaving.

-On that note, Animal Kingdom is starting a new Saturday night after hours show called "Harambe Nights." https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/animal-kingdom/harambe-nights/
It's $119 and includes dinner, drinks, and a Lion King themed concert show to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the movie. If it's Tusker House food, 2 or 3 drinks, and anything close to Lion King on Broadway, that's a good price. If not, buyer beware. Right now, it is only scheduled for the summer.

-Disney also announced last week that Animal Kingdom will have a nighttime spectacular called "Rivers of Light." Apparently, this has been in the works for at least 7 years and they've been doing test performances after park closing. No date, but it's worth considering when making plans.
http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/bl...spectacular-coming-to-disneys-animal-kingdom/

-AvatarLand is under construction and still scheduled for 2017, so keep that in mind for long term plans.
 
Ph- thanks for the updates- concerning Avatarland, does anyone still care about Avatar now, let alone in 2017? That seems like a headscratcher to me.
 
Hoosier, from what I've seen and heard from the Disney media I follow, most hardcore fans feel the same way.

Disney has been put on their heels by Universal Studios highly successful Harry Potter expansions and other new attractions. In their efforts to counter it, they struck a deal with James Cameron back in 2011 to bring his 2009 movie to the parks. Avatar came out in December 2009 and Avatar Land was announced in September 2011. Over that period, Avatar became the highest grossing film of all time. So to them, it made sense to strike a deal take away some of the buzz of Universal's Harry Potter expansion which had opened the previous year. Of course, even in 2011 it was clear that Avatar didn't have the staying power of the Harry Potter series or even Titanic or even many of the timeless movies Disney has made over the years. A lot of people saw it once and never thought about it again. There are sequels coming out around the time the land opens so Disney may win the timing after all, but for now, it doesn't look like a great match unless you consider other factors.

The pros to Avatar are that Pandora was a really cool world. And Disney is planning on incorporating that and using it as a way to do cool nighttime stuff at Animal Kingdom. The concepts look great. Disney's original plan for that area of the park was called "Beastly Kingdom" which was supposed to feature mythical animals. They ran out of money because they underestimated how much it would cost to take care of all those animals. That gets into a larger question of why Disney felt they needed to build a zoo, but whatever.

Disney's other counter to Harry Potter was New Fantasyland which is a fascinating story about bad timing. New Fantasyland features attractions based on movies released in 1937, 1941, 1989, and 1991. Not very new. And only one of the attractions is a unique attraction that wasn't elsewhere at Magic Kingdom or Disneyland. The Mine Train ride is the last thing debuting about 18 months after the rest. The original plan didn't have the Mine Train. It was pretty much all princess stuff. The story goes that the guy in charge of building New Fantasyland took his sons to his office to show off the plans and they immediately told him it was too girly. So they had to add in the Mine Train as something that wasn't princessy.

So Disney has spent the last 7 or so years trying to beat what Universal Studios did with Harry Potter. They bought the rights to theme around the highest grossing movie of all time at Animal Kingdom and built a new area of Magic Kingdom with old classics.

So let's look at the list of all-time highest grossing movies now:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films#Highest-grossing_films

Three of the top 6 are Disney-owned and came out in the last 2 years. Avengers, Iron Man 3, and of course, Frozen. They didn't have a crystal ball, but they've got to be kicking themselves for shelling out cash to Cameron and wasting R&D time adapting his stuff that could have been spent preparing something for Frozen. They can't do anything with Avengers in Orlando, but they can in all the other parks, but they're playing catch up there.
 
Back
Top