WDW trip report--Thanksgiving 2010

[crl]

We are back! It was exhausting, but we had a good time.

We had five days in the parks, Monday through Friday. DS is 7 years old and has food allergies and dd is 8 months old. We met the grandparents and aunt there.

BIG HITS:
Chef Mickey's character breakfast--The chef was the most accommodating we had. He arrived at our table very quickly and was able to make the Mickey shaped waffles for ds, who was ecstatic! The characters came around quickly. We saw Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Donald and Goofy. The food was very good.

Buzz Lightyear (Magic Kingdom) and Toy Story Mania rides (Hollywood Studios). Everyone from ds to grandma liked these rides. I only did Buzz Lightyear as the Fastpasses we were able to get for Toy Story Mania were in the evening.

Soarin' (Epcot). Everyone LOVED Soarin'. My favorite ride, no contest.

Blizzard Beach water park. DH and DS spent two afternoons there and thought it was fabulous. No waiting at anything, or very minimal, which was a huge bonus for ds. They both did Summit Plummet, yikes.

We just got back today. I will come back and post more later. If you have questions I will try to answer them. Thanks so much to everyone here for all the advice, you made our trip much better!

Catherine

[crl]

Okay, here is a continuation. Sorry for the serial posts, but it is easier to do shorter posts, both time wise and because long posts are hard on the iPad.

LODGING:

We stayed at the Wilderness Lodge, which is the cheapest of the deluxe resorts and is a Magic Kingdom resort. It was beautiful and the Christmas decorations were just gorgeous. Our room was very nice, not huge, but decent size for a hotel room. They provided a pack n play for dd.

We spent a lot of time at the pool with a slide, they have a second pool tucked away by the villas. They also have hot tubs and a poolside bar.

We ate at Whispering Canyon and the take away place. Wilderness Lodge also has Artist's Point. Whispering Canyon is okay, has a corny schtick going, but is very loud so not great for grabbing a family meal. Artist's Point, which we did not eat at, is fancy and pricey (also two sit down meals on the Disney dining plan).


Wilderness Lodge's advantages, IMO, are the price point, the boat to the Magic Kingdom and the theme/decor. Disadvantages are the lack of a simple sit down restaurant and the bus transportation to everything but the Magic Kingdom. I would definitely go with a monorail hotel instead if it is in the budget.

[crl]

DINING PLAN

We used the deluxe dining plan, which provides two snack and three meals (either counter or table service). Disney cast members were very helpful in grouping items to maximize our value and one counter service place even put our two relatives sandwiches and drinks in with ours and charged us just three meals for all five (no one had an appetizer or dessert).

But, it was too much. We skipped breakfast a lot to make rope drop and lunch some to get to the water park, etc. Next time I would choose the regular dining plan, with one snack, one counter service meal and one sit down meal.

FOOD ALLERGIES

DS has food allergies. Overall, restaurants were very accommodating. But at many places, it slowed things down considerably. At sit down restaurants, the chef comes to your table and goes over the allergies and helps you select a safe meal. Which is great. But, at the worst, at Crystal Palace, dh and I had gotten our food from the buffet and eaten half our meal before the chef made it to our table. And pretty much everywhere the process slowed the meal down. The exception was Chef Mickey's, where the chef appeared instantly and was very, very accommodating.

CHARACTER MEALS

DS and DD LOVED these. We did Crystal Palace (Magic Kingdom) for lunch, with Winnie the Pooh, Eyore, Pigglet and Tigger; Hollywood and Vine (Hollywood Studios) with Handy Manny, Lio, June and someone else for breakfast; and Chef Mickey's (Contemporary Resort) with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Pluto for breakfast. Chef Mickey's was the best, both for organization (though there was a long wait for the check) and food. I would definitely recommend character meals for little kids, most especially Chef Mickey's.

Catherine

[crl]

Just a couple more things.

FASTPASSES AND RIDER SWITCH

These are awesome. DH was able to take everyone's tickets and race for our fast passes. We were able to ride things ds would never have waited for in the long stand by lines. On rides with height restrictions, like Soarin', dd couldn't go. So we could take her up to the front of the line when dh and ds went to use their fast passes and get a rider switch pass. This allowed me to ride with ds as soon as dh and ds got off the ride. So, ds got to ride Soarin' twice in a row, once with dh on fast passes and once with me on a rider switch pass.

PHOTOPASS

We used the photo pass photographers at every opportunity and they took some great pictures. Some places don't participate and some places will add the pictures to your photo pass only if you buy the pictures from them first (like Chef Mickey's). We pre purchased the photo cd for $99 and have about 90 pictures. I will edit and add Disney borders before having it shipped to us. This was worth it to us as it was a very big and special vacation for us. We may never go back, or may go back in about seven years when dd is able to go on all the rides, etc.

Catherine

[crl]

I'll stop there. If anyone has questions about rides or how we organized our days or whatever, I will try to answer them. Thanks again to the Disney experts here who helped so much in planning our trip!!!

Catherine

[sste]

Catherine, glad the trip went so well!

I have some questions about fast pass/rider switch since we will be traveling with an infant as well who won't ride alot of the rides.

The preliminary question is can you only get one fast pass to ANY ride at a time? Or can you get multiple fastpasses but not for the same ride?

Second question, just so I understand the mechanics of doing the infant (non)switch/older kid rides twice with fastpass: both parents get in fastpass lines with fastpass for four people, when you get to the front of the fastpass line you give the attendant your fastpass and ask the attendant for a rider switch card (?), then parent with infant waits a bit off to the wings while other parent rides with child, then the parents switch and older child accompanies different parent on ride for the second time.

Is this right?

And can you do this on rides without fastpass too?

Sorry for all of the questions!!

[crl]

No problem, I'll try to answer.

You get fast passes with start and end times. You can't use them until the start time. But you do NOT have to use them by the end time, just the same day. You can only have one fast pass per ticket at a time; that is one total, not one per ride. EXCEPT that after the end time on your fast pass you can get another one, even if you haven't used the first one.

The baby did not have a ticket so we could not get fast passes for her. So, we all went to the fast pass return line and showed dd. They gave me a rider switch pass and let dh and ds through to ride on two fast passes. When dh and ds got off, I handed the baby to dh and went back to the fast pass return line with ds and my rider switch pass. They let me and ds ride on the one rider switch pass. Does that make sense?

We did not try rider switch on any non fast pass rides, but my understanding is that you can do it.

Hope that makes sense!
Catherine

[Momof3Labs]

Second question, just so I understand the mechanics of doing the infant (non)switch/older kid rides twice with fastpass: both parents get in fastpass lines with fastpass for four people, when you get to the front of the fastpass line you give the attendant your fastpass and ask the attendant for a rider switch card (?), then parent with infant waits a bit off to the wings while other parent rides with child, then the parents switch and older child accompanies different parent on ride for the second time.

Is this right?

And can you do this on rides without fastpass too?

Sorry for all of the questions!!

If you are doing baby swap, you go to the entrance of the line, but the person with the baby does NOT get in line. You do, however, have to show the baby in order to get a baby swap pass. Only the riders are allowed to enter the line, and you must have a fastpass for everyone who enters the line. Then, after they are done riding, they meet you outside and you swap the baby. Up to 3 people can ride on a baby swap pass, and you go through the fastpass line (but do not need fastpasses for this part of the process - the baby swap pass gets up to 3 people in on its own).

I believe that baby swap is only available on rides with a height restriction, most (if not all) of which offer fastpasses.

[TwinFoxes]

I'm so glad you had a fun time! It sounds like you had an blast, glad ride swapping and fast passes worked out for you. :) I love reading trip reports, thanks for posting.