Recapping my August WDW trip

WDW Prep To Go - a Disney World planning podcast

In this episode, host Shannon Albert recaps her solo August 25–September 1 Disney World trip, highlighting low crowds, frequent rain and heat, and her stay at Gran

Key takeaways

• Low crowds in late August make it possible to complete major parks (Hollywood Studios and Epcot) without Lightning Lanes.
• Gran Destino Tower offers excellent indoor connectivity during rain, making it ideal for stormy days.

Main topics

• August Disney World trip recap
• Gran Destino Tower stay experience
• Managing heat and rain with gear like ponchos, umbrellas, and USB fans

Notable quotes

"I was thankful for Gran Destino Tower because when it was raining, I could stay under one roof."

"It's really nice to have a fan that you can just kind of whip out to cool yourself off."

Conclusion

Shannon concludes that despite heat and rain challenges in August, the low crowd levels at Disney World make

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Today, I'm recapping my August Disney World trip that's coming up on this episode 530 of WW Prep To Go. Hello and welcome to WW Prep To Go, where we talk strategy and ideas for people planning their Disney trips. I am your host, Shannon Albert from wdwprepschool.com. Thank you for being here for episode 530. I am recording this as a recap of my end of August trip. If you follow the daily updates, you will know exactly what was happening kind of as I went. But I wanted to go ahead and recap them here. And if you could tell by the sound of my voice, I did bring home a little bit of a souvenir. It's the one we all hate the most, but I did get hit with a pretty bad cold. And if you were listening to this on the day it comes out. You will also know that it's being released a little bit later because I'm literally recording this on Tuesday. I wanted to wait as long as I could to have my voice back. So I've got my hot tea and my water here to try to help me along. And we're going to get through this. Before I dive into the specifics of this trip, as always, a reminder to follow us on social media. Right before hitting record today, I posted recent park hours updates that have been made. We have a tool set up to alert us when Disney changes their park hours. And there were some late September park hours that was just published. So if you follow social media, you would have seen that. It's also a place where patrons can go to become close friends on Instagram, where we post things on Instagram stories that are only for patrons. And speaking of being a patron, if you aren't already, be sure to sign up for that because we have lots of things going on over there. We have a whole separate podcast that we do. We have ad-free versions of this episode. It's the same episode that's posted on the main feed here, but it's posted there without ads. We also have bonus content after all of the trip reports. We have a Facebook group. And we just recently have decided on a patron cruise date for the fall of 2027. So we have people that have already booked into that. So we have lots of stuff going on over there. If you want more of a community feel, then that is one way to do it. All right, first, some basics of this trip. My trip dates were August 25th through September 1st. And I stayed at Grandestina Tower, which if you've been listening for a while, you'll know it's one of my very favorites. It happened to have a good rate, which is why I booked it. That's really what I'm looking for when I make my reservations. And so I was really excited to be able to stay there for an affordable rate. This time of year is an interesting one because it is low crowds and that's really nice. But with it does come a lot of rain and a lot of heat. Speaker 1 (3:01) So I was able to get a lot done in the parks, but also I was thankful for Grandestino Tower because when it was raining and I didn't want to be out in it, I could stay under one roof and there's lots of options without ever having to go out into the rain. Because in Grandestino Tower, there's a few options. There's the Barcelona Lounge on the lowest level. And at the top of the tower, there is Toledo Restaurant as well as Dalia Lounge. And then there's a covered... walkway to go over to another area where there are multiple restaurants plus the like gift shop and all that. So whenever it was torrential downpouring and I didn't want to be soaked, I could stay under one roof, which is one of the things that I appreciate a lot about a hotel. And unfortunately at Disney World, it's not that common. Most hotels you would have to go out in it. And I really just don't like that dynamic at all. But I did come prepared with my ponchos and and umbrella, and I did make use of them during the trip. So I was out in it sometimes, but it was just really nice to not have to go out. And that was super helpful. In terms of being hot, I don't think I've ever mentioned this, but for a while now, I've been using a USB fan. And it's not a fan that is USB charged. It's a fan that plugs into the USB port on your phone, or I guess it's the lightning port or whatever it's called. I always forget the names of them, but it's the iPhone port. And it also works for, you know, Androids and other phones as well. But it basically just plugs into that and the phone operates the fan. And I got a pack of them on Amazon for just a few dollars and they just take up no space and they work really, really well. And so I use that to kind of keep myself cooled off. And I do recommend some kind of a fan. And I've been talking about fans for more than 10 years. Because even if