DisneyMandC
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2015
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So, reviews from my Orlando trip last week... Still need to type up my Sheraton Vistana Villages Review for the hotel thread and I have pictures I'll post there, but I'll talk about it a little bit here.
Points Recap:
Hotel: First night at the Hyatt Regency MCO on 12k points. We've never stayed there before!! It was great after getting in on a 9:30 PM flight. Nights 2-5 were at the Sheraton Vistana Villages on I-Drive. We paid cash for this offer as we received a timeshare offer form Marriott for it. The deal was $199 for four nights in a one bedroom villa and 15k Marriott points. I bought this offer while I was working on a Bonvoy Biz MSR deal last year too. The hotel was superrrr nice and the timeshare presentation was relatively painless.
Flights: We flew Jetblue down to MCO and paid for it using Amex airline credits. We flew back from MCO on SW using 11k SW miles for both of our flights.
Busch Gardens/Disney/Universal Tickets: I got us one day tickets for Busch Gardens Tampa, one day tickets to Hollywood Studios, one day park to park tickets for Universal, and Villains After Hours tickets. I got the BG Tampa tickets during a Daily Getaway deal last year for $110 for both of us. I purchase the HS tickets using discounted Disney GCs. Both the Universal and VAH tickets were purchased from Undercover Tourist on our Capital One Venture cards and I'll use the travel eraser function for those.
Rental Car: Got a car from Hertz using DH's corporate rate. I charged this to our CO Venture and will also use the travel eraser for that.
Review of VAH-
We had a great time! I’m really glad we went ahead and got the tickets for this. Yes, they were expensive, but it was a nice little addition to our trip.
Crowd levels: The crowds were insanely low. I imagine, based on what I’ve heard people say before, that crowd levels were similar to how the Halloween and Christmas parties used to be. Posted wait times were at 20-25 minutes for all the headliners but I would say the wait times were more like 10 minutes and the lines were consistently moving. We rode Space Mountain, BTMRR, Haunted Mansion, Buzz (twice, once with a FP before the party), and Pirates. Could have easily gotten on SDMT too but we were just tired and cold so we didn’t. Space Mountain in the dark was cool. I thought Pirates was a little lame with the addition of live actors considering it was literally just two guys standing on a bridge... I thought there would be more.
Food: We both got our “free” popcorn and cokes twice. Would’ve gone for the free ice cream too, but it was 40 degrees. We did get the Body Language cake which was excellent!
Shows/Parade: The stage show was really good! DH loves Hades so he was excited. The projections on the castle were great too. Definitely a highlight. The parade (actually named a caravan, which is more accurate) was cool and featured Gaston on a horse, Cruella, Queen of Hearts, Lady Tremaine and the stepsisters, and a few others. And of course, the dragon float.
Overall, it was a great time and I’m glad we did it!
Review of BG Tampa-
Apparently a weekday in February is the time to go because we have literally done the entire park in 4 hours... including a 30 minute break for lunch lol. Our longest wait (other than to buy lunch), was for a coaster where someone had gotten sick on it shortly before we arrived so they had to clean it and then do a test run.
It is a really nice park, but not as nice as BG Williamsburg, which is what I’ve grown up going to. Definitely still nicer than your average theme park though. Food options also do not live up to BG Williamsburg’s food options, which are varied according to the different European countries. We ate at the barbecue restaurant, which was good.
I feel like this park is definitely geared more towards older kids/adults because it’s essentially all roller coasters. There are a couple minor rides- log flume, river rapids, etc. but it is predominantly coaster. The animals are nice to see too. We rode the train and looked at a lot of the animals.
It’s pretty easy to get around but I wonder if it gets more backed up on busy days as it’s essentially just one giant loop with not a lot of cut throughs or anything.
Overall, a nice time! Absolutely worth the daily getaway deal we got for it.
I'll try to get my hotel review posted tomorrow! Right now I need to head to bed because I'm still worn out from the trip
Points Recap:
Hotel: First night at the Hyatt Regency MCO on 12k points. We've never stayed there before!! It was great after getting in on a 9:30 PM flight. Nights 2-5 were at the Sheraton Vistana Villages on I-Drive. We paid cash for this offer as we received a timeshare offer form Marriott for it. The deal was $199 for four nights in a one bedroom villa and 15k Marriott points. I bought this offer while I was working on a Bonvoy Biz MSR deal last year too. The hotel was superrrr nice and the timeshare presentation was relatively painless.
Flights: We flew Jetblue down to MCO and paid for it using Amex airline credits. We flew back from MCO on SW using 11k SW miles for both of our flights.
Busch Gardens/Disney/Universal Tickets: I got us one day tickets for Busch Gardens Tampa, one day tickets to Hollywood Studios, one day park to park tickets for Universal, and Villains After Hours tickets. I got the BG Tampa tickets during a Daily Getaway deal last year for $110 for both of us. I purchase the HS tickets using discounted Disney GCs. Both the Universal and VAH tickets were purchased from Undercover Tourist on our Capital One Venture cards and I'll use the travel eraser function for those.
Rental Car: Got a car from Hertz using DH's corporate rate. I charged this to our CO Venture and will also use the travel eraser for that.
Review of VAH-
We had a great time! I’m really glad we went ahead and got the tickets for this. Yes, they were expensive, but it was a nice little addition to our trip.
Crowd levels: The crowds were insanely low. I imagine, based on what I’ve heard people say before, that crowd levels were similar to how the Halloween and Christmas parties used to be. Posted wait times were at 20-25 minutes for all the headliners but I would say the wait times were more like 10 minutes and the lines were consistently moving. We rode Space Mountain, BTMRR, Haunted Mansion, Buzz (twice, once with a FP before the party), and Pirates. Could have easily gotten on SDMT too but we were just tired and cold so we didn’t. Space Mountain in the dark was cool. I thought Pirates was a little lame with the addition of live actors considering it was literally just two guys standing on a bridge... I thought there would be more.
Food: We both got our “free” popcorn and cokes twice. Would’ve gone for the free ice cream too, but it was 40 degrees. We did get the Body Language cake which was excellent!
Shows/Parade: The stage show was really good! DH loves Hades so he was excited. The projections on the castle were great too. Definitely a highlight. The parade (actually named a caravan, which is more accurate) was cool and featured Gaston on a horse, Cruella, Queen of Hearts, Lady Tremaine and the stepsisters, and a few others. And of course, the dragon float.
Overall, it was a great time and I’m glad we did it!
Review of BG Tampa-
Apparently a weekday in February is the time to go because we have literally done the entire park in 4 hours... including a 30 minute break for lunch lol. Our longest wait (other than to buy lunch), was for a coaster where someone had gotten sick on it shortly before we arrived so they had to clean it and then do a test run.
It is a really nice park, but not as nice as BG Williamsburg, which is what I’ve grown up going to. Definitely still nicer than your average theme park though. Food options also do not live up to BG Williamsburg’s food options, which are varied according to the different European countries. We ate at the barbecue restaurant, which was good.
I feel like this park is definitely geared more towards older kids/adults because it’s essentially all roller coasters. There are a couple minor rides- log flume, river rapids, etc. but it is predominantly coaster. The animals are nice to see too. We rode the train and looked at a lot of the animals.
It’s pretty easy to get around but I wonder if it gets more backed up on busy days as it’s essentially just one giant loop with not a lot of cut throughs or anything.
Overall, a nice time! Absolutely worth the daily getaway deal we got for it.
I'll try to get my hotel review posted tomorrow! Right now I need to head to bed because I'm still worn out from the trip
