Walt Disney World Trip Reports
Topic: My week in WDW (longer version)

#	Author	Message
1	jonvn Mon 1/21/2008 11:09a	We just finished a week at Walt Disney World. We flew in on United Airlines. Every flight we took, two going out, one coming back was late. They don't serve food anymore on their flights. Now they have little snack boxes for five bucks. They had nothing in them worth buying. We knew about this, and had brought some snacks, but were really amazed at how awful the food offerings were. They'd probably do better if they simply sold gas station sandwiches. On our way out, we have a layover in Chicago. It was an interesting experience. Apparently, no one smiles in Chicago. The workers there were all surly and gruff. This was both the airport and the airline workers. Just unpleasant. It's not like that in San Francisco. In any case, I had a Vienna Beef Chicago style hot dog. The hot dog itself was good, but I don't like all that junk they pile on it. Anyway, we fly out, and land in Orlando. We have Disney's Magical Express which works pretty well. But if you do this, you should be aware that your luggage does not get to you until the next day. So don't put anything in your checked bags that you can't do without until the next morning. So we check into our hotel. We're staying at the Wilderness Lodge. The lobby is amazing. The hotel is OK. It's a three star hotel dolled up to be something more than it really is. Our room is small, there is no room service after midnight, and the restaurants are weak. For a hotel of higher caliber, you would expect food service that was of higher caliber than IHOP. We did not eat at Artist Pointe this trip. When we did last time, it was very good, but really not great. The Whispering Canyon Cafe was simply weak. A long wait, small menu, very high prices, and bland food. The other food locale, Raging Forks (or whatever it is called) had food that was less costly, but far more greasy. I have to wonder what the lower end on property hotels must be like. This "premium" resort was about at the level of a Holiday Inn, albeit with a nicer lobby and cutesy room furniture. Sure, the lobby was great. The rest was not. The pool had debris in it, the water in the spa had to be set at 120 degrees if it was set at anything. I dipped one foot in it, and was afraid I was going to get scalded. No one was using the spa. You had to have leather skin to get in the thing. The lower end resorts have to be giving Motel 6 a run for their money in the poor accommodation department. Our first full day was spent at the Magic Kingdom. It's an odd feeling and rather disorienting to go here because I am so used to Disneyland. I think Disneyland's layout and appearance is a lot nicer. The rides, however, are much better in Florida. All the ones that are the same both here and there are better there, even Pirates of the Caribbean, which while a tiny bit shorter has a much nicer line area. But everything looks much more plastic in Florida. The castle, which has a stone exterior in Disneyland, has a fiberglass one in Florida and it gives the impression of being a huge lawn ornament more than a castle. It looks pretty, but on close inspection, it has a crummy appearance. We went into the Country Bear Jamboree. I hadn't seen this in nearly a decade. Now I recall why. It was painful. I was excited to see it again, but it's a dull show now. I thought the kid was enjoying it, but he came out of there saying "I hated that. I don't ever want to see that again." Literally. He didn't say that about any other thing in the entire resort, and I'm not sure why he hated this show so much. He really enjoyed the Haunted Mansion, declaring the broken busts in the cemetery scene to be "awesome." He's never seen the non-holiday version of the Haunted Mansion before. He very much enjoyed that. Going into Philharmagic, I expected to be wowed, considering all the praise this thing gets. It's YATDM. Yet another three D movie. The Aladdin part was nice. The rest was a non-starter. Enough with the 3D movies. Once is great, a couple times, OK. But now they are everywhere, and the trick is old. The kid liked it well enough, though. I can't recall what was there before. What was the ride that was in that location before this film was put in? Tomorrowland has been turned into pure unadulterated garbage. For those people who don't understand why I and others complain about the excessive use of cartoons in attractions, they simply need to visit this area. Flight to the Moon replaced by Stitch. CircleVision replaced by Monsters Inc. Buzz Lightyear replacing whatever it replaced. And now, The Incredibles will be replacing Carousel of Progress. It is all cartoons; the area is simply terrible and unentertaining and is plainly targeting the double digit IQ crowd. Monsters Inc Laugh Floor is beyond hopeless. They repeat over and over again how it's funny, you better laugh, and so on. It's not funny, it's just awful. The Stitch ride is really bad as well, with the kid saying "That's it?!" afterwards. And really, if you can't impress a five year old...But Space Mountain