dcfromva
No horsing around, Christmas is coming!
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2002
- Messages
- 3,268
I thought I'd better type this up as my next trip to WDW is just around the corner...
We started off our trip with 2 nights stay at HHI on cash ressies.
We had a clean, quiet, well maintained 2 BR unit. The weather was nice (70's) and we spent our time shopping at the nice stores (they had some great after Christmas sales), taking walks (Wow, they have some pretty big yachts in that harbor!), and playing monopoly. We had a very nice time. I wish we could go there every weekend!
We continued on our way to WDW stopping off at PBH one night. We wanted to take advantage of the last two days of our Universal APes and to see the Macy's Parade. We were just a tad late for the parade as traffic was so congest almost all the way (from about Savanah to Daytona Beach and then in the Orlando area) and it put us 2 hours late on our schedule. After about 4 hours at Universal (and 6 rides), we felt like we'd seen enough and we were ready to go to WDW the next day.
As we made our way over to check in at BCV, we noticed signs that AK and MK were closed and when we checked in with the gate guard at BCV, he said they were fixing to close MGM. It had no impact on us since we didn't plan to visit any parks the first day.
Our room was ready at 4:00pm. It was a 2 BR lockoff on the first floor with a woodland view and partial view of the fireworks. We really loved our room location. The room was clean, quiet, had good water pressure and the room temps were okay. (It was warmer in the studio--which felt just right, but the 1 BR was a little cooler). I do have another concern which I will address in a separate thread.
We had 4 maint. issues of which 3 were magically fixed whilst we were out of the room on the same day they were reported. (I would LOVE to get some magical WDW elves here at my house
). The 4th problem was minor, but seemed to defy fixing (I even tried to fix it myself to no avail).
Even though the parks were crowded, it didn't impact us very much. We sat the first day out. The second day we took a steam train tour in the morning, went on 3 MK rides and came back to our room for a nap followed by the CP dining package. The CP presentation was brillant as always. The weather was perfect. We had our dinner at Le Cellier afterwards. Our meal lasted until after the park closed. We were pretty full from the main course, so we had our desserts boxed up and we enjoyed a leisurely 10 minute walk back to our villa...
We spent most of New Year's in EPCOT (from before 8am to about 10:30pm). We met some friends (one of whom had never been to WDW). I don't think they were expecting the crowds as they both looked like they were in the state of shock--though, it could have been jet-lag (I saw a news report that Disney said they had record breaking crowds over New Years ). Despite this, through the miracle of FPes along with early arrival at the park and very large show capacities for some of the attractions, we managed to take them on most of the major attractions during the day--the maximum wait times we experienced were no more than 20-25mints and most of the time way less. We gave our FPes to our friends to go on TT at around noontime. DH and I sat out the ride as we have been on it many times before. The Standby times for TT were 260 minutes! (Wow! Could that really be over 4 hours?! I don't think I'd ever seen that long of a wait time, before).
At 10:30pm, we were running out of steam, so we said goodbye to our friends and we went back to our villa since we'd already seen the 7:30pm Illuminations show. It had been a really long day for us as we don't normally spend more than 3 or 4 hours maximum in a park at a time. At 11:40, Illuminations went off and from our patio, I even noticed some MGM Fireworks(I believe they did the old Sorceror in the Sky show special for NYE).
New Year's Day was pretty low key. We had lunch at the Kona Cafe and then went over to MGM at around 1:30pm. We went on Millionaire 3 times and Muppets 3D while waiting for our Rock n Roller coaster FP Return times. We went back to our Villas and had a nice quiet dinner (left-overs night ) and then met our friends to go on an Illuminations Boat Cruise. It was a very nice evening. My friend said she was going to have a lot of stories to tell when she returns home .
Our last day, DH packed all our gear in the car and checked out of our room. While DH was doing that, DS and I snuck over to EPCOT for one more ride (DS went on MS) and some last minute shopping before it was time to head home. With express checkout, you dial 667 and hang up to indicate you have left your room. (I didn't notice that on our last visit in November when housekeeping kept knocking on the door to see if we had left. I thought this was an excellant improvement).
We had a great visit. The only real downside was the traffic going to and from WDW was brutal. On our return home (after dark), we were amazed to see that nearly every vehicle on the road had some sort of movie screen playing (computers, DV players, TV installed in the van, truck, car, et'c.). We figured these folks were probably all going home like us as one doesn't normally put a movie in to go to the 7-11 .
