So, I am just gonna write this up, we didn't get as many pictures as I thought we would, as we were just plain tired the whole time from walking (I know lame 
). So here is what I've come up with (I didn't proof read this novel very heavily, so pardon grammar / spelling errors ) :
Intro : We scheduled a trip for October 2011 at POFQ. I usually stay @ CSR, but I thought it would be good for the GF to pick a resort, as she hasn't ever stayed on site, and has only been to DHS and I think AK.
Free Dining : I booked this a long time ago, WAY before the FD came out. Played the "I hope it comes -- I hope it comes" game for a couple of months, and it hit. Once it hit I made reservations (which you will see below), which were changed up a few times, but ultimately it was for dinners.
Trip there : We drove. It's a 10 hour trip. The day before we left, we decided to break it up, and we stayed at an Embassy Suites on the way down. We stayed at the one in Savannah, just off of I95. We stayed there on the way back as well. I would recommend this place to anybody. It was a little expensive at $120 a night, but it was very clean, brand new, quite spacious, and included a nice hot breakfast in the morning. They actually made omelets to order. Something I would kinda expect for $150 a night at, ahem, some un-named resort
Day One -- The Arrival : We got to POFQ at about 3:15 expecting to have a room ready... They didn't. Not a huge deal, we have a car and we were gonna just go to DD early and start looking around. While we were waiting for the bus, they texted us that the room was ready, so we just took care of all that first. We went to DD for dinner, and it was pretty crazy (this was a Saturday night). We got in queue for Rainforest and were called within 5 minutes, after being told we would have an hour wait. Very nice
Day Two -- OMG O'Hana's! : We went to EPCOT this day. It was pretty busy, but I attributed it to F&W. We basically walked onto whatever we wanted, and waited no more than 20-30 minutes for a few things (like Test Track). We got a FP for Soarin' and we still waited like 20 minutes. Grr... We pretty much did all the rides this day. We had a 5:15PM rezzie for O'Hana's that somebody here graciously offered us, as they had to cancel their trip. We took the Monorail to the TTC. We were an hour early when we got there, so we took the Resort Rail around to see the GF, CR, etc. We got to O'Hana's a bit early, sat down, had a beer.... they opened up at around 5:00 and had a little ceremony and then we were seated within 15 minutes or so.
This has got to be THE BEST restaurant on property. I will make damn sure that we go to this place everytime we make it down to WDW. This is my new favorite restaurant. The food was amazing, and there was plenty of it. Service was a bit slow, but the atmosphere was awesome, and the food was so good, that didn't matter. We enjoyed it.
We headed back to EPCOT for fireworks. I have to say, I am HUGE fan of Illuminations. I was completely disappointed with it this year. Disney must really be cutting back, because the fireworks were lamer than the ones they have here, locally, for 4th of July, and that's BAD!
Day Three -- Magic Kingdom : I don't really have much to say about this day. This place was annoyingly PACKED! I have no idea why, it must be because of FD, but it was like being there in the summer. Sure the ride lines weren't anything (20 - 30 minutes tops -- we walked onto SM pretty much), but there were so many people to wade through and TONS of kids (I know, it's MK, it's for kids). We went on everything we wanted pretty much, not a real lot of lines... We ate at Pinnochio's. It was ok. We had meatball subs.
For dinner, we had a rezzie for Crystal Palace. It was fine for what it was. I honestly couldn't tell the difference between Golden Corral and CP, but... The character thing was kind of 'meh' for us, as we didn't have any kids. Just wanted to eat and get out. We left immediately, as there was a light parade this night (which wasn't on the WDWINFO calendar, btw), and it was a late closing night, so the fireworks were coming up, and it was a zoo. We just left and went back to the room early.
Day Four -- DHS : We got here around 10:30ish I think. It was pleasantly not crowded. Went straight for Toy Story, and we waited in line. The FP was already at like 5PM, lol. We waited maybe 20 minutes. It was cool inside, so the wait wasn't bad. We went on RR, and looked around a bit. We had a 12:30 rezzie for Sci-Fi, so we were kinda stuck with what we could do.
Sci-Fi is absolutely amazing. We both had chocolate shakes. I had the angus burger, and the GF had a turkey sandwhich. We both ate way too much in there. We had a ToT FP for like an hour later, but we passed, as what we ate probably wouldn't have made it out of the ride, lol. We went on Star Tours, looked around at shops and stuff a bit more, etc, etc.
We had dinner rezzies for Nine Dragons, so we hopped on the boat and headed over to the back entrance of EPCOT. Walked around a bit, drank some beer, watched Boyz II Men. BOO!! Nine Dragons was surprisingly good. You don't really see to much talk about this place here, on the boards (or at least I haven't), but the GF really likes Chinese, so we went. We would go again.
