lastminutemom
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2006
- Messages
- 662
As my username implies, we just planned this trip a few weeks before we left. I couldn't see paying on sight prices for the Values at Disney and all the moderates were booked.
Last week was spring break for at least most of Georgia, South Carolina and MIchigan and maybe Ohio?. Anyway, Orlando was very crowded.
We had stayed at the Nick hotel before when it was just HI Famiy suites. We love the set up. We are really beyond all squeezing into one hotel room -- it is our vacation as well. So the seperate room for the kids worked great and we loved having the "den" to work at night and having 3 TVs was great.
We have a 10 year old who loves Nick (so does his sister, but she is only 5 so she is more clueless) so this was a big treat for him. We were there
I think I will just do the good, the bad and the ugly --
The Ugly --
Check in on April 2 -- the hotel's computer system had gone down. Everything was being done manually and there were definitely some efficiency issues. We arrived about 4 and got our room around 7, but many others waited much longer. I was unpacking when another family opened the door to our room. We were both a little freaked out. Unfortunatley, I had been at guest services earlier when the same thing happened so I was worried it might happen again. The front desk got it straight and re keyed our room. They comped us the character breakfast for our trouble. I know that there were some families trying to get a free night -- don't know what happened there.
A note on this experience, the workers at the hotel claimed this had never happened before, but a man in line with us said the same thing happened to him last year at Spring Break.
The Bad --
Food choices. The character breakfast was a great treat for us to see the characters. We were there for 4 nights and almost 5 days, we never saw the characters waling around, but in fairness we weren't at the hotel in the afternoon except once. The food seemed fine, we were the first family there -- we had a 7 AM reservation and the kids got lots of attention from the charcters. I have no idea what it is like when it was crowded. We were done before many families were there.
We ate one night at the dinner buffet and it was pretty awful. Otherwise, the food court choices were fine, sandwiches, pizza and A & W hot dogs, burgers etc.
There is nothing in the area that is walkable. If you don't have a car, and aren't planning on doing the parks, I think you would get sick of the food very quickly.
The good--
The staff was extremely friendly and helpful. Our high speed internet wasn't working and they came right away to fix it. When we needed something, it was attended to quickly.
The Nick shows -- my son loved these. You need reservations, but they do have standing room. The games in the pool really felt like you were participating in Nick games. If you want to participate in the family games, the ones at night, find out from Guest Services what time they come out to the pool looking for participants. Last week it was at 3 PM.
Final thoughts (are you still with me?) I didn't think the whole thing through as well as I should have. We have not been to Disney for 6 years and this was a commando type trip for us. (My youngest hadn't been before.) We were at the parks early each morning and came back to the hotel for a rest each afternoon, but we wanted them to rest so we could go back to the parks that night. We swam twice at night and then spent one long afternoon at the Pool one day. We did the game shows the first night we were there. I think there are lots of families who use this hotel as their destination for a day or 2 and if I did stay there again, I would do this. It is an expensive place to stay just to sleep.
Hope someone finds this helpful.
Last week was spring break for at least most of Georgia, South Carolina and MIchigan and maybe Ohio?. Anyway, Orlando was very crowded.
We had stayed at the Nick hotel before when it was just HI Famiy suites. We love the set up. We are really beyond all squeezing into one hotel room -- it is our vacation as well. So the seperate room for the kids worked great and we loved having the "den" to work at night and having 3 TVs was great.
We have a 10 year old who loves Nick (so does his sister, but she is only 5 so she is more clueless) so this was a big treat for him. We were there
I think I will just do the good, the bad and the ugly --
The Ugly --
Check in on April 2 -- the hotel's computer system had gone down. Everything was being done manually and there were definitely some efficiency issues. We arrived about 4 and got our room around 7, but many others waited much longer. I was unpacking when another family opened the door to our room. We were both a little freaked out. Unfortunatley, I had been at guest services earlier when the same thing happened so I was worried it might happen again. The front desk got it straight and re keyed our room. They comped us the character breakfast for our trouble. I know that there were some families trying to get a free night -- don't know what happened there.
A note on this experience, the workers at the hotel claimed this had never happened before, but a man in line with us said the same thing happened to him last year at Spring Break.
The Bad --
Food choices. The character breakfast was a great treat for us to see the characters. We were there for 4 nights and almost 5 days, we never saw the characters waling around, but in fairness we weren't at the hotel in the afternoon except once. The food seemed fine, we were the first family there -- we had a 7 AM reservation and the kids got lots of attention from the charcters. I have no idea what it is like when it was crowded. We were done before many families were there.
We ate one night at the dinner buffet and it was pretty awful. Otherwise, the food court choices were fine, sandwiches, pizza and A & W hot dogs, burgers etc.
There is nothing in the area that is walkable. If you don't have a car, and aren't planning on doing the parks, I think you would get sick of the food very quickly.
The good--
The staff was extremely friendly and helpful. Our high speed internet wasn't working and they came right away to fix it. When we needed something, it was attended to quickly.
The Nick shows -- my son loved these. You need reservations, but they do have standing room. The games in the pool really felt like you were participating in Nick games. If you want to participate in the family games, the ones at night, find out from Guest Services what time they come out to the pool looking for participants. Last week it was at 3 PM.
Final thoughts (are you still with me?) I didn't think the whole thing through as well as I should have. We have not been to Disney for 6 years and this was a commando type trip for us. (My youngest hadn't been before.) We were at the parks early each morning and came back to the hotel for a rest each afternoon, but we wanted them to rest so we could go back to the parks that night. We swam twice at night and then spent one long afternoon at the Pool one day. We did the game shows the first night we were there. I think there are lots of families who use this hotel as their destination for a day or 2 and if I did stay there again, I would do this. It is an expensive place to stay just to sleep.
Hope someone finds this helpful.
