I will try to make this short and mostly positive. We were at okw from Jan 25-Feb3.
Realistically, the only negatives we had on the trip were crowds and the people in the crowds. It should have been a mostly slow time to go, but waits of 60 mins were pretty common. Some fastpasses were disappearing by noon. Michigan must have had a holiday late Jan. Then we got hit with the dance and band groups and the Saints/LSU fans fleeing the Mardi Gras madness. It slowed down a bit midweek, but not much.
I spoke to multiple bus drivers and they said that they have not seen the typical drop in tourists. I am always amazed at what type of behavior people view as acceptable in public, from cutting in lines to kids throwing ice and hitting my wife.
We stayed in a studio (1610) the first night and a 1br (1624) the rest of the trip (we were something like 10pts short
). Building 16 is a great location for us. We found that we could get off at the HH or the first regular stop and they were both 3-5 min walks. Which meant we could get off at the first stop regardless of it being a DTD bus or a regular bus.
Both rooms were in excellent repair. The only annoying thing about the studio was that the peephole and the light ligned up on to put a dot of light on the bed. The 1br had a bit of rust under the bathroom sink, no biggie. We did have to close the shutters over the tub because of the light coming through the bathroom window.
Regardless, we were absolutely blown away with the 1br OKW. Very nice and very large. Our T&T service came the day before we left, which I thought was kind of odd. Regardless we were completely happy with OKW. The tub was nice, but it was so large you had to plan to use it because it took 30-40mins to fill up. Having the full kitchen and washer and dryer was very nice as well. We used garden grocer with great success.
We had dinner at Jiko. It was excellent as usual. We got seated next to a couple ordering off of the vegetarian menu. I felt a little guilty ordering the filet, but that went away with the first bite
.
We went to the concourse because we had not been there yet and we knew it was closing. Service was excellent. Actually, service was above excellent. Our waitress was a woman from Puerto Rico who kept calling us her babies. Food was excellent. We were celebrating our anniversary, so they comped two deserts and gave us buttons, and a picture. They seemed a little apprehensive about the move downstairs to an "organic" restaraunt.
Kimono's was excellent as usual, though they opened 30 mins later than their schedule. We did have some sushi in Japan. It was good, but Kimono's is better.
Had lunch at Kona Cafe and Y&Y. Both were pretty good, nothing outstanding. Service was a little iffy at Y&Y.
Earl of Sandwhich was good as usual. I think that everything else was just CS, which is hit and miss. Ate way too many pretzels and other junk.
We ate at Olivia's the first night we got in at 9:30. I ordered a hamburger which was pretty mediocre.
Park wise, it is a bit disappointing to see the film at Soarin is already developing tears. Also, one of the monitors at MtM was flaking out. We did like the improvements to Spaceship Earth. However, I think the stuff at the end is still gimicky and a waste. There were lines for it. I can't imagine what it will be like in the high time. We got to ride a Segway for 30 seconds, so that was pretty neat.
The highlight ride came at ToT at night. When the elevator moves into the shaft and everything goes dark, we ended up sitting there for 15 seconds (seemed longer). People really were getting nervous.
This is our first trip with the GPS enabled busses. I really liked them because it was hard to understand the bus drivers with the old system. However, apparently the same people who do the DVC members website also program the GPS system because they are constantly crashing.
One driver told us to reboot the system he had to shut the entire bus down. We did not wait more than 10 mins for a bus the whole trip. In most cases it was sub 5 minutes.
We have been to Disney World eight time since late 2002 (I have another trip with my family early 2002). Plus we have done a Disney cruise. We were engaged and married at WDW. We have been DVC members since late 2003. I think that if Disney has managed their dream of keeping the parks busy year round as it appears to be happening with no drop off and the extension of the F&W festival every year, this will be our last trip in a while. We may have to bank and borrow our points and do a 7 day cruise or something like that. Does anyone know if you can do ABD half points/half cash?
Brief recap: Larger crowds than expected, people are rude. Our location at OKW was nice. Food was pretty good throughout.
