The balloons I got by ringing the hotel direct. As it was DS's birthday I rang the hotel to see if I they did anything special for kiddies, as I knew adults could arrange for Champagne, chocolates/flowers in the room. There wasn't anything I could pay for but the CM I spoke to said he would make a note of my request and see what he could do and asked me to again ring 2 days before we arrived just to make sure his note had been transferred to the arrivals book. I thought we might get 1 balloon and a card perhaps, but there must have been about 15 - 20 balloons all neatly arranged around the beds, he also got a card signed by the main characters and an autograph book.
The cuddly toys I assumed were standard for Admiral's Floor guests as there was one on each child's bed including my niece in the room next door.
The chocolate coins (I think all hotels do them) and the Belgian chocolates again I assumed were for all AF guests as they were also in my sister's room.
The welcome letter and the invitation to breakfast at the Captain's Quarters were given to us at checkin and a complete surprise to us, I've never heard anyone else mention this and it wasn't part of the deal as far as I was aware, in fact one of the reasons I booked AF was I'd heard how chaotic breakfast times can get at the NPB and knew that we would have the option of having breakfast delivered to our room ( at an extra cost ) if required.
It was a wonderful breakfast experience, we're talking real crockery, linen napkins, breakfast was buffet style but with quite a few extras, fresh fruit as well as the fruit salad, beautiful pastries, but with very attentive service for drinks, tea, coffee, fruit juice, hot chocolate for the children. There were never more than a dozen or so others having breakfast at the same time as us and one or two characters popped into the room, as I think I mentioned in the trippie we had Donald Duck all to ourselves one morning, and we had Pluto and Goofy come in.
The Character breakfast isn't an upgrade as such, it's a prebookable extra. Had I known about the hotel breakfast I probably wouldn't have booked them because we'd done it before and had other character meals planned at Cafe Mickey, & Lucky Nugget I probably would've opted for a character tea at the Plaza Gardens instead ( I love that restaurant and the tea party).
You could always ring the hotel direct and ask what the breakfast arrangements are for the AF before making any plans.
Personally I adored the NPB, it was definately our best holiday at the resort but I'd only go back to the AF. We were very lucky to get a nice view, I can't fault the Consierge service, we left our suitcases at the Disney Express desk in the station and didn't see them again until about 5 minutes after we arrived in our rooms when they were brought up for us, similarly on the last morning we left them in our rooms and picked them up at the station desk - perfect.
You should get a complimentary room service voucher - use it. They will bring you a kettle, several teabags, coffee, sugar, milk and a couple of cups as we had 2 rooms there were enough supplies to keep us going for the holiday. I didn't have to touch the ones I'd taken with us.
We had the Jigsaw dessert at the Blue Lagoon restaurant inside the POTC ride, I think it was called "The Captain's Surprise", I believe most of the table service restaurants offer it.
Have a superb trip, I'm sure you will.
Hi. We are staying LV AF at the Newport Bay in a couple of weeks.
