Just back.. traditional highs and lows

[Kittina]

I really enjoyed reading these from everyone else, so I thought I would add mine

Highs

Dreams is fantastic, we waited over an hour for a spot right at the front and it was well worth it

Walts - had a lovely meal here and watched the parade from above. best meal of the trip, as usual, don't know why i don't just book 2 or 3 meals here!!
had the yummy french toast dessert mmm

Sports bar - actually quite enjoyed this place. we watched the football a few times and had some food and i was impressed.

Sequoia Lodge - we got a sort of upgrade ! booked standard and got a refurbed room in the main building overlooking the lake - though it was mostly obscured by a tree but still nice the rooms are looking lovely and im very glad to see the tv has a few more channels too.

Refurbs - the rides are looking amazing after all the refurbs. particularly potc and btm and of course - the castle!

Weather - this is good and bad. we had a bit of rain, especially on friday night but the majority of the time it was lovely and sunny. and we had a few cocktails on the terrace in the hotel overlooking the balloon

Death Valley +pink bubbles cocktails - yummy, death valley is a must for any Jack Daniels fans. Pink bubbles is champagne and lychee juice it was lovely!


Lows

WIFI - WHY do none of the hotels have free wifi? for £150 a night its so basic! We stayed in a hotel in bussy saint george the night before and they had free wifi and it was 40 euro a night for the hotel room! 10 euro a day or 4.50 an hour is absolutely ridiculous.

Inventions - worst meal i've ever had here. still kicking myself that we went for it. ill write a full review but it was terrible and i am really gutted we spent 100euro on this meal, I should have complained..

Annettes - unfortunately I had a horrible meal here too i had the biggie salad and it was literally DROWNED in dressing, i ate 4 or 5 mouthfuls and couldn't eat anymore, i told the waiter and he just shrugged. at the end i did complain again and he took 15% off the bill which was ok, but the meal was just bad.

Crush - This is just my fault!! I went on it twice a few years ago and hated it. I seemed to forget this and went on again and I was literally shaking for a good 15-20 minutes afterwards and thought i was going to be sick. I hated it so much i was nearly crying. Im such a wuss when it comes to rollercoasters i dont know why I tried it again!! i must have looked bad because people still in the queue were pointing at me as I walked off the ride and making comments. d'ooh

Bag search- this was so annoying, twice to get into the back and again to get back in the village grr!

A big low here is the price. I know it's Disney and I know it's expensive but this time, it just seemed worse than ever. 4 euro for a bottle of water is just extortionate and taking the pee to be honest. Yes it can be avoided by planning in advance and getting water at the train station, but sometimes when you're in the hotel and just need a drink its just...$$$ we spent over 900 euros on this trip and I do not feel it was worth it. I am sorry to say that. We won't be returning any time soon but am glad we saw the 20th celebrations, and the park looked lovely.

Gosh as that came out it turned into more lows than highs...oh dear. I don't mean it all badly! It was still great!

Here are a few pics

 

[Ms Poppins]

I'm glad you had a good time overall

I think the park looks lovely now that everything is shiny and new. I totally agree about the pricing. It is expensive, there's not getting away from it. And my dd would agree with you about the WIFI

Photos look great, especially the Dreams ones

Thanks for posting

 

[DLPDreams]

Welcome home

I am glad you had a great trip overall. I totally agree that it is just ridiculously expensive, we spent a fortune too!

I found the weather a lot to cope with this trip as it was so changeable in an hour, never mind a day! Still, we made the most of it and on the worst rainy day ended up on the train and kept dry (which we've never done and really wanted to this trip, so a positive in the end!).

We did Inventions this trip once again - we did enjoy it - had a nice table overlooking the castle and got plenty of character interaction but I do agree with someone else on here who said they didn't feel that the characters were as fun as say Cafe Mickey. A few were great but some were quite restrained here I felt. Loved the food though - amazing - we had a great selection and were quite near without being on top of it.

I really, really like the look of Sequoia Lodge. We go again for the Christmas season this year and I am tempted to book here as I think it will be lovely, the only thing stopping me is the walk - if it's very cold I think we'll find it difficult....

Anyway, lovely to read your highs and lows - everyone is coming back with Dreams as a high and I'm not surprised - it is truly amazing .

 

[Bexx]

Glad you had a great trip overall. Shame about the meals and agree about the WiFi. Like the sound of the pink bubbles cocktail though...!

Thanks for the pictures. Strange as it may sound, my favourite is the one of the Sequoia Lodge deck! We spent most of a beautiful March morning on there during my 40th birthday trip - happy memories.

 

[bonhoga]

I love the photo of the mad hatter's tea party, where is that from? And Oh my goodness is WIFI that expensive at SL, my teenagers are in for some shock . I never knew SL had a deck, do they put out more seats in the summer or is it quite limited?

Thanks for the photos and the WIFI tip

Kaye

 

[HFJohnson]

Glad to hear you had a good trip overall, I'd love to stay at the Sequoia.

It's a pain that there's so little WIFI on the resort. The best place I found was McDonalds. I just popped in there each day (didn't buy anything) on the way back to the Cheyenne to check my emails.

 

[jothp]

Sounds like a great trip overall. We got around the drinks thing by bringing them with us but I agree they are extortionate and