Trip Report Coronado Springs 8/2-8/6

Family of 7, Me(52), DW(49), DS(22), DS’s gf(22), DS(20), DS(18), DD16).
We go to Disney about every 2-3 years, last trip in June of 2019. we park hop every time, we use FPs alot.

I’ll summarize some thoughts and if you want more, you can read some more details after.
Liked Coronado Springs, we had two connecting rooms. Once our family grew to 6 we starting renting 2-Bedroom DVC rooms(AKL twice, WL twice and BW once). Was planning on doing that again for this trip, but got a really good deal on two rooms and tickets back in March. The place is really big. The rooms were nice and the beds comfortable. Showers were very nice.

Enjoyed the parks, but really missed FP and being able to park hop when we wanted. Our normal trip is to rope drop a park, ride what we can, and hop to another park with FPs waiting for us. We were ready to hop usually around 12-1 which was fairly normal for us but since we couldn’t we would wait in a line for a ride. Not sure if its sounds stupid or spoiled, but our family isn’t used to waiting in lines over 30 minutes, we avoid them like the plague and over the years we’ve managed to mostly avoid them. That coupled with the heat made for some crabbiness.

Lines were definitely longer than what we’ve experienced the last two Junes we’ve gone. Buses to and from the parks were great. Really enjoyed he skyliner, very efficient. Park hours were shorter than we’ve had before which kind of sucked as well. we took a chance back in March when we booked that things would be back to normal and we almost didn’t have to wear a mask. It wasn’t too bad and most people complied pretty easily. I was more than a little annoyed that Disney announced early park entry in January, but won’t be activating it until October. Other than ME, we really didn’t get much this time for staying on property. We always get PH so we would almost always do the Early entry park and hop after the morning. Really missed having the luggage go straight to the room, what a nice perk that was.

some more details:
Arrived at MCO around 9:30 from STL. No problems getting our luggage and getting to Magical Express, put right on a bus and we were on our way within 15 minutes. After dropping off our luggage with the bell hop we made our way to Magic Kingdom. Rode Space mountain, buzz, Thunder Mountain. Had lunch during a rain storm at Caseys and Tomorrowland Terrace. Stayed until around 4:30/5 and then hopped to Animal Kingdom. Ate at satu’li canteen/ Everyone enjoyed. Also enjoyed the drinks from the place right next to it. Rode Avatar and called it a night. Love that ride.

Woke up the next morning at 6:55 and managed to get RoR passes for about 10:30. Got to the bus a little later than expected and we were pretty far back in line. Was not stopped at all when let into the park around 8:35 and made our way to Smugglers Run. As we approached the end of the queue, right after you get inside, we were sent to the right by a cast member. Essentially forming a new line, so what probably would have been a twenty minute wait turned into less than 5. Enjoyed the ride and made our way to RnR, and then Tot. Rode TSM a few times and then waited over an hour for Mickeys. Cute ride. Not worth the hour. Park hopped to Epcot and essentially snacked/ate and drank around the world. Enjoyed the steak at Canada, Smithwicks at Rose and Crown, the slushies at France, the Schinkennudeln at Germany, the griddled cheese in Greece.

Wed morning we tried to rope drop Avatar at AK, but we either didn’t catch the first bus or it ran too late, so by the time we got there it was well over an hour. So we rode Everest, Nali, the safari, saw the bird show and had a nice meal at Flame Tree BBQ. We went over to Epcot for a few hours and had some snacks and drinks. Made our way back to AK to ride Avatar at the end of the night again. Still love that ride. Closed down MK, riding Thunder Mountain, Pirates, Splash Mountain(I think the ride broke down because it stopped moving for about 10 minutes) ,and grabbed some ice cream as we walked out(thank god it stay open until 40 minutes after park close).

Thu was HS again, DS’s girlfriend got the RoR passes again, not sure what her secret was, but she was good both days. This time we were stopped for a true rope drop and led all the way to smugglers run, not really sure why Tue was different. We were led to the ride and were on in about 10 minutes, despite not being very close to the front. whole party didn’t go on this time, DW and gf got a little motion sickness, so they went to get coffee. We get off and find out that they decided to ride slinky thinking it was a short enough wait. took them over an hour so we lost a lot of easy ride time. Rode Rnr and Tot with over 4 minute wait. Park hopped to Epcot again and had some more snacks and drinks. Finished the night at HS and the heat/pace finally started to get to us. By the end of the night we were done, but we had 9:55 reservations at Oga’s. We tried to power thru and luckily got in somewhat early. We were led in and discovered that our table was essentially a little area to stand at with some pub tables. Asked the host if we could just cancel without penalty as we were too tired to stand and they obliged to most of the parties relief. I thought the place was pretty cool and if we had been there earlier we might have enjoyed it, but not that night. Got back to the hotel and packed and talked about sleeping in the next day when 5 of us decided that nope, we were going to power thru and rope drop Magic Kingdom.
We got up and caught a pretty early bus to MK. Got into a decent place for Space Mountain after being held at the bridge and managed to get on in about 15 minutes. Went over to BTMR and rode in about 10-15 as well. Got lucky that splash was down all morning until right after we got off of BTMR and got in line there with a pretty short wait. By then the other joined us and we rode Mermaid, people mover and a couple of others. Made our way back to Coronado for ME back to the airport.

Brain dump finished, if you have any specific questions, let me know…
Thanks
Dan

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Welcome to the forum! Thank you for the report. Did runaway train have the preshow working with the new mask mandate?

I am reading correctly you were able to do both RnR and ToT with relatively reasonable waits after smugglers?

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yes, the pre show was running with masks. Yeah, we got off of Smugglers and went straight to RnR, took about 20 minutes, then to Tot which I think was like 35 if I remember.

Dan

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Thank you! That is shorter than in June so very helpful.

Crowds went up pretty fast and stayed high. I was surprised how long they still were at the end of the night.
Usually we would get a lot of rides in at the end of the night but this time it seemed more crowded, or there were more issues.

Dan

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I guess that was the advantage of June. It started pouring every night and HS emptied.

Which one did you like more???

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And that’s why I like you the best!

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These are the questions we need to have answered.

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canteen is different, it was pretty good, but I liked flame tree more. Canteen is just a real nice change from what you normally get at Disney.

Dan