Boo to Two, Kelley and Missy's Joint TR! Update! 3/28

[Missyrose]

We last left off as we were arriving to the Contemporary! I was beyond excited, and I’m fairly sure I had a massive grin on my face. I was finally fufilling my long-held wish to stay at a Disney resort. And it was my DREAM resort nonetheless!

We got off the bus and there were CR Cast Members standing there to great us. We gave her our name and we were soon whisked upstairs to the Club Level for check-in.

Now, just to refresh everyone’s memories, we had two reservations. The first was a one-night room only reservation in an Atrium Club Theme Park View room. Our second reservation was for three nights in a regular Bay Lake View room with the deluxe dining plan.

Our guide showed us to the elevator and pulled out his access car. For those of you who don’t know, the only way to access the Club Level floors by elevator is to stick your KTTW card in the slot. Franklin was especially geeked out by the fact that once you stuck the card in the slot, you didn’t have to push the button for the floor, it automatically lit up for you!

Anyway, back to the elevator. Our guide put in his card and both the 12th floor (Atirum Club) and 14th floor (Tower Club) lit up. He punched the 14th floor. Huh? I thought, that’s weird. I reasoned that maybe they were understaffed and needed to check us in on the 14th floor.

We were greeted by name as we got off the elevator. We were shown into the lounge for drinks and snacks we could eat as we checked in. The CM told us we’d be in room 4911, right there on the 14th floor!

He then showed us to our room, which was conveniently right down the hall from the lounge. As he showed us all the bells and whistles, I asked him about what we should do the next day when we needed to check out of that room and into the room for our package. He said we were booked in that room on the 14th floor for our entire stay!

I said, “Are you sure?” So he showed me the new reservation sheet that had our names, this room and the dates October 13-October 17.

I couldn’t believe it, we’d been upgraded to CL for the week and a TPV room to boot?!?! Talk about some major Pixie Dust!

I was in shock and on the verge of tears, but I thanked the CM and managed to keep my composure.

As soon as he left the room, I threw open the curtains and the door to the balcony. What I saw took my breath away.

There was even a good view of the progress they were making with the Fantasyland Expansion. Wow, is that piece of the park gonna be BIG.

I knew CR was close to the Magic Kingdom, what I hadn’t realized was just how close it was. Not only could we clearly see the castle and each mountain, you could even hear the horn from the MK railroad!

We also had a beautiful view of the Poly and Grand Floridian.

I was totally unprepared for how that view would make me feel, and to know that we’d be looking at it for the next few days? Forget about it. I finally let myself tear up.

Luckily, Franklin was too busy snapping pictures of everything: the room, the bathroom, the view.

So he didn’t notice my tears. Which is good, because I never would have heard the end of it.

A few minutes later there was a knock at the door. It was our luggage! The CM said it had been there for almost an hour! No DME nightmares for us!

I went out to the lounge to pick up a beer for Franklin and to check on the basket I’d ordered from Disney florist. It was just a little something to get us in the mood for our first Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party.

CM Sarah greeted me in the lounge (she was by far the best CM we encountered on the trip. She was happy, bubbly and always had a smile on her face. She made us feel totally at home and is the type of person you’d totally expect to be working for Disney!).

She made sure I knew that she or any other CM could get us anything we needed, including beer and wine, if it wasn’t out during the day. And if there was anything we’d like stocked in our room’s fridge, just to let her know!

The other CM brought out the basket and it looked so cute!

When I returned to the room carrying the surprise basket and beer, Franklin didn’t know which one to open first.

I had chosen the Mickey pumpkin basket but customized it a bit. First, I subbed out the werewolf Mickey for a regular one and second, I subbed out the bouquet of giant lollipops for an extra rice crispy treat.

The basket was adorable and the treats were especially tasty. I glanced at the clock and realized we needed to get ready to head to Epcot because we had a 1:55 ADR at Le Cellier! Coming up, our first Disney meal!

 

[ZehnJahren]

Wow, what a view! Wow, what a shower! Wow, what a big balcony! Wow, what a view!

And what a great surprise to be taken up to the 14th floor! It really surprised me the size of the rooms, after having JUST been in Pop. I felt like I could do cartwheels in the CR room, as opposed to needing to just sit quietly in the Pop room.

Congrats to us both for getting our dream resort this last trip! We had a Bay Lake view and it was wonderful, but I had no idea you could see so much from the TPV. Very cool you could see all the construction; it IS going to be a big addition to the park once it's finished.

