3 days at the Grand Floridian trip report Day 1

[toodycat]

Dramatis Personae: Myself, DH (48) and DS (15).
The Situation: 3 pre-cruise days at WDW before a week long cruise on the Disney Magic.
Background: We were celebrating our 22nd anniversary with a family trip to WDW before a 7 day Disney cruise. While planning our trip, I had read that the GF was under construction. This worried me,not because I have anything against construction which is necessary to keep a property like the GF in tip top shape, but because DS has PDD-NOS, an autism disorder and one of his problems is a complete aversion to any loud noises. He finds them physically painful, so staying at a resort where there would be constant hammering, drilling or jackhammering was not an option for us. We contacted the GF in advance and made them aware of our son's condition and were advised that our club level room in Sugarloaf would not be affected by the construction.

Type of package: Room only. With a 35% off discount code, we paid about $338 per night for an outside club level room in Sugarloaf. We had days left on non-expiring, 10 day park hoppers and we didn't do the dining plan because we like to eat in restaurants that either don't participate or require two credits. Also, the lounge at Sugarloaf provides continental breakfast and multiple opportunities for snacking.

Flight and transfer: We were off to a great start. Not only did our Delta flight out of New York's JFK leave on time---how rare is that---but it arrived at MCO early! Our luggage was the first to come out on the carousel. We picked up our car from Budget and were delighted to see that instead of the Ford Explorer we had reserved, we had been issued a 7 seat, fully loaded Jeep Commander with leather upholstery, multiple moonroofs and Sirius radio. There was more than ample storage for our 9 suitcases. Twenty minutes later, we arrived at the Grand Floridian.

Check in- The valets who took our vehicle were friendly and patient as we tried to figure out which bags to take with us and which to check. We were met curbside by Heather, who greeted us and told us that a special room had been selected by management for us and "it's a little bigger than what you had." Of course, it wasn't ready as it was only noon. Heather guided us into the lobby which was every bit as spectacular as we remembered it. Not only is the airy, pastel interior beautiful and the comfortable Victorian stye furniture welcoming, but the flower arrangements make it the best smelling lobby at WDW. There is some construction in the lobby on the second floor where the tile is being replaced, but the area is surrounded by screens and not very noticeable. Heather gave us our welcome packet, confirmed our itinerary and ADRs, including that the Cirque du Soleil tickets we had reserved for that evening were in the GF safe and issued us "anniversary" buttons to wear in the park. We asked her to keep the La Nouba tickets and send them to Sugarloaf once we had our room. She promised to phone us as soon as our room was ready. We had a lovely lunch at the GF Cafe before making our way to the Magic Kingdom via monorail.

Magic Kingdom: The park was as beautiful as ever. Halloween decorations were already in place. We visited the Monsters Inc attraction and my husband was shown on the video screen as Sully "the hairy guy." Lots of laughter ensued because my husband has a completely shaved head! We then tackled the Buzz Lightyear attraction. Lines were extremely short and park traffic was light. We visited Mickey's Philharmagic which is my son's favorite and It's a Small World which is one of mine. (I have a sentimental attachment from the 64 World's Fair. "Small World" is one of my first memories.) We received a message saying that our room was ready and returned to the GF to get ready for dinner at Wolfgang Puck's and Cirque du Soleil's La Nouba, for which we had third row center seats.

Our room: We stayed at Sugarloaf the first time we visited WDW with our son in 2000, so we have fond memories of that building. On our way to our room, we checked with the concierge to see if our La Nouba tickets had been delivered. The concierge didn't exactly check, but said no, they hadn't. This time our room was a parlor suite---I think that is what it's called, anyway---it was room 6420. In addition to the standard two double beds, bathroom, desk area and plasma TV, it had a little living room with a sofa, loveseat, chair and a second TV. The bedroom ceiling was cathedral style with a lovely ceiling fan. The room did not have a balcony, which was fine because if it had, we probably would have been able to hear the construction at Sago Cay during the day. As it was, the windows afforded us a lovely view of the courtyard pool and DS lost no time in sprawling about the living area.

