Our Disney Tickets For 2016

If you are a Disney fan, then you know the price of Disney tickets have become insane! A one day pass is now over $100.








We have gone to Disney once or twice every year since 2009, and many times before then. We have done Disney and enjoy the activities. But do we really need to go to Disney every day that we are in Florida?








Last year, we decided to do an experiment. Our yearly pass expired half way through our vacation. Rather than renew the yearly pass, we decided to front-load the trip with Disney and then find other things to do for the several weeks of the remaining trip. We still went to Disney during those weeks, but we did "free" things: Disney Springs, resorts, etc.  The rest of the time, we enjoyed our villa, the surrounding towns, and the myriad of other things to do. This decision saved us thousands of dollars.








When anyone renews their yearly pass, they receive a discount. If you let the yearly pass lapse, you lose that discount. Returning in 2016, we were faced with purchasing the full cost of Disney Yearly passes which, for our family, is around $3,000!






I said "wait a minute... how many times are we going to Disney?" During our 2015 trip, we found many non-Disney park things to do that we loved and wanted to repeat. We found other non-Disney park things we wanted to do during this trip as well. While we were going to be near Disney for five weeks, we were actually only going into the parks for 12 days. With the annual pass, that would be $250 per trip into the park.






"Can we get that down to 10 days instead of 12?" I asked. My wife and I worked on the schedule and re-arranged everything. If we could get it down to 10 days, we could get a 10-day pass and save $1600 (minus parking charges). In fact, with our Disney Visa Reward points, we could almost get that 10-day pass for free!






So, we did it. We only purchased a 10 day pass this year. All ten days must be used within 14 consecutive calendar days. But that's fine! We decided, again, to front-load this trip with Disney park, and put everything else we want to do for the weeks at the end of the trip. Perfect! And we saved a ton of money!!

Disney Quest Remains Open Until 2017 (at least)

Last year, I reported that Disney Quest was going to close in 2016. The location at Disney Springs (aka Downtown Disney) would be transformed into an NBA experience. My family is a large user of Disney Quest, and this news hit us hard. Our plan was to go to Disney Quest throughout the summer of 2015, however, Disney refused to sell any extended passes.

Rumor has it that the NBA wanted to knock down the Disney Quest building and construct something new. Disney Quest is right in a major location, so, Disney told them 'no'. The NBA then demanded Disney pay from remodeling the existing structure. Again Disney told them 'no'. So, the NBA pulled out of the deal sometime in late 2015. Or, so the rumor goes.


This is great news for my family because it means we can go to Disney Quest this year!

We searched around for prices and couldn't find any. Apparently Disney isn't interested in making it convenient to visit. We talked with a concierge and learned the tickets were a steep $47 per person. Yikes! He then told us that tickets were half priced after 5pm. That is still expensive, but, much easier on my wallet.

Sometime this trip we will fit in a trip to Disney Quest!

Pizza Safari Caesar Salad

Here is a salad that you need a knife and fork to eat! The Ceasar salad at Animal Kingdom's Pizza Safari.

The salad is served on a large lead of salad that you might be tempted to try to pick up and eat. However, the leaf is too flimsy. Instead? Dive in with a fork and knife.

When paying this much for a salad, you might think the restaurant could break up the leaf for you! On the contrary, I enjoyed the experience of eating my salad with a knife and fork.

Night Time Safari at Animal Kingdom

Disney is very concerned for the animals under its care. For example, every straw is a paper straw because animals might eat a plastic straw and die. I remember when the park first opened, you couldn't even get plastic silverware - it was carved slivers of wood. Things change, especially when there are dollars associated with it. And while the straws are still paper? The forks are now plastic.

Things also change for the care of the animals. In attempt to capture the evening crowd (and combat construction complaints at Hollywood Studios), the Animal Kingdom is now open later. As part, one of their most popular attractions (the Killmanjaro Safari) runs into the dark as well.

When we boarded our truck, I wondered what the safari would be like. I assumed it would be dark and we wouldn't see anything, so I thought the safari would be a comedy show - like The Jungle Cruise at Magic Kingdom. It wasn't.

