liz
10-31-2010, 10:50 PM
Hi All- we came back from WDW last Tuesday night and we had a great time! It's taken me a while to write a report. Our fridge died while on vacation and I threw a surprise 40th birthday party for DH on Saturday. So here goes:
Background: I got a room only reservation at SSR(using a pin code that I miraculously got when my DVC rental fell through). We bought 6 day park tickets through Undercover Tourist and we used Disney transportation throughout our stay.
Arrived on Tuesday October 19 at 11am. I was desperately trying to use Disney's online check-in before we left for our trip. I had read on Disboards that sometimes they will have your room ready really early in the day. Unfortunately, the Disney online check-in service was down for maintenance for a few weeks before we left, so no luck for us. Once we arrived, our check-in at the hotel was a breeze, but our room wasn't ready. After a few hours of eating lunch and hanging around, we just asked for any room that was close to the bus stop and they happily complied.
A great tip if you are using Disney buses, get a room closest to the first stop. That way, at the end of the day when everyone is exhausted, you can get off first thing. Also, we had a ground level room- excellent for us because we had 2 strollers.
We had 3 days at MK, 2 days at Epcot and 1 day at AK (taking advantage of late EMH some days). We went back to the room each day for naps. The roundtrip back and forth from the rooms definitely took some time (avg 20-40 minutes each way) but it wasn't as bad as I imagined. Plus, we all needed a break. It was hot (high 80's for temps) and humid. We went back to the parks every evening. It was much cooler and everyone was in a better mood.
One of my best tips is to advise people to look at the restaurant menus on allears.net. I actually printed out the menus of the places where I knew we could all find something to eat. That saved us sooo much time. We split some of the adult meals for the kids (one example: adult cheeseburger was split 25% for DS2 and 75% for DS1 and they split the fries). We supplemented with fruit and drinks brought in a soft sided cooler (we used Garden Grocer- that was $$ worth spent- loved them). We always had a satifying meal. That way we had some $ to spend on ice cream treats as the mood hit (Dole Whip. Yum!!).
Let's see, what else.... we used fast passes all the time. We didn't buy or use the Touring plans, but we did get a lot of useful tips from The Unofficial Guide book. We knew what rides we should get fastpasses from right away. Then we would go on another ride we liked (or at least was nearby) and then we would get another fastpass as soon as we were allowed. Sometimes this meant one adult breaking away and running off to get them. This allowed us to continuoulsy be at different attractions without any long waits. Also the fastpasses were great for us adults. For example, I would go on Space Mountain 2 times with my fast passes while DH was nearby on the Peoplemover (which my DC loved) and then we would switch off while he could go on his rides. We never really took advantage of using the rider switch, because it always seemed the baby fell asleep in the Ergo just as we were about to switch off. We just used the rider pass for later that day.
We got the pre-paid photopass. We have 115 photos(before edits) and we were really happy with them. It was nice to have us all in the same picture. The kids had fun with the magic shots.
As far as dining- the TS restaurants were not good, but it was still nice to be able to sit and eat and have someone wait on you. We had reservations at Cape May Cafe (character breakfast), Tusker House (dinner buffet) and Liberty Tree Tavern (dinner). My husbands quote about the meal "it tastes like hospital food" and given that we both work at hospitals and sometimes eat there, it wasn't exactly a compliment, but not a slam either. Far and away the best sit down meal was at Turf Bar and Grill located at SSR. DH and I ordered the prime rib and it was perfect. Really, steakhouse quality and cooked to perfection. The kids had a nice meal as well.
Oh boy, that's all I can think of. I just wanted to share all I learned, because so many of you helped me when I was planning my trip. I learned so much from all of you. Really, there were so many tips and questions answered. Thanks to you all, and to those of you still about to go, I am jealous :)!!
I will have to post soon about some of our Disney "magic moments" and post some pictures of a small surprise I had for DH's birthday while at WDW. If you made it this far, thanks for reading my story.
Background: I got a room only reservation at SSR(using a pin code that I miraculously got when my DVC rental fell through). We bought 6 day park tickets through Undercover Tourist and we used Disney transportation throughout our stay.
Arrived on Tuesday October 19 at 11am. I was desperately trying to use Disney's online check-in before we left for our trip. I had read on Disboards that sometimes they will have your room ready really early in the day. Unfortunately, the Disney online check-in service was down for maintenance for a few weeks before we left, so no luck for us. Once we arrived, our check-in at the hotel was a breeze, but our room wasn't ready. After a few hours of eating lunch and hanging around, we just asked for any room that was close to the bus stop and they happily complied.
A great tip if you are using Disney buses, get a room closest to the first stop. That way, at the end of the day when everyone is exhausted, you can get off first thing. Also, we had a ground level room- excellent for us because we had 2 strollers.
We had 3 days at MK, 2 days at Epcot and 1 day at AK (taking advantage of late EMH some days). We went back to the room each day for naps. The roundtrip back and forth from the rooms definitely took some time (avg 20-40 minutes each way) but it wasn't as bad as I imagined. Plus, we all needed a break. It was hot (high 80's for temps) and humid. We went back to the parks every evening. It was much cooler and everyone was in a better mood.
One of my best tips is to advise people to look at the restaurant menus on allears.net. I actually printed out the menus of the places where I knew we could all find something to eat. That saved us sooo much time. We split some of the adult meals for the kids (one example: adult cheeseburger was split 25% for DS2 and 75% for DS1 and they split the fries). We supplemented with fruit and drinks brought in a soft sided cooler (we used Garden Grocer- that was $$ worth spent- loved them). We always had a satifying meal. That way we had some $ to spend on ice cream treats as the mood hit (Dole Whip. Yum!!).
Let's see, what else.... we used fast passes all the time. We didn't buy or use the Touring plans, but we did get a lot of useful tips from The Unofficial Guide book. We knew what rides we should get fastpasses from right away. Then we would go on another ride we liked (or at least was nearby) and then we would get another fastpass as soon as we were allowed. Sometimes this meant one adult breaking away and running off to get them. This allowed us to continuoulsy be at different attractions without any long waits. Also the fastpasses were great for us adults. For example, I would go on Space Mountain 2 times with my fast passes while DH was nearby on the Peoplemover (which my DC loved) and then we would switch off while he could go on his rides. We never really took advantage of using the rider switch, because it always seemed the baby fell asleep in the Ergo just as we were about to switch off. We just used the rider pass for later that day.
We got the pre-paid photopass. We have 115 photos(before edits) and we were really happy with them. It was nice to have us all in the same picture. The kids had fun with the magic shots.
As far as dining- the TS restaurants were not good, but it was still nice to be able to sit and eat and have someone wait on you. We had reservations at Cape May Cafe (character breakfast), Tusker House (dinner buffet) and Liberty Tree Tavern (dinner). My husbands quote about the meal "it tastes like hospital food" and given that we both work at hospitals and sometimes eat there, it wasn't exactly a compliment, but not a slam either. Far and away the best sit down meal was at Turf Bar and Grill located at SSR. DH and I ordered the prime rib and it was perfect. Really, steakhouse quality and cooked to perfection. The kids had a nice meal as well.
Oh boy, that's all I can think of. I just wanted to share all I learned, because so many of you helped me when I was planning my trip. I learned so much from all of you. Really, there were so many tips and questions answered. Thanks to you all, and to those of you still about to go, I am jealous :)!!
I will have to post soon about some of our Disney "magic moments" and post some pictures of a small surprise I had for DH's birthday while at WDW. If you made it this far, thanks for reading my story.