Fair enough.
(sorry, couldn’t resist).
It appears that negotiations have broken down among the various members of the theoretical vacation party. Too many people can’t reach an agreement over which park to see, when to go or how long to stay. I’m tired of the bickering and I’m washing my hands of the lot of them.
Many sincere thanks for all the comments and suggestions. I do greatly appreciate your efforts.
How pathetic and/or creepy is it for a fat, middle aged guy to go to a Disney theme park alone?
No one will know that you’re alone; they’ll think you’re a cool dad who has let his kids run free.
That happens a lot. 
Not at all. Now, I would stay out of the kiddie areas anyway, as they aren’t fun for adults. But adults go alone to Disneyland all the time, they even often have a special line for singles.
I always go with friends, but there have been time when we split up, and I have been (as a fat, middle aged guy ) on my own for hours, and it’s not pathetic or creepy at all. I find it relaxing.
Go- have fun!
I haven’t been to Disneyworld since Gulf War I, but I stayed at Disneyland last June, as part of a meeting deciding whether to hold a conference at the Disneyland Hotel. The Disney people are very nice to people in that position - we got to stay at the Grand Californian free, got seats and food for the fireworks, and got some free passes.
I’ve stayed at the Disneyland Hotel before they build Downtown Disney and California Adventure, and it is much nicer now.
Downtown is fun to walk in, and we ate there, not worrying too much about the price given that we got so much free. Make reservations. The first night we didn’t, and we ate in the Mexican restaurant (okay, just) because it had the most room. Much better the next night with them.
We did about 10 Fantasyland rides in 2 or 3 hours - but we started at 9 pm on Friday night.
California Adventure didn’t do much for me, but we came to late for most of the rides, though we did see the Aladdin show which was good.
BTW, the Disneyland Hotel is now under renovation, and though they do a good job disguising it, be warned.
The Pizza place in Downtwon Disney is good, also.
Not just good, it’s fantastic, but you do have to get in line about 30 minutes before showtime to get a decent seat. Maybe more.
The white-water raft ride is very nice when it’s hot. Tower of Terror has a nice story and is scary the first time. Soaring over Californai is one of the best rides ever.
I’m 38, single, and could stand to lose a few pounds, and I own a Disney timeshare.
I skipped the Peter Pan ride this year, but going the week before Thanksgiving, the standby wait time on that ride was over 20 minutes, while Space Mountain stayed at 5 minutes all day, so it wasn’t a real hard decision.
For Orlando Disney, I only recall single rider lines for Everest at Animal Kingdom and Rock and Roller Coaster at Hollywood Studios, Universal had a few more rides, as did California Adventure at Disneyland.
The food’s better if Len buys. Or so I hear. 
Yeah. I always find the MK mildly disappointing. Except for the castle. That’s the one thing that is really notably better in the MK (IMHO). The MK is actually my 3rd favorite park in WDW after Epcot & the Animal Kingdom.
The spectacular World of Color show is open. So is Toy Story Midway Mania. The new Little Mermaid ride will be open in the Spring. Carsland and the new entrance will still be under heavy construction in at that time though. Expect a lot of walls.
I’ve got a DL annual pass and have made a couple of solo trips to WDW (with another coming up I hope).
I hear the renovated rooms are awesome.
The Unofficial Guide book actually suggests avoiding those parks on those days as they draw bigger crowds. The crowds weren’t awful the day we used Extra Magic hours to go to Magic Kingdom, but there were lines still for some of the more popular rides, even at 11 PM.
On-site can be great if you want to pop out to the hotel for a mid-day refresher or whatever. Offsite can be cheaper (though you do have to figure in driving time and parking fees) and offers more flexibility; when we were meeting up with a large group of friends for a similar trip, we actually rented several multiple-bedroom houses for roughly 150 dollars a day (per house). That allowed us to have park days and relaxing days. The house had a pool just outside the back door which was really nice and was useful for the day where the whole group just hung out and partied.
Onsite, you can use the Disney Dining Plan which can be a big cost-saver if you’re doing all restaurant meals. I don’t think it’s as good a deal as it was in 2007 when we last went, but we had several single sit-down meals which would have cost more (retail) than the cost of the dining plan.
I’d concur with not trying to stick together as a big group in the parks. Plan on meeting once a day maybe, for a meal at a specific spot.
We don’t do the evenings, but the morning EMHs are great - IF you have hoppers. What happens is that people INTEND to get their morning going, but its vacation, and then they don’t change plans. So you do get a lot done in the first two-three hours (eight to eleven). At 11:00 we eat lunch and get the hell out to a different park. People who arrived early will spend the whole day in the park, those who intended to arrive early and didn’t have now arrived, and everyone else has started to show up as well.
Evenings don’t work the same way - people STAY in the park. And we like to go to bed early so we aren’t outlasting anyone.
Test Track has a single rider line, as well. It’s WAY shorter than the normal line and, with that ride, is almost necessary.
Ah, yes, Test Track, I thought I might be forgetting one. I’ll blame the omission on the fact that it was the Food and Wine Festival when I was last at Epcot 
I know a couple people already said this, but it bears repeating (I think)
Do not try and do everything together. Meet up a couple times a day for meals or swimming or the Jedi Training Academy or (?) and avoid spending a huge chunk of the day looking at the map and trying to decide, in a large group, what should be done next.
As much as I love my brother’s family, and my in laws, it can be very tiresome to go with them. I explained to my husband the last time that there can be only one MFIC on an outing like this…I don’t care if it is him or me or us asking The Boy what he wants to do…but at some point someone just needs to say “Let’s go do Pirates” and let people follow, or go visit Princesses, if that makes sense.
We got taken into one, and yes, they are very nice. We’re having another meeting there later in January, and we’ll see where we get put. We’re paying this time - but not that much.
The interesting thing is that the Disney people are very, very concerned with appearances, and were quite worried that when people drove up their first impression of the hotel would not be up to Disney standards. I’ve heard from a lot of hotel and Convention and Visitors Bureau people, but the Disney people were far more concerned with customer impressions than anyone else. The Times article said that Disney knows they can only grow if people come back, and they certainly act that way.
During the Food & Wine Festival, Epcot is almost wholly populated by fat, 20-40 year old people Drinking Around the World. It’s a bucket list experience.
Count your lucky stars. Can you imagine an entire week of trying to come to a consensus of what to do that day?
IMO, the only way a group activity such as this can work is if there is ONE leader: “We’re going to DisneyWorld the week of March 15th. If anyone wants to join us, we’ll be staying at the Animal Lodge.” Then people can opt in or out, no negotiation, and it’s clear to everyone who the leader is.