Just wanted to follow up with on the few people concerned about the possibility of hurricanes.
We flew into Orlando the morning that Charley hit.
We stayed at the All Star Movies and I must say other than a few bad gusts of wind that shook the window and whistled under the door it was not very bad at all. It may have been worse had we been on the outside of the buildings. We were facing in to the center of the buildings. But we did not hear of any damage done to any rooms ( it may be that we did not hear anything and there was damage done though).
My kids were nervous probably more from the weather reports we were watching than the actual storm although the wind under the door did send them hiding in the bathtub
We were quite shocked when we got up the next morning and noticed all the downed trees and the pool full of bark stripped from the trees. It really did not seem from our room as if it was that bad.
I have a few pictures from around the hotel the morning after if anyone is interested. The forum will not let me post the URL until some minimum number of posts is made. If anyone is curious I can try and post the URL in a followup.
Overall the stay was excellant. The disney staff was exceptional through the hurricane. As others have said the characters came into the lobby for the kids. The restaurant was open for most of the night I do not remember if it stayed open all night but we did purchase sandwiches and drinks in case we needed them. They supplied us with a flashlight and periodic reports on the phone about the storm. When we checked out they refunded us 50% for the night of the hurricane.
Once the weather got bad we just headed to our room to wait it out.
It turns out we didn't need the sandwhiches. The restaurant was open the next day. Most of the parks were open the next day (We went do Disney). Animal Kingdom and the water parks were closed 1 or 2 days but it did not effect our vacation we just went to the parks that were open and headed to Animal Kingdom and the water parks later in the week. Other than a few closed rides and some downed trees most things were normal.
One previous poster mentioned the power. We headed to a local grocery store to pick up some things for the room and items that we had forgotten to pack. While in line we were talking with a couple from Orlando that had headed to Disney property because most places around Disney had no power.
For what it's worth the hurricane was a non issue as far as affecting our vacation and I would not be concerned about heading to Disney with an approaching hurricane again although it terrified me before we left.
Scott