 

[Joyciemc]

Oh.My.God. Amazing-ness! The view, the club level, the UPGRADE! I am so excited for you!

 

[Missyrose]

Wow, what a view! Wow, what a shower! Wow, what a big balcony! Wow, what a view!

And what a great surprise to be taken up to the 14th floor! It really surprised me the size of the rooms, after having JUST been in Pop. I felt like I could do cartwheels in the CR room, as opposed to needing to just sit quietly in the Pop room.

Congrats to us both for getting our dream resort this last trip! We had a Bay Lake view and it was wonderful, but I had no idea you could see so much from the TPV. Very cool you could see all the construction; it IS going to be a big addition to the park once it's finished.

I'm totally with you on the size of the room, it was HUGE. Kelley's family came to visit us one night to watch fireworks from the hotel and the boys just ran circles around the room. We guessed that they were happy to have space to run around after a few days in their All-Star Movies room.

Yay for getting our dream resorts! I fell sooooo in love with CR, I hope it hasn't spoiled me for other Disney hotels.

I saw you put up the post where you surprised your mom, I'm gonna go read it now! See you over there.

Oh.My.God. Amazing-ness! The view, the club level, the UPGRADE! I am so excited for you!

Serious, serious amazingness! We literally floated around on Cloud 9 for the rest of the day.

Just to keep it real for all my friends here, though, I do have to hint that not everything stayed as magical. Stay tuned to see what happens! I hope that doesn't sound too ominous. I kinda blindsided the people on my PTR when I posted my mini trip review, so I didn't want you guys to feel the same way!

 

[Busymom85]

Wow, what an amazing view! I would love to stay at the Contemporary. Those car cakes are so cute. Loving the reviews so far.

 

[IheartDDuck]

How amazing that you were upgraded for you entire trip! I never get pixie dust like that, I have to admit. I'm always so jealous when I hear about it on others trip reports.

 

[Missyrose]

Wow, what an amazing view! I would love to stay at the Contemporary. Those car cakes are so cute. Loving the reviews so far.

Staying at the Contemporary was the best Disney decision we've ever made! Thanks for joining in!

How amazing that you were upgraded for you entire trip! I never get pixie dust like that, I have to admit. I'm always so jealous when I hear about it on others trip reports.

I know. I'd heeded the warnings from the Dis resorts board, where people say that the chance of getting any sort of upgrade is slim to none. So needless to say, I was floored. It was beyond just a sprinkling of pixie dust, I felt like I was covered head to toe in it!

 

[PirateKate]

That view from the Contemporary is awesome! I would have had a hard time leaving that balcony.

Kelley, I love those cakes for the boys' birthday! I bet they had a fun party.

 

[natebenma]

Happy Birthday, Jack and Ryan!!! Awesome cakes!

 

[natebenma]

There are no words to describe how awesome that room is. Ok, maybe two.

Holy "Moley"!!! (insert word not suitable for a family discussion board...)

You're not kidding, the MK is CLOSE! Hey you, over by the castle- can you quiet down, we're trying to sleep in here!

Love the gift basket too!

OK, let's get this straight- easy travel. awesome upgrade. lunch at Le Cellier. Halloween Party. Sounds like a pretty decent day to me. Hooray!!!

 

[Missyrose]

That view from the Contemporary is awesome! I would have had a hard time leaving that balcony.

Kelley, I love those cakes for the boys' birthday! I bet they had a fun party.

It was VERY hard pulling ourselves away from that balcony. Especially at night, when you know you should be getting some much needed rest, all you want to do is stare at that gorgeously lit up view!

There are no words to describe how awesome that room is. Ok, maybe two.

Holy "Moley"!!! (insert word not suitable for a family discussion board...)

You're not kidding, the MK is CLOSE! Hey you, over by the castle- can you quiet down, we're trying to sleep in here!

Love the gift basket too!

OK, let's get this straight- easy travel. awesome upgrade. lunch at Le Cellier. Halloween Party. Sounds like a pretty decent day to me. Hooray!!!

You're right, it was quite possibly the PERFECT Disney day. Though almost every day on this trip seemed downright perfect. Le Cellier is coming up next!

 

[Queenofallthings]

I am so happy for you! That view...good for you for holding the tears back as long as you did....I would have been blubbering all over the place!! Great view and great pictures!!

Thanks so much for sharing....that room is gorgeous....I would have hit that balcony every time I was in the room

 

[Missyrose]

I am so happy for you! That view...good for you for holding the tears back as long as you did....I would have been blubbering all over the place!! Great view and great pictures!!

