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Baboontyme

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On 11/20/2022 at 7:58 PM, mdmost said:

Yeah just came to post that. Bob Paycheck got the boot which is good. The parks are becoming a problem with lack of maintenance, not enough cast members, rising prices for what little you're getting, and pissing on existing passholders. The guy was asking for it.

https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/bob-iger-replace-bob-chapek-disney-ceo-1235438423/

Saw an article on Daily Mail about how the wait times have increased substantially compared to pre-covid.  Not uncommon now for a two hour wait for Rise of the Resistance in CA.

Wife and kids have an annual pass (I declined to renew mine).  They went yesterday to Disney, got a total of two middle tier rides in over a five hour stay.  Went to CA tonight.  Just texted me that they waited 80 minutes for Soaring when app said 45.

Employees are getting more surly, the whole experience is losing value.  These things take a while to germinate, but Disney best get their shit together, or the wrath of the consumer will come.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thinking about doing Disneyland with kids (will be 4 and 6) during Spring Break. I tentatively have one of the non-Disney hotels across the street booked.  Considering tacking on a night or 2 at the beach.  I don't know anything about the LA area beaches.  Don't really want to deal with renting a car (rather just hire a service with car seats/boosters to take us from airport, to hotel, to beach hotel, back to airport).  Anyone have any specific beach or hotel recs?

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Just got back from Orlando.

Did 1 day split Magic Kingdom and Epcot then a full day at Universal and another at LegoLand (will never go back there).

 

Paid a third party guide service $175/hr for the first 2 days and never waited more than 20 minutes for a ride.  We rode everything other than Ratatouille and Frozen at Epcot (our group was boys between 8-11).  My portion of the guide was $1500 and I actually felt good about paying that.  

Guardians ride at Epcot was incredible.  All the big rides at Universal were badass.

 

We did early entry at MK and were done with everything we wanted to do by 11am.  Wife's uncle has a timeshare close by so lodging was free to us.  Cant wait to go back and do Universal again.  Didn't hit Hollywood studios this time but will next time.

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On 12/7/2022 at 9:56 AM, Skipper said:

Thinking about doing Disneyland with kids (will be 4 and 6) during Spring Break. I tentatively have one of the non-Disney hotels across the street booked.  Considering tacking on a night or 2 at the beach.  I don't know anything about the LA area beaches.  Don't really want to deal with renting a car (rather just hire a service with car seats/boosters to take us from airport, to hotel, to beach hotel, back to airport).  Anyone have any specific beach or hotel recs?

The closest beaches are Huntington and Newport. We took the kids to the state beach in Huntington and it was fine. Newport is a cooler town. Not sure on hotels for you. 

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  • 5 weeks later...

Wife is officially a Disney junkie mom.

Booked for 3rd time in 3 years. 5 nights at swan and 2 nights at wilderness lodge. We originally had 7 nights at wilderness but wife saw swan had standard rooms with 2 queens a few nights ago and booked it. Immediately shaved $1,400 off the bill, which was sweet.


Fingers crossed tron is open by the first week of April-mid April

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The closest beaches are Huntington and Newport. We took the kids to the state beach in Huntington and it was fine. Newport is a cooler town. Not sure on hotels for you. 

Lido House (Marriott) in Newport is great. Tons of great restaurants within walking distance. About 20ish minute Uber to front gates of Disneyland. Take the kids on a whale watching boat tour. It’s actually really cool.

Beach is fine, fairly crowded though. Laguna beach is post card perfect. Cool beach town to check out for day. Great beach.
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On 1/9/2023 at 9:50 AM, MNLonghornFUKM said:

Wife is officially a Disney junkie mom.

Booked for 3rd time in 3 years. 5 nights at swan and 2 nights at wilderness lodge. We originally had 7 nights at wilderness but wife saw swan had standard rooms with 2 queens a few nights ago and booked it. Immediately shaved $1,400 off the bill, which was sweet.


Fingers crossed tron is open by the first week of April-mid April

It's either opening on 4/4 or in 44 days according to Disney's social media accounts. Swan is a great hotel. If we went back for a primarily Epcot/HS trip, we'd stay there again. 

Edit: well, good luck because the waits for this are going to suck.

 

Edited by mdmost
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It’ll almost guarantee be a virtual queue right? much like GotG and Rise was.

