A lurker's 1st trip report! Partial Day #4 & another tea party!

[chilis]

Day 2​

After last night I am beginning to rethink this whole “lets travel during Easter” thing! There are so many people at the Radisson that I can only imagine what being at the actual parks will be like! I spoke with a woman this morning who said “I’m from Florida, so I should know better than to be here right now!” Not exactly what I want to hear as I am on my way to check in for my wonderful vacation! Also, there were SOOOO many people running around it was crazy. I was very unsure of what we would encounter when we got to the resort and the parks……

We left around 9 to head for the BC. But first, we had to find a FedEx drop box. We ended up at Disney Sales and Marketing and after DH dropped the package he proclaimed to DD that she needed to just plan on working there when she grew up. It was that cool of a place! Everyone there was so nice! I guess that is just the Disney way.
We ended up programming the address for BC into our GPS and it took us directly to the front door. What a fabulous place!! I was in love with it from the moment we drove through the front gates.

We arrived shortly before 10 and were greeted by several valets. I knew we weren’t Club Level, so I just told them that I would go in and check with the front desk to see when our room would be ready. We had planned on just checking in and then heading to the MK for the day and then taking all of our luggage up to the room when we got back. They were all very friendly and helpful. When I got to check-in there was a bit of a line. I felt like such a smarty pants when I heard the front desk CM’s explaining the dining plan, park hoppers, directions, etc. to all of the other people checking in. DH joined me after parking the car and I kept telling him “I know that….I could have told them that…..Don’t these people check on ANYTHING before they travel?” Thank you DISboards for keeping me so informed!!!!

Anyway, now it is finally my turn to check in, woo hoo!!! Of course, I have all of my info ready and I readily answer all of the CM’s questions. When she finally presents me with my keys, I hear the words “You will need to use your key to access our 5th floor.” Okay, I already knew that, but I’m not on your 5th floor…isn’t that the concierge level?? (These words are in my head, I am not actually saying them to the CM!) She goes on to explain that the 5th floor concierges can assist me with anything I need, the food and beverage options available there, etc. I figured she must be trying to get me to pay for an upgrade if I though it sounded good. Of course, that is not gonna happen because I am on a budget, remember?! Right now, DH is looking at me and asking why I have such a stupid look on my face. I try and whisper to him that I think I was right about the guy at CRO somehow upgrading us. He thinks I need to ask the CM if we have been upgraded but I was so worried that she would say it was a mistake that I decide we need to just go to the elevator and try out our keys instead. Of course, I am too dumb to figure out how to make it work so we ride up and down in the elevator 3 times before a valet takes my key and shows me how it works! And…it DOES!!! We got an upgrade to concierge and I was on cloud nine! It made my day! DD was so happy, the only time we have been to Disney, we stayed at PolyGVC and absolutely loved it. Her favorite part was the gummy worms and cokes during the daytime hours. She freaked when I took her into the lounge and showed her that she would again be able to get her morning bagel or cereal and her afternoon snacks. And, DH and I can get a glass of wine or a beer after a day at the parks, we are lovin that part!!! What a great beginning to what is sure to be a great trip!

I’ll post more details of day 2 tomorrow!

 

[chilis]

Day 2 continued​

After we calmed down from all the excitement over the upgrade we spent a little while exploring the lounge. It really didn’t take that long as it is rather small but quite comfortable. We made it in time for DD to grab a doughnut and a glass of juice and to catch whatever was playing on the kids tube. Since it was so early, our room obviously wasn’t ready. We went back downstairs to the lobby and met the famous Art! What a super guy!! DD was wearing her pin lanyard and was eager to start trading. Art willingly and graciously accepted her offer to trade. He made her feel very special when we told him he was her 1st trade of the trip! After such a successful morning, we decided to grab the stroller (I know DD is 7 but she is petite and who wants to carry a kid around all day?!) and head over to the MK via EPCOT for a bit. We proceeded out the back of the hotel and got a nice view of SAB. It is huge! Too bad the weather will be turning cold in the next few days! The walk to the International Gateway is quick and pleasant. I’m not sure I really like those surrey bikes, though, at least not when there are teenagers driving them. On more than one occasion I witnessed them being driven carelessly by kids who weren’t paying any attention to what was going on around them.

