Disneyland/Disney World thread

[Ksandra]

They might be pricing some people out but they’re also rapidly approaching a point where the money is better spent on other types of vacations lol. Just got home from Hawaii for less than we usually spend going to Disneyland.

We stopped our passes and used the money for a Disney Cruise (March of 2020). Unless something financially changes in our lives we may not do the passes anymore, and may abuse the DW passes instead (go at the end of the summer one year and at the beginning of the next summer before the passes run out.)

[Mythe_Seraph]

I think the best bang for your buck is the Halloween night events. It’s like $130 and you get a solid what, 8 hours of free candy and barely any lines for he rides? I’m pretty much only doing that moving forward. Get a day pass for California adventure and then do the night pass for Halloween.

[Melena]

I think the best bang for your buck is the Halloween night events. It’s like $130 and you get a solid what, 8 hours of free candy and barely any lines for he rides? I’m pretty much only doing that moving forward. Get a day pass for California adventure and then do the night pass for Halloween.

Only parties starting this year are moving to DCA in part due to Galaxy's Edge.

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[Mythe_Seraph]

Hopefully it returns back to Disneyland in the future then because California adventure, while still great, isn’t my favorite and doesn’t warrant an entire trip.

[Melena]

Honestly, it probably won't. It was supposed to have moved last year, but due to world of color being broken, they had to delay it.

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[Cantih]

So my mom wanted to see what the eatery/food options were for the Star Wars area, needed me to navigate the website.
The variety is pretty disappointing.

[TummieGaruda]

A lot of adults who haven’t been to Disney since they were kids have fond memories going as a kid and just going with the flow and stuff. Those days are long gone. If you try to show up at a Disney park without a plan for hitting certain rides and attractions and take advantage of the fast pass system, you are gonna have a bad time.

Now, there is certainly an argument to be made that such intensive planning and preparation can defeat the purpose of going on vacation in the first place. It’s not for everyone. But if you lean in and do prep and work the system you can maximize your time, and fun.

I will say that if you plan on just going 1 day, you either need to plan ahead or go with someone who is familiar with the park/rides that can guide you for the best experience. If you have a child with you then planning is a MUST because you need to work around how the child(ren) will react to specific things and what rides you want them to get on.

If you plan on taking kids who require naps and are too big to pass out in a stroller, I highly suggest doing at least two days with an overnight stay at one of the local hotels. You can do a two day non park hopper pass for $225/per person over 10 years old and you can focus on one park per day without having to feel stressed. You can leave the park at any time to deal with naps or rest and use MaxPass to book future ride reservations for the day. Also the more days you stay the cheaper the tickets get. The difference between a 3 day single park pass vs a 5 day single park pass is about $40, but 5 days I feel is a little excessive. Personally for me 3 days (one park per day) is the sweet spot because not only do you get an automatic Magic Morning, but you can take it slow and do two days at Disneyland giving you the ability to take your time and focus on half the park each day and then save 1 day for California Adventure which doesn't require a ton of planning and is small enough to be able to do the main attractions easily.

Also, If you have kids, Magic Mornings are great though because you can knock out most of Fantasy Land kids rides before the park opens to the general public, but you have to do Peter Pan first because it always has the longest wait times.

[Anoat]

It’s taking all of my willpower not to watch all these vids on YouTube of people getting to go through Galaxy’s Edge now that it’s opened

[Astylla]

It’s taking all of my willpower not to watch all these vids on YouTube of people getting to go through Galaxy’s Edge now that it’s opened

The struggle is real , we have our reservations on Tuesday 8am -12 noon and 8pm - 12 midnight and Wednesday from 11am -3pm and I'm going insane but want to experience it for myself.

Mostly I've just been reading experiences that have been getting me super hyped.
Lightsaber is my first goal, then cantina , smugglers run and droid in that order.

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[Astylla]

I just got back from our 8am-12 noon timeslot at Galaxy's edge and HOLY SHIT IT'S FUCKING INCREDIBLE.