is a far better experience there than in Disneyland. It is like night and day. I suppose if the Internet was around back in the 70s when the one in Disneyland was built, it would have been derided as the cheap version like Pooh is now. But that's really what it is. The food in the Magic Kingdom, while not great, is certainly better on average than what you get at Disneyland, as well. In fact, the food all over WDW is so much better than what you find in Disneyland it is hard to believe that they are both parts of the same company. Does no one in the upper echelons of the corporation actually eat at these places? Do they not know what is happening? My guess is that they simply don't care. The next day we head over to Epcot (EPCOT? EPCOT Center? Whatever...) I had read online about this TERRIBLE new fence that had been put in by the entrance. Saw pictures of it and everything. We walked by it. It's a fence. It's no big deal. No one was pointing at it and shrieking as if it were something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It was a rather simple thing that funneled people into the pointless security check point. Spaceship Earth has also gotten similar treatment. People think the ending is terrible, the voiceover was bad, and so on. I thought it was greatly improved since our last visit. I thought the ending was funny and cute. Other people did as well, as you could hear them laughing at it. It was entertaining. The same cannot be said for the Nemo addition to Living Seas. This was terrible. They layered a cartoon onto this thing where it simply does not belong, does not add to the show, does nothing but inappropriately shoehorn a cartoon into something that did not need it. It was not great before. A bit stodgy, but this change now makes it for idiots. I was pretty disappointed with it. As a small side thing in the overall pavilion, sure, that would have been cute. But this is now the main thrust of the entire show, and it is very out of place. Mission Space, on the other hand, was really enjoyable, except it belongs in Tomorrowland in Magic Kingdom. They are so dumbing down every last thing. Stuff that belongs in Fantasyland goes into Tomorrowland now. Stuff that belongs in Tomorrowland now goes into Future World. Except for Nemo, of course. Nemo also belongs in Fantasyland. I went on both sides of Mission Space. The green side first. It was very entertaining. It had nothing to do with Future World. Obviously the people running the place have no clue as to what is put where or why, a common problem throughout their theme parks now. But hey, the public is STUPID so, what's the difference, right? Later on in the evening, I went on the orange side. It's very intense, but a real fun experience. I didn't understand why people would get sick from this, but as I exited the ride, someone was sitting there on the bench, covered in vomit. His own, I assume. This guy did not look too well. As I walked down the exit hallway, I realized the entire length of the thing smelled of puke. The ride did not make me ill, but this exit was starting to get to me. I had to start breathing through the sleeve of my jacket. How many people a day must be vomiting in this hallway? The smell indicated various states of vomit freshness there. It has to happen all day long. What a fun ride to work on. Ellen's Energy Adventure was fun, but god awful long. It's over 45 minutes long. I like Ellen, but this can be cut by a good 15 minutes easily. Future World is very large. It is overly large. Lots of walking for a few things. My guess is that it was originally supposed to expand, but it's barely done that. We didn't really go into World Showcase on this day, because we ran out of time, but talk about stagnation. It's not changed in years. The next day, we went to the Disney Hollywood Studios. Last time we were here, it was underwhelming to say the least. In fact, we thought it stunk. This time, though, it wasn't so bad. I guess our expectations were lowered. The Lights Camera Action Stunt show was fun, so was the Indiana Jones stunt show. We managed to fill out our day here. We ate at both the Prime Time Cafe and the Sci Fi Drive in. The Drive In was not a good dining experience. The food was good, but I quickly got tired of seeing the clips, and you have to sit in these cars, which precludes you from talking to members of your family while eating. It did one thing for me, though. It reminded me why I don't like going to drive-ins. The Prime Time Cafe, though, was great fun. I really liked it. The place looked like my parents house, and I even spotted some items that they had that my parents also had in their home. It was funny. The food was good. Food was good In both places, really. But seriously, the two single worst attractions I've ever seen are in this park. The first is the Tram Tour. This was actually not so bad when we first went on it years ago, but now, it is totally worthless. The pre-show is ghastly. They show you a couple of special effects. But the show is so weak, it takes 15 seconds to do it, so they ran through them three times while