Day Five -- Animal Kingdom : Just an average AK day. We went to see the Bugs Life show, went on the Safari, did Everest, ate at Pizzafari. That's about it. OMG, the Lion King show is absolutely amazing. I'm not a huge show guy, but this is a MUST see for anyone. You go in there being like "what is this gonna be, some kinda thing with people doing ballet or something?" -- LOL, that is definitely not the case. We will absolutely go see this one again. Simply amazing.
We had reservations for The Plaza this night, but decided to switch it up for Tutto Italia. What a mistake that was. I swear Chef Boyardee is better than what we had there. We won't be going back. Service was terrible. Waitress was completely snooty. Just not a real good experience for us.
Day Six -- Universal Studios : This was actually a very cool day. We got tickets for both parks @ $120 a piece, which is insanely overpriced. There was nobody here. We walked straight to Harry Potter, rode the Forbidden ride, with a 20 minute wait. This was quite the amazing ride. Very "fresh". I hadn't been on something like that before. I really loved it. We went on all the other rides you'd expect -- Hulk, Jaws, Mummy, Simpsons (this was really neato too), Spiderman, etc.
When park closing came around we went to MargaritaVille and had a few beers. We were gonna do HHN before we left on the trip, but decided not too. We didn't have enough energy to deal with that many people, seeing as we had been walking for 5 days already. So we had a few beers, and went to Hardrock Cafe for dinner. Hardrock was very cool. Best one I've been in. Food was good. Music was good. Atmosphere was good. Just an all around pleasant experience.
Day Seven -- Shopping Day : We had a shopping day today. It was raining, which was nice, cause it was cool and wasn't bright outside, so we could relax and chill while everyone else freaked out about being in the rain and waiting in lines. Went to AK to return something, and then went to DD for some shopping. We went to Earl of Sandwhich, which was amazing. Place was packed, with the line out the back door, near the kitchen store. -- I gotta say, this place is very confusing if you are on the dining plan. It's a lot of "You can get this or that, and either this or that, but you can't get that or this". Was kinda crazy to have to make quick decisions at the counter when there was 100 other people waiting. Oh well, it was worth it.
Usual shopping took place.... We then went to AKL to scope it out. I have been thinking about getting DVC, and we wanted to see what a DVC resort looked like. I can honestly say that AKL sold us on DVC. More on that later...
We went to Via Napoli for dinner. We had an 8:30PM for this place, so we had plenty of time to get there. We went back to the room, dropped some stuff off, hung out for an hour or so and then headed off to EPCOT. Usual amount of people, nothing crazy. Had some beers and some appetizers. We got to Via Napoli and the hostesses had a rather large attitude, as if they were better than everyone else. That's two Italian restaurants, right next to each other, that we got attitudes when we were served, etc.. I dunno. The pizza was amazing. I would highly recommend this place to anyone.
Cool note : The ovens are all named after Volcano's. The guy cleaning up the tables let us in on that. Might've been obvious, but not something I had known or read about.
Closing Remarks
POFQ : Nice little resort. I'm used to CSR, so it was nice to not have to walk a mile to get everywhere. It was pretty busy in the mornings for breakfast, but we always got a table. The bus service was REALLY wonky here. Sometimes we waited like 45 minutes for a bus, and then sometimes 3 buses came lined up to take us to a single place. REALLY weird. This was in the mornings. Coming home the buses were fine. No more than a 10 minute wait across the board.
The room is quite small here. We had stayed at the Embassy Suites the night before, so we had a 1-bedroom studio to compare with, and damn if I couldn't get into the bathroom far enough to close the door without having to scoot around the door. VERY small rooms. This is where DVC comes into play. We will be buying into DVC as soon as it is fiscally possible. We will probably rent points next year at AKL if we don't already own, but I'm spoiled, and I've just grown out of the Moderates. We want more space, the ability to have a decent breakfast in the morning, and a place were we can cook something for dinner a couple nights a week.
Dining Plan : Even though there was a lot of free food, we ended up spending quite a bit. I don't think we needed to eat out for a "full meal" for every dinner, which would've cut down a lot on the drinks and the tip. The drinks and tip for Via Napoli, alone, were like $80. That was for 2 drinks a piece, a salad, and tip! So.... I think it would be better to pick 3 or so dinner nights, and go out to nice places, than to be "forced" into more expensive places every night. I still gotta do the math on this, but between breakfast, drinks, tips, and apps, we probably could've saved money NOT using the dining plan, lol... I still gotta look at it though.
