All About Disney

I survived Disney, alone with 2 kids.  I should be getting a medal for this but instead I am now broke, ha.  I got a ton of Disney questions so I figured the best way to answer them was in a blog post.  I’ll try to be as thorough as possible because A LOT has changed at Disney.

I’ve taken the kids to Disney quite a few times.  We used to always go when they offered the “free” dining plans and it was awesome. Gone are the days of Disney doing anything for “free”.  Including Fast Passes, sigh.  I was so not familiar with the new Genie+ and Lightning Lane system.  I thought I understood…..until I started booking rides our first morning.  Genie+ is a service I bought ahead of time.  It’s $15, per person….per day from my understanding.  I was under the impression we would be able to just book however many rides we wanted to book and those be our “fast passes”.  That is NOT the case.  You login at 7am and you frantically try to book the most popular rides.  I’d done a little research and from the Disney blog people I knew some of the most popular rides at Magic Kingdom were Jungle Cruise, Peter Pan, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Thunder Mountain.  I was logged in right at 7am and the earliest Genie+ pass I could get was 11:30am for Jungle Cruise.  What I didn’t understand was that the more popular rides (Seven Dwarfs Mine Train) you PAY for a Lightning Lane pass.  So $15 a person later (UGH) we had passes for Seven Dwarfs for later in the afternoon.  Apparently these Lightning Lane passes DO sell out so as annoying as it is to have to pay more money, I recommend it.  The line for Seven Dwarfs from open to close was almost 2 hours…..no thank you.  I also didn’t realize you can only book one Genie+ ride at a time.  There’s something called the 120 minute rule or something?  But, that doesn’t always apply because once 11am hit I could book another ride and we still hadn’t used the first one.  Honestly, still trying to figure the Genie+ thing out.  Here’s what we did and it worked out great.  We rode everything we wanted, except for Peter Pan.

 Since we stayed on a Disney property we got to enter the park 30 minutes before it’s “open”.  There are still a ton of people but I’d recommend getting there right at 8:30 (or whatever time you are able to enter prior to opening).  We were able to ride quite a few things before the public entered.  We headed straight for Peter Pan but it wasn’t open for whatever reason.  Before 9am we’d ridden Small World, Dumbo, Goofy Barnstormer and The Little Mermaid.  We went back to the barnstormer then headed to grab a Mickey waffle for breakfast.  Sleepy Hollow is the BEST, I highly recommend it.  I’d also highly recommend mobile ordering.  Some of the quick service lines are insane and mobile ordering was SO quick.  After we fueled up on Mickey Waffles we headed toward Jungle Cruise.  We waited for the Aladdin ride because it was only about 20-ish minutes.  By the time we rode that we headed to Jungle Cruise and as soon as we were scanned in I was able to book Buzz Lightyear for 1:00 and then after Buzz I booked Thunder Mountain for 2:30.  In between those we rode the Tomorrowland Speedway and the Mad Hatter Teacups.  Both of those were about 20-25 minute waits.  I said to myself we wouldn’t wait longer than that for a ride and if we wanted to do a ride with a wait longer than that we would use Genie+.  

 So, in total I think we rode 12 rides at Magic Kingdom which felt like a win for us.  We also visited Mickey at Town Square and the Princesses by the carousel.  We would’ve NEVER been able to do that many rides without Genie+ or buying the Lightning Lane for Seven Dwarfs.  So, was it worth it?  For us, definitely.  No one wants to spend their entire day in lines.  Oh, and stay for the fireworks.  They were amazing!

