Returned yesterday - A few Notes!!

[jimmybog]

I returned last night from a 3 night 4 day trip to DLP. I thought I would post a few notes of our trip. Firstly, contrary to information seen on other sites and park maps, Phantom manor was open during our stay. A cast member said that the planned closure was actually a mistake. Next, make sure you take plenty of warm clothes. It was very very cold, much colder than Britain is at the moment. If you are staying at the Sequoia Lodge or New York Hotels, don't forget that you can walk to the parks by going through Disney Village. This is a good alternative when the busses are busy. The Red wood bar in the sequoia lodge was shut Wednesday and Thursday for refurbishment to the floor but was reopened friday. Make sure if you are staying in the Disney Hotels that you take advantage of having your breakfast in the Magic Kingdom. It's called the "Good Morning Fantasyland" breakfast. Get to the park gates by 9am and you should be able to have your breakfast by 9:30am-9:45am. You can then go on the main rides in Fantasyland before the gates open at 10am. For definate, Peter Pan, Dumbo, Teacups were all open. You can then do Snow White, Pinnochio, Small World, Caroussel etc when the park officially opens. I also saw on one web site that Space Mountain was supposed to be closed Thursday and Friday. This was not the case. It was open throughout our stay. Crowds? Wednesday and Thursday were so quiet that we didnt even use Fast Pass once. We went on all the main rides several times each. On most of the rides they were asking us if we wanted to stay on and go round again. On Friday we went in the Disney Studios and it was again quiet. No waits on any attraction. Aerosmith was basically walk straight on with no wait whatsoever. We then went to the Magic Kingdom about 2:30pm. It was busier than Wednesday and Thursday but not by much. You maybe had a 10 minute wait on the bigger attractions such as Big Thunder Mountain and Peter Pan but otherwise it was walk on or a max of 5 minutes waiting. Because we done so much in the first three days, Saturday we had a lie in, packed, had a late breakfast and only went to the park around mid day to pass the time before our train back in the evening. What a shock!!! The MK was absolutely packed and I do mean packed. Now I've been to MK at WDW in Florida during the summer and on early entry days but it was nothing like what we saw on Saturday. The waiting times for the rides were absolutely horrific!! A few were 15 minutes, some were 30 or 45 minutes but most were 60 minutes or over!! Fast passes? Return time for Peter Pan on a fast pass at 12:15pm was 16:00 to 16:30pm. Within 30 minutes it changed to 18:15 to 18:45. Space Mountain waiting time was 30 minutes but changed to 45 minutes by the time it took us to go on the Nautilus attraction. We didn't bother queing for any ride and all we done was watch one show, saw the 4pm parade and went on Natilus. Every part of the park was heaving. Even Adventure land where there are very few attractions was swarming with people. If you are going to visit the park on any of the Saturdays before Xmas then I would advise you get to the park for when it opens which is 9am. Try and do the main rides in the first two hours and fast pass any others. You can then do the minor attractions and spend the rest of the day viewing the parades and tree lighting ceremony. Good luck, you will need it.

 

[diberry]

Thanks for the warning - we'll be arriving there next Saturday - hope it's less busy on Sunday! But we have until Thurs so hopefully it will be quieter then!

 

[NIK]

I found the same problem when I went to DLP in October. You could not move for people and I gave up all hope of going on some rides because the queues were horrendous, even to get a fastpass. I was in the parks Monday/Tuesday - UNFORTUNATELY it was during 1/2 term week for both UK and France. I did manage to get on Pirates of the Caribbean but a 2nd go was out of the question. By the time I got off the queue was massive. Peter Pan's flight was a no go. Still, at least I have something left to do on my next visit! LOL