Just back 2/21-Tired and Sore Feet ;0)

[JohnsonsRUs]

We just returned from our President's Week trip to WDW. Anyone have any questions?

We stayed at POP, rented a car for 1 day to go see relatives in Homosassa Springs, did a fridge swap for the first time and had DDP with ADRs at the following places:

Tusker House-lunch with Finding Nemo priority seating
Teppan Edo-dinner
Mama Melrose-lunch
Chef Mickey's-breakfast
Crystal Palace-lunch
Cinderella's Royal Table-dinner

It was a wonderful trip.

 

[MAGGIED]

Sounds like a wonderful trip..... glad you had fun..

 

[Dipstick]

We just returned from our President's Week trip to WDW. Anyone have any questions?

We stayed at POP, rented a car for 1 day to go see relatives in Homosassa Springs, did a fridge swap for the first time and had DDP with ADRs at the following places:

Tusker House-lunch with Finding Nemo priority seating
Teppan Edo-dinner
Mama Melrose-lunch
Chef Mickey's-breakfast
Crystal Palace-lunch
Cinderella's Royal Table-dinner

It was a wonderful trip.

Is the DDP (1 snack, 1 counter service, 1 table service) enough? or did you have to pay out of your own pocket for a few restaurants? How is the Mama Melrose restaurant?

How was it at WDW? Please tell us all about it.

 

[JohnsonsRUs]

We thought that the regular DDP was plenty, the only meals we paid for were the breakfasts. We used some of the snack credits for breakfast some of the mornings, especially when we had a lunch ADR. The snack credits were good for bagel & cream cheese, muffins and the chocolate stuffed croissants. We ate so much that we ended up just using up snack credits at the end to get some pretzels to bring home. We did like having the coffee maker because the coffee in the food court is not great (probably my only complaint about any of the food). I did have to remember to get cream from the food court the night before, but just did it on our way back through from the parks.

We love Mama Melrose, DH had the Tuscan Chicken Bruschetta which was sort of like a sandwich, I had shrimp pasta with artichoke and peas and DD had the seafood fra diavolo with regular tomato sauce instead of spicy.

I forgot to mention that we used Garden Grocer for water delivery, as well as some snacks for in our room. Everything was there when we arrived, just as we had ordered-it's a great service and great communication.

Interesting about this trip, we bought the park hopper and ended up not hopping at all, which was a suprize to me. With DD getting older, I thought for sure we would use it more than we had in the past. We did end up going back to the hotel during mid-afternoon to swim and change into warmer clothes for the evening, which worked out well. The 2 evenings we went back to MK and it was pretty empty, that is probably when we rode most of the rides as many were walk on. The only ride we didn't go on that we wanted to was Test Track, but only because we didn't make it back to Epcot like we had planned on our last day. We ended up spending all our time at MK instead waiting to see the fairies.

The car rental went very smooth, we rented from the Disney Care Care Center right on property and they picked us up and brought us back to our resort which was great. We were intending to keep the car for 24 hours, but ending up bringing it back the same evening we got it.

We also were able to use the Resort Airline check-in, our luggage got home just fine and we loved not having to stand in line to check it at the airport. I highly recommend using this service, if you can. We called the day before to pay our fee for luggage and had our boarding passes on our door handle in the morning.

As far as POP goes, it was our 3rd time there and we would still highly recommend it. This week was probably the busiest President's Week that we have been there for, but the only time we waited any length of time for a bus was coming home from Downtown Disney, not to or from any of the parks.

 

[Drama_Queen1227]

How was the weather? Ive heard several different things from people that went this week.

 

[JohnsonsRUs]

As far as we were concerned, the weather was great, but coming from Michigan, anything warmer than 30 is nice this time of year! It was in the high 60s to low 70s every day except for a couple and it was sunny pretty much the whole time. We had 1 day in the high 70s and 1 day in the low to mid 60s. Thursday it was supposed to be stormy, but that is the day we went to visit relatives, so I can't say how Orlando's weather was. We did drive through a storm, but it was pleasant when we returned in the evening. We found that changing into jeans and sweatshirts in the late afternoon to get us through the cooler temps once the sun went down worked great.

 

[seadd67]

How was Chef Mickeys?,we have done other buffets CP,the one at GF are thyey comparble as far as the food goes?.Noise and crowds do not bother us,so that aspects is ok.Sounds like you had a great time,I am glad It all worked out.

 

[JohnsonsRUs]

Chef Mickey's was very good. They had a nice selection for breakfast, which we haven't done there in a few years, we did dinner the past couple of years. They had a few different types of eggs, pancakes, waffles, cheesy potatoes (I could have just eaten these), pastries, sausage, bacon, biscuits and gravy for the main courses. They also had a wide variety of fruits and breakfasty-type salads, along with bagels, cream cheese and lox. I think there was also a dessert section with more fruit and I'm not sure what else, we were too full from the other stuff.

I am all about doing character dining so that I don't have to stand in line for them at the parks. We haven't done the Grand Floridian, so I can't compare to that. I would say the character interaction is about the same as Crystal Palace. As far as the food goes, I would say I like Crystal Palace better, it seems like more of a selection of interesting food, but Chef Mickey's is better for more basic, less adventurous dining.

Hope that answers your questions.

 

[seadd67]

I know thats the only bad thing about eating those breakfast I want to find a nice shaddy place and take a nap,I really do feel Like sleepy after words. we have Chef Mickys and Crystal Palace breafast plan and was thinking of adding Cape may(because donald Is at that one) but I do not know If I can handel three of those meals??,were there for 8 days but when you have a 16yoDS wanting to go on RnR coaster time after time pretty soon your not only thinking about what you ate for Breakfast Its soon really coming back to you!!

 

[Trinity524]

Can you give me more info on this? We want to rent a car, but use the ME to go to and from the airport...I tried looking it up, but to no avail.

TIA

 

[JohnsonsRUs]

No problem. We rented the car on the rental company's website, the Car Care Center has Alamo and National, I believe, we used Alamo. You can use discounts via Costco, we just had to show our card when we checked in. We had a GPS, they are transferrable from car to car, so there was no issue with one not being in the car we were renting. We also pre-paid for the gas, but there is a gas station right there in case you don't want to do that and the gas prices seemed within reason.

On the confirmation from Alamo, there was the phone number and times to call to arrange for pick up at our hotel. You can call from 1 day to 1 hour before you need to be picked up. I called the day before. They only pick up at the hotels once/hour, so keep that in mind. Our pick-up time was 20 after the hour, so we were picked up at 9:20 am. We had a 1 day rental and were intending to keep it for 24 hours, but we were able to make it back in time to drop it off that same evening. During the week, if you are back before 7:30 pm, you can get the shuttle back to your hotel, otherwise you would have to wait and do it when they reopen in the morning. The return shuttles are not on a set schedule, they just take people as needed back to their hotel or anywhere else on Disney property. I would think that if you were returning in the morning and wanted them to take you to one of the parks instead of your hotel, they would probably do so. There were a few people who go there after 7:30 and there was still a shuttle for them, but I would try and get there as close to 7:30 as possible if you are doing an evening return. I'm also not sure what the cut-off time is for Saturday and Sunday, my guess would be 1/2 hour before they close.

Hope this helps, let me know if you have more questions. It was a very smooth and easy process. I was a little stressed about it before doing it, but as usual Disney has made it very easy!