DisneyLoverUSA
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2011
- Messages
- 1,973
Just back this past Saturday 11/5 and wanted to give a brief trip report of our 10 days in Orlando.
First let me say that we were there from Thursday 10/27 to Saturday 11/5 and it was 5 of us. DH, myself, stepson (12), daughter (11), and son (10). None of us have ever been to Disney before, or Orlando for that matter.
We started planning this trip back in January (started saving for it actually) and I booked it in April I think, maybe May. It was paid off by August but we ended up adding a day to it after it was paid off.
We stayed at the All Star Music Family Suite (no complaints about the resort).
On this trip the 3 children and myself FLEW to Disney while my husband DROVE to Disney. He works in another state than the state we live in and he wasnt getting off work until 8 am on the morning we were leaving, so he left work (in Louisiana) and drove straight to Orlando. Mainly because I didnt want to be in a car for 12 hours driving to Disney and he didnt want to be in a car WITH KIDS for 12 hours. He likes to be alone when he drives and he likes quiet.
We had the free Quick Service dining plan, which we loved, but it was SO MUCH FOOD. We had 2 sit down dinners. One at Planet Hollywood, which was ok but way overpriced and one at a local Chilis. I had a reservation for Rainforest Café at DTD and one at T-Rex that we didnt keep. (I called and canceled them) Looking at the menu there were just not really good choices on the kids menu and to feed all 5 of us from the adult menu with tax and tip would have been well over a hundred dollars and that was too much, IMO. (Although that is what I ended up spending at Chilis, but oh well)
Ok, let me tell you about our trip.
DAY 1: Thursday 10/27/11
Took the kids to McDonalds and filled them up with cheap breakfast sandwiches because I knew we would be on the plane the next time they were suppose to eat and airlines dont serve food anymore.
We headed for the airport (an hour away) and got there to find that the long-term parking lot ($9 a day) took ONLY credit cards, no debit cards. All I have is a debit card. So I had to keep on going closer to the main terminal in the long term surface lot ($12 a day) and it let me in just by taking a ticket from the machine. No signs about credit cards only, so we went in and parked, hoping we would be able to get out of there 10 days later with me debit card.
The kids have all 3 never flown before so they were all nervous and scared to fly. My DS10 was REALLY SCARED and convinced we were all going to die once we got on the plane. But I gave us all a motion sickness pill (Meclizine) and we boarded the plane. Take off was what I thought would scare them the most but it actually didnt and the flight went fine. Landing didnt scare them but it did make me queasy. (It always does)
Orlando (MCO) International airport is HUMONGOUS. It reminds me of the DFW airport in Texas where I was raised. That airport was giant and so was MCO. It was crawling with ppl. The kids were a little disoriented by it. I had to stop and ask directions on how to get to the Magic Express area of the airport. I knew it was on B-side terminal level 1, but had no idea how to get to B terminal, level 1. Turns out we needed to walk a long walk down the terminal, take a tram over to the other terminal, go downstairs and walk across what seemed like 2 miles of the other terminal. WALKED FOREVER to get to the ME bus counter from the Southwest gate.
The Magic Express bus was fun and relatively quick. We enjoyed the little film they played. It was a good distraction to keep you from being bored for the 30-minute ride to the resort.
Turns out, DH had gotten off work at around 4 am instead of 8 am and he got to the resort before we ever left the airport in our home state and the room wasnt ready so he explored around a little and went to Downtown Disney for a while, while he waited on the room to be ready.
By the time we landed in Orlando they had the room ready and he went to the room and took a little nap waiting for us to arrive. We got to the resort and was dropped off at around 3 pm. We had nothing scheduled for our arrival day except going to Wal-Mart for breakfast items, drinks and snacks.
So we arrived, went to Wal-Mart and got the food and drinks and spent around $150 total for everything including socks for 2 of the kids.
We had dinner at the resort food court using our FREE dining plan credits and realized that they serve you large portions and that we wouldnt be able to eat dessert every meal. I think that first night we got our receipt stamped to come back for Ice Cream after dinner. One of the kids got a shake and the rest of s had Ice Cream sundaes.
The room was large compared to regular hotel rooms. It was clean. But the fridge wasnt cooling. We had purchased Milk so I was concerned about the fridge and called Maintenance to come switch them out. Turns out we had a large MINI fridge. That the fridge that is usually in the family suite is one of those small dorm fridges and we had the bigger mini fridge like what you would find in an office or a camper. The guy who came said they only had a very small one to replace it with and we ended up having to plug it in in our bedroom. Then about 30 minutes later 2 other guys came to the door and said they had a replacement for the BIGGER fridge and brought in a bigger mini fridge, replaced the fridge that wasnt working and stuck the tiny little fridge behind our bedroom door in the bedroom portion of the room.
I have to say about the family suite. They give you PLENTY of towels and plenty of pillows. You have 2 bathrooms and they put 4 bath towels in EACH bathroom. They give you one two pillows for the Queen bed in the bedroom but there are 2 extra pillows above the bathroom closet rack in one bathroom and two other pillows in the other bathroom closet. The double sleeper and the chair sleeper came with two pillows under them already. Each sleeper already came with sheets on it and a blanket on it. All you had to do was fold them out, pull out the pillows and there you go.
Housekeeping at first was just making up the sleepers and not folding them back up then for some reason half way through our trip they started making them up AND folding them back up every day. I preferred they leave them open to keep us from having to do it every night but I wasnt going to write them a note and ask them not to fold them up. Whatever. That was fine.
I did tip mouse keeping. I tipped $5 a day for the first 5 days then switched to $6 a day for the last 4 days. I forgot to leave some money the morning we left.
DAY 2: Friday 10/28/11
We had breakfast in the food court on Friday because we had not used the previous days lunch credits since we didnt arrive in time to eat lunch. We all had a variety of the breakfast offerings during the trip from the Bounty platter to Omelets to Pancakes. Not any Waffles. I had French toast twice. It was good.
This was the day we were suppose to go to Blizzard Beach water park but it was drizzling rain and only in the high 60s, so we scrubbed the plans for the water park. (I had scheduled Blizzard Beach first because it was closing for refurb in just a day or two from when we arrived) But alas, Blizzard Beach was not going to happen. So we went to Animal Kingdom instead. We had not planned on going to Animal Kingdom at all. All of our days were scheduled for other things, other parks, but when our water park day fell through we went to AK (in the rain).
