Disney World (2018)

Park Hopping: 5 Days in Disney, Sans Kids

During the summer of 2018, my wife, Megan, and I decided to go to Disney World, located in perpetually-sunny Orlando, Florida.
The last time I’d visited was in 2014, and I only went to “EPCOT” and “Downtown Disney.”
My wife, on the other hand, had never been there at all, so she was far overdue for a chance to visit.

We chose mid-August as it seemed to be an ideal time to visit while still plenty warm, yet just inside the start of the school year, to hopefully avoid as many kids as possible. Megan and I do not have children yet, so this travel log will be about our adventures in the ‘Happiest Place on Earth’ as the not-target audience: adults.

Day 1: Arrival

About three weeks before our trip, we received our “MagicBands” from Disney in the mail. 

Everything we do here is controled with, or responds to, these smart bands. At the airport we followed the very obvious “This Way to Disney!” signs to a 10-row bus terminal – tapping our bands told an usher which hotel we’d be staying in, and therefore which bus to get onto. The companion app, “Disney World,” listed our hotel, building number, and room number; plus, we were automatically checked in. We literally walked off the bus and right into our room!

Even the meal plan we bought from Disney was tracked by the band, so when we entered the hotel’s dining area, we simply tapped the bands against a terminal and our meal was “paid” for!

Convenient!

Our room in was in the Port Orleans-French Quarter Resort, and looked, presumably, like a late 1800s New Orleans fancy-place would look, with wooden furniture and some fancy filigree for decorations.

Day 2: Magic Kingdom

What with this being Megan’s first time to Disney and all, she spent a fair amount of time popping into the stores to see if any of their tchotchkes were worth buying. She was immediately seduced by a Minnie Mouse ears headband.

Compared to other companies’ theme parks, you get guaranteed FastPasses when you buy tickets to visit Disney World. These aren’t unlimited though: you get three per day, and a fourth if you use all three up and there’s still time before the park closes. You’re also limited by what other guests are doing, as there is a limited number of FastPass slots per ride.

We did use all three of our FastPasses, which helped us avoid some horrendous looking lines that everyone else had to suffer through.

Somewhere between good luck and good timing, the longest we had to wait for any ride was about 30 minutes, even including the “long” line we waited in for “Big Thunder Mountain.” 

Unfortunately, our final ride of the evening was FastPass’d to be “Space Mountain,” but it got shut down for mechanical issues.
Que sad violin music.

We finished the day by staying for the massive light show on Cinderella’s Castle - it was a technical marvel. I could see about a dozen projectors spaced around the castle during the show, but they were so far away that I have no clue how they produced such a clear image when they started displaying characters and stuff on the castle itself. And there were fireworks.

A major thing we learned: the meal plan covers a LOT in terms of dollar value, but Disney makes it surprisingly hard to use all of the meals. The “quick stop,” “fast food,” and “snacks” locations are very easy to find, as practically every corner has a diner or kiosk. The “table service” options, however, are few and far between, not clearly labeled, and cannot be easily sorted/filtered/searched to via the companion app on your phone. I found a listing of all the applicable restaurants via a website that just so happens to be blocked when using Disney’s WiFi, but otherwise normally accessible when using my phone’s data plan. No idea if that was intentional by Disney’s IT folks, or just a fluke of my phone.

Day 3, Part 1: Animal Kingdom

Short and sweet: It’s like a zoo you can walk around in! There are animal pens sprinkled throughout, so you can see your favorite critter between rides.

“Pandora: Rite of Passage” is easily the most immersive simulator I’ve ever been in. I was face-to-face with an IMAX-sized screen, held into a moving seat, wearing polarized 3D glasses. While the chairs moved far less than every other “shuttle”-style sim I’ve tried, the screen completely filled my field of vision, so when my “banshee” (the creature I was “riding”) decided to bank or climb, I felt the entire movement. Despite my chair never changing height, I could feel it in my gut when the scene turned into a dive down a gulley.
It is absolutely the one thing you MUST ride next time you visit!

Day 3, Part 2: Disney Springs

Somewhere between my last visit in 2014 and this visit in 2018, Disney rebranded “Downtown Disney” as “Disney Springs,” supposedly after a spring that was found here by settlers (which is exactly the kind of Disney-fied “history” I would expect from the House of Mouse).

There’s been an incredible amount of additions and buildup since last time I was here too - rows upon rows of new restaurants and stores, including one of the absolute best Mexican restaurants I’ve ever been to: Frontera Cocina.

It absolutely feels like the “adult” part of Disney World: lots of table service restaurants, live music, open-air bars, high end shops, and lots and lots of Disney merchandise. Not that a kid wouldn’t enjoy “Rainforest Café” or the LEGO store, but the vibe of “Springs” is very clearly aimed towards not-children.

