Yes. Yes. Yes. Yesssss.
Honestly - most of WDW is so boring to me. Unless I am looking at it through the eyes of an excited child, I can barely endure it.
On POTC last time, I was in the boat behind my kids b/c I’d been grabbing SDFP and I sent up IG pics the whole time. And I will do everything in my power to keep myself from getting trapped in FOTLK or Nemo show again.
I’m all for new at WDW. And I even like reimagined attractions TBH.
PP and IASW (and I’ve gotten my son to love the song, so he will now like it no matter what) are must rides for me. I am drawing a blank on what WtP is. Anyway, outside of PP and IASW, I use the others to take a quick nap and recharge. Figment has never been the same since they changed up the ride. I’ll take my kids, but I don’t really enjoy it anymore.
In summary, even the boring attractions are good if you use them to just zone out and recharge.
WtP is the ride that took Mr. Toad’ s wild ride from us.
Winnie the Pooh
I have no idea how I didn’t make that connection. It has been a long day. Of course I’m now mourning the loss of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.
For our family, I imagine the conversation will go like this: “Dad, do we have to go to the room with the weird birds again? It’s so boooooring!”
But then we have also had this conversation: “Dad, look at that 8k TV! We gotta get one, it is so awesome.” “Uhhhh, would you rather have that TV or a trip to WDW?” Without missing a beat or raising his tone “disney.”
So maybe I’m the excited child?
I was saying this to myself every day when no one would give me the schedule for my work trip. But mine ended “because work is paying for 3 nights at the Grand Floridian. What could be more awesome than that.”
It’s a great attitude to have- if the prices just kept up with inflation. But they’ve far exceeded that. You’re paying for these fabulous new rides the’ve installed since 2016. For us, it went way back to 2013.
So, yes, if you could pay less and not go on the E-ticket rides, that’d be great, but Disney went away from that model a long, long time ago.
I paid for it all, so I wanted to see it all. If that’s not going to happen next time, I’ll vote with my feet in the same way we voted for the past 6 years.
Haven’t been to WDW in 5 years. FOP, 7DMT, and SDD are all new to us. Want FPP for them, because we don’t want to stand in long lines.
Actually feel peer pressure to ride FOP, but don’t think my family will love it in general. DD rode it in May (with 30 min wait) and didn’t give it rave reviews. She says she’ll ride again, but not if she has to stand in a long line.
+1
To me the question (sorry to bring things back on topic) isn’t whether I would have a fun time if I could pretend FoP and SDD didn’t exist. The question is, “given that they do exist, how much do I need to sacrifice in fun/other rides/chill attitude to make sure I do ride them?” With good planning, it’s probably not that much, though I’m sure I’m willing to sacrifice chill attitude much more than the people I’m dragging behind me.
Indeed. It isn’t like I’m suggesting that this bold, fresh new attitude means I won’t TRY to ride the new things…only that, I’m not gonna stress about it. If I don’t get to ride, so be it. If I do, all the better.
But the looks on the kids faces …
Actually when I was riding IASW (and enjoying my kids reactions), the thought occurred to me “why did I go on this ride for every one on my many adult only trips?”
That one’s easy.
To look for Hidden Mickeys.
A favorite of my childhood. I was so bummed when they took away Mr Toad’s!
Mine too! Very grateful we still have it in our neck of the woods.
Another reason to make a trip to DLR! (I have never been there). My DD4 asked me the other day if we could go to Disney California some time (one of her friends recently went). Maybe for our fall 2020 Disney trip we will venture to California. My only hesitancy is California is an extra hour+ on the plane with 2 young kids.
+1000. When we went back for the first time in several years last year, complete with a 10-month old in tow, I tried to schedule in every last minute to maximize our ride count. Finally it drove my wife crazy and she asked me how the hell we were going to do thr is with diaper changes, bottles, and the unpredictability of a 10-month old… That’s when I realized that we’d have fun no matter what we did. So I scaled back, and figured that even with that we’d go with the flow and not get to everything we wanted. And you know what? We didn’t get to ride everything we had planned for. And it was just fine - we had an awesome time, because 1) Being in Disney is awesome in and of itself, and 2) we were there together, sharing family time.
Now, that doesn’t stop me from planning, but it does get me to go with the flow more once we are there. And I think we have a better trip as a result.
This, very much so. In fact, when I think back to our 2016 Disney trip, this picture is the one that I MOST remember and cherish. Notice we aren’t actually doing anything (meaning, rides). Just being together!
That’s a really awesome picture, and it’s great that you had a wonderful time.
I’ve got pics just like it (granted, with fewer children) but they’re taken at an National Park where I’m not spending $1000 a day. Or they’re in my backyard, or in San Diego, or any of a hundred places we’ve been.
We typically have a fabulous time on all our trips, and can be very happy with anything from camping out at 10,000 feet where the moon lights things up like it’s broad daylight- or in a deluxe CL room at the BWI watching the Friendships motor by. And even if something DID go awry at WDW, it’s not like I’m going to stomp about and mope and complain for days. Of course not. It’s vacation, you make the best of it and then reassess the value of it when it’s all over. Which is what I’m doing now.
But It’s all about the expectations. I do expect to be able to ride the rides I want to if I’m going to travel to WDW and spend that kind of money. If I can’t, then I’ll just go back to Hawaii, or Normandy or Yellowstone or a bunch of other places that met or exceeded expectations.
Well… except the road to YNP is closed AGAIN on account of snow, so there is that distinct weather advantage that WDW definitely has- but that’s nobody’s fault. Whereas the difficulties at WDW are mostly man-made.
This was my initial goal too, though I was building in pool breaks. Then I read more planning blogs and posts here and came to my senses. Before my FPP booking day, thankfully!
@ryan1 that is a great photo.
@Pod, I agree the expectations are key. I think because of reading here I’m no longer expecting to be able to ride everything, despite the cost. I think we’ll probably go back to other vacation choices after this too but I’ll also do the kind of evaluation you’re doing post-trip to see if repeat trips are worth it. For us for a once-in-a-lifetime trip the value calculation is different – for subsequent trips there would be more “what else/what other new experience is possible elsewhere for this vacation budget?” questioning in play.
