June 2007 – Ft Lauderdale and Disney World ºoº- Noreen & Paul
WHO ARE WE?
Noreen - 39 years old; First Vice President at an Investment Banking Firm in New York City. I will be the author of the report.
Paul (my husband) - 39 years old; Small business owner.
Travel Dates – June 15 – June 23 2007
Travel Method – Plane and Rental Car
Accommodations – Offsite hotel, All Star Sports Resort, and Offsite Villa
PLANNING
Paul and I own a timeshare near Disney World at Vistana. We’ve had it for about 10 years and are very happy with it. When we were at Disney in January 2005, we went to an owners meeting expecting them to tell us any new features with the timeshare we own. Instead it was a sales pitch to buy another week. We didn’t want to buy another week, but they talked about an “Explorer” package which allows you to lock in the current rate for 18 months and also give us either an extra week at the timeshare with a rental car or 4 nights at the timeshare and 35,000 Starwood Preferred Guest points. This wasn’t free and cost about $99 a month for over a year (so probably about $1200) but if we decide to buy another week that cost will go towards our new purchase. This probably wasn’t the best use of money, but by the time we got home and thought about it some more, we were locked in. We were also given 3,000 Starwood Points for going to this presentation.
So this trip is actually our “extra” trip. We debated the full week vs the shorter time with the points. We wanted to try the points so figured we’d do that. We also wanted to try Vistana Villages. We own at Vistana Resort but figured this shorter stay in the timeshare would be a great time to try the Villages. Of course, I can’t go to Disney for just a few days and Paul hasn’t been there in a while so we decided we’d supplement the time at the timeshare with some time at one of the Disney resorts. And we had the 3,000 Starwood points I wanted to try to use.
Paul also wanted to go to Key West for a day or two. After looking at Mapquest and realizing the drive from Key West to Disney World would take about 8 hours, we decided we’d fly into Ft Lauderdale, spend a night there to see what’s there and then drive up to Disney (about 3 ½ hours).
We decided to fly down to Ft Lauderdale on Friday 6/15/07, spend the night in Ft Lauderdale, drive up to Disney on Saturday 6/16/07, spend a few nights (Saturday – Tuesday) on Disney property, then move into Vistana Villages on Tuesday 6/19/07 through Saturday 6/23/07.
I will try to note the prices I paid for things throughout the trip but won’t be compulsive about it.
Lodging
A little convoluted and 3 different places to stay this trip. On Friday April 13, 2007 I called and made all the hotel/timeshare reservations.
I had checked the Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) website and saw that there was a hotel in Ft Lauderdale that we could use the “points + cash” feature to stay at. It would be 2800 points + $45. I called and spoke to Tim who was very nice and impressed that I had some idea what I was talking about when I told him I’ve never used SPG points before and wasn’t sure what to do. I was able to book the Sheraton Yankee Trader Hotel for Friday 6/15/07.
My next call was to the Explorer package team. I spoke with Dario and was able to book a 1 bedroom with Jacuzzi at the Vistana Villages for Tuesday 6/19/07 – Saturday 6/23/07 (we were entitled to a 2 bedroom but there wasn’t one available for those dates so I was fine with the 1 bedroom since it’s just me and Paul). We will receive our additional 35,000 points after our meeting with the timeshare counselor which he scheduled for us for Wednesday at 11:15am.
My next call was to Disney. I spoke with Colleen and checked for annual pass discounts for Saturday 6/16/07 – Tuesday 6/19/07. There aren’t any AP discounts available. I asked about AAA discounts and she was able to find one those for the dates. I asked for one of the value resorts since I stayed in All Star Music in February and was surprised how impressed I was with it (I only paid $59 a night in February with an Annual Pass discount). She was able to find me All Star Sports, standard view, for $92.65 a night (AAA discount before tax) for a total of $314.10. I left a deposit of $104.70 so my balance is $209.40. She suggested I keep trying back to see if any AP discounts become available.
Update on the room at Vistana Villages…
On 5/30/07 I received a message at home from Vistana Villages just confirming our arrival date. So I called back on 5/31/07 and spoke to a woman that worked there. I told her that I originally was supposed to have a two bedroom but was told only a 1 bedroom was available. My main purpose was to ensure that I was getting the one bedroom that has the Jacuzzi and patio. She said hold on and said a two bedroom is available and moved us into it.
So with my lodging booked, it looks as follows:
Friday 6/15 – Ft Lauderdale – Sheraton Yankee Trader
Saturday 6/16 – Tuesday 6/19 – Disney’s All Star Sports
Tuesday 6/19 – Saturday 6/23 – Vistana Villages
Car Rental
I booked a car through National Car Rental on line. A mid size SUV with unlimited miles for approximately $300. We will be picking it up in Ft Lauderdale and returning it to Orlando.
I received an email with a $30 off coupon for National on 5/23/07. I didn’t know if I’d find a better price but went on line to check. I was able to get a Full Size with unlimited miles for approximately $220 so I booked that.
Flight
On 4/20/07 I booked my flight online. We live in Northern NJ so the distance from my house to Newark airport is 43 miles and the distance from my house to JFK airport is 48 miles so I check the various NY area airports to see which one has the best times/prices. On Friday 6/15/07 it’s flight #505 leaving from Newark Airport at 9 am and landing in Ft Lauderdale at 12:30pm. Coming home Saturday 6/23/07 it’s flight # 528 leaving Orlando at 9:50 pm and landing at Newark Airport at 12:22am (Sunday). Our flights were $89 each way.
On May 10, 2007 I was on the Jet Blue website and noticed that the price for our Newark to Ft Lauderdale flight has dropped to $69. I called to see if they do any price adjustments and the woman said they do, but there was only 1 seat available at $69 so she couldn’t apply it. I asked why she can’t just apply it to one of our seats. She said she would have to break up the reservation. I asked what that meant and it basically meant we would each have our own confirmation numbers. OK, that’s fine so she went ahead and I have a $20 credit with Jet Blue.
Later that afternoon I noticed that the price for the Newark to Ft Lauderdale flight was still showing at $69 so I called Jet Blue again and was able to get another $20 credit for Paul’s seat. Because we had a $10 voucher from when the TV’s didn’t work on my flight in February, we received a $10 credit and a $10 voucher.
We will drive to the airport and park at Corporate Park which we have used in the past.
Food
I’ve been a vegetarian since November 2004 and am still figuring out what I like to eat without meat, chicken, or fish in my diet. Lately, I’ve been experimenting a little and sometimes trying something I used to like before becoming vegetarian so I’m not overly strict about it. My friend Kim recently got an annual pass and also bought the Disney Dining Experience (DDE) card. She said it’s worth it and showed me all the restaurants that take it. I called to order my DDE card on Thursday 6/14/07 and can pick up the temporary card at Epcot Guest Services when we get to Orlando on Saturday.
I made the following Reservations on 4/25/07 knowing we’ll probably cancel/change some of them – the Kona Café reservation was made in late May, the O’Hana reservation was made on 6/8/07:
Saturday 6/16/07 - Dinner – Raglan Road @ Pleasure Island – 8:30pm
Sunday 6/17/07 - Lunch – Liberty Tree Tavern @ Magic Kingdom – 1pm
Sunday 6/17/07 - Dinner – Plaza Restaurant @ Magic Kingdom – 7:35pm
Monday 6/18/07 – Breakfast – Kona Café @ the Polynesian 10:10am
Monday 6/18/07 - Dinner – Rainforest Café @ Animal Kingdom 9:30pm
Tuesday 6/19/07 - Lunch – Le Cellier @ Epcot – 12:40pm
I tried to make a reservation for dinner but they were all booked up. The cast member checked every night of our trip and all dinner times were booked so I suggested looking for lunch reservations instead.
Tuesday 6/19/07 – Dinner – O’Hana @ the Polynesian – 9:10pm
Wednesday 6/20/07 - Dinner – Jiko @ Animal Kingdom Lodge – 7:30
Thursday 6/21/07 - Lunch – Sci Fi @ MGM 1:20pm
Thursday 6/12/07 - Dinner – Mama Melrose # MGM 7:10pm
Friday 6/22/07 - Lunch – Alfredo’s @ Epcot 1pm
Friday 6/22/07 - Dinner – Nine Dragon’s @ Epcot 7:15pm
Saturday 6/23/07 - Lunch – Whispering Canyon Café @ Wilderness Lodge 1:10pm
Saturday 6/23/07 - Dinner – Tony’s @ Magic Kingdom 7:30pm
When I was in Key West last September with my friend Cathy as a stop on a cruise, we went to Kermit’s Key Lime Shoppe and had frozen key lime pie dipped in chocolate on a stick. I heard that there are other places to get Kermit’s products so have been trying to find them. Our original thought was we would fly into Ft Lauderdale and maybe drive to Key West for the day. We decided against doing that and will spend the day in Ft Lauderdale. On the Disboards, I asked about the key lime pie and found out there is a Kermit’s in Mt Dora which is only about 45 minutes from Disney. There is also one in St Augustine maybe an hour or so from Disney. So we may take a little trip over there one day to check it out.
Admission Media
I have an annual pass so no new admission media is needed for Disney for me. We will probably get Paul and annual pass this trip. Our expiration dates won’t match but that’s OK. We’re also going to Disney World in September with my sister, brother in law, and niece. And then I probably will want to go back to Disney again for my 40th birthday next April (4/11/08).
General Planning
In the past whenever we’ve gone on vacation, we’ve had Peter (my brother in law’s partner) dogsit/housesit for us. We haven’t been on the best terms with Phil and Peter recently so had to make other arrangements for who would take care of Kiki (our Akita). We agonized over what the best thing to do would be. A woman in my spinning class is an animal fanatic. She went down to New Orleans to rescue animals after Hurricane Katrina and she volunteers time at animal shelters. She recommended her pet sitter – Jeannie.
I spoke with Jeannie and she suggested coming over to meet Kiki to make sure Kiki liked her. So it was kind of like Kiki was able to interview her pet sitter. Well, it was love at first sight. Kiki got along very well with Jeannie. While meeting Kiki, Jeannie asked me a lot of questions about what Kiki needs and various things about taking care of her.
Kiki will stay home and Jeannie will come over each day to take care of her and spend time with her. We have a doggie door so Kiki is able to go out on the deck and can go to the bathroom there if she has to.
DAY BY DAY
The week before the trip
The usual business with knowing I’d be out for a week. I tried to get some of our packing done the weekend before we were to leave. I have this huge charcoal grey suitcase that I love since I can usually get most everything in there. The problem is that it’s heavy and probably weighs about 10 pounds empty. Once I fill it, I barely squeaked by when the weight limit for luggage was 70 pounds. Now that it’s 50 pounds, we had to revisit our luggage situation. We went to Fortunoff a few weeks ago and bought a great set of the spinner luggage – a set of 3 pieces that can nest inside each other. We even got a bright color (red) so they would stand out from the rest of the black luggage.
The day before the trip – Thursday 6/14/07
I got all the loose ends at work tied up. I ordered my DDE card on the phone. I did the online check in and printed out boarding passes at Jet Blue’s website. Since we didn’t finish packing I wasn’t sure how many bags we would be checking so I checked off 2 checked bags each.
I ended up working until close to 9pm. I started at about 7:30am. It’s later than I would have liked but better than some other nights before leaving for vacation. There have been nights before vacation where I would be stuck at work until 1am.
Once I got home I finished up our packing. We ended up with 3 bags to check in total (one had an extra duffel in case we needed another bag on the way home) and 1 carry on rolling bag each.
Paul had his weekly poker game tonight instead of the usual Tuesday night so I came home to a house full of people.
Friday 6/15/07
Paul’s poker game lasted until about 4am so Paul just stayed up. One of the guys, Tony, who lives in DC, stayed over. We figured he’d keep Kiki company once we left until he had to leave.
I was up about 4:30 am and took Kiki for a walk. I had to wake her up. I usually wake her up on work days around 5am so it was a littler earlier than usual. Then I showered and got ready to go. I couldn’t find my sunglasses which is really odd since I always keep them in the same place (in my car). Also, I usually have my sunglasses for years. I bought this pair (that I can’t find) a few years ago because the ones I had before that were about 10 years old and completely out of style.
We left the house around 6:15am after some tearful goodbyes to Kiki. We’ll miss her. We always bring a picture of her in a frame that we’ll put on the nightstand of whatever hotel we’re in.
We stopped at a bagel store to get bagels to bring on the plane for breakfast.