Unfortunately it was an EMH day at AK and the park was kind of full. We did not get there at 8 though. We didnt get there until 9 and the park was already at full swing.
The kids loved the rides. The Safari was good, the two oldest loved Expedition Everest and also Kali River Rapids. I didnt go on Kali. We didnt have any rain ponchos that day (DH got them on another day that it rained) and I didnt want to get more wet. It was kind of chilly with the rain and a bit uncomfortable.
Now I know CHILLY is relative to where you are from and what you are use to but I was raised in Texas where it stays really hot most of the year and now live in Mississippi where it stays hot and humid. So anything below 60 to me is chilly. 50 and under is COLD and I need a COAT!
We had dinner in the food court again and the kids found out about the outdoor movie at the pool every night at 8 pm, so since it had stopped raining, they went out to watch the movie and discovered a ping-pong table right by the pool. We let them stay out there (without us) and watch the movie.
Day 3: Saturday 10/29/11
We had breakfast in the room. We had cereal bars, granola bars, donut sticks, and cereal. I had packed bowls and spoons in the luggage Dh had in the back of our car so we had real bowls and real spoons for cereal. We had bought milk at Wal-Mart, so everybody but me had cereal.
We woke up to someone elses boarding passes hanging on our door. The writing on the envelope was so fat and curvy it had room 1416 written on it but we were in room 1414 and it looked like the envelope said 1414. We just took it outside and hung it on the next room over 1416 next door to us.
We went and added another day to our ticket because when we went to Animal Kingdom instead of the water park, we used one of our days that we had planned for another park. We had 4-day MYW tickets to begin with and had to add the day to make it a 5. It only cost us $8 per person to add a day to our tickets.
This day we went to Disney Quest in DTD and the kids had a very good time here. My DH actually played a lot of games here as well. I played a little old school Pac Man and some Frogger but the kids were more into the racing games, Need For Speed, and Nascar racing, Jet fighter simulator, Air Hockey. They have a lot of neat stuff there. And we realized there was a part of the place we never even found. It is 5 stories and can get a bit confusing. Theres a small food court on level 4 but the main food court is on level 5. There are games on levels 2 through 5 but when they send you up the first time they dont send you to level 2 they send you to level 3 so we forgot and never got back down to see what was on level 2. But we stayed there from open (11:30 am) until around 3:30 pm. We all had lunch there around 1.
After we left Disney Quest we walked all of Downtown Disney starting at DQ and walking all the way down the west side, through Pleasure Island and ending up at the very end of Marketplace down by the Rainforest Café and back. We sat at a little Wetzels Pretzels and had some tea/lemonade and a few pretzels. Salty for DS, Cheesy for DD and Cinnamon for DH. Stepson and I skipped the Pretzels. I was just thirsty for some sweet iced tea. Thats all I drink and it was hard to find SWEET tea. They did have bottled Nestea (with lemon- yuk) in our food court resort and I found some sweet tea dispensers at a few CS locations in the parks that had tea. It was Gold Peak though and not very good. I was just dying for some of my own homemade sweet tea. I use a combination of Splenda and real sugar that I have acquired a taste for and nothing satisfies me like my own tea.
So we stopped and rested our feet for awhile because it was only 5 pm and we didnt have to be at Cirque Du Soleil until 5:30 for a 6 pm show.
We finally walked down to Cirque and they started letting ppl in to find their seats at 5:20. We had seats in section C row 3, which were 3 rows back from the stage. We were right up front. Which werent the best seats to be in. We spent most of the night LOOKING UP instead of forward. If you go to Cirque La Nouba, make sure you pick category 2 seats and pick a section half way up into the theater. Nothing on the lower levels. They actually charge A LOT of those front and center seats and they are a rip off. Everything happens above your head and you crane your neck to see. The trapeze flyers were almost directly above our head. It was hard to see what they were doing. The show was amazing. The whole family loved it. We just would have been happier with higher seats. Dont let them sell you on the more expensive seats closer to the stage. NOT WORTH IT. Actually in this theater, NO SEAT is a BAD seat but the higher you are in the theater, the better you can see all that happens. Some performers even come out into the audience and do skits or dance around and we had to turn around in our seats to see it.
The show lasted from 6 pm to 7:45 pm and we actually had a 7:45 reservation at Planet Hollywood at 7:45 so we left out of there and BOOGIED IT on down to Planet Hollywood for dinner. We checked in at the outdoor podium and had to just stand there waiting for about 15 minutes before they gave us a piece of paper with something written on it to go upstairs and then we waited a few more minutes because it seems like they werent really expecting a party of 5. So they found us a place to sit and then we walked up and discovered a woman sitting at the edge of our booth because her husband was taking her picture on the Leopard print background of the seats and she needed a few more shots. So we had to kind of scoot her out and away from our booth to even be able to sit down. It was interesting to say the least.
I ordered a salad. My DH ordered some type of grilled chicken breast sandwich I think, and the kids had kids meals chicken tenders with baked potatoes. I used my Disney $15 off voucher so the bill after he took off the voucher was 60 something dollars plus tax and tip it was around 80 I think. We can say we have been there but I doubt I would ever go back again. Just to warn you the little certificate they give you that says you get a FREE Planet Hollywood Souvenir. Its a crappy cheap little key chain that says PH on it. Its somewhere in the bottom of my purse still. It may live there forever now. Their food was decent, just kind of HIGH. We were there from 8 to almost 9, and then went home tired and exhausted from the long day.
Day 4: Sunday 10/30/11
We had breakfast in the resort food court due to us not using our dinner credits from the night before because of going to Planet Hollywood OOP meal. I think a few had the bounty platters with eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuit, French toast sticks and potatoes. A few of them had omelets.
This day was suppose to be our Hollywood Studios day but since I realized it was an EMH day there, and since I saw how busy the EMH made AK when we went there, we decided to change our plans and skip the park with EMH and go to Epcot instead. I really did want to do Epcot kind of early on so it wouldnt seem like such a disappointment to them after a few amusement parks full of rides. It wasnt an EMH day at Epcot so we got there at 9. We stayed from 9 am to 6:45 pm. It was a long day but a very productive day.