The evening: After showering and dressing, I phoned the Sugarloaf concierge desk to see if our La Nouba tickets had arrived. I was told they were still in the main building's safe. As we were getting ready for dinner, there was a knock on the door. It was a CM delivering a split of Korbel and a single red rose to celebrate our anniversary! Boy, were we feeling pampered. It was raining lightly as we made our way over to the GF lobby to pick up our tickets and retrieve the Jeep from the valet for the drive to Downtown Disney. Guess what? The cast members at the main desk did not have our La Nouba tickets. They had been sent to Sugarloaf. The CMs behind the desk were extremely apologetic because we were now late to our dinner at Wolfgang Puck's. One of them ran over in the rain to get the tickets while the other offered to give us complimentary cab transfers to and from Downtown Disney to make sure we arrived on time. She kept asking if there was anything else they could do to help us, We told them not to worry, that we would drive, but we would appreciate it if they could just call the restaurant to let them know we were on our way.

Dinner: As it happened, Wolfgang Puck's Upstairs was not even close to full, so our being a little late was not a big deal. The meal was outstanding, particularly the lobster risotto and the duck Napoleon. Because it was our anniversary, the server brought us a free piece of chocolate cake with "Happy Anniversary" written on the plate. We also enjoyed the views from the upstairs dining room which gave us a perspective on Downtown Disney we had not previously seen. We had never dined there before, but I would definitely plan on returning.

La Nouba was amazing. We had seen it several years ago, but purchased seats the day of the show, so some of our views were obstructed. This time, we were seated in the center of the third row and didn't miss a thing. Every act was outstanding. We particularly enjoyed the little girls with the diabolos and the bicyclist's stunts, but really all the performers were stellar. I love the costuming. It is so witty. DS was in his glory. He loves the music accompanying La Nouba and generally enjoys any visually engrossing, sensorily appealing, musical type of performance. (He's liked seeing ballet and opera since he was in elementary school.) After a beautiful evening, we drove home to the GF, assured the staff who had helped us that the little mix-up had not impacted our enjoyment at all and went to sleep, anticipating an early wake-up call to summon us back to MK for extra early morning park hours.

[ILoveDisney-Angie]

I have enjoyed reading your report. We are staying at the Sugar Loaf Bldg for our first stay at the GF. I can't wait to read more.

[BlueSkies]

Toodycat Really enjoyed reading your day 1 TR!! What a nice surprise to get that lodge tower room in SL... as there are only 3 of them in the whole building!!Sorry to hear about your La Nouba ticket mix up...but it sounds like everyone did their best to make sure it all worked out in the end....

Looking foward to reading about how you enjoyed your next two days!!

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

So far I am enjoying reading the rest of your trip report and I can not wait to read the rest.

[toodycat]

Thanks to all who read so far. I realize I shouldn't have designated the thread Day 1, since I was planning on putting all three sections in one thread. Oops.
Here's Day 2:

We woke up bright and early to be at the Magic Kingdom when it opened at 8. This was made especially easy by the concierge breakfast at Sugarloaf. There was plenty of fresh fruit, muffins and pastry, yogurt, juices and other cold breakfast items. Since we were planning on having a late brunch at the Kona Cafe later, we each had a light breakfast and then traveled to MK via monorail. Traffic in the park was light, so it was pretty easy to visit each attraction. We started with Winnie the Pooh and continued to the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad which we loved, but DS hated. He really thought that he was going to fall out of the car. DH tried to help out by describing what DS would encounter at each point to minimize anything unexpected, but it didn't help. The funny thing was that my son has done that attraction before without this reaction. Usually, I am the roller coaster wimp in this family. This time, he was noticeably trembling as though he'd been in an auto accident. Once the railroad was over, DS really didn't want to do anything else. We tried to calm him down and get him to soldier on, but abandoned that approach because we could see that he was sincerely anxious and shaken. DS is, in most respects, extremely high functioning and well-behaved. He has never been the type for the conspicuous meltdown. He doesn't cry or tantrum, but you can see when he's upset. He sat down in a chair outside of the Haunted Mansion and re-grouped and relaxed a little while DH and I experienced that attraction. (DS was adamantly not doing anything "haunted" at this point.) We went to Hall of Presidents, excited to see the addition of Barack Obama and sit in a peaceful, air-conditioned setting where DS might regain his composure a little more. We all felt better after some time in the Hall of Presidents although I always get a bit weepy when they mention 9/11, but DS said that he was hungry and wanted to leave, so we left and took the monorail to the Poly where we had an 11 a.m. breakfast ADR at the Kona Cafe. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with kids on the autism spectrum, this kind of stuff happens all the time and we are used to it. DH and I learned a long time ago that we are never going to spend a full day in the park because DS needs a midday break. We always stay on the monorail or rent a car, so that we can leave when we need to.)

