teentoddlermom
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2003
- Messages
- 944
Hi everyone:
I am a lifelong MA resident and am finally beginning to really hate winter. I have been to Disney about 20 times since 1974, including annual and twice annual visits since 2003 with my family, usually in August with heat and mega crowds. In Feb. 2008, we scooted down President's day week, rack rate, and save for the actual holiday, crowds were moderate to very light as the week went on, and weather was warm and sunny.
So this year I persuaded my husband and 10 year old daughter (not hard to convince) to take another Feb. trip! The 3 of us went out of PVD at 5:30 on Feb. 15th. Had never seen it so crowded at the Providence airport, thus predicting the crowds we would encounter in WDW very accurately! During our time there, all New England states (except NH), have a winter break, and combined with the 4 for 7 deal, the stage was set. It was really busy at the happiest place on earth!
I will not post pictures, because basically I still haven't figured out how even though I have made many posts to this website! I'm just not very technical!
The Weather:
Well, I was going to leave my down vest in the car at the airport! Suffice it to say I was glad I did not! I will say we were lucky to enjoy mostly sunny days, but we did not pack enough pants and sweaters. It was in the 40's most nights, and mid 50's during the day. It was so strange to pop into shops to get warm, when we were used to popping into shops to get the ice blasted air during our August trips! On Saturday the 20th, it finally made it into the low 70's!
Awesome Upgrade:
Well after dropping many thousands of dollars (see my signature below) this decade at WDW and never receiving any upgrades, we scored. Big Time. Checking in at the Beach Club, the cast member gave us our gold KTTW cards and explained that we had to put them in the card slot in the elevator. She did not explain anything else, she seemed new.
My brain was spinning, I knew they were for the Conciege floor, but we had only booked standard view. I thought there must be some kind of mistake. We went to the room which was indeed on the Concierge floor! Still not believing it we went back down to ask if we were allowed to use the lounge. Another cast member said, yes indeed, we were upgraded! It was kind of weird because she mentioned it almost apologetically, that they needed to really swap people around because of being fully booked with a convention, and the only rooms left were on the concierge floor! We had twice paid for concierge rooms in the past, and later decided they were not for us with our park commando ways and little resort time. Even with the upgrade, we still feel this way. I don't want to be negative, but it is not worth paying for unless you spend all your time at the resort. It was also somewhat frustrating to be assigned the farthest away room possible such as ours was, I think it was 5274. They must save these far far away rooms for overbooking. We were happy to have access to the breakfast offerings, though, even if it was mass bedlam in the rather small concierge lounge. A really strange thing happened to us one morning...while we were sitting at a table having breakfast, a woman came over us and asked if she could put her dirty knife
on our table. We were so taken aback, we looked at her and did not know how to respond. She then asked again, so we said ok, and then we laughed about this all week!
We loved our first visit to the Beach Club. We had superior service throughout our stay from all cast members, and excellent housekeeping.
Dining:
I love
the online ADR system. All of my reservations were accurate. We loved some usual favorites, such as Le Cellier, Chef's de France, and The Plaza. We tried and loved Narcoosee's and Kouzzina.
We tried and liked Tokyo Dining and Crystal Palace, and we are done with 50's Prime Time. Great service there, but the food is pre-made and warmed up. 
Two things we have never seen before:
Our last night at MK, after having to wait in a 15 minute line to ride on the.........believe it or not: Tomorrowland Transit Authority! (aforementioned heavy crowds) we saw Space Mountain in all its lit up glory. The ride was down and they had the lights on. Amazing, it was so plain, just a bunch of steel with a ceiling over it!
Space Mountain was down a lot while we were there. When we rode it, I did not notice much changed since the refurb, except the queue and exit area updates.
That same night at Spectromagic time, cast members were directing us to a corridor behind the Plaza restaurant if we wanted leave the park. Well, it took us behind the facade of Main Street USA! It is just a parking lot and a bunch of doors. It took the magic away from me a little, seeing such plainness, but then we were directed right back into the spell of Disney coming out to Main Street at Tony's. Both of these experiences were cool.
Summary:
We did a few things we never do in WDW, tried to take it a little down from our usual commando touring style. We saw all the parades, and had good viewing spots. My favorite is Block Party Bash. We saw a lot of characters (and even waited in line for them?!!). My daughter was psyched to get some rare autographs, such as Jiminy Cricket at AK. We still had a GREAT time, and want to go back next year, same time of the year. Even though it was not warm enough for Florida, it was still warmer than New England!
