Some Observations on Walt Disney World

Last Tuesday morning, without telling our four kids where we were going, we woke them up at five o’clock in the morning and drove them to the airport for a surprise, last-week-of-summer pilgrimage to pay homage to the Mouse. The oldest two had been once before, nine years ago, though they barely remembered it. The younger two hadn’t been and really had no idea what to expect. Of course, the trip had been months in planning and it took a considerable amount of self-control on my part to keep the secret. The night before I got little sleep, like a kid on Christmas Eve. By Sunday morning, as we began our slow Bataan-like march home, I was exhausted. I had pretty much worn us all out, though I don’t have any regrets. Below are some of my observations about our Orlando, Florida Disney experience.

• Throughout the trip I had been telling our family—erroneously, it turns out—that the Magic Kingdom is the “happiest place on Earth.” Actually, that exact title is reserved for Disneyland. Magic Kingdom is the “most magical place on Earth.” Okay, then.
• Disney handles crowds better than any other public venue I can think of, and they reward strategy. The Fastpass is really a remarkable innovation. Our family managed to see every ride and attraction except one in the Magic Kingdom without ever waiting more than 15 minutes at a time. Much of that involved me running ahead and grabbing Fastpasses for the entire family. Although the Fastpasses themselves are free of charge, they came at the cost of sore legs and a few toe blisters. But in my mind there are few things worse than spending vacation time waiting in long lines. So it was worth it.
• There are also a few useful phone apps for the Disney parks that will give you wait times for the various attractions. I downloaded my free app weeks before we left, studied it, then hardly looked at it once we got to the parks. Let me explain. Whether or not the apps are entirely accurate (a subject of much controversy, based on the user reviews), observing wait times over a period of days makes it easy to see patterns. In Magic Kingdom, there are a few rides (Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Peter Pan’s Flight) that will always have long wait times, and therefore should be visited when the part first opens, or via Fastpass, or both. Epcot only has two such rides (Soarin’ and Test Track), but the lines for those are always much, much longer than any of the other attractions.
• If you visit Central Florida in August, you will need rain ponchos and/or umbrellas. But that’s not the biggest issue. Footwear is. You’ll want comfortable shoes to do all that walking (which for me means sneakers and socks), but when the rain seeps into the socks and sneakers, that means blisters. Flip-flops are good for rain, but bad for walking. Everyone could bring along both, but that’s not very convenient. We never did work this issue out.
• It’s hard to predict which kids will like the scary rides. I think, but cannot quite be sure, that my oldest has forgiven me for the time I took her on Splash Mountain when she was five. This time around, our youngest (also five) loved every ride and was sad he was too short for Space Mountain and Expedition Everest. Even my next youngest, who is generally a cautious type, decided that he liked scary rides (the scarier the better) and rode Space Mountain twice. For the most part, the Disney parks rely less on thrill rides, so there’s not much to worry about even if you have timid children.
• Another thing Disney does better than anyone is theme. The level of detail and consistency in the parks is remarkable. Even utlity buildings and snack carts are decorated in a theme appropriate to that section of that particular park. I’m partial to Animal Kingdom and the way the Asia and Africa sections of the park manage to convey a sense of third-world adventure (without any of the third world squalor, naturally). On our first day in Disney, we rode, in succession, my favorite haunted house ride, log ride, roller coaster, pirate-themed and jungle-themed rides in the world. Lots of amusement parks have haunted house rides, log rides or roller coasters, but very few (if any) are as well done as The Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain or Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
• Epcot is a great park with some fantastic exhibits and attractions, and the World Showcase, which is the best place to get food in Walt Disney World. We visited the patisserie in France twice during our day in Epcot. Epcot is also the one thing that the World has over the Land; everything else pretty much has a counterpart in California. There are only two downsides to Epcot, as I see it. First, it’s huge, so there’s going to be a lot of walking and a big lake in the middle. If you don’t have a plan, you may end up doing multiple laps. Second, by the end of the day, you can feel a little over-edu-tained: it feels at times like they are really trying to force feed you some sort of learning along with your amusement. One attraction my family really enjoyed was the Cool Club, a Coca-Cola-sponsored indoor kiosk that featured self-serve fountain drinks with flavors from around the world. It’s a free and very refreshing way to take a break during the hottest part of the day. But that Italian “non-alcoholic aperitif” is nasty.
• We skipped Disney’s Hollywood Studios (née MGM Studios) this time around. It’s the one park that doesn’t really warrant a full day. By not going, you miss out on a pretty good evening show (Fantasmic), the popular Toy Story Midway Mania ride and Star Tours. I don’t care about Star Tours because motion simulators make me nauseous, but the kids might have enjoyed it. Instead, we spent the fourth day of our tickets on a second day in Magic Kingdom.
• Accomodations and transportation at Disney are tiered. The nicest, most expensive resorts get boat or monorail service directly to the resort. More reasonable on-site Disney resorts get priority buses parked close to the resorts’ entrances. We stayed at a “Downtown Disney” hotel (the Doubletree, the only one we could find that would sleep six people in a single room), a group of hotels clustered around the tourist-trappy Downtown Disney commerical area. These hotels are affiliated with Disney, but run by the large hotel chains. They are the redheaded stepchildren of the Disney resorts. The accommodations are nice enough, but the buses are relegated to a spot in the middle of a parking lot, down the street and around the corner from the other buses. How do I know that Disney isn’t paying much attention to the Downtown Disney buses? On one of the buses, there were ads for two (Disney-owned) ABC television shows: Pushing Daisies and Ugly Betty. I kid you not.
• The worst rides in Disney? The Carosel of Progress is pretty bad. Tomorrowland Speedway is pretty boring (a hamstrung go-cart on rails), but I think you’re enjoyment of that ride is inversely proportional to age, with younger kids who are many years from obtaining a drivers license enjoying it the most. I actually enjoyed Country Bear Jamboree and The Enchanted Tiki Room more than I expected (and probably more than I would have when I was a kid, oddly). Even Small World has been updated to tone down the incessant singing. And if you imagine that you are taking a boat tour of a Rankin/Bass stop-motion Christmas special, it can be kind of charming.

All in all, I really enjoyed my Disney experience. The Disney parks are sort of an American institution, and I think they deserve to be. We had fun, the kids will enjoy the memories. And hopefully some one reading this blog will get some useful information. Please share your thoughts and tips in the comments below.