We made it through the gates and we were there! EPCOT is my favorite park, specifically the World Showcase. I just love that place and luckily DD and DH do also. That made the BC the perfect location because we planned on spending a lot of time there. It was just before 11:00am when we arrived in England. DD knew she wanted to do all of the Kidcot stops, so we went into the toy store and picked up her mask. We didn’t spend much time in there since there was so much we wanted to see and do. We headed over to Canada, did another Kidcot and then we checked out LeCellier, where we will be having dinner on Easter.

From there, we decided that we would have plenty of time to explore EPCOT later so we hurried through Future World, made a quick detour to Club Cool for a taste of Cokes from a different land (it was so much cooler when it was Ice Station Cool!) and then on to the front of the park to grab the monorail for the MK. We figured it would be crowded already since it was morning EMH there, but we didn’t care! We took the ferry from the TTC and by the time we made it to the front entrance the 12:00 parade was just starting to make the circle on Main St. DD and DH climbed the stairs to the train station and managed to score a sweet spot to view the parade from. I hung out at the bottom of the stairs and still had a good view. I joined them up on the balcony right before the end of the parade and as soon as it was over we got on the train and went to Mickey’s Toon Town Fair to meet some characters. It seemed really crowded when we got off the train. I thought we would have a hard time getting in anywhere, but we quickly made it through Mickey’s house and then got in line to meet the Big Cheese himself. It was nice and cool in the queue and it moved very quickly. I think we were only in line for maybe 5 to 10 minutes at the very most. We got some cute photos with Mickey and the Photopass photographer took some nice ones also.

From there, we wanted to visit Minnie but there was a huge line to even get into her house, so we skipped that one. Then, we decided to go see if we could meet the Princesses….yeah, right! The line was something like 70 minutes long. That is not going to happen!!!! Fortunately, we have ADR’s for 1900 Park Fare tonight, so we will be meeting Cinderella later anyway. The line for Chip & Dale, Donald and a mystery character was incredibly short however, so we walked almost all the way to the front of the line! We are not picky about characters, we were just excited that this year DD actually runs toward them instead of away!! While waiting in line, the CM’s handed out a bunch of princess tattoos that we passed down the line. About the first 20 people in line received them. Something for nothing at Disney? I was suspicious and figured they must be about to tell us that we would have to wait while the characters take a break or something, but I was wrong. After about 10 minutes, we were escorted with about 12 other people to a private room where we saw Chip & Dale, Donald & Daisy and Abby Mallard. Again, we got some good pics and Photopass guy took some of all of us together. The handlers are really good about using your own camera to take group photos along with the Photopass pictures.

As we were exiting the character meet we had to spend some time in the giant store. DD wanted everything! She is very into pin trading so we got her a small zippered portfolio kind of thing that can hold pins and photos and that has pages for autographs, notes, etc. It also came with a keepsake pin. By Disney standards, I thought this was a great purchase and quite a bargain at around 22 bucks.

By now mom was getting really hungry. I am a real crank when I get hungry so DH agreed we needed to make a stop. We made our way over to Casey’s (DD’s name also!) for a quick snack. We were on DDP, so we ordered 2 hot dogs, 2 large drinks and 2 brownies for 2 CS credits and used 1 snack credit for an order of fries. While we were in line, we noticed a man filming with a very large, professional looking movie camera. After a moment, one of the CM’s at Casey’s said it was time for us to sing. Everyone in line broke into a somewhat pitiful rendition of “Take me out to the ballgame” and the cameraman continued filming all of the people in line while they were singing. The CM’s then threw bags of Cracker Jack out to the crowd. We caught 2 bags. It was fun and we ended up with something else free from Disney--what is going on here? Tattoos AND Cracker Jack?? I know those are small tokens, but it was special nonetheless.