Thanks so much for sharing....that room is gorgeous....I would have hit that balcony every time I was in the room

I cannot believe I held it together as long as I did! I really loved that balcony.

 

[Missyrose]

Where we last left, we'd checked in to our amazing room but realized we had to scoot if we were going to make our 1:55 ADR at Le Cellier.

We made our first journey down to the fourth floor to catch the resort monorail.

The first stop after CR was the Ticket and Transportation Center, so easy!

When we got to the TTC,

it dawned on me that I’d left my drivers licence in my wallet in the room’s safe. And I was fairly certain I’d need it to redeem the AP voucher. D'oh! I decided we should go to a ticket window at the TTC, so that way, if we got rebuffed, we could hop back on the resort monorail to go back and get my I.D.

Luckily, we encountered an awesome CM, Jeffrey,who took pity on my mistake and used my KTTW card (“just this once”) as my I.D. to convert the voucher into an annual pass. He was making some “I’m Celebrating...Food and Wine” buttons for his friends who would be visiting him this weekend and when we said the Festival was one of our big reasons for the trip, he gave us two of the buttons!

We scurried back up the ramp to hop on the Epcot express monorail.

We’d forgotten how the Epcot monorail makes a loop in the park before stopping in the station, Franklin loved this vantage point for photos.

Can I just stop for a moment to say how much I love the Epcot entrance music? There’s just something about it that is some dynamic and so unique, that any time I hear it, I know exactly where I am.

The original plan had been to stop at Epcot’s guest relations to upgrade our other UT ticket to an AP and buy our Tables in Wonderland card. But I was worried about how long the walk was back to Canada in the World Showcase, so we decided to wait until after lunch to do the upgrade...which meant we didn’t have the TiW card for our out of pocket lunch at Le Cellier, oops!

According to the pictures from the monorail, we got to Epcot at about 1:40, so we needed to book it back to Canada.

 

[Missyrose]

We made it to Le Cellier just in time for our ADR!

And we were seated a few minutes after we checked in.

Our server was Joshua and he looked like Prince Charming.

Seriously, why is he a waiter and not playing one of the princes in a meet and greet or parade or something? Like most of the Disney servers in the WS restaurants, he was authentic...from Ontario, I think.

As we looked over the menus, I casually mentioned to Franklin that I may have already planned out our meal. Since it was lunch and a rather expensive OOP restaurant, I wanted to keep the meal light (especially since we were going to attempt to eat a QS dinner before MNSSHP that night). I offered up my plan: We’d split a bowl of the world famous (okay, well at least Dis-famous) cheddar cheese soup. And then we’d split the mushroom fillet but substitute the cream cheese mashed potatoes for the mushroom risotto. I said we could also get an extra side if he thought it wasn’t going to be enough food. He agreed with the plan and so we went with that plus we added the macaroni and cheese as our second side dish.

I also asked Joshua if we could have extra pretzel bread when he brought out the bread basket. He asked if we would want JUST pretzel bread? Can I get a ‘heck yeah!’? And so that’s what he brought, a basket with three plump rolls of pretzel bread. That stuff is as good as advertised and you don’t even need to add any butter!

When Franklin took a picture of the butter I told him the pictures didn’t have to be quite that detailed. He responded, “But the butters are Mickey heads!” Hahaha, very true honey!

We also got our drinks (iced tea for me and a mojito for Franklin).

Next came the Dis-famous cheese soup.

It was delicious! Good to the last drop! It tasted very much like baked potato soup but minus any strong potato flavor if that makes any sense. It was creamy and you could taste the cheese and a hint of beer and plenty of bacon yumminess.

Clearly, we hated it.

As each item was brought out, Franklin or I would remind the other that we needed to take a picture of everything, usually as one of us was reaching for the first bite! The couple sitting next to us chuckled and commented that they had hoped to take photos of all the food from their honeymoon, but that they kept getting to the end of the meal before they remembered!

Soon came our main course. And let me tell you, I’ve eaten plenty of steaks in really fancy restaurants all over the world and NONE has ever been as tender as the fillet at Le Cellier. You barely had to use a knife. And can we talk about the truffle butter? I’m fairly certain, if given the option, Franklin would have bathed in it. It was scrumptious.

The sides were very good (I would have liked to see the mac and cheese have a smidge more taste), but the steak was clearly the star.