Disney has lit up the entire area with huge flood lights. Some flood lights stream down through the trees like moon light. Others shine on rocks to provide accent lighting. But most are just out there in the Serengeti blasting away like a Walmart parking lot at night.

Does it bother the animals? I don't know - you would have to ask them. It didn't seem to bother them. I would think an animal at night would be concerned about predators and might enjoy the extra light. But then again, it would disturb natural sleep cycles.

The night time safari is very popular, and is as entertaining as the day time. The pictures you might take will not be very good because they prohibit flashes. Nevertheless, I would highly recommend the night time safari.

Jungle Book Show at Animal Kingdom

We saw the Jungle Book Show at Animal Kingdom on Sunday. My first word of advice? Look at the Animal Kingdom map and understand where the entry for Fast Pass is versus where the entry for general admission is. The Asia side of the river is designed for all the Fast Pass members. If you go to the wrong side of the theater? You'll have a long ridiculous long hike to get to the correct side.

When we arrived, the theater was mostly full. The cast members were discouraging attendees by telling them that there was standing room only space remaining. That turned out not to be true.

It takes a long time to fill the theater. To fill the time, they have entertainers that get the crowd to dance and sing and do the wave. The theater is incredibly large, so, they have one entertainer for each of the two sections, and they banter back and forth. Click here to see some of it.

The show begins with floats coming down the river containing singers and dancers. They form into floating stages in front of the theater.  The problem is the center stage faces down river, not the stands where people are sitting. And it was so far away from where we were sitting, we couldn't tell what was happening on the center stage.

Additional dancers come to a dozen different platforms on the shore such that we had six dancers on the platform in front of us. The dancer danced Indian style dances to music from the Jungle Book. For the most part, this was the entire show for us: watching these dancers. I'll explain more in a moment.

Water canons fire off in the distance to provide a projection screen similar to Fantasia in Hollywood Studios. These projection screens are gigantic. Perhaps it was our angle, but, I couldn't make out anything that was being projected. Supposedly, they were projecting scenes from the movie, but, I couldn't tell.

At one point during the show, additional floats come down stream with fire dancers on board. The fire dancers were very good. At the end of the song, the fire dancer's floats went back up stream.

Now, back to the dancers. For the most part, we just watched the dancers in front of us. My wife thought it was like watching a high school dance recital, but I thought the dancers were very good. The show is billed as magical and stuff, not as a dance show, so, that aspect was disappointing. My children didn't know the Jungle Book story, so, they were completely lost and didn't know what was going on. In retrospect, I should have explained the story to them in advance.

There are fireworks. Two low flairs are shot at the end of the show. That's it.

Would I go see this show again? Probably not. To see a video of the show, click here.

An evening at Port Orleans Riverside

Our first journey into Disney World was spent at the Port Orleans Riverside Resort. This place has a nice marina, pool, arcade, and more - but it was raining out, so, we stayed in the main building.

The food court was packed with lines that stretched outside of the cashier are. The lines moved fast though - it was a six minute line wait for a pizza and en minutes for a hamburger. 

After eating we watched the Yeeha Bob show in the lounge. We arrived 45 minutes early and got a good seat. We ordered drinks and nachos, watched the show, and had an outstanding time.

OK, now for some complaints...

The food court ran out of ketchup. It wasn't that the ketchup needed to be refilled - no - they were out of it. They quickly responded by putting out ketchup packets. 

Next, Linda ordered (as always) the pasta with chicken. The chicken is alway Marley - you have to spit parts out into your napkin. It has been this way for years, you'd think they would fix it by now.

Third, the long lines. I know that long lines are a Disney tradition. The lines did move fast. But come on!

Fourth, the nachoes at the bar. It looked like they dumped a can of hotel chili onto the nachoes, and it tasted like they dumped a fist full of salt on it. It was bad... We didn't finish them.

Fifth, we tried to buy our Disney park tickets at the Conceir desk. We couldn't because we were told we weren't resort guests. We didn't believe the first Conceir who told us this, so, we left and returned several hours later. The secon Conceir told us the same thing. The computer simply does not provide him the option to do it.

Complaints aside? It was a great time!

We arrived

I haven't posted much about our 2016 trip because I wasn't sure we were going to make it. But we made it!