Final Thoughts : This was by far the best vacation I've ever been on, mainly because of the company I kept (that is you GF!), but also, because it was a better situation with work too (not having to worry about pay, etc). I think we will definitely get into DVC, and we will definitely get into more of a "resort" mode, relaxing more, etc, etc, than power-parking our way through a week of vacation. All in all, it was great, and we'll be going back next year
). So here is what I've come up with (I didn't proof read this novel very heavily, so pardon grammar / spelling errors ) :Intro : We scheduled a trip for October 2011 at POFQ. I usually stay @ CSR, but I thought it would be good for the GF to pick a resort, as she hasn't ever stayed on site, and has only been to DHS and I think AK.
Free Dining : I booked this a long time ago, WAY before the FD came out. Played the "I hope it comes -- I hope it comes" game for a couple of months, and it hit. Once it hit I made reservations (which you will see below), which were changed up a few times, but ultimately it was for dinners.
Trip there : We drove. It's a 10 hour trip. The day before we left, we decided to break it up, and we stayed at an Embassy Suites on the way down. We stayed at the one in Savannah, just off of I95. We stayed there on the way back as well. I would recommend this place to anybody. It was a little expensive at $120 a night, but it was very clean, brand new, quite spacious, and included a nice hot breakfast in the morning. They actually made omelets to order. Something I would kinda expect for $150 a night at, ahem, some un-named resort
Day One -- The Arrival : We got to POFQ at about 3:15 expecting to have a room ready... They didn't. Not a huge deal, we have a car and we were gonna just go to DD early and start looking around. While we were waiting for the bus, they texted us that the room was ready, so we just took care of all that first. We went to DD for dinner, and it was pretty crazy (this was a Saturday night). We got in queue for Rainforest and were called within 5 minutes, after being told we would have an hour wait. Very nice
Day Two -- OMG O'Hana's! : We went to EPCOT this day. It was pretty busy, but I attributed it to F&W. We basically walked onto whatever we wanted, and waited no more than 20-30 minutes for a few things (like Test Track). We got a FP for Soarin' and we still waited like 20 minutes. Grr... We pretty much did all the rides this day. We had a 5:15PM rezzie for O'Hana's that somebody here graciously offered us, as they had to cancel their trip. We took the Monorail to the TTC. We were an hour early when we got there, so we took the Resort Rail around to see the GF, CR, etc. We got to O'Hana's a bit early, sat down, had a beer.... they opened up at around 5:00 and had a little ceremony and then we were seated within 15 minutes or so.
This has got to be THE BEST restaurant on property. I will make damn sure that we go to this place everytime we make it down to WDW. This is my new favorite restaurant. The food was amazing, and there was plenty of it. Service was a bit slow, but the atmosphere was awesome, and the food was so good, that didn't matter. We enjoyed it.
We headed back to EPCOT for fireworks. I have to say, I am HUGE fan of Illuminations. I was completely disappointed with it this year. Disney must really be cutting back, because the fireworks were lamer than the ones they have here, locally, for 4th of July, and that's BAD!
Day Three -- Magic Kingdom : I don't really have much to say about this day. This place was annoyingly PACKED! I have no idea why, it must be because of FD, but it was like being there in the summer. Sure the ride lines weren't anything (20 - 30 minutes tops -- we walked onto SM pretty much), but there were so many people to wade through and TONS of kids (I know, it's MK, it's for kids
). We went on everything we wanted pretty much, not a real lot of lines... We ate at Pinnochio's. It was ok. We had meatball subs.For dinner, we had a rezzie for Crystal Palace. It was fine for what it was. I honestly couldn't tell the difference between Golden Corral and CP, but... The character thing was kind of 'meh' for us, as we didn't have any kids. Just wanted to eat and get out. We left immediately, as there was a light parade this night (which wasn't on the WDWINFO calendar, btw), and it was a late closing night, so the fireworks were coming up, and it was a zoo. We just left and went back to the room early.
Day Four -- DHS : We got here around 10:30ish I think. It was pleasantly not crowded. Went straight for Toy Story, and we waited in line. The FP was already at like 5PM, lol. We waited maybe 20 minutes. It was cool inside, so the wait wasn't bad. We went on RR, and looked around a bit. We had a 12:30 rezzie for Sci-Fi, so we were kinda stuck with what we could do.
Sci-Fi is absolutely amazing. We both had chocolate shakes. I had the angus burger, and the GF had a turkey sandwhich. We both ate way too much in there. We had a ToT FP for like an hour later, but we passed, as what we ate probably wouldn't have made it out of the ride, lol. We went on Star Tours, looked around at shops and stuff a bit more, etc, etc.
We had dinner rezzies for Nine Dragons, so we hopped on the boat and headed over to the back entrance of EPCOT. Walked around a bit, drank some beer, watched Boyz II Men. BOO!! Nine Dragons was surprisingly good. You don't really see to much talk about this place here, on the boards (or at least I haven't), but the GF really likes Chinese, so we went. We would go again.