7am We arrived at Corporate Park near Newark Airport to drop off the car and be dropped off at the airport. We like Corporate Park and their service is very good. As soon as you pull in, they help load your luggage right into their van, ask you when you’re coming back, you get into the van, and they’re off to the airport right away. The JetBlue Curbside porter was also very friendly (probably for his tip). But he had to work a little since my boarding passes I printed at work had us checking 2 bags each and we really were only checking 3 bags in total, so he had to reprint one of them. We tipped him and were on our way through security that was pretty quick. We were waiting at the gate by 7:40am and stopped in the little store to buy a bottle of water for the plane.
We boarded around 8:20 and we are booked in the exit row so have some extra legroom. We were scheduled to depart at 9am but that didn’t happen even though we were all on the plane early. There was a back up for taking off according to the pilot.
We took off around 9:30 and had an uneventful flight to Ft Lauderdale. We ate our bagels. Paul took a nap. I read a book. Flying is the only time I get to read since I drive to work every day so don’t have that commute on the train time to read anymore.
We landed around 12:05 but waited a while for our luggage to come out. Our new red luggage is easy to spot but the biggest piece was already banged up on it’s first trip. This spinner luggage is very easy to maneuver around the airport and can roll sideways with one on each side of you.
The line at National car rental was fairly long so we used the kiosk instead to check in. We were done and on our way to the garage before the next person in line was called to see a clerk. We reserved a full size car and chose a silver Pontiac Grand Prix and were quickly on our way.
It was a relatively short ride along A1A to find our hotel for tonight – the Sheraton Yankee Trader. It’s right on the beach. It is cloudy and drizzling on and off. We’re not beach people but it’s very pretty with palm trees.
We had a small problem at check in – they couldn’t find our reservation. This was our first time using Starwood Preferred Guests (SPG) points + cash so I was a little worried. The woman trying to check us in was very helpful. I pulled out my confirmation email with the reservation number on it. It turns out the reservation said checking in on 5/15 instead of 6/15. After a few phone calls and speaking with Starwood it was fixed. The woman at Sheraton made all the calls and just handed me the phone periodically if they needed information from me. It was resolved a bit later and the whole check in process took about 45 minutes.
Problems happen, but how they are handled is what’s important. I should have checked the confirmation email I received more closely and Sheraton could have easily said “Sorry, you’re out of luck and need to pay rack rate.” Instead, they bent over backwards to help us, even upgrading us to an ocean view room and giving us vouchers for free breakfast tomorrow at Shulas. (A steakhouse restaurant which was right in the hotel).
We brought our stuff up to the room which is very nice. We didn’t unpack since we’re only here for one night; I just pulled out the toiletry bag and put those items in the bathroom. Our windows look right out onto the beach.
We headed out to explore. We drove up Las Olas Blvd. Some of the houses around here are beautiful with private yachts. There are a lot of waterways.
We were kind of hungry so stopped for a late lunch around 3:15 at McDonalds. Paul had a Big Mac meal. I attempted a snack wrap and French fries. I enjoyed the French fries. It was a cheap lunch at $8. Even though I’m a vegetarian, I’ve been venturing into attempting to eat things I normally wouldn’t.
We went to the Hardrock Casino. Paul loves casinos. We always joke around that a casino is his Disney World since that’s my favorite place to go. We signed up for player cards and were given $10 automatic slot credit to play with.
The casino was pretty empty. There are no table games like Blackjack, Roulette, Craps, etc. There were very few video poker slot machines. There were a lot of 5 and 10 cent machines.
There is a poker area so Paul wanted to get into a game. He asked what games they had and the man working there told him $1/$2. Paul asked if there are any higher games since he usually likes to play a $3/$6 or $5/$10 cash game. The man was so funny and said, “Well $2 is more than $1 and that the maximum bet in the state of Florida is $2”. Then Paul asked if it’s no limit after the initial $2 bet and the man said “Nope, just $2 max per bet”. Then he looked for a tournament. They had a $65 tournament but he just missed it. So he signed up for the $100 tournament and waited and waited. They couldn’t get enough people to play. This is quite a change from Atlantic City where everyone is trying to play and there are waiting lists to get in. So Paul gave up on playing poker here.
We took a walk around the outside area which was set up like a Downtown Disney or Universal City Walk type of area. We went to BadAss Coffee and got a frappacino type drink for $5. Then we looked at some sunglasses at a little outside stand but I didn’t like anything there.
We went back into the casino and played a bunch of the slots. We played some really cute 5 cent slots and did pretty good on some of them. We would start out putting in $20 and cashing out $100. Of course, some of the machines just took our money.
We had dinner around 9:30pm at the food court. I had a veggie burger meal for approximately $7.50 but I’ve accumulated over $2.50 in slot points so only had to pay just under $5. Paul got sausages and a garlic roll for about $4. The veggie burger was very good and had some interesting things on it like sprouts and guacamole. Both the veggie burger and the fries were very good.
We played a little longer and left around 11:30. We stopped at Publix but they were closed so stopped at CVS. I bought a cheap pair of sunglasses and we bought some water and soda.
We drove back to the Sheraton Yankee Trader, got some ice, and Paul turned on the TV – which didn’t work. This is a crisis to Paul. He likes to have the TV on to go to sleep. We called the front desk and the woman was very helpful asking questions and trying to solve it. Unfortunately, no one from engineering was around to replace it. She asked if we wanted to change rooms and Paul did. This was easy enough. I stopped at the front desk for new keys. She offered us vouchers for free breakfast for the inconvenience but I said it’s not necessary since we already had them. She then offered us a free pay per view movie. I declined since we weren’t going to start watching a whole movie. She was very helpful and offered to have a bellman come to move our stuff. We didn’t need assistance and just moved it ourselves.
Our new room was handicap accessible and huge. The window went across the whole room. We quickly got settled into the new room, with Paul happy to have the TV working, and we went to bed.
Saturday 6/16/07
We woke up to another cloudy/drizzly day. The sun peeks out here and there.
Around 9:30am we went down to Shula’s for our free breakfast. It’s very nice. I had a Belgian waffle with strawberries and whipped cream and apple juice. Paul had the steak eggs benedict, pineapple juice, and coffee. If we had to pay instead of using the voucher, Paul’s breakfast was $21.95 and mine was $10.95, juice was $3, I didn’t note the price for coffee. We left a $10 tip even though the voucher said gratuity is included.
We walked across the street to dip our feet in the ocean (well me anyway). A wave came by and the whole bottom of my capris got soaked. Once we went back up to the room I had to change. We noticed several people with dogs staying at the hotel so of course, missed our Kiki.
We checked out around 11 and loaded up the car and got started on our drive up to Orlando. The weather was so strange; it would pour torrentially for 10 minutes and then it would stop and be sunny; then it would start raining again. We were making very good time. We stopped at a rest stop on the Florida turnpike and ended up buying more sunglasses. It was 4 for $30 so we each got 2 pairs. I usually just get my one good pair and they last a long time. Paul loses his sunglasses all the time so always buys these cheap ones since he knows he’ll lose them. We probably spent about ½ hour at this rest stop trying on sunglasses.
We got back on the road and were zipping along. We were driving over 100 miles per hour for part of the time. It was us and a white Mustang that stayed with us all the way up to Orlando. When we were younger we used to love renting cars on vacation since we had older beat up cars at home and it was a treat to have a nice new car on vacation. Now, that we’re older our regular cars are nicer than the rental cars so it doesn’t have the same thrill and it’s just a way to get from one place to another.
Our first stop was at Publix to pick up some bottled water, soda, and snacks - $22.72.
We stopped at Epcot for me to pick up my temporary DDE card from Guest Services. This was done very quickly.
We drove over to All Star Sports to check in. Paul stayed in the car while I checked in. The line looked long but it really was only 3 parties ahead of me, it’s just that the whole family was in line with all of their luggage.
We’re in room 4233 in the Tennis building all the way at the back of the resort. It’s not a renovated room, but it’s fine. We brought up all of our luggage and I unpacked. Paul would be happy continuing to live out of the suitcase, but I like to unpack and get everything put away and organized. There isn’t much drawer space but I managed to get things somewhat organized.
We walked around the resort a little and then decided to drive back to the check in area to see what’s there since Paul was in the car while I checked in. Paul liked the game room.
We drove over to Downtown Disney. We weren’t sure if we should head to a park tonight or where to go. I didn’t plan much for today since I wasn’t sure what time we would get to Orlando.
The line at Guest Relations was huge so we didn’t buy Paul’s annual pass yet. It was after 6 and we never had lunch. We have reservations at Raglan Road for 8:30pm but knew if we ate something now we wouldn’t be hungry then.
We decided to see if Raglan Road could take us early. It was pretty empty when we got there and we were seated right away. We were in a nice little corner table.
We started off with the calamari and vegetable tempura appetizer which was served very cutely in metal stand up cones. It was pretty good – or maybe we were just hungry.
I tried the fish and chips. Paul had the Shepherd’s Pie. The fries were a bit hard but not really crispy. The fish was pretty good. Paul didn’t like his Shepherd’s Pie. I had Sprite and Paul had water. The waitress wasn’t that good. Not bad just not that good. She never offered to refill our beverages even when they were empty and she was at the table and saw it. She just was not very attentive. With the DDE 20% savings our total was $39.28, we added a $9 tip for a grand total of $48.28. So we tried Raglan Road, but I don’t think we’ll go back.
After eating we walked all over. Through the MarketPlace, Pleasure Island, and across the West Side. It was pretty crowded. We walked through a lot of the stores – some because we were interested and some because it was air conditioned. It’s very hot and humid out.
We walked past Cookes of Dublin which is the fast food side of Raglan Road with a totally separate entrance. And realized we would have been just as happy (or happier) eating there instead of Raglan Road.
Paul bought 2 mini candy chocolates at Goofy’s Candy company for 52 cents.
We were back at All Star Sports by 9:30. At the food court Paul got a white chocolate macadamia cookie that was $1.89 but after DDE was $1.62. I bought the refillable mug for $11.99. We sat out by the pool for a little bit.
We stopped at the concierge desk to ask if they knew where the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa was. They did and said it was right off I4. We wanted to know in case we decided to take another little trip during the week. We also got our ADR (advance dining reservation) printout for all our meals this week.
We went to the game room/arcade next and spent some time playing the various games. Paul bought the mega card for $25 with tons of credit on it.
We were back in our room a little after 11pm.
It was odd being at Disney and not going to a park yet
Sunday 6/17/07
Paul wanted Denny’s for breakfast (we don’t have those by us). We stopped to get gas for the car and saw a Bob Evans nearby which we’ve never tried and don’t have near us either so we went there instead of Denny’s. Paul had a farmer’s omelette and I had a strawberry/banana crepe. With tip breakfast was approximately $22.
We got to MGM around 11:15 and stopped at Guest Services to buy Paul’s annual pass. He decided to get the Premium annual pass for $595.36 (about $130 more than the regular annual pass). We had a few American Express gift cards that Paul got for his birthday and wanted to use towards his pass, but they can only take 3 modes of payment so we used two of the Amex gift cards ($150 worth) and paid the balance.
Our first stop was the Lights Motors Action stunt show that was at 11:40. We headed over early to make sure we could get in. The park is pretty crowded. It’s also very hot out.
I stopped at the Star Wars merchandise area to pick up a shirt for my friend Kim’s nephew. I had it sent back to the room and doing this took the cast member (CM) a really long time. I told him I could just carry it, but since he already started it, he wanted to finish.
Paul went to have a cigarette and I was going to meet him after I got the shirt. With all the Star Wars stuff going on, I didn’t see the smoking section so asked a CM who said it’s moved down the street. So I’m looking and looking and couldn’t find it. I asked two more CMs and no one knew. Finally I walked back towards the BackLot Tour and found Paul. I know there has been a lot of debate back and forth regarding smoking at Disney and especially with the ban on smoking in the Disney hotels. I am not a smoker and prefer to be in a non-smoking environment. Paul, on the other hand, does smoke. But he is a respectful smoker and will only smoke in the designated areas. Even at home, he only smokes outside or in the kitchen where we have a vent thing in the island. Not to start any kind of war about this, but I think smokers need to have their spaces to go to smoke too. It needs to be a well ventilated area, but they need to have a space also.
We went into One Man’s Dream and watched the movie. It was nice and cool in here.
