Dizfan4life
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 11, 2009
- Messages
- 551
Just got back from another fabulous trip of a week and a half at the World! We had, at least I think we did 
, the perfect weather - 60 degrees is perfect for this Michigander!! I'm somewhat of a newbie so I'm not ready to do trip reports yet. We usually fly, but decided to have a little more freedom and rented a van and really enjoyed that and ate at a few off site restaurants! If anyone has any questions feel free to ask away! However, I will give just my 2 cents of what we experienced on this trip! We (my family and my parents) checked into CBR and was given a room in Barbados. Barbados was great - newly updated rooms I think. They had the new flat screen TV's and what felt like new mattress' that made me sleep like a baby! However, the only bummer was that it was a little long of a walk for my little guy and we didn't have connecting rooms, which we really really wanted. Connecting rooms is so convenient for us that if our kids go to bed early we can just chill in my parents room and be aware of the kids at the same time. The staff was wonderful and VERY accommodating and switched us to Jamaica 51 with connecting rooms and a much shorter and nicer walk to Old Port Royale. I could tell that the rooms in Jamaica needed some refreshing and I think they were working there way over because the other buildings of Jamaica looked empty and had the signs that Disney was working in those buildings. There was only one thing that truly grossed me out and we noticed it in both the our rooms in Barbados and in Jamaica..... it seems that mousekeeping misses mopping up "special" hair in the bathroom 
! There was a collection of them by the tub and that immediately put me in cleaning mode! Other than that it was perfect.... grounds were perfect as they can be after a big freeze.... and my kids LOVED the main pool!
As for my Disney food review... here we go! We didn't eat at Shutters but did at the food court. I had their chicken breast nuggets, hamburgers, and the spaghetti (which I thought was gross and would not recommend) and their breadsticks were like biting a rock. My husband LOVED their sandwich of the day (it was a roast beef type sandwich), the Royale Sandwich and some good ole Bacon Cheeseburgers. I had a few dining reservations set up at Chef Mickeys, O'Hanas, Garden Grill and Sci-Fi. I was VERY disappointed with our breakfast at Chef Mickeys. Not one thing I ate was hot nor even luke warm! The eggs were gross, cold and runny to the point if I wonder how "done" they really were! The one thing that I expected to be warm was Mickey Waffles and even they were cold. Then there was the breakfast at O'Hana, which made Chef Mickeys look really bad! That had to be the BEST breakfast we had there and the characters came around twice and spent a lot of time with my kids. Next time we go I am not even going to bother making reservations at Chef Mickeys and just do O'Hana instead! Now.. Garden Grill was the meal I was most curious about. I heard a lot of "love it and hate it" review. So I was really excited for this meal and let me tell you this was the best dinner we had at Disney!!!! The food was fabulous our server was awesome and the character interaction was the best and then there are them rolls with the yummy butter
!!!!! This will be a MUST DO next time!!! On to my last food review... Sci-Fi. I must say I was excited about this one... eating in old cars watching old movie clips sounded like a lot of fun. However, our food was cold - slightly luke warm and I will bet you that our server forgot about us. She never came back to ask us how our food was and we sat there for slightly longer than an hour until we finally saw her and asked her if we could have a refill of our drinks then to have her say "ooopps" to us and hustled off to cure our thirst! That meal bursted my bubble because I was excited for that meal because I thought my dad would have a good time there. Oh well... at least we had a couple of good sit down meals ! One thing I noticed, at the four restaurants we were at and by talking with other people, there are a LOT of tables empty at the table service restaurants. We were talking with another guest while we were on our way to O'Hana's and they were able to get into the breakfast buffet at 1900 Park Fare in the Grand Floridian! I don't ever remember being able to do that out of all my trips to Disney!!
As for the parks.... we got there early at rope drops or slightly after and got so much done! Since we were there last year, my kids wanted to go back to the hotel to swim or play instead of seeing the afternoon parades. The only day that we saw really heavy crowds was Friday, March 5 but that could've been because of the marathons going on. March 5 was the day that we just hopped parks for the kids so they could do whatever they wanted to do so there wasn't as much flexibility with us getting fastpasses. At 10am Toy Story mania had an hour wait with fastpass returns being after 12:00pm - not bad but just didn't have the flexibility because the kids wanted to do things quick. Since we did Toy Story Mania 5 times during our stay they wanted to do Soarin' again and my parents wanted to just go back to the resort to relax. So we hopped on the Epcot bus, while my poor parents waited at HS for almost 45 mins for a CBR bus! We got at Epcot and immediately noticed the high crowds, and noticed all the tents and port a potties in the parking lots to the left of the monorail station. We hustled to Soarin', just a little before noon, and saw the wait was 75mins and fastpass return between 4 and 5! My daughter was a little bummed with that. She was also wanted to do the Living with the Land boat ride so we hopped in that line and waited in line for 20 - 30 mins. Overall... we had a wonderful trip and a much needed getaway! In the next few years, my husband and I have discussed the Disney Vacation Club, however, that is just something we don't want to do right now with the way the economy is. I hope some of this helped!