we were there in line. The guy they have doing the announcing can barely speak English. That was the most entertaining part of it. The most ridiculous part of this whole thing was that it was all plugging Pearl Harbor. A six or seven year old film that bombed at the box office. Then we walk through the prop storage area, which was a bit interesting, and then get on the tram. Obviously, this was set up to handle large amounts of people going through a long tour. But once on the tram, you go by a parking lot that I think used to have facades, drive through the costume shop, and go through Catastrophe Canyon. That's it. It's embarrassingly bad. They used to walk you through sound stages. No more. I think they don't do any more production at this "studio" anymore at all, which explains the pointlessness of this tour. Just close the thing. It's useless. But it's not the worst. The absolute worst thing I've ever seen Disney do was Sounds Dangerous with Drew Carey. For this "attraction" you sit in a theater. There are headphones, you put them on. They show a video projection on the wall for a few minutes, which you hear through the headphones, and then it goes off, the room is dark, and you hear some dumb thing about Drew Carey being a security guard. That's it. I suppose for those people who have never heard of the miracle of stereophonic sound, this is an incredible achievement, but otherwise, terrible beyond anything you can imagine. If this is all they have to offer for this building, just close it and save on the cost of electricity. Fantasmic at this park is actually a better experience than at Disneyland. There is a stadium, beer, and the show is better, too. We almost did not see it, but because we had time to kill, we decided to go, and we were glad we did. This park is still a mess, though. It doesn't know what it wants to be, it is hodgepodge and schizophrenic. The walkways are maze like and confusing. The lights they put up for Christmas, while probably nice at Christmas, make their facades look bad. There were still tons of Christmas stuff all over the buildings, and everything was covered with wire. What is very telling about this park is the Chinese theater entrance. You see a lot of stars that put their footprints in the cement there. Some are there from as late as 1999. But most are from 1989-1991. 1991 apparently is when the park choked and 1999 is when it finally threw in the towel on being whatever it was supposed to be originally. This park needs a major makeover, but I think what happened to this park is what is going to be happening to DCA with its upcoming changes. Schizophrenialand. The next day, we went to Disney's Animal Kingdom. Another half day expected here, but it turns out they added stuff to keep us there the entire day. DAK is this beautiful park that is really just well done. And then Disney went and dumped this Chester and Hester carnival thing in the middle of it. It is astonishing. You walk into this area and you think "Wow, this looks bad." And you know? It is! Junky games, a tiny and unpleasant mouse coaster, loud sound effects, and it is just the antithesis of everything else the park is about and designed. What the heck is wrong with the people who put this in here? Have they no taste? No sense of design? No sense of art? Anything? Do these people have such little understanding of what they are selling that they can't even figure out when something is THIS FAR out of place? The rest of this park is wonderful. Why do they have to go and trash it like this? The Festival of the Lion King was great. I hadn't seen it before. The kid wasn't impressed. The Nemo musical show, though, I actually fell asleep during it. I woke up now and then and saw nice production values, but it just put me out. The food at this park, again, was great. We ate at the Tusker House. It was terrific! I was really amazed at how good it was. We ate dinner at the Yak and Yeti, and while it wasn't quite as good, it was still very good and the service was excellent. I didn't ride the Everest coaster. Maybe next time. The next day we ended up at Downtown Disney. The one in Anaheim is better. Ate at Fulton's Crab house. It was OK. Nothing spectacular about this area. In the evening, we went back to the Magic Kingdom to see Spectromagic. The floats were nice, the music was pretty nondescript. The fireworks, though, at the Magic Kingdom were really strange. Our first night, we saw them from the Astro Jets platform, so we didn't hear the soundtrack accompanying it. This night, we saw them from Main Street. It really is a great fireworks show, but god, they kept gibbering through the whole thing about dreams magic wishes blah blah blah. SHUT UP ALREADY AND SHOW THE FIREWORKS. God, they can't stop with this magic junk. It's awful. Every sentence uttered by Disney has one of the following words in it: Magic, Fantasy, Wishes, Princess, DVC. Someone needs to buy these hacks a thesaurus already. What is wrong with simply saying "Walt Disney World is proud to present our evening fireworks show, Wishes?" Play some music, show some fireworks, and wow