mkmommy
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2006
We just came back from Free Dining at WDW and had a great time
Originally had booked 7 nights on the Fantasy, but I could not justify the cost. My kids love DCL and prefer it over the parks but the base cruise fare was more than we ended up spending for: 1 night Doubletree Universal hotel, 3- 1 day park to park ticket for Universal, 1 day car rental, 9 nights at Caribbean Beach resort with park hopper, free dining and spending money, including a stop at Target. I love DCL but it is just becoming too expensive especially with the US Exchange and the rates on the Fantasy.
I booked airfare in March or April on AA out of Kitchener-Waterloo, I think we paid $433 CAD per person which was better than I could find out of Buffalo for August, connecting through Chicago but it is an easy connection. My second time on this option to Orlando and I love it, we landed last night at 9:43 and were home by 10:20, such an easy airport to use and the Canadian Customs people are pleasant which is not always the case at Pearson.
My 14 year old daughter is obsessed with Harry Potter so I broke down and booked 1 day, it was expensive but she had the time of her life. The Doubletree is close to Universal and it was fine for 1 night, the room was a bit dated but it was clean and you can buy the Universal Tickets in the lobby which saved us time and we were able to get there right for 9:00., My daughter was able to do an extensive tour of both parks by 2:00 . The single line for several of the rides at Harry Potter were great for her, she would have loved a week there but me and my youngest daughter are not Harry Potter or roller coaster fans so Universal is not really suited for us.
We took the car rental back to MCO with a stop at Target. (yes the tip about using your 3 numbers from your postal code plus 00, works at the gas pumps) and then took Magic Express to the Caribbean Beach Resort . It is a lovely hotel, the new queen beds are really comfortable but we found the quick service food area way too small for a resort that large and was always packed. I thought The Frozen Fireworks at Hollywood Studios were better viewed from the Caribbean Beach Resort then from where we saw them inside Hollywood Studios.
Weather was hot and humid, but actually we were pretty lucky with avoiding rain and electric storms. My 14 year old is not a morning person so I booked fast passes for after 5:00 every day and not once did we get rained out. Found it easy to change Fast Passes on the App until the last day or so, when I could no longer connect to the APP in the parks. We made it to the parks for park opening 4 days out of 9 and that is your best option to avoid rain and lines, but I knew we could not do that every day. The parks were not terribly busy, but having 9 days at the parks makes it easy to take things slow and we say everything we wanted to do except make it to Tom Sawyer Island. The evenings were beautiful once the rain cleaned the air and took a lot of the humidity out the rain also emptied out the parks, coming back and swimming at night was so nice and relaxing. We had a couple of afternoons where the Thunder and Lightning were impressive, I have never seen heat lighting last for hours like it did but luckly we were in our room and not outside .
Free Dining, I booked reservations for every day alternating between a late lunch around 1:30 or early diner around 5:00. I ended up cancelling most and just using the table credits for quick service. My kids are pretty boring eaters and being so hot we never felt like eating when I had reservations, and also rushing to a reservation seemed like too much work. I would never pay for the regular dining plan as is just does not fit our style of vacation. We did make it to Crystal Palace for lunch, food was great but in 60 minutes not 1 character had come to our table so we left. Chef Mickey's was good, Be our Guest for Diner was fun, but my picky eaters were not impressed with the menu, and then Rain Forest Cafe at Animal Kingdom for a late lunch and the food there was really good. The quick service meals were fine for us with the Tuna Sandwhichs at Columbia Harbour House being our favorite.
We did both Water Parks for a couple of hours, they are busy and I did not think they did a very good job of keeping people cool and out of the sun in a few of the water slide rides and there were a lot of really badly burned people. The lazy rivers are huge, but they were literally wall to wall tubes.
Before going I thought my kids would be miserable with the heat, humidity and crowds, but it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be and we had a great time and were sad to come home. I guess a lot of the schools in the US go back mid August so it is a great time to go and avoid some of the heavier summer crowds.