We went straight for Soarin and walked right on. Walked all the way through the line, waited like 3 minutes to get in the loading seats, and took off on the ride through California. I have heard a lot of ppl complain on here about the poor quality of the film and how bad it looks, etc, but I have never seen it before it got bad. I have nothing to compare it to and I thought it was just fine. I would have liked to be on the top row of seats so I didnt see the ppls feet dangling in front of me kind of killing the effect of feeling like you are flying through the air. But I still loved it. Riding THAT and Test Track were my only 2 goals for Epcot.
We left Soarin and went right over to Test track. Walked right on. No wait. Kids loved it so when we got off we got a fast pass to come back to Test track. The return time was like 45 min later so we didnt have long to wait. When we did go back and use our fast passes for Test Track we were pulling up to where the cars line up to take off and just sat there. And sat there. And sat there. It ended up being us sitting there stuck on it for almost 15 minutes. I guess another car broke down somewhere and they couldnt let us take off. But next thing you know, off we went. No problems.
We saw the little films in France, China and Canada. The kids didnt like the ones where you have to stand up and lean on the rails. I didnt particularly care for the Canada one just because Martin Short narrating through the whole thing kind of killed it for me. Him trying to be funny ruined the majestic mood I think they were going for with the scenery pictures.
Some observations. Mexicos boat ride sucks but the Norway boat, Maelstrom, is a lot better. Captain EO S-U-C-K-S. That was a waste of 20 minutes of my life I will never get back.
DD got a Henna tattoo in Morocco for $25 and it was suppose to stay for 7 to 9 days. That thing wasnt even dark like it was suppose to be and it washed off after 3 days. That was a big rip off.
We were going to try to stay for the Eat to the Beat concert going on that evening at 5:30 (Sister Hazel) but the crowd/line of ppl waiting to get in at one hour before the show was extreme already so we just kept on walking and said maybe some other time.
We decided we would try Pepper Market at Coronado Springs resort that night because I had heard such great things about the place from reading the message boards. It is more like a sit down place because they have waiters that bring you your drinks, and if you are NOT on the dining plan you have to pay a 10% gratuity. However, if you ARE on the dining plan they do not charge you the gratuity. Its not included though. If you choose not to leave it, the server gets nothing. So of course we left him a $10 tip. I cant imagine how many dining plan ppl walk out and dont leave a dime just because they dont have to. Its sad actually.
As for the food, DD didnt like her food. She got Beef fajitas and she said the meat was so tough she couldnt even tear it with her fingers. So I shared my Pizza with her. DS had the ribs and liked them. DSSS had a steak burrito and he ate it so I assume he liked it and DH had roasted Chicken and he said it was fine. They DO NOT have sweet tea. It is unsweet and you have to sweeten it yourself. You cant really sweeten cold tea but I gave it a go. I would maybe give it another shot and try something different. They had Nachos that I would have liked to try but we never went back there during our stay.
Day 5: Monday 10/31/11 Halloween Day
We knew before we went that the kids were not going to get to trick or treat this year. DTD stopped having the free trick or treating for the kids and we had NO PLANS WHATSOEVER to spend $70 per person to go to MNSSHP so the kids could go to TEN candy stations and get a buck fifty worth of candy. They could care less about characters, dont really like parades so I knew the Scary party was not for us.
We decided to go to Magic Kingdom this day because with it being a party night, I didnt figure ALL THOSE PPL would spend ALL DAY in the park then stay all night for the party. So I figured ppl would avoid the park during the day. I was right. But the main reason ppl were avoiding the park is because it was raining.
Fortunately DH had gotten up and went to Wal-Mart and got us some of those cheap, thin clear little rain ponchos to wear.
We only stayed there from 9 am to noon. It just would not stop raining. But we got in the main rides and even rode BTMRR a few times. Kids rode Space Mountain, we all rode Splash Mountain and skipped most of the other stuff. I didnt even end up getting to try a Dole Whip float. But we WALKED RIGHT ON TO EVERY RIDE as many times as we wanted to.
We left at noon and guess what it did at 1? It stopped raining!! But since we had gone back to the room and was resting/DH napping, we knew going back from 2 pm until the park filled up at 4 pm with all the evenings party goers wasnt really worth it. So we didnt go back. We just lay around the room watching TV and resting.
Later on that night we found and went to a local Chilis. It is my DHs favorite place to eat. However I made the mistake of telling the kids that they could all 3 order whatever they wanted off the adult menu. BIG MISTAKE. My bill ended up being a hundred dollars between the 5 of us. Good food though!! And great service. The Chilis was on Apopka Vineland Road.
Day 6: Tuesday 11/1/11
This day we went to Hollywood Studios. No EMH for this day. We stayed from 9 am to 4:30 pm and it was our most favorite park so far of any of them. Everybody loved it. I think Hollywood Studios is really underrated for how cool it really is.
We were really able to walk right on to everything. Even Tower of Terror and RNR. We really worked the fast pass system that day too because our return times on the fast pass was so soon to come back that we were able to get other fast passes to other rides within 30 or 45 minutes of getting the last set of fast passes. We didnt have to wait on ANYTHING. And the funny thing is, I decided to go ahead and ride Toy Story even though I said I wasnt going to but when we walked by it had only a 1o min stand by time, so we said SURE WHY NOT lets go ride it. Everybody thought it was cute so when we got off we got a fast pass to come back. (That we ended up not using) I brought them home for souvenirs. I was going to find someone to give them to and forgot.
We rode RNR twice; even the super scared DS10 rode it once.
We rode Tower of Terror once, and then the 2 older kids rode it three more times.
We rode Star Tours twice and since I had forgotten to take my Antivert AGAIN it made me queasy so I just removed the 3D glasses and closed my eyes and it was better. The second time we rode it, it had a different story and a bit more intense movement. DH liked that one a lot.
At this point we still had 36 snack credits left. I had been using snack credits for all kinds of things but a few times we used them for drinks and smoothies. I bought up some candy with some of the credits in the resort gift shop to take home. We didnt use as many snack credits in Food & Wine as I thought we would because nobody wanted to try any of the ethnic exotic foods. They are not adventurous eaters.
We ate at Backlot Express and from what I can remember the food was ok. If it were crappy I would have noted it and I didnt so it must have been fine.