the crowd. What is wrong with simply having FUN at their parks? What is wrong with simply being ENERTAINMENT? They keep up with this wishes and dreams stuff. And it's stupid. They don't make my dreams or wishes come true. This is a family board, so I can't really spell out what my personal dreams are, but suffice it to say, they aren't fulfilled by an electrical parade featuring a waving Mickey Mouse. These things are fun, and I like them, but going to Central Florida in the middle of a thundering downpour is not a dream come true and they need to stop with this fey approach they have taken on. The last day, we ended up touring World Showcase. This thing has really not changed at all. A couple of the films have been updated. The Martin Short film was not as bad as I expected. The food was good. We ate at Askerhaus and had more food than we could eat and princesses. We didn't eat the princesses. The fireworks show was nice, if a bit paltry. They are using the same music that was created for the millennium celebration almost a decade ago now. That's pretty much it. The next day we took the Magical Express back to the airport. Magical Express worked well there, we checked in at the hotel. Good deal. The trip on the plane was uneventful. Overall, some things I noticed: First, the Disney Vacation Club has got to be an incredibly bad thing to do. They are so heavily pushing it everywhere you look that it must be bad. You don't need to advertise something this heavily if it really is a good thing. It felt like there was an ad for the DVC wherever you happened to rest your eyes. "Disney's best kept secret?" Not if you actually go to one of their parks, it is not. The omnipresence of these timeshare rip-off booths was offensive. Another thing I noticed is that the employees are all basically nice. Superficially, anyway. They do their jobs, and smile and are fine. Unless you say or do one little thing different, then they show themselves to be impatient, sarcastic and jaded. Not all of them, of course, but this was a common thing I saw, that you DO NOT see at Disneyland. No one was rude to me, but they were pretty jaded to me about things. I think this is because in the Los Angeles area, you have a wide choice of jobs, and you work at Disneyland because you want to. In Orlando, there is not a lot of opportunity, and if you don't have a job as a carney, you really don't have a lot of choice. That will stir up a bit of resentment. Some workers were very nice, though. There are those there who do it because they want to. You can tell who they are. Disney probably could fix this by paying a decent salary to their workers, but again, I doubt they care. Also, I can't imagine going to this place when it is crowded, or in the summer. The parks were fairly uncrowded, and we walked by bunches of empty sections of roped off line for most every ride. The lines looked like they would stretch for HOURS. No thanks. And in the summer heat? I'd be shocked if people aren't dropping dead from the combination of heat and crowds. The extra magical hours thing came in quite handy. With it, we were able to do just about every single thing in all the parks. We missed very little throughout the resort, and almost everything was excellent. They do a very good job of keeping the place clean and running well. I noticed very few to basically no maintenance issues. However, if you go more frequently, you will. That's what happens when you start to look too closely at anything. The Central Florida area itself was rather interesting, at least from what I saw on the news. A lot of crime. A lot of violence. People being shot, home invasion robberies, murders, mayhem, a constant stream of horror stories. It struck me as not a very good place to live. And, well, it's filled with bitter and jaded carnies who not only work at WDW, but Universal, and the supporting businesses such as restaurants and hotels. Lastly, this place is expensive. Including our room, this cost us about $700 a day for the 7 days we were there. You pay far more than you should for the things you get. This is also not a WISH of mine. Nor is it my dream to spend this kind of cash, either. The only real magic here is how Disney has figured out to separate money from people's wallets. That's my trip report. I guess we'll go back in a few years. This was a bit overwhelming for the kid, who at five and a half, kept asking for us to go "back to our vacation" (the hotel room) and order room service. It was fun to go with him, though, and see him enjoying the place. The real fun in going to these parks is not sitting there watching a robot tell you about the glories of their new refrigerator, but in having your family have fun together. That is all that matters. I don't really care if some guy named Phil runs this area, or some guy named Al runs the whole place. While not everything in the place is absolutely perfect, it's really very good at what it does. They move a lot of people through, make for a good time for nearly everyone. It's a lot harder than it looks. But they succeeded with us. A good time was had by all.