you go in January and you're in a queue, sometimes just being in the queue surrounded by people, it can feel so muggy. And so it's really nice to have a fan that you can just kind of whip out to cool yourself off. I ended up using it on people near me that would see me with the fan and be like, oh my gosh, I wish I had a fan. And I would just kind of, you know, do it in their direction. But if you haven't heard of these before, these little tiny fans that plug into your phone. are super handy because they take up no space and they work really, really well. So anyway, low crowds, rained a lot, heat, enjoyed Grandestino Tower, all good. Speaking of Grandestino Tower, I did go, my morning routine this trip was to go down to Barcelona Lounge, opens at 6.30 a.m. And I would get a cold brew and a croissant breakfast sandwich. And I would have them put it in a bag for me. And then I would take it down to the bus stop and wait for the first bus of the day. And I just really love that routine. Usually I have groceries delivered. And so it's just, I'm grabbing something in the room, which is obviously, you know, still makes a lot of sense for a lot of people. But since I was by myself and I just kind of wanted to go get a coffee, I just made this my routine. Speaker 2 (6:00) And Speaker 1 (6:00) the first bus came every day at 7.20. And so that timing worked out fine. I ended up sitting there eating my breakfast and finishing it well before the first bus arrived. But it was just a nice little... way to get the day started and still make it to rope drop. This was a solo trip. And over the years, people have asked me a lot about solo trips because sometimes people are really nervous to take solo trips. And so they asked me for advice about this. And one of the things I love about them is that you can do whatever you want. And so there have been trips where I was solo and I literally just took time to go to a resort and take photos. or walk around the boardwalk and take photos. I also really like dining at lounges. You know, you just walk up to a restaurant and a lot of them have lounges where you can just sit at the bar and eat without needing a reservation. Steakhouse 71 is one of our favorites to do this at, although I didn't do that this trip. Since I was at Coronado Springs, I walked over to Three Bridges. I didn't have a reservation. I just sat at the bar. easy peasy. So it's really nice to have these like table service experiences without needing the reservation. So to me, it's like the best of both worlds because I don't feel like I'm sticking to a table service reservation schedule, but I'm still getting the benefit of a table service restaurant by sitting at the bar. It also is an opportunity to do special things. Like if you're traveling with a group of four, you might think, okay, I don't really want to spend you know, $150, $200 on that thing because once you multiply it by four, now we're at, you know, $600 or whatever it is. But when you're solo, it's much easier to splurge when you only have to multiply it by one. And so I did a couple new things this trip, including Sangria University. Well, it wasn't new, but it'd been a while since I did. And then the Keys to the Kingdom tour. And so it was just easy to, I'm only paying for one person, so let me just go ahead and do that. So it is an opportunity to do that as well. In terms of choosing your hotel on a solo trip, I do think that staying in the deluxe rooms is sometimes harder, at least to me, because the more space there is, the more it feels empty when there's only one of you. I suppose if you were in a studio that had like the couch bed set up. then that would make it easier to stay at a deluxe. But I would just, you know, in terms of picking hotels, I would sort of think about that maybe. So I was in Grand Estina Tower in a king room. And so I had the king bed, I had the sofa. And these rooms are still pretty big. Usually I stay at Pop Century because they have the desk and the bed combo and the rooms aren't big. And so I like that dynamic as well. But just something to think about if you are contemplating a solo trip. Speaking Speaker 2 (8:48) of special events, let's Speaker 1 (8:50) talk about a couple of those that I did this trip. First up, let's talk about the Keys to the Kingdom Tour. I am always talking about how good the tours are at Disney World, and I stand by that. They are excellent. I do think it's one of the things that Disney does best. For some reason, I had never done the Keys to the Kingdom Tour, but I've done Marceline to Magic Kingdom Tour, which is not currently offered. But it's very, very similar. And I did that one in the before times. And so it's a very, very similar offering. The total tour time was, say that five times fast, total tour time is five hours. And you have to be at least 16 years old. And it is a lot of history and a lot of standing. So you have to really want to hear all the details about why this window on Main Street has these particular words or why they did. made this certain choice in Magic Kingdom. And so there's a lot of that. There's a lot of standing around. There's a lot of listening to history. But there's also some behind the scenes things, which I think is a big draw for people. I know it's a big draw for people. And that includes a few different things. One is going backstage, back behind Frontierland, which is where they stage the parades. And because of the time of year right now, there is staging for three parades because there's festival fantasy and there's starlight parade as well as the halloween party parade so there's lots of different