We had dinner at the resort AGAIN. I finally stopped eating Pizza and started getting the make your own salad. You get it with Chicken, Salmon or Steak on it. Well, I am a vegetarian but DD loves Salmon so I ordered my custom salad and asked them to leave the Salmon on the side. I ate the salad and gave her the Salmon. I ended up having that same salad almost every night the last 4 nights we were there.
Day 7: Wednesday 11/2/11
This day we went to Universal Studios Island Of Adventure theme park. We parked in a parking garage then had ONE HELLUVA WALK from the parking garage to the entrance to the theme park.
When we got there we didnt do as advised on the DIS boards Universal section and go to straight to WWOHP. We let the kids ride the HULK coaster first since it was right there at the front of the park right next to where you walk in then we went back to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter section.
We passed through Seuss land on the way to WWOHP but we did end up coming back to it later.
In WWOHP we rode Forbidden Journey. (Made me very dizzy and sick to my stomach but the family loved it) We rode the small coaster Hippogriff. Even though it was considered a baby coaster it still went pretty fast. And the 2 older kids rode Dragon Challenge a few times.
We rode 3 different wet rides and got REALLY WET even though we had rain ponchos on.
We saw the Sinbad stunt show. It was okay. It was as good as the Indiana Jones stunt show over at Disney.
The kids rode Spiderman, Dr Dooms Fear Fall and the Hulk AGAIN. Then we revisited WWOHP. We loved the feel of the area and the authentic theming. If you are a Potter fan than it is an awesome part of the theme park. Seeing the Hogwarts Castle in the distance for the first time gave me chills.
We ended up coming upon PATRICK the talking, squirting water fountain right outside the SINBAD theater area. As we walked up he was trying to talk to some shy little kids who werent cooperating so my 3 walked right out in front of the fountain and he immediately started talking to them. He asked them their names. Made fun of them a little, tried to squirt them a few times, played some trivia with them, then REALLY tried to squirt them. They were able to successfully dodge the water pretty well. But it was a very fun little experience. I was quick on my feet and got most of it on videotape.
We were at the park from 9 am to 4:30 pm and it was our favorite park. IOA was favorite then Hollywood Studios was second favorite.
For lunch we ate at two different places. DH and DSS ate at the indoor big food court because DH wanted a grilled Chicken sandwich but the kids and I ate at an outdoor food court with picnic benches because we wanted Pizza and the big food court didnt have it. Dh met back up with us at the place we were eating when he and DSS got through eating. The food was decent.
For dinner we had food at the resort food court again. We had originally had a ressie for dinner this night at Rainforest Café but I canceled it and we just used a dining credit for dinner at the resort and saved the $199 OOP expense of the TS dinner at DTD.
Day 8: Thursday 11/3/11
This day we got up and went to Typhoon Lagoon. Even though we had to scrub our plans to go to Blizzard Beach I really wanted to get to go to Typhoon Lagoon to get to swim with the sharks and see the 6-foot waves in the wave pool. Everybody was looking forward to going to TL. The park didnt open until 10 but we waited until around 11:30 to go, closer to lunch time so that it would be warmer and sunnier to go. To make it more comfortable. And it ended up staying pretty overcast most of the day and it was a bit on the chilly side but not too uncomfortable. Except for when we got in the shark tank (that they DO NOT HEAT like the rest of the water) it was like stepping into a bucket of freezing cold ice water. It was a miserable swim trying to get from one side of that shark tank to the other. But I saw a Sting Ray and a Hammerhead shark and one other kind of shark swimming under me. It was neat.
We rode a few rides/slides and really enjoyed the wave pool. We stayed in there for at least 30 minutes jumping the big waves and watching others trying to surf the big waves. The kids really liked Crush N Gusher the water coaster. I didnt ride that one because it just seemed really high up there and I didnt want to climb a million stairs. I was feeling really tired. So I sat on a picnic bench at the bottom and waited for them all to ride it.
After the water park we went back to the resort and had dinner in the food court.
We really have realized just how much food you get on the QSDP and how 2 snacks a day really is a lot of snacks when you are also eating 3 meals a day and we are LOOKING for things to use our snacks up on. I can see why they are taking it down to 1 snack a day on the QSDP for 2012. You really wont be missing out on anything except maybe all the snacks you forced yourself to buy before you left to take home with you. I cant imagine anybody actually using up all the meal credits and all the snack credits on EATING while you are there. You have to have a really HUGE appetite to eat that much food.
Day 9: Friday 11/4/11
This day we went to Universal Studios. Not IOA but just Universal. To be honest, my family and I all thought this park SUCKS compared to IOA. It was just boring, small and not much to do compared to IOA or even Hollywood Studios. Maybe if we had done Universal FIRST then done IOA it wouldnt have seemed so bad.
The Horror Make up Show and the Beetlejuice Rock N Roll show were both great. Loved them. The Terminator show was really on the cheesy side and sprays way too much water mist on you for no good reason. The 2 older kids loved Rip, Ride Rock It and rode it numerous times. They found out just how fast you can get through it and back on it if you use the single rider line.
Day 10: 11/5/11 Departure Day
Orlando airport was a madhouse and it took almost an hour to get all the way through security.
We paid for Early Bird check in for our flight TO Orlando and our flight home and it really is worth the extra $10. We got A boarding assignments both directions and was A less than 20 on both flights. It is nice to get to board the plane first and pick your seats and not have to just take what is left over. There is no reason NOT TO pay the extra $10.
On a side note. We only ever used our mugs once or twice. Since you get a drink with every meal we never really had a need to go fill up our refillable mugs because we had drinks in the room we bought at Wal-Mart. I can see ppl using them a lot more if you didnt have a way to go to the grocery store and you didnt have drinks in your room. But we kept them for the kids to have as a souvenir of the trip.
When we got back home to your home airport we were able to pay using a debit card and it cost me $113 to get our truck out of that lot after being parked there for 10 days.
Over all we had a wonderful trip. It was a once in a lifetime trip. It cost us well over 7 thousand dollars so I dont see us doing it again. DH and I may go back in a few years and do Busch Gardens, Sea World and IOA for a long weekend, but not a 10-day whole family trip again. I love Disney but I cant see going every year. I love Disney as much as most ppl do but I think you can get too much of a good thing if you go to the same place every year. I dont want to go ANYWHERE every year.
