Just Back: 4/1-4/8

[BLLB]

Great trip, can't wait to go back. Traveling party included myself, DH, DS 16, DS 14 and each of them brought a friend.

Highs:

Transportation: Southwest, Tiffany Towncar and Disney Buses (with one exception) were fantastic!

Food: We cooked a most dinners and breakfasts in our 2BR BWV, but we did have dinner at Trails End Buffet, Art Smith's Homecoming and breakfast at Chef Mickeys. Trails End was a pleasant surprise. Food and service were very good. Chef Mickeys was very good (7:15 am reservation) and Homecoming was a great night out for DH and I. CS was pretty good this year. We really liked Pizza Rizzo at DHS. Sunshine Season at EP is our absolute favorite, let a us down this year.

Parks: Cast Members were great, restrooms were very clean, Splash Mountain and Haunted Mansion were both down on 4/7. I felt FEA was soooo short. I would have been very disappointed if a I didn't have a FP.

BONUS: 20% off Annual Pass discounts, what a great surprise!

Lows:

Transportation to Typhoon Lagoon is ridiculous! We literally drove past the entrance to TL to be dropped off at DS, walk to bus stop #24 to be bussed back to TL. We used a taxi to return to BWV ($10 plus tip).

DS14 got sick, high fever. We were worried it might be an ear infection and we were flying home in a few days. I stayed back with him. Was able to contact Centra Care. They picked us up at 10:15, he saw a doctor and they returned us to BWV by 1:00. Very easy and good to know care is so efficient and quick.

All-in-all a great vacation. DS's bug lasted about 24 hours.

Happy to answer any questions.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Transportation to Typhoon Lagoon is ridiculous! We literally drove past the entrance to TL to be dropped off at DS, walk to bus stop #24 to be bussed back to TL. We used a taxi to return to BWV ($10 plus tip).

Thanks for the report. We were there last week too.

I totally agree with this comment. We did BB and I strongly dislike the way water park transportation is done now, added SO much time coming/going. Question, were there taxis at TL waiting when you left or did you have to call one? We looked for taxis at BB but didn't see any.

Glad you had a great trip.

 

[BLLB]

GADisneyDad14, there was a taxi/van just sitting right by the entrance to TL. We were very lucky!

 

[DisneyHardin]

Glad you had such a great trip. I always love reading positive trip reports.

 

[caliope]

Glad you had such a good trip, despite the 24 hour bug (never fun).

 

[lovethattink]

Thanks for sharing, sounds like a great trip. I didn't realize Centra Care transports people.

 

[BLLB]

Thanks for sharing, sounds like a great trip. I didn't realize Centra Care transports people.

The front desk has a pamphlet for Centra Care. On the front is a phone number to arrange transportation. Inside the pamphlet are the phone numbers to their locations. We were at BWV, so right between the Lake Buena Vista location and the Animal Kingdom area location. I called both and checked the wait times.

 

[aviva5675]

thanks for the trip report. Nice to read them when there aren't 400 posts.

 

[Mom2Stitch]

Thank you for the positive report-sorry your DS was sick, never fun on vacation. We are also flying on SW, using Tiffany(between MCO and Universal/WDW), and Disney bus system-glad to hear it went smoothly.

 

[ErinsMommy]

Transportation to Typhoon Lagoon is ridiculous! We literally drove past the entrance to TL to be dropped off at DS, walk to bus stop #24 to be bussed back to TL.

And the reason why we removed the water parks option from our reservation. I hope they get enough complaints that they return the service from the resort direct to TL/BB.

 

[elaine amj]

And the reason why we removed the water parks option from our reservation. I hope they get enough complaints that they return the service from the resort direct to TL/BB.

I hope so - I'm a bit worried about the whole waterpark transportation issue.

 

[scrapquitler]

We just got home last night. Our trip was wonderful, the only downside was Friday in the MK was a bit of a mess. There was some kind of electrical outage in the park that knocked a lot of rides out of service and a few of them took quite a while to reopen. When we got in line for our Haunted Mansion FP around 12:30 the FP line was all the way down to Hall of Presidents. It seemed awful, but they cleared it pretty quickly (in about 20 minutes). Then we went from there over to our Space Mountain Fast Pass and found the same sort of situation, but again, the CM did their best and cleared it rather quickly, but I felt bad for those people getting into the standby line with a posted wait time of 150 minutes. My 14 year old kept saying "Why would you even get in that line with that time listed?".

I have no way of verifying it, but I suspect that the power outages may have had something to do with the huge brush fire that morning. THe Sheraton Vistana had part of their property evacuated because of it, and the huge plumes of smoke were visible from the entrance of the MK, and you could smell the smoke everywhere.

 

[scrapquitler]

Our only transportation complaint the entire trip was on 4/1 around 4pm when we attempted to take the bus from Pop to Disney Springs We waited 50 minutes for the bus, and by the time the bus arrived, there wre a lot of people who were left behind and unable to board. The rest of our trip we had excellent luck with the buses, never waiting more than about 10 minutes, and in many cases we were very lucky with the bus pulling into the stop just as we arrived.

We did use Uber for the first time ever when we were switching resorts. We had 3 people and 5 suitcases, so when we got our room ready notice at 11:00 AM, we decided to take an UBER XL from Boardwalk to Sports, and it was so much easier than using Bell Services to move our bags, and it only cost about $7.00, and the driver arrived less than 5 minutes after I requested the ride!! We will definitely be Ubering again in the future.

 

[jo-jo]

How long did it take to get from BWV to TL and then back, so bus time vs. taxi time? We are traveling with DS, DDIL and DGS. One day we may watch the boys while the parents go to the water park. I mentioned this thread, that they might want to think of uber if they go.

 

[BLLB]

Thank you for the positive report-sorry your DS was sick, never fun on vacation. We are also flying on SW, using Tiffany(between MCO and Universal/WDW), and Disney bus system-glad to hear it went smoothly.

We did this a couple years ago. Super convenient!

 

[BLLB]

I hope so - I'm a bit worried about the whole waterpark transportation issue.

I think having the information beforehand is much better. Less of a shock and you can do things differently if the bus transfer situation isn't your cup of tea.

 

[BLLB]

How long did it take to get from BWV to TL and then back, so bus time vs. taxi time? We are traveling with DS, DDIL and DGS. One day we may watch the boys while the parents go to the water park. I mentioned this thread, that they might want to think of uber if they go.

I would guess it took 3x longer. The cab ride back was super quick. When I think about the trip to TL, we went to the bus stop and waited. We then rode the bus (passing TL ) to DS. Got off the bus and walked a good way.

For comparison. The new DS bus stop area is very similar to MK bus stop area. You are dropped off at one end of the first row of bus stops and have to walk to the third row of bus stops.

Then board and bus to TL.

Clearly, this didn't ruin my vacation. But it was very frustrating.

 

[Harambe]

Tiffany!! Love them, glad to see others use them and have good experiences. Welcome home!

 

[mamamelody2]

Thanks for sharing!

 

[BLLB]

Tiffany!! Love them, glad to see others use them and have good experiences. Welcome home!

For our ride back to MCO, we had 6 people in our party, we had a large passenger van that was "wrapped" with "Tiffany Towncar" logo. Never had that before!