floats going on back there and during my particular tour they were testing the maleficent dragon for the festival fantasy parade they were doing some maintenance on it and so we were able to watch them kind of not only maneuver it but ignite the fire over and over again and so that was really cool and by the way everything i'm saying can vary. The tours can vary. They make no specific promises. I'm just telling you how mine went. This behind the scenes backstage area is very, very hot. And so it is helpful to have a fan. My USB fan that I just mentioned that I love didn't work because they don't let you have your phones out in any capacity, even if it is to have a fan going. So, you know, something other than my kind of fan would have been helpful. I had my umbrella out to protect from the sun because it's just kind of wide open. asphalt that you stand on. But seeing the floats and hearing more about the backstage things is very, very helpful. And then lunch is included. Every time I've done a tour of Magic Kingdom, it has been at Columbia Harbor House where they kind of section off a room. And your order for your lunch is placed when you check in for the touring. And then when you get there, they have your food ready with your name tag. Because I was solo, they had me at a table with two other solo people. So the three of us chatted during lunch. I have heard that they can do other places for the tours, but Columbia Harbor House just happened to be what mine was and has been every time I've done a Magic Kingdom tour. And in fact, we saw another tour, that one that started after ours, come in and do a different room at Columbia Harbor House as we were finishing up our lunch. After lunch, we... I went into the Utilidors, which, if you are not familiar, is the underground tunnels. They say they're not really tunnels because it's above ground, but you know what I mean. It's under Magic Kingdom, so it's tunnels. It's what all the cast members use to navigate between lands. And so you get to go in the Utilidors. Of course, there are no phones or cameras or anything like that allowed, but we got to walk through the shop there. that has a team of 18 repairing costumes. And right now, because it is Halloween party season, they have 1,800 that they are repairing on average. If it's not a party season, they told us that they are usually doing 1,000 repairs per week. So we kind of just got to walk through there. And just lots of history because there's lots of things that are on the walls, pictures, etc. We also got to take a ride on Haunted Mansion after hearing lots of history about it. We entered through the exits and then took kind of a shortcut to get on it. So we didn't have to wait in the regular standby line. When I did the Marceline to Magic Kingdom tour some years ago, our earpieces that we had in, which we had in for this tour as well. The guide talked to us while we were on the attractions and told like, in this room, blah, blah, blah happened. Or if you look up here, you'll notice this. And so it was kind of felt like we had a guided ride. That's not how this tour worked for me. I don't know if other guides do it that way sometimes, but we just literally went on the Hana Mansion after hearing some trivia about it. And we also got to ride on the Jungle Cruise. We got our own boat. And so that was really fun because our guide. took over the speaker on that and kind of did tell us some of the history about that particular ride. And then after going through the till doors, popped up on Main Street, back at the front of the park where we started, they gave us a Keys to the Kingdom pin as a gift from the tour. And overall, I thought it was really good. But just an FYI, these tours... do happen rain or shine. And it did rain when we got out of lunch, it was pouring down. And so we had to get out our umbrellas and ponchos and keep going. So my tips would be to make sure you have good shoes because you do stand a lot to make sure that you have something to protect you from the rain, because especially this time of year, it rains constantly off and on. And I guess constantly off and on sounds like an oxymoron. It rains. frequently this time of year. And also just something to stay cool, some sort of a fan, because there are portions, especially the backstage portions where the parade floats are staged, that is very, very warm. But overall, a really good tour that I highly recommend if you're 16 or older and really want to know the history and see some of the backstage stuff at Magic Kingdom. Speaker 2 (14:46) Now let's talk Speaker 1 (14:47) about Sangria University. As I mentioned, I have done this before when it was at Three Bridges, which is a restaurant at Coronado Springs. However, almost a year ago, it switched to Toledo, which is also a restaurant at Coronado Springs, but it's inside. And so I wanted to redo it because it's in the same tower. All I had to do was take the elevator up to the top floor from my room. I was on the fourth floor, so that was easy enough. They did tell us to arrive. 