Tips for a Better Experience

Aww, that’s so sad. :slightly_frowning_face:

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Oh man that is awful! Poor girl. A good reminder that kids need some down time even if on a fun vacation. Clearly the dad needed some down time too.

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Hear! Hear!

Hear! Hear!

In addition, I’ll add this:

  1. Look for Hidden Mickeys! It’s more fun than…well…NOT looking for them!
  2. Prioritize. Determine what things are the MOST important things for each of you in your party (above a certain age…don’t ask really young children this question!) and focus on those things so that no one feels slighted. But it also means possibly sacrificing other things YOU want to do for the benefit of everyone. Amusement Parks can bring families together. But SOMETIMES they can tear families apart! :wink:
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I would say, Ask the littles before you leave home. Help them set their expectations so they know that “we’re planning these things, but not every minute.” Reinforce the expectations you set when you’re in the parks - and don’t give them bogus answers. For example “You said we could meet tink!” “Yes, she’s waiting for us in the Magic Kingdom - we’ll be there tomorrow!”

Most kids who are of speaking age can understand expectations and remember what you’ve said, and it can help preempt tantrums. Just be real with them.

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Oh. I’ll add one more. This one, for me personally, is HUGE.

  • Always have the entire trip paid for BEFORE you leave

So, history on this. Before the days of us being, shall we say, as fiscally responsible as we should, we’d end up planning a vacation before really planning out all the costs (kind of eye-balling it) and then not really budgeting appropriately for it. When the time came for the trip, I didn’t have all the money, so some of it would go on the credit card. The problem was that every SINGLE time that credit card came out, I would have this panicky feeling inside and would grow increasingly grouchy, etc. As a result, anyone anyone in the family would ask for ANYTHING (Mickey Ear ice cream sandwich?) I’d either react poorly (“No! We can’t afford it!”) or I’d make them feel guilty about it (“Okay. But this just means we won’t be able to do X later.”).

Frankly, I was unhappy even at the happiest place on earth.

Then Dave Ramsey changed my life and I became a debt-free person. This meant from that point forward that all vacations MUST be budgeted for and the cash on hand for all purchases (food, etc) on the trip, including gas.

And, WOW, did it make my vacations SO MUCH better. Not just for me, but for everyone. My wife commented to me about how incredibly relaxed I seemed. Everyone knew what we could spend, and when it came time for those Mickey Mouse Ear Ice Cream Bars, we’d just peer into the food envelope and say, “Well, looky here! We have plenty of money to cover the snack!”

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Yes, prioritize. Let’s be honest, there are plenty of attractions that are nice only because it is Disney but don’t really hold up against the test of time. Country Bear Jamboree and Tiki Room are nice shows but they shouldn’t be in anyone’s must do list. More like, escape the crowds and cool down type of shows. Even Peter Pan is not worth the 50+ wait time that it gets. The carnival games at Dinoland could disappear overnight and not one would even notice.

On the other hand, don’t dismiss lesser attractions and diversions. My five year old daughter had a great time doing Sorcerers of the MK and hunting for photobooths.

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Tiki Room… :face_vomiting::face_vomiting::face_vomiting:

Did it once 3 years ago. Still trying to understand what the heck happened in there… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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We’ve NEVER understood the fascination with the Tiki Room. We actually hadn’t tried it in years because we hated it so much. But then we thought maybe our memory was bad. So, last trip, we decided, since we had time, to give it a try. Ugh. It was worse than we remembered. Couldn’t get out of there fast enough!

BUT, there are some people who love it. I think we refer to those people, in technical terms, as, “Having a screw loose.” :wink:

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Hahahahaha

To be honest some of the older Epcot rides also puzzled us. We’d seen some great reviews for spaceship earth, journey into imagination and a couple others that I think don’t exist anymore and we were thoroughly disappointed (adults and 4 year old boy alike). So for this upcoming trip, with only 6 park days and no park hopper, we decided to skip Epcot altogether and go twice to each of the other parks. My wife and I loved World Showcase but our boy (now 7) would likely find it boring. Also, although he used to LOVE Elsa, he is now way to cool for anything Frozen (sadly). So basically, I figure we are only missing out on Mission Space, Test Track and Nemo. We’ll go back to Epcot on a future trip I’m sure but not this time.

