Home from a great trip, rants, raves, and reviews

[Meghan NJ]

We got home last night from our five night trip to Disney. We saw lots of stuff, not every thing, but got the important things in.

We were able to get a early flight out of Philly. We landed at 9:00 and every thing went very well. So well that we checked in to the CBR dropped off our stuff (our room was ready) and were at the MK by lunch!! My daughter was thrilled to see Cinderella's Castle! Every one was hungry so we hit the Columbia Harbor House for lunch, the tuna was very good. We didn't want an greasy stuff. Our first mistake was not following the stroller parking (we didn't know), and spent 20 minutes looking for our stroller. Lesson learned. We got a few rides in with the kids, they loved it! We had 5:00 reservations at Ohana so it was off to the Poly.

The kids thought the monorail was very cool. It took a while to check in to Ohana, they didn't have any one at the front desk, too early I guess. But this should have been my first clue. I know there are mixed reviews about Ohana but I decided to pay attention to the good ones, big mistake. What a disappointment!! I didn't request to be in the main room, I didn't know. So we were stuck in the back with just a view of some bushes. It wasn't until I went with my son to play some games did I know what I was missing. They couldn't have brought the food out fast enough, we barely got a bite in our mouth when the next course was out. The salad was very good, I liked the noodles and the dumplings, but I could have gotten the same by going to Trader Joe's. The meat was very dry and the shrimp was just gross. The kids didn't care they had fun. But it was a waste of a DDP meal. The upside is that this was the only bad experience we had with meals at Disney.

More to come...

 

[Meghan NJ]

We got the kids up early for EMH at HS. The kids loved it there, they closed at 7:00 so we didn't get every thing in, but we loved it. TT was my fav, my son was not a big fan. We had an ADR for Sci Fi, but I had second thoughts. It is a neat place but I wanted a family meal, we opted for Hollywood and Vine at the last minute. We had a blast, the food was pretty good, and the characters were great!! For dinner we did Downtown and eat at WPE, very good!

The next morning we were up bright and early for our our ADR at the Aukerhus, we loved it!! My son was "shy" around the princesses, but DD loved it! The interacation was great!! The food was just ok. I didn't like the potatos, they had a fake chemical taste to them. Epoct was nice, it was the one park that we were able to spend most of the day indoors which was nice.

Over the next few days we did MK and AK, loved both of them. We did Small World four times over our trip! The kids loved! We did all the typical Disney stuff. Ate at Chef Mickeys, Boma, and Tokyo Dining, loved all of it. Boma was my fav!

The highlight of our trip ended up being the last day! We had a late flight out of Orlando so we spent our last day. I was about to take the kids on the teacups when we spotted Alice getting on the ride with another child. We got in line to meet Alice. My daughter has a large mural panited in her room of Alice in Wonderland, DD shared this with Alice. Alice invited her to come back in a bit to ride the teacups with her. It was so cool, both of my kids got to ride the teacups with Alice. I'll post pictures soon. Later that day they were doing the Sword in the Stone thing, my son went over to try. It was so hot all of the kids were burning themselves on the metal. So the CM looked for an adult to try, and my husband got pulled up there. It was so funny!! He was the prince for the day! We got a fastpass to go on any ride. We were wrapping up our day, and my DS wanted one more ride on Peter Pan which we didn't have time for . So our very last ride at Disney was Peter Pan.

We had an amazing trip. But I do need to vent about a few things. What is up with people on the scooters? I was amazed how they felt that they have the parks to themselves, god for big some one got in their way. All of us have to deal with people getting infront of us, it is part of the deal, and some times the only way you can get some place. It happens. Also, what makes people think it is ok to smoke in a large crowd. Give me a break, it is 95 degrees out, and the place is full of kids. Get your fix some place else.

We stayed at the CBR and had the worst luck with buses. They clearly were running them, if we were going to the MK we saw three Epcot buses, and vice versa. We didn't wait more than 20 min which is what Disney says, we just had rotten luck. I do think that at night they should have run more buses, we had a pretty long wait leaving the parks quite a few times. Once night my DS was crying he was so tired, he kept on saying "all I want to do is sit down", and I was holding my DD (age 2). Not one person gave up their seat, so rude! I was shocked.

We had one unfortunate incident. We finally got to the pool at the CBR and with in about 20 min every one was pulled out because of an "unscheduled cleaning", yuck, but it happens. We took the kids over to the smaller pool to play. My DD was comming down the slide and some how hit her head (my husband turned around to check on my son and didn't see). With in seconds the lump was huge and bleeding. I got a lifeguard, and they called a paramedic right away. They were so nice, the swelling went down quickly. They checked her out, and she was just fine. The paramedics were great! My DS got freaked out by the whole thing. There was a family at the pool who we were chatting with on the bus that am, they were so nice, gave up their seat for the kids that am. When they saw my DD crying and the lump on her head they came right over. I asked them if they could just take my DS swimming since he was getting nervous. They happily played with him while we talked to the paramedics and took care of my DD.

All in all it was a great trip. Lots of rides, and characters so DD and DS were happy with their first trip. We can't wait to go back. Will post pictures soon!