Thanks for spending the time to read my little trip report.
First let me say that we were there from Thursday 10/27 to Saturday 11/5 and it was 5 of us. DH, myself, stepson (12), daughter (11), and son (10). None of us have ever been to Disney before, or Orlando for that matter.
We started planning this trip back in January (started saving for it actually) and I booked it in April I think, maybe May. It was paid off by August but we ended up adding a day to it after it was paid off.
We stayed at the All Star Music Family Suite (no complaints about the resort).
On this trip the 3 children and myself FLEW to Disney while my husband DROVE to Disney. He works in another state than the state we live in and he wasnt getting off work until 8 am on the morning we were leaving, so he left work (in Louisiana) and drove straight to Orlando. Mainly because I didnt want to be in a car for 12 hours driving to Disney and he didnt want to be in a car WITH KIDS for 12 hours. He likes to be alone when he drives and he likes quiet.
We had the free Quick Service dining plan, which we loved, but it was SO MUCH FOOD. We had 2 sit down dinners. One at Planet Hollywood, which was ok but way overpriced and one at a local Chilis. I had a reservation for Rainforest Café at DTD and one at T-Rex that we didnt keep. (I called and canceled them) Looking at the menu there were just not really good choices on the kids menu and to feed all 5 of us from the adult menu with tax and tip would have been well over a hundred dollars and that was too much, IMO. (Although that is what I ended up spending at Chilis, but oh well)
Ok, let me tell you about our trip.
DAY 1: Thursday 10/27/11
Took the kids to McDonalds and filled them up with cheap breakfast sandwiches because I knew we would be on the plane the next time they were suppose to eat and airlines dont serve food anymore.
We headed for the airport (an hour away) and got there to find that the long-term parking lot ($9 a day) took ONLY credit cards, no debit cards. All I have is a debit card. So I had to keep on going closer to the main terminal in the long term surface lot ($12 a day) and it let me in just by taking a ticket from the machine. No signs about credit cards only, so we went in and parked, hoping we would be able to get out of there 10 days later with me debit card.
The kids have all 3 never flown before so they were all nervous and scared to fly. My DS10 was REALLY SCARED and convinced we were all going to die once we got on the plane. But I gave us all a motion sickness pill (Meclizine) and we boarded the plane. Take off was what I thought would scare them the most but it actually didnt and the flight went fine. Landing didnt scare them but it did make me queasy. (It always does)
Orlando (MCO) International airport is HUMONGOUS. It reminds me of the DFW airport in Texas where I was raised. That airport was giant and so was MCO. It was crawling with ppl. The kids were a little disoriented by it. I had to stop and ask directions on how to get to the Magic Express area of the airport. I knew it was on B-side terminal level 1, but had no idea how to get to B terminal, level 1. Turns out we needed to walk a long walk down the terminal, take a tram over to the other terminal, go downstairs and walk across what seemed like 2 miles of the other terminal. WALKED FOREVER to get to the ME bus counter from the Southwest gate.
The Magic Express bus was fun and relatively quick. We enjoyed the little film they played. It was a good distraction to keep you from being bored for the 30-minute ride to the resort.
Turns out, DH had gotten off work at around 4 am instead of 8 am and he got to the resort before we ever left the airport in our home state and the room wasnt ready so he explored around a little and went to Downtown Disney for a while, while he waited on the room to be ready.
By the time we landed in Orlando they had the room ready and he went to the room and took a little nap waiting for us to arrive. We got to the resort and was dropped off at around 3 pm. We had nothing scheduled for our arrival day except going to Wal-Mart for breakfast items, drinks and snacks.
So we arrived, went to Wal-Mart and got the food and drinks and spent around $150 total for everything including socks for 2 of the kids.
We had dinner at the resort food court using our FREE dining plan credits and realized that they serve you large portions and that we wouldnt be able to eat dessert every meal. I think that first night we got our receipt stamped to come back for Ice Cream after dinner. One of the kids got a shake and the rest of s had Ice Cream sundaes.
The room was large compared to regular hotel rooms. It was clean. But the fridge wasnt cooling. We had purchased Milk so I was concerned about the fridge and called Maintenance to come switch them out. Turns out we had a large MINI fridge. That the fridge that is usually in the family suite is one of those small dorm fridges and we had the bigger mini fridge like what you would find in an office or a camper. The guy who came said they only had a very small one to replace it with and we ended up having to plug it in in our bedroom. Then about 30 minutes later 2 other guys came to the door and said they had a replacement for the BIGGER fridge and brought in a bigger mini fridge, replaced the fridge that wasnt working and stuck the tiny little fridge behind our bedroom door in the bedroom portion of the room.
I have to say about the family suite. They give you PLENTY of towels and plenty of pillows. You have 2 bathrooms and they put 4 bath towels in EACH bathroom. They give you one two pillows for the Queen bed in the bedroom but there are 2 extra pillows above the bathroom closet rack in one bathroom and two other pillows in the other bathroom closet. The double sleeper and the chair sleeper came with two pillows under them already. Each sleeper already came with sheets on it and a blanket on it. All you had to do was fold them out, pull out the pillows and there you go.
Housekeeping at first was just making up the sleepers and not folding them back up then for some reason half way through our trip they started making them up AND folding them back up every day. I preferred they leave them open to keep us from having to do it every night but I wasnt going to write them a note and ask them not to fold them up. Whatever. That was fine.
I did tip mouse keeping. I tipped $5 a day for the first 5 days then switched to $6 a day for the last 4 days. I forgot to leave some money the morning we left.
DAY 2: Friday 10/28/11
We had breakfast in the food court on Friday because we had not used the previous days lunch credits since we didnt arrive in time to eat lunch. We all had a variety of the breakfast offerings during the trip from the Bounty platter to Omelets to Pancakes. Not any Waffles. I had French toast twice. It was good.
This was the day we were suppose to go to Blizzard Beach water park but it was drizzling rain and only in the high 60s, so we scrubbed the plans for the water park. (I had scheduled Blizzard Beach first because it was closing for refurb in just a day or two from when we arrived) But alas, Blizzard Beach was not going to happen. So we went to Animal Kingdom instead. We had not planned on going to Animal Kingdom at all. All of our days were scheduled for other things, other parks, but when our water park day fell through we went to AK (in the rain).