I am a lifelong MA resident and am finally beginning to really hate winter. I have been to Disney about 20 times since 1974, including annual and twice annual visits since 2003 with my family, usually in August with heat and mega crowds. In Feb. 2008, we scooted down President's day week, rack rate, and save for the actual holiday, crowds were moderate to very light as the week went on, and weather was warm and sunny.
So this year I persuaded my husband and 10 year old daughter (not hard to convince) to take another Feb. trip! The 3 of us went out of PVD at 5:30 on Feb. 15th. Had never seen it so crowded at the Providence airport, thus predicting the crowds we would encounter in WDW very accurately! During our time there, all New England states (except NH), have a winter break, and combined with the 4 for 7 deal, the stage was set. It was really busy at the happiest place on earth!
I will not post pictures, because basically I still haven't figured out how even though I have made many posts to this website! I'm just not very technical!
The Weather:
Well, I was going to leave my down vest in the car at the airport! Suffice it to say I was glad I did not! I will say we were lucky to enjoy mostly sunny days, but we did not pack enough pants and sweaters. It was in the 40's most nights, and mid 50's during the day. It was so strange to pop into shops to get warm, when we were used to popping into shops to get the ice blasted air during our August trips! On Saturday the 20th, it finally made it into the low 70's!
Awesome Upgrade:
Well after dropping many thousands of dollars (see my signature below) this decade at WDW and never receiving any upgrades, we scored. Big Time. Checking in at the Beach Club, the cast member gave us our gold KTTW cards and explained that we had to put them in the card slot in the elevator. She did not explain anything else, she seemed new.
My brain was spinning, I knew they were for the Conciege floor, but we had only booked standard view. I thought there must be some kind of mistake. We went to the room which was indeed on the Concierge floor! Still not believing it we went back down to ask if we were allowed to use the lounge. Another cast member said, yes indeed, we were upgraded! It was kind of weird because she mentioned it almost apologetically, that they needed to really swap people around because of being fully booked with a convention, and the only rooms left were on the concierge floor! We had twice paid for concierge rooms in the past, and later decided they were not for us with our park commando ways and little resort time. Even with the upgrade, we still feel this way. I don't want to be negative, but it is not worth paying for unless you spend all your time at the resort. It was also somewhat frustrating to be assigned the farthest away room possible such as ours was, I think it was 5274. They must save these far far away rooms for overbooking. We were happy to have access to the breakfast offerings, though, even if it was mass bedlam in the rather small concierge lounge. A really strange thing happened to us one morning...while we were sitting at a table having breakfast, a woman came over us and asked if she could put her dirty knife
on our table. We were so taken aback, we looked at her and did not know how to respond. She then asked again, so we said ok, and then we laughed about this all week!We loved our first visit to the Beach Club. We had superior service throughout our stay from all cast members, and excellent housekeeping.
Dining:
I love
the online ADR system. All of my reservations were accurate. We loved some usual favorites, such as Le Cellier, Chef's de France, and The Plaza. We tried and loved Narcoosee's and Kouzzina. We tried and liked Tokyo Dining and Crystal Palace, and we are done with 50's Prime Time. Great service there, but the food is pre-made and warmed up. Two things we have never seen before:
Our last night at MK, after having to wait in a 15 minute line to ride on the.........believe it or not: Tomorrowland Transit Authority! (aforementioned heavy crowds) we saw Space Mountain in all its lit up glory. The ride was down and they had the lights on. Amazing, it was so plain, just a bunch of steel with a ceiling over it!
Space Mountain was down a lot while we were there. When we rode it, I did not notice much changed since the refurb, except the queue and exit area updates.
That same night at Spectromagic time, cast members were directing us to a corridor behind the Plaza restaurant if we wanted leave the park. Well, it took us behind the facade of Main Street USA! It is just a parking lot and a bunch of doors. It took the magic away from me a little, seeing such plainness, but then we were directed right back into the spell of Disney coming out to Main Street at Tony's. Both of these experiences were cool.
Summary:
We did a few things we never do in WDW, tried to take it a little down from our usual commando touring style. We saw all the parades, and had good viewing spots. My favorite is Block Party Bash. We saw a lot of characters (and even waited in line for them?!!). My daughter was psyched to get some rare autographs, such as Jiminy Cricket at AK. We still had a GREAT time, and want to go back next year, same time of the year. Even though it was not warm enough for Florida, it was still warmer than New England!
I wonder how crowded it would be during our break week?
We love it and ride it many times when we visit. It's just that because it is such a fast loading ride, we've never had to wait at all for it, even during peak season. We couldn't believe the line wrapped around as much as it did, we thought the line must have been for the Astro Orbiter, but it was TTA! Still loved it the ride, but I do miss the Mr. Tom Morrow page 
