Possible - now active - trip report

Our MK day was an actual CL 6. We got a lot done despite that.

DD9 got 10 hours sleep. I still woke up at 6 :woman_facepalming:t4:. Mobile order breakfast, watching cartoons. Maybe try and swim and Epcot around 12:30/1.

3 Likes

I love PP, but I too struggle to wait more than 40 minutes for it. I don’t understand how a lot of lines build to an hour (JC, I’m looking at you). Why do we do this to ourselves?

5 Likes

:flushed:

6 Likes

Sigh. Epcot is my least favorite part. I said it.

Ok so being live at Epcot was too difficult and so here’s my issues with Epcot.

  1. So much construction. All of the area near world celebration is nothing but construction. It’s about unmagical as you can get. Yes SE is pretty with the lights but that’s all.

  2. Drunk adults. This has been an issue for so long now and it feels like Disney leans into that and encourages it. This makes it decidedly not a family park. This was the park that we had to be more careful walking due to people on their phones not looking where they were walking or drunk people passed out on the ground. Drunk people also driving their scooters like they were barely awake. Also the park with least mask compliance due to alcohol. The CM’s in Mexico were constantly having to tell people to put their masks on.

  3. The CM’s later in the night at the older rides barely acknowledged us. They were all young, chatting with each other or chatting with the drunk young folks. The contrast in hospitality was huge. They all seemed to skew younger too.

  4. The rides are old and worn. They went down a bunch. This was our only park that had consistent break downs. FEA is really short and so-so. TT is fun but I’d prefer it to not be a commercial for Chevy.

  5. Food and drinks. They weren’t that good. And when we needed to eat dinner we were in world celebration and there was no way we were getting down to world showcase to eat.

  6. Limited mobile ordering. There are only a few places that do this. We did have lunch at regal eagle and that was good. Mobile ordering is amazing and the lack of it after a lot of success at the other two packs was felt.

  7. Food lines. DD9 had wanted to do the cookie stroll. The lines were at least 20 min for each place that had them. We weren’t going to spend that much time on cookies.

  8. Harmonious. WTF is that Disney? I know there have been good reviews but I don’t think I’ve seen good reviews from those with kids. It was so hard to find an unobstructed view - one a child could actually see (since you’re looking straight on rather than up like the castle). The whole area fills with terrible firework smoke and we didn’t feel like we could breath. This happened really early on too. I heard someone on the SL complain bout this too. There was also no way to position yourself to leave quickly and see anything. That’s a choice I made but is important to a lot of families. Getting out quickly after a show is big deal. Everything past Japan towards the SL are terrible views. Trees and islands in the way.

  9. Lastly everyone knows the size issue. The park is huge. We actually never made it the whole way around. There wasn’t an chance as HEA went down during our time. So since we entered from IG and went up to world celebration we had to go back down to FEA later in the day. Which meant we’d have to circle back to actually see Canada and the UK. Doing laps of world showcase is nuts.

  10. We did the Olaf thing. We got a weird Mickey sink. It’s bad. I’d been ok with a glass.

9 Likes

Today we leave. So some pool time and then off to go home. I’m ready to go home. I miss coparenting, my own food, good mask compliance. We both miss DH and this good girl:

14 Likes

I’m sorry Epcot was such a disappointment for you. I felt the same way when my kids were younger. It just wasn’t worth it. Especially once the Innoventions pavilions were left to die a painful death. Now that they’re older, we spend a lot more time in the countries, mostly during the day when drunk is less likely to happen.

4 Likes

Maybe with the upcoming changes things will get better?

1 Like

Sorry your epcot day was a bust. It’s funny you mention the Olaf gift bc I almost did it, but when I asked what the prize was (bc it’s not been identified anywhere) it was one of those plastic pouches you can add to a lanyard and that was it. I think they obviously had trouble getting whatever the prize was supposed to be and still wanted the cash grab so they are just giving out whatever cheap thing they have a surplus of stock. Just another sad “not the Disney I love” story.

4 Likes

They also had the maps only at one place now (near main entrance not IG). So you have to go there to get the map and then start the search. The CM was like - are you sure you still want to do this?? Lol.

1 Like

We loved Harmonious! It was very tough to find a good spot for kids, especially since we didn’t want to wait. We just walked up to our spot and watched. By pure happenstance we ended up watching from Mexico. We had to step back like 20 feet behind the main crowd so our kids could see, and even then there were some obstructions. But we enjoyed all enjoyed the show and there was no smoke in our area. We were able to make a relatively quick exit with no wait for the monorail.

After doing the grand circle tour of Epcot just before Harmonious (we were doing the passport stamp thing for the kids) I discovered that the best place to see and make a quick exit in the IG would be on the bridge between UK and France, or anywhere else in UK/Canada that has a relatively clear view (there are islands/trees, but not everywhere).

There were other places with better views in the band between Morocco/Italy but obviously not a quick exit.

Mexico was NOT the best spot. But it was fine.

5 Likes

this is reportedly an excellent viewing area, in addition to providing the quick exit

3 Likes

We were on the bridge and it got super smoky there. Not sure if that wasn’t normal. We didn’t go over a lot towards UK though as things were starting to unravel a bit…

1 Like

Maybe if we’d gotten there earlier. But no view of the circle thing from there. So you’d have to be ok with the screens only.

2 Likes

You can really only see this clearly from straight on. I mean, you want to have it in your line of sight so you can see the wavy arm thingies, but you won’t be able to see the screen in the center of it from almost anywhere.

1 Like

The front is also the only place you can see the “projections” on the mist above the star gate too.

They’re not major, but they form various shapes. Like a heart, Agrabahian tower, and other stuff.

Harmonious is just a really bad setup. The more I think about it, the more I’ve come to loathe it. There shouldn’t only be 2 “viable” viewing spots. (If I remember right, even the announcement over the loud speaker that “you can see anywhere along the lagoon” is gone, they know it’s no longer good viewing from anywhere. )

5 Likes

Good to know this. I haven’t seen the thing at all myself yet.

1 Like

It really is shockingly big and ugly during the day. My understanding is some of the construction is to make Epcot more green and nature focused. The barges are not that. It weirdly reminded me of the AK water show on steroids.

I’m curious if others with kids enjoyed it? Maybe the point is that at 10pm at Epcot Disney doesn’t think kids will be around? Part of the issue is my DD9 is not an IP kid meaning she likes Pixar and Mickey but doesn’t watch Disney movies yet so the shows don’t mean much to her.

Anyways ending the night with tears soured me too on it.

2 Likes

I made the same comparison, but I actually liked rivers of light. And I did harmonious at first, but it’s just after a while of thinking and planning I realize I am not interested in sacrificing anything to see it like I was for other shows.

The problem is…there’s not much to sacrifice to see it?

2 Likes