Planning our first Disney trip, advice needed

#51
#51
chatt-townVOL said:
Super late bump:

Ok so we just booked.

Late February, 6 days at a Disney resort (Pop Century).

3 days at Disney parks with Park Hopper.
1 rest day.
2 days at Universal.

For the park hopper we plan on:
Day 1: Animal Kingdom
Day 2: Epcot
Day 3: Hollywood studios in the morning, Magic Kingdom in the evening.

A few questions:
1) Has anyone stayed at Pop Century that can give me a rundown?
2) Any tips for the general area (must see, must ride, etc?)
3) Thoughts on our park plans?
Click to expand...

I would suggest trying to get over to Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney) for an evening, maybe your day off. Lots of shops, restaurants and a good place to spend a few hours walking around. We always enjoy it.

Have fun, sounds like you guys will have a blast.
 
#52
#52
chatt-townVOL said:
No kids.

It just seems odd because I hear so many mixed things about the size of animal kingdom. I mean we have the park hopper, so if we're done early we can go wherever. It just seems like half of the world tells me animal kingdom is huge, the other half tells me what you told me.
Click to expand...

We just returned from our 5th Disney World trip.

Animal Kingdom IS huge ... And can be done in half a day. Honestly, I'd skip Animal Kingdom altogether as it feels like a glorified zoo to me. Magic Kingdom is most people's favorite park and there are tons of rides there, although not many thrill rides. Still, it's classic Disney.

You need to go online NOW and try to reserve your fast-passes. Best ones to get by park are subjective, but here's my picks ...

Magic Kingdom
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
- Space Mountain
- Splash Mountain
- Peter Pan (lines get loooong)
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

Epcot
- Test Track (will be very tough to get since Soarin' is down for refurbishment)

Hollywood Studios
- Toy Story Midway Mania (my favorite ride in all parks)
- Rock N Roller Coaster
- Tower of Terror
- Star Tours
- All the Star Wars stuff is great!

Animal Kingdom
- Expedition Everest
- Dinosaur

I'd recommend going on the forums at Disboards.com ... They can answer ANY questions you have!
 
#53
#53
Do the dining plan for sure.

I would devote a day for magic kingdom and Epcot. Half day for animal kingdom and Hollywood studios. Just my thoughts.
 
#54
#54
govols1864 said:
Have kids?

You can do Animal Kingdom in half a day. Get up early and be done by 12. When we go we always do Animal Kingdom in morning and Epcot at night. Epcot has best food out of any of the parks and good fireworks. Suggest eating at one of the countries in Epcot.
Click to expand...

I second this recommendation
 
#55
#55
TNsnyper20 said:
Do the dining plan for sure.

I would devote a day for magic kingdom and Epcot. Half day for animal kingdom and Hollywood studios. Just my thoughts.
Click to expand...

Are you sure we can get a full day out of Magic Kingdom? It just doesn't seem like there's that many good rides for adults there.

It seems the same way with Epcot, but it seems like we could get a full day out of Hollywood Studios. It just throws me a curveball because the parks everyone says to combine into our one day seem to be the parks with the most to do, just from surfing the website.
 
#56
#56
chatt-townVOL said:
Are you sure we can get a full day out of Magic Kingdom? It just doesn't seem like there's that many good rides for adults there.

It seems the same way with Epcot, but it seems like we could get a full day out of Hollywood Studios. It just throws me a curveball because the parks everyone says to combine into our one day seem to be the parks with the most to do, just from surfing the website.
Click to expand...

You could probably switch those two around if you wanted to. We spent a day and a half at magic kingdom. Lefou's brew back towards the beasts castle is the ish... Had about three of them lol. We spent the most time there for my son. Hollywood studios is fun though.

The brown derby at Hollywood studios was a great place to eat. If you do the meal ticket make sure you eat there. Again highly suggest the meal ticket. Well worth it.
 
#57
#57
chatt-townVOL said:
We're going in March so I doubt heat will be a problem. My wife is huge animal person so I would say AK is a must. Really the two musts on the trip are AK and the Harry Potter attractions at Universal. Can you give me a summary of Epcot? Exactly what makes it so good for adults?
Click to expand...

I was really disappointed in Epcot. I went with my family when I was 15 and then again last year, not much has changed. You would think after 30 years there would be huge upgrades but not much at all. I wouldn't waste the money, they even have a 3D Michael Jackson thing and MJ was black, tells you how old it was
 
#58
#58
Go to Epcot for the World Showcase, especially if you're any type of foodie person. The food and beers are fantastic. Go to the Norway bakery and get a School Bread. Biergarten in Germany is a great buffet full of wursts and schnitzel and all things Bavarian, and the beer is great, too (but it's a little pricey).

I second the motion to go to Gaston's Pub in MK. Get a Lefou's Brew and a giant cinnamon roll.

We were there in October for our 3rd time, but we had a 4 and 2 year old with us (both kids' first time.

AK is the weakest of the parks, imo. With 3 days at the Disney parks, I would probably recommend you do you half days at Epcot and AK.
 
#59
#59
Also, there's a lot of construction going on at AK right now, just fyi.
 
#60
#60
And I forgot to add, we've stayed at three different Disney resorts, but not Pop Century, so I can't to speak to it.

And I haven't been to Universal since the 90s, but someone at work was telling me that to get the full Harry Potter experience, you had to buy some sort of park hopper to ride the Hogwart's Express. I'm completely speaking from hearsay, but just fyi in case you hadn't heard about it before.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
#62
#62
If you wanna get to' up from the flo' up, drink around the world. By the time you get to America the 2nd time, your brain will go night-night.
 
