Just back from our trip (Spring Break March 12th-20th

[Gophers]

Sounds awesome!! I too loved Tusker House and BOG for lunch, good choices!!!

Tusker House is a tradition for us now. Food is solid and the character meet and greet was great. BOG for lunch was very relaxing and the food was good. Everyone seemed to like the turkey sandwich.

 

[Gophers]

Thanks for sharing your experience in a positive way . So much negativity lately .

Could you please tell me where you stayed at POR ? And did you have crowded bus service for your entire trip ?

We stayed in a Royal Room. I decided to go all out. The shape and size of the rooms at POR seem to be the same. The difference is the fixtures and setting. We had a plantation style setting with the royal rooms and a lot of bells and whistles compare to my brother-in-laws room. I just wanted to experience all of it.

I would say yes on the bus service. Might be due to spring break but yes it was always crowded. The travel time to each park wasn't bad. We took the ferry boat to Disney Springs every time. Very relaxing and only took about 15-18 minutes to get there.

 

[Ron from Michigan]

Thanks for the report. We have stayed at both Port Orleans resorts and always enjoyed them. We love the boat ride to Disney Springs. Glad you had a wonderful time.

 

[walker0829]

1. Yes we did go to Universal on back to back days. Rode the train between parks either 3 or 4 times. Never a long wait for the train.
2. Yes we used express pass. Wont do it any other way. Just can't stand waiting in lines even if its 30 minutes. With the express pass I would say the longest we waited at Universal maybe 10 minutes and that was a show.
3. Didn't make reservations and we were had a table in about 25 minutes. Food was good and I had a great margarita!
4. Without a reservation it is a little harder and the wait will be longer. We always like Ohana but I don't know if you can get in without a reservation. Most of the places we went like "Hoop Dee Doo" was with reservation. By the way that show was awesome! Food was all you can eat and the entertainment was very good. Family friendly. Ragland road was still a 30 minute wait with the reservation.

What method of transportation did you use to get to Universal? We've been seriously debating doing the exact same thing but keep getting hung up on how much extra it will cost us to add Universal.

 

[amytong]

What time was your Ohana reservation? How long did you have to wait until you were seated? We have a 9:35 and I'm hoping to see Wishes.

 

[showers2flowers]

So glad you had a wonderful trip! We are heading down in May for a similar stay (5) days at wdw and (2) at universal. A couple of questions:

1. Did you go to universal on back to back days or spread the days out over your trip?

2. Did you use express pass at universal? If so, was it worth the cost?

3. Did you make reservations for cowfish? If not, was it a long wait?

4. We plan to eat at Ragland Road in Disney Springs but have another night down there without reservations yet. Did you have a favorite restaurant there?

Thank you!!!

Unless something's recently changed, you can't make reservations at Cowfish. What you can do is download their app and put yourself on a wait list as long as you are within a certain distance of the restaurant (I think it's one mile; whatever it is, it encompasses most if not all of UO and the on site hotels). We used the app one night in November, added ourselves to the wait list as we got on the boat at Royal Pacific and before we even got to CityWalk we had a 'your table is ready' text.

 

[Gophers]

What time was your Ohana reservation? How long did you have to wait until you were seated? We have a 9:35 and I'm hoping to see Wishes.

8:30pm and we were at our table by 8:40pm.

 

[Gophers]

What method of transportation did you use to get to Universal? We've been seriously debating doing the exact same thing but keep getting hung up on how much extra it will cost us to add Universal.

We used Murray Hill Transportation. From Port Orleans Riverside to Universal it was $100 round trip for 8 of us. If you decide to use them see if Juste is working. We had him for both days and requested him for our trip for Hoop Dee Doo. He got us there in 5-10 mins and Disney told us we would need to go to a park and then fort wilderness. That was going to take 45 mins.

 

[cassie58]

What method of transportation did you use to get to Universal? We've been seriously debating doing the exact same thing but keep getting hung up on how much extra it will cost us to add Universal.

You can also rent a car for a day or 2 at the Car Care Center on property, and they will send a shuttle to bring you to get it. There is also a rental location at the Dolphin hotel. There is more info. on Mousesavers.com, along with discount codes.

cassie58

 

[Betty Rohrer]

Gophers was Murray Hill able to take you back to Hoop area or did you have to take the internal bus once you got there? because from what I understand no cars are allowed back at that area.

 

[Luvamouse]

Gophers--what great, brief trip report! Love the bullets idea, I knew it would be a quick and easy read. I love the long trip reports, but it's hard to get too many read! Thanks for sharing; we love POR for the boat to DS as well. That's what sold us on it. Stayed at GF in 2012 and still drove to POR to take the boat ride over

 

[suse66]

Thanks for sharing your experiences! We were there three weeks ago and had an amazing time as well. The Disney Magic is alive and well as long as you know where to look for it.

 

[Farps]

A Big thumbs up, so glad to hear about your magical time !!!

