disneysailor
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2004
- Messages
- 309
We just returned from a magnificent trip to the HRH, IOA/US, Disney Wonder Cruise and a day at Downtown Disney including Disney Quest. Our group consisted of myself-38, DH-38, DS-13 and DD-10. We held high expectations as this was our 2nd Disney cruise and we always have a blast in Florida. I'll include prices here, not because I'm proud of how much we probably overpaid for everything, but because it seems that a lot of questions are asked about this.
We booked our trip back at the beginning of Sept. The HRH portion was supposed to be a surprise for the kids but we could only keep it until Christmas and even that took a lot of effort. Basically, we tried to plan most of the trip to appease my 13 yr. old who loves 70's-early 80's rock music and has definately entered that grouchy teenage stage that we hoped to pull him out of! We left from Hartford, CT on April 16 at 7:25 a.m. on United ($284.50 pp) then had a connecting flight through Chicago (ugh!, nothing else was available when we booked) and arrived in Orlando at 2:23 p.m. I had read on this board about getting a National Emerald Card for free if you apply for it in conjunction with a Disney vacation. This worked out great for us. We were able to go right out and pick up the car without waiting in the rental line. I was able to secure an intermediate car for $185. for a rental from 4/16-4/22, we also had an entertainment coupon for the two car class upgrade. Be cautious though, luckily I thought to check the rate as we drove out and they had it listed at $200.+. I showed them my reservation that I printed out and brought along and had it fixed before we left. For us, the price was right considering the transfers we would have had to get to HRH, DCL, DD, and back to the airport. The tolls were about $2 to the HRH.
The hotel was very cool! Check in was a breeze. DS was disappointed though since they were all out of the free CD's that they usually hand out. We had a rate of $189/ per night + tax ($208) through HotelKingdom. The rate was higher because we were staying at busy time on a Friday and Saturday night. The exterior of the hotel and public areas were very nice, but the grounds were even more amazing. After checking into a room (nice, clean room) we went off to HR cafe for a delicious lunch/dinner. Thanks to a great Dis'er our meal came to $39 with tip using the buy one/ get one free coupon she sent us. DS really enjoyed seeing all the memorabelia there and in the hotel. Next we went to the pool area. The pool is very large but pretty shallow in most areas which makes it hard to swim. DD and I enjoyed the pool and slide while DH and DS played volleyball. There is a nice sand beach area, hot tub, ping pong, etc. too. Wish we had more time to spend at the pool while we were there, but this was a whirlwind two night trip. After the pool, we walked around Citywalk and rode the little boat back to our room. We could see the IOA fireworks for our hotel floor. I'm sure they were better close up, but we still enjoyed them and didn't have to fight the crowds after.
Saturday morning we woke up to go to IOA/US. We had to ask a couple of times but we did get our Loew's card snack (2 waters and fruit) which we had with some breakfast food we had brought. Since the crowds were expected to be large, there were extended hours from 8-10. We tried to make 8 but arrived about 8:30. IOA was about a 10 minute walk maybe from the hotel. Half way there, we realized that we had forgotten our tickets (one day/two park from AAA at 75.25/pp). DH and DS made a run back. This seems easy to do since you have your room key card with you that seems like a ticket. The hotel staff had punched our keys and we wore them on lanyards around our necks which worked out well.
DD had to run to HULK first with DS. She got off and ran right back on. There wasn't any wait at this point. She loved it. Next we went to Spiderman. This was one of my favorite rides. We asked for a seat that wasn't as motiony. We got off and rode again in a random seat. It was still fun but I would definately recommended the seat with a little less jerkiness, I thought it was more fun. The kids did Doctor Doom's fearfall next. They weren't impressed, they didn't think it was scary enough. You may have guessed by now, DH and I are pretty wimpy when it comes to theme parks and really don't like spinny, bouncy, scary rides, so we managed to miss a few of the rides the kids went on. Next we headed over to Cat in the Hat (the spinning didn't bother us too much) and the Caro-Seuss-el. The park was already starting to get pretty busy by now. I can not say strongly enough that FOTL ROCKS!!!! I've read it over and over but until you experience you just can't realize what a difference this makes. I think it's the closest we'll ever come to feeling like celebrities. There was a snaffu (sp.?) with Dueling Dragons but that was on the part of the IOA staff, otherwise we basically walked on every ride even when there was over an hour wait in the regular lines. Anyway, after Seuss Landing, we went to Poseidon's FUry. This is a long "ride." It was kind of fun, but if you don't have a lot of time, I would skip it. Unfortunately for DH, the next ride was Dueling Dragons. We would have been fine if we went in the regular line since I don't think there really was a wait, but we followed the signs to the Express line. This was the only ride that didn't have an attendent at the Express line and it was very confusing. We had to keep asking where to go and it was still confusing. The kids finally got in a line and the ice coaster broke down. They got out of line and DS said he wasn't going on with DD now. She begged DH to go and he relented and said yes. He was already starting to turn green before they walked away. I guess DS thought it would be fun to see DD tortured and decided to go now.
