5dizneynutz
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2003
This my first ever trip report so bear with me! We just got back Monday afternoon from our much anticipated 10 day Disney trip after 6 LONG years. This would be our first trip without my husband who passed away recently after a long illness. It was bittersweet remembering the many trips we had with him but also good making new memories for our family. There was pixie dust, sore feet, good food, lots of magical moments and some very unmagical ones but all in all we had the BEST time. There were 6 of us, me, my mother (77 and using an ECV), my 3 daughters, 24,22 & 15 and my daughter's friend, 22. We stayed for the 6th time at our favorite resort, POR. I requested AB, ground floor (for my Mom and my bad knee) near the food court and main bus stop. I faxed the resort 8 days before and hoped for the best! We had 8 day tickets with water park, without park hopper. Here's my thoughts, I start off with the good!
1. The weather was as expected, hot with afternoon thunderstorms. With the exception of our day in AK and one in Epcot, I didn't think it was overwelmingly hot (although a few in our party would disagree, lol). The thunderstorms usually only lasted a half our or so, except one afternoon one that lasted for hours but conviently stopped right in time for Illuminations! And one late night one that happened minutes before Fantasmic, barely had time to get out the ponchos before the deluge...so no Fantasmic this trip
We were soaked both times even with ponchos!
2. Can't say enough about making rope drop and using Fast Pass! Our first day in MK, we did Peter Pan, Ariel, Pooh, Mickey's Philharmagic, walked around the new Fantasyland, Haunted Mansion and Splash Mountain with less than 5 min waits or FP by 11:00am! And ate at Be Our Guest for lunch and was back at the POR for the pool/naps by 1:00! Our wait limit is 20 minutes, if more than that we get a fast pass. Actually the wait times and crowd were not as bad as I expected!
3. We only made a few ADR's this time:
Chef Mickey's for breakfast- Great as usual!
San Angel Inn for dinner- Great atmosphere, Margarita-Yum, Food-meh
Via Napoli for dinner- pizza was excellent!! And being from NJ originally, we
are pizza snobs! I,for one, loved the "char"! (way over-priced though, $30
for a pizza is crazy!!)
Sci-Fi- We love it there, great as usual!
1600 Park Fare for breakfast-Great as usual, loved the strawberry soup
T-rex-Atmosphere-great, Food-good!
We ate at alot of our favorite CS and some new ones:
Riverside food court- Great as usual, good variety, reasonably priced. The
Apple Blossom w/ vanilla ice cream is to die for!!
Pecos Bill- Love that Fixin' bar!
Be Our Guest- Great atmosphere!!! Loved the sandwiches!!!
Studio Catering Company- new to us, loved, loved loved the Toasted
Tuscan Deli!
Earl of Sandwich- Also new to us, unbelievably crowded, very disorganized,
so noisy that you couldn't have paid me to eat inside! Sandwiches were just ok but reasonably priced. Wouldn't go back again though
Planned on eating at Tortuga Tavern for something different than burgers
and such but beware, they close early for some reason. Very disappointing,
ate at Tomorrowland Terrace instead-Tables were dirty, food not so great and I'll
probably get flamed for this, Tomorrowland is my least favorite land, I
think it's ugly and Tomorrowland Terrace is even uglier!
I voted for Casey's but no one wanted a hot dog, go figure!
Fish and Chips in Great Britain- YUM!
4. Drink Around the World! Me and the older girls had a blast! We made it, but started sharing about half way through, still counts though, right? Some highlights:
Margaritas in Mexico-My favorite
Cantaloopy in China-Yum
Italian Margarita in Italy-Yum too
Sultan Colada in Morocco-Even yummier!
The Grapefruit beer in Germany (I forget the name)- The girls absolute favorite! Had to make a return trip another day to Germany just for that!
