poohandwendy
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2001
- Messages
- 18,961
Hi all, we just got back last night from our WDW trip. We stayed at POR for 7 nights (myself, DH, DD 20, DS 18 and DD13)
We had two rooms in AB building 17. 1755 and 1756 (ours being a corner king room). The kids room had two doubles and a trundle bed, we didn't request it, it just had it there. I did not make any room requests beforehand, or during check-in and our rooms were great. The only thing is that they were pretty far from everything. I think I would request something closer the next time, but it wasn't too bad. Just really tiring after long days at the parks, kwim? I think it would be a pain if you had small children. Once we got our bearings, we were able to navigate it all pretty easily. Definitely confusing the first day or two though (all of the winding pathways and the directional signs aren't necessarily the fastest routes, imo)
The good:
Clean, spacious rooms and an AWESOME mousekeeper (Adelaida D was her name, I did mention how happy we were with her to the manager and will send a note to corporate, she was just wonderful)
The crowds were pretty manageable, much better than July/Aug we are used to. Very hot, but we just took breaks and it wasn't so bad. The weather, actually, was wonderful...very little rain.
The DD plan- holy cow, way too much food! Having two rooms made it sort of hard to keep up with what points we had left the last few days and we ended up still having a few counter service points left over. We bought some snacks 'to go' to use up those. OTOH, we actually had two extra meals that we paid OOP (breakfasts), so that does account for why we didn't use all of our CS points. We could have just used the plan and been fine.
Awesome magical moment: when my DD and I were sitting outside at POR by the food court and we overheard an older couple getting a phone call on their cell that their DD was expecting a child, their first grandchild. It was really cool! They were so excited!
Went on a DVC tour and are very likely to buy-in early next year, probably at AKL Villas- unless the happen to build DVC at the Contemporary- we would jump on that in a heartbeat. (they also give you fast passes for checking it out which was a nice extra) Very nice presentation, our guide (mario) was great and answered all of our questions thoroughly.
We saw a few DIS people must have been staying there too...my DD saw a sign in a room window, but I never could find it later.
Also, I saw a DIS sticker on a Black SUV/truck in the parking lot and I left a note from myself on the windshield. Hope they didn't think I was a crazy person, LOL.
Overall, excellent trip and soooo sad to leave.
The bad:
Nothing horrible, but a few sort of annoying things:
RnRC was closed the entire time we were there, that stunk!
When I went to settle part of my final bill at the front desk the evening before checking out, I specifically asked that instead of my debit card being charged, we had tons of extra Disney Dollars I wanted applied first ($260, to be exact). The woman came back with my receipt and it showed that she charged my debit card ($260), then issued a credit to my debit card and THEN applied the disney dollars to my bill. This was not a huge deal, but it just ties up my debit card funds, as the money it immediately held for a charge and takes a few days to be credited, even when the credit is seconds after the charge. (this is a Paypal debit card, not my regular back account) Thankfully, we were not needing those funds for anything, it just irked me that she did the opposite of what I asked and never even said a word about her mistake, just handed me the receipt.
Horrible, horrible meal at Hollywood and Vine, the service was awful, the food too. We will NEVER go back. Seriously, we gave the place two tries, never again. (the waitress left the bill (ignoring the fact that we told her we were on the disney dining plan) and never came back, my son had to find her and she never apologized for completely forgetting us)
Other than that, we had a GREAT time and cannot wait to go back.
If you have any questions about the resort, let me know!
We had two rooms in AB building 17. 1755 and 1756 (ours being a corner king room). The kids room had two doubles and a trundle bed, we didn't request it, it just had it there. I did not make any room requests beforehand, or during check-in and our rooms were great. The only thing is that they were pretty far from everything. I think I would request something closer the next time, but it wasn't too bad. Just really tiring after long days at the parks, kwim? I think it would be a pain if you had small children. Once we got our bearings, we were able to navigate it all pretty easily. Definitely confusing the first day or two though (all of the winding pathways and the directional signs aren't necessarily the fastest routes, imo)
The good:
Clean, spacious rooms and an AWESOME mousekeeper (Adelaida D was her name, I did mention how happy we were with her to the manager and will send a note to corporate, she was just wonderful)
The crowds were pretty manageable, much better than July/Aug we are used to. Very hot, but we just took breaks and it wasn't so bad. The weather, actually, was wonderful...very little rain.
The DD plan- holy cow, way too much food! Having two rooms made it sort of hard to keep up with what points we had left the last few days and we ended up still having a few counter service points left over. We bought some snacks 'to go' to use up those. OTOH, we actually had two extra meals that we paid OOP (breakfasts), so that does account for why we didn't use all of our CS points. We could have just used the plan and been fine.
Awesome magical moment: when my DD and I were sitting outside at POR by the food court and we overheard an older couple getting a phone call on their cell that their DD was expecting a child, their first grandchild. It was really cool! They were so excited!
Went on a DVC tour and are very likely to buy-in early next year, probably at AKL Villas- unless the happen to build DVC at the Contemporary- we would jump on that in a heartbeat. (they also give you fast passes for checking it out which was a nice extra) Very nice presentation, our guide (mario) was great and answered all of our questions thoroughly.
We saw a few DIS people must have been staying there too...my DD saw a sign in a room window, but I never could find it later.
Also, I saw a DIS sticker on a Black SUV/truck in the parking lot and I left a note from myself on the windshield. Hope they didn't think I was a crazy person, LOL.
Overall, excellent trip and soooo sad to leave.
The bad:
Nothing horrible, but a few sort of annoying things:
RnRC was closed the entire time we were there, that stunk!
When I went to settle part of my final bill at the front desk the evening before checking out, I specifically asked that instead of my debit card being charged, we had tons of extra Disney Dollars I wanted applied first ($260, to be exact). The woman came back with my receipt and it showed that she charged my debit card ($260), then issued a credit to my debit card and THEN applied the disney dollars to my bill. This was not a huge deal, but it just ties up my debit card funds, as the money it immediately held for a charge and takes a few days to be credited, even when the credit is seconds after the charge. (this is a Paypal debit card, not my regular back account) Thankfully, we were not needing those funds for anything, it just irked me that she did the opposite of what I asked and never even said a word about her mistake, just handed me the receipt.
Horrible, horrible meal at Hollywood and Vine, the service was awful, the food too. We will NEVER go back. Seriously, we gave the place two tries, never again. (the waitress left the bill (ignoring the fact that we told her we were on the disney dining plan) and never came back, my son had to find her and she never apologized for completely forgetting us)
Other than that, we had a GREAT time and cannot wait to go back.
If you have any questions about the resort, let me know!
