Julie_Mouse
05-17-2010, 11:19 AM
We’re back from our amazing WDW vacation to celebrate my graduation! It was a really excellent vacation, with great weather, a great group of travellers, great restaurants, and low crowds (for the most part, anyway!)
I’ll hopefully get around to posting about the dining separately, but I just wanted to provide some comments off the top of my head about last week at WDW :mickey:
We arrived Sun May 9 for 7 nights. SSR was a beautiful resort, although the 2BR villa was a bit small for 8 adults. Despite the fact that 4 of us were college students, and thought we would have no problem cramming ourselves anywhere (hey, we’re at WDW!), the living area just wasn’t spacious enough for all of us, I think. The bathroom in the master bedroom is gigantic, and I don’t understand why they didn’t make it a bit smaller, and add more space to the the main living/kitchen area? Anyway, beyond that, the pool was great, and we had no complaints about Artist’s Palette. We had bus service that was comparable (re: number of buses, and average wait time) to what I’ve experienced at the value resorts. For any fitness fanatics (like me :secret:), I just wanted to plug the SSR fitness centre. In a word: HUGE. They had an excellent assortment of cardio machines, weight machines, and free weights. They even had a BOSU! Enough said.
Crowds were strangely low! They were noticeably lower than on my previous May trip (which was the first week of May, as opposed to the second). From Sunday to about Wednesday, we were able to walk into any park and not have to wait more than 20 minutes for the popular rides (with the exception of TSM!). Seriously, Space Mountain, BTMR, Splash Mountain, Buzz, Everest, RnRC were all 15-20 min waits, even during peak hours. On Wednesday, a CM at CHH told me that during a typical summer day, there are about 80,000 guests in MK, but on this day, there were only 6,000 :jaw:. No idea what was causing the low attendance, but we'll take it! By mid-week, though, a lot of school tour groups began to show up. We later found out that Magic Music Days (I think that’s what it was called) was happening, and school bands from all over the US were at WDW for a few days. Despite that, I don’t think we ever saw or experienced a wait time of more than 30-40 mins for any ride (except TSM!). I would highly recommend the earlier part of this week for any future May trip planners!
Finally, although I did a lot of prep on here and other sites, I wasn’t really prepared for the number of refurbs going on right now. I knew about the Fantasyland refurb, and that RnRC was down May 15-20, and a few others, but I don’t remember reading about Casey’s Corner, the CS in Mexico (down by the water), the Plaza, a number of the shops on Main Street USA, Peter Pan’s flight, and the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (there were a few others I can’t recall right now). Granted the Fantasyland attractions (Pooh and Peter Pan) could have been affected as part of the refurb, but there were boards and the “fake façade” netting in front of them, so it appeared as though they were just doing maintenance or something. In no way did this affect the quality of my trip, I just wasn’t expecting to see so many “fake façades”. Also, nobody panic(!), as all of the MK attractions I listed are still open (I think), despite the fact that they are being refurbed.
All in all, we had a fantastic time and we were really sad to come home yesterday. I just wanted to thank everyone on Intercot for all your help and comments during my planning! Here’s to planning the next trip (not for a few years), and to helping all of you plan your trips :marg:!
I’ll hopefully get around to posting about the dining separately, but I just wanted to provide some comments off the top of my head about last week at WDW :mickey:
We arrived Sun May 9 for 7 nights. SSR was a beautiful resort, although the 2BR villa was a bit small for 8 adults. Despite the fact that 4 of us were college students, and thought we would have no problem cramming ourselves anywhere (hey, we’re at WDW!), the living area just wasn’t spacious enough for all of us, I think. The bathroom in the master bedroom is gigantic, and I don’t understand why they didn’t make it a bit smaller, and add more space to the the main living/kitchen area? Anyway, beyond that, the pool was great, and we had no complaints about Artist’s Palette. We had bus service that was comparable (re: number of buses, and average wait time) to what I’ve experienced at the value resorts. For any fitness fanatics (like me :secret:), I just wanted to plug the SSR fitness centre. In a word: HUGE. They had an excellent assortment of cardio machines, weight machines, and free weights. They even had a BOSU! Enough said.
Crowds were strangely low! They were noticeably lower than on my previous May trip (which was the first week of May, as opposed to the second). From Sunday to about Wednesday, we were able to walk into any park and not have to wait more than 20 minutes for the popular rides (with the exception of TSM!). Seriously, Space Mountain, BTMR, Splash Mountain, Buzz, Everest, RnRC were all 15-20 min waits, even during peak hours. On Wednesday, a CM at CHH told me that during a typical summer day, there are about 80,000 guests in MK, but on this day, there were only 6,000 :jaw:. No idea what was causing the low attendance, but we'll take it! By mid-week, though, a lot of school tour groups began to show up. We later found out that Magic Music Days (I think that’s what it was called) was happening, and school bands from all over the US were at WDW for a few days. Despite that, I don’t think we ever saw or experienced a wait time of more than 30-40 mins for any ride (except TSM!). I would highly recommend the earlier part of this week for any future May trip planners!
Finally, although I did a lot of prep on here and other sites, I wasn’t really prepared for the number of refurbs going on right now. I knew about the Fantasyland refurb, and that RnRC was down May 15-20, and a few others, but I don’t remember reading about Casey’s Corner, the CS in Mexico (down by the water), the Plaza, a number of the shops on Main Street USA, Peter Pan’s flight, and the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (there were a few others I can’t recall right now). Granted the Fantasyland attractions (Pooh and Peter Pan) could have been affected as part of the refurb, but there were boards and the “fake façade” netting in front of them, so it appeared as though they were just doing maintenance or something. In no way did this affect the quality of my trip, I just wasn’t expecting to see so many “fake façades”. Also, nobody panic(!), as all of the MK attractions I listed are still open (I think), despite the fact that they are being refurbed.
All in all, we had a fantastic time and we were really sad to come home yesterday. I just wanted to thank everyone on Intercot for all your help and comments during my planning! Here’s to planning the next trip (not for a few years), and to helping all of you plan your trips :marg:!