5. People Watching!! Oh my, you see some sights!!
Ok, now for the bad, luckily not too many. I don't pay much attention to rude, mean people, I'm too busy having my magical vacation! I didn't notice many rude cast members other than the ones in the food court at POR
. Especially a few cashiers, they hate their jobs I guess. One guest encounter does stick in my mind though, it was rude and funny at the same time. We had gotten on the bus through the back door after they loaded my mother's ECV. Before the bus driver had time to get to his seat to open the front door, some pompous a$%#* from the middle of the line who obviously thought he should be allowed to cut in front of everyone and sneak in the back door, bangs on the door like, how dare they shut the door on me!! He then gets on the bus and starts running his mouth about how much he knows about Disney World. He procedes to tell his party that POR used to be called "Southern Comfort" and they changed the name because it was politically incorrect. HAHAHA, it was all I could do not to laugh out loud at him!
Now unfortunately the ugly....
We arrived at POR at around 3pm to check in. I did not do online check in because we had very specific requests and thought we might have a better chance with regular check in. I had my requests on our resevations and had faxed our requests to POR about 8 days in advance of our arrival. I know that no requests are guaranteed, but I was hoping. We got to the desk and was told we were upgraded to Royal rooms! I know from the DIS that this a BIG deal to be upgraded but we really wanted to be in AB. We love that section's theming and feel and the Mansions have never really appealed to us. That being said, we felt it was a big deal to get this Pixie Dust and did not want to be ungrateful, so we decided to give it a try. I asked if our building would be close to the main bus stop and the food court as this was the most important request because of my mother. We were assured it was very close and we had a bayou view, whatever that is, I assumed she meant a river view. She went to get room cards and came back and told us our one rooms was fine and ready but our other room's reservation "crashed" and had to rebooked and that would take a while. I gave the older girls their cards and told them to get some luch and go to the room to get changed for the pool. They called us when they got there and told us that the room was HIKE, at the far end of Oak Manor all the way in the back of the building. I know how dramatic they can be so I reserved my opinion until I saw it. After an hour at the desk the rest of us take off to find the rooms. OMG they did not exagerate, it was FAR away and a parking lot view!! But I thought we will make the best of it, after all this was a coveted upgrade, right? We open the door and my mother and I look at each other and at the same time said EWWW. Bring on the flames... we hated the Royal rooms, they are tacky and gaudy!! To top it off they were so far away I had to rent an ECV because after one day, my mother just couldn't make it to the bus, food court or pool after all the walking in the parks. But like I said I didn't want to be ungrateful, I mean who turns down an upgrade. I did call reservations to see if they had any rooms availabl but they said no. So, off we go to MK the next day and 3 of us go through the new turnstiles just fine but us 3 in the room that the reservation crashed, no go! Also unable to charge! Back to the desk for another hour, missed pool time, had to rebook again, assured it was fixed now. Next day no go!! I felt like like I spent my vacation standing at the desk. After talking to 3 different managers they tell me because they had to rebook 3 of us, we couldnt have the new RFID cards?? Finally on the 4th day after rebooking 4 times we try them at the new touch to pay again and they work! Yay! Obviously the manager was wrong because they now worked at the new turnstiles also!
Now our vacation is almost half over, we got the card situation finally worked out but we are still in rooms we hate. So Miss non-confronational me with proding from my family goes down to the desk and explains our situation. I tell my situation to a very nice manager. I tell him how grateful we are for the upgrade, about all the other problems we had and how I'm spending $7000 that took me years to save for, in rooms we seriously don't like. He was so understanding. He sent us off to our Sci-Fi reservation in a cab and called me a little while later to tell us he was moving us to AB to preferred rooms in building 18!! We were so happy... until I wanted a print out to check how much we were spending and they said we owed $2200!!!!!!! I almost had a mini stroke! There was charges on there for $236 x6 for preferred rooms and a $800 charge for admission tickets. Did I mention we had a package that was paid off in April?? Anyway off I go to the desk, we explain everything, they leave me standing at the desk for 45 min without coming back to tell me what was going on. I go up to another manager to ask again, have to expalin everything again. by this time I'm tears. We are about to miss our dinner ressies again. She was amazing, she sends us off to Epcot with $300 cash for our dinner while they work things out!! We come back after Epcot closes and are there until after midnight! In the end the comp-ed us 2 nights for each room plus the $300 cash for all our troubles! Although they made good, I still feel like I spent a good portion of my vacation at the front desk! But I still didn't let it ruin my vacation, we still had a great time!! Sorry this was so long winded!
