camdensmom
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2006
Hi Everyone,
We flew from Boston to Orlando for a long weekend stay in early December and stayed at the POLY. Typically we take the first flight of the day down, but this trip we changed it up a bit and I wanted to share our experience because I would highly recommend it to others.
Since this was a super-quick trip I didn't want to factor in a "travel day." My family consists of myself, DH, DS7 and our twin DDs3. An early flight would have meant getting up at 4:30 to get to the airport and I knew the day would be wasted so we decided to work on Friday and fly out in the late afternoon (I'm a teacher and Hubby left a few hours early).
Our flight was scheduled to land at 7:10 p.m. which would have meant that after the whole Magic Express and hotel check-in procedure, getting settled, etc it would be way past their normal bedtimes by the time they got to sleep and would effect the next day.
SO....
What we did was flew down and stayed at the Hyatt that is built into the airport. The rate was over $300.00 cheaper than the POLY would have been. We were in our room less that 15 minutes after walking off the plane and the kids were asleep by 8:00. We went to sleep soon after which was an awesome way to end a workweek and transition into vacation mode.
The next morning we woke at 6:00, headed downstairs, grabbed a Starucks coffee and bananas for the kids and went straight to Magic Express. There was NOBODY there except staff. Literally not another person.
I am so use to long lines, waits, crowded buses and multiple hotel stops.
Instead we walked straight onto the waiting bus and our driver immediately drove our family of 5 to the POLY. He said mornings are typically like that and he usually serves as a private chauffeur until around 8 or 9.
We checked in, dropped off our bags and had breakfast at the hotel. We were at the park for rope drop at 9.
I will purposely plan travel like this on future trips. Normally we lose an entire 1/2 a day traveling, dealing with lines at Magic Express and check-in and then waiting around for our room because it's typically too late to go to a park. Plus the fact that we saved so much on the hotel for the 1st night was great. The airport Hyatt was very nice and the staff was friendly. They have a nice rooftop pool and there are tons of shops and restaurants.
Anyway I just wanted to share because I don't know if I would have thought to do this or even elected to do it if we were on a longer trip, but it was a great way to save some $, save some time and start our trip refreshed and ready to take on Disney.
We flew from Boston to Orlando for a long weekend stay in early December and stayed at the POLY. Typically we take the first flight of the day down, but this trip we changed it up a bit and I wanted to share our experience because I would highly recommend it to others.
Since this was a super-quick trip I didn't want to factor in a "travel day." My family consists of myself, DH, DS7 and our twin DDs3. An early flight would have meant getting up at 4:30 to get to the airport and I knew the day would be wasted so we decided to work on Friday and fly out in the late afternoon (I'm a teacher and Hubby left a few hours early).
Our flight was scheduled to land at 7:10 p.m. which would have meant that after the whole Magic Express and hotel check-in procedure, getting settled, etc it would be way past their normal bedtimes by the time they got to sleep and would effect the next day.
SO....
What we did was flew down and stayed at the Hyatt that is built into the airport. The rate was over $300.00 cheaper than the POLY would have been. We were in our room less that 15 minutes after walking off the plane and the kids were asleep by 8:00. We went to sleep soon after which was an awesome way to end a workweek and transition into vacation mode.
The next morning we woke at 6:00, headed downstairs, grabbed a Starucks coffee and bananas for the kids and went straight to Magic Express. There was NOBODY there except staff. Literally not another person.
I am so use to long lines, waits, crowded buses and multiple hotel stops.
Instead we walked straight onto the waiting bus and our driver immediately drove our family of 5 to the POLY. He said mornings are typically like that and he usually serves as a private chauffeur until around 8 or 9.
We checked in, dropped off our bags and had breakfast at the hotel. We were at the park for rope drop at 9.
I will purposely plan travel like this on future trips. Normally we lose an entire 1/2 a day traveling, dealing with lines at Magic Express and check-in and then waiting around for our room because it's typically too late to go to a park. Plus the fact that we saved so much on the hotel for the 1st night was great. The airport Hyatt was very nice and the staff was friendly. They have a nice rooftop pool and there are tons of shops and restaurants.
Anyway I just wanted to share because I don't know if I would have thought to do this or even elected to do it if we were on a longer trip, but it was a great way to save some $, save some time and start our trip refreshed and ready to take on Disney.