I got my lightsaber built, hubby got cantina goodies and picked up a ton of random stuff. Our next reservation is at 8pm-12midnight and I can't wait to see it tonight.

The land is so immersive I have so much I want to say but am absolutely exhausted mentally right now. It blew me away.

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[TummieGaruda]

I did Galaxy's Edge twice this past weekend and I'll spoiler my thoughts:

Spoiler: show

The Good:

• Disney did a good job of giving you a full immersive experience. The Land itself is designed physically in such a way that you cannot see any part of Disneyland from within which helps to give you the feeling that you are on a different planet. The CM's were very much into their roles which I heard they got to develop their own characters. Even the janitor sweeping up trash came by and spoke to me and said he was looking for large piles of garbage because they pay him credits based on the weight of the garbage he collects. The CM's also ask for credits instead of dollars when doing transactions and ask for blue credentials for AP discounts. As noted early in the press releases, there were no markings of Disney anywhere that I saw inside the land.
  
• The Millennium Falcon ride was pretty cool and the ride works exactly how I thought it would and posted not too long ago. The preshow experience really makes it feel as though there is only one ship instead of the 4 entrances.
• Building a Lightsaber was also a fun (but expensive) experience. Most people I talked to said they felt rushed, but I didn't get that feeling. You get to choose from 4 different designs and each design has 5 pieces with two options (emitter, base, activator, handle, and upper handle). You also choose your Kyber Crystal at the beginning (Red, Blue, Green, or Purple) that decides the blades color. If you aren't happy with your crystal choice, you can go to Dok-Ondar's Den of Qntiquities to buy a different crystal along with two other colors not offered during the build which is white and yellow. There is also a black kyber crystal which is hidden in the red ones as well.
• Building a Droid was something I didn't do, but it looked fun. Basically you have this convener belt that has spare parts and you can build either an R Series droid or BB series. They come in all shapes and colors. When you are done you can choose a personality chip which will react to the land based on which chip you got. A person we met while waiting in line for the Cantina had a specific chip that would react to the storm troopers as they walked by
  
• The Storm Troopers were another cool addition...they actually somewhat harass guests at times especially when they are looking for a rebel spy. Every so often they would go on patrol sometimes with Kylo Ren to find the CM who was the rebel spy to try to lock them up.
  
• The Blue/Green Milk...it was a bit strange at first. The Blue Milk tasted like those character popsicles (Pink Panther, Mario, Sonic) that you used to get from Ice Cream trucks. The green milk tasted like how Soaring over California smells...its hard to describe.

The Bad:

• There were a lot of E-Bay shoppers buying up a lot of merch. One of the hottest items was the special Gift Card found at the Droid Workshop which looks pretty cool and was star wars themed. It looked like an actual "credits" card that would be used in one of the movies. That gift card sold out pretty quickly on the second day we were there.
  
• The reservations to build a lightsaber filled up within the first 10 minutes of the incoming reservation group. They can only take 15 people at a time, and if you don't go there first, you basically don't get an opportunity. I am not sure how they will handle this when it opens to the public but my guess is that they can only accommodate at a minimum 45 guests per hour and it will probably be some online reservation system similar to fast pass.
  
• The Droid Depot build a droid line also was pretty long. There wasn't a reservation, but the line got very long and almost exceeded 2 hours at one point. Line management was very bad because there was some confusion over which line was for merch and which was for building a droid.
  
• The Millennium Falcon I am listing here as bad because when you go on the ride there are 6 of you and each of you has a job: Two Pilots, Two Gunners, Two Engineers. Being an Engineer is by far at least to me the worst job because your tasks is basically to press a bunch of buttons that light up whenever something goes wrong (your pilot hits something, you take damage from fire, etc). You have to focus on pressing buttons which takes you away from whats going on in front of you. If you have a bad pilot, you are going to be focusing on pressing buttons more when your team is doing well. Both times I rode the ride I got stuck as the Engineer. Gunners have it easy because there is an option to auto target so all they have to do is just mash the same button while watching the screen.