1. The weather was as expected, hot with afternoon thunderstorms. With the exception of our day in AK and one in Epcot, I didn't think it was overwelmingly hot (although a few in our party would disagree, lol). The thunderstorms usually only lasted a half our or so, except one afternoon one that lasted for hours but conviently stopped right in time for Illuminations! And one late night one that happened minutes before Fantasmic, barely had time to get out the ponchos before the deluge...so no Fantasmic this trip
We were soaked both times even with ponchos!2. Can't say enough about making rope drop and using Fast Pass! Our first day in MK, we did Peter Pan, Ariel, Pooh, Mickey's Philharmagic, walked around the new Fantasyland, Haunted Mansion and Splash Mountain with less than 5 min waits or FP by 11:00am! And ate at Be Our Guest for lunch and was back at the POR for the pool/naps by 1:00! Our wait limit is 20 minutes, if more than that we get a fast pass. Actually the wait times and crowd were not as bad as I expected!
3. We only made a few ADR's this time:
Chef Mickey's for breakfast- Great as usual!
San Angel Inn for dinner- Great atmosphere, Margarita-Yum, Food-meh
Via Napoli for dinner- pizza was excellent!! And being from NJ originally, we
are pizza snobs! I,for one, loved the "char"! (way over-priced though, $30
for a pizza is crazy!!)
Sci-Fi- We love it there, great as usual!
1600 Park Fare for breakfast-Great as usual, loved the strawberry soup
T-rex-Atmosphere-great, Food-good!
We ate at alot of our favorite CS and some new ones:
Riverside food court- Great as usual, good variety, reasonably priced. The
Apple Blossom w/ vanilla ice cream is to die for!!
Pecos Bill- Love that Fixin' bar!
Be Our Guest- Great atmosphere!!! Loved the sandwiches!!!
Studio Catering Company- new to us, loved, loved loved the Toasted
Tuscan Deli!
Earl of Sandwich- Also new to us, unbelievably crowded, very disorganized,
so noisy that you couldn't have paid me to eat inside! Sandwiches were just ok but reasonably priced. Wouldn't go back again though
Planned on eating at Tortuga Tavern for something different than burgers
and such but beware, they close early for some reason. Very disappointing,
ate at Tomorrowland Terrace instead-Tables were dirty, food not so great and I'll
probably get flamed for this, Tomorrowland is my least favorite land, I
think it's ugly and Tomorrowland Terrace is even uglier!
I voted for Casey's but no one wanted a hot dog, go figure!
Fish and Chips in Great Britain- YUM!
4. Drink Around the World! Me and the older girls had a blast! We made it, but started sharing about half way through, still counts though, right? Some highlights:
Margaritas in Mexico-My favorite
Cantaloopy in China-Yum
Italian Margarita in Italy-Yum too
Sultan Colada in Morocco-Even yummier!
The Grapefruit beer in Germany (I forget the name)- The girls absolute favorite! Had to make a return trip another day to Germany just for that!
5. People Watching!! Oh my, you see some sights!!
Ok, now for the bad, luckily not too many. I don't pay much attention to rude, mean people, I'm too busy having my magical vacation! I didn't notice many rude cast members other than the ones in the food court at POR
. Especially a few cashiers, they hate their jobs I guess. One guest encounter does stick in my mind though, it was rude and funny at the same time. We had gotten on the bus through the back door after they loaded my mother's ECV. Before the bus driver had time to get to his seat to open the front door, some pompous a$%#* from the middle of the line who obviously thought he should be allowed to cut in front of everyone and sneak in the back door, bangs on the door like, how dare they shut the door on me!! He then gets on the bus and starts running his mouth about how much he knows about Disney World. He procedes to tell his party that POR used to be called "Southern Comfort" and they changed the name because it was politically incorrect. HAHAHA, it was all I could do not to laugh out loud at him!Now unfortunately the ugly....