20 minutes early. And when I got up to the top floor, not only was nobody else there, but they had completely walled off the whole entrance that takes you over to Toledo. And so we were all just sort of, once more people started arriving, we were all just kind of huddled there in between the two elevator banks because they had said to be early. So we were early, but we had to wait for them to open it. So once they opened it, we were able to check in and they had tables inside Toledo with our drinks already set up. And they have four different ones that are on a placemat that explain more about them. So there's a sparkling white rosé and red sangria. So four whole, and they are not small pours. These are four big sangrias, all of them. And they all say what they are. And so once they kind of get started, you can drink those. There's also salsa, guacamole, and chips on the table. On this particular day, when I did it, I had been at the Halloween party the night before. And so I was kind of just sleeping in late and rolling out of bed, getting dressed and going there. And I didn't eat beforehand. I do not recommend doing that. I think it was started at 11 a.m. And I really should have gone down to Barcelona Lounge and gotten something to eat before heading up there. Because for... Having four drinks right away on an empty stomach, it was a lot. So I do recommend eating before you go. But the drinks were good. The cast numbers that work it, they kind of tell you about the history of sangria and sort of what goes into it. And then after you have your four heavy pours of sangria, you get to pick from a menu to create a fifth one. And so you get to pick all of the elements, like which wine do you want, which fruit do you want, which puree, et cetera. And you get to make up your own. And then they bring that to you. And so you end up having five sangrias. Mostly it was couples who were there. Because I had some people in the patron Facebook group asking about, like, is this, you know, who typically goes to these things? It was mostly couples. There were no children there. And although I was solo, a patron joined me. So it was like. We were both solo, so we ended up being paired together. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for a solo traveler, even though that's what I was, because it just was very couple-y. And so it worked out well because there was somebody else that I could hang out with and chat with throughout. But that wouldn't have been as fun if I had been just by myself. So overall, that was really fun. And, you know, I always talk about, like, dining where you're at or doing things where you're at. And it was definitely part of that for me was like, I'm staying at Grand Destino. I might as well do something that's offered at Grand Destino. And this was one of those. So, so in St. Grey University, a lot of fun. Just make sure you eat before you go. Okay. So outside of those sort of special things, activities that I booked, I did do some touring specifically without lightning lanes. Now, normally When people ask about lighting lanes, we say we recommend them if they're in the budget because it's always going to save you time, especially at Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. However, I also, on the flip side of that, have been super irritated at how much everything costs. And so I really like the idea of trying to do things without paying for it if possible. And so this trip, I was able to fit in some touring. at Hollywood Studios and Epcot to do them both without lighting lanes. So my challenge was to do all the rides in each park. At Hollywood Studios, I believe there's nine rides. At Epcot, 11. And this requires a few different things. One is it requires staying on site so that you have access to early entry. It requires getting up early so that you can be one of the first ones to early entry. And it requires going on the rides in the right order. But even bigger than that, I would say it's a three-step process of picking a good time to go because the crowd levels aren't always going to be this low. And so obviously I would suggest our crowd calendar for that. Secondly, choosing the right park per day with our park picker tool. This is how I chose my parks for my trip was I entered all my information into our park picker tool and I went to the parks on the days that the tool said. And then third is just knowing the order to do the rides. So when I went to Hollywood Studios, I am not normally a person who likes to go to the most popular thing first because I just find it to be kind of chaotic and intense. People running. Like the most people, I usually try to go to like this, something that's still good, but not, you know, the most popular thing. Cause I just don't want to get run over and have to be caught in, in that chaos. But this, for the purposes of this, I ended up going to two popular things. So at Hollywood studios, I was second at the tap styles. And I thought if I'm ever going to rip drop slinky dog, now would be the time to do it because I'm already at the front. So I'm going to be one of the first people to get to Slinky Dog. So I did that. And the nice thing about going to Slinky Dog is it's often running early. Now, as soon as I hit publish on this, Disney's probably going to be like, you know what? We decided not to do it that way. But I know it often is running early. And it is so nice to be able to get on it so early because they open it way before early entry a lot of times. So early entry was at 8.30. They started running it at 8.10. And I was on the, I think, second. ride vehicle of the day. And so I was able to get off of that and then head over to Rockin' Roller Coaster, which still had an open jet because it wasn't running early for early entry. So I basically, at every ride at Hollywood Studios, the way they scan for early entry is... It's not at the front of the park. Like some of the parks, they'll scan you at the front to see if you're eligible for early entry. But at Hollywood Studios, they scan you closer to the ride. So they scanned me to get into Toy Story Land and then I left Toy Story Land. They scanned me as I was getting on Rock and Roll Coaster and then I rode