They were gone a long time. People kept walking off and saying how dizzy they felt, which made me dizzy. Finally, while I was waiting, someone came to direct people to the express line and some of them came back out before I saw my family. Turns out they ended up in the regular line for Fire. Oh well, made us appreciate the FOTL all the more the rest of the day. DH survived but didn't do any more motion type rides at IOA. After this we had lunch at Fireeaters. Yikes, $23.43 for one hot dog, one chicken strips, two fries and three drinks. The hot dog alone was $7, it was a big hot dog, but then again, size isn't everything, seven dollars,
ugh!
By now it was around noon and we decided to do the water rides. We rented a locker that was $2 for 1/2 hour I think. Make sure you bring cash or a credit card for this since we couldn't get our room keys to work for this. We had brought water shoes to change into and had our bathing suits on under our clothes. We went to JPRA and my time of terror began. None of the rides turned out to be totally horrifying, but not knowing what to expect was enough to give me white knuckles. We survived that without getting real wet then went to Dudley Do-Right where we got SOAKED! It looks real scary because you go up up up but luckily, you don't go right straight down. After this we went to Popeye and Bluto where I don't think my DH and DS would have been any wetter even if they were floating under water! It really was fun though. We went back to get our stuff out of the locker and I guess we had jammed to much in because it got stuck and wouldn't open until we got an attendent. Next came our longest wait of the day. It took forever to walk out of the park, it was so crowded. We were back to the HRH around 2:00 and changed into dry clothes to go to US.
Unfortunately, we started with Jimmy Neutron. IMO the ride wasn't that great and it was the most sickening ride of the whole trip. I definately wouldn't recommend it if you get motion sickness at all, unless you use the non-motion seats. After this we went to Shrek 4-D which was a cute show and the motion wasn't too bad. We followed that with Twister. I guess we weren't paying attention or maybe there wasn't a sign, but we ended up getting wet in the front row. It really would have been more fun to watch if we weren't expending so much energy on trying to stay dry. Believe it or not, I took the kids to the Mummy next. DH "kindly" volunteered to hold our stuff while we went on the ride. No FOTL for the Mummy and it was probably a 30 minute wait, which wasn't so bad. The anticipation and fear of the unknown were killing me but I must admit the ride was fun even though my teeth were chattering when I got off. I'm afraid I couldn't tell you much about it because I was too scared wondering how far I might get dropped the whole time to possibly remember anything. However, if I could handle it, I think just about anyone could and I'm sure I'd have even more fun if I went on it again. We did Jaws and Men in Black next. Men in Black was about a 70 min. wait and with FOTL we did it twice in about 6 minutes. Again, FOTL is the BEST!!!! DH and I had had enough motion by now and so the kids went ahead to BTTF which I'd ridden before anyway. Next was ET. After that DS and I did T2 (very little motion) while DD did Woody coaster. We ended the day at Universal with the Animal Planet live and left by 7:30. As you can see, we really were able to do just about everything at both parks in one day. Of course, if we had had more time, it would have been nice to take more pictures, meander, and see some of the other shows. We had been to US once before when the kids were younger so we didn't feel we missed a lot by not going to the Nickelodeon Studio area this time, but again, if we had more time, it would have been nice.
We went to our rental car to head out to Int. Drive for dinner. I said I didn't care where I ate as long as it was somewhere we didn't have at home. Well, as you other parents out there can probably guess, we ended up at McDonald's. Believe it or not, it turned out to be fun! It was rated the 2nd best McDonald's in the world by the travel channel and served bistro gourmet as well as regular McD's fare. DS had pasta and shrimp, I had a grilled chicken panini sandwich, dd had double cheeseburger and DH had a chicken sandwich. It was pretty wild. My food and DS's food came on regular plates which we ate with McD's plasticware. Who knew that with the exception of the fries, McDonald's could actually be good? We returned to the hotel, watched the fireworks and went to bed. The beds really weren't that comfortable (even though I'm sure everyone has a different opinion) and you could hear a lot through the walls and the doors. These were the only drawbacks that I can think of.
After a great time at the parks, we prepared to leave for Port Canaveral and our Disney Cruise which would be followed by a day at Disney Quest. I did use the fitness room in the morning (had to get ready for all the food I was about to eat) which was pretty nice. Don't forget to bring your headphones if you go as tye have about 5 monitors with different things set up. After the 30 min. the treadmill allows you, I took a nice peaceful walk around the IOA/US entrances and Citywalk.