I mean it’s not the end all if we don’t get on. My kids are too little for it anyways so it’d be just a rider swap for me and wife. Honestly the more I think about it the more I’m ok if we dont ride. New ride first week= glitches, break down, whatever can happen. We will see how it goes


Our swan stay is the reason why we’re doing 2 Epcot and 2 HS days while we’re there. We stayed their one night last year and the walk from Epcot was epic compared to waiting in the bus. Plus we wanna do some boardwalk stuff

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6 hours ago, mdmost said:

It's either opening on 4/4 or in 44 days according to Disney's social media accounts. Swan is a great hotel. If we went back for a primarily Epcot/HS trip, we'd stay there again. 

Edit: well, good luck because the waits for this are going to suck.

 

I know I'm an Epcot82 fanboi and all but is anyone else just meh on Tron? Feels like a Six Flags ride 

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14 hours ago, SimonBolivar said:

I know I'm an Epcot82 fanboi and all but is anyone else just meh on Tron? Feels like a Six Flags ride 

I'm excited because it looks really cool and is an update Tomorrowland badly needed. That said, I'm not probably getting on it 2024. 

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20 hours ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:

It’ll almost guarantee be a virtual queue right? much like GotG and Rise was.

I mean it’s not the end all if we don’t get on. My kids are too little for it anyways so it’d be just a rider swap for me and wife. Honestly the more I think about it the more I’m ok if we dont ride. New ride first week= glitches, break down, whatever can happen. We will see how it goes


Our swan stay is the reason why we’re doing 2 Epcot and 2 HS days while we’re there. We stayed their one night last year and the walk from Epcot was epic compared to waiting in the bus. Plus we wanna do some boardwalk stuff

We always stay at the Swan (or Dolphin, the sister suite with less frills) because it's the only Marriot property on site and we stay for free on points. The Shula's steakhouse is good, the rest of the food on property sucks, but the proximity to Boardwalk is good and Epcot as you mentioned.

Getting to Magic Kingdom and back sucks though, especially if exhausted and you stay all day until the fireworks and leave with the huddled masses.

Just typing this up is giving me PTSD from our annual Disney trips and I've gotten to where I hate going to Disney. I'm going to put my foot down and it's Universal Studios or nothing this year.

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43 minutes ago, HamsterHookah said:

 

Just typing this up is giving me PTSD from our annual Disney trips and I've gotten to where I hate going to Disney. I'm going to put my foot down and it's Universal Studios or nothing this year.

Awesome, won't have to go far:

Frisco’s latest development project will bring a huge cast of superheroes, television stars and motion picture greats to Collin County.

 

Universal Parks & Resorts — the theme park arm of entertainment giant NBCUniversal — has bought a site on the Dallas North Tollway for a new theme park.

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It looks like a theme park for young kids only. So probably no thrill rides like the other two parks have. There were rumors back in the 90s that Disney was going to build something up in Frisco but that never panned out. 

We had no issues getting to MK and back during our Swan stay in 2021. We just walked over to Boardwalk and used their buses to get there. Pretty easy.

Edited by mdmost
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It looks like a theme park for young kids only. So probably no thrill rides like the other two parks have. There were rumors back in the 90s that Disney was going to build something up in Frisco but that never panned out. 
We had no issues getting to MK and back during our Swan stay in 2021. We just walked over to Boardwalk and used their buses to get there. Pretty easy.

Yea was just gonna say people say to walk to boardwalk and use that which is what we’ll do.
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  • 2 weeks later...
15 hours ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:

Lol look at these losers
 

 


Pretty sure that my Disney experience had splash mountain at 165 min wait before the park closed.

So everybody was jockeying to be the last rider, like it’d some sort of badge.

 

I say this as a former cast member who has been plenty of times,  but Dinsey fans are weird.

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  • 2 months later...

Today marks our 4th day of 7 on our trip. Started with Epcot, HS, MK and back to Epcot today sometime when kids wake up.

Rode tron yesterday. The launch is awesome, but it’s also over pretty quickly. Maybe 30 seconds of fun actual roller coaster action after the launch. It’s cool but won’t spend individual lightning lane money on our last day, just do virtual queue game. Plus you have to be 48” so it’s a pain if you have kids who aren’t tall enough. Also if you’re too fat and can’t fit you have to do a walk of shame to the back of the ride where the last row is built for larger people. Felt bad for the embarrassed guy in front of me on my first ride that couldn’t fit. Guardians is better and lived up the hype. Will try to ride that twice today, bought a ILL this morning already, and the height is 42”, another bonus


Wife bought an app/service for $45. It’s called standby skipper. Basically the app links to your my Disney experience account and does all of the shit for genie+ for you. Rides, what time you want them, etc. it’s fucking awesome and a drop in the bucket to not have to be on your phone all day or try to remember when to book your next LL ride. https://www.standbyskipper.com

Swans been clutch with its proximity to HS and Epcot and thanks for the tip on walking to boardwalk to use their busing on MK. While taking a double stroller on the bus is less than preferred it worked out pretty slick. Maybe waited 20 total minutes(mostly morning) waiting for the bus.