We got on line for The Little Mermaid. The next showing was at 2:15. Paul went to get a fast pass for the Great Movie Ride and took a long time getting back. It turns out, there weren’t fast passes at the Great Movie Ride so he went to get us fast passes for the Tower of Terror that were good from 3:55 – 4:55. He also picked up a Mango/Passion slushee on the way back. The Little Mermaid was a cute show as always.
The line at the Great Movie Ride was about an hour long so we headed towards Muppets. We were pleasantly surprised to see only a 10 minute wait so went right in.
The great Movie Ride was down to about a 30 minute wait when walked by we waited. We had a female tour guide as well as a female gangster.
After the Great Movie Ride we headed to the Tower of Terror to use our fast passes. It was a good thing we had them, as the line was very long.
We were hungry and wanted a snack so got a soft pretzel for me, a turkey leg for Paul, and some soda.
After our snack, we wandered through the various shops on the way out of MGM. We then drove over to Magic Kingdom. We were able to park in the first spot (closest to the tram) in our row – Pluto 27. We took the tram and then the ferry over to the Magic Kingdom.
We wandered through the shops on Main Street and made our way to TomorrowLand and went to Monster’s Inc Laugh Floor. This was pretty cute and Paul’s first time seeing it. They still don’t have Sully in the attraction, but at least the concept is explained better than when I saw it in a sneak preview in February.
At 7:30 we headed to the Plaza Restaurant for dinner. We waited about 15 minutes to be seated. While waiting, I watched many people without reservations being turned away. Paul had the Reuben sandwich. I had the vegetarian sandwich that came with sweet potato chips. I had soda and Paul had iced tea. We both enjoyed our food. My sandwich was very good – it had fresh mozzarella, tomato, lettuce, cucumber, pesto, and hummus on focaccia. I’m sure I’m forgetting a few other items that were in it. After the DDE discount and adding a tip our total was only about $26. Our waitress was very attentive refilling our beverages when they were running low and she even gave us soda/iced tea in “to go” cups when we were done and paying our bill. This was our first time ever eating at the Plaza restaurant and we were pleasantly surprised by it. The food was good and inexpensive, the atmosphere was very pleasant, and our waitress was attentive.
We went on the Carousel of Progress next and Paul stayed awake the whole time. He usually naps during this attraction. Next we walked right onto the TTA.
We walked into Fantasyland which was pretty crowded.
Snow White had only a 10 minute wait so we went on that.
We were able to get right into Mickey’s Philharmagic. This is our favorite 3D show at Disney. As usual, there are some people that just can’t follow directions and move to the end of the row so we had to climb over a few people.
We walked over to Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain but the waits were prohibitive so we walked through to AdventureLand.
Wishes was starting at 10pm so we stopped to watch that. It wasn’t the best vantage point, but we were able to see the fireworks. Paul doesn’t like standing in crowds so was very happy to watch from here rather than among the crowds in front of the castle.
Pirates of the Caribbean was next with about a 15 minute wait. Of course when we exited I had to take a few pictures of Paul wearing various pirate hats.
We waited for Splash Mountain about ½ hour. I took the chicken stairs, as I don’t like getting wet in my clothes. I waited for Paul right where the people get off the log. Paul came off drenched. He was the only one in his log that got so wet.
Next we waited about 20 minutes for Big thunder Mountain. Since Paul was soaking wet and you slide back and forth into each other, I sat in the row behind him. The lady seating us thought I was a little strange until I explained why I didn’t want to share the row with him. It seems like a different ride at night.
We walked back into Fantasyland and Peter Pan still had a 45 minute wait so we skipped it.
We went on It’s a Small World with a 10 minute wait. Next we went onto the Carousel. Surprisingly, it wasn’t that long of a wait. There is something about riding one of the those pretty horses, spinning around, up and down, that just makes you feel like a kid.
Winnie the Pooh had a 15 minute wait. Again we rode in separate rows in the same honey pot. I didn’t want to sit that close since Paul was still drenched.
The Autopia had about a 15 minute wait which is good for this attraction so on we went.
Space Mountain still had a long wait so we skipped it.
Paul wanted to ride Astro Orbitor so I waited while he rode. I’m not crazy about rides that go in circles or spin or that you get wet on.
Buzz Lightyear was next with about a 10 minute wait. Even with getting stuck in one of the rooms, I still had a measly score.
It was close to 2am so we headed towards Main Street. Extra Magic Hours ended at 2am. Paul was looking for a snack and wanted a hot dog. Unfortunately, Casey’s was closed. The boats weren’t running to the TTC; neither was the express monorail. The resort monorail was running so we took that to the TTC.
A CM who was riding on the Monorail was chatting with us. He was joking around saying he didn’t think the trams were still running either since most people take Disney transportation for EMH and don’t need it. He didn’t deny it, and told us he’s sworn to secrecy, and we should read between the lines, when we asked about the new DVC property possibly being built at the Contemporary.
Luckily, a tram was right there so we got on and into our car. Even at 2am, it was still hot and muggy out.
Somehow I missed our turn and got a bit turned around and off Disney property. I have no sense of direction normally, but can find my way around Disney pretty well usually. I guess those big purple signs saying “Magic Kingdom this way” help.
We stopped at McDonald’s 24 hour drive through to get a snack.
We went to bed around 3:30am
Monday 6/18/07
We slept a bit later today after being up late last night for extra magic hours. We missed our breakfast at Kona Café. Instead we headed down to the food court around 11:40 and they were serving lunch. I had the kid’s grilled cheese meal and Paul had the kid’s spaghetti and meatball meal.
It’s ridiculously hot out today. It is even worse than the last few days. Paul’s feet hurt and he has two huge blisters after running around the parks so much yesterday.
Our original plan was to go to Animal Kingdom, but with the heat and Paul’s feet, changed our plans.
We drove to Tampa to go to the Hard Rock casino instead.
When we got off the highway we had some trouble finding it so pulled into a Steak and Shake to ask for directions. What a cute little place – another thing we don’t have by us. Paul got a burger to go to snack on. I got a peach yogurt shake that even had little bits of peaches in it.
Once we got to the casino, we played some slots but weren’t doing very well. This casino also doesn’t have many poker machines.
Paul played in a Sit N Go poker tournament. It was done on a computerized table, instead of a live dealer. He chopped. The top 2 played get paid. The buy in was $40 and the prize pool was $300. 1st place was to get $240 and 2nd place was to get $60. Paul and one other guy were left. They were close in chips so rather than going back and forth, they chopped (split the pot) and each walked away with $150. It was a quick game too and only took about 40 minutes once it started.
We played some more slots after the poker game and did a little better.
We decided to head back to Disney to go to Animal Kingdom. We stopped for gas (about $40) and Paul saw an Arby’s and wanted to go there since we don’t’ have that by us either. They had a cute menu item where you choose 5 items for $5.95. That’s what Paul got – soda, potato cakes, fries, and 2 roast beef sandwiches. I ate the potato cakes and some fries.
After leaving Arby’s and getting back on I4, it started raining. As we neared Disney, it was a torrential downpour and you couldn’t see where you were going.
We headed back to the hotel to see what happens with the rain rather than going straight to the park. The rain would slow a bit and then pour again. We found out later there was a tornado nearby and that’s why we had all the rain.
It finally stopped around 9:15pm. Animal Kingdom had Extra Magic Hours until 11pm, but we didn’t think it made sense to run over there now. Also, Paul’s feet were still hurting.
We decided to tour some hotels instead. We drove to the Polynesian and wandered around. We got onto the Monorail and took it to the Grand Floridian for some touring. Back on the Monorail, we skipped the Contemporary and rode back to the Polynesian. We went to Captain Cook’s (food court) and ordered a tomato/basil flatbread to share for dinner. We used the kiosk to order – approximately $8.50. We had our refillable mug so used that for some soda.
We drove back to All Star Sports and did some packing since we’re moving tomorrow to Vistana Villages.
Tuesday 6/19/07
We finished packing up most of our stuff and then headed down to the food court for breakfast. Paul had the biscuits and gravy; I had the kid’s French toast meal. Our total after DDE discount was $4.98. After breakfast we went back to our room and loaded up the car. We took a few pictures around the resort before leaving.
We drove over to Vistana Villages knowing check in isn’t until 4pm but thinking that since it’s a Tuesday, maybe the room would be ready early. Also, we wanted to see where Vistana Villages are since we own at Vistana Resort and know where that one is – right on 535. Vistana Villages is new to us and is on International Drive, but not all the way down where all the stores and congestion is, this is closer to Disney World and surprisingly near the back of Sea World.
We drove right past the main entrance and realized we missed it after we passed. Paul pulled into the next driveway. It turned out to be a back entrance and we were in. There was no security guard this way. There was a gate that was open so we’re assuming this maybe an employee entrance. Hopefully, the gate is closed at night so people can’t just stroll in. The normal entrance does have a guard gate.
The lobby/reception area is very nice and welcoming. As expected, our room isn’t ready yet, but I was given a map of the property and an information brochure.
We drove over to Disney’s Beach Club next, parked there, wandered around, and then took the boat to Epcot. We were running a little late for our 12:40 reservation at Le Cellier.
I checked in at Le Cellier at 1:10. We waited about 10 minutes and were shown to a table for two right near the bathrooms. Paul had Coke and I had Sprite. We started with the cheese soup to share. We used it to dip the breadsticks in. They changed the menu and the Portobello burger was no longer the vegetarian item. It was now a roasted red pepper stuffed with black beans and corn. I didn’t think I would like that. For our entrees Paul had the prime rib sandwich. I ordered the beef tips in noodles and vegetables figuring I could pick out the meat. Our food was good but way too filling. We both ate about ½ of our dishes and had the rest boxed to go. I even tasted a piece of the meat and it was pretty good. Our total after DDE and tip was about $48. So far the DDE in sit down restaurants pretty much pays the tip since we usually leave a 20% tip.
We walked into Future World and waited about 15 minutes to ride Spaceship Earth. My friend Kim called so I chatted with her for a bit while we waited.
Journey into Imagination had about a 10 minute wait so we went on that next.
The wait listed for Soarin was 110 minutes – nope, we’ll try again later. Even the line for the Nemo and Friends ride was almost to the Land. There were no fast passes available for Soarin either.
I feel bad for anyone who is here for their first trip at this time of year since the lines are long and it’s really hot. We’ll skip things if the lines are too long since we’ve probably ridden it before and know we can ride it again another time. It’s hard to have both crowds and heat – one or the other is bad enough, but both is a double whammy. But I’m still in my favorite place – Disney World – so I’m a happy camper.
It was about 3:40 so we decided to go and get checked in at Vistana Villages and come back to the park later. We took the boat back to the Beach Club. The boat was very hot. I prefer traveling by car where I can control the temperature as well as when we leave.
Once at the Bach Club we went into the store/food court area and shared a Mango/Raspberry Gelato $2.87. We also refilled our Disney Mug. Paul was excited to see that they had Mr Pibb. It’s kind of like Dr Pepper.
We stopped at the Publix right near Vistana Villages to pick up some things – soda, juice bread, snacks, detergent, etc. We spent $37.37 in Publix.
We went to Vistana Villages and I waited on line to check in. Our villa is ready. We’re in the Amelia section that is a new section that just opened a few months ago. We’re in building 28 – room 404. We drove over to the villa and brought our luggage and groceries up.
The Villa is beautiful. When you walk in immediately to the right is a little closet with a stacked washer and dryer. Next on the right is the kitchen with granite tops and new appliances (the granite maybe fake, but it looks nice). It’s an open design as the counter looks over the dining room and then the living room. Right past the kitchen is the dining area with a table for 6. The Living room is next with a couch, comfortable chair, coffee table, end table, a dresser with a nice flat panel TV that swivels and is about 40 inches. The TV had a whole entertainment system console under it with things like DVD, CD, etc. We didn’t use any of those other features, just regular TV. The balcony is right past the Living Room. Our view leaves much to be desired as we look over a ditch where I guess they will be building more villas or maybe a lake.
From the front door looking to the left is the guest bedroom – nicely furnished with two full size beds, a 30 inch flat screen swivel TV, a dresser, a night table, and a closet. The guest bathroom with granite (maybe fake) and double sinks follows. There is an extra closet in the Living room. Entering the Master Bedroom, there is a king sized bed, 2 night tables with drawers, a chair, a dresser with another 30 inch flat screen swivel TV. The master bath has a Jacuzzi, 2 sinks - one on either side of the room, a shower stall, and a toilet in it’s own room. The closet which has a safe is in the Master Bath.
