We just got back two weeks ago. Stayed at Marriott Cypress Harbour for two weeks, an incredibly good place to stay for us, it's a peaceful place and we've always stayed there, depends really if you intend to spend most of your time in Disney or other parts of Orlando aswell though. As for Disney hotels, we've never stayed in them, but know numerous people who have. The expensive ones are supposedly very good, but that's the thing isn't it? It's pricey. Though I suppose everything in Disney is, it was unreal how much we spent on merely food and drink in there for just one day.
Not sure we were as well planned as the parks were heaving, only found out when we got over there that kids in the US were off for school holidays. We're booked for next year in April and as someone above has already pointed out, next time round we'll be booking our fast passes in advance aswell.
You do really have to have some sort of idea of what you're doing when you get in there, my family had been going for well over twenty years, sometimes even twice a year, but this time we hadn't visited Orlando in six years, so we sort of just went not knowing what to expect.
Soarin' in Epcot was about 2 and half hours if I remember right and that was the jist of it for most of the good rides. Though we did spend a lot of our time outside Disney really. Mostly shopping.
With a lot of building work going on it was busy everywhere, Downtown Disney was certainly hell getting into. We do hope it was just a "one off" due to school holidays and the construction going on. That massive multi storage car park taints the memory of it abit but I can understand why they've done it.
Still loved every minute, should be even better next time as we're more familiar of what to expect.