Unfortunately it was an EMH day at AK and the park was kind of full. We did not get there at 8 though. We didnt get there until 9 and the park was already at full swing.
The kids loved the rides. The Safari was good, the two oldest loved Expedition Everest and also Kali River Rapids. I didnt go on Kali. We didnt have any rain ponchos that day (DH got them on another day that it rained) and I didnt want to get more wet. It was kind of chilly with the rain and a bit uncomfortable.
Now I know CHILLY is relative to where you are from and what you are use to but I was raised in Texas where it stays really hot most of the year and now live in Mississippi where it stays hot and humid. So anything below 60 to me is chilly. 50 and under is COLD and I need a COAT!
We had dinner in the food court again and the kids found out about the outdoor movie at the pool every night at 8 pm, so since it had stopped raining, they went out to watch the movie and discovered a ping-pong table right by the pool. We let them stay out there (without us) and watch the movie.
Day 3: Saturday 10/29/11
We had breakfast in the room. We had cereal bars, granola bars, donut sticks, and cereal. I had packed bowls and spoons in the luggage Dh had in the back of our car so we had real bowls and real spoons for cereal. We had bought milk at Wal-Mart, so everybody but me had cereal.
We woke up to someone elses boarding passes hanging on our door. The writing on the envelope was so fat and curvy it had room 1416 written on it but we were in room 1414 and it looked like the envelope said 1414. We just took it outside and hung it on the next room over 1416 next door to us.
We went and added another day to our ticket because when we went to Animal Kingdom instead of the water park, we used one of our days that we had planned for another park. We had 4-day MYW tickets to begin with and had to add the day to make it a 5. It only cost us $8 per person to add a day to our tickets.
This day we went to Disney Quest in DTD and the kids had a very good time here. My DH actually played a lot of games here as well. I played a little old school Pac Man and some Frogger but the kids were more into the racing games, Need For Speed, and Nascar racing, Jet fighter simulator, Air Hockey. They have a lot of neat stuff there. And we realized there was a part of the place we never even found. It is 5 stories and can get a bit confusing. Theres a small food court on level 4 but the main food court is on level 5. There are games on levels 2 through 5 but when they send you up the first time they dont send you to level 2 they send you to level 3 so we forgot and never got back down to see what was on level 2. But we stayed there from open (11:30 am) until around 3:30 pm. We all had lunch there around 1.
After we left Disney Quest we walked all of Downtown Disney starting at DQ and walking all the way down the west side, through Pleasure Island and ending up at the very end of Marketplace down by the Rainforest Café and back. We sat at a little Wetzels Pretzels and had some tea/lemonade and a few pretzels. Salty for DS, Cheesy for DD and Cinnamon for DH. Stepson and I skipped the Pretzels. I was just thirsty for some sweet iced tea. Thats all I drink and it was hard to find SWEET tea. They did have bottled Nestea (with lemon- yuk) in our food court resort and I found some sweet tea dispensers at a few CS locations in the parks that had tea. It was Gold Peak though and not very good. I was just dying for some of my own homemade sweet tea. I use a combination of Splenda and real sugar that I have acquired a taste for and nothing satisfies me like my own tea.
So we stopped and rested our feet for awhile because it was only 5 pm and we didnt have to be at Cirque Du Soleil until 5:30 for a 6 pm show.
We finally walked down to Cirque and they started letting ppl in to find their seats at 5:20. We had seats in section C row 3, which were 3 rows back from the stage. We were right up front. Which werent the best seats to be in. We spent most of the night LOOKING UP instead of forward. If you go to Cirque La Nouba, make sure you pick category 2 seats and pick a section half way up into the theater. Nothing on the lower levels. They actually charge A LOT of those front and center seats and they are a rip off. Everything happens above your head and you crane your neck to see. The trapeze flyers were almost directly above our head. It was hard to see what they were doing. The show was amazing. The whole family loved it. We just would have been happier with higher seats. Dont let them sell you on the more expensive seats closer to the stage. NOT WORTH IT. Actually in this theater, NO SEAT is a BAD seat but the higher you are in the theater, the better you can see all that happens. Some performers even come out into the audience and do skits or dance around and we had to turn around in our seats to see it.
The show lasted from 6 pm to 7:45 pm and we actually had a 7:45 reservation at Planet Hollywood at 7:45 so we left out of there and BOOGIED IT on down to Planet Hollywood for dinner. We checked in at the outdoor podium and had to just stand there waiting for about 15 minutes before they gave us a piece of paper with something written on it to go upstairs and then we waited a few more minutes because it seems like they werent really expecting a party of 5. So they found us a place to sit and then we walked up and discovered a woman sitting at the edge of our booth because her husband was taking her picture on the Leopard print background of the seats and she needed a few more shots. So we had to kind of scoot her out and away from our booth to even be able to sit down. It was interesting to say the least.
I ordered a salad. My DH ordered some type of grilled chicken breast sandwich I think, and the kids had kids meals chicken tenders with baked potatoes. I used my Disney $15 off voucher so the bill after he took off the voucher was 60 something dollars plus tax and tip it was around 80 I think. We can say we have been there but I doubt I would ever go back again. Just to warn you the little certificate they give you that says you get a FREE Planet Hollywood Souvenir. Its a crappy cheap little key chain that says PH on it. Its somewhere in the bottom of my purse still. It may live there forever now. Their food was decent, just kind of HIGH. We were there from 8 to almost 9, and then went home tired and exhausted from the long day.
Day 4: Sunday 10/30/11
We had breakfast in the resort food court due to us not using our dinner credits from the night before because of going to Planet Hollywood OOP meal. I think a few had the bounty platters with eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuit, French toast sticks and potatoes. A few of them had omelets.
This day was suppose to be our Hollywood Studios day but since I realized it was an EMH day there, and since I saw how busy the EMH made AK when we went there, we decided to change our plans and skip the park with EMH and go to Epcot instead. I really did want to do Epcot kind of early on so it wouldnt seem like such a disappointment to them after a few amusement parks full of rides. It wasnt an EMH day at Epcot so we got there at 9. We stayed from 9 am to 6:45 pm. It was a long day but a very productive day.