After unpacking we headed over to Epcot. Many of the attractions were crowded and no fast passes were available.
We went into Innoventions and did the Intro to Segway. This was pretty cute. They show you how they work and each person gets a chance to ride it back and forth and around in a circle. It’s probably also good advertising to drum up business for the longer Segway tour that you have to pay for.
We got our Extra Magic Hour bracelets on our way to World showcase. Mexico was our next stop and we waited on line for the new attraction, the redone El Rio Del Tiempo, which is now the Gran Fiesta Tour. It’s pretty similar except Donald Duck is part of it as are several other ducks. Some of the old scenes such as the begging merchants have been eliminated. It was pretty cute. After trying on and taking pictures of ourselves in a few sombreros we left Mexico.
It’s been raining on and off all evening. Not pouring, but enough to be annoying. I’ve been putting my plastic Disney rain poncho on and then taking it off. It’s kind of hot to wear a plastic poncho.
In Norway, Maelstrom had closed already so we couldn’t ride. We waited on line at the bakery so I could get a rice cream $2.44. These are delish.
Paul wanted a snack too so we got him the children’s plate at La Cantina in Mexico. It included a chicken and cheese quesadilla, some chips with cheese and small soda for $4.25.
Illuminations was at 9pm and we saw some of it as we headed back towards Future World.
We went on the single rider line at Test Track. We ended up in the same car next to each other. This made our wait only 20 minutes versus over an hour for the regular line.
Mission Space was next. There was no wait. Paul went on the intense side. I skipped it since we just snacked. I like the less intense version of this ride. I’ve ridden both sides and prefer not to be spun around as much.
The Seas with Nemo and Friends was next with a 15 minute wait. This was Paul’s first time on this attraction. He liked it, but wouldn’t have liked it as much if he had to wait in a huge line.
In the Land Pavillion, we walked right onto Living with the Land.
At 11pm the wait for Soarin was posted as 60 minutes but we got on line. We met this nice group of people from Akron Ohio and also a guy from Gainesville Florida. Chatting with this group made the wait go much faster. We found out that rent is really cheap in Akron as the guy had a 2 bedroom apartment for $460 a month and when he included his utilities is was $490 a month. We pay our landscaper more per month than they pay for rent in Akron.
By the time we got to the front of the line we said we are a party of 7 and had the front row. We said goodbye after Soarin.
It was just about midnight (the end of EMH) so we headed out.
Paul heated up some leftovers when we got back to the Villa.
I did a few loads of laundry, went in the Jacuzzi, and we went to bed. I really like having the washer and dryer in the villa. Especially since it’s been so hot, we’ve been going through clothes quicker than normal. This way they all got washed and are ready to be worn again.
Wednesday 6/20/07
We had breakfast at Denny’s around 10am. Paul had a Super Grand Slam. I had a French Toast Slam. It’s way too much food. But it was good. Our total after tax and tip was about $20.
We had an appointment at Vistana at 11:15 (part of the Explorer package) to speak with a counselor and see if we wanted to buy more time. We went to Vistana and checked in but the lady who we were supposed to meet with, Fabiola, was at the Villages, so she asked if we would drive back over there. I had a couple of questions that I asked her about. I heard about Vistana losing it’s gold Crown Status and asked about it. She said it’s only the older phases that lost their gold crown status, but that the Lakes and Cascades sections still have it (we own in the Lakes section). I also found out that our normal week if we convert to points we get 32,000 SPG points. I also found out that we can’t exchange through RCI anymore so there is no point in keeping RCI once it comes due.
We didn’t buy any additional weeks. When we said No, Fabiola got kind of annoying telling us how we would use it, the price keeps going up, etc. This went on and on. At one point, Paul went to the bathroom, and she starts talking to me in a hushed manner as if when she gets me alone, I may want to buy more time and starts telling me about the every other week deals. I still say No. Finally, the Explorer package guy asks if we want to continue with another Explorer package. No thanks again so he goes on and on. Finally, we can go and get our voucher for 35,000 SPG points.
As much as I love our timeshare at Vistana, I’m very happy with the time we have and if it’s just us we can usually get about 2 weeks out of it (in a 1 bedroom instead of the 2 bedroom we own). Also, we’ve been taking cruises too lately. Finally, if I were going to buy another timeshare, I would probably buy DVC. Maybe when we’re older and retired, we’ll need to add more weeks to our timeshare but for now, what we have is perfect for us.
We drove over to Animal Kingdom next. We got a fastpass for Tough to Be a Bug since the wait was 40 minutes.
Kali River Rapids had a long wait too so we passed. Well, Paul passed since I would have watched him ride since I don’t like to get wet when I’m dressed.
There was a 60 minute wait posted at Expedition Everest but we waited. It turned out to be about a 45 minute wait. We waited a few extra minutes for the front row and had a fun ride.
We went to see the 3:15 Finding Nemo – the Musical show. We got on line at 2:45 and luckily made it in. I really like this show. It’s probably my favorite show at Animal Kingdom. Paul enjoyed it, but didn’t like it as much as I do.
We played a few of the midway games in Dino Rama. I’m terrible at these, but Paul convinced me to try the one where you roll a ball and depending which hole the ball falls in your dinosaur moves either 1, 2, or 3 steps. I almost won but ended up in 2nd place.
We waited about ½ hour for Dinosaur. There was this annoying lady and her young son once we got into the pre-show room that pushed her way to the doors telling everyone she has a fast pass so needs to move to the front and also wants the front row. I explained to her that the fast pass allowed her to bypass most of the line, but once you get to this point in the queue, everyone waits together and that she should ask the CM for the front row when she gets to the ride vehicle. Paul thought that was rude of me to tell her, but I was just explaining how fast pass works to her.
We stopped in Restauratosaurus. Paul had the double cheeseburger meal. The fixings bar had mushrooms, grilled onions, etc. I got to pick on that with the French fries. With DDE discount the total was $5.87.
Primeval Whirl had a long wait so we skipped it.
We found the stand that made ice cream sandwiches so we shared one – about $3.75. You choose your cookie and type of ice cream and they put it together right there. We got vanilla ice cream in chocolate chip cookies. It was about 2 scoops of ice cream. It was really good. I was looking for this in February and no one knew what I was talking about when I asked a few CMs. I should have written down the name of the stand so I’ll remember for next time.
We called Jeannie (the pet sitter) to see how things are going. She said Kiki was really missing us the first two days, but she’s gotten used to Jeannie now and is doing much better. She looks forward to Jeannie coming by and they play together.
Paul went on Kali River Rapids while I waited on the bridge. The wait time was posted as 30 minutes but it took about 15 minutes.
Tough to be a Bug didn’t have a wait anymore so we went on.
It was just after 7pm so we headed over to Animal Kingdom Lodge. We had reservations at Jiko but weren’t that crazy about the menu since they’ve taken off the dish Paul liked best. We stopped at Boma, explained that we had a reservation at Jiko, but couldn’t find anything on the menu that was appealing to us and was it possible to accommodate us here instead. We were told they could but it would be about 35-40 minutes. OK, that’s fair. So we walked out towards the arcade and our buzzer went off less than 5 minutes later and we were seated.
We enjoyed our meal at Boma. I especially liked the banana bread pudding. After the DDE discount and adding tip our total was about $55.
We went to the arcade and played a few games. The game cards that they sell are good in all the resort arcades so it makes it easier.
When we got back to Vistana Villages we grabbed our bathing suits and went to the pool and hot tub.
We were out in the pool and/or hot tub for about an hour and then came back to our villa to get ready for bed.
Another thing I really like about being in the villa rather than a hotel room is the freezer. We can freeze bottles of water and take them to the parks with us for cold water rather than constantly having to buy bottles of water throughout the day. We’ll still have to buy some, but at least it cuts it down a little and frozen water as it melts is a lot colder than buying a regular cold bottle of water.
Thursday 6/21/07
We had breakfast in the villa. My friend Kim called to tell me she was able to get great AP rates for her trips in September. I’ve turned Kim into a Disney fanatic. She went to Disney for Easter weekend and bought an annual pass. She’s since been back for Memorial Day weekend and has trips scheduled for 4th of July week, Labor Day weekend, part of the week in September when I’m going, and right before Christmas. She’s going to probably buy DVC during her July 4 trip.
We headed to MGM. We got fast passes for Rock N Roller Coaster that are good from 5:25 – 6:25.
Tower of Terror had a 60 minute wait listed but we got on line anyway. We’ve found this trip that most of the wait times have been over-estimated. We waited about 40 minutes and it was a great sequence; even better than the one earlier this week.
We were a little late for our reservation at Sci Fi so went there to check in. We were seated in the 3rd row of a car in about 10 minutes. We were the hitchhikers. This place has great atmosphere. However, a very big person would not fit in these cars. They had a few regular tables too. They even had some regular tables placed between the front and back end of a car. I had Sprite. Paul had Cherry Coke. We had onion rings as an appetizer. Paul had a cheeseburger and I had a veggie burger. The veggie burger wasn’t on the menu but I asked and was told they have them. The food was OK. We enjoyed watching the movie clips as we ate. The veggie burger was cheaper than the regular burger which makes sense since it isn’t made with meat. However, in many places they are the same price. The waiter was pretty attentive and refilled our beverages when he saw them running low. After our DDE discount and tip our total was about $34.
We walked over to the Backlot Tour and waited about 15 minutes to be let in. Then we waited a while for the tram. It was about 3:30 when we got off and we decided we would take a ride to Mt. Dora to see if we could find Kermit’s Key Lime Shoppe (like the one in Key West). When I was on a cruise last September with my friend Cathy, we stopped in Key West and went to Kermit’s for frozen key lime pie on a stick. I was telling Paul how good it was. I was originally going to order him some on line, but because it’s shipped in dry ice to keep it frozen the shipping was more expensive than the pies so I didn’t. Since we didn’t drive to Key West, we figured we’d drive to Mt. Dora and get it there. It’s about 45 miles away and they close at 5 so we wanted to get on the road in case we got lost or had any trouble finding it.
We found our way to Mt. Dora pretty easily. They were closing a few of the downtown streets for a block party. I asked someone and we were one block away so we parked and got there around 4:45. We bought 3 frozen key lime pies on a stick that the woman got from her deep freezer and wrapped so they would make it back to Orlando; key lime covered pretzels, a tin of white chocolate lime cookies, and a bottle of key lime moisturizer for Kim (since she can’t eat sugar any more for health reasons). The woman locked up the store as soon as we left. Mt. Dora is a cute little town (the center of town part that we saw) but it’s out in the middle of nowhere.
When we first got to Mt. Dora, Jeannie called because Kiki had diarrhea and she called the vets office and the receptionist said they couldn’t talk to her because of doctor/patient confidentiality. Jeannie made Kiki some rice and gave her ½ an Imodium and she seemed better. Paul called the vet (he’s a friend that plays poker at our house every week) and asked why they couldn’t speak with the dog sitter. He said we needed to give them her name and then they could speak with her. Now we’ll know that for next time.
We drove back to the villa to get the frozen pie on a stick in the freezer. We shared one when we got back and it was cold but not frozen.
We drove to the Contemporary because Paul wanted to see the game room. He forgot his card so we just looked around.
We took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. Paul got a box of popcorn near the entrance. We went straight to Fantasy Land and got fast passes for Peter Pan that were good from 10:25 – 11pm.
We saw the Hall of President’s 8:30pm show.
We got into the 9pm (last showing) of the Tiki Birds.
We waited about 20 minutes for the Jungle Cruise and then we walked right onto Pirates.
My friend Chris left me a voice mail message that our petsitter is doing a good job since Kiki seems happy and well taken care of. I had asked him if he would stop by our house and check on things since this is the first time we’re leaving Kiki with someone other than family. He went over on Monday and Thursday and said she was happy to see him and settled down quickly so he could tell she was getting lots of attention and love.
We walked into Fantasy Land and watched Wishes from there. It was about 10:10 so we hung out in Pinocchio’s Village Haus having some soda and crackers I had in my bag waiting until 10:25 to use our Peter Pan fast pass.
At 10:25 we rode Peter Pan. The standby line was still huge. But this is a great attraction.
Paul got a hot dog with fries at Casey’s for $6.25 and then we headed out of the Magic Kingdom. We just missed a resort monorail but the next one came quickly.
The line for the Express Monorail was huge.
Back at the Contemporary we got the car and headed back. Paul took a circular sightseeing route.
Once back at the villa, Paul made grilled cheese sandwiches for a late dinner and we went to sleep.
