Ok just finished my last day of going to the parks, fly out tomorrow.
Stayed at the Riviera and thought our room and hotel were extremely nice. I am not a huge Disney guy and some of the stuff I say may just be my ignorance.
The first thing that mildly annoyed me was we were the seemingly the second to last stop on the magical express. Being a premium hotel it would have been nice to be dropped off first. Also highly annoying is we got to the hotel and then the driver left without dropping us off. He said he was rerouted to pick someone up from Typhoon Lagoon. There is not one over there so we got sent back.
Skyliners were great when the were running. Unfortunately several times in our trip they weren't and the buses for riviera seem to suck. Especially to the parks where the skyliner runs. Magic kingdom buses weren't back. animal kingdom buses were back to bad. Long waits, many other hotels had two to three buses by the time we were picked up. We thought about busing to Hollywood studios and sky lining back.
Parks:
Went to Hollywood studios the first two days. We were able to ride 'Rise of the Resistance' twice, and it was very cool. Easily best ride. Rode everything else at least once, except for Hollywood Tower, which my kids were scared of, built droids and lightsabers and took lots of staged photos. This was their favorite park. We ate '50s cafe and Hollywood Brown Derby. Both were ok.
Third day we went to Magic Kingdom and once again we were able to ride everything we wanted to at least once. The rides we passed on were the Jungle Cruise and Speedway. This was my kids second favorite park, with Space Mtn and Thunder Mtn being the highlights. Here we ate at the Be Our Guest and The Plaza Restaurant. Be Our Guest was probably the best restaurant we at at and it was good, but the waiter was great. Plaza was not good, but they had the best kid's chicken strips out of all the restaurants. At least one of my kids ordered chicken strips for every meal. Fireworks were really enjoyable and met a young lady that night who was a joy to talk to and had just moved back to Orlando to go back to work at Magic Kingdom. She was super knowledgeable and just really pleasant to talk to as we sat for an hour waiting for the show to start.
Epcot was a disaster for us. I really enjoyed Soarin, kids Loved the test track. Unfortunately the test track was broken for most of the day. We did get to eat at Space 220, and while the concept is really neat, I thought it was a disaster. Granted it was only the third day. The elevator was the best part, the space scenes start off being cool, but then you settle in to realizing it is hours of the same thing with very little to keep your interest. The transition from day to night was cool, but then it is over. Our food was awful, everything was tough. Wife had tough duck, I had short ribs that needed to be cut with a knife, one son had chicken strips, the other had a medium steak cooked to well done. Host didn't how the table numbers so we walked around the restaurant until a manager point her to our table. Waiter was probably the worst. Staffing seems to be a problem at the parks as several workers mentioned it during our stay.
Finally we went to Animal Kingdom. I had never been and I really enjoyed this park. My kids third favorite place. The Avatar ride was neat, but I thought I was just a fancy Soarin. Safari was fun, Everest was good. For lunch we ate at Tuskegee House. Food was good, maybe one of my better meals. What I found most amusing was I learned my 9 & 11 year old boys still like character meals. I didn't not expect that.
Overall it was a much needed vacation with my family and really glad they had as good of a time as they did.