We went straight for Soarin and walked right on. Walked all the way through the line, waited like 3 minutes to get in the loading seats, and took off on the ride through California. I have heard a lot of ppl complain on here about the poor quality of the film and how bad it looks, etc, but I have never seen it before it got bad. I have nothing to compare it to and I thought it was just fine. I would have liked to be on the top row of seats so I didnt see the ppls feet dangling in front of me kind of killing the effect of feeling like you are flying through the air. But I still loved it. Riding THAT and Test Track were my only 2 goals for Epcot.
We left Soarin and went right over to Test track. Walked right on. No wait. Kids loved it so when we got off we got a fast pass to come back to Test track. The return time was like 45 min later so we didnt have long to wait. When we did go back and use our fast passes for Test Track we were pulling up to where the cars line up to take off and just sat there. And sat there. And sat there. It ended up being us sitting there stuck on it for almost 15 minutes. I guess another car broke down somewhere and they couldnt let us take off. But next thing you know, off we went. No problems.
We saw the little films in France, China and Canada. The kids didnt like the ones where you have to stand up and lean on the rails. I didnt particularly care for the Canada one just because Martin Short narrating through the whole thing kind of killed it for me. Him trying to be funny ruined the majestic mood I think they were going for with the scenery pictures.
Some observations. Mexicos boat ride sucks but the Norway boat, Maelstrom, is a lot better. Captain EO S-U-C-K-S. That was a waste of 20 minutes of my life I will never get back.
DD got a Henna tattoo in Morocco for $25 and it was suppose to stay for 7 to 9 days. That thing wasnt even dark like it was suppose to be and it washed off after 3 days. That was a big rip off.
We were going to try to stay for the Eat to the Beat concert going on that evening at 5:30 (Sister Hazel) but the crowd/line of ppl waiting to get in at one hour before the show was extreme already so we just kept on walking and said maybe some other time.
We decided we would try Pepper Market at Coronado Springs resort that night because I had heard such great things about the place from reading the message boards. It is more like a sit down place because they have waiters that bring you your drinks, and if you are NOT on the dining plan you have to pay a 10% gratuity. However, if you ARE on the dining plan they do not charge you the gratuity. Its not included though. If you choose not to leave it, the server gets nothing. So of course we left him a $10 tip. I cant imagine how many dining plan ppl walk out and dont leave a dime just because they dont have to. Its sad actually.
As for the food, DD didnt like her food. She got Beef fajitas and she said the meat was so tough she couldnt even tear it with her fingers. So I shared my Pizza with her. DS had the ribs and liked them. DSSS had a steak burrito and he ate it so I assume he liked it and DH had roasted Chicken and he said it was fine. They DO NOT have sweet tea. It is unsweet and you have to sweeten it yourself. You cant really sweeten cold tea but I gave it a go. I would maybe give it another shot and try something different. They had Nachos that I would have liked to try but we never went back there during our stay.
Day 5: Monday 10/31/11 Halloween Day
We knew before we went that the kids were not going to get to trick or treat this year. DTD stopped having the free trick or treating for the kids and we had NO PLANS WHATSOEVER to spend $70 per person to go to MNSSHP so the kids could go to TEN candy stations and get a buck fifty worth of candy. They could care less about characters, dont really like parades so I knew the Scary party was not for us.
We decided to go to Magic Kingdom this day because with it being a party night, I didnt figure ALL THOSE PPL would spend ALL DAY in the park then stay all night for the party. So I figured ppl would avoid the park during the day. I was right. But the main reason ppl were avoiding the park is because it was raining.
Fortunately DH had gotten up and went to Wal-Mart and got us some of those cheap, thin clear little rain ponchos to wear.
We only stayed there from 9 am to noon. It just would not stop raining. But we got in the main rides and even rode BTMRR a few times. Kids rode Space Mountain, we all rode Splash Mountain and skipped most of the other stuff. I didnt even end up getting to try a Dole Whip float. But we WALKED RIGHT ON TO EVERY RIDE as many times as we wanted to.
We left at noon and guess what it did at 1? It stopped raining!! But since we had gone back to the room and was resting/DH napping, we knew going back from 2 pm until the park filled up at 4 pm with all the evenings party goers wasnt really worth it. So we didnt go back. We just lay around the room watching TV and resting.
Later on that night we found and went to a local Chilis. It is my DHs favorite place to eat. However I made the mistake of telling the kids that they could all 3 order whatever they wanted off the adult menu. BIG MISTAKE. My bill ended up being a hundred dollars between the 5 of us. Good food though!! And great service. The Chilis was on Apopka Vineland Road.
Day 6: Tuesday 11/1/11
This day we went to Hollywood Studios. No EMH for this day. We stayed from 9 am to 4:30 pm and it was our most favorite park so far of any of them. Everybody loved it. I think Hollywood Studios is really underrated for how cool it really is.
We were really able to walk right on to everything. Even Tower of Terror and RNR. We really worked the fast pass system that day too because our return times on the fast pass was so soon to come back that we were able to get other fast passes to other rides within 30 or 45 minutes of getting the last set of fast passes. We didnt have to wait on ANYTHING. And the funny thing is, I decided to go ahead and ride Toy Story even though I said I wasnt going to but when we walked by it had only a 1o min stand by time, so we said SURE WHY NOT lets go ride it. Everybody thought it was cute so when we got off we got a fast pass to come back. (That we ended up not using) I brought them home for souvenirs. I was going to find someone to give them to and forgot.
We rode RNR twice; even the super scared DS10 rode it once.
We rode Tower of Terror once, and then the 2 older kids rode it three more times.
We rode Star Tours twice and since I had forgotten to take my Antivert AGAIN it made me queasy so I just removed the 3D glasses and closed my eyes and it was better. The second time we rode it, it had a different story and a bit more intense movement. DH liked that one a lot.
At this point we still had 36 snack credits left. I had been using snack credits for all kinds of things but a few times we used them for drinks and smoothies. I bought up some candy with some of the credits in the resort gift shop to take home. We didnt use as many snack credits in Food & Wine as I thought we would because nobody wanted to try any of the ethnic exotic foods. They are not adventurous eaters.
We ate at Backlot Express and from what I can remember the food was ok. If it were crappy I would have noted it and I didnt so it must have been fine.