#63
#63
PotS said:
And I forgot to add, we've stayed at three different Disney resorts, but not Pop Century, so I can't to speak to it.

And I haven't been to Universal since the 90s, but someone at work was telling me that to get the full Harry Potter experience, you had to buy some sort of park hopper to ride the Hogwart's Express. I'm completely speaking from hearsay, but just fyi in case you hadn't heard about it before.
Click to expand...

re: HPWorld, truth. You have to have the 2-park pass for Universal and Islands in order to ride the train. The nice part is that it takes you to the other park. The crappy part is that you can only ride it once on the day (I'm pretty sure that's still the case). So ride it once you're done with the park you're at.
 
#65
#65
chatt-townVOL said:
No kids.

It just seems odd because I hear so many mixed things about the size of animal kingdom. I mean we have the park hopper, so if we're done early we can go wherever. It just seems like half of the world tells me animal kingdom is huge, the other half tells me what you told me.
Click to expand...

Animal Kingdom is huge in size but doesn't have that many rides. I would still suggest doing it. You have some decent rides their and Yak and Yeti is a good place to eat. My wife likes Flame Tree BBQ for lunch as well.

In Epcot Canada has really good steak. Japan and China isn't anything you can't get at home to be honest. Mexico is really good. If you want to go some where for an awesome steak hit up Shulas. It's costly but is an awesome place to eat as it has lots of pictures from Shula's days in the NFL. The menu is "live" and brought out on a cart. It's over at the Swan and Dolphin.
 
#69
#69
Lots of interesting info here, thanks for sharing it. We're taking our first trip the week of Valentine's day. Our son is going crazy excited to see the animal kingdom.
 
#70
#70
I am also planning a trip for October and while I have been to Disney dozens of times I haven't been in almost 15 years. I did find buying the Unofficial Guide a great resource. It is 832 pages full of great info and tips and was a huge help in my planning.
 
#71
#71
If anybody is interested, my wife is a vacation planner and specializes in Disney vacations. She will book your trip for you and if you book with her she will help plan fast passes and dinner reservations....as much or as little help as you need.

The best part is, you do not pay her anything (she gets a commission from Disney). She will find you the best rates and automatically apply any discounts that come up for your trip. The only requirement that there is if you are staying at least 3 nights and in the park for 3 days.

Email me the specs of your trip and I will forward it to her.....just put "DISNEY" in the subject line. whawkins128h@gmail.com
 
#72
#72
chatt-townVOL said:
Super late bump:

Ok so we just booked.

Late February, 6 days at a Disney resort (Pop Century).

3 days at Disney parks with Park Hopper.
1 rest day.
2 days at Universal.

For the park hopper we plan on:
Day 1: Animal Kingdom
Day 2: Epcot
Day 3: Hollywood studios in the morning, Magic Kingdom in the evening.

A few questions:
1) Has anyone stayed at Pop Century that can give me a rundown?
2) Any tips for the general area (must see, must ride, etc?)
3) Thoughts on our park plans?
Click to expand...

Hey everyone, thanks for all the advice. A good amount of it was put to good use.

We just got back today. I bumped the post above to remind everyone of the schedule we were on, and we stuck to it pretty well. Here's my rundown:

I will start with this: we completely underestimated the sheer magnitude of Magic Kingdom. That place is just absolutely stunning. We spent about 9 hours there, but we should have done a full day. My favorite ride there was honestly probably Space Mtn.

Hollywood Studios was good. Tower of Terror and Rockin' Rolller Coaster were legit. I enjoyed the Star Wars stuff the most though. It's a half-day park for sure. We combined it and MK into one day. We ended up doing 16.5 hours of parks that day.

What can I say about Epcot? Just an absolutely incredible place. "Soarin'" was closed so we did Test Track 3 times. Great ride. We're not big drinkers, but we did snacks around the world. That was rough by the time we got to America. Mexico was easily the best country, but we did the attraction at all of them (some were slow rides, some were movies, etc.) We spent just over 14 hours at Epcot.

We loved Animal Kingdom but we're also huge animal people. Everest is a terrific ride, and we rode the safari twice. The Tree of Life is one of the most incredible things I've ever seen in person.

On our rest day we rode the monorail just to see the parks. It was fun. We ended up going to Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney) and seeing Deadpool. Much much much needed rest day because my entire lower half was just in pure pain from the waist down.

This brings me to the Universal Parks. Universal and IoA are cool, but nothing compares to the Harry Potter parks. Diagon Alley was Day 1 (Universal) and it is the most visually stunning place I've ever been, and it is EXTREMELY accurate based on the movies. The first thing we did was go to Ollivander's and buy our interactive wands so we could interact with things at the park. Then we went on the Gringotts ride where the goblins at the bank are eerily real. Great ride also. Then we drank butterbeer. We bought the fastpass and spent 10 hours at Universal, I would say about 6 hours of that was in Diagon Alley.

As for Islands of Adventure, we spent 12 hours there, and about 10 of it was in Hogsmeade. Several of the rides in IoA are closed for maintenence, the ones that are left are all pretty lame. There were more people in Hogsmeade than in the rest of the park. Hogwarts is the best place in either park. It has (in our opinion) the best ride of the entire vacation, which is Harry Potter's Forbidden Journey. We rode it 5 times, and did the walking tour of Hogwarts.

But enough about that. In regards to general places we went, here's my order, then I'll post a few pics, and yes I'm ranking the HP worlds as different parks.

1. Hogsmeade (because of Hogwarts)
2. Diagon Alley
3. Magic Kigdom
4. Epcot
5. Animal Kingdom
6. Universal
7. Hollywood Studios
8. Islands of Adventure
 
Last edited:
New Posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

Advertisement



Back
Top