Ok, onto the Hollywood Studios experience.  We struggled this morning with the transportation.  Our plan was to get there at 8:30 again to get in early before “public” access but transportation gave us issues.  We were at a resort (I’ll cover this next) that uses the new Disney Skyliners to get to Hollywood Studios.  We walked over to them and were told they were down and to walk over the the buses. When we got to the bus line we were told the skyliners were open again.  Lots of walking and some frustration later we were on the Skyliners.  We got into the park about 8:45 and went straight to Tower of Terror.  It was about a 20 minute wait already but we waited.  Kenzie also HATED this ride, oooops.  Colton loved it.  Maybe save this one for the older kiddos.  After this we headed to Toy Story land to ride the Swirling Saucers, another 20-ish minute wait.  We stopped and grabbed some breakfast after at Woody’s and cannot recommend their fancy poptarts enough.  SO good.  We headed to Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railroad after this.  I bought a Lightning Lane pass for this because you can’t use Genie+.  I think I paid $12 each for this one for us.  We LOVED this ride.  It’s new since I’ve been and we thought it was great, definitely think it was worth the Lightning Lane price for us.  Slinky Dog was next and we had a Genie+ reservation for this.  The wait consistently all day was 70+ minutes.  Also, new to us and we loved this one too!  I then immediately booked Star Tours on Genie+ and while we waited for that we saw Muppets 3D.  We rode Star Wars Millenium Falcon (Genie+ pass) and Star Wars – Rise of the Resistance (Lightning Lane - $15 each).  Rise of the Resistance is hands down the most popular ride at Hollywood Studios so this is definitely worth the Lightning Lane price.  I also recommend doing that FIRST when you are booking things, it WILL sell out.  At Hollywood Studios I’m not sure that Genie+ is worth it just because you’ll pay to ride the 2 most popular rides.  The longest waits were at Toy Story Mania later in the day and we didn’t wind up getting to go on it because the line was so long.

We stayed at Disney’s Pop Century resort.  We were in the room to sleep and shower so I didn’t want to spend the money on anything fancy to be honest.  We did wind up eating a quick breakfast here one morning and the food was good.  It was honestly perfect for us.  It had one queen (for me) and a murphy bed for the kids.  I didn’t feel crowded, the room was clean and was perfect for sleeping and showering.  I’ll save my nice hotel rooms when I’m on an adult vacation, ha! 

We ate some great things.  I’ll hit the the highlights and what I’d skip.  Highlight meal was at Magic Kingdom – Jungle Skipper Canteen.  SO good and great service.  I booked this as soon as I booked our trip.  If you’ve ever tried to book Disney dining you know it is quite the competition.  You can book dining 60 days in advance and if you want to get where you want you better do it the SECOND it’s open.  We had done Be Our Guest and Cinderella’s Royal Table before so I wanted a different experience.  Colton had kids chicken and I swear it was the best kids chicken I’ve ever tried.  Kenzie had the kids steak and again, amazing.  I had the shrimp fried rice (the appetizer) and it was wonderful.  They also have sparkling rose which was also perfect after 10 hours at the park.  It was nice to sit for an hour and relax after the busy day we’d had.  We also had the most amazing (and huge!) Mickey Waffles from Sleepy Hollow, I’d definitely recommend these.  My kids destroyed them. 

Hollywood Studios wasn’t the best table service experience.  We ate at the car drive in and while the concept was cute, the food was just ok.  The service definitely wasn’t as good as the Jungle Canteen either.  If I could do it over I’d definitely pick another table service restaurant here.  Woody’s was great for breakfast, we loved the poptarts!  At Disney Springs we had a quick dinner at Earl Of Sandwich on Friday, it’s always good.  We’ve been there many times, there’s also one at Phipps in Atlanta!  We had Dole Whip from a cart near the big Disney Store….don’t skip this when you’re here.  Sunday we had lunch at something Ale?  I can’t even remember the name and honestly the food was blah.  Expensive and not good, definite skip for us.  There are tons of places to eat but I slacked on making a reservation ahead of time cause our plans changed seeing family. 

Ok, I need to stop….this is so long.  I am SO thankful I took the kids. They truly were the perfect ages.  They still think it’s magical but they don’t complain about walking or they don’t need naps or anything.  This was by far my favorite Disney experience with them and I’m truly so happy I did it.  It’s expensive, exhausting and difficult but I’ve got memories with them that we will all remember forever.  Disney truly is a magical experience.

xo

Jess

Oh, and I’ll cover everything we wore, packed and needed/didn’t need in the next post!