Two adults, 1 child (12), flew into Sanford, used Mears Town Car to and from resort, stayed at Port Orleans Riverside for 10 nights, Disney dining plan, 7 day tickets with park hopper, completely reliant on Disney Transportation for theme park transportation.
Our experiences...
1) Mears Town Car - excellent experience. Town car waiting for us on arrival. Prepaid including gratuity meant nothing for us to worry about. 53 minutes from Sanford to Riverside. It's great to have your bags with you when you arrive at your room.
2) Garden Grocer - Ordered water, granola bars, beer, cookies, milk, etc. 2 days before our trip and had them deliver to concierge while we were at the parks. All items requiring refrigeration were taken care of and concierge delivered to our room when we called that evening.
3) Port Orleans Riverside - this was our third time at Riverside. Just as clean and quite as ever. Housekeeping forgot some things throughout our trip (towels, toilet tissue, tissues, soap) but were quick to deliver when we called. Issues with in-room refrigerator that left us with frozen milk and than warm milk that had to be thrown out after maintenance tried fixing the fridge.
4) Port Orleans Riverside Food Court - extremely busy especially after 7:30am. Tables are hard to come by and are often dirty from the previous crowd. We went to the main table service area to eat our quick service / breakfast. Much cleaner and quieter.
3) Disney Transportation - exceptionally good. We've found busing for Port Orleans to be problematic in the past but only twice noticed that most other resort buses showed up while we waited 25 - 30 minutes for the Riverside Bus. They do need some sort of rerouting system. Multiple occasions while waiting for a bus to a specific park numerous others came for a different destination. For example, waited 20 minutes for a Magic Kingdom bus while three Disney Springs buses came within 10 minutes, the last two leaving empty.
4) Wait Times - with the exception of some of the headliners (which we used fast passes for), wait times were minimal. Some rides we walked right on even in the middle of the day. They were very strict on fast pass times. Only once did I see a family allowed to use their fast passes a few minutes before the scheduled start time. We arrived a few minutes early for some fast passes and were told to wait for our allotted time even though the lines weren't busy. No argument from us about waiting for the start time, just thought they could've been a bit more lenient at times. No big deal.
5) Gratuity - we found it difficult to tell when and how much to tip. We generally tipped housekeeping 2 - 3 dollars per day. We tipped the concierge 5 dollars for delivering our groceries. Tipped the couple of taxi drivers when going to the Florida mall approximately 10% of fare. It's the meals that got really challenging. Being on the dining plan we ate whatever appealed to us each day. Some days eating from the lower end of the menu, other times ordering more expensive. The "expected" gratuity was out of our price range. We could not afford to tip $25 for a meal. Sorry for those tables that received our standard $10 - $15 tip. The Mears town car was a little harder to read. The gratuity was built in to the prepaid amount yet the driver still looked rejected / offended when we took our bags, thanked him and left.
6) Crowds / Etiquette - crowds were moderate - high for the most of our park visits. Certain parts of the parks were hard to navigate due to what I like to call "wanderers". These are the ones that do not seem to care who is in front of them or behind them and walk aimlessly with no clear destination in mind. Five - Six people in a group walking side by side can really disrupt people trying to get to reservations. Also annoying are those that leave zero space between themselves and your party while waiting in lines. The August heat in Florida can leave you a little overcome. You don't need the person behind you one inch away. At one point in a really dark line up my wife and I had to switch places as the man behind her was breathing in her ear (even though he was about 3 ft from the party behind him and had lots of room). We found the crowds to be a mix of genuinely polite people and extremely rude and selfish people. How many young, healthy men remained seated on the bus while tired mothers stood with children in their arms. Just not something I'm used to seeing where I come from.
7) Disney Springs - if you liked Downtown Disney shopping (all things Disney) you won't be disappointed as that section remains intact. Our opinion regarding the new stores is that they are aimed at a very high end clientele. We bought literally nothing in the new section. Just too pricy for a middle income family trying to afford a yearly vacation. We did eat at the new burger place (can't remember the name). Amazing burgers. Just be aware that the burgers are filling and we found it a bit too filling for a noon quick service.