To Be Continued...
WHO ARE WE?
Noreen - 39 years old; First Vice President at an Investment Banking Firm in New York City. I will be the author of the report.
Paul (my husband) - 39 years old; Small business owner.
Travel Dates – June 15 – June 23 2007
Travel Method – Plane and Rental Car
Accommodations – Offsite hotel, All Star Sports Resort, and Offsite Villa
PLANNING
Paul and I own a timeshare near Disney World at Vistana. We’ve had it for about 10 years and are very happy with it. When we were at Disney in January 2005, we went to an owners meeting expecting them to tell us any new features with the timeshare we own. Instead it was a sales pitch to buy another week. We didn’t want to buy another week, but they talked about an “Explorer” package which allows you to lock in the current rate for 18 months and also give us either an extra week at the timeshare with a rental car or 4 nights at the timeshare and 35,000 Starwood Preferred Guest points. This wasn’t free and cost about $99 a month for over a year (so probably about $1200) but if we decide to buy another week that cost will go towards our new purchase. This probably wasn’t the best use of money, but by the time we got home and thought about it some more, we were locked in. We were also given 3,000 Starwood Points for going to this presentation.
So this trip is actually our “extra” trip. We debated the full week vs the shorter time with the points. We wanted to try the points so figured we’d do that. We also wanted to try Vistana Villages. We own at Vistana Resort but figured this shorter stay in the timeshare would be a great time to try the Villages. Of course, I can’t go to Disney for just a few days and Paul hasn’t been there in a while so we decided we’d supplement the time at the timeshare with some time at one of the Disney resorts. And we had the 3,000 Starwood points I wanted to try to use.
Paul also wanted to go to Key West for a day or two. After looking at Mapquest and realizing the drive from Key West to Disney World would take about 8 hours, we decided we’d fly into Ft Lauderdale, spend a night there to see what’s there and then drive up to Disney (about 3 ½ hours).
We decided to fly down to Ft Lauderdale on Friday 6/15/07, spend the night in Ft Lauderdale, drive up to Disney on Saturday 6/16/07, spend a few nights (Saturday – Tuesday) on Disney property, then move into Vistana Villages on Tuesday 6/19/07 through Saturday 6/23/07.
I will try to note the prices I paid for things throughout the trip but won’t be compulsive about it.
Lodging
A little convoluted and 3 different places to stay this trip. On Friday April 13, 2007 I called and made all the hotel/timeshare reservations.
I had checked the Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) website and saw that there was a hotel in Ft Lauderdale that we could use the “points + cash” feature to stay at. It would be 2800 points + $45. I called and spoke to Tim who was very nice and impressed that I had some idea what I was talking about when I told him I’ve never used SPG points before and wasn’t sure what to do. I was able to book the Sheraton Yankee Trader Hotel for Friday 6/15/07.
My next call was to the Explorer package team. I spoke with Dario and was able to book a 1 bedroom with Jacuzzi at the Vistana Villages for Tuesday 6/19/07 – Saturday 6/23/07 (we were entitled to a 2 bedroom but there wasn’t one available for those dates so I was fine with the 1 bedroom since it’s just me and Paul). We will receive our additional 35,000 points after our meeting with the timeshare counselor which he scheduled for us for Wednesday at 11:15am.
My next call was to Disney. I spoke with Colleen and checked for annual pass discounts for Saturday 6/16/07 – Tuesday 6/19/07. There aren’t any AP discounts available. I asked about AAA discounts and she was able to find one those for the dates. I asked for one of the value resorts since I stayed in All Star Music in February and was surprised how impressed I was with it (I only paid $59 a night in February with an Annual Pass discount). She was able to find me All Star Sports, standard view, for $92.65 a night (AAA discount before tax) for a total of $314.10. I left a deposit of $104.70 so my balance is $209.40. She suggested I keep trying back to see if any AP discounts become available.
Update on the room at Vistana Villages…
On 5/30/07 I received a message at home from Vistana Villages just confirming our arrival date. So I called back on 5/31/07 and spoke to a woman that worked there. I told her that I originally was supposed to have a two bedroom but was told only a 1 bedroom was available. My main purpose was to ensure that I was getting the one bedroom that has the Jacuzzi and patio. She said hold on and said a two bedroom is available and moved us into it.
So with my lodging booked, it looks as follows:
Friday 6/15 – Ft Lauderdale – Sheraton Yankee Trader
Saturday 6/16 – Tuesday 6/19 – Disney’s All Star Sports
Tuesday 6/19 – Saturday 6/23 – Vistana Villages
Car Rental
I booked a car through National Car Rental on line. A mid size SUV with unlimited miles for approximately $300. We will be picking it up in Ft Lauderdale and returning it to Orlando.
I received an email with a $30 off coupon for National on 5/23/07. I didn’t know if I’d find a better price but went on line to check. I was able to get a Full Size with unlimited miles for approximately $220 so I booked that.
Flight
On 4/20/07 I booked my flight online. We live in Northern NJ so the distance from my house to Newark airport is 43 miles and the distance from my house to JFK airport is 48 miles so I check the various NY area airports to see which one has the best times/prices. On Friday 6/15/07 it’s flight #505 leaving from Newark Airport at 9 am and landing in Ft Lauderdale at 12:30pm. Coming home Saturday 6/23/07 it’s flight # 528 leaving Orlando at 9:50 pm and landing at Newark Airport at 12:22am (Sunday). Our flights were $89 each way.
On May 10, 2007 I was on the Jet Blue website and noticed that the price for our Newark to Ft Lauderdale flight has dropped to $69. I called to see if they do any price adjustments and the woman said they do, but there was only 1 seat available at $69 so she couldn’t apply it. I asked why she can’t just apply it to one of our seats. She said she would have to break up the reservation. I asked what that meant and it basically meant we would each have our own confirmation numbers. OK, that’s fine so she went ahead and I have a $20 credit with Jet Blue.
Later that afternoon I noticed that the price for the Newark to Ft Lauderdale flight was still showing at $69 so I called Jet Blue again and was able to get another $20 credit for Paul’s seat. Because we had a $10 voucher from when the TV’s didn’t work on my flight in February, we received a $10 credit and a $10 voucher.
We will drive to the airport and park at Corporate Park which we have used in the past.
Food
I’ve been a vegetarian since November 2004 and am still figuring out what I like to eat without meat, chicken, or fish in my diet. Lately, I’ve been experimenting a little and sometimes trying something I used to like before becoming vegetarian so I’m not overly strict about it. My friend Kim recently got an annual pass and also bought the Disney Dining Experience (DDE) card. She said it’s worth it and showed me all the restaurants that take it. I called to order my DDE card on Thursday 6/14/07 and can pick up the temporary card at Epcot Guest Services when we get to Orlando on Saturday.
I made the following Reservations on 4/25/07 knowing we’ll probably cancel/change some of them – the Kona Café reservation was made in late May, the O’Hana reservation was made on 6/8/07:
Saturday 6/16/07 - Dinner – Raglan Road @ Pleasure Island – 8:30pm
Sunday 6/17/07 - Lunch – Liberty Tree Tavern @ Magic Kingdom – 1pm
Sunday 6/17/07 - Dinner – Plaza Restaurant @ Magic Kingdom – 7:35pm
Monday 6/18/07 – Breakfast – Kona Café @ the Polynesian 10:10am
Monday 6/18/07 - Dinner – Rainforest Café @ Animal Kingdom 9:30pm
Tuesday 6/19/07 - Lunch – Le Cellier @ Epcot – 12:40pm
I tried to make a reservation for dinner but they were all booked up. The cast member checked every night of our trip and all dinner times were booked so I suggested looking for lunch reservations instead.
Tuesday 6/19/07 – Dinner – O’Hana @ the Polynesian – 9:10pm
Wednesday 6/20/07 - Dinner – Jiko @ Animal Kingdom Lodge – 7:30
Thursday 6/21/07 - Lunch – Sci Fi @ MGM 1:20pm
Thursday 6/12/07 - Dinner – Mama Melrose # MGM 7:10pm
Friday 6/22/07 - Lunch – Alfredo’s @ Epcot 1pm
Friday 6/22/07 - Dinner – Nine Dragon’s @ Epcot 7:15pm
Saturday 6/23/07 - Lunch – Whispering Canyon Café @ Wilderness Lodge 1:10pm
Saturday 6/23/07 - Dinner – Tony’s @ Magic Kingdom 7:30pm
When I was in Key West last September with my friend Cathy as a stop on a cruise, we went to Kermit’s Key Lime Shoppe and had frozen key lime pie dipped in chocolate on a stick. I heard that there are other places to get Kermit’s products so have been trying to find them. Our original thought was we would fly into Ft Lauderdale and maybe drive to Key West for the day. We decided against doing that and will spend the day in Ft Lauderdale. On the Disboards, I asked about the key lime pie and found out there is a Kermit’s in Mt Dora which is only about 45 minutes from Disney. There is also one in St Augustine maybe an hour or so from Disney. So we may take a little trip over there one day to check it out.
Admission Media
I have an annual pass so no new admission media is needed for Disney for me. We will probably get Paul and annual pass this trip. Our expiration dates won’t match but that’s OK. We’re also going to Disney World in September with my sister, brother in law, and niece. And then I probably will want to go back to Disney again for my 40th birthday next April (4/11/08).
General Planning
In the past whenever we’ve gone on vacation, we’ve had Peter (my brother in law’s partner) dogsit/housesit for us. We haven’t been on the best terms with Phil and Peter recently so had to make other arrangements for who would take care of Kiki (our Akita). We agonized over what the best thing to do would be. A woman in my spinning class is an animal fanatic. She went down to New Orleans to rescue animals after Hurricane Katrina and she volunteers time at animal shelters. She recommended her pet sitter – Jeannie.
I spoke with Jeannie and she suggested coming over to meet Kiki to make sure Kiki liked her. So it was kind of like Kiki was able to interview her pet sitter. Well, it was love at first sight. Kiki got along very well with Jeannie. While meeting Kiki, Jeannie asked me a lot of questions about what Kiki needs and various things about taking care of her.
Kiki will stay home and Jeannie will come over each day to take care of her and spend time with her. We have a doggie door so Kiki is able to go out on the deck and can go to the bathroom there if she has to.
DAY BY DAY
The week before the trip
The usual business with knowing I’d be out for a week. I tried to get some of our packing done the weekend before we were to leave. I have this huge charcoal grey suitcase that I love since I can usually get most everything in there. The problem is that it’s heavy and probably weighs about 10 pounds empty. Once I fill it, I barely squeaked by when the weight limit for luggage was 70 pounds. Now that it’s 50 pounds, we had to revisit our luggage situation. We went to Fortunoff a few weeks ago and bought a great set of the spinner luggage – a set of 3 pieces that can nest inside each other. We even got a bright color (red) so they would stand out from the rest of the black luggage.
The day before the trip – Thursday 6/14/07
I got all the loose ends at work tied up. I ordered my DDE card on the phone. I did the online check in and printed out boarding passes at Jet Blue’s website. Since we didn’t finish packing I wasn’t sure how many bags we would be checking so I checked off 2 checked bags each.
I ended up working until close to 9pm. I started at about 7:30am. It’s later than I would have liked but better than some other nights before leaving for vacation. There have been nights before vacation where I would be stuck at work until 1am.
Once I got home I finished up our packing. We ended up with 3 bags to check in total (one had an extra duffel in case we needed another bag on the way home) and 1 carry on rolling bag each.
Paul had his weekly poker game tonight instead of the usual Tuesday night so I came home to a house full of people.
Friday 6/15/07
Paul’s poker game lasted until about 4am so Paul just stayed up. One of the guys, Tony, who lives in DC, stayed over. We figured he’d keep Kiki company once we left until he had to leave.
I was up about 4:30 am and took Kiki for a walk. I had to wake her up. I usually wake her up on work days around 5am so it was a littler earlier than usual. Then I showered and got ready to go. I couldn’t find my sunglasses which is really odd since I always keep them in the same place (in my car). Also, I usually have my sunglasses for years. I bought this pair (that I can’t find) a few years ago because the ones I had before that were about 10 years old and completely out of style.
We left the house around 6:15am after some tearful goodbyes to Kiki. We’ll miss her. We always bring a picture of her in a frame that we’ll put on the nightstand of whatever hotel we’re in.
We stopped at a bagel store to get bagels to bring on the plane for breakfast.