2	DVC_dad Mon 1/21/2008 12:11p	<<<No one was using the spa. You had to have leather skin to get in the thing. >>> ROFL ! <<<The Prime Time Cafe, though, was great fun. I really liked it>>> It is our favorite easily. <<< The absolute worst thing I've ever seen Disney do was Sounds Dangerous with Drew Carey.>>> I thought they closed this. Well I agree, it is terrible. <<<The real fun in going to these parks is not sitting there watching a robot tell you about the glories of their new refrigerator, but in having your family have fun together. That is all that matters. I don't really care if some guy named Phil runs this area, or some guy named Al runs the whole place. While not everything in the place is absolutely perfect, it's really very good at what it does. They move a lot of people through, make for a good time for nearly everyone. It's a lot harder than it looks.>>> Awesome! Great to hear that your overall exerpience was positive jonvn. Great trip report! <<<Magic Kingdom. It's an odd feeling and rather disorienting to go here because I am so used to Disneyland. I think Disneyland's layout and appearance is a lot nicer. The rides, however, are much better in Florida.>>> Agreed. <<<<What was the ride that was in that location before this film was put in?>>> It was a Lion King themed puppet show. <<<Monsters Inc Laugh Floor is beyond hopeless. They repeat over and over again how it's funny, you better laugh, and so on. It's not funny, it's just awful.>>> Agreed. <<<...Living Seas...this change now makes it for idiots>>> Awww... this idiot likes it. ;) <<<...Mission Space...the exit...The smell indicated various states of vomit freshness there. It has to happen all day long. What a fun ride to work on.>>> LOLOLOLOL No kidding! ROFL
3	davewasbaloo Mon 1/21/2008 12:28p	Thank you for reminding me why I won't wory about returning to WDW for some time, and if I do, I will stay off site.
4	jonvn Mon 1/21/2008 12:48p	That's interesting. Because we'll go back, and we'll stay on property. But we'll probably stay at the Yacht & Beach Club or Boardwalk.
5	jonvn Mon 1/21/2008 3:18p	One thing I forgot to mention: Disney's Photopass. The pictures we took, and there were 35 of them, came out pretty lame. Poorly exposed and framed. My photos came out a lot better than these did. I was hoping they'd be good, but in fact, they were mostly unusable.
6	alexbook Mon 1/21/2008 4:51p	jonvn: Thanks for taking time to write this. I usually skim or skip trip reports, but yours make for good reading.
7	Shooba Tue 1/22/2008 1:21p	Very well written trip report. Fun to read. Totally agree on DVC, the overdone marketing was obscene. I had exactly the same thought, that if this was such a good deal they wouldn't be pushing it so heavily. I stayed at a value resort and can't complain. It is true that the theming at the hotels seems to go towards the lobbies and overall architecture, but when you see your room you wonder why you're spending so much money.
8	jonvn Tue 1/22/2008 2:09p	You know what is annoying to me about this trip report, is that I spelled ENTERTAINMENT wrong, and in all caps, too.
9	Dabob2 Tue 1/22/2008 3:00p	<But Space Mountain is a far better experience there than in Disneyland.> Really?? Okay, to each his own. I much prefer DL's. (Same with Pirates, iasw, Tiki Room, Peter Pan, and a few other things. I think WDW's Splash is a bit better. Used to much prefer DL's HM even though they're basically the same because the last time I did WDW's the disrepair was glaringly bad, but I understand they've fixed it recently.)
10	Mr X Tue 1/22/2008 8:55p	**The only real magic here is how Disney has figured out to separate money from people's wallets.** lol...how true!

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