silmarg
SIL
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2006
- Messages
- 2,095
Backstory
The original plan was to take my family (me, DW, DD7, DD10) and my Sister-in-Law's family (H,W,S7) on a 4 day DCL followed by 5 park days spanning late August 2009 and into Labor Day. We booked the cruise well in advance, and booked POP once free dining was annouced. We booked POP w/ 1 day tickets as my brother-in-law is retired military and we were going to avail ourselves of the Salute Tickets (he gets a free 5day Hopper w 5 water park entries and can buy 5 additional tickets for $100-$150 depending on certain options).
We soon found out that another close family friend (H, W, S7) was going to be on another cruiseline around the same time and that they would join us at WDW. This would make us a Grand Gathering.
As the DCL cancelation date approached, the in-law group wanted to bail based on financial issues. We agreed to ditch the cruise portion of the trip, but since we had already purchased airline tickets I urged them to stick w the WDW portion of the trip (at $82/nite incl meals and $250 for tickets for the 3 of them... it was a steal).
Shortly thereafter, I got a call from my friend that she got an email about a free upgrade to SSR or OKW. She asked me (the Disney guru of the group) what she should do. I told her she's be crazy not to take advantage of such an offer. I told her to take it - and ask about the other Grand Gathering folks (as the only reason we did a GG was to get rooms together). She booked OKW and was told they could not do anything about the other GGs if they did not get an upgrade email.
I told her to forward me the email and I called the GG dept. They said that when such offers are made they are supposed to be made to all GG parties. I was then put on hold. Was told to call back later and they would get it corrected. But before she hungup she asked if I had a copy of the email (Yes I did!). She asked for the PIN... and it worked on my ressie. So I was in OKW! Then for the 3rd ressie... NO GOOD! OKW was already sold out! So she then moved each one of us to SSR. And the deed was done. SSR.... $82/nite... free dining.... $100-$125 for park tickets... This deal was going to be a great one!
We have been thinking about buying SSR DVC on the resale market - so staying there would help us with this decision.
We book dining at the 90 day deadline and get every restaurant we wanted. We get the following dinners: Sci Fi, Hoop Dee Doo, Crystal Palace, Chef Mickey's, Yak & Yeti, Ohana, Le Cellier, Cali Grill (fireworks), Mamma Melrose.
Departure Day
As departure date approaches, there is a hurricane brewing that may take a glacing blow at NYC and mess up the airports. Luckily, by late AM the rain had stopped and the flight down was uneventful.
Unfortunately, the flight got in at 10:05PM so we needed to drag our luggage to the ME (all the way to the other wing of the airport). The bus left relatively quickly made a stop at Poly first then SSR.
Online Check in went fine. And we were wisked away to the Paddock area. The room seemed fine. DW was taken aback by the pullout couch (and the fact that we had to make the pullout bed). But otherwise the room was quite nice.
Day 1 - DHS
Bus came fairly quickly (yes, we have read the horror stories about SSR transportation). We got to the parks and bought the Military Salute tickets using the 1 day passes as credits towards the purchase. That all went smoothly.
We are in the parks by 10am and everyone went to Starring Rolls for breakfast while I went to TSM to get FPs. First thing I notice... no one is getting FPs (when we were there in Feb, there was a mob scene by the TSM FP machines). I get noonish FPs and the stand by line is 20mins! I go back to Starring Rolls. Eat quickly and head back to TSM and we go standby. Then we go to Backstage tour. I get picked to play the role of the mechanic in the opening skip (the mechanic is the one who gets the water dumped on him). I had a blast! We did Lights Motors, Star Tours (twice), Jedi Training, Muppet Vision, Indiana Jones, Idol, TSM again (using FPs... standby was 80 mins), Mermaid, and Fantasmic. My DDs chicken out of ToT and RNRC (but my little one says she will do it later in the week... we shall see). We had dinner at Sci Fi. The dinner was sort of uneventful. My older DD is excited that she is a "disney adult" now that she turned 10 and can order off the adult menu. The waitress decided to pull all 7 meal credits off my card (and not split it between mine and my sister-in-laws). This causes some pain and reconciliation issues for later in the week. First impressions about day 1... very light park attendance.... this could be a very good week!
