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Disney World...Part 1
I know, I know, I got home almost a month ago and STILL haven't posted...so here goes! And it started with me going to Jason's two days before we left for Disney...
Day 1- Arrival Day
We woke up super early and Kirk (Jason's stepdad) took us to the airport. We got through security really easily and did not have to wait too long. We were cute and did puzzle books together.
We then got on the plane and did puzzle books together and listened to the same thing at the same time on our ipods. There it was On the Record, and Off-Broadawy show of Disney songs! Flight went well, was on time (I think) and all that fun stuff.
We got to the Orlando Airport and went to the Magical Express counter. If you are going to Disney and staying on property (which I highly recommend ) get this! They got our bags from the carousels and delivered them to our rooms when they got there! We just gave them our reservations, and got in line for our bus. We only waited 10 minutes for the bus, got on, and were on our way! It dropped us off right at the All Star Music and we checked in smoothly. An explanation - we had two reservations becasue the free dining plan kicked in halfway through our vacation (why we went then) so we had to check out and check back in (same room). We wanted to head straight to a park, so we gave our carry ons to the luggage people and they told us it would be waiting in our room when we got back (which was not ready yet). But before we did that, we got lunch at the cafeteria at the resort. It was pretty good, the funny aspect was our drinks. I got chocolate milk and Jason got a beer. Does that show you something about our relationship? It should!
So we headed to Epcot. We did not do Magic Kingdom first day because it would have been crowded and we had reservations at Le Celliar. We got to Epcot on the Disney bus (more on those later also) and went to the game area under Spaceship Earth (since the ride was closed) and played a cool racing game and a cool 3D body game where you had to put body parts into place.
We then got in line for Soarin' which may be my favorite ride. The feeling of flying was fantastic! And the line was fun too, they had these games you could play on these screens with sensors, VERY Disney. We headed to Living With the land which I still find interesting. Then we did the new Find Nemo ride which was also VERY cool.
After that, it was starting to get close to dinner time, so we headed out to the World Showcase and checked out the UK and France. We stopped to watch the French movie, and it made me want to visit there! Then dinner. WOW. With the meal we got an non alcoholic drink, an appetizer, a main course, and a dessert. at this point we had paid for the meal plan, but it was only $40 a day for snack, counter meal and sit down meal. Dinner would have been over $40. I had a mango smoothie to drink, then an AMAZING white chedder soup. Then I probably had the best steak ever, with some great mashed potatoes. My dessert was two types of sorbet, made fresh. Disney dining is one of the best parts! Jason had a seafood thing which he loved too!
We then headed out because we had special seating for our last night for Illuminations and went to Downtown Disney. Oy. You cannot get from a park to Downtown Disney, you have to go through a resort. So we decided we would get on the first bus that got there and went to Coronado Springs, then waited 20 minutes for the DD bus. When it got there, we almost wished it hadn't. We had the WORST bus driver ever. We got to the first stop and politely asked him if that was where you got off for Disney Quest, the entire point of this trip to DD. He had no idea, and when a nice family stopped before they got off to help us, he got mad at them! Then there was a person in a wheelchair that had to get on and Mike (the driver) did not know how to operate the wheelchair lift and we waited for fifteen minutes! One person had gotten on before that started and was sitting across from us. Then he FINALLY got the thing figured out and got the person on and people started asking questions because the stop was for more than one resort and the sign (and driver) were confusing them. Then, Mike yelled at them to "move away from the damn bus" so he could go. Everyone on the bus was making comments about how he really killed the Disney magic. We got to our stop and were thrilled to get off.
Disney Quest was just eh. They got rid of a LOT of the awesome arcade games and a lot of the "vintage" games were broken and that was one of the parts we were looking forward to the most. The river rafting game was still fun, as was the human pinball one, but we were not impressed at all. They really need to keep that up. We were planning on going twice (since we had 6 extra things on our pass like DQ, waterparks, and Pleasure Island) and we decided not to. We left and walked around a bit then went to get on the bus for the All Star Resorts.
Disaster again. We got there and there were maybe 15-20 people waiting. The first bus comes - full. Only 3 people managed to get on and more people had shown up. Someone told the bus driver to call for another bus to come directly to our stop. 18 minutes go by, there are probably 50 people waiting and another bus comes - full - no one got on. By this time, we are all getting pissed! We saw 4 or 5 of other buses going by, and there was no one at their stops. Other people go to other buses and ask them to call for a bus for us and they say it has been done. 20 more minutes go by and yet another FULL bus shows up. By now, there are about 100 people waiting at the stop. One guy (who got there before we did) was fed up and goes and stands on the stairs and lets the driver know that he is not moving until an empty bus came to get us. The driver said he would call the cops and the guy told him to. The driver didn't and within 5 minutes an empty bus finally showed up. We had waited for over an HOUR. When we got back to the hotel we put in a complaint to the manager (as did many others) and finally went to our room. The next morning we complained to another desk about Mike and called in a formal complaint. The head manager called me to talk to me about it and I had to write a formal statement. The manager said Mike would be taken care of. We think he was fired. Also, the next two times we went to DD they had seperate buses for each of the All Star Resorts and they were less full!
Our room was nice. Two double beds, a TV, a clean bathroom. Basically, what you expect for a cheap Disney hotel. We were in the Broadway building, which had recently been redone so everything was really nice! There were two pools, a piano pool and a guitar pool. We were closer to the piano pool, but were too tired to go use it. The room was nice, the company was great and, even though it wasn't perfect, the first day was a GREAT way to start our vacation.
I will post about day 2 tomorrow!