If you're tired after reading this, think how tired we were by the time we got on the ship! Cruise report to follow on cruise report board. Hope this report wasn't way too long. If you have any questions, I'll try to answer them. I appreciate the information I found here before our trip!
We booked our trip back at the beginning of Sept. The HRH portion was supposed to be a surprise for the kids but we could only keep it until Christmas and even that took a lot of effort. Basically, we tried to plan most of the trip to appease my 13 yr. old who loves 70's-early 80's rock music and has definately entered that grouchy teenage stage that we hoped to pull him out of! We left from Hartford, CT on April 16 at 7:25 a.m. on United ($284.50 pp) then had a connecting flight through Chicago (ugh!, nothing else was available when we booked) and arrived in Orlando at 2:23 p.m. I had read on this board about getting a National Emerald Card for free if you apply for it in conjunction with a Disney vacation. This worked out great for us. We were able to go right out and pick up the car without waiting in the rental line. I was able to secure an intermediate car for $185. for a rental from 4/16-4/22, we also had an entertainment coupon for the two car class upgrade. Be cautious though, luckily I thought to check the rate as we drove out and they had it listed at $200.+. I showed them my reservation that I printed out and brought along and had it fixed before we left. For us, the price was right considering the transfers we would have had to get to HRH, DCL, DD, and back to the airport. The tolls were about $2 to the HRH.
The hotel was very cool! Check in was a breeze. DS was disappointed though since they were all out of the free CD's that they usually hand out. We had a rate of $189/ per night + tax ($208) through HotelKingdom. The rate was higher because we were staying at busy time on a Friday and Saturday night. The exterior of the hotel and public areas were very nice, but the grounds were even more amazing. After checking into a room (nice, clean room) we went off to HR cafe for a delicious lunch/dinner. Thanks to a great Dis'er our meal came to $39 with tip using the buy one/ get one free coupon she sent us. DS really enjoyed seeing all the memorabelia there and in the hotel. Next we went to the pool area. The pool is very large but pretty shallow in most areas which makes it hard to swim. DD and I enjoyed the pool and slide while DH and DS played volleyball. There is a nice sand beach area, hot tub, ping pong, etc. too. Wish we had more time to spend at the pool while we were there, but this was a whirlwind two night trip. After the pool, we walked around Citywalk and rode the little boat back to our room. We could see the IOA fireworks for our hotel floor. I'm sure they were better close up, but we still enjoyed them and didn't have to fight the crowds after.
Saturday morning we woke up to go to IOA/US. We had to ask a couple of times but we did get our Loew's card snack (2 waters and fruit) which we had with some breakfast food we had brought. Since the crowds were expected to be large, there were extended hours from 8-10. We tried to make 8 but arrived about 8:30. IOA was about a 10 minute walk maybe from the hotel. Half way there, we realized that we had forgotten our tickets (one day/two park from AAA at 75.25/pp). DH and DS made a run back. This seems easy to do since you have your room key card with you that seems like a ticket. The hotel staff had punched our keys and we wore them on lanyards around our necks which worked out well.
DD had to run to HULK first with DS. She got off and ran right back on. There wasn't any wait at this point. She loved it. Next we went to Spiderman. This was one of my favorite rides. We asked for a seat that wasn't as motiony. We got off and rode again in a random seat. It was still fun but I would definately recommended the seat with a little less jerkiness, I thought it was more fun. The kids did Doctor Doom's fearfall next. They weren't impressed, they didn't think it was scary enough. You may have guessed by now, DH and I are pretty wimpy when it comes to theme parks and really don't like spinny, bouncy, scary rides, so we managed to miss a few of the rides the kids went on. Next we headed over to Cat in the Hat (the spinning didn't bother us too much) and the Caro-Seuss-el. The park was already starting to get pretty busy by now. I can not say strongly enough that FOTL ROCKS!!!! I've read it over and over but until you experience you just can't realize what a difference this makes. I think it's the closest we'll ever come to feeling like celebrities. There was a snaffu (sp.?) with Dueling Dragons but that was on the part of the IOA staff, otherwise we basically walked on every ride even when there was over an hour wait in the regular lines. Anyway, after Seuss Landing, we went to Poseidon's FUry. This is a long "ride." It was kind of fun, but if you don't have a lot of time, I would skip it. Unfortunately for DH, the next ride was Dueling Dragons. We would have been fine if we went in the regular line since I don't think there really was a wait, but we followed the signs to the Express line. This was the only ride that didn't have an attendent at the Express line and it was very confusing. We had to keep asking where to go and it was still confusing. The kids finally got in a line and the ice coaster broke down. They got out of line and DS said he wasn't going on with DD now. She begged DH to go and he relented and said yes. He was already starting to turn green before they walked away. I guess DS thought it would be fun to see DD tortured and decided to go now.