The original plan was to take my family (me, DW, DD7, DD10) and my Sister-in-Law's family (H,W,S7) on a 4 day DCL followed by 5 park days spanning late August 2009 and into Labor Day. We booked the cruise well in advance, and booked POP once free dining was annouced. We booked POP w/ 1 day tickets as my brother-in-law is retired military and we were going to avail ourselves of the Salute Tickets (he gets a free 5day Hopper w 5 water park entries and can buy 5 additional tickets for $100-$150 depending on certain options).
We soon found out that another close family friend (H, W, S7) was going to be on another cruiseline around the same time and that they would join us at WDW. This would make us a Grand Gathering.
As the DCL cancelation date approached, the in-law group wanted to bail based on financial issues. We agreed to ditch the cruise portion of the trip, but since we had already purchased airline tickets I urged them to stick w the WDW portion of the trip (at $82/nite incl meals and $250 for tickets for the 3 of them... it was a steal).
Shortly thereafter, I got a call from my friend that she got an email about a free upgrade to SSR or OKW. She asked me (the Disney guru of the group) what she should do. I told her she's be crazy not to take advantage of such an offer. I told her to take it - and ask about the other Grand Gathering folks (as the only reason we did a GG was to get rooms together). She booked OKW and was told they could not do anything about the other GGs if they did not get an upgrade email.
I told her to forward me the email and I called the GG dept. They said that when such offers are made they are supposed to be made to all GG parties. I was then put on hold. Was told to call back later and they would get it corrected. But before she hungup she asked if I had a copy of the email (Yes I did!). She asked for the PIN... and it worked on my ressie. So I was in OKW! Then for the 3rd ressie... NO GOOD! OKW was already sold out! So she then moved each one of us to SSR. And the deed was done. SSR.... $82/nite... free dining.... $100-$125 for park tickets... This deal was going to be a great one!
We have been thinking about buying SSR DVC on the resale market - so staying there would help us with this decision.
We book dining at the 90 day deadline and get every restaurant we wanted. We get the following dinners: Sci Fi, Hoop Dee Doo, Crystal Palace, Chef Mickey's, Yak & Yeti, Ohana, Le Cellier, Cali Grill (fireworks), Mamma Melrose.
Departure Day
As departure date approaches, there is a hurricane brewing that may take a glacing blow at NYC and mess up the airports. Luckily, by late AM the rain had stopped and the flight down was uneventful.
Unfortunately, the flight got in at 10:05PM so we needed to drag our luggage to the ME (all the way to the other wing of the airport). The bus left relatively quickly made a stop at Poly first then SSR.
Online Check in went fine. And we were wisked away to the Paddock area. The room seemed fine. DW was taken aback by the pullout couch (and the fact that we had to make the pullout bed). But otherwise the room was quite nice.
Day 1 - DHS
Bus came fairly quickly (yes, we have read the horror stories about SSR transportation). We got to the parks and bought the Military Salute tickets using the 1 day passes as credits towards the purchase. That all went smoothly.
We are in the parks by 10am and everyone went to Starring Rolls for breakfast while I went to TSM to get FPs. First thing I notice... no one is getting FPs (when we were there in Feb, there was a mob scene by the TSM FP machines). I get noonish FPs and the stand by line is 20mins! I go back to Starring Rolls. Eat quickly and head back to TSM and we go standby. Then we go to Backstage tour. I get picked to play the role of the mechanic in the opening skip (the mechanic is the one who gets the water dumped on him). I had a blast! We did Lights Motors, Star Tours (twice), Jedi Training, Muppet Vision, Indiana Jones, Idol, TSM again (using FPs... standby was 80 mins), Mermaid, and Fantasmic. My DDs chicken out of ToT and RNRC (but my little one says she will do it later in the week... we shall see). We had dinner at Sci Fi. The dinner was sort of uneventful. My older DD is excited that she is a "disney adult" now that she turned 10 and can order off the adult menu. The waitress decided to pull all 7 meal credits off my card (and not split it between mine and my sister-in-laws). This causes some pain and reconciliation issues for later in the week. First impressions about day 1... very light park attendance.... this could be a very good week!
