drag n' fly
Sassy, salty and sweet....
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2006
- Messages
- 6,574
I am just going to point out the highlights and low lights of our vacation and skip the filler!
Dh, me ds13, dd1, ds4 staying at Grand Californian from November 14-19
Flight, hotel etc!
-flight was good
-Disney express worked great
-Oooh hotel is pretty
-check in. My room request by myAMA travel agent is not on file. Surprise surprise
I requested bunkbed rooms. We got 4164 wayyyyyyyyyyyy farrrrrrrrrr away. You need a golf cart to get to it.
-Nice room. Monorail right outside our window.
-Oh oh toilet is filthy and the room has been dusted for bed bugs. I lift the mattress and it is ok so we stay. I clean the toilet ewwwwwww.
-housekeeping is very spotty. Some days even toiletries and cups are not refreshed despite getting a generous tip everyday.
-every single day there is crap everywhere in the hallways. I saw room service carts with food on the sitting in hallways sometimes 12 hours or longer. Some days you cannot get through all the dishes laying on the floor and the room service carts everywhere. They were shampooing rugs and running industrial fans on our floor. Between all the cords, noise and carts plus morning cleaning baskets it was a downright maze to get to the lobby somedays.
-real lack of storage space in the rooms.
-the bed was heavenly. I slept like a log each night.
-the food is really good in the restaurants in the hotel. Dh said the breakfast burrito in Whitewater snacks was very good.
-pools were nice but very cold.
-service was very rushed for Storyteller Chip and Dale breakfast. Food was good. Our waitress was supposed to bring waffles in addition to our breakfast to our table. Never received them only refilled coffee once.
Parks
- 14th and 15th we walked on every ride more than once you could of shot a cannon through there.
- Dancing with the stars was at DL. Jennie Garth danced with Mickey Mouse. They were filming the Christmas parade.
- -Once Christmas season started on the 16th then all heck broke loose. Ride after ride after ride kept breaking down.
- The most notable breakdown worth mentioning is we got to the very top of Space Mountain on the steepest incline and yup it stopped completely dead on the track in the pitch dark. Ummmmm helllllp. Finally the lights came on and we were 5 feet from the top and we had to climb out of our seats while the ride was on a huge incline going up and walk down .fun fun! We got a green fastpass which allowed us on any ride except Nemo. Ok
- We had Nemo strategically planned. We had runners
(aka DH)! Would you believe we not only made Nemo once but twice and walked on the second time like a rock star? More on that in a minute. Anywhoo we got the first sub of the day. We nailed EE and rope drop perfectly on this one!
- We were dreamed! Yup coming off Pinocchio we got dream ears! It was nice because we got dream ears in Feb from WDW so we had dream ears from each park now!
- As I previously mentioned rides kept breaking down always when we were in line of course! That was it . DH had it and expressed his concerns politely to a CM and said we have wasted valuable park time waiting to get on rides that break down or being escorted off of ones already broken. He apologized by providing us with something that is even more coveted than being dreamed! The ORANGE fastpass. This fastpass will get you to the front of the line on ANY ride in the park. Yup even Nemo. We were escorted through the exit line to the front and walked right on Nemo .woooohooo!
- Miley Cyrus was at DL on the 18th!
- The baked potato soup at Carnation café was heaven in a bowl! Good service great food!
- DCA was relaxing and a nice day. A cm gave our family family pins because she said it was nice to see a happy family having fun that was cool!
- Legoland was awesome the kids (all of them) had a blast and loved the park! Thanks again to Amy(grumpyvet) for the coupons and saving us almost 100 bucks as it is a very expensive park! Once inside though merchandise is very cheap and food was exceptional for a theme park.
- Went to the outlet and picked up a few things. Hit toys r us and got some cool stuff for real cheap that we cannot get in the Canadian toys r us.
- Blue Bayou was a nice meal. Had the ribs they were yummy!
The icing on the cake however is we are now DVC owners at AKV! We bought while at DL!
Going home
-express is on time and again well organized and helpful
-Oh oh a plane broke down in Calgary and our flight is delayed almost 4 hours ..CRAP that could of meant more time at the parks if we had remembered to confirm our flights.
But behind every cloud is a silver lining folks!
We were walking in the airport and unbeknown to us we walked right through the middle of some people filming something. I look back and who walks out of a car!!! Lauren Conrad and Whitney Port from The Hills! WOW! Well they followed us into the terminal so dd11 pulls out the camera and takes a few shots. I then said to dd11 that if she went up and politely asked to take a pic they might say yes. Well she finally worked up the nerve and not only did she get the pic but Lauren and Whitney took a picture with dd11 in the middle .WELLL dd11 was in tears she was so thrilled. They totally made her day!. We went through security and our gate was 24a. Well directly across from us at gate 23 they were filming The Hills for a couple hours at gate 23 while we were there.
It was a long wait we were supposed to be home at 8 in the evening and by the time we got home from the airport due to the flight delay it was 12:30am .yawn! Alls well ends well with another Disney trip!