Maybe next year, we will fly. (I wonder how the airports were over the holidays?....)
-DC
We started off our trip with 2 nights stay at HHI on cash ressies.
We had a clean, quiet, well maintained 2 BR unit. The weather was nice (70's) and we spent our time shopping at the nice stores (they had some great after Christmas sales), taking walks (Wow, they have some pretty big yachts in that harbor!), and playing monopoly. We had a very nice time. I wish we could go there every weekend!
We continued on our way to WDW stopping off at PBH one night. We wanted to take advantage of the last two days of our Universal APes and to see the Macy's Parade. We were just a tad late for the parade as traffic was so congest almost all the way (from about Savanah to Daytona Beach and then in the Orlando area) and it put us 2 hours late on our schedule. After about 4 hours at Universal (and 6 rides), we felt like we'd seen enough and we were ready to go to WDW the next day.
As we made our way over to check in at BCV, we noticed signs that AK and MK were closed and when we checked in with the gate guard at BCV, he said they were fixing to close MGM. It had no impact on us since we didn't plan to visit any parks the first day.
Our room was ready at 4:00pm. It was a 2 BR lockoff on the first floor with a woodland view and partial view of the fireworks. We really loved our room location. The room was clean, quiet, had good water pressure and the room temps were okay. (It was warmer in the studio--which felt just right, but the 1 BR was a little cooler). I do have another concern which I will address in a separate thread.
We had 4 maint. issues of which 3 were magically fixed whilst we were out of the room on the same day they were reported. (I would LOVE to get some magical WDW elves here at my house
). The 4th problem was minor, but seemed to defy fixing (I even tried to fix it myself to no avail). Even though the parks were crowded, it didn't impact us very much. We sat the first day out. The second day we took a steam train tour in the morning, went on 3 MK rides and came back to our room for a nap followed by the CP dining package. The CP presentation was brillant as always. The weather was perfect. We had our dinner at Le Cellier afterwards. Our meal lasted until after the park closed. We were pretty full from the main course, so we had our desserts boxed up and we enjoyed a leisurely 10 minute walk back to our villa...
We spent most of New Year's in EPCOT (from before 8am to about 10:30pm). We met some friends (one of whom had never been to WDW). I don't think they were expecting the crowds as they both looked like they were in the state of shock--though, it could have been jet-lag (I saw a news report that Disney said they had record breaking crowds over New Years
). Despite this, through the miracle of FPes along with early arrival at the park and very large show capacities for some of the attractions, we managed to take them on most of the major attractions during the day--the maximum wait times we experienced were no more than 20-25mints and most of the time way less. We gave our FPes to our friends to go on TT at around noontime. DH and I sat out the ride as we have been on it many times before. The Standby times for TT were 260 minutes! (Wow! Could that really be over 4 hours?! I don't think I'd ever seen that long of a wait time, before). At 10:30pm, we were running out of steam, so we said goodbye to our friends and we went back to our villa since we'd already seen the 7:30pm Illuminations show. It had been a really long day for us as we don't normally spend more than 3 or 4 hours maximum in a park at a time. At 11:40, Illuminations went off and from our patio, I even noticed some MGM Fireworks(I believe they did the old Sorceror in the Sky show special for NYE).
New Year's Day was pretty low key. We had lunch at the Kona Cafe and then went over to MGM at around 1:30pm. We went on Millionaire 3 times and Muppets 3D while waiting for our Rock n Roller coaster FP Return times. We went back to our Villas and had a nice quiet dinner (left-overs night
) and then met our friends to go on an Illuminations Boat Cruise. It was a very nice evening. My friend said she was going to have a lot of stories to tell when she returns home . Our last day, DH packed all our gear in the car and checked out of our room. While DH was doing that, DS and I snuck over to EPCOT for one more ride (DS went on MS) and some last minute shopping before it was time to head home. With express checkout, you dial 667 and hang up to indicate you have left your room. (I didn't notice that on our last visit in November when housekeeping kept knocking on the door to see if we had left. I thought this was an excellant improvement).
We had a great visit. The only real downside was the traffic going to and from WDW was brutal. On our return home (after dark), we were amazed to see that nearly every vehicle on the road had some sort of movie screen playing (computers, DV players, TV installed in the van, truck, car, et'c.). We figured these folks were probably all going home like us as one doesn't normally put a movie in to go to the 7-11
.Maybe next year, we will fly. (I wonder how the airports were over the holidays?....)
-DC