Day 4: EPCOT

I vaguely remember that “EPCOT” is an acronym for something, and that Walt originally wanted it to be a ‘city of the future’ type thing.
But it failed, so he turned it into a theme park, as one does.

I’ve never gotten to ride the inter-park monorail before, so today was the day! We took the bus from the hotel to Magic Kingdom, then rode the monorail to EPCOT, because I am, at heart, a small child recklessly driving an adult body and was unreasonably excited about getting to ride in what is essentially an incredibly deformed electric bus.

End result: The monorail is about as exciting as riding a regular bus, without having to deal with intersections and traffic.

The “Soarin’ Around the World” ride was clearly the predecessor to the “Pandora: Rite of Passage” ride - massive screen, individual seats, simulated flying, etc., but it shows its age simply by existing in the same theme park as the Avatar ride.

The World Display was nifty.
Megan didn’t want to stop at the United States spot. Something about “we already live there” or whatever.
The China component was interesting too - the cinema bit was the same piece I remember from visiting almost 15 years ago, and I wonder if that’s because “it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” or if the geopolitical climate has changed enough that a new film would be some kind of disaster to make.

At the end of our day, we stopped at the “Contemporary Resort and Spa” - the giant A-frame hotel with the monorail stop inside - frankly, I was unimpressed. It’s part of the priciest tier of hotels that Disney offers in its portfolio, but as we wandered the inside, it just looked tacky and generic, and nothing about it immediately justified the price tag, so I have to assume the rooms are magnitudes nicer than the one we have.

Day 5: Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Like “Disney Springs,” “Disney Hollywood Studios” was rebranded a few years back. You might recognize it as “MGM Hollywood Studios,” but since MGM went belly-up a few years ago, I’m not surprised Disney rebranded that too.

We started the morning at EPCOT again, since I got a FastPass spot for the “TestTrack” coaster. I ended up using the “single riders” line, and am quite glad I didn’t waste one of the FastPasses on it, as it was a glorified, thinly veiled Chevrolet ad and doesn’t even have the saving grace of being a fun ride too.

Around noon we made it to Hollywood Studios and B-lined it to the StarWars stuff. There are only a few display things now, but the being-built “StarWars: Galaxies Edge” looks like it’s going to be the highlight of our next visit, so I’m excited for that!

After lunch, and a few more shows, we headed back to Disney Springs for more wandering and dinner.

Disney Springs has a store called “The Void.” They’re a VR entertainment company that uses backpack-mounted Oculus Rift and haptic feedback best systems to put you smack dabin the middle of a StarWars scene, roughly right in the middle of Rogue One. We weren’t just standing in a room looking around - they’d actually built a simple maze and coded a simulation where we could walk through doors, shoot Storm Troopers, etc. At one point we were on a platform that “lifted” us into the air in the middle of an active volcano: the floor vibrated and we were hit with a blast of heat – it was veryconvincing.
It wasn’t perfect (I never saw my own feet), but it was a stellar example of the promise of VR games and what’s around the corner in the next decade. Next to “Rite of Passage,” this is a “must do” too! (side note: $30 per person and not at all covered by your ticket to the parks)

Day 6: Final Sweep

We did it, we exhausted ourselves.
We didn’t even get out of bed until 1000 this morning.

When we finally dragged ourselves out of the room, we headed directly to Magic Kingdom and snagged a “table service” meal, then waited for Space Mountain - the one ride I wanted to do all week (besides “Rite of Passage”)

After that... well, we just headed back to the room to relax for a while before heading to Springs one last time.

Dinner was at an excellent Irish Pub, followed by listening to some live music.

An excellent end to an excellent week!

Day 7: Final Notes - A Review

• Disney was awesome.
  We will definitely be returning one day. And again, with kids.
  But not little kids, because sweet mercy, watching other people deal with their tiny humans was more than painful enough. I’ll wait until my kids can at least use a toilet by themselves and no longer require a body harness and leash.

• Extra Hours
  EPCOT and Hollywood Studios have “Extra Magic Hours” every day, while Magic Kingdom has them on rotating days. We never used those bonus hours and never felt at a loss for doing so, so that “perk” of staying at a Disney property was lost on us. 
  Interestingly, while the copy on Disney’s website claims that all four parks have Magic Hours, the actual times listings for each park are very clear that Animal Kingdom doesn’t play.

• Rides
  Every ride was packed, and I don’t just mean the lines were full - the employees were very good about asking for singles and doubles when there were open spaces, and other rides had dedicated “single rider” lanes (which were great when I wanted to ride a roller coaster that Megan wasn’t interested in)

• Clothing
  This seems like it should go without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway: bring the right kinds of clothing!
  I had a pair of sneakers for walking (not my running shoes), light-weight or workout t-shirts, a pair of loose cargo shorts, socks (the kind you’d wear if you were going to run), and compression shorts (workout underwear that I’d normally only use for working out). Megan brought her female-equivalent attire.
  Collectively, these helped us stay cool, prevent uncomfortable rubbing/chaffing, and not get blisters on our feet.

