Just Back from POR/WL

[honeymo78]

My DH2B and I just returned last night from 6 nights (3 at POR, 3 at WL). We were originally booked at POR on the Gold Plan for all 6 nights but switched to WL after 3 nights. The bus service at POR was either hit or miss. Either we had to run to catch the bus we needed b/c it was getting ready to leave or we had to wait at least 40 min for the next one. I had to wait 40mins for the bus to MK my first day so I could get to breakfast at 1900 Park Faire on time and even then I ended up about 10 mins late. On Tues I waited another 45min for an Epcot bus for the Princess breakfast. Another family waiting with me had been there even earlier so had over an hour wait. When Dan tried to join me at Epcot a little later in the morning he waited 40 mins as well. Each time we saw 2 or 3 buses for each other park while there were none for the one we wanted. Most of our other waits when leaving the parks were over 30 mins while we saw the other resort buses come by one or two times. By Wed Dan had had enough and went to the front desk to complain and ask to be moved to a different resort and we would pay the difference for the 3 nights. Almost all the resorts were full but the wonderful CM working the desk said she would try to get a deluxe to honor our same rate. Finally, the last place she checked was WL and they were willing to give us king bed room for no extra charge for our last 3 nights. It was room 4129 overlooking the pool, parallel to the shoreline. It was wonderful!!! I do agree that the rooms are bit dim though. Some more overhead lighting would have been great. I can't wait til we go back to the WL hopefully in Nov 2004. When we changed resorts they had some problems transferring the number of meals we had left on the gold plan to the new room so they started us over as if we just checked in at WL with 18 meals and said they would give us silver/bronze certificates to make up for the ones we hadn't used from POR. I don't know what exactly happened but they sent two envoples to the front desk for us with 7 coupons in one and 4 in the other so we ended up with plenty of free wishes. I was able to get some great pins, some extra snacks, a t-shirt for Dan's mom and a disney collectable with these wishes.

THe room we had a POR was great too. It was a king bed on the Mansion side in Parterre Place room 9536, first floor corner. I really couldn't see anything wrong with the room. It didn't look worn or tired and was clean. We didn't get towel animals at either resort but the maid at POR made a toothbrush holder out of one of the towels and at WL the towels were arranged in little fan shapes.

I'll be doing a full trip report including our experience with the Gold Plan in a few days but if you have any questions I'll try to answer them here.

 

[honeymo78]

Most of my trip report is now up on the trip reports board.