7am We arrived at Corporate Park near Newark Airport to drop off the car and be dropped off at the airport. We like Corporate Park and their service is very good. As soon as you pull in, they help load your luggage right into their van, ask you when you’re coming back, you get into the van, and they’re off to the airport right away. The JetBlue Curbside porter was also very friendly (probably for his tip). But he had to work a little since my boarding passes I printed at work had us checking 2 bags each and we really were only checking 3 bags in total, so he had to reprint one of them. We tipped him and were on our way through security that was pretty quick. We were waiting at the gate by 7:40am and stopped in the little store to buy a bottle of water for the plane.
We boarded around 8:20 and we are booked in the exit row so have some extra legroom. We were scheduled to depart at 9am but that didn’t happen even though we were all on the plane early. There was a back up for taking off according to the pilot.
We took off around 9:30 and had an uneventful flight to Ft Lauderdale. We ate our bagels. Paul took a nap. I read a book. Flying is the only time I get to read since I drive to work every day so don’t have that commute on the train time to read anymore.
We landed around 12:05 but waited a while for our luggage to come out. Our new red luggage is easy to spot but the biggest piece was already banged up on it’s first trip. This spinner luggage is very easy to maneuver around the airport and can roll sideways with one on each side of you.
The line at National car rental was fairly long so we used the kiosk instead to check in. We were done and on our way to the garage before the next person in line was called to see a clerk. We reserved a full size car and chose a silver Pontiac Grand Prix and were quickly on our way.
It was a relatively short ride along A1A to find our hotel for tonight – the Sheraton Yankee Trader. It’s right on the beach. It is cloudy and drizzling on and off. We’re not beach people but it’s very pretty with palm trees.
We had a small problem at check in – they couldn’t find our reservation. This was our first time using Starwood Preferred Guests (SPG) points + cash so I was a little worried. The woman trying to check us in was very helpful. I pulled out my confirmation email with the reservation number on it. It turns out the reservation said checking in on 5/15 instead of 6/15. After a few phone calls and speaking with Starwood it was fixed. The woman at Sheraton made all the calls and just handed me the phone periodically if they needed information from me. It was resolved a bit later and the whole check in process took about 45 minutes.
Problems happen, but how they are handled is what’s important. I should have checked the confirmation email I received more closely and Sheraton could have easily said “Sorry, you’re out of luck and need to pay rack rate.” Instead, they bent over backwards to help us, even upgrading us to an ocean view room and giving us vouchers for free breakfast tomorrow at Shulas. (A steakhouse restaurant which was right in the hotel).
We brought our stuff up to the room which is very nice. We didn’t unpack since we’re only here for one night; I just pulled out the toiletry bag and put those items in the bathroom. Our windows look right out onto the beach.
We headed out to explore. We drove up Las Olas Blvd. Some of the houses around here are beautiful with private yachts. There are a lot of waterways.
We were kind of hungry so stopped for a late lunch around 3:15 at McDonalds. Paul had a Big Mac meal. I attempted a snack wrap and French fries. I enjoyed the French fries. It was a cheap lunch at $8. Even though I’m a vegetarian, I’ve been venturing into attempting to eat things I normally wouldn’t.
We went to the Hardrock Casino. Paul loves casinos. We always joke around that a casino is his Disney World since that’s my favorite place to go. We signed up for player cards and were given $10 automatic slot credit to play with.
The casino was pretty empty. There are no table games like Blackjack, Roulette, Craps, etc. There were very few video poker slot machines. There were a lot of 5 and 10 cent machines.
There is a poker area so Paul wanted to get into a game. He asked what games they had and the man working there told him $1/$2. Paul asked if there are any higher games since he usually likes to play a $3/$6 or $5/$10 cash game. The man was so funny and said, “Well $2 is more than $1 and that the maximum bet in the state of Florida is $2”. Then Paul asked if it’s no limit after the initial $2 bet and the man said “Nope, just $2 max per bet”. Then he looked for a tournament. They had a $65 tournament but he just missed it. So he signed up for the $100 tournament and waited and waited. They couldn’t get enough people to play. This is quite a change from Atlantic City where everyone is trying to play and there are waiting lists to get in. So Paul gave up on playing poker here.
We took a walk around the outside area which was set up like a Downtown Disney or Universal City Walk type of area. We went to BadAss Coffee and got a frappacino type drink for $5. Then we looked at some sunglasses at a little outside stand but I didn’t like anything there.
We went back into the casino and played a bunch of the slots. We played some really cute 5 cent slots and did pretty good on some of them. We would start out putting in $20 and cashing out $100. Of course, some of the machines just took our money.
We had dinner around 9:30pm at the food court. I had a veggie burger meal for approximately $7.50 but I’ve accumulated over $2.50 in slot points so only had to pay just under $5. Paul got sausages and a garlic roll for about $4. The veggie burger was very good and had some interesting things on it like sprouts and guacamole. Both the veggie burger and the fries were very good.
We played a little longer and left around 11:30. We stopped at Publix but they were closed so stopped at CVS. I bought a cheap pair of sunglasses and we bought some water and soda.
We drove back to the Sheraton Yankee Trader, got some ice, and Paul turned on the TV – which didn’t work. This is a crisis to Paul. He likes to have the TV on to go to sleep. We called the front desk and the woman was very helpful asking questions and trying to solve it. Unfortunately, no one from engineering was around to replace it. She asked if we wanted to change rooms and Paul did. This was easy enough. I stopped at the front desk for new keys. She offered us vouchers for free breakfast for the inconvenience but I said it’s not necessary since we already had them. She then offered us a free pay per view movie. I declined since we weren’t going to start watching a whole movie. She was very helpful and offered to have a bellman come to move our stuff. We didn’t need assistance and just moved it ourselves.
Our new room was handicap accessible and huge. The window went across the whole room. We quickly got settled into the new room, with Paul happy to have the TV working, and we went to bed.
Saturday 6/16/07
We woke up to another cloudy/drizzly day. The sun peeks out here and there.
Around 9:30am we went down to Shula’s for our free breakfast. It’s very nice. I had a Belgian waffle with strawberries and whipped cream and apple juice. Paul had the steak eggs benedict, pineapple juice, and coffee. If we had to pay instead of using the voucher, Paul’s breakfast was $21.95 and mine was $10.95, juice was $3, I didn’t note the price for coffee. We left a $10 tip even though the voucher said gratuity is included.
We walked across the street to dip our feet in the ocean (well me anyway). A wave came by and the whole bottom of my capris got soaked. Once we went back up to the room I had to change. We noticed several people with dogs staying at the hotel so of course, missed our Kiki.
We checked out around 11 and loaded up the car and got started on our drive up to Orlando. The weather was so strange; it would pour torrentially for 10 minutes and then it would stop and be sunny; then it would start raining again. We were making very good time. We stopped at a rest stop on the Florida turnpike and ended up buying more sunglasses. It was 4 for $30 so we each got 2 pairs. I usually just get my one good pair and they last a long time. Paul loses his sunglasses all the time so always buys these cheap ones since he knows he’ll lose them. We probably spent about ½ hour at this rest stop trying on sunglasses.
We got back on the road and were zipping along. We were driving over 100 miles per hour for part of the time. It was us and a white Mustang that stayed with us all the way up to Orlando. When we were younger we used to love renting cars on vacation since we had older beat up cars at home and it was a treat to have a nice new car on vacation. Now, that we’re older our regular cars are nicer than the rental cars so it doesn’t have the same thrill and it’s just a way to get from one place to another.
Our first stop was at Publix to pick up some bottled water, soda, and snacks - $22.72.
We stopped at Epcot for me to pick up my temporary DDE card from Guest Services. This was done very quickly.
We drove over to All Star Sports to check in. Paul stayed in the car while I checked in. The line looked long but it really was only 3 parties ahead of me, it’s just that the whole family was in line with all of their luggage.
We’re in room 4233 in the Tennis building all the way at the back of the resort. It’s not a renovated room, but it’s fine. We brought up all of our luggage and I unpacked. Paul would be happy continuing to live out of the suitcase, but I like to unpack and get everything put away and organized. There isn’t much drawer space but I managed to get things somewhat organized.
We walked around the resort a little and then decided to drive back to the check in area to see what’s there since Paul was in the car while I checked in. Paul liked the game room.
We drove over to Downtown Disney. We weren’t sure if we should head to a park tonight or where to go. I didn’t plan much for today since I wasn’t sure what time we would get to Orlando.
The line at Guest Relations was huge so we didn’t buy Paul’s annual pass yet. It was after 6 and we never had lunch. We have reservations at Raglan Road for 8:30pm but knew if we ate something now we wouldn’t be hungry then.
We decided to see if Raglan Road could take us early. It was pretty empty when we got there and we were seated right away. We were in a nice little corner table.
We started off with the calamari and vegetable tempura appetizer which was served very cutely in metal stand up cones. It was pretty good – or maybe we were just hungry.
I tried the fish and chips. Paul had the Shepherd’s Pie. The fries were a bit hard but not really crispy. The fish was pretty good. Paul didn’t like his Shepherd’s Pie. I had Sprite and Paul had water. The waitress wasn’t that good. Not bad just not that good. She never offered to refill our beverages even when they were empty and she was at the table and saw it. She just was not very attentive. With the DDE 20% savings our total was $39.28, we added a $9 tip for a grand total of $48.28. So we tried Raglan Road, but I don’t think we’ll go back.
After eating we walked all over. Through the MarketPlace, Pleasure Island, and across the West Side. It was pretty crowded. We walked through a lot of the stores – some because we were interested and some because it was air conditioned. It’s very hot and humid out.
We walked past Cookes of Dublin which is the fast food side of Raglan Road with a totally separate entrance. And realized we would have been just as happy (or happier) eating there instead of Raglan Road.
Paul bought 2 mini candy chocolates at Goofy’s Candy company for 52 cents.
We were back at All Star Sports by 9:30. At the food court Paul got a white chocolate macadamia cookie that was $1.89 but after DDE was $1.62. I bought the refillable mug for $11.99. We sat out by the pool for a little bit.
We stopped at the concierge desk to ask if they knew where the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa was. They did and said it was right off I4. We wanted to know in case we decided to take another little trip during the week. We also got our ADR (advance dining reservation) printout for all our meals this week.
We went to the game room/arcade next and spent some time playing the various games. Paul bought the mega card for $25 with tons of credit on it.
We were back in our room a little after 11pm.
It was odd being at Disney and not going to a park yet
Sunday 6/17/07
Paul wanted Denny’s for breakfast (we don’t have those by us). We stopped to get gas for the car and saw a Bob Evans nearby which we’ve never tried and don’t have near us either so we went there instead of Denny’s. Paul had a farmer’s omelette and I had a strawberry/banana crepe. With tip breakfast was approximately $22.
We got to MGM around 11:15 and stopped at Guest Services to buy Paul’s annual pass. He decided to get the Premium annual pass for $595.36 (about $130 more than the regular annual pass). We had a few American Express gift cards that Paul got for his birthday and wanted to use towards his pass, but they can only take 3 modes of payment so we used two of the Amex gift cards ($150 worth) and paid the balance.
Our first stop was the Lights Motors Action stunt show that was at 11:40. We headed over early to make sure we could get in. The park is pretty crowded. It’s also very hot out.
I stopped at the Star Wars merchandise area to pick up a shirt for my friend Kim’s nephew. I had it sent back to the room and doing this took the cast member (CM) a really long time. I told him I could just carry it, but since he already started it, he wanted to finish.
Paul went to have a cigarette and I was going to meet him after I got the shirt. With all the Star Wars stuff going on, I didn’t see the smoking section so asked a CM who said it’s moved down the street. So I’m looking and looking and couldn’t find it. I asked two more CMs and no one knew. Finally I walked back towards the BackLot Tour and found Paul. I know there has been a lot of debate back and forth regarding smoking at Disney and especially with the ban on smoking in the Disney hotels. I am not a smoker and prefer to be in a non-smoking environment. Paul, on the other hand, does smoke. But he is a respectful smoker and will only smoke in the designated areas. Even at home, he only smokes outside or in the kitchen where we have a vent thing in the island. Not to start any kind of war about this, but I think smokers need to have their spaces to go to smoke too. It needs to be a well ventilated area, but they need to have a space also.
We went into One Man’s Dream and watched the movie. It was nice and cool in here.