, the perfect weather - 60 degrees is perfect for this Michigander!! I'm somewhat of a newbie so I'm not ready to do trip reports yet. We usually fly, but decided to have a little more freedom and rented a van and really enjoyed that and ate at a few off site restaurants! If anyone has any questions feel free to ask away! However, I will give just my 2 cents of what we experienced on this trip! We (my family and my parents) checked into CBR and was given a room in Barbados. Barbados was great - newly updated rooms I think. They had the new flat screen TV's and what felt like new mattress' that made me sleep like a baby! However, the only bummer was that it was a little long of a walk for my little guy and we didn't have connecting rooms, which we really really wanted. Connecting rooms is so convenient for us that if our kids go to bed early we can just chill in my parents room and be aware of the kids at the same time. The staff was wonderful and VERY accommodating and switched us to Jamaica 51 with connecting rooms and a much shorter and nicer walk to Old Port Royale. I could tell that the rooms in Jamaica needed some refreshing and I think they were working there way over because the other buildings of Jamaica looked empty and had the signs that Disney was working in those buildings. There was only one thing that truly grossed me out and we noticed it in both the our rooms in Barbados and in Jamaica..... it seems that mousekeeping misses mopping up "special" hair in the bathroom ! There was a collection of them by the tub and that immediately put me in cleaning mode! Other than that it was perfect.... grounds were perfect as they can be after a big freeze.... and my kids LOVED the main pool! As for my Disney food review... here we go! We didn't eat at Shutters but did at the food court. I had their chicken breast nuggets, hamburgers, and the spaghetti (which I thought was gross and would not recommend) and their breadsticks were like biting a rock. My husband LOVED their sandwich of the day (it was a roast beef type sandwich), the Royale Sandwich and some good ole Bacon Cheeseburgers. I had a few dining reservations set up at Chef Mickeys, O'Hanas, Garden Grill and Sci-Fi. I was VERY disappointed with our breakfast at Chef Mickeys. Not one thing I ate was hot nor even luke warm! The eggs were gross, cold and runny to the point if I wonder how "done" they really were! The one thing that I expected to be warm was Mickey Waffles and even they were cold. Then there was the breakfast at O'Hana, which made Chef Mickeys look really bad! That had to be the BEST breakfast we had there and the characters came around twice and spent a lot of time with my kids. Next time we go I am not even going to bother making reservations at Chef Mickeys and just do O'Hana instead! Now.. Garden Grill was the meal I was most curious about. I heard a lot of "love it and hate it" review. So I was really excited for this meal and let me tell you this was the best dinner we had at Disney!!!! The food was fabulous our server was awesome and the character interaction was the best and then there are them rolls with the yummy butter
!!!!! This will be a MUST DO next time!!! On to my last food review... Sci-Fi. I must say I was excited about this one... eating in old cars watching old movie clips sounded like a lot of fun. However, our food was cold - slightly luke warm and I will bet you that our server forgot about us. She never came back to ask us how our food was and we sat there for slightly longer than an hour until we finally saw her and asked her if we could have a refill of our drinks then to have her say "ooopps" to us and hustled off to cure our thirst! That meal bursted my bubble because I was excited for that meal because I thought my dad would have a good time there. Oh well... at least we had a couple of good sit down meals ! One thing I noticed, at the four restaurants we were at and by talking with other people, there are a LOT of tables empty at the table service restaurants. We were talking with another guest while we were on our way to O'Hana's and they were able to get into the breakfast buffet at 1900 Park Fare in the Grand Floridian! I don't ever remember being able to do that out of all my trips to Disney!!As for the parks.... we got there early at rope drops or slightly after and got so much done! Since we were there last year, my kids wanted to go back to the hotel to swim or play instead of seeing the afternoon parades. The only day that we saw really heavy crowds was Friday, March 5 but that could've been because of the marathons going on. March 5 was the day that we just hopped parks for the kids so they could do whatever they wanted to do so there wasn't as much flexibility with us getting fastpasses. At 10am Toy Story mania had an hour wait with fastpass returns being after 12:00pm - not bad but just didn't have the flexibility because the kids wanted to do things quick. Since we did Toy Story Mania 5 times during our stay they wanted to do Soarin' again and my parents wanted to just go back to the resort to relax. So we hopped on the Epcot bus, while my poor parents waited at HS for almost 45 mins for a CBR bus
! We got at Epcot and immediately noticed the high crowds, and noticed all the tents and port a potties in the parking lots to the left of the monorail station. We hustled to Soarin', just a little before noon, and saw the wait was 75mins and fastpass return between 4 and 5! My daughter was a little bummed with that. She was also wanted to do the Living with the Land boat ride so we hopped in that line and waited in line for 20 - 30 mins. Overall... we had a wonderful trip and a much needed getaway! In the next few years, my husband and I have discussed the Disney Vacation Club, however, that is just something we don't want to do right now with the way the economy is. I hope some of this helped!
!