We had dinner at the resort AGAIN. I finally stopped eating Pizza and started getting the make your own salad. You get it with Chicken, Salmon or Steak on it. Well, I am a vegetarian but DD loves Salmon so I ordered my custom salad and asked them to leave the Salmon on the side. I ate the salad and gave her the Salmon. I ended up having that same salad almost every night the last 4 nights we were there.
Day 7: Wednesday 11/2/11
This day we went to Universal Studios Island Of Adventure theme park. We parked in a parking garage then had ONE HELLUVA WALK from the parking garage to the entrance to the theme park.
When we got there we didnt do as advised on the DIS boards Universal section and go to straight to WWOHP. We let the kids ride the HULK coaster first since it was right there at the front of the park right next to where you walk in then we went back to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter section.
We passed through Seuss land on the way to WWOHP but we did end up coming back to it later.
In WWOHP we rode Forbidden Journey. (Made me very dizzy and sick to my stomach but the family loved it) We rode the small coaster Hippogriff. Even though it was considered a baby coaster it still went pretty fast. And the 2 older kids rode Dragon Challenge a few times.
We rode 3 different wet rides and got REALLY WET even though we had rain ponchos on.
We saw the Sinbad stunt show. It was okay. It was as good as the Indiana Jones stunt show over at Disney.
The kids rode Spiderman, Dr Dooms Fear Fall and the Hulk AGAIN. Then we revisited WWOHP. We loved the feel of the area and the authentic theming. If you are a Potter fan than it is an awesome part of the theme park. Seeing the Hogwarts Castle in the distance for the first time gave me chills.
We ended up coming upon PATRICK the talking, squirting water fountain right outside the SINBAD theater area. As we walked up he was trying to talk to some shy little kids who werent cooperating so my 3 walked right out in front of the fountain and he immediately started talking to them. He asked them their names. Made fun of them a little, tried to squirt them a few times, played some trivia with them, then REALLY tried to squirt them. They were able to successfully dodge the water pretty well. But it was a very fun little experience. I was quick on my feet and got most of it on videotape.
We were at the park from 9 am to 4:30 pm and it was our favorite park. IOA was favorite then Hollywood Studios was second favorite.
For lunch we ate at two different places. DH and DSS ate at the indoor big food court because DH wanted a grilled Chicken sandwich but the kids and I ate at an outdoor food court with picnic benches because we wanted Pizza and the big food court didnt have it. Dh met back up with us at the place we were eating when he and DSS got through eating. The food was decent.
For dinner we had food at the resort food court again. We had originally had a ressie for dinner this night at Rainforest Café but I canceled it and we just used a dining credit for dinner at the resort and saved the $199 OOP expense of the TS dinner at DTD.
Day 8: Thursday 11/3/11
This day we got up and went to Typhoon Lagoon. Even though we had to scrub our plans to go to Blizzard Beach I really wanted to get to go to Typhoon Lagoon to get to swim with the sharks and see the 6-foot waves in the wave pool. Everybody was looking forward to going to TL. The park didnt open until 10 but we waited until around 11:30 to go, closer to lunch time so that it would be warmer and sunnier to go. To make it more comfortable. And it ended up staying pretty overcast most of the day and it was a bit on the chilly side but not too uncomfortable. Except for when we got in the shark tank (that they DO NOT HEAT like the rest of the water) it was like stepping into a bucket of freezing cold ice water. It was a miserable swim trying to get from one side of that shark tank to the other. But I saw a Sting Ray and a Hammerhead shark and one other kind of shark swimming under me. It was neat.
We rode a few rides/slides and really enjoyed the wave pool. We stayed in there for at least 30 minutes jumping the big waves and watching others trying to surf the big waves. The kids really liked Crush N Gusher the water coaster. I didnt ride that one because it just seemed really high up there and I didnt want to climb a million stairs. I was feeling really tired. So I sat on a picnic bench at the bottom and waited for them all to ride it.
After the water park we went back to the resort and had dinner in the food court.
We really have realized just how much food you get on the QSDP and how 2 snacks a day really is a lot of snacks when you are also eating 3 meals a day and we are LOOKING for things to use our snacks up on. I can see why they are taking it down to 1 snack a day on the QSDP for 2012. You really wont be missing out on anything except maybe all the snacks you forced yourself to buy before you left to take home with you. I cant imagine anybody actually using up all the meal credits and all the snack credits on EATING while you are there. You have to have a really HUGE appetite to eat that much food.
Day 9: Friday 11/4/11
This day we went to Universal Studios. Not IOA but just Universal. To be honest, my family and I all thought this park SUCKS compared to IOA. It was just boring, small and not much to do compared to IOA or even Hollywood Studios. Maybe if we had done Universal FIRST then done IOA it wouldnt have seemed so bad.
The Horror Make up Show and the Beetlejuice Rock N Roll show were both great. Loved them. The Terminator show was really on the cheesy side and sprays way too much water mist on you for no good reason. The 2 older kids loved Rip, Ride Rock It and rode it numerous times. They found out just how fast you can get through it and back on it if you use the single rider line.
Day 10: 11/5/11 Departure Day
Orlando airport was a madhouse and it took almost an hour to get all the way through security.
We paid for Early Bird check in for our flight TO Orlando and our flight home and it really is worth the extra $10. We got A boarding assignments both directions and was A less than 20 on both flights. It is nice to get to board the plane first and pick your seats and not have to just take what is left over. There is no reason NOT TO pay the extra $10.
On a side note. We only ever used our mugs once or twice. Since you get a drink with every meal we never really had a need to go fill up our refillable mugs because we had drinks in the room we bought at Wal-Mart. I can see ppl using them a lot more if you didnt have a way to go to the grocery store and you didnt have drinks in your room. But we kept them for the kids to have as a souvenir of the trip.
When we got back home to your home airport we were able to pay using a debit card and it cost me $113 to get our truck out of that lot after being parked there for 10 days.
Over all we had a wonderful trip. It was a once in a lifetime trip. It cost us well over 7 thousand dollars so I dont see us doing it again. DH and I may go back in a few years and do Busch Gardens, Sea World and IOA for a long weekend, but not a 10-day whole family trip again. I love Disney but I cant see going every year. I love Disney as much as most ppl do but I think you can get too much of a good thing if you go to the same place every year. I dont want to go ANYWHERE every year.
Thanks for spending the time to read my little trip report.