After chowing down on our yummy hot dogs we figured our room should be close to being ready so we made the trek back to BC. This time after leaving the MK we took the small boat to over to the Poly.and explored our favorite resort for a little while. We did some shopping, buying autograph books, cups and some more pins for DD’s lanyard. We explored the shops and took a look at the remodeled Captain Cook’s. In the lobby, some nice ladies were handing out chocolate chip cookies. They were really tasty!

The walk from the Poly to the TTC is really very easy and it is such a lovely trip. We picked up the monorail and made our way back to EPCOT. We were lucky enough to sit in the driver’s cabin for our ride. When we pulled into EPCOT, it was so beautiful! The Flower and Garden Festival was just starting so everything was in full bloom. We had a wonderful unobstructed view as we made the circle around Spaceship Earth.

On our way through Future World, we stopped for a few minutes and watched the water show at the fountain. DD just loves the “dancing fountain!” After taking some pictures of all the magnificent topiaries shaped like Disney characters we roamed back through Canada and England. As we got to the outer edge of England we encountered Mary Poppins in her beautiful white dress. There was hardly anyone in line so we jumped right in and took some pics. We finally made it back to the BC and our room was ready. We brought the car around and had the valet load our luggage on a cart. A word of warning though, this is NOT the same person who will be bringing the luggage to your room. We ended up tipping him thinking he was going to follow us to our room but he simply put it with all the other luggage carts. He made a fortune off of us! Oh well, maybe we were a bright spot in his day!

We got on the elevator and I again had trouble making my key work so I ended up using DH’s. The fact that my key has been giving me trouble already will factor in later……

Here we are, room 5654! We had a decent view of the porte chochere, a bunch of trees, the BCV’s and the very top of Spaceship Earth. There was a full size balcony with 2 chairs and a small table. Our balcony was solid from the floor for about 2 feet and then had a railing. I liked that the whole balcony wasn’t in view. Our room had 2 queen beds and a nicely sized bathroom. There were 2 sinks outside and the commode and shower shared a small room. We had a somewhat small dresser, a fridge and a good sized television. We were so excited to find a towel animal sitting in between our sinks!! We hadn’t gotten one before, so this was really exciting! As you can see, it doesn’t take a whole lot to make me happy!

It was now about 5:00 and at 7:20 we had ADR’s for 1900 Park Fare. We were wondering where our luggage was and had the concierge call down and request they bring it up. Mmmmm, I believe I read that they have beer and wine in the lounge beginning at 5. I know where I am headed! We grabbed a beer and a glass of wine (okay...I ended up having 3 glasses!) and hung out in the lounge for a bit. They had decent enough food selections but I was definitely more impressed with the Poly’s offerings. If I remember correctly, our 1st night BC had some kind of soup, crackers, pita triangles, garlic baguette slices, onion dip, poached salmon, olives, some cheeses, hummus of some sort and the standard beer, wine and soft drinks. In addition they had lemonade, coffee, a box full of teas and a hot chocolate/espresso/cappuccino machine. I had a small piece of the salmon and it was very tasty.

Now it is close to 6:00 and our luggage still hasn’t arrived. DD was dressing up as Cinderella tonight and I would really like to change into something a little more appropriate for dinner. I was about to have the nice lady at the conc. desk call again when I saw our luggage cart coming off the elevator. Our bellboy was really quick and got all of our baggage in the room in a matter of minutes. We all got changed for dinner and decided we would drive over to the GF since DD would be in her gown.

We arrived at the GF about 5 minutes before our ADR. The Fairy Godmother was in the lobby area and we took pictures with her and got her autograph. She was very grandmotherly and played the part perfectly. We wandered around the grounds for about 10 minutes and then went back to wait on the benches outside of the restaurant. In another 10 minutes our beeper went off and we were seated in a corner table in the middle section on the opposite side of the buffet line. It took what seemed like quite a while before our waitress was able to make it over to us. The restaurant was pretty crowded but after she finally took our drink orders we received very good service. The buffet itself was plentiful and the food was tasty. I got a little bit of everything and really had no complaints about any of it. It was a basic buffet including many different dishes. Although nothing stood out as overly spectacular, it was all hot and flavorful. I was somewhat surprised at the choice of salads, however…..what type of family buffet only offers spring mix or Caesar salad? I love both of those but DD and DH are strictly iceberg and I would guess that a lot of other families are the same way. It was just something I thought was a bit odd. We had wonderful interaction with Suzy, Cinderella and Perla during the first 10 minutes of our meal, but it took Prince Charming all the way until we had already paid our bill until he made it to our table. He was super cute though, so I didn’t mind too much! And I have to say that I loved being addressed as “Princess”--I’m thinking of making that a requirement at my home!