We arrived at POR at around 3pm to check in. I did not do online check in because we had very specific requests and thought we might have a better chance with regular check in. I had my requests on our resevations and had faxed our requests to POR about 8 days in advance of our arrival. I know that no requests are guaranteed, but I was hoping. We got to the desk and was told we were upgraded to Royal rooms! I know from the DIS that this a BIG deal to be upgraded but we really wanted to be in AB. We love that section's theming and feel and the Mansions have never really appealed to us. That being said, we felt it was a big deal to get this Pixie Dust and did not want to be ungrateful, so we decided to give it a try. I asked if our building would be close to the main bus stop and the food court as this was the most important request because of my mother. We were assured it was very close and we had a bayou view, whatever that is, I assumed she meant a river view. She went to get room cards and came back and told us our one rooms was fine and ready but our other room's reservation "crashed" and had to rebooked and that would take a while. I gave the older girls their cards and told them to get some luch and go to the room to get changed for the pool. They called us when they got there and told us that the room was HIKE, at the far end of Oak Manor all the way in the back of the building. I know how dramatic they can be so I reserved my opinion until I saw it. After an hour at the desk the rest of us take off to find the rooms. OMG they did not exagerate, it was FAR away and a parking lot view!! But I thought we will make the best of it, after all this was a coveted upgrade, right? We open the door and my mother and I look at each other and at the same time said EWWW. Bring on the flames... we hated the Royal rooms, they are tacky and gaudy!! To top it off they were so far away I had to rent an ECV because after one day, my mother just couldn't make it to the bus, food court or pool after all the walking in the parks. But like I said I didn't want to be ungrateful, I mean who turns down an upgrade. I did call reservations to see if they had any rooms availabl but they said no. So, off we go to MK the next day and 3 of us go through the new turnstiles just fine but us 3 in the room that the reservation crashed, no go! Also unable to charge! Back to the desk for another hour, missed pool time, had to rebook again, assured it was fixed now. Next day no go!! I felt like like I spent my vacation standing at the desk. After talking to 3 different managers they tell me because they had to rebook 3 of us, we couldnt have the new RFID cards?? Finally on the 4th day after rebooking 4 times we try them at the new touch to pay again and they work! Yay! Obviously the manager was wrong because they now worked at the new turnstiles also!
Now our vacation is almost half over, we got the card situation finally worked out but we are still in rooms we hate. So Miss non-confronational me with proding from my family goes down to the desk and explains our situation. I tell my situation to a very nice manager. I tell him how grateful we are for the upgrade, about all the other problems we had and how I'm spending $7000 that took me years to save for, in rooms we seriously don't like. He was so understanding. He sent us off to our Sci-Fi reservation in a cab and called me a little while later to tell us he was moving us to AB to preferred rooms in building 18!! We were so happy... until I wanted a print out to check how much we were spending and they said we owed $2200!!!!!!! I almost had a mini stroke! There was charges on there for $236 x6 for preferred rooms and a $800 charge for admission tickets. Did I mention we had a package that was paid off in April?? Anyway off I go to the desk, we explain everything, they leave me standing at the desk for 45 min without coming back to tell me what was going on. I go up to another manager to ask again, have to expalin everything again. by this time I'm tears. We are about to miss our dinner ressies again. She was amazing, she sends us off to Epcot with $300 cash for our dinner while they work things out!! We come back after Epcot closes and are there until after midnight! In the end the comp-ed us 2 nights for each room plus the $300 cash for all our troubles! Although they made good, I still feel like I spent a good portion of my vacation at the front desk! But I still didn't let it ruin my vacation, we still had a great time!! Sorry this was so long winded!
We were at WDW the SAME exact dates as you at Coronado Springs Resort.... And experienced none of that craziness.... Ugh!! I'm sorry that happened to you..... But I'm glad you kept your good attitude 
That is some major craziness. And PP is so right, a hassle free vacation is worth way more than getting comped due to errors. I hope in time to come you'll be able to laugh and enjoy the memories.
NOPE......after a big CM conference, a manager figured out we had been double billed for the room, and there is a $1,000 credit limit at moderates; no apology either. We were grateful that it was nothing worse, so we just walked away. The majority of our resort experiences have been wonderful, but every once in a blue moon Disney throws you a curve ball.
I could have been imagining it but I could almost see the look on the CM's face that she knew I would be happy with my room assignment. Lunch at Be Our Guest and 50's prime time was exceptional. My daughters wanted to stay at 50's prime time and watch and help the waiters all day. But I told them the CM's might think they were being stalked and they were extremely busy too.