Last but not least…Magic kingdom after hours is so fucking awesome. Between 11PM and 1AM last night after fireworks post dessert party we knocked off space, big thunder, haunted, small world, PP was broke or else that, Pooh, back to Tomorrowland astro orbiter, wife and daughter went on space and tron while son and me went on buzz and made like 5 laps on the speedway. Lol. Epcot’s after hours is lame and so much more walking, plus remys was down when we tried to close on that so fuck it.

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Back in 2021 on Labor Day weekend, the oldest and I did the after hours Halloween event on Sunday. We had no interest in trick or treating. We only did it to ride the best rides with little wait. We rode Big Thunder 3 times in a row during the fireworks which was great. We rode Haunted Mansion a few times as a walk on. We then rode Space Mountain 9 times in a row so she could break her previous record of 8 times in one visit. By the 5th ride, I was starting to get queasy. Only ride that was too crowded was 7 Dwarves. 

Yeah, Epcot is a bit of a beating for walking around, especially with the construction walls. The proximity to the Swan is so great though. For HS, we've decided that Galaxy's Edge is a bit skippable now. My younger one is obsessed with Tower of Terror so when we eventually go back, we'll focus on that one. The Tron ride is intriguing but really seems like a lot of waiting for very little payout. I'm more interested in the Guardians ride. We may go in 2024 but stay at the Polynesian as my wife has always wanted that. 

We're going to LA in 2 weeks to go to the new Mario Land. You can buy early entry for $20 and get in at 8am-9am when everyone else has to wait outside. Should hopefully allow us to ride Mario Kart. Staying across the street in the Hilton so that should make for an easy walk across. Oldest is a huge fan of Pretty Little Liars and Friends so we're going to go to the WB Lot for a tour the next afternoon. Just a quick visit to LA where we're shockingly skipping Disneyland for once. We figure we'll go back when the Tiana ride is up and running. 

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Headed to DLR for the 22nd time in November for my kids' birthdays. We've only ever stayed at the Hyatt Regency down the street or rented a VRBO but are going to test out on of those old school hotels. We're staying at the Desert Palms right next door to DLR. It seems nice enough in pics and reviews and it was shockingly inexpensive...$180 for a 2 bedroom suite. It's probably good enough for sleeping and showering.

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Not gonna lie.. I’d rank fantasmic pretty low on the nighttime show displays.

Lame fireworks, kept getting wet from the constant misting fountains(our own fault for sitting close). Some cool stuff like the dragon but I could live with not seeing it again but that probably won’t happen. The temporary Epcot show sucks btw

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13 minutes ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:

Not gonna lie.. I’d rank fantasmic pretty low on the nighttime show displays.

Lame fireworks, kept getting wet from the constant misting fountains(our own fault for sitting close). Some cool stuff like the dragon but I could live with not seeing it again but that probably won’t happen. The temporary Epcot show sucks btw

Agreed fantasmic was garbage.

How did you rate Swan/Dolphin? 

I have stayed at both the last two disney trips with the family (bonvoy points = free) and while the location is cool and the pools are cool for the kids, the food is absolute dog crap. Outside of the Shula's steakhouse which isn't exactly kid friendly and the sushi/fish restaurant that's impossible to get in, it's a food nightmare. And not just the cost and taste, but actually obtaining it because few options and huge crowds.

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33 minutes ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:

Not gonna lie.. I’d rank fantasmic pretty low on the nighttime show displays.

Lame fireworks, kept getting wet from the constant misting fountains(our own fault for sitting close). Some cool stuff like the dragon but I could live with not seeing it again but that probably won’t happen. The temporary Epcot show sucks btw

Fantasmic was pretty cool in the 90s, but yeah it's time to rethink it.

 

I worked crowd control for Illuminations about 1/2 of my shifts in Epcot in 2009. We were in charge of opening up Showcase Plaza for guests to sit if the wind was right. We still stood up there when winds were going in the wrong direction, and we knew that meant we had to watch out for falling fireworks.

 

I miss the hell out of that show. What a soundtrack!

7 minutes ago, mdmost said:

Which one of you was spanking it in Remy's?

 

Don't be disgusting. 

 

 

 

I'm not from New Jersey.

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Agreed fantasmic was garbage.
How did you rate Swan/Dolphin? 
I have stayed at both the last two disney trips with the family (bonvoy points = free) and while the location is cool and the pools are cool for the kids, the food is absolute dog crap. Outside of the Shula's steakhouse which isn't exactly kid friendly and the sushi/fish restaurant that's impossible to get in, it's a food nightmare. And not just the cost and taste, but actually obtaining it because few options and huge crowds.