After dinner we drove back to the BC and arrived in time to get to our room, change, grab an after dinner cordial and a few mini desserts and then we set ourselves up on the balcony and were able to watch some of Illuminations. We had to kind of lean over the balcony a bit to view the fireworks but we could still see some of them and we were in the comfort of our own room wearing our pj’s!

We decided to hit the sack early because we were planning on trying to get up early and head to the parks in the morning.

Day 3 will follow tomorrow with a review of Alice’s Tea Party, Crystal Palace, our first look at WWOS and our visit to the parks. I will also attempt to post pictures after I get them all uploaded to Photobucket (if I can figure out how to do it!)

 

[KathyRN137]

Wow! So awesome about the upgrade to concierge!!

Hope you got nice pics of your DD dressed as Cindarella with "her" prince at 1099 Park Fare!

Kathy

 

[chilis]

Wow! So awesome about the upgrade to concierge!!

Hope you got nice pics of your DD dressed as Cindarella with "her" prince at 1099 Park Fare!

Kathy

"Her" prince?! No way! I wanted to keep that royal cutie for myself!!!! (DH didn't think Cindy was too shabby either!)

 

[cuddles422]

subscribing

 

[ProudMommyof2]

I'M signing up!

 

[betsywdw]

Thanks for another great installment, I really am enjoying your report! An upgrade to the concierge level...I'm so jealous!!! Congrats!!!! Can't wait to see some pics

 

[chilis]

I'll try to comply and post a couple of pics now.....

Obviously, DD and Cindy at 1900 Park Fare.

 

[chilis]

The towel animal we received our checkin day.

 

[chilis]

DD and Mary Poppins in England

 

[betsywdw]

Your DD is so sweet! She makes the perfect little Cinderella! Thanks for posting some pics!!!!

 

[chilis]

Sick of my pics yet?!

Me, DD and Fairy Godmother

 

[chilis]

DD in front of topiary

 

[chilis]

Your DD is so sweet! She makes the perfect little Cinderella! Thanks for posting some pics!!!!

Thanks! She really is a sweetie! Do you think I should make my pics smaller? I haven't ever posted any before, so I just chose the size that sounded about right. What do you think?

 

[chilis]

More topiaries

 

[chilis]

This is the dog that came in and searched our monorail car. He only sniffed around ours....I was a little freaked out at first, but then I figured I was a lot safer than any of the other passengers because I knew there wasn't anything suspicious in our immediate area!! I felt confident that Disney was very serious about security.

 

[RmrJmrGrl]

Love the report and the pics!!! Can't wait to read more. I'm a "lurker" too and going on my first trip in November. Lovin the Dis!

BA

 

[Going to Disney!]

How exciting to be upgraded!
I started reading your TR as we had planned on those exact dates! (4/5--4/10). My husband ended up just out of the hospital, so we have to postpone our trip till June.

Your daughter's adorable!
Rhonda

 

[chilis]

Pics of the view from our balcony (somewhat obscured by the princess on the balcony!) You can barely see the parking lot in the distance to the left and to the right is the BCV's. They are painted a seafoam green color and the BC is a powder blue.

I know it has been posted many time before, but a pic of our room.

 

[chilis]

My last pics for the evening. I would love to continue posting but I have to play tennis in the morning! I know, I know I have it really tough, right?!?!

Our view from the front cabin of the monorail.

Sorry, guys....ALL of my pictures pretty much include one member or more of my family. I'm not much on plain ole scenery photos but here are just a couple.......

Cinderella's castle

The "dancing fountains"

Pluto topiary...isn't he cute?!

I'll be posting more of my trip report tomorrow evening and hopefully more photos if anyone is interested!