Day Five -- Animal Kingdom : Just an average AK day. We went to see the Bugs Life show, went on the Safari, did Everest, ate at Pizzafari. That's about it. OMG, the Lion King show is absolutely amazing. I'm not a huge show guy, but this is a MUST see for anyone. You go in there being like "what is this gonna be, some kinda thing with people doing ballet or something?" -- LOL, that is definitely not the case. We will absolutely go see this one again. Simply amazing.
We had reservations for The Plaza this night, but decided to switch it up for Tutto Italia. What a mistake that was. I swear Chef Boyardee is better than what we had there. We won't be going back. Service was terrible. Waitress was completely snooty. Just not a real good experience for us.
Day Six -- Universal Studios : This was actually a very cool day. We got tickets for both parks @ $120 a piece, which is insanely overpriced. There was nobody here. We walked straight to Harry Potter, rode the Forbidden ride, with a 20 minute wait. This was quite the amazing ride. Very "fresh". I hadn't been on something like that before. I really loved it. We went on all the other rides you'd expect -- Hulk, Jaws, Mummy, Simpsons (this was really neato too), Spiderman, etc.
When park closing came around we went to MargaritaVille and had a few beers. We were gonna do HHN before we left on the trip, but decided not too. We didn't have enough energy to deal with that many people, seeing as we had been walking for 5 days already. So we had a few beers, and went to Hardrock Cafe for dinner. Hardrock was very cool. Best one I've been in. Food was good. Music was good. Atmosphere was good. Just an all around pleasant experience.
Day Seven -- Shopping Day : We had a shopping day today. It was raining, which was nice, cause it was cool and wasn't bright outside, so we could relax and chill while everyone else freaked out about being in the rain and waiting in lines
. Went to AK to return something, and then went to DD for some shopping. We went to Earl of Sandwhich, which was amazing. Place was packed, with the line out the back door, near the kitchen store. -- I gotta say, this place is very confusing if you are on the dining plan. It's a lot of "You can get this or that, and either this or that, but you can't get that or this". Was kinda crazy to have to make quick decisions at the counter when there was 100 other people waiting. Oh well, it was worth it.Usual shopping took place.... We then went to AKL to scope it out. I have been thinking about getting DVC, and we wanted to see what a DVC resort looked like. I can honestly say that AKL sold us on DVC. More on that later...
We went to Via Napoli for dinner. We had an 8:30PM for this place, so we had plenty of time to get there. We went back to the room, dropped some stuff off, hung out for an hour or so and then headed off to EPCOT. Usual amount of people, nothing crazy. Had some beers and some appetizers. We got to Via Napoli and the hostesses had a rather large attitude, as if they were better than everyone else. That's two Italian restaurants, right next to each other, that we got attitudes when we were served, etc.. I dunno. The pizza was amazing. I would highly recommend this place to anyone.
Cool note : The ovens are all named after Volcano's. The guy cleaning up the tables let us in on that. Might've been obvious, but not something I had known or read about.
Closing Remarks
POFQ : Nice little resort. I'm used to CSR, so it was nice to not have to walk a mile to get everywhere. It was pretty busy in the mornings for breakfast, but we always got a table. The bus service was REALLY wonky here. Sometimes we waited like 45 minutes for a bus, and then sometimes 3 buses came lined up to take us to a single place. REALLY weird. This was in the mornings. Coming home the buses were fine. No more than a 10 minute wait across the board.
The room is quite small here. We had stayed at the Embassy Suites the night before, so we had a 1-bedroom studio to compare with, and damn if I couldn't get into the bathroom far enough to close the door without having to scoot around the door. VERY small rooms. This is where DVC comes into play. We will be buying into DVC as soon as it is fiscally possible. We will probably rent points next year at AKL if we don't already own, but I'm spoiled, and I've just grown out of the Moderates. We want more space, the ability to have a decent breakfast in the morning, and a place were we can cook something for dinner a couple nights a week.
Dining Plan : Even though there was a lot of free food, we ended up spending quite a bit. I don't think we needed to eat out for a "full meal" for every dinner, which would've cut down a lot on the drinks and the tip. The drinks and tip for Via Napoli, alone, were like $80. That was for 2 drinks a piece, a salad, and tip! So.... I think it would be better to pick 3 or so dinner nights, and go out to nice places, than to be "forced" into more expensive places every night. I still gotta do the math on this, but between breakfast, drinks, tips, and apps, we probably could've saved money NOT using the dining plan, lol... I still gotta look at it though.
Final Thoughts : This was by far the best vacation I've ever been on, mainly because of the company I kept (that is you GF!
), but also, because it was a better situation with work too (not having to worry about pay, etc). I think we will definitely get into DVC, and we will definitely get into more of a "resort" mode, relaxing more, etc, etc, than power-parking our way through a week of vacation. All in all, it was great, and we'll be going back next year 
