just back, a brief report, BC, dining, lessons learned travel with 14 mo. old

[tadcd]

I am so impressed with the many fabulous trip reports posted here, so much so that mine is more of a "mini" report. Forgive the brevity...
This was our fifth trip, but first with the baby, now 14 mo. We stayed at our usual resort, BC, but in the villas in a one bedroom, from 11/13-11/19. We avoided the last day of the F&W festival, the special Christmas Party in MK, and did not make it to the Osbourne lights nor any fireworks displays.
Dining
Lunch at Grand Floridian Cafe - food was below average for us, my DH got a pasta dish and I had the roast beef sand which. We have loved breakfasts here so we were disappointed.
Lunch at Pepper Market - Very good. We enjoyed lemon chicken and Meditteranean salad. We would go back here in a heartbeat.
Dinner at Le Cellier - Amazing. The best filet of my life, my husband liked his strip steak. Yummy cheese soup, Mac and cheese was great.
Lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern - Very yummy pot roast, we shared, and the half portions were perfect for us. The service was amazing. We enjoyed being the bell family!
Dinner at La Hacienda - Food pretty good, we shared shrimp tacos and the warm cheese with chorizo appetizer. We are spoiled with a better gourmet Mexican restaurant at home so it was hard not to compare. The atmosphere is gorgeous.
Lunch at Sunshine Seasons - we had a ceaser chicken salad and cashew chicken dish. Both very good. DH not excited about Don noodles.
Dinner at Il Mulino - Divine. We always have one meal per trip, this is my favorite Italian restaurant anywhere.The homemade pasta is amazing.
Lunch at Biergarten - yummy!
Dinner at Jiko - another favorite of ours. I had fig salad, husband had the braised short rib
Lunch at yak and yeti - great dim sum appetizer, shared tamarind chicken which was nice but not out of this world.
Dinner at Boma - we tried this 6 yrs ago and weren't thrilled. So glad we tried it again. The food quality was so much better, flavors were divine.

 

[tadcd]

Disney's computer systems were down when we checked in on 11/13. We did not receive good service, which included a long discussion about whether we should be charged for our grandparents staying for two nights in our one bedroom villa, not being texted when the room was ready, 5 calls before we received all of our groceries and luggage, 3 calls before we received a sleep solution for the baby - after three broken pack and plays we received a crib, and being directed and redirected before the fourth person could tell us if there were any bounce back offers, and one sarcastic "have a magical day" and one less than kind walkie talkie discussion about the broken pack and plays. Oh, and having to correct misspellings of names on room keys and several days before we received the offer to put our tickets onto the room keys.

I am not a complaining type of person, I am kind to all cast members who obviously work so hard but wow. My magical feeling of floating through my favorite resort was completely gone. I tried hard to let go of the stuff described above, but the magic didn't come back. So sad.

In contrast, we had a fabulous experience when we visited Coronado Springs, where the cast members were incredibly kind and friendly and after lunch in the Pepper Market and a walk around the beautiful lake on day two of our trip we felt like we were at Disney.

 

[tadcd]

The best thing we did to prepare for the trip was to buy our son the small stuffed characters. As a result, he recognized and loved meeting them in the parks. We were lucky to have very brief waits to meet Minnie and Mickey, Pooh and Tiger, Donald Duck and Pluto (who actually came up to Jeremiah during a parade, our soon was thrilled). We weren't sure how he would respond to characters and seeing him so amazed and happy was for us absolutely wonderful.

Lessons learned
1. He loves characters and parades and rocks, plants, and animals.
2. He sleeps in his stroller for naps during the afternoon.
3. Breakfast in the room worked best for us, I ended up canceling all the morning ADRs.
4. Babies are a lot of work no matter where they are, even pixie dust doesn't prevent 4 am wake ups. So we should dedicate some of the schedule to relax time. Next time we will alternate between days in the park and days strolling resorts/hanging out at the pool.
5. Ordering baby's meal as soon as we sat down was a brilliant idea I learned from someone else on the boards.
6. Sometimes an adult side dish or entrée only from kids menu was cheaper and more than enough food than entire kids meal.
7. Love the baby care centers.
8. Sticking with his usual bedtime worked well for us.

 

[tadcd]

We really enjoyed beautiful Christmas decor in the parks, parades and especially the resorts. This was our first time during the holiday season and we were blown away. We loved visiting new resorts and restaurants and wandering the parks enjoying the sights. It was a special trip, our first trip with the baby. I am hesitant to stay at BC next time, perhaps the magic will return? We really like having the one bedroom suite and a king bed and kitchen...we lucked out such that between the pin code and our Disney visa points the cost was about $900 for six nights. It will be hard to match this good of a deal next time particularly onsite so I am reading posts about of site locations (gasp!). We'll see. Next trip, Jan 2013...

Thanks for reading!