All in all, it was a great trip. We have little choice as to when we can go to Disney due to work commitments and usually August is our only choice. It can be extremely hot at that time but we decided to just slow it down and enjoy the warmth.
Our experiences...
1) Mears Town Car - excellent experience. Town car waiting for us on arrival. Prepaid including gratuity meant nothing for us to worry about. 53 minutes from Sanford to Riverside. It's great to have your bags with you when you arrive at your room.
2) Garden Grocer - Ordered water, granola bars, beer, cookies, milk, etc. 2 days before our trip and had them deliver to concierge while we were at the parks. All items requiring refrigeration were taken care of and concierge delivered to our room when we called that evening.
3) Port Orleans Riverside - this was our third time at Riverside. Just as clean and quite as ever. Housekeeping forgot some things throughout our trip (towels, toilet tissue, tissues, soap) but were quick to deliver when we called. Issues with in-room refrigerator that left us with frozen milk and than warm milk that had to be thrown out after maintenance tried fixing the fridge.
4) Port Orleans Riverside Food Court - extremely busy especially after 7:30am. Tables are hard to come by and are often dirty from the previous crowd. We went to the main table service area to eat our quick service / breakfast. Much cleaner and quieter.
3) Disney Transportation - exceptionally good. We've found busing for Port Orleans to be problematic in the past but only twice noticed that most other resort buses showed up while we waited 25 - 30 minutes for the Riverside Bus. They do need some sort of rerouting system. Multiple occasions while waiting for a bus to a specific park numerous others came for a different destination. For example, waited 20 minutes for a Magic Kingdom bus while three Disney Springs buses came within 10 minutes, the last two leaving empty.
4) Wait Times - with the exception of some of the headliners (which we used fast passes for), wait times were minimal. Some rides we walked right on even in the middle of the day. They were very strict on fast pass times. Only once did I see a family allowed to use their fast passes a few minutes before the scheduled start time. We arrived a few minutes early for some fast passes and were told to wait for our allotted time even though the lines weren't busy. No argument from us about waiting for the start time, just thought they could've been a bit more lenient at times. No big deal.
5) Gratuity - we found it difficult to tell when and how much to tip. We generally tipped housekeeping 2 - 3 dollars per day. We tipped the concierge 5 dollars for delivering our groceries. Tipped the couple of taxi drivers when going to the Florida mall approximately 10% of fare. It's the meals that got really challenging. Being on the dining plan we ate whatever appealed to us each day. Some days eating from the lower end of the menu, other times ordering more expensive. The "expected" gratuity was out of our price range. We could not afford to tip $25 for a meal. Sorry for those tables that received our standard $10 - $15 tip. The Mears town car was a little harder to read. The gratuity was built in to the prepaid amount yet the driver still looked rejected / offended when we took our bags, thanked him and left.
6) Crowds / Etiquette - crowds were moderate - high for the most of our park visits. Certain parts of the parks were hard to navigate due to what I like to call "wanderers". These are the ones that do not seem to care who is in front of them or behind them and walk aimlessly with no clear destination in mind. Five - Six people in a group walking side by side can really disrupt people trying to get to reservations. Also annoying are those that leave zero space between themselves and your party while waiting in lines. The August heat in Florida can leave you a little overcome. You don't need the person behind you one inch away. At one point in a really dark line up my wife and I had to switch places as the man behind her was breathing in her ear (even though he was about 3 ft from the party behind him and had lots of room). We found the crowds to be a mix of genuinely polite people and extremely rude and selfish people. How many young, healthy men remained seated on the bus while tired mothers stood with children in their arms. Just not something I'm used to seeing where I come from.
7) Disney Springs - if you liked Downtown Disney shopping (all things Disney) you won't be disappointed as that section remains intact. Our opinion regarding the new stores is that they are aimed at a very high end clientele. We bought literally nothing in the new section. Just too pricy for a middle income family trying to afford a yearly vacation. We did eat at the new burger place (can't remember the name). Amazing burgers. Just be aware that the burgers are filling and we found it a bit too filling for a noon quick service.
All in all, it was a great trip. We have little choice as to when we can go to Disney due to work commitments and usually August is our only choice. It can be extremely hot at that time but we decided to just slow it down and enjoy the warmth.
