WDW/MK vs. DL/DCA (Toontown! World of Color! More!)
Not exactly a trip report, but this seemed like a reasonable enough place to post, as I thought it would inspire some responses.
After just getting back from three days in the DL parks, here is my comparison, which I've been eager to make for a long time. I tried to keep it to MK vs. DL, but got a little carried away and dragged in DCA and some of the WDW parks, also.
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Space Mountain, Pirates, the refurbed Big Thunder, and Small World all better out west.
DL +1
Queues – DL had some just awful queues. Some of them are holdovers from the early days when Imagineering wasn’t concerned with queue entertainment. But the TSM queue, for example, is nowhere near how awesome it is at WDW. In fact, it’s just a snaking line and almost entirely outside.
WDW +1
Cast members – I had heard that they were out-of-this-world at DL. But what I found was the same mix I find at WDW: Some great, a lot good, and a few who shouldn’t be there. I even had one ticket-taker grumpily say, when I asked how he was doing, “I’ll be better in 30 minutes.”
Wash
The Castle – Oh, there was a castle at Disneyland? Huh. You sure? That pink thing?
WDW +1
BUT Sleeping Beauty Castle has a neat walkthrough attraction. Not enough for a wash, so I maintain WDW +1
Everything being all close together – I walked from Toontown (in the back of DL) to Luigi’s Flying Tires (in essentially the back of DCA) in 16 minutes. That includes standing in a bit of a line to get in to DCA. Compare that to going from Splash Mountain to, say, the American Pavilion at Epcot, which would be...much longer than 16 minutes.
DL +1
Escapism – I’m less than a mile from pulling in to the DL parking lot and I see…Tinkerbell? The Beast? No, a 7-11. It’s just not as escape-from-the-world as I’d like or as you get at WDW.
WDW +1
Carsland/Radiator Springs is one of the most immersive themed environments that accurately represents the source material that I’ve ever been in. You are plopped down into that movie. It’s just stunning. At night when all the neon is on it looks just like that evening scene in the movie
DL +1
Downtown Disney - Most malls near us are bigger than the one at DL.
WDW +1
TSM has much shorter standby lines at DL, but no Fastpass, so you don’t wait for 2.5 hours...but still have to wait 50 minutes to an hour.
Wash
World of Color, the DCA evening show - just amazing. Really amazing. AND there is also Fantasmic and fireworks out west. Even with Illuminations at Epcot, nod goes to DL.
DL +1
Wayfinding - This is probably just my familiarity with MK vs. unfamiliarity with DL, but I found the signage/wayfinding at DL to not be particularly good. And I felt like I was forever searching for restrooms when I needed them.
WDW +1
THEY DO NOT HAVE VANILLA DOLE WHIP AT DL. So your float is pineapple on pineapple which is just too much pineapple. The woman apologized a lot, particularly when I started yell-swearing, and she said that it was a storage space issue?? Come on! (As I told her when she started crying, I wasn't really yelling at her.)
WDW +..... 30
Earthquakeyness - WDW, essentially zero chance. We experienced a 5.1 while at DL. If you live through it and it's not destructive, in hindsight it's pretty neat to experience. And hurricanes aren't as awesome, what with that annoying wind and rain and predictability. So
DL +1
Exposure to that awful Autopia - At WDW you always smell/hear it. At DL...they have Autopia?
DL +1
Things seemed a little crowded and on top of each other at DL and some of the theming of the separate lands kind of ….bumps into each other. You even notice this from the hub.
WDW +1
One park STILL HAS Mr. Toad and Snow White. That park is…
DL +1
Tarzan Treehouse vs. Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse.
Wash
Streetmosphere and shows
Wash
Toontown is awesome, awesome, awesome if you have a little one.
DL +1
Dual Dumbos with better waiting area.
WDW +1
Buzz Lightyear Astroblasters/Space Ranger Spin has better scenes out west AND the guns are freemoving, not anchored.
DL +1
RnR vs. California Screaming
Wash
Crowdedness - DL occupies 85 acres vs. MK's 107 and MK only outdraws it by a little bit on a per-day average. Thus, DL is going to feel more crowded. Consider that we usually go to WDW during slower times and our DL trip was around spring break and thus I'd estimate that DL was probably 30 percent more crowded than we've ever experienced MK being. Tomorrowland at DL is really charming, but at the height of the day you could barely get through it. So, just based on that, I give
WDW +1
Other odds-and-ends:
DCA is really gorgeous and we found each land to be very, very well done and unique and immersive. It really exceeded our expectations.
We rode the Matterhorn because it is a classic attraction. There is nothing special about the Matterhorn.
Blue Bayou theming > San Angel Inn theming, but it's very, very close. On food, it is not at all very, very close. (And you know which wins.)
Character lunch at Ariel’s Grotto was not something we’d do again. The princesses came around and we got a few minutes with each. It didn’t feel rushed, but they just didn’t hang out (I’m sure tables with 7yo girls get more time). The food was downright eh. Character breakfast at the Plaza Inn was great - it’s just breakfast food but there were lots of characters throughout and lots of character interactions. My son was happy showing off his two little Chip and Dale figures, and many of the characters interacted with them, including Rafiki doing his whole broken-fruit-voodoo-forehead-swipe anointment thing.
Overall, we really enjoyed our three days, of course, and could easily have spent another couple days there. There were still things we didn't get to, and that's with our open-to-close park touring style. I have to say that I expected to be blown away by DL vs. MK, and wasn’t, really. DCA exceeded expectations, as I noted. It may be because it’s where I’ve been most frequently, but I just really prefer WDW. Primarily and obviously because there is SO much there that DL/DCA just can’t replicate. Four parks, a huge downtown Disney, the World Showcase, and several hotels that are fun to just explore, even if you’re not staying in them. Plus, the whole sense of being removed from the world is just more palpable at WDW. I would never make a trip to Southern California just to visit Disneyland, but would certainly plan a few days there during a trip I'm already taking there.