We got on line for The Little Mermaid. The next showing was at 2:15. Paul went to get a fast pass for the Great Movie Ride and took a long time getting back. It turns out, there weren’t fast passes at the Great Movie Ride so he went to get us fast passes for the Tower of Terror that were good from 3:55 – 4:55. He also picked up a Mango/Passion slushee on the way back. The Little Mermaid was a cute show as always.
The line at the Great Movie Ride was about an hour long so we headed towards Muppets. We were pleasantly surprised to see only a 10 minute wait so went right in.
The great Movie Ride was down to about a 30 minute wait when walked by we waited. We had a female tour guide as well as a female gangster.
After the Great Movie Ride we headed to the Tower of Terror to use our fast passes. It was a good thing we had them, as the line was very long.
We were hungry and wanted a snack so got a soft pretzel for me, a turkey leg for Paul, and some soda.
After our snack, we wandered through the various shops on the way out of MGM. We then drove over to Magic Kingdom. We were able to park in the first spot (closest to the tram) in our row – Pluto 27. We took the tram and then the ferry over to the Magic Kingdom.
We wandered through the shops on Main Street and made our way to TomorrowLand and went to Monster’s Inc Laugh Floor. This was pretty cute and Paul’s first time seeing it. They still don’t have Sully in the attraction, but at least the concept is explained better than when I saw it in a sneak preview in February.
At 7:30 we headed to the Plaza Restaurant for dinner. We waited about 15 minutes to be seated. While waiting, I watched many people without reservations being turned away. Paul had the Reuben sandwich. I had the vegetarian sandwich that came with sweet potato chips. I had soda and Paul had iced tea. We both enjoyed our food. My sandwich was very good – it had fresh mozzarella, tomato, lettuce, cucumber, pesto, and hummus on focaccia. I’m sure I’m forgetting a few other items that were in it. After the DDE discount and adding a tip our total was only about $26. Our waitress was very attentive refilling our beverages when they were running low and she even gave us soda/iced tea in “to go” cups when we were done and paying our bill. This was our first time ever eating at the Plaza restaurant and we were pleasantly surprised by it. The food was good and inexpensive, the atmosphere was very pleasant, and our waitress was attentive.
We went on the Carousel of Progress next and Paul stayed awake the whole time. He usually naps during this attraction. Next we walked right onto the TTA.
We walked into Fantasyland which was pretty crowded.
Snow White had only a 10 minute wait so we went on that.
We were able to get right into Mickey’s Philharmagic. This is our favorite 3D show at Disney. As usual, there are some people that just can’t follow directions and move to the end of the row so we had to climb over a few people.
We walked over to Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain but the waits were prohibitive so we walked through to AdventureLand.
Wishes was starting at 10pm so we stopped to watch that. It wasn’t the best vantage point, but we were able to see the fireworks. Paul doesn’t like standing in crowds so was very happy to watch from here rather than among the crowds in front of the castle.
Pirates of the Caribbean was next with about a 15 minute wait. Of course when we exited I had to take a few pictures of Paul wearing various pirate hats.
We waited for Splash Mountain about ½ hour. I took the chicken stairs, as I don’t like getting wet in my clothes. I waited for Paul right where the people get off the log. Paul came off drenched. He was the only one in his log that got so wet.
Next we waited about 20 minutes for Big thunder Mountain. Since Paul was soaking wet and you slide back and forth into each other, I sat in the row behind him. The lady seating us thought I was a little strange until I explained why I didn’t want to share the row with him. It seems like a different ride at night.
We walked back into Fantasyland and Peter Pan still had a 45 minute wait so we skipped it.
We went on It’s a Small World with a 10 minute wait. Next we went onto the Carousel. Surprisingly, it wasn’t that long of a wait. There is something about riding one of the those pretty horses, spinning around, up and down, that just makes you feel like a kid.
Winnie the Pooh had a 15 minute wait. Again we rode in separate rows in the same honey pot. I didn’t want to sit that close since Paul was still drenched.
The Autopia had about a 15 minute wait which is good for this attraction so on we went.
Space Mountain still had a long wait so we skipped it.
Paul wanted to ride Astro Orbitor so I waited while he rode. I’m not crazy about rides that go in circles or spin or that you get wet on.
Buzz Lightyear was next with about a 10 minute wait. Even with getting stuck in one of the rooms, I still had a measly score.
It was close to 2am so we headed towards Main Street. Extra Magic Hours ended at 2am. Paul was looking for a snack and wanted a hot dog. Unfortunately, Casey’s was closed. The boats weren’t running to the TTC; neither was the express monorail. The resort monorail was running so we took that to the TTC.
A CM who was riding on the Monorail was chatting with us. He was joking around saying he didn’t think the trams were still running either since most people take Disney transportation for EMH and don’t need it. He didn’t deny it, and told us he’s sworn to secrecy, and we should read between the lines, when we asked about the new DVC property possibly being built at the Contemporary.
Luckily, a tram was right there so we got on and into our car. Even at 2am, it was still hot and muggy out.
Somehow I missed our turn and got a bit turned around and off Disney property. I have no sense of direction normally, but can find my way around Disney pretty well usually. I guess those big purple signs saying “Magic Kingdom this way” help.
We stopped at McDonald’s 24 hour drive through to get a snack.
We went to bed around 3:30am
Monday 6/18/07
We slept a bit later today after being up late last night for extra magic hours. We missed our breakfast at Kona Café. Instead we headed down to the food court around 11:40 and they were serving lunch. I had the kid’s grilled cheese meal and Paul had the kid’s spaghetti and meatball meal.
It’s ridiculously hot out today. It is even worse than the last few days. Paul’s feet hurt and he has two huge blisters after running around the parks so much yesterday.
Our original plan was to go to Animal Kingdom, but with the heat and Paul’s feet, changed our plans.
We drove to Tampa to go to the Hard Rock casino instead.
When we got off the highway we had some trouble finding it so pulled into a Steak and Shake to ask for directions. What a cute little place – another thing we don’t have by us. Paul got a burger to go to snack on. I got a peach yogurt shake that even had little bits of peaches in it.
Once we got to the casino, we played some slots but weren’t doing very well. This casino also doesn’t have many poker machines.
Paul played in a Sit N Go poker tournament. It was done on a computerized table, instead of a live dealer. He chopped. The top 2 played get paid. The buy in was $40 and the prize pool was $300. 1st place was to get $240 and 2nd place was to get $60. Paul and one other guy were left. They were close in chips so rather than going back and forth, they chopped (split the pot) and each walked away with $150. It was a quick game too and only took about 40 minutes once it started.
We played some more slots after the poker game and did a little better.
We decided to head back to Disney to go to Animal Kingdom. We stopped for gas (about $40) and Paul saw an Arby’s and wanted to go there since we don’t’ have that by us either. They had a cute menu item where you choose 5 items for $5.95. That’s what Paul got – soda, potato cakes, fries, and 2 roast beef sandwiches. I ate the potato cakes and some fries.
After leaving Arby’s and getting back on I4, it started raining. As we neared Disney, it was a torrential downpour and you couldn’t see where you were going.
We headed back to the hotel to see what happens with the rain rather than going straight to the park. The rain would slow a bit and then pour again. We found out later there was a tornado nearby and that’s why we had all the rain.
It finally stopped around 9:15pm. Animal Kingdom had Extra Magic Hours until 11pm, but we didn’t think it made sense to run over there now. Also, Paul’s feet were still hurting.
We decided to tour some hotels instead. We drove to the Polynesian and wandered around. We got onto the Monorail and took it to the Grand Floridian for some touring. Back on the Monorail, we skipped the Contemporary and rode back to the Polynesian. We went to Captain Cook’s (food court) and ordered a tomato/basil flatbread to share for dinner. We used the kiosk to order – approximately $8.50. We had our refillable mug so used that for some soda.
We drove back to All Star Sports and did some packing since we’re moving tomorrow to Vistana Villages.
Tuesday 6/19/07
We finished packing up most of our stuff and then headed down to the food court for breakfast. Paul had the biscuits and gravy; I had the kid’s French toast meal. Our total after DDE discount was $4.98. After breakfast we went back to our room and loaded up the car. We took a few pictures around the resort before leaving.
We drove over to Vistana Villages knowing check in isn’t until 4pm but thinking that since it’s a Tuesday, maybe the room would be ready early. Also, we wanted to see where Vistana Villages are since we own at Vistana Resort and know where that one is – right on 535. Vistana Villages is new to us and is on International Drive, but not all the way down where all the stores and congestion is, this is closer to Disney World and surprisingly near the back of Sea World.
We drove right past the main entrance and realized we missed it after we passed. Paul pulled into the next driveway. It turned out to be a back entrance and we were in. There was no security guard this way. There was a gate that was open so we’re assuming this maybe an employee entrance. Hopefully, the gate is closed at night so people can’t just stroll in. The normal entrance does have a guard gate.
The lobby/reception area is very nice and welcoming. As expected, our room isn’t ready yet, but I was given a map of the property and an information brochure.
We drove over to Disney’s Beach Club next, parked there, wandered around, and then took the boat to Epcot. We were running a little late for our 12:40 reservation at Le Cellier.
I checked in at Le Cellier at 1:10. We waited about 10 minutes and were shown to a table for two right near the bathrooms. Paul had Coke and I had Sprite. We started with the cheese soup to share. We used it to dip the breadsticks in. They changed the menu and the Portobello burger was no longer the vegetarian item. It was now a roasted red pepper stuffed with black beans and corn. I didn’t think I would like that. For our entrees Paul had the prime rib sandwich. I ordered the beef tips in noodles and vegetables figuring I could pick out the meat. Our food was good but way too filling. We both ate about ½ of our dishes and had the rest boxed to go. I even tasted a piece of the meat and it was pretty good. Our total after DDE and tip was about $48. So far the DDE in sit down restaurants pretty much pays the tip since we usually leave a 20% tip.
We walked into Future World and waited about 15 minutes to ride Spaceship Earth. My friend Kim called so I chatted with her for a bit while we waited.
Journey into Imagination had about a 10 minute wait so we went on that next.
The wait listed for Soarin was 110 minutes – nope, we’ll try again later. Even the line for the Nemo and Friends ride was almost to the Land. There were no fast passes available for Soarin either.
I feel bad for anyone who is here for their first trip at this time of year since the lines are long and it’s really hot. We’ll skip things if the lines are too long since we’ve probably ridden it before and know we can ride it again another time. It’s hard to have both crowds and heat – one or the other is bad enough, but both is a double whammy. But I’m still in my favorite place – Disney World – so I’m a happy camper.
It was about 3:40 so we decided to go and get checked in at Vistana Villages and come back to the park later. We took the boat back to the Beach Club. The boat was very hot. I prefer traveling by car where I can control the temperature as well as when we leave.
Once at the Bach Club we went into the store/food court area and shared a Mango/Raspberry Gelato $2.87. We also refilled our Disney Mug. Paul was excited to see that they had Mr Pibb. It’s kind of like Dr Pepper.
We stopped at the Publix right near Vistana Villages to pick up some things – soda, juice bread, snacks, detergent, etc. We spent $37.37 in Publix.
We went to Vistana Villages and I waited on line to check in. Our villa is ready. We’re in the Amelia section that is a new section that just opened a few months ago. We’re in building 28 – room 404. We drove over to the villa and brought our luggage and groceries up.
The Villa is beautiful. When you walk in immediately to the right is a little closet with a stacked washer and dryer. Next on the right is the kitchen with granite tops and new appliances (the granite maybe fake, but it looks nice). It’s an open design as the counter looks over the dining room and then the living room. Right past the kitchen is the dining area with a table for 6. The Living room is next with a couch, comfortable chair, coffee table, end table, a dresser with a nice flat panel TV that swivels and is about 40 inches. The TV had a whole entertainment system console under it with things like DVD, CD, etc. We didn’t use any of those other features, just regular TV. The balcony is right past the Living Room. Our view leaves much to be desired as we look over a ditch where I guess they will be building more villas or maybe a lake.
From the front door looking to the left is the guest bedroom – nicely furnished with two full size beds, a 30 inch flat screen swivel TV, a dresser, a night table, and a closet. The guest bathroom with granite (maybe fake) and double sinks follows. There is an extra closet in the Living room. Entering the Master Bedroom, there is a king sized bed, 2 night tables with drawers, a chair, a dresser with another 30 inch flat screen swivel TV. The master bath has a Jacuzzi, 2 sinks - one on either side of the room, a shower stall, and a toilet in it’s own room. The closet which has a safe is in the Master Bath.
After unpacking we headed over to Epcot. Many of the attractions were crowded and no fast passes were available.
