Planning our first Disney trip, advice needed

#81
#81
Sounds like you had a fun yet exhausting trip.

Looks like you were at MK at night. Hope you stayed for the Electric Light Parade.
 
#83
#83
chatt-townVOL said:
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
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I told you Epcot was a must! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
 
#84
#84
Really glad you took the time to plan and were able to enjoy the trip. If you take the time , as you did, to really take everything in, it's an incredible place.

I had a friend who recently went to Jacksonville for work, and his family (wife, daughters aged 4 & 3) flew down with him. On his last day, they drove down to Orlando and MK, without a hotel booked and without any forethought into the MK.

They didn't ride anything, met princess' Ariel and Elsa, rode the carousel 5 times, watched the fireworks and parade, and then his kids quit walking (no stroller) so he had to lug them both out. I told him he was doing it wrong, and he retorted that Hershey Park was WAY better. Lol.
 
#85
#85
Just got home from Disneyland tonight. Went all day for my daughter's 4th birthday. Nothing better than Disney on a kid's birthday.
 

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#86
#86
SDV said:
Just got home from Disneyland tonight. Went all day for my daughter's 4th birthday. Nothing better than Disney on a kid's birthday.
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Nice. I wonder how Disneyland and Disney World stack up against each other.
 
#88
#88
chatt-townVOL said:
Nice. I wonder how Disneyland and Disney World stack up against each other.
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Been to both. The Magic Kingdoms are a wash between the two, but WDW is more immersive. Once you're on property, you don't have to think or see the outside world. Disneyland has all of this buildup around it that is just sprawl. It's not as nice.

Plus like SDV said, WDW has Epcot, Animal Kingdom which has no equivalent at DL. Plus the on site hotels from the moderates on up are very nicely themed and maintained.
 
#89
#89
Godfatha said:
Been to both. The Magic Kingdoms are a wash between the two, but WDW is more immersive. Once you're on property, you don't have to think or see the outside world. Disneyland has all of this buildup around it that is just sprawl. It's not as nice.

Plus like SDV said, WDW has Epcot, Animal Kingdom which has no equivalent at DL. Plus the on site hotels from the moderates on up are very nicely themed and maintained.
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I was just reading up on the differences, it looks like the castles don't even compare.
 
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#90
#90
Disney Land was basically the beta tester for Disney World.
 
#91
#91
chatt-townVOL said:
Reppin' my Vols in front of Hogwarts

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be glad your lady enjoys that stuff. very lucky. looks like fun, thanks for sharing!

my wife wouldnt go to Disney for fun if the world was coming to an end. Fortunately she enjoys cruises sooo we'll def be doing Disney cruises when babes get out of diapers.
 
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