Originally had booked 7 nights on the Fantasy, but I could not justify the cost. My kids love DCL and prefer it over the parks but the base cruise fare was more than we ended up spending for: 1 night Doubletree Universal hotel, 3- 1 day park to park ticket for Universal, 1 day car rental, 9 nights at Caribbean Beach resort with park hopper, free dining and spending money, including a stop at Target. I love DCL but it is just becoming too expensive especially with the US Exchange and the rates on the Fantasy.
I booked airfare in March or April on AA out of Kitchener-Waterloo, I think we paid $433 CAD per person which was better than I could find out of Buffalo for August, connecting through Chicago but it is an easy connection. My second time on this option to Orlando and I love it, we landed last night at 9:43 and were home by 10:20, such an easy airport to use and the Canadian Customs people are pleasant which is not always the case at Pearson.
My 14 year old daughter is obsessed with Harry Potter so I broke down and booked 1 day, it was expensive but she had the time of her life. The Doubletree is close to Universal and it was fine for 1 night, the room was a bit dated but it was clean and you can buy the Universal Tickets in the lobby which saved us time and we were able to get there right for 9:00., My daughter was able to do an extensive tour of both parks by 2:00 . The single line for several of the rides at Harry Potter were great for her, she would have loved a week there but me and my youngest daughter are not Harry Potter or roller coaster fans so Universal is not really suited for us.
We took the car rental back to MCO with a stop at Target. (yes the tip about using your 3 numbers from your postal code plus 00, works at the gas pumps) and then took Magic Express to the Caribbean Beach Resort . It is a lovely hotel, the new queen beds are really comfortable but we found the quick service food area way too small for a resort that large and was always packed. I thought The Frozen Fireworks at Hollywood Studios were better viewed from the Caribbean Beach Resort then from where we saw them inside Hollywood Studios.
Weather was hot and humid, but actually we were pretty lucky with avoiding rain and electric storms. My 14 year old is not a morning person so I booked fast passes for after 5:00 every day and not once did we get rained out. Found it easy to change Fast Passes on the App until the last day or so, when I could no longer connect to the APP in the parks. We made it to the parks for park opening 4 days out of 9 and that is your best option to avoid rain and lines, but I knew we could not do that every day. The parks were not terribly busy, but having 9 days at the parks makes it easy to take things slow and we say everything we wanted to do except make it to Tom Sawyer Island. The evenings were beautiful once the rain cleaned the air and took a lot of the humidity out the rain also emptied out the parks, coming back and swimming at night was so nice and relaxing. We had a couple of afternoons where the Thunder and Lightning were impressive, I have never seen heat lighting last for hours like it did but luckly we were in our room and not outside .
Free Dining, I booked reservations for every day alternating between a late lunch around 1:30 or early diner around 5:00. I ended up cancelling most and just using the table credits for quick service. My kids are pretty boring eaters and being so hot we never felt like eating when I had reservations, and also rushing to a reservation seemed like too much work. I would never pay for the regular dining plan as is just does not fit our style of vacation. We did make it to Crystal Palace for lunch, food was great but in 60 minutes not 1 character had come to our table so we left. Chef Mickey's was good, Be our Guest for Diner was fun, but my picky eaters were not impressed with the menu, and then Rain Forest Cafe at Animal Kingdom for a late lunch and the food there was really good. The quick service meals were fine for us with the Tuna Sandwhichs at Columbia Harbour House being our favorite.
We did both Water Parks for a couple of hours, they are busy and I did not think they did a very good job of keeping people cool and out of the sun in a few of the water slide rides and there were a lot of really badly burned people. The lazy rivers are huge, but they were literally wall to wall tubes.
Before going I thought my kids would be miserable with the heat, humidity and crowds, but it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be and we had a great time and were sad to come home. I guess a lot of the schools in the US go back mid August so it is a great time to go and avoid some of the heavier summer crowds.
