Disney World 50th Anniversary Trip Report (Part 1 - Booking and Plans)

Welcoming to the kickoff post for our trip report on our visit to Disney World for the start of the 50th Anniversary Celebration. In this post, we discuss booking our trip and what our plans are. We’ll also be updating this post to include links to the rest of the trip report as we write it (which likely will not be in real-time). If you’d like to follow in real-time, follow us on instagram, where we post lots and lots of stories during every trip.

 

While Pop Century and Gran Destino Tower two of my favorite Disney hotels, this booking is a bit odd for me. Six nights at that Gran Destino price is pretty steep, and my typical plan for six nights (that wound up being seven total) would be a split stay with a value hotel and either a moderate or a deluxe. (We split between Pop and Grand Floridian on our last trip.)

Originally, we had more family coming on this trip and they were going to stay at Coronado Springs (outside the tower). I prefer the tower rooms, but there’s no reason we needed two rooms in the tower since the rest of Coronado is less expensive. In any case, they cancelled late, and while perhaps I could have tried putting together a split stay with more value time, I’m a big fan of Gran Destino and looking forward to a longer stay there.

 

That said, Coronado made a lot more sense when we had family who would be bringing a car. I’m going to be trying hard to report on Early Theme Park Entry, and Zoe doesn’t meet the age requirement for Uber car seat, so mornings with Zoe will have to be done by bus. Our current plan is for one of us to do Early Entry, possibly via Uber, while the other plans a later arrival with Zoe.

Bus transportation at the moderate resorts, Port Orleans French Quarter usually excepted, is abysmal. The buses make multiple stops around the resort which results in a mix of long waits, full buses, and long trips back to your room.

 

The extra night at Pop is a product of my poor planning—I wind up with lots of one night stays like this. The flight change (which was necessary because I had booked a 5AM flight for some reason, forgetting I have a toddler) basically necessitated the extra night.

 

What to Expect from This Trip

Disney World’s 50th Anniversary celebration is kicking off this week (specifically October 1), and there are a few changes coming along with it. There are the obvious things—new nighttime shows, merchandise, decorations, food, etc. that we’ll be touching on, but here are some of the more major touring related things to be aware of…

 

First, Early Theme Park Entry actually “soft” launched earlier this week. This new perk grants guests of all Disney hotels access to select rides 30 minutes before the park opens to other guests. We’re planning to have one of us at Early Entry each morning of our trip. We unfortunately won’t make it to Extended Evening Hours this trip, as that’s being offered only to guests of the deluxe hotels.

 

Second, Rise of the Resistance now uses a standby queue instead of the old virtual queue, and we’re looking forward to developing our Hollywood Studios strategies to include that new option.

Third, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure will be debuting at Epcot on October 1. Remy’s will use the same virtual queue system that Rise of the Resistance used to use, so we’re familiar with it, but still interested in seeing just how quickly this ride runs out of spots.

Fourth, we maybe…might…possibly see the debut of Genie, Genie+ and Lightning Lanes? Disney World’s FastPass+ replacement has been slated for a “fall” debut, but we don’t have any specifics beyond that.

 

Finally, we’ll get an early look at fall crowds. While it’s largely been assumed Disney crowds would spike to start October and remain heavy throughout the rest of the year things are proceeding…differently than expected. It’s only September 27 as I write this, but crowds have been very low recently, travel to Florida is still a bit depressed, and Disney recently even delayed reopening All Star Sports.

Could light crowds be in the mix? There is precedent for it, actually. When Galaxy’s Edge opened in Disneyland, crowds were shockingly low for the first few weeks. Guests were so turned off by the prospect of navigating complicated new systems with high crowds that they delayed trips. It’s entirely feasible early October in Disney World could be similar.

Are you as excited about the 50th Anniversary as we are? Stay tuned For More reporting on this monumental Occasion!

Click Here for Part 2 - Arrival Day and a Visit to Hollywood Studios