They were gone a long time. People kept walking off and saying how dizzy they felt, which made me dizzy. Finally, while I was waiting, someone came to direct people to the express line and some of them came back out before I saw my family. Turns out they ended up in the regular line for Fire. Oh well, made us appreciate the FOTL all the more the rest of the day. DH survived but didn't do any more motion type rides at IOA. After this we had lunch at Fireeaters. Yikes, $23.43 for one hot dog, one chicken strips, two fries and three drinks. The hot dog alone was $7, it was a big hot dog, but then again, size isn't everything, seven dollars, ugh!By now it was around noon and we decided to do the water rides. We rented a locker that was $2 for 1/2 hour I think. Make sure you bring cash or a credit card for this since we couldn't get our room keys to work for this. We had brought water shoes to change into and had our bathing suits on under our clothes. We went to JPRA and my time of terror began. None of the rides turned out to be totally horrifying, but not knowing what to expect was enough to give me white knuckles. We survived that without getting real wet then went to Dudley Do-Right where we got SOAKED! It looks real scary because you go up up up but luckily, you don't go right straight down. After this we went to Popeye and Bluto where I don't think my DH and DS would have been any wetter even if they were floating under water! It really was fun though. We went back to get our stuff out of the locker and I guess we had jammed to much in because it got stuck and wouldn't open until we got an attendent. Next came our longest wait of the day. It took forever to walk out of the park, it was so crowded. We were back to the HRH around 2:00 and changed into dry clothes to go to US.
Unfortunately, we started with Jimmy Neutron. IMO the ride wasn't that great and it was the most sickening ride of the whole trip. I definately wouldn't recommend it if you get motion sickness at all, unless you use the non-motion seats. After this we went to Shrek 4-D which was a cute show and the motion wasn't too bad. We followed that with Twister. I guess we weren't paying attention or maybe there wasn't a sign, but we ended up getting wet in the front row. It really would have been more fun to watch if we weren't expending so much energy on trying to stay dry. Believe it or not, I took the kids to the Mummy next. DH "kindly" volunteered to hold our stuff while we went on the ride. No FOTL for the Mummy and it was probably a 30 minute wait, which wasn't so bad. The anticipation and fear of the unknown were killing me but I must admit the ride was fun even though my teeth were chattering when I got off. I'm afraid I couldn't tell you much about it because I was too scared wondering how far I might get dropped the whole time to possibly remember anything. However, if I could handle it, I think just about anyone could and I'm sure I'd have even more fun if I went on it again. We did Jaws and Men in Black next. Men in Black was about a 70 min. wait and with FOTL we did it twice in about 6 minutes. Again, FOTL is the BEST!!!! DH and I had had enough motion by now and so the kids went ahead to BTTF which I'd ridden before anyway. Next was ET. After that DS and I did T2 (very little motion) while DD did Woody coaster. We ended the day at Universal with the Animal Planet live and left by 7:30. As you can see, we really were able to do just about everything at both parks in one day. Of course, if we had had more time, it would have been nice to take more pictures, meander, and see some of the other shows. We had been to US once before when the kids were younger so we didn't feel we missed a lot by not going to the Nickelodeon Studio area this time, but again, if we had more time, it would have been nice.
We went to our rental car to head out to Int. Drive for dinner. I said I didn't care where I ate as long as it was somewhere we didn't have at home. Well, as you other parents out there can probably guess, we ended up at McDonald's. Believe it or not, it turned out to be fun! It was rated the 2nd best McDonald's in the world by the travel channel and served bistro gourmet as well as regular McD's fare. DS had pasta and shrimp, I had a grilled chicken panini sandwich, dd had double cheeseburger and DH had a chicken sandwich. It was pretty wild. My food and DS's food came on regular plates which we ate with McD's plasticware. Who knew that with the exception of the fries, McDonald's could actually be good? We returned to the hotel, watched the fireworks and went to bed. The beds really weren't that comfortable (even though I'm sure everyone has a different opinion) and you could hear a lot through the walls and the doors. These were the only drawbacks that I can think of.
After a great time at the parks, we prepared to leave for Port Canaveral and our Disney Cruise which would be followed by a day at Disney Quest. I did use the fitness room in the morning (had to get ready for all the food I was about to eat) which was pretty nice. Don't forget to bring your headphones if you go as tye have about 5 monitors with different things set up. After the 30 min. the treadmill allows you, I took a nice peaceful walk around the IOA/US entrances and Citywalk.
If you're tired after reading this, think how tired we were by the time we got on the ship! Cruise report to follow on cruise report board. Hope this report wasn't way too long. If you have any questions, I'll try to answer them. I appreciate the information I found here before our trip!