We were at swan. The rooms were pretty standard for a Marriott, nothing spectacular. Location was nice for Epcot and HS days. There was a boardwalk pizza place on the boardwalk by the boat dock area that had awesome pizza for end of park days. They sell by the slice so it’s a bit of a wait…maybe 20-30 min but there’s shows on the boardwalk that pass time.


We stayed at wildnerness lodge nature view for 2 nights at the end just to experiment WL.That room was awesome. They had charger options galore. USB/outlets, next to bed, ledge to put your phone on, a million lights so your room isn’t so damn dark, we ended up with a firework view from MK so that was a bonus. Their gift shop is amazing and has almost everything you need from medicine, to gifts, snacks, drinks, alcohol etc. the boat ride to MK was slick and you get your own security line when you unload at the dock Vs having to deal with the public/ bus line security which looks like a mess.
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So Super Nintendo World is badass. Very well done and the one in Orlando will be even better after it is done since they’ll have more room than LA can have. If you go, pay for the extra hour in the morning. It was worth it. It was easy to do a lot in the first hour. We rode Mario Kart which was fun but there’s so much going on that it needs more than one ride to get the hang of it. We only could do it the one time. After 9, the place was a zoo. Wall to wall people. Got the kids a couple the power bands so they could interact with the land, collect coins, and get the keys to do the Bowser Jr challenge. They had a great time. The theming is great. Ate lunch at Toadstool Cafe which was pretty good for theme park food. Cut out around noon and did the Studio Tour. Went back to swim after that and then returned in the evening to ride Harry Potter. You can walk on in the evening.

Day 2 we got up and rode the Simpsons ride that has a stupidly long wait. Rode the Mummy ride which is probably the best in the park. A cross of Indiana Jones and Space Mountain. Did a few more rides and then went back to swim before our WB Studio Tour. Enjoyed that much more than the Universal tour. We didn’t even get King Kong and our tour guide wasn’t great. WB tour guide was really good. Went back late to ride the Mummy twice and HP again. 
 

We stayed at the Hilton that’s under a 10 minute walk to the park. Unlike Disneyland, it’s more of a chore since you have to go up the hill to get there. Nice hotel though.

First pic is the early morning. 2nd is 11am

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Edited by mdmost
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That's World though. World isn't as easy as DLR because everyone uses Genie+ so there's no real benefit. It's also why I'm not wanting to get back there until revenge travel dies down and less people are going.

DLR in June is pretty damn strong, outside of that's usually when they take down rides for refurbishment. This June it's Peter Pan, Alice, and Mr. Toad since they all are in the same ride building. Seriously, get there at rope drop (8am) and you're walking on most rides until 11am except Rise of the Resistance. The afternoon is where it sucks because all the locals come out. But Genie+ is great for non-locals. You can do pretty much everything with Genie+. I think it's the 2nd week in June, they start blocking out locals except for the highest tier. So you're not getting the same crush of people. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Remember when everyone knew it was going to be terrible then the hardcore fans pretended it wasn't for like a month? Those were good times.

 

 

Also see where the NYT is reporting that DIS is canceling their "$1B development in Florida". I guess they aren't moving everyone from Cali to Orlando after all. These two news stories should make WDWMagic a blast this week. 

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55 minutes ago, SimonBolivar said:

Also see where the NYT is reporting that DIS is canceling their "$1B development in Florida". I guess they aren't moving everyone from Cali to Orlando after all. These two news stories should make WDWMagic a blast this week. 

Deciding to move all your creatives from Los Angeles, the epicenter of entertainment creativity, to fucking bumfuck suburban Florida should've gotten Chapek the axe instantly. That was an early sign he didn't know what he was doing.

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I despise Disney World with a passion. I cannot say enough bad things about it. I don't understand why anybody would want to go. It blows ass.

That being said, my wife and kids love it and my wife has dropped a FORTUNE on an upcoming Disney World trip, including securing some super suite at one of the hotels. She booked everything nearly a year ago. She just got a call today from WDW telling her too bad but they were moving her to a different suite that she says will not work for us. 

Needless to say, she is completely distressed about this. I am not surprised, because WDW fucking sucks and getting fucked is 90% of the experience.

Anybody ever had any experience with forced room changes? If I could convince her just to demand a refund I would, but there's no chance of that happening. Any insight would be appreciated.

Can I just call DeSantis directly to report this?

Edited by BHMCruiser
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