The Ugly

• The Cantina was a similar situation as Savi's Workshop to build a lightsaber except they took your number down and texted you when they were ready. At first this was ok but on Saturday they were running an hour behind and we didn't get in until 3 hours into our reservation. The place was lively, but it was crowded and there was a two drink maximum regardless of whether your drinks were alcoholic or not. You were only allowed to stay 45min which is great for crowd control, unless you stand at the bar then there was no limit. The drink options were ok but a bit pricey especially the Rancor Beer Flight which was $75, but at least you got to keep the whole thing including the stand and cups which are shaped like teeth. The snack options however were TERRIBLE. They had some 'trail mix' that was just utterly disgusting.
  
• The food options were pretty bad too. Docking Bay 7 didn't have anything that sounded/looked appetizing. Ronto Roasters, even though they technically sell only one item, had better food which was basically a giant sausage with cole slaw and pepper mayo wrapped in a warm pita. Those were the only two food places within the land so they clearly need to add more choices or another food place in my opinion.

[Katlan]

a drink that is $75? holy crap. I am disappointed to hear about the food one thing Disney always does really well.

I plan to go in the fall on a random weekday. Hopefully it won't be too cray by then.

[Melena]

I justified the beer flight just because you got to take the wooden board and rancor teeth home, so I changed it up as a 25 dollar beer flight and fifty dollar souvenir.

As for the food it really seems to be you either love it or hate it. Astylla had the blue mikk which she liked, as well as the wrap from roasters, and the pot roast and ribs from docking bay (we had multiple reservations). I thought the ribs especially were good. I'm a picky eater and not a fan of slaw or most veggies so it was hard for me to justify a full item so I nibbled off of Astyllas food and I enjoyed the proteins.

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[Anoat]

Disney World AP prices were raised last night, ‘twas expected with Galaxy’s Edge coming, but yikes. FL residents didn’t get stung too badly but out of state got wrecked, with the increases of $90 for Gold, $140 for Platinum, and $240 for Platinum Plus.

[Astylla]

Disney World AP prices were raised last night, ‘twas expected with Galaxy’s Edge coming, but yikes. FL residents didn’t get stung too badly but out of state got wrecked, with the increases of $90 for Gold, $140 for Platinum, and $240 for Platinum Plus.

Given their increases over the recent years have been kind of low , I expected it with Galaxy's edge coming soon just like we saw the rebalance in California.

Honestly how cheap the Florida ones are for what you get I'm jealous. I was tempted to upgrade to one actually when we have our trip in September given we have 9 day tickets but now not so much.

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[Salodin]

Isn't Disney land like the size of magic kingdom alone? I figured you guys have expensive tickets cause of population density alone, not what the park offered.

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[TummieGaruda]

Word on the street is that Disneyworld is going to have a pass holder only soft open for SW:GE. The invites will only be available to higher tier pass holders and if the event goes over well, they will repeat it as a special pass holder event for Disneyland for when Rise of the Resistance opens.

Also the reason why RotR is taking so long is because of the project being so ambitious. From start to finish the attraction is about 28 minutes long and you go thru different set pieces and after understanding the whole concept it makes a lot of sense. The attraction will define be more popular than Smugglers Run.

[Melena]

Isn't Disney land like the size of magic kingdom alone? I figured you guys have expensive tickets cause of population density alone, not what the park offered.

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The four parks at Disney world are much more spread out than Disneyland and California adventure is, but the ride total at the California parks is almost or equal to the four parks in Florida. That may now have changed with toy story land and pandora. Personally I like that they are more spread out, makes even the busy days seem a little easier to deal with versus the log jams you get in California with too many people.

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[TummieGaruda]

Looks like the new Pixar parking structure is opening tomorrow just in time for the big rush for the public opening for Galaxy's Edge at Disneyland.

[TummieGaruda]

Currently watching the wait times for Smugglers Run quickly tick upwards to a hellish wait. Opened at 120 minutes and now its already a 4 hour wait and the park has only been open less than 30 min.