Franklin had seen the maple creme brulee and before we ordered lunch declared that would be what we’d end our meal with. But we were both so stuffed, we couldn’t even imagine eating another bite, let alone a whole dessert. So we asked for the check.

Filled to the brim, we waddled back out into the heat and sunshine to head for Future World. First stop? MouseGears. My main mission was to purchase a set of Minnie ears to top off my MNSSHP ensemble for that night. But really, who are we kidding? I was dying to see all the Disney stuff. As you’ll see as this TR goes along, I have a bit of a shopping issue. I don’t want to say problem, because I never spend more than I’ve budgeted for. But I make sure going into any vacation that my shopping budget is, shall we say, healthy.

On this day, however, I did plenty of eyeing but very little buying. I ended up getting just my Minnie ears, but I had my eye on a few T-shirts and a scarf that I may have bought later on.

Our next stop was guest relations to make our final two big purchases: Franklin’s AP and our Tables in Wonderland card.

I had worked out how much it should have been to upgrade our once-used UT ticket to the AP and I even run the numbers past Cheshire Figment to double check all my addition. I printed out my findings and felt fully prepared to get the transaction right. Luckily, all my preparation counted for very little as we had a totally competent CM who did every step correctly and came up with the exact same total as me. The World must have been in a doggy kind of mood because I ended up with a Pluto AP and Franklin’s was Goofy.

It was about 3:45 by that point and I knew Franklin wanted to grab a beer in the lounge before we headed to MNSSHP. So we made our way to the monorail.

On this day, however, we ran into our first monorail snafu. Once we got on the monorail, we got held just past the Poly “for further traffic clearance.” Ugh. Plus, we’d managed to get on a car that had no air conditioning running, so it literally felt like we were melting.


The one bright spot, however, was the couple who had boarded at GF and were clearly headed for MNSSHP. The were in the most adorable Ariel and Eric costumes and they were clearly fully committed to the characters. Which seemed all the more impressive given the Florida heat.

We eventually made it back to the room and I retrieved some beers from the lounge CM, but warned Franklin that we had very little time to drink them. We also found a gift waiting for us in the room. A Contemporary chocolate box!

It was just about time to get ready for our very first Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, which is coming up next!

 

[ZehnJahren]

Wow, what great updates! All of those pictures are so clear and so well-taken - there are a couple that I paused to look at twice just because they were so appealing!

That's awesome that your lunch was so good. I still haven't eaten at Le Cellier - but to be fair, I've only been twice in the past eleven years (twice in the past year!) and I wasn't in a position to take that amount of time to eat!

Also, what a cool Ariel and Eric! And, WHY ON EARTH do they not air condition EVERY MONORAIL??? We got on one of those non-air-conditioned monorails and I was so surprised. It was HOT.

 

[brookelizabeth]

I am here!

Kelley-those are AMAZING! Wow!!!

Can I just stop for a moment to say how much I love the Epcot entrance music? There’s just something about it that is some dynamic and so unique, that any time I hear it, I know exactly where I am.

Love the Food & Wine button and the face that the o's in Food are Mickey Heads makes it all the better!

And I completely 100% agree with you on the Epcot entrance music. Anytime I hear it, it takes me right back. It is probably my favorite place to be in all 4 parks!

Loving every update! Your pictures from your room are AMAZING. I was so thrilled when I heard of your upgrade I shrieked out loud! Looking forward to more!

 

[natebenma]

Yeah for Jeffrey for giving you a break obtaining your AP! And for the extremely cute buttons!

If you write a letter/email to Disney Guest Communications praising the CMs who went above and beyond to make your trip special, you should mention how he helped you with your AP (although you should leave out the exact details where he bent the rules a bit)

Love the pictures taken from the monorail! Especially the ones of the attractions in EPCOT.

I love Franklin's laid back attitude! It doesn't sound like he was bothered by the already planned out meal or his mission to capture it in photos. When I started taking pictures of our meals, I encountered a lot of eye-rolling, but now my DH will help "Wait, Mom needs to take a picture first".

Wow, those are fantastic Ariel and Eric costumes.

Can't wait to see how you guys look. We already know Kelley and her family had Incredible costumes!

 

[heathsf]

Joining in!

 

[Queenofallthings]

What a great day you've had so far! Lunch at Le Cellier...it doesn't get any better than that! That soup is all Jasmine ever has when we go there...I am waiting for the day she orders 2 bowls!

How cute was that couple on the monorail Can't wait to hear all about the party!