The 50th, 50th & 50th Disney trip - April/May 2022 - Final thoughts

[sha9]

I always find it easier to do a final post summing up what I thought about different aspects of the trip.

Traveling

I really liked the Hampton Inn at Edinburgh Airport and would definitely stay there again. We live close enough to get away without it but I like starting the holiday a day early and it's so much less stressful to just get up and walk across the road to the terminal.

I was glad we had booked the Aspire Lounge at Edinburgh and have said to Marie I think we should just do that as standard now. We're already paying so much for the holiday that £50 or so for the lounge is a drop in the ocean and it's much nicer than the departure lounge.

I quite liked that Virgin are using smaller planes but I'm hoping they don't have to in the future. I worry that it becomes less cost effective and they pull it but it's so much better for us to be able to fly direct from Scotland, especially Edinburgh. I just wish they'd fly on different days!

Car Hire
The car we got was fantastic and we were lucky to get it for a "normal" price. Mears Connect worked well for Mum & Dad though. I do enjoy hiring a car so hopefully prices will settle for our next trip. If they don't we'll just need to use Disney transport but keeping my fingers crossed.

POFQ
Port Orleans French Quarter is a beautiful resort! I really liked the look of it when we visited last trip and was so glad that staying there lived up to my expectations. It was just so peaceful and the grounds are lovely. Everything is so close together and our room was 2 minutes from everywhere. The rooms were great and the beds were so comfortable I still lie in bed thinking about them . This is by far my favourite moderate, maybe evenly favourite resort and we've got it booked for next September. We were in a Garden room because of the offer conditions but next time have just gone with the standard for £200 less than a Garden room as I can't imagine it'll be in a bad location.

Disney's Swan
This is now the third time we've stayed in the Crescent Lake area having stayed in the Boardwalk, The Dolphin and now the Swan. It's a fantastic area with it's proximity to both Epcot and Hollywood Studios. We loved the Boardwalk but it's so expensive we've tried to replicate it with the Swan & Dolphin. On this occasion the Swan was available for our last two nights and worked out cheaper than POFQ.
It's a nice hotel and the rooms are lovely although there were some things we missed from POFQ. It's in need of an upgrade. We had two USB ports and one was across the other side of the room from the bedside table. The beds are supposed to be some kind of comfy sleeper but really weren't. I missed my POFQ bed so much . It's clean but looks a bit tired in some places. I had said we didn't need housekeeping as we were only there two nights but unlike Disney they don't stock the rooms for minimal/no housekeeping so we were in danger of running out of loo roll towards the end.
The hotel is nice enough and in a great location but I wouldn't spend a fortnight there. I think I preferred the Dolphin.

April/May

We normally go in September although have been various months. The last time we went in May was several years ago and I remember big groups of teenagers. I hadn't really paid any attention to what we might expect in early May. I just knew I didn't want to wait too long and September just seemed so far away. I therefore didn't know about the cheer competitions which resulted in groups of teenagers everywhere and larger crowds our first week. I have no idea if it was normally this busy at this time of year. The weather was much better than September being cooler and drier though.

The parks

As I said, I have no idea if it was normal for the time of year but the crowds were pretty bad, especially our first week. Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom in particular seemed really busy all the time. I noticed it just getting from A to B in MK but at DHS it was mainly the food outlets. Everywhere had a large queue and seating was hard to get. This was also the case in Epcot and I think it's because it's not fully operational yet. Sunshine Seasons being open for proper breakfast would have made a huge difference I think. AK never seemed as bad and we generally found the crowds there to be fine.
We didn't have any issues with cleanliness or CM attitude though. The staff we interacted with were all very pleasant and polite and the parks were maintained to the standard we expect.

Genie plus & Lightening Lane

I've made my opinion on this quite clear on other threads. The fact that you now have to pay for it aside I think it's just a terrible alternative to Fastness Plus. I can't think of any redeeming feature of Genie plus. The main issues for me were

• Inability to choose a time
• Inability to modify a selection (have to cancel and hope you can get a new time that suits)
• Not locking in your time until the transaction completes

Individual Lightening Lane while expensive at least gave the option to choose a time however again the fact that your time isn't locked until after you paid is ridiculous. Then you're potentially stuck with a time you can't use with no ability to modify or cancel.
I know some people have found it great but I just can't get on board with it. If they fixed the problems I mentioned it might be fine but I'm not sure if we'll bother next time.

Dining credit

Taking aside the fact that this isn't as good value as the dining plan I think this worked well for us. It was much more flexible and meant we could use it for either TS, QS or snacks as it suited. It also meant we didn't feel like any offsite food was a waste of money like we did with DDP.

Overall we had a good trip. It was different for many reasons and I do need to acknowledge that part of that was because we'd went with Mum & Dad. That definitely changed how we did things. It'll be interesting to see next time how close to "normal" it is with just the two of us.

Thanks everyone who has read along and commented!

[mick]

Thank you for taking the time to do your trippie i really enjoyed reading along

Joan

[sha9]

Originally Posted by mick

Thank you for taking the time to do your trippie i really enjoyed reading along

Joan

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Thanks for reading and commenting .

[Mamie Baldwin]

I’ve loved your trippie, thanks for posting and I hope you didn’t have Covid!

[sha9]

Originally Posted by Mamie Baldwin

I’ve loved your trippie, thanks for posting and I hope you didn’t have Covid!

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Thanks! If I didn’t get it on that trip being squashed in with all those people I must be immune!

[Cinderella]

Thanks for sharing your trip 👍

[sha9]

Originally Posted by Cinderella

Thanks for sharing your trip 👍

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Thanks for reading and commenting!

[pinktraceb]

Thanks for sharing, I've really enjoyed reading your trip report 😀

[sha9]

Originally Posted by pinktraceb

Thanks for sharing, I've really enjoyed reading your trip report 😀

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Thanks for reading!

[SmellyDelly]

Ah thank you for sharing, I really enjoyed it. I have a list a mile long of food I want to try 😆

I envy you going on such a wonderful trip with your parents, like you say, a different kind of trip but definitely memories to treasure 💗