Dh, me ds13, dd1, ds4 staying at Grand Californian from November 14-19
Flight, hotel etc!
-flight was good
-Disney express worked great
-Oooh hotel is pretty
-check in. My room request by myAMA travel agent is not on file. Surprise surprise
I requested bunkbed rooms. We got 4164 wayyyyyyyyyyyy farrrrrrrrrr away. You need a golf cart to get to it. -Nice room. Monorail right outside our window.
-Oh oh toilet is filthy and the room has been dusted for bed bugs. I lift the mattress and it is ok so we stay. I clean the toilet ewwwwwww.
-housekeeping is very spotty. Some days even toiletries and cups are not refreshed despite getting a generous tip everyday.
-every single day there is crap everywhere in the hallways. I saw room service carts with food on the sitting in hallways sometimes 12 hours or longer. Some days you cannot get through all the dishes laying on the floor and the room service carts everywhere. They were shampooing rugs and running industrial fans on our floor. Between all the cords, noise and carts plus morning cleaning baskets it was a downright maze to get to the lobby somedays.
-real lack of storage space in the rooms.
-the bed was heavenly. I slept like a log each night.
-the food is really good in the restaurants in the hotel. Dh said the breakfast burrito in Whitewater snacks was very good.
-pools were nice but very cold.
-service was very rushed for Storyteller Chip and Dale breakfast. Food was good. Our waitress was supposed to bring waffles in addition to our breakfast to our table. Never received them only refilled coffee once.
Parks
- 14th and 15th we walked on every ride more than once you could of shot a cannon through there.
- Dancing with the stars was at DL. Jennie Garth danced with Mickey Mouse. They were filming the Christmas parade.
- -Once Christmas season started on the 16th then all heck broke loose. Ride after ride after ride kept breaking down.
- The most notable breakdown worth mentioning is we got to the very top of Space Mountain on the steepest incline and yup it stopped completely dead on the track in the pitch dark. Ummmmm helllllp. Finally the lights came on and we were 5 feet from the top and we had to climb out of our seats while the ride was on a huge incline going up and walk down .fun fun! We got a green fastpass which allowed us on any ride except Nemo. Ok
- We had Nemo strategically planned. We had runners
(aka DH)! Would you believe we not only made Nemo once but twice and walked on the second time like a rock star? More on that in a minute. Anywhoo we got the first sub of the day. We nailed EE and rope drop perfectly on this one!- We were dreamed! Yup coming off Pinocchio we got dream ears! It was nice because we got dream ears in Feb from WDW so we had dream ears from each park now!
- As I previously mentioned rides kept breaking down always when we were in line of course! That was it . DH had it and expressed his concerns politely to a CM and said we have wasted valuable park time waiting to get on rides that break down or being escorted off of ones already broken. He apologized by providing us with something that is even more coveted than being dreamed! The ORANGE fastpass. This fastpass will get you to the front of the line on ANY ride in the park. Yup even Nemo. We were escorted through the exit line to the front and walked right on Nemo .woooohooo!
- Miley Cyrus was at DL on the 18th!
- The baked potato soup at Carnation café was heaven in a bowl! Good service great food!
- DCA was relaxing and a nice day. A cm gave our family family pins because she said it was nice to see a happy family having fun that was cool!
- Legoland was awesome the kids (all of them) had a blast and loved the park! Thanks again to Amy(grumpyvet) for the coupons and saving us almost 100 bucks as it is a very expensive park! Once inside though merchandise is very cheap and food was exceptional for a theme park.
- Went to the outlet and picked up a few things. Hit toys r us and got some cool stuff for real cheap that we cannot get in the Canadian toys r us.
- Blue Bayou was a nice meal. Had the ribs they were yummy!
The icing on the cake however is we are now DVC owners at AKV! We bought while at DL!
Going home
-express is on time and again well organized and helpful
-Oh oh a plane broke down in Calgary and our flight is delayed almost 4 hours ..CRAP that could of meant more time at the parks if we had remembered to confirm our flights.
But behind every cloud is a silver lining folks!
We were walking in the airport and unbeknown to us we walked right through the middle of some people filming something. I look back and who walks out of a car!!! Lauren Conrad and Whitney Port from The Hills! WOW! Well they followed us into the terminal so dd11 pulls out the camera and takes a few shots. I then said to dd11 that if she went up and politely asked to take a pic they might say yes. Well she finally worked up the nerve and not only did she get the pic but Lauren and Whitney took a picture with dd11 in the middle .WELLL dd11 was in tears she was so thrilled. They totally made her day!. We went through security and our gate was 24a. Well directly across from us at gate 23 they were filming The Hills for a couple hours at gate 23 while we were there.
It was a long wait we were supposed to be home at 8 in the evening and by the time we got home from the airport due to the flight delay it was 12:30am .yawn! Alls well ends well with another Disney trip!
They called us that evening and said when they were landing at the calgary airport they noticed all these ambulance and firetrucks and everyone was wondering what was going on. When they landed safely they were informed the ambulances and firetrucks were for them! Apparently something was wrong with hydraulics(sp?) but it worked out okay, thank god.
