DisneyDotty
Oops, no more!
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2005
- Messages
- 2,473
Just returned from a 10-night stay at CR Tower and have to shout out a big THANK YOU to everyone here on the boards! We had a fabulous trip and would have never known about the following had it not been for all the smart and helpful people on these boards:
1. Get the meal plan. We ate our way through and around WDW and even had 4 snacks left over. I'm not quite anal enough to have a to-the-penny log of how much we would have paid had we not had the plan, but I'd say we would have easily spent $300-$400 more.
2. Avoid EMH parks and use Fast Pass. I talked to so many people who complained of such-and-such park being way too crowded, and inevitably it was the park with EMH that day. We never waited more than 15 min. for any attraction, even at the Studios during Star Wars weekends. How anyone could wait 115 minutes for Soarin' is beyond me.
3. Eat at the following restaurants: 'Ohana's, Le Cellier, and Boma's. We ate at many others (repeat visits for us), but these three were new to us, and we were so pleased!
4. Stay at CR Tower with Magic Kingdom view. Oh my, what a fantasy! One can get pretty spoiled with a monorail resort! Even my doubting DH admitted that this was a good use of our vacation budget when he watched Wishes from our balcony!
5. Get a Guest of Honor badge for everyone in your group. Again, my skeptical DH smiled everytime a CM addressed him by name, and many guests asked how we got those badges! And related to that, wear matching shirts. We could more easily spot a wandering member of our family and CMs remembered us because of our shirts.
6. This is related to #2--do a little research and planning. We saw/did everything we wanted and were able to relax because we weren't always fighting the crowds. Why? We followed the advice of people on the boards (and the Unofficial Guide) when planning our itinerary. We found the advice to go to the park with a p.m. EMH the morning AFTER especially good--no crowds there til early afternoon, at which point we'd go to a restaurant (where we had a P.S.) and then back to the CR to swim/nap.
There were a few glitches to our trip, yet handled in a way I've come to expect from Disney:
1. My ticket/room key card demagnetized early on in the trip, and in Disney's attempt to issue me another card, my entire reservation was wiped out. This actually worked out in our favor because we had already used several table service/snacks from our meal plan, but Disney just gave everything back to us, thereby starting us over from the beginning. They wouldn't correct it even after I tried to tell them we'd already used some meals...
2. My DH ordered flowers from Disney Florist for our anniversary, and they sent the wrong vase (he wanted a Mickey vase). However, they came and exchanged the vase the next day with many apologies.
I will say that the Magical Express still needs some work. Some people on our bus weren't picked up til about an hour from their flight, and our poor driver had to hustle to get them to the airport in time. Talk about a wild ride! And we were given the wrong time for the bus pick-up, but fortunately the bus was running late and we were just a bit early.
And though we used the meal plan with great success, there's still much discrepancy between CM's regarding what they think is a snack under the plan. We found that some CM's were more liberal than others in what they'd call a snack.
I have to say even the guests were magical--most were polite and happy--didn't witness too many meltdowns/angry parents/pool-hopping line-cutting mug-abusing people.
I think the only time I grumbled the whole time I was there was when we were leaving property and passed the "See you real soon!" sign. Four more years, four more years...Is it too early to start planning? **heavy sigh**
1. Get the meal plan. We ate our way through and around WDW and even had 4 snacks left over. I'm not quite anal enough to have a to-the-penny log of how much we would have paid had we not had the plan, but I'd say we would have easily spent $300-$400 more.
2. Avoid EMH parks and use Fast Pass. I talked to so many people who complained of such-and-such park being way too crowded, and inevitably it was the park with EMH that day. We never waited more than 15 min. for any attraction, even at the Studios during Star Wars weekends. How anyone could wait 115 minutes for Soarin' is beyond me.
3. Eat at the following restaurants: 'Ohana's, Le Cellier, and Boma's. We ate at many others (repeat visits for us), but these three were new to us, and we were so pleased!
4. Stay at CR Tower with Magic Kingdom view. Oh my, what a fantasy! One can get pretty spoiled with a monorail resort! Even my doubting DH admitted that this was a good use of our vacation budget when he watched Wishes from our balcony!
5. Get a Guest of Honor badge for everyone in your group. Again, my skeptical DH smiled everytime a CM addressed him by name, and many guests asked how we got those badges! And related to that, wear matching shirts. We could more easily spot a wandering member of our family and CMs remembered us because of our shirts.
6. This is related to #2--do a little research and planning. We saw/did everything we wanted and were able to relax because we weren't always fighting the crowds. Why? We followed the advice of people on the boards (and the Unofficial Guide) when planning our itinerary. We found the advice to go to the park with a p.m. EMH the morning AFTER especially good--no crowds there til early afternoon, at which point we'd go to a restaurant (where we had a P.S.) and then back to the CR to swim/nap.
There were a few glitches to our trip, yet handled in a way I've come to expect from Disney:
1. My ticket/room key card demagnetized early on in the trip, and in Disney's attempt to issue me another card, my entire reservation was wiped out. This actually worked out in our favor because we had already used several table service/snacks from our meal plan, but Disney just gave everything back to us, thereby starting us over from the beginning. They wouldn't correct it even after I tried to tell them we'd already used some meals...
2. My DH ordered flowers from Disney Florist for our anniversary, and they sent the wrong vase (he wanted a Mickey vase). However, they came and exchanged the vase the next day with many apologies.
I will say that the Magical Express still needs some work. Some people on our bus weren't picked up til about an hour from their flight, and our poor driver had to hustle to get them to the airport in time. Talk about a wild ride! And we were given the wrong time for the bus pick-up, but fortunately the bus was running late and we were just a bit early.
And though we used the meal plan with great success, there's still much discrepancy between CM's regarding what they think is a snack under the plan. We found that some CM's were more liberal than others in what they'd call a snack.
I have to say even the guests were magical--most were polite and happy--didn't witness too many meltdowns/angry parents/pool-hopping line-cutting mug-abusing people.
I think the only time I grumbled the whole time I was there was when we were leaving property and passed the "See you real soon!" sign. Four more years, four more years...Is it too early to start planning? **heavy sigh**