A little background info on our family and the Poly: we've stayed there twice and found it OK, not spectacular. DS loved the big plasma TV in our room during our last stay at Rapanui in 2006 and DH liked the extremely convenient monorail access, but other than that, we have never been blown away by the property. However, we had heard so many raves about the Kona Cafe's breakfast, particularly the tonga toast, that we thought it might be a good place for our midday meal. It took a little while to get seated not because the cafe was so crowded so much as because there was a little lack of communication between hostess and server about clearing our table. In terms of space, I wasn't loving the way the Kona Cafe is completely exposed to the rest of the second floor of the lobby. It made me feel like I was eating in the middle of a mall. Also, it meant that we were experiencing the noise level of the whole second floor which isn't ideal for DS when he's upset. As someone who has stayed at the Poly previously, I should have remembered the layout a little more clearly. However, DS definitely calmed down once he had some pancakes and scrambled eggs. I had the Big Kahuna breakfast of eggs, French toast, bacon, sausage, potatoes and pancakes. The pineapple macademia nut pancakes were delicious. The bacon was cut too thinly and really had no taste. DH's tonga toast was not worth the build up. It tasted like a Costco churro. However, a few of my friends swear that this is not normal and that we must have had it on an off day. The service was pleasant and attentive and I felt the prices were quite fair. Because we were wearing our anniversary buttons, the server brought us a cupcake.

At about noon, we took the monorail to the GF and DS got some much-needed down time with his Nintendo DSI while DH and I swam in the spectacular courtyard pool. There was some construction going on, but all you could hear was a low hum of machinery which quickly faded into the background. We coaxed DS to come out and spend a little time in the hot tub which usually relaxes him. The hot tub and some more snacks from the concierge lounge did the trick and we were ready to visit Disney Hollywood Studios by about 3:30 p.m.

We drove to DHS and were able to park fairly close, using the AAA parking permit. We observed some actors doing a skit in the street about washing a car that was pretty funny. DS got a little wet when the buckets started flying, but he was OK with that. Again, DHS was not that crowded. DH is the only one in our family who has been on the Tower of Terror and he loved it, but has since developed vertigo, so his dropping elevator days are over. I have always wanted to try TofT, but was scared. After seeing an explanation of how it works on TV last month, I felt like I had a better sense of it and was happily anticipating the attraction. DH told me he thinks it's the best at DHS. However, when I saw that people with back problems are warned about TofT, I had change my plan. I have three herniated disks that are not currently giving me any trouble and I want to keep it that way. DH suggested we just wait on the TofT line and get off before actually riding it and the CMs said that would be fine. Unfortunately, after seeing the spooky lobby, DS started to get anxious. We promised him that we were just walking to the ride, but were not going on it. He didn't care. We left. We tried to visit the new Toy Story attraction, but the wait was over an hour. We walked through DHS and saw the Muppet Movie in 3D which is always a family favorite. Then, we visited the animation area to see the "Up" characters. DS loved Up and although he considers himself too old to be photographed with characters, he enjoys seeing them and there were a lot to see. We saw the three "Up" characters, the wicked queen from Snow White, the Incredibles and many others. DS was all smiles.After that, it was time to head to the Boardwalk for dinner at the Flying Fish Cafe.We walked through the lobby of the Boardwalk Inn, considering staying there next time, but ultimately decided not to and then headed to the Flying Fish Cafe. In spite of having a 7:30 p.m. ADR, we waited nearly an hour for a table. It was a painful hour because we were starving---it had been a while since our meal at the Kona Cafe--- and the smell of pizza from the new Cat Cora restaurant was wafting in our direction. We considered getting pizza a few times, but held out for the Flying Fish. We should have gotten the pizza because when we finally got our table, between allergies and dislikes, there was nothing DS or DH would eat. I had checked the menu online before we made the reservation, but some things had changed. I felt silly leaving, but not as silly as I would have felt spending $150 on a meal no one would eat. We drove back to the Grand Floridian, got a beeper for a table at the Grand Floridian Cafe and took DS to Gasparilla's for some pizza to hold him over until we were seated. The Grand Floridian Cafe's dinner menu was just what the doctor ordered. I had a lovely salad and chicken with fresh vegetables and potatoes. DS had a rib eye steak. DH can't remember what he ate. Our server was adorable and funny. By the end of the meal, everyone felt rejuvenated and happy. We returned to our room which had been impeccably turned down by mousekeeping, read for a while and then turned in, looking forward to spending the following day at Epcot.