We went into Innoventions and did the Intro to Segway. This was pretty cute. They show you how they work and each person gets a chance to ride it back and forth and around in a circle. It’s probably also good advertising to drum up business for the longer Segway tour that you have to pay for.
We got our Extra Magic Hour bracelets on our way to World showcase. Mexico was our next stop and we waited on line for the new attraction, the redone El Rio Del Tiempo, which is now the Gran Fiesta Tour. It’s pretty similar except Donald Duck is part of it as are several other ducks. Some of the old scenes such as the begging merchants have been eliminated. It was pretty cute. After trying on and taking pictures of ourselves in a few sombreros we left Mexico.
It’s been raining on and off all evening. Not pouring, but enough to be annoying. I’ve been putting my plastic Disney rain poncho on and then taking it off. It’s kind of hot to wear a plastic poncho.
In Norway, Maelstrom had closed already so we couldn’t ride. We waited on line at the bakery so I could get a rice cream $2.44. These are delish.
Paul wanted a snack too so we got him the children’s plate at La Cantina in Mexico. It included a chicken and cheese quesadilla, some chips with cheese and small soda for $4.25.
Illuminations was at 9pm and we saw some of it as we headed back towards Future World.
We went on the single rider line at Test Track. We ended up in the same car next to each other. This made our wait only 20 minutes versus over an hour for the regular line.
Mission Space was next. There was no wait. Paul went on the intense side. I skipped it since we just snacked. I like the less intense version of this ride. I’ve ridden both sides and prefer not to be spun around as much.
The Seas with Nemo and Friends was next with a 15 minute wait. This was Paul’s first time on this attraction. He liked it, but wouldn’t have liked it as much if he had to wait in a huge line.
In the Land Pavillion, we walked right onto Living with the Land.
At 11pm the wait for Soarin was posted as 60 minutes but we got on line. We met this nice group of people from Akron Ohio and also a guy from Gainesville Florida. Chatting with this group made the wait go much faster. We found out that rent is really cheap in Akron as the guy had a 2 bedroom apartment for $460 a month and when he included his utilities is was $490 a month. We pay our landscaper more per month than they pay for rent in Akron.
By the time we got to the front of the line we said we are a party of 7 and had the front row. We said goodbye after Soarin.
It was just about midnight (the end of EMH) so we headed out.
Paul heated up some leftovers when we got back to the Villa.
I did a few loads of laundry, went in the Jacuzzi, and we went to bed. I really like having the washer and dryer in the villa. Especially since it’s been so hot, we’ve been going through clothes quicker than normal. This way they all got washed and are ready to be worn again.
Wednesday 6/20/07
We had breakfast at Denny’s around 10am. Paul had a Super Grand Slam. I had a French Toast Slam. It’s way too much food. But it was good. Our total after tax and tip was about $20.
We had an appointment at Vistana at 11:15 (part of the Explorer package) to speak with a counselor and see if we wanted to buy more time. We went to Vistana and checked in but the lady who we were supposed to meet with, Fabiola, was at the Villages, so she asked if we would drive back over there. I had a couple of questions that I asked her about. I heard about Vistana losing it’s gold Crown Status and asked about it. She said it’s only the older phases that lost their gold crown status, but that the Lakes and Cascades sections still have it (we own in the Lakes section). I also found out that our normal week if we convert to points we get 32,000 SPG points. I also found out that we can’t exchange through RCI anymore so there is no point in keeping RCI once it comes due.
We didn’t buy any additional weeks. When we said No, Fabiola got kind of annoying telling us how we would use it, the price keeps going up, etc. This went on and on. At one point, Paul went to the bathroom, and she starts talking to me in a hushed manner as if when she gets me alone, I may want to buy more time and starts telling me about the every other week deals. I still say No. Finally, the Explorer package guy asks if we want to continue with another Explorer package. No thanks again so he goes on and on. Finally, we can go and get our voucher for 35,000 SPG points.
As much as I love our timeshare at Vistana, I’m very happy with the time we have and if it’s just us we can usually get about 2 weeks out of it (in a 1 bedroom instead of the 2 bedroom we own). Also, we’ve been taking cruises too lately. Finally, if I were going to buy another timeshare, I would probably buy DVC. Maybe when we’re older and retired, we’ll need to add more weeks to our timeshare but for now, what we have is perfect for us.
We drove over to Animal Kingdom next. We got a fastpass for Tough to Be a Bug since the wait was 40 minutes.
Kali River Rapids had a long wait too so we passed. Well, Paul passed since I would have watched him ride since I don’t like to get wet when I’m dressed.
There was a 60 minute wait posted at Expedition Everest but we waited. It turned out to be about a 45 minute wait. We waited a few extra minutes for the front row and had a fun ride.
We went to see the 3:15 Finding Nemo – the Musical show. We got on line at 2:45 and luckily made it in. I really like this show. It’s probably my favorite show at Animal Kingdom. Paul enjoyed it, but didn’t like it as much as I do.
We played a few of the midway games in Dino Rama. I’m terrible at these, but Paul convinced me to try the one where you roll a ball and depending which hole the ball falls in your dinosaur moves either 1, 2, or 3 steps. I almost won but ended up in 2nd place.
We waited about ½ hour for Dinosaur. There was this annoying lady and her young son once we got into the pre-show room that pushed her way to the doors telling everyone she has a fast pass so needs to move to the front and also wants the front row. I explained to her that the fast pass allowed her to bypass most of the line, but once you get to this point in the queue, everyone waits together and that she should ask the CM for the front row when she gets to the ride vehicle. Paul thought that was rude of me to tell her, but I was just explaining how fast pass works to her.
We stopped in Restauratosaurus. Paul had the double cheeseburger meal. The fixings bar had mushrooms, grilled onions, etc. I got to pick on that with the French fries. With DDE discount the total was $5.87.
Primeval Whirl had a long wait so we skipped it.
We found the stand that made ice cream sandwiches so we shared one – about $3.75. You choose your cookie and type of ice cream and they put it together right there. We got vanilla ice cream in chocolate chip cookies. It was about 2 scoops of ice cream. It was really good. I was looking for this in February and no one knew what I was talking about when I asked a few CMs. I should have written down the name of the stand so I’ll remember for next time.
We called Jeannie (the pet sitter) to see how things are going. She said Kiki was really missing us the first two days, but she’s gotten used to Jeannie now and is doing much better. She looks forward to Jeannie coming by and they play together.
Paul went on Kali River Rapids while I waited on the bridge. The wait time was posted as 30 minutes but it took about 15 minutes.
Tough to be a Bug didn’t have a wait anymore so we went on.
It was just after 7pm so we headed over to Animal Kingdom Lodge. We had reservations at Jiko but weren’t that crazy about the menu since they’ve taken off the dish Paul liked best. We stopped at Boma, explained that we had a reservation at Jiko, but couldn’t find anything on the menu that was appealing to us and was it possible to accommodate us here instead. We were told they could but it would be about 35-40 minutes. OK, that’s fair. So we walked out towards the arcade and our buzzer went off less than 5 minutes later and we were seated.
We enjoyed our meal at Boma. I especially liked the banana bread pudding. After the DDE discount and adding tip our total was about $55.
We went to the arcade and played a few games. The game cards that they sell are good in all the resort arcades so it makes it easier.
When we got back to Vistana Villages we grabbed our bathing suits and went to the pool and hot tub.
We were out in the pool and/or hot tub for about an hour and then came back to our villa to get ready for bed.
Another thing I really like about being in the villa rather than a hotel room is the freezer. We can freeze bottles of water and take them to the parks with us for cold water rather than constantly having to buy bottles of water throughout the day. We’ll still have to buy some, but at least it cuts it down a little and frozen water as it melts is a lot colder than buying a regular cold bottle of water.
Thursday 6/21/07
We had breakfast in the villa. My friend Kim called to tell me she was able to get great AP rates for her trips in September. I’ve turned Kim into a Disney fanatic. She went to Disney for Easter weekend and bought an annual pass. She’s since been back for Memorial Day weekend and has trips scheduled for 4th of July week, Labor Day weekend, part of the week in September when I’m going, and right before Christmas. She’s going to probably buy DVC during her July 4 trip.
We headed to MGM. We got fast passes for Rock N Roller Coaster that are good from 5:25 – 6:25.
Tower of Terror had a 60 minute wait listed but we got on line anyway. We’ve found this trip that most of the wait times have been over-estimated. We waited about 40 minutes and it was a great sequence; even better than the one earlier this week.
We were a little late for our reservation at Sci Fi so went there to check in. We were seated in the 3rd row of a car in about 10 minutes. We were the hitchhikers. This place has great atmosphere. However, a very big person would not fit in these cars. They had a few regular tables too. They even had some regular tables placed between the front and back end of a car. I had Sprite. Paul had Cherry Coke. We had onion rings as an appetizer. Paul had a cheeseburger and I had a veggie burger. The veggie burger wasn’t on the menu but I asked and was told they have them. The food was OK. We enjoyed watching the movie clips as we ate. The veggie burger was cheaper than the regular burger which makes sense since it isn’t made with meat. However, in many places they are the same price. The waiter was pretty attentive and refilled our beverages when he saw them running low. After our DDE discount and tip our total was about $34.
We walked over to the Backlot Tour and waited about 15 minutes to be let in. Then we waited a while for the tram. It was about 3:30 when we got off and we decided we would take a ride to Mt. Dora to see if we could find Kermit’s Key Lime Shoppe (like the one in Key West). When I was on a cruise last September with my friend Cathy, we stopped in Key West and went to Kermit’s for frozen key lime pie on a stick. I was telling Paul how good it was. I was originally going to order him some on line, but because it’s shipped in dry ice to keep it frozen the shipping was more expensive than the pies so I didn’t. Since we didn’t drive to Key West, we figured we’d drive to Mt. Dora and get it there. It’s about 45 miles away and they close at 5 so we wanted to get on the road in case we got lost or had any trouble finding it.
We found our way to Mt. Dora pretty easily. They were closing a few of the downtown streets for a block party. I asked someone and we were one block away so we parked and got there around 4:45. We bought 3 frozen key lime pies on a stick that the woman got from her deep freezer and wrapped so they would make it back to Orlando; key lime covered pretzels, a tin of white chocolate lime cookies, and a bottle of key lime moisturizer for Kim (since she can’t eat sugar any more for health reasons). The woman locked up the store as soon as we left. Mt. Dora is a cute little town (the center of town part that we saw) but it’s out in the middle of nowhere.
When we first got to Mt. Dora, Jeannie called because Kiki had diarrhea and she called the vets office and the receptionist said they couldn’t talk to her because of doctor/patient confidentiality. Jeannie made Kiki some rice and gave her ½ an Imodium and she seemed better. Paul called the vet (he’s a friend that plays poker at our house every week) and asked why they couldn’t speak with the dog sitter. He said we needed to give them her name and then they could speak with her. Now we’ll know that for next time.
We drove back to the villa to get the frozen pie on a stick in the freezer. We shared one when we got back and it was cold but not frozen.
We drove to the Contemporary because Paul wanted to see the game room. He forgot his card so we just looked around.
We took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. Paul got a box of popcorn near the entrance. We went straight to Fantasy Land and got fast passes for Peter Pan that were good from 10:25 – 11pm.
We saw the Hall of President’s 8:30pm show.
We got into the 9pm (last showing) of the Tiki Birds.
We waited about 20 minutes for the Jungle Cruise and then we walked right onto Pirates.
My friend Chris left me a voice mail message that our petsitter is doing a good job since Kiki seems happy and well taken care of. I had asked him if he would stop by our house and check on things since this is the first time we’re leaving Kiki with someone other than family. He went over on Monday and Thursday and said she was happy to see him and settled down quickly so he could tell she was getting lots of attention and love.
We walked into Fantasy Land and watched Wishes from there. It was about 10:10 so we hung out in Pinocchio’s Village Haus having some soda and crackers I had in my bag waiting until 10:25 to use our Peter Pan fast pass.
At 10:25 we rode Peter Pan. The standby line was still huge. But this is a great attraction.
Paul got a hot dog with fries at Casey’s for $6.25 and then we headed out of the Magic Kingdom. We just missed a resort monorail but the next one came quickly.
The line for the Express Monorail was huge.
Back at the Contemporary we got the car and headed back. Paul took a circular sightseeing route.
Once back at the villa, Paul made grilled cheese sandwiches for a late dinner and we went to sleep.
To Be Continued...