Realistically, the only negatives we had on the trip were crowds and the people in the crowds. It should have been a mostly slow time to go, but waits of 60 mins were pretty common. Some fastpasses were disappearing by noon. Michigan must have had a holiday late Jan. Then we got hit with the dance and band groups and the Saints/LSU fans fleeing the Mardi Gras madness. It slowed down a bit midweek, but not much.
I spoke to multiple bus drivers and they said that they have not seen the typical drop in tourists. I am always amazed at what type of behavior people view as acceptable in public, from cutting in lines to kids throwing ice and hitting my wife.
We stayed in a studio (1610) the first night and a 1br (1624) the rest of the trip (we were something like 10pts short
). Building 16 is a great location for us. We found that we could get off at the HH or the first regular stop and they were both 3-5 min walks. Which meant we could get off at the first stop regardless of it being a DTD bus or a regular bus.Both rooms were in excellent repair. The only annoying thing about the studio was that the peephole and the light ligned up on to put a dot of light on the bed. The 1br had a bit of rust under the bathroom sink, no biggie. We did have to close the shutters over the tub because of the light coming through the bathroom window.
Regardless, we were absolutely blown away with the 1br OKW. Very nice and very large. Our T&T service came the day before we left, which I thought was kind of odd. Regardless we were completely happy with OKW. The tub was nice, but it was so large you had to plan to use it because it took 30-40mins to fill up. Having the full kitchen and washer and dryer was very nice as well. We used garden grocer with great success.
We had dinner at Jiko. It was excellent as usual. We got seated next to a couple ordering off of the vegetarian menu. I felt a little guilty ordering the filet, but that went away with the first bite
.We went to the concourse because we had not been there yet and we knew it was closing. Service was excellent. Actually, service was above excellent. Our waitress was a woman from Puerto Rico who kept calling us her babies. Food was excellent. We were celebrating our anniversary, so they comped two deserts and gave us buttons, and a picture. They seemed a little apprehensive about the move downstairs to an "organic" restaraunt.
Kimono's was excellent as usual, though they opened 30 mins later than their schedule. We did have some sushi in Japan. It was good, but Kimono's is better.
Had lunch at Kona Cafe and Y&Y. Both were pretty good, nothing outstanding. Service was a little iffy at Y&Y.
Earl of Sandwhich was good as usual. I think that everything else was just CS, which is hit and miss. Ate way too many pretzels and other junk.
We ate at Olivia's the first night we got in at 9:30. I ordered a hamburger which was pretty mediocre.
Park wise, it is a bit disappointing to see the film at Soarin is already developing tears. Also, one of the monitors at MtM was flaking out. We did like the improvements to Spaceship Earth. However, I think the stuff at the end is still gimicky and a waste. There were lines for it. I can't imagine what it will be like in the high time. We got to ride a Segway for 30 seconds, so that was pretty neat.
The highlight ride came at ToT at night. When the elevator moves into the shaft and everything goes dark, we ended up sitting there for 15 seconds (seemed longer). People really were getting nervous.
This is our first trip with the GPS enabled busses. I really liked them because it was hard to understand the bus drivers with the old system. However, apparently the same people who do the DVC members website also program the GPS system because they are constantly crashing.
One driver told us to reboot the system he had to shut the entire bus down. We did not wait more than 10 mins for a bus the whole trip. In most cases it was sub 5 minutes. We have been to Disney World eight time since late 2002 (I have another trip with my family early 2002). Plus we have done a Disney cruise. We were engaged and married at WDW. We have been DVC members since late 2003. I think that if Disney has managed their dream of keeping the parks busy year round as it appears to be happening with no drop off and the extension of the F&W festival every year, this will be our last trip in a while. We may have to bank and borrow our points and do a 7 day cruise or something like that. Does anyone know if you can do ABD half points/half cash?
Brief recap: Larger crowds than expected, people are rude. Our location at OKW was nice. Food was pretty good throughout.