I know, I know, I got home almost a month ago and STILL haven't posted...so here goes! And it started with me going to Jason's two days before we left for Disney...
Day 1- Arrival Day
We woke up super early and Kirk (Jason's stepdad) took us to the airport. We got through security really easily and did not have to wait too long. We were cute and did puzzle books together.
We then got on the plane and did puzzle books together and listened to the same thing at the same time on our ipods. There it was On the Record, and Off-Broadawy show of Disney songs! Flight went well, was on time (I think) and all that fun stuff.
We got to the Orlando Airport and went to the Magical Express counter. If you are going to Disney and staying on property (which I highly recommend ) get this! They got our bags from the carousels and delivered them to our rooms when they got there! We just gave them our reservations, and got in line for our bus. We only waited 10 minutes for the bus, got on, and were on our way! It dropped us off right at the All Star Music and we checked in smoothly. An explanation - we had two reservations becasue the free dining plan kicked in halfway through our vacation (why we went then) so we had to check out and check back in (same room). We wanted to head straight to a park, so we gave our carry ons to the luggage people and they told us it would be waiting in our room when we got back (which was not ready yet). But before we did that, we got lunch at the cafeteria at the resort. It was pretty good, the funny aspect was our drinks. I got chocolate milk and Jason got a beer. Does that show you something about our relationship? It should!
So we headed to Epcot. We did not do Magic Kingdom first day because it would have been crowded and we had reservations at Le Celliar. We got to Epcot on the Disney bus (more on those later also) and went to the game area under Spaceship Earth (since the ride was closed) and played a cool racing game and a cool 3D body game where you had to put body parts into place.
We then got in line for Soarin' which may be my favorite ride. The feeling of flying was fantastic! And the line was fun too, they had these games you could play on these screens with sensors, VERY Disney. We headed to Living With the land which I still find interesting. Then we did the new Find Nemo ride which was also VERY cool.
After that, it was starting to get close to dinner time, so we headed out to the World Showcase and checked out the UK and France. We stopped to watch the French movie, and it made me want to visit there! Then dinner. WOW. With the meal we got an non alcoholic drink, an appetizer, a main course, and a dessert. at this point we had paid for the meal plan, but it was only $40 a day for snack, counter meal and sit down meal. Dinner would have been over $40. I had a mango smoothie to drink, then an AMAZING white chedder soup. Then I probably had the best steak ever, with some great mashed potatoes. My dessert was two types of sorbet, made fresh. Disney dining is one of the best parts! Jason had a seafood thing which he loved too!
We then headed out because we had special seating for our last night for Illuminations and went to Downtown Disney. Oy. You cannot get from a park to Downtown Disney, you have to go through a resort. So we decided we would get on the first bus that got there and went to Coronado Springs, then waited 20 minutes for the DD bus. When it got there, we almost wished it hadn't. We had the WORST bus driver ever. We got to the first stop and politely asked him if that was where you got off for Disney Quest, the entire point of this trip to DD. He had no idea, and when a nice family stopped before they got off to help us, he got mad at them! Then there was a person in a wheelchair that had to get on and Mike (the driver) did not know how to operate the wheelchair lift and we waited for fifteen minutes! One person had gotten on before that started and was sitting across from us. Then he FINALLY got the thing figured out and got the person on and people started asking questions because the stop was for more than one resort and the sign (and driver) were confusing them. Then, Mike yelled at them to "move away from the damn bus" so he could go. Everyone on the bus was making comments about how he really killed the Disney magic. We got to our stop and were thrilled to get off.
Disney Quest was just eh. They got rid of a LOT of the awesome arcade games and a lot of the "vintage" games were broken and that was one of the parts we were looking forward to the most. The river rafting game was still fun, as was the human pinball one, but we were not impressed at all. They really need to keep that up. We were planning on going twice (since we had 6 extra things on our pass like DQ, waterparks, and Pleasure Island) and we decided not to. We left and walked around a bit then went to get on the bus for the All Star Resorts.
Disaster again. We got there and there were maybe 15-20 people waiting. The first bus comes - full. Only 3 people managed to get on and more people had shown up. Someone told the bus driver to call for another bus to come directly to our stop. 18 minutes go by, there are probably 50 people waiting and another bus comes - full - no one got on. By this time, we are all getting pissed! We saw 4 or 5 of other buses going by, and there was no one at their stops. Other people go to other buses and ask them to call for a bus for us and they say it has been done. 20 more minutes go by and yet another FULL bus shows up. By now, there are about 100 people waiting at the stop. One guy (who got there before we did) was fed up and goes and stands on the stairs and lets the driver know that he is not moving until an empty bus came to get us. The driver said he would call the cops and the guy told him to. The driver didn't and within 5 minutes an empty bus finally showed up. We had waited for over an HOUR. When we got back to the hotel we put in a complaint to the manager (as did many others) and finally went to our room. The next morning we complained to another desk about Mike and called in a formal complaint. The head manager called me to talk to me about it and I had to write a formal statement. The manager said Mike would be taken care of. We think he was fired. Also, the next two times we went to DD they had seperate buses for each of the All Star Resorts and they were less full!
Our room was nice. Two double beds, a TV, a clean bathroom. Basically, what you expect for a cheap Disney hotel. We were in the Broadway building, which had recently been redone so everything was really nice! There were two pools, a piano pool and a guitar pool. We were closer to the piano pool, but were too tired to go use it. The room was nice, the company was great and, even though it wasn't perfect, the first day was a GREAT way to start our vacation.
I will post about day 2 tomorrow!