I'm back from WDW!

[Aurora63]

Hi! I just returned from WDW yesterday! Here’s our trip report!

On this trip was:
Myself
My DH
Our friend who I’ll call the Swan Princess (SP for short)
SP’s DD, 7
Another friend who I’ll call Joe (DJ) 25 year old single man
Two more friends who appear later in the weekend, who I’ll call Larry (DL) and Curly (DC). Both are men around 30.

Okay, on with it!

SP had made reservations for us at the Swan…she is an employee of Westin, so she was able to get us three rooms with her employee rate…this was a really good rate, I’ll just say it was less than the rack rate for the Disney Values during value season. She also had a voucher that got us 50% off meals at all Swan and Dolphin restaurants, except for Bluezoo and Shula’s. Needless to say we ate most of our meals there.

Anyway, when you are an employee, you are the first to be affected if the hotel is overbooked…which it was on Thursday, when we arrived. They told my friend about this on Wednesday, they were very apologetic, but said we would have to spend our first night at the Yacht Club. Poor us, right! Not! I was really excited when I heard this, and hoped secretly that it would be over booked for the rest of the weekend. Oh, and for our inconvenience, they gave us one of our three nights free!

So Thursday, we (me, SP, and her DD) got on the road by 11:00 am, and arrived at about 2:45. Checked into the Yacht Club, and went to our rooms. The rooms were 3032, 3034, and 3074. All of them overlooked a quiet pool. It was a very nice view, nice room, the only negative was the walk from the rooms to the lobby…it was pretty far. But that was really just a minor inconvenience. After that we hopped on a bus to the MK.

MK was an excellent pick. I was a little apprehensive about spending only half a day there, but the park was very uncrowded…we waited only 10 minutes to get on the Haunted Mansion, 20 for BTMR, etc…I think our longest wait was for Pooh, about 30 minutes…and we used fast passes for Peter Pan, that would have been a long wait. We got to do nearly everything we wanted to, but not quite everything, so we decided we’d come back the next day when we finished with Animal Kingdom.

We did stay until closing, and at about eight, we were joined by my DH and friend DJ. We all left together at closing. Since it was late, and none of us had really eaten dinner, we decided to order room service…DH and I had pizza, chicken strips, and fries…all was decent.

That’s all for now! Friday coming up…

 

[Aurora63]

Friday…

Unfortunately we were leaving the Yacht Club, so we had to wake up early, pack up, check out and drive over to the Swan…this kept us from getting to AK at opening, but oh well.

We did the move thing, of course rooms were not ready as it was only about 9:30 am, so we left our luggage there and had breakfast at the Garden Grove Café at the Swan. It was a buffet, decent food, not incredible, but also not bad. My DH said that the omelets were awesome…I had pancakes, fruit, and this corned beef hash potato thing, All was pretty good.

We got on the bus to AK then, first thing we did was head over to Kilamanjaro Safaris…something like a 70 minute wait (which I’ve done before, no thanks!) so we got fast passes and headed back to It’s a Bugs Life, which everyone loved.

Next DJ really wanted to ride EE, so we headed that way…figured we’d try Kali on our way…for some reason it was closed, maybe since it was pretty chilly out. So we toured the Maharaj Jungle Trek, which was beautiful. Then we carried on to EE.

SP saw the outside of EE and immediately decided she would never ride it. I decided to chicken out too, because it did look quite intimidating. Of course SP would not let her DD7 ride, so only DJ really wanted to…my DH agreed to ride with him, I think only because he wanted to probe his manhood! They decided to wait in the standby line (60 minutes) and we went off to Dinoland, where we did Dinosaur and Triceratop Spin. Then we went back to EE to wait for the guys…we got their in time to see them coming down the drop!

At this point it was time to head back to Kilamanjaro Safaris, so that’s what we did! The animals were out in full force, too! The white rhinos came within 5 feet of the truck, and we saw a baby elephant running with his mom, playing with a stick. This had by far been my best experience on the safari.

By this point it was past three, so we headed out of the park and back to the resort. I’ll continue later with the rest of this day!

 

[daisyduck123]

Thanks for your trip report. BTW....I also will not ride EE...I'm way too chicken!

In May, we are staying at CBR for 9 days...we will also be guests of a Cast Memeber...it was great that you got such a great place to go to since your place overbooked. I hope we don't have to move but if we do..I hope our experience will be as good as yours!

 

[princess pooh]

It sounds like a fun trip so far! You must have saved so much money because of SP. I want to be friends with her too

I glad I'm not the only one too chicken to ride EE!

 

[Aurora63]

I think I will have to ride it in June...I'm going with my sister then, just me and her, she will ride anything and everything...as long as we don't go to MGM I will be okay!

Anyway, on w. the rest of Friday...

We took the bus back to the Swan, it was about 3:30 or so at this point...two of the rooms were ready, so we took a peek at them and relaxed for a little bit. They were in west side, one had a balcony and one didn't, so SP and her daughter took the one w/o the balcony. Everything about the rooms was great...much more modern in theming than the Yacht Club. Secretly I liked the Yacht Club room better, but who wouldn't like the Swan? From out room we had a side view of the Dolphin, and down we could see the walkway connecting the two resorts. It was a very nice view.

After a little rest, we went and ate at Gulliver's Grill (which is the same as the Garden Grove Cafe, it just changes its name at night.) They were serving the Old Key West buffet that night, so we all had that...it was very very good, especially the desserts...I had this chocolate cake which was incredible...SP had a little of everything, I tried the coconut cheese cake from her plate...OMG it was incredible! Lots of good food on the buffet (Crab legs, peel and eat shrimp, salmon, tilapia, rotissire chicken, etc.) We stuffed ourselves silly...and knowing that we would get 50% off our bill made it taste so much better!

After we ate, SP, her DD and I went to the MK. We arrived around 7, and the park closed at 9, so we only had two hours, but we did a lot in that time. You could walk on most of the rides (of course not Splash, BTMR, or Space, but everything else). Very glad we went back.

After that, it was back to the hotel for some much needed rest. Tomorrow was our Epcot day, and we were all very tired.