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I resemble that comment… I never skip it at either DL or MK. For me it’s the nostalgia factor and the historical significance of it being the first AA attraction ever created. Plus, it almost never has a line and is nice for a bit of a mid-afternoon sit down.

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The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem! :wink:

I don’t disagree with your reasoning, I guess. I’ll just say that when prioritizing things to do at MK, the Tiki Room ends up at/near the end!

But that’s kind of what is ultimately cool about WDW in general. There is something for everyone. Not everyone will want to do everything, but amidst everything, there is always something! For example, I love Tom Sawyer’s Island. It has that nostalgia for me. My wife hates it. But she always takes the raft across with me and the kids, regardless just to make us happy!

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@ryan1- Another Dave Ramsey follower here, yay! Debt free and loving it. Heard about his financial books on Lines, from Retire at 50 Liner. He actually sent me Ramsey’s book from Conn. 1 of my best friends has joined us too, turned her financial life around, great stuff! Amazing the stuff you can learn with Touring Plans!

As to other ways to a better experience:

Free iced water at any CS location, ahhh.
As @SneakyPete said^ TAKE THE BREAK, PEOPLE (for the sake of your & your fam’s sanity).
Block some pool time into your plan. We always wish we’d spent more time at the pool. It’s1 of our kiddos fave things at Disney.
Make a personalized touring plan. You’ll save hours of waiting in line time.

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I hope that Epcot makes a comeback over the next decade. You are right that as of now it can be skipped entirely in particular with its awful tiering system. WS used to be nice back when the only way of learning about a country was through an encyclopedia but now there isn’t really a wow factor to visiting a makeshift version of Morocco.

Imagination should simply not exist along with Living with the Land. Spaceship Earth is a snooze-fest. I like Soarin, Test Track, and Mission Space but the tiering makes it very difficult for planning.

I’m excited for Ratatouille and the GotG ride, hopefully those will make Epcot relevant again besides being exclusively a “drinking destination”.

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Yeah Soarin is absolutely great, I forgot about it. It’s the only thing I will be really sad to miss…

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I’m excited to see Epcot revitalized. But I will say that Epcot is our SECOND two-day park. MK is two days, and if we do a second park two days, it is Epcot. Granted, last time we were there HS didn’t have TSL and AK didn’t have FOP. But both HS and AK we could easily finish in one day. Epcot, not so much. Mission:Space, TT, Soarin’, Universe of Energy (RIP, but looking forward to the new coaster), Living with the Land, and the World Showcase. Spaceship Earth is cool for the nostalgia aspect. It is a let-down when you expect one thing, but get another. But once you realize it is about the evolution of communication in diorama form, it’s a cool experience. (Having said that, our last trip the ride stopped at the VERY TOP of the ball for an hour. For a good part of it, they actually had to turn on the lights. Not sure what the problem was.)

I do miss the old Epcot experience, though, and feel that in the coming decade we WILL see it transformed again. It kind of lost its way, unfortunately.

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Pandora is really well done. It is probably the best land in either coast. Besides the castle, the floating isles make for a really nice photo-op. The side shows are also really nice. A high-stamina family could finish the park in one day at the expense of some of the shows and trails. For us, it is our two-day park besides MK but only because we enjoy chatting with the WE people. Many of them really know their stuff.

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So much this.

I want to see the old EPCOT Center vision revitalized. I do not require the exact same experiences, but, what they’re doing now is removing any sense of vision that the park once had. It is entirely possible to update and upgrade the park without that loss of vision - but it’s not the direction that they have presently chosen.

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I adore Tiki. At DLR, we have literally gone there only to grab a Dole Whip, walked into the Tiki Room and then Jungle Cruise.

I have never been to Tom Sawyer Island.

Prioritizing is really important. I won’t wait for Country bear Jamboree, but I am walking by and they are loading the theatre, I might stop for an AC break.

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At AK a tip we received was to request to sit in the very last row on kilimanjaro safari. This allows you to look backwards easily to get better views of animals that otherwise you may not get a good look at. Also don’t spend anytime on tomorrow land speedway, unless it’s a 4th FP. It’s just not that good lol

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