Well I'll be the oddball here and say that I have never understood how people can do AK and HS in one day, let alone add in a waterpark. To me, HS is not a half day park for one reason... show schedules. I guess if you don't care about seeing any of the live shows, then you could hit the highlights quickly and head out, but we love the shows and wouldn't want to miss them. And with the shows being on a set time schedule, you can't do it all but so fast. Also, one of the best things to us about AK are the animal trails. I guess you could go there and just do the safari and EE and be gone in an hour, but you will be missing so much of what makes AK special (to us anyway). The Lion King show there is also fantastic! If I was really in a time pinch, I would recommend skipping DinoLand altogether.
Oh, and I especially think that doing HS and AK in one day would be very difficult for first timers. Our first trip was so different from all the rest because we felt very compelled to try all the rides since we weren't sure if we would be missing something really awesome if we passed them by. I could probably do AK and HS now in one day if I REALLY pushed myself, but we are about to go on our 5th trip so I know what I want to do and what I want to skip. But there is no way we could've done that on our first trip.
I'm sure you've already looked at the park hours, but that's something else to consider. I'm not sure when you are going (sorry I missed that part), but AK and the water parks are early closers. When we are going next month, AK closes every day at 5:00 and the water parks are only open from 10-5.
I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but I can't imagine being able to do HS, AK, and a water park in one day. I wish you the best of luck with your trip though and hope it is as magical as you are hoping for!
Well I'll be the oddball here and say that I have never understood how people can do AK and HS in one day, let alone add in a waterpark. To me, HS is not a half day park for one reason... show schedules. I guess if you don't care about seeing any of the live shows, then you could hit the highlights quickly and head out, but we love the shows and wouldn't want to miss them. And with the shows being on a set time schedule, you can't do it all but so fast. Also, one of the best things to us about AK are the animal trails. I guess you could go there and just do the safari and EE and be gone in an hour, but you will be missing so much of what makes AK special (to us anyway). The Lion King show there is also fantastic! If I was really in a time pinch, I would recommend skipping DinoLand altogether.
Oh, and I especially think that doing HS and AK in one day would be very difficult for first timers. Our first trip was so different from all the rest because we felt very compelled to try all the rides since we weren't sure if we would be missing something really awesome if we passed them by. I could probably do AK and HS now in one day if I REALLY pushed myself, but we are about to go on our 5th trip so I know what I want to do and what I want to skip. But there is no way we could've done that on our first trip.
I'm sure you've already looked at the park hours, but that's something else to consider. I'm not sure when you are going (sorry I missed that part), but AK and the water parks are early closers. When we are going next month, AK closes every day at 5:00 and the water parks are only open from 10-5.
I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but I can't imagine being able to do HS, AK, and a water park in one day. I wish you the best of luck with your trip though and hope it is as magical as you are hoping for!
But, I think we are taking this thread way off-topic now. It's for Q&A about CSR. I am one of the offenders; I apologize to OP.
Jason, if you want to continue the discussion about your upcoming WDW trip, you should start a thread. There is a lot of great information and advice out there for you!
I'm so excited!
This was our 2nd stay at CSR, and we are already planning a trip back there for 2015. Okay, we're not exactly planning... more like dreaming a little.
It was a quick 2 minute walk to bus station #4, a very quick walk to the quiet pool and laundry area for the Ranchos, about a 20 minute roundtrip walk to El Centro, and less than a 5minute walk to the main pool. Mousekeeping didn't leave any fun towel animals this time (which was okay), and maybe was a little lackluster on the cleaning, but overall, I didn't have any major complaints. We love the location of 7B (quiet, but close to everything important to us). The bus service seemed a little worse this time, but anything would be compared to our last trip in 2013, when I swear we never seemed to wait any longer than 5-10 minutes for a bus to/from the resort. We had a couple of 20 minute waits, and 1 - 35 minute wait, but we also had a few where we lucked out and arrived right as the bus was pulling up to where we wanted to go. There was 1 convention going on during our stay, but I think I only saw a total of 4 conventioneers. Breakfast at the Pepper Market was just okay (ate there yesterday morning), but dinner on Thursday night was good. Big portions!
Just booked our first stay at CSR.
We are so excited. 
We chose the the preferred rooms. Any suggestions on what to do first or just any tips on the CSR? Thanks! 
and I am missing waking up in our room already!
We checked in on 9/7; initially we were going to be placed in Building 7A (I requested 7B if at all possible). When I asked about getting moved, they were able to move us to 7B, up on the 2nd floor (Room 7667 to be exact), and we were able to get connecting rooms with my parents. I had not stayed up on the 2nd floor of a resort in all of my trips to Disney, but it turned out rather nice. We were facing the brush/bush area and the parking lot, which was fine... I don't mind any view at Disney!
All in all, it was another great stay. It was so hard to say goodbye yesterday, but knowing that another trip to the World (and more than likely CSR) is on the radar for 2015 makes it a little easier coming back to the real world.
) they are located inside the hanging white bag in the closet!! See below ...
