*Marty_Mouse_House*
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2004
- Messages
- 60
Vacationers:
Husband - early 40s
Self - early 40s (college sweethearts - married 20 years)
Son - 15
Beagle - 9
Active Cat - 3
Friday, June 4, 2004
Our trip had started several months earlier when we were trying to decide where to stay this time around on our annual Disney trip. We briefly considered ordering the new Disney credit card in order to get the "buy 4 days and get 3 free" promotion. We also considered researching all of the special codes out there in order to considerably reduce the hotel rate. As usual, I made one set of reservations at one place, then as time went on, cancelled those and made another set of reservations at another place. We ended up using my husband's "airline employee" status and reserved a hotel which neither one of us had ever stayed before - the Contemporary Resort. The "airline employee" set up had changed - previously you would just show your security airport badge at the front desk during check in. Now you had to fax to Disney a letter with title, date of employment, personnel manager, etc and we included a picture of the airport badge too. After Disney received this information (somewhere in Florida, not Orlando), they would approve you or not and only after approval could reservations be made. It seemed like a little bit of trouble, but we faxed it in and waited 3 days for approval. It finally came and I called the Disney reservation number to see what we were eligible for. After getting prices for several of the hotels, we decided on the Contemporary. The Disney people informed us that this was considered a "package" and that we would also be receiving 3 luggage tags (we had already been forewarned that they may be "Tinkerbell") and well as 3 coupons for miniature golf. In addition, we had to make payments on the package and pay it off completely 45 days in advance. This worried us somewhat - what if our plans changed? We were the kind of people who liked to change our minds a lot. What if we wanted to stay in a different hotel? What if we didn't want to stay this many nights (5)? But all turned out well and we paid in advance and got ready for the trip.
We live about 600 miles from Orlando and planned to leave the house at about 9:00 a.m. We had to drop our Beagle off at one kennel which opened at 8:00 (If Only She Could Come!) and then had to drop off our cat at another "cats only" kennel because she didn't like being boarded where there were dogs. We could tell this because when we picked up our pets, we would receive report cards which would say something like: "Your dog is very sweet and lovable - Report Card Grade A" and "Your cat could not be handled and we had to wear leather gloves - Report Card Grade F". Our cat is very sweet and lovable at home!
Into the car went a myriad of possessions including the new snorkeling set, boxes of canned soft drinks, bottled water, individual bags of chips and cookies, 3 new walkie talkies, various cameras and film, and fanny packs for all with Tinkerbell hanging from them. Also, the refillable drink mugs remained a question - take them or not? We had previous refillable mugs for All-Star and Port Orleans and wondered if the Contemporary would honor them. My brother had just returned from Disney a couple of weeks previously and the only questions I wanted answered was, "Would they let you fill up previously purchased refillable mugs? He made it a point to ask a cast member while he was staying at Port Orleans and what she said was that if you had an old refillable mug, you could still use it. However, if you now purchased a new refillable mug, they would put a date on it and and it would only be good for this one trip. Into the car went the refillable mugs. Little did I know that this would be a non-issue at the Contemporary.
We finally dropped the pets off and got on our way. It was fairly uneventful until lunch. We made our first stop with about 1,000 other people having the same idea. We finally got back on the road and later made a 2nd stop at an outlet center. Along the way we encountered lines of police officers cars, sheriffs, K-9 units and wondered what was going on. The outlets said that Pres. Bush was hosting the G-8 summit in Georgia and that all of these law enforcement people were coming from all over for security. Once we got past all that, we started looking for the armadillos and osprey nests along the way.
Soon we hit the Florida state line and our thoughts turned to where were we going to spend the first night. Our Contemporary stay didn't start until tomorrow (Saturday). We always played this game on the first day going down. Sometimes we stopped in Jacksonville, or St. Augustine and just kind of played it by ear in case one of us was tired or wanted to stop. We were all feeling pretty good now (including our son as long as his portable DVD player continued to run) and decided that we would go all the way and stay in Orlando the first night.
Now came my job of getting out the hotel guides and using the cell phone to make reservations for the night. I tried several of the hotels around the Downtown Disney area and got the same answer, "booked up, booked up, booked up". Then I called the Wyndham there and they asked me, "Are you participating in gay days?" When I said no they said that they were the host hotel for gay days and that all of the hotels around there were booked up and they didn't have a room for us. We finally found a hotel that had an opening near Universal Studios and booked our reservations. Cancellation time was 6:00 p.m. Now we are the kind of people that if given a certain time to do something, it starts weighing on our minds. My husband waited until 10 minutes till 6:00 before he made a comment. He really wanted to start living the magic right away and staying this far away would just be another regular night. If we stayed closer to Disney (he said) then we could eat dinner at one of the restaurants and really feel like we were there. Out came the phone again and a call was placed to Disney reservations. They tried, but they couldn't find us anything on the property at a reduced rate. They had plenty of rooms at regular rates. I called the Dolphin/Swan. We loved staying at the Dolphin and stayed there on several previous trips. The Swan we were not so crazy about. The Dolphin said that they had plenty of rooms and they would even give us our airline employee rate. We said great.