• Crowds
  Mid-August is part of the “off season,” which is exactly what we were planning for, but it still included some claustrophobia-inducing crowds. Based on what various cast members told us, visiting in the middle of the summer must be an absolute nightmare.

• Powering your electronics
  Our hotel room had 8 USB ports built into the furniture, and I’m positive we weren’t just a lucky outlier. I brought my USB splitter/charger because I didn’t know what we’d have, but there were more than enough plugs for all of our devices every night (two watches, two phones, one iPad, one battery pack). Bring your own cables.

• FastPasses
  FastPasses are absolutely amazing. The 3-4 rides you get each day can make the day worth it. Truly, there’s only 3-4 rides/shows per park worth seeing, so as long as you manage your way into the ones you want, you’ll be happy. If I had to wait through 60-minute lines consistently, I would have been much less happy about my visit.

• MagicBands
  The MagicBands are the impressive RFID tool that controls everything you do here. Unlock doors, get us in FastPass lines, “pay” for our food, etc. They’re pretty nifty.
  The “smart” part is a medallion that sits in a bracket of a plastic holder band that fits around your wrist, and probably costs Disney about $0.32 per unit.
  When you get them initially in the mail, they come in one of seven plain colors. At the park, you can buy all sorts of accessories, from bands themed with your favorite character to carabiner-clipped frames that you can attach to your keys or belt loop.
  If I knew for a fact that the shape/size of the medallion wouldn’t change for the next decade or so, I’d happily buy a different holder for future visits. As it stands, a $10 holder that I’m only going to use for five days is a hard sell.

• Transportation
  The bus system is incredible. You can get from any hotel to any park, and from any park to any other park. The only limit is hotel to hotel, which isn’t exactly something you ever need to do (the exception is the monorail that does a loop between the “Contemporary,” “Grand Floridian” and “Polynesian” resorts).
  At the parks, the bus loading areas have 20+ “to” spots clearly labeled - just stand at the sign with the name of where you want to go and a bus will be along shortly to take you there.
  The busses run every 20 minutes, at a maximum. On more than one occasion, an empty bus would be in the bus lot, the driver would see a clump of us passengers standing in line to go somewhere, and the empty bus would turn on their sign and take us, which cut down our wait times significantly.
  The busses do get pretty full, but at no point did we have to wait for a second bus to cycle through to grab us from any given location. I assume this is a problem during the high season.
  “Disney Springs Resorts” is a catch-all term for the non-Disney hotels located just outside the “Springs” park (Hilton, Hyatt, Wyndham, etc) - there is a dedicated bus for them that goes between “Spring” and EPCOT, along with the regular “Springs”-bound busses from the other parks, if you’re so inclined to not stay at a Disney hotel, but still desire benefit from their bus routes

• Shades of Green
  For those of you reading this who are active duty military, or retired military, you are eligible to stay at “Shades of Green,” a DOD-owned MWR facility specifically for military-types and their family so they can enjoy the various Orlando theme parks without paying an exorbitant price.
  We didn’t stay there this time, by choice.
  For starters, we just didn’t want to. We agreed to go all-out (within budget) for this vacation, which meant staying at a Disney hotel, eating on the Disney meal plan, etc. 
  Second, and this is huge, while there is a bus route, it’s extremely limited. Unlike Disney’s system, the SoG busses only go to two of the four parks on an hourly rotation, which is magnitudes less convenient than Disney’s omnipresent bus option.

• Photography
  As you plan your next Disney vacation, you’ll receive a suggestion to purchase the “MemoryMaker” plan - a $200 flat rate so you can own all of the pictures that they take of you on the rides, along with pictures taken by “professional” photographers around the park.
  Those same randomly-stationed employees will use your camera if you ask them to, for free.
  If you want a picture with any mascot, your only option is to have it “professionally” taken with their camera. I didn’t see any mascots wandering the parks, so you can’t just walk up to one for a selfie.
  If you’re taking small kids and want them to have pictures, or want to be in all of the family pictures, the MemoryMaker is probably perfect for you.
  But if you just want to snap some shots like Megan and I did, save yourself a couple Benjamins and do it yourself - we did not purchase the MemoryMaker, so we might have missed some “quality” pictures, but we’re happy with what we got.
  Also: selfie sticks are banned, so that’s simply not an option for your picture needs.

• Park Improvements
  There is a LOT of stuff under construction. I can’t tell if it’s because they’re building new things or overhauling old things. Either way: in a year or two, I expect the four parks to be massively improved over what’s shown/available now.

• Internet and WiFi
  Disney’s WiFi coverage is impeccable. Whatever enterprise-grade mesh networking system they’re using is flawless. I had consistent speeds and solid connectivity at all times, anywhere I could walk to - the parks (including “Springs”), the pool, the bathrooms, the restaurants, the hotel room, etc., and never had to worry about a sticky SSID.
  It all uses the same channel name, so after you connect for the first time upon arrival, you’re good to go for the rest of your stay.

• The App
  The companion app, “Disney World,” is absolutely terrible. It arbitrarily stops showing important information, like which FastPass you’ve signed up for. You’re still registered for everything, you just can’t see it. It’s slow to load, often forgets what it’s trying to load, and refuses to background refresh, so I had to open it from scratch more often than not. It’s only slightly more convenient than using the FastPass kiosks located in the parks.

• Dining
  The meal plan is incredibly convenient to use: we’re already wearing our Magic Bands to get us into the parks, so the same band is used to “pay” for meals. You could go an entire week here without needed to reach for your wallet to pay for food.
  There are three food options: “quick service” (sometimes labeled “fast food”) options are very similar to a Highschool cafeteria. You walk in, ask for food, and they hand it to you on a tray. “Table Service” is exactly what it sounds like - you sit at a table, order from a menu, and they bring you food. These generally include a drink (alcoholic), a main course, and a dessert. And then “snacks,” which are everything else, from bags of candy to pretzels to bottles of soda.
  There’s a StarBucks cafe in every park, so you can get your grande White Chocolate Mocha (with breve and whipped cream) fix whenever need be, and pay for it with a “snack” credit or off of your normal StarBucks membership card.
  We got the middle tier dining plan, which included 12 quick service meals, 12 table service meals, 24 snacks, and 2 refillable mugs. Notice how there aren’t enough meal options for 3 meals a day. With planning, we made it work, but it’s not inherently obvious how to stay full during the day without also gorging yourself on unhealthy snacks.
  Despite the ease of use to “pay” for meals, actually getting all them is a Sisyphean task. As I mentioned on Day 1, “Quick service” meals are incredibly easy to find, as are “snacks”. “Table Service” isn’t, and some table service locations count as two “meals” per person, though that information is only displayed/relayed once you’re inside (but before you’re served). 
  That is, if you can find a table service option at all - the parks seem to only have 2-4 table service options, and most of them are stuffed to the gills unless you have a reservation. Disney Springs has a ton of table service options (10+) but that only works in your favor if you’re already there. Same with the 1-2 options each hotel has.
  There is no consistency on what the cashiers count for a “quick service” meal versus a selection of “snack” options, and the cashiers are so quick to process you that you don’t get time to clarify what you want your meal categorized as before they check you out to keep the line moving.
  For example: “cereal” and “milk” are separately qualified as “snacks,” but together they become a “quick service” meal. Arithmetic like this isn’t posted anywhere, so it’s a particularly frustrating easter egg.
  Regardless of how adventurous you’re feeling, don’t get a burger at any of the four parks - they’re about the same quality meat as what you get from the “cheap and frozen” section at Walmart, with all the taste and texture of your favorite brand of cardboard.
  I did kept track of what each meal would have cost if we were paying out of pocket. The difference between the total dollar cost for what we ate and the cost of the meal plan we purchased was the equivalent of one meal. By itself, the meal plan is not a better deal than just paying out of pocket, but it combo’d with our room price, so there’s some wiggle there in value.
  If you don’t want to pay for a meal plan, you can still use your MagicBand to “pay” for meals – the charge will just be sent to your room, billed to whatever credit card Disney has on file.

• The Everything Combo
  The biggest thing Megan and I have realized is that the “packages” that Disney offers are... okay. They’re certainly not bad, and I think if we’d paid for each component a la carte, we would have paid far more, but the “deals” could absolutely be improved upon with research.
  There’s things like “Shades of Green” for military. There are also things like Hilton Hotels, of which I’m an Honors member.
  (The cost of the park and plane tickets won’t change based on where I stay, so those are costs that will be more or less the same.)
  However, the “meal plan and hotel bundle” cost a pretty penny, and that’s something I didn’t research well. It’s quite possible that if we stayed at a Hilton (with included breakfast every day) and then paid of meals out of pocket, the grand total cost of room and board would be less than what we collectively payed this time around. 
  I’ll need to actually sit down and crunch the numbers.
  But, since neither Megan nor I have tried to spend a week staying and eating at Disney World before, there’s a certain amount of experience needed in order to make a more educated choice for next time (which, according to my wife, will be somewhere in the next three years).
  That said: everything we paid for was entirely within the amount we had budgeted way back in December, so my commentary on money isn’t out of frustration, just for how to make your dollar stretch farther without resorting to eating PB&J for every meal.

Final final note

We’re very happy with how this vacation turned out! While my notes above pointed out flaws, there was nothing that “ruined” any part of this trip. We were well-rested every night, well-fed every day, and entertained from dawn till dusk!