 

[coley444]

What method of transportation did you use to get to Universal? We've been seriously debating doing the exact same thing but keep getting hung up on how much extra it will cost us to add Universal.

@walker0829 if you've never used uber before I would download the app and sign up a week or two ahead of your trip. I did this ahead of an Orlando trip in Jan 2015. After a week went by I got an email offering a free ride since I hadn't tried using uber yet. I then used that code to go from the Dolphin to Universal. Then if there is another adult in your party you can send them an invite code with a free ride when they download uber as a new user. So I invited my sister who used her free ride to get us back to the Dolphin. To top it off when my sister redeemed my referral code I got another free ride as a reward. We used that a couple days later to head over to MCO from the Dolphin! So I paid nothing for round trip to universal and only $5 to MCO! The free rides max out at $20 or $30 - enough to get from WDW to Universal. For MCO I had a $5 balance or so to cover which was negligible. This may not be guaranteed / still available but is worth a try!

 

[lovethattink]

What a magical time. We were at Universal for two days and Disney for five. Stayed at Port Orleans Riverside and just had a blast. Went to Disney Springs three times during the trip and can't wait for them to finish. I can see how Disney wants to make this a destination spot and not just an after thought.
Universal was fun with the new Harry Potter in US. The crowds were out of control and made it extremely hard to go through the shops in HP. Lockers in both HP was nuts. No where near big enough for all the people trying to get in there since you can't bring electronics on the rides (was able to have cell phone if it was in your pocket). Raptor Encounter was a cool meet and greet experience and we had dinner at CowFish and that was really good.
Disney was just magical of course.

• Stayed at Port Orleans Riverside. Wonderful experience in the Royal Room
• Fulton's gift shop is amazing. Probably one of the best in the resorts.
• Transportation with the buses was good and bad. Plenty of buses but always having to stand.
• Ferry ride to Disney Springs was great. Didn't take long and relaxing.
• Two days at MK and did everything we wanted to.
• Cinderella's castle breakfast was great for character meet and greet. Food was ok.
• BOG was really good at lunch.
• Wishes was very good for watching the fireworks. Deserts are just ok but the family really enjoyed it.
• Disappointed in 7DMT. It was ok but was expecting more of a thrill ride. BTMR is much better to me.
• Overall we had a great job at the parks. HS was great with RR coaster and TOT, Toy Story and Fantasmic. We ate at 50's café and had a blast. Got the airplane treatment for not eating all my vegies but it was a lot of food.
• Meet and Greet with Kylo Ren was awesome. Most of the family wasn't sure they wanted to go but we had the Chase CC and walk right up using the back entrance. The experience caught everyone off guard and the interaction with Kylo was fantastic.
• Grand baby lead the young Jedi to the Jedi academy and she got to battle with the darkside.
• AK was fun and we always enjoy Tusker House for breakfast
• Safari was really good
• Everest was awesome and Dinosaur was very good.
• Took a lot of pictures using our Memory Maker and did some of the small shows like Tough to be a bug.
• Went to Ohana and had the Pineapple drink....wow! Food was great and was able to watch the fireworks at MK.
• Epcot was good but no Soaring right now so we did Test track at rope drop and Test track at FP time and then the worlds. Ate and drank all afternoon. Used the night time for Disney Springs.

Overall we had a great time and we are already starting the planning for 2018 Thanksgiving/Christmas time. Now that we stayed at a Resort we will always stay at a resort. You never leave the Disney experience and it was truly a magical trip.

Sounds like a great vacation! Thanks for sharing.

Thanksgiving/Christmas is my favorite time of year. The decorations, music, Christmas around the World, etc. are great.

Would you please add dates to the title of the thread to give reference to when "just back" is. Thanks.

 

[AnnaS]

Glad to hear you had a great trip. Thank you for sharing. Soon for us after our DCL cruise. Can't wait!

 

[MDIME]

I love everything about this post! So positive, thank you for sharing!!! And for answering everyone's follow-up questions

 

[KEVD]

Great report! Thank you for posting. A few questions:

With Soarin' being closed:

• How were the lines and "mayhem factor" getting to TT at rope drop?
• Was there any noticeable difference in the standby wait times like at Mission Space?
• And what about The Land standby wait times?

 

[Gophers]

Gophers was Murray Hill able to take you back to Hoop area or did you have to take the internal bus once you got there? because from what I understand no cars are allowed back at that area.

They dropped us off in the parking lot where Hoop Dee Doo was at.....it's about a 50-70 yard walk from there.

 

[Gophers]

Great report! Thank you for posting. A few questions:

With Soarin' being closed:

• How were the lines and "mayhem factor" getting to TT at rope drop?
• Was there any noticeable difference in the standby wait times like at Mission Space?
• And what about The Land standby wait times?

Unfortunately yes Soarin is close due to the change they are making with the new HD and new video.
TT was busy. We had EMH so we did TT twice but it was pretty busy.
Most of us didn't do Mission Space but at rope drop the one's that did go said it was 10 mins at rope drop at the most.