(No mention was made of a cancellation time.) I managed to cancel the other reservation with just minutes to spare.
Now my husband was really getting excited - we would arrive and leisurely unpack, then head over to the Cape May buffet at the Beach Club, have a nighttime swim and maybe even see the Epcot fireworks. We were coming up on Orlando at about 7 p.m. and wondered whether to take the toll road or not. Last time when we went through Orlando we hit it at rush hour and traffic had stopped for an hour. My brother had just taken the toll road and said it was a breeze and eliminated all Orlando traffic. We decided to go for it. We went along, paying our tolls and having no problems until... traffic on the toll road had stopped! What seemed to be the problem? How long was this going to take? We were looking at the clock and knew that in order to make the buffet, we were going to have to arrive at the hotel by 8:30. We weren't sure but we figured that the buffet closed around 9:00. Traffic was stopped for about 30 minutes due to repaving - an interminable wait for us. Things finally got going again and we pulled up to the Dolphin at 8:30. We didn't take time to unpack but checked in a priority check in (which was wonderful and friendly and took less than 5 minutes). They even upgraded us to a room with a view of Epcot. We rushed outside and it turned out to be a delightful evening and was so cool that I almost needed a jacket. We thought this was a good sign weather-wise for the week and hoped that it wouldn't be too hot. As usual, as we were always running from place to place, we ran on the sidewalk from the Dolphin to the Beach Club and got seated just before 9:00. We found out they stopped seating at 9:30 so we had a little time to spare. After a wonderful meal of all-you-can-eat shrimp, dessert buffet (included), incidentally the soft drinks are lincluded too - we spent $76.65 not including tip. We leisurely returned through the Yacht Club gift shops and made our way back to the Dolphin. Our Disney vacation had begun!
------------------------
Prevous Trips: 30 plus trips in 32 years
Since being married we have stayed at: Fort Wilderness Campground, Fort Wilderness Cabins, Yacht Club, Caribbean Beach, Polynesian, Beach Club, Swan and Dolphin, All-Star Sports, All-Star Music, Port Orleans Riverside, Contemporary Resort.
Husband - early 40s
Self - early 40s (college sweethearts - married 20 years)
Son - 15
Beagle - 9
Active Cat - 3
Friday, June 4, 2004
Our trip had started several months earlier when we were trying to decide where to stay this time around on our annual Disney trip. We briefly considered ordering the new Disney credit card in order to get the "buy 4 days and get 3 free" promotion. We also considered researching all of the special codes out there in order to considerably reduce the hotel rate. As usual, I made one set of reservations at one place, then as time went on, cancelled those and made another set of reservations at another place. We ended up using my husband's "airline employee" status and reserved a hotel which neither one of us had ever stayed before - the Contemporary Resort. The "airline employee" set up had changed - previously you would just show your security airport badge at the front desk during check in. Now you had to fax to Disney a letter with title, date of employment, personnel manager, etc and we included a picture of the airport badge too. After Disney received this information (somewhere in Florida, not Orlando), they would approve you or not and only after approval could reservations be made. It seemed like a little bit of trouble, but we faxed it in and waited 3 days for approval. It finally came and I called the Disney reservation number to see what we were eligible for. After getting prices for several of the hotels, we decided on the Contemporary. The Disney people informed us that this was considered a "package" and that we would also be receiving 3 luggage tags (we had already been forewarned that they may be "Tinkerbell") and well as 3 coupons for miniature golf. In addition, we had to make payments on the package and pay it off completely 45 days in advance. This worried us somewhat - what if our plans changed? We were the kind of people who liked to change our minds a lot. What if we wanted to stay in a different hotel? What if we didn't want to stay this many nights (5)? But all turned out well and we paid in advance and got ready for the trip.
We live about 600 miles from Orlando and planned to leave the house at about 9:00 a.m. We had to drop our Beagle off at one kennel which opened at 8:00 (If Only She Could Come!) and then had to drop off our cat at another "cats only" kennel because she didn't like being boarded where there were dogs. We could tell this because when we picked up our pets, we would receive report cards which would say something like: "Your dog is very sweet and lovable - Report Card Grade A" and "Your cat could not be handled and we had to wear leather gloves - Report Card Grade F". Our cat is very sweet and lovable at home!
Into the car went a myriad of possessions including the new snorkeling set, boxes of canned soft drinks, bottled water, individual bags of chips and cookies, 3 new walkie talkies, various cameras and film, and fanny packs for all with Tinkerbell hanging from them. Also, the refillable drink mugs remained a question - take them or not? We had previous refillable mugs for All-Star and Port Orleans and wondered if the Contemporary would honor them. My brother had just returned from Disney a couple of weeks previously and the only questions I wanted answered was, "Would they let you fill up previously purchased refillable mugs? He made it a point to ask a cast member while he was staying at Port Orleans and what she said was that if you had an old refillable mug, you could still use it. However, if you now purchased a new refillable mug, they would put a date on it and and it would only be good for this one trip. Into the car went the refillable mugs. Little did I know that this would be a non-issue at the Contemporary.
We finally dropped the pets off and got on our way. It was fairly uneventful until lunch. We made our first stop with about 1,000 other people having the same idea. We finally got back on the road and later made a 2nd stop at an outlet center. Along the way we encountered lines of police officers cars, sheriffs, K-9 units and wondered what was going on. The outlets said that Pres. Bush was hosting the G-8 summit in Georgia and that all of these law enforcement people were coming from all over for security. Once we got past all that, we started looking for the armadillos and osprey nests along the way.
Soon we hit the Florida state line and our thoughts turned to where were we going to spend the first night. Our Contemporary stay didn't start until tomorrow (Saturday). We always played this game on the first day going down. Sometimes we stopped in Jacksonville, or St. Augustine and just kind of played it by ear in case one of us was tired or wanted to stop. We were all feeling pretty good now (including our son as long as his portable DVD player continued to run) and decided that we would go all the way and stay in Orlando the first night.
Now came my job of getting out the hotel guides and using the cell phone to make reservations for the night. I tried several of the hotels around the Downtown Disney area and got the same answer, "booked up, booked up, booked up". Then I called the Wyndham there and they asked me, "Are you participating in gay days?" When I said no they said that they were the host hotel for gay days and that all of the hotels around there were booked up and they didn't have a room for us. We finally found a hotel that had an opening near Universal Studios and booked our reservations. Cancellation time was 6:00 p.m. Now we are the kind of people that if given a certain time to do something, it starts weighing on our minds. My husband waited until 10 minutes till 6:00 before he made a comment. He really wanted to start living the magic right away and staying this far away would just be another regular night. If we stayed closer to Disney (he said) then we could eat dinner at one of the restaurants and really feel like we were there. Out came the phone again and a call was placed to Disney reservations. They tried, but they couldn't find us anything on the property at a reduced rate. They had plenty of rooms at regular rates. I called the Dolphin/Swan. We loved staying at the Dolphin and stayed there on several previous trips. The Swan we were not so crazy about. The Dolphin said that they had plenty of rooms and they would even give us our airline employee rate. We said great.
(No mention was made of a cancellation time.) I managed to cancel the other reservation with just minutes to spare.
Now my husband was really getting excited - we would arrive and leisurely unpack, then head over to the Cape May buffet at the Beach Club, have a nighttime swim and maybe even see the Epcot fireworks. We were coming up on Orlando at about 7 p.m. and wondered whether to take the toll road or not. Last time when we went through Orlando we hit it at rush hour and traffic had stopped for an hour. My brother had just taken the toll road and said it was a breeze and eliminated all Orlando traffic. We decided to go for it. We went along, paying our tolls and having no problems until... traffic on the toll road had stopped! What seemed to be the problem? How long was this going to take? We were looking at the clock and knew that in order to make the buffet, we were going to have to arrive at the hotel by 8:30. We weren't sure but we figured that the buffet closed around 9:00. Traffic was stopped for about 30 minutes due to repaving - an interminable wait for us. Things finally got going again and we pulled up to the Dolphin at 8:30. We didn't take time to unpack but checked in a priority check in (which was wonderful and friendly and took less than 5 minutes). They even upgraded us to a room with a view of Epcot. We rushed outside and it turned out to be a delightful evening and was so cool that I almost needed a jacket. We thought this was a good sign weather-wise for the week and hoped that it wouldn't be too hot. As usual, as we were always running from place to place, we ran on the sidewalk from the Dolphin to the Beach Club and got seated just before 9:00. We found out they stopped seating at 9:30 so we had a little time to spare. After a wonderful meal of all-you-can-eat shrimp, dessert buffet (included), incidentally the soft drinks are lincluded too - we spent $76.65 not including tip. We leisurely returned through the Yacht Club gift shops and made our way back to the Dolphin. Our Disney vacation had begun!
------------------------
Prevous Trips: 30 plus trips in 32 years
Since being married we have stayed at: Fort Wilderness Campground, Fort Wilderness Cabins, Yacht Club, Caribbean Beach, Polynesian, Beach Club, Swan and Dolphin, All-Star Sports, All-Star Music, Port Orleans Riverside, Contemporary Resort.
