Trip Report (3/4-3/9)

Our family of five drove straight from home to Blizzard Beach. We arrived around 2:45PM and stayed until close. My first time at a Disney water park. We live on the Gulf Coast so I guess water parks aren’t overly important to our family. If it wasn’t free, we wouldn’t have paid to visit it. Checked into Port Orleans Riverside at 5. We had the 5th sleeper so we were in Alligator Bayou. I loved everything about it except for the drive to main building and pool. Will not make that mistake again.

3/5, we roped dropped AK. What an enjoyable relaxing day. We rode every single ride and got to ride FOP twice since we rope dropped and purchased LLSP. Back at the hotel and in the hot tub by 6pm. 3/6, rope dropped HS. Much busier than AK but I wrote this off as HS being much smaller with a lot of pinch points. Still, we rode everything except for RocknRoller Coaster. Still upset I missed out on it. My middle got to build a lightsaber and Disney really did that experience right. I almost got teary eyed watching my daughter smile as she lit up her saber. Stayed until close and the kids loved Fantasmic.

3/7, we decided to sleep in since we had LLSP for Cosmic Rewind and LLMP for Remys. Again, beautiful day. Lots of people but it’s Epcot and huge. I love everything about Epcot. This was my first time on Cosmic Rewind and dang… what a ride! I don’t even remember what song I got because all my senses were on overdrive. I had the shakes coming off that ride! Stayed until park close.

3/8, rope dropped MK. Got in line for Mine Train and they immediately closed it. Peter Pan was already backed up so it didn’t make since to try anything else. Things just went down hill from here. By far the most people we have seen all week. We had a 9:35 breakfast in the castle scheduled as a surprise for the kids. We sat a listened to the cast member yell at people to move all the way forward and to not go up the stairs for 30min before our table was ready. The kids met three princesses but nothing else about this $500 meal was “magical”. I had to ask for the wishing stars so my kids could participate in what all the other kids were doing. Whatever, move on. As the day progressed, I became extremely annoyed by the extreme amount of strollers, the trash everywhere, almost every ride broke down. Every single bathroom I visited looked like a shady gas station toilet. The kids said the ladies restrooms were the same. Then it was little things that started to bother me. We buy a souvenir and they only had extra large bags. All out of small Disney bags for stuff like a Disney Pin. I toted two separate times to buy a Mickey Pretzel and was told they didn’t have anymore. Again, all little things but it starts to wear on you. Once the sun went down, I started to relax a bit. Space Mountain, Mine Train, and Tron helped to put a smile back on my face. We stayed until close but I told my wife, I think after 40yrs of visiting, the magic of “Magic Kingdom” is starting to wear off.

Animal Kingdom was A+ fantastic!
Hollywood Studios A- but only because of the odd layout of the park. Epcot A+ I don’t know that there is anything I can say negative about Epcot except for the lack of shade Magic Kingdom D- Tron, Space Mountain, and Mine Train would be the only reason I would return to this park.