Another drawback to early September is the weather. While the threat of hurricane season is real, we were very fortunate to have minimal rainfall during our trip. However, the heat was pretty intense. I personally prefer mid-October. Still, FL weather is unpredictable at best, so there's really no perfect time to visit WDW based on the weather.
Back to the Parks. Our experience was positive overall, but not without a few quirks. On our first touring day, we had an early breakfast at Cinderella's Royal Table with the princesses. The 8:10 seating was just perfect! We were able to walk down Main Street and around the castle hub with only a few other guests in the vicinity. We also finished up in time to make the rope drop just behind Cindy's Castle. We followed a Cast Member to Peter Pan (our girls' fave ride) and were second in line after we grabbed a FastPass on the way!
Cindy's Castle at 8:00 a.m.
We went on to visit all the Fantasyland attractions we were interested in by the time Toontown opened at 10. A little fumble on my part: we weren't ready for the Toontown rope drop, as it is actually at 9:45, so we ended up having to wait in line a bit longer for the Fairies than we had hoped. Still, at less than 30 minutes, it was quite manageable.
We tend to skip around the Parks while we tour, grabbing FastPasses as we go, since we know how to navigate (especially the Magic Kingdom) pretty well. I don't recommend this for beginners, as you can waste a lot of time crossing the Parks if you don't know your way around. But it can save you time in the long run if you tour with intent. We don't personally create a specific touring plan, as we find that too restrictive for our family's needs, but we do follow a few rules, such as (1) always use FastPass when it's available, (2) hit the more popular attractions earlier in the day--at least to grab a FastPass, and (3) start the day early, at rope drop when possible.
Rope Drop at Epcot
We were able to see more on this particular trip than in any past visit. For starters, we were in the Parks six consecutive days (previous trips have typically been 3-5 days). I do think we might have enjoyed our time a bit more if we had taken a day to rest in the middle, as we have previous years. We also enjoy shopping at the character outlets, having tea the Grand Floridian, and just exploring Orlando--things we just didn't have time to do without that mid-week break.
Wait times were excellent on this visit. As I mentioned, we rarely waited longer than ten minutes for any attraction, and we often left at the end of the evening with a pocket full of unused FastPasses because they simply were not needed. (But I always get them...just in case.) Because of the short wait times, we were able to visit a few attractions we hadn't experienced before. For one, the Swiss Family Tree House. While not spectacularly exciting, it was interesting enough to my girls who had just watched the movie in the last month. Another new-to-us attraction: Tom Sawyer Island. You could really spend as much time as you'd like exploring this area, but we kept it relatively brief. We visited in the afternoon, but if you happen to go in the morning, you might be lucky enough to find a paint brush left behind by our hero. Turn it in to a CM and you'll get a special surprise.
We did have a few less-than-magical experiences in the Parks. For starters, it seemed that there were an inordinate number of attractions having issues this trip. We were stopped numerous times on Peter Pan (fortunately, our kids like this one and weren't frightened). We also tried repeatedly to see Muppet 3-D Vision at the Studios and were told it was experiencing technical difficulties. Most disappointing was when we returned to Toy Story Midway Mania with our FastPasses at the end of the day, only to be ushered out of the line when it too had technical difficulties. Sadly, it did not reopen that day, but fortunately we had ridden it at opening. There were other attractions with minor issues, but most were resolved in minutes, rather than hours.
We were able to see a few characters that we hadn't seen before. Lotso, from Toy Story 3is new at the Studios, and we saw a few characters that we had missed on previous trips. But we did have a few negative character experiences. In Epcot (France), after standing in line to see Marie from the Aristocats, we were told that she would "have a saucer of milk" and return in less than five minutes. It was at least ten, and perhaps closer to fifteen...time we probably would not have wasted had we known. Our bad luck put us in that position more than once, but in most cases the characters did return in just a few brief minutes.
Overall, our experience with Cast Members was excellent. However, we did encounter the occasional CM who took a page out of Grumpy's book. There was the CM at the gelato kiosk in Italy (Epcot) who could not--or would not--give me a cup of water with my $6 gelato. There was also the "helpful" CM at the FastPass machines at Thunder Mountain Railroad who insisted I did not need a FastPass (told me I was wasting my time, in fact, somewhat curtly), because the line would not get over a 5 minute wait all day and it would actually be slower to use the FastPass line. I said thank you but that I would grab one "just in case." I was glad I did when our family breezed by dozens of guests waiting in a line that was at least 20 minutes long. And although this CM was probably just doing as she was told, I was a bit miffed that I was not allowed to push our stroller with our sleeping, sick preschooler into the air-conditioned lobby of The American Adventure so that I could hear a few notes of the Voices of Liberty (which I had crossed the lagoon especially to see at their last performance of the day), despite my pleas that we had no intention of moving into the theater and merely wanted to hear a quick tune from my favorite ensemble in the World. In the end, my husband sat with said preschooler in the neighboring counter service restaurant while our older daughter and I watched the 15-minute VOL show. It was lovely, but I was not a happy camper at that point. (Picture Mama Bear watching over her sick cub...not pretty.)
These experiences, of course, were peppered among the fine folks that called my girls "princess," offered stickers, and stopped to ask about our volunteer experience when they saw my "Honorary VoluntEAR" button. Still, at WDW you begin to expect a stellar, magical experience. When one CM's attitude falls flat, it really stands out.
One final negative I will mention involves Animal Kingdom. AK has admittedly always been my least favorite park. I ge that they want you to feel like you're walking through the crowded streets of Asia...or the dense jungles of Africa. But the congested walkways are not my favorite. And, going along with this theme, I get that perhaps they want you to embrace the hot sun that beams on the African plain, but I really don't want to experience this while I'm eating. Case in point, the Yak & Yeti. Not only is the counter service seating area outdoors, it is not covered. Sure there were about a half dozen table umbrellas, but those were few and far between. One bonus, we burned off, literally, all the calories in our honey chicken and rice while we ate. Seriously, it was all but unbearable.
I think I have already overstepped my word count for the day. Tomorrow I'll tackle some of my favorite--and a few not-so-favorite--food experiences at Walt Disney World.
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