So to sum it all up:
WDW buses -
This was the first time we hadn’t hired a car and we thought the buses were awesome. I’d heard some bad things on here, but the longest we waited for a bus was 20-25 mins, and that was on the last day. We could have run for the bus we wanted but couldn’t be bothered. Most times we waited a max of 5-10 mins. I didn’t notice it taking longer to get to the parks, given that when you drive you have to park then take the tram to the park. All in all I think it took about the same amount of time.
Magical Express and Cruise Line Buses –
Efficient, clean, the videos are a nice touch. I think the cruise transfers may be a bit overpriced, especially for a larger family, but we didnt want the hassle of a hire car on the way back.
Dining Plan –
This was awesome, again it was a first for us. I know it doesn’t work for everyone, but i booked my ADRs at 90 days out, got exactly what i wanted, and had a great time trying out new places, and not having to worry about ordering the expensive things.
I totalled up what we spent, the dining plan cost us $959.76 for 12 days, not including the 24 snack credits (forgot to keep track of how much they cost) but between the counter services and table services we used $1108.63 of food.
Saratoga Springs –
Loved this resort. It was so nice and peaceful, really glad I changed from All Star Music. For the first 8 nights we were in the Carousel section. It was a (pleasant) 8 min walk to the main building, and the buses were awesome. I think during the whole 8 nights, we saw other people in our building 3 times. It was that quiet.
The room we had in Congress Park on our last night was awesome too, room 1105 has a great view of DTD.
Animal Kingdom Villas –
Have stayed in AKL before, but having the little kitchen area helps out a lot, its nice having a little place you can “cook”. We were right at the end of zebra trail in room 5545 (about 5 rooms from the far end of the lodge). Is response to the people who say the rooms down there are too far from the lobby, it took me 2 minutes and 18 seconds to walk to the lobby. If that is long to some people, how do they cope walking round WDW all day? We could hear the AK parade from our room, and could see Wishes and Illuminations. We also saw a LOT more animals than we did last year from our club level arusha savannah room.
MNSSHP –
First time doing this, we did
MVMCP last year and i honestly prefer MNSSHP. The shows are great and the parade is amazing. The trick or treating makes it great fun too!
Seaworld 7 hour VIP tour –
We booked this as we thought the park would be busy being a Sunday, even though it was quiet, this was still a great tour. We were going to do Dine with Shamu and feeding the animals anyway, so this tour turned out to be $35 more. Turned out we were the only people on the tour, we had the guide all to ourselves, got front of the queue on rides, got reserved seating at the shows.
Because it was just the 2 of us, we got round everything so much quicker, that we ended up doing stuff thats not normally in the tour, like seeing the backstage areas.
We learnt a lot of cool stuff too (like the Shamu trainers have to be working with the animals for 5 years before they’re even allowed in the water with them, as Amanda put it, thats basically 5 years of cleaning fish).
Cruise –
As great as it was last year, the segway tour and jetskiing were awesome.
weather -
great. have never been in september before, we had what i call proper rain twice in 16 days, no storms or anything, really hot and sunny all the time. the humidity was stupidly hight some days though which really takes it out of you.
all in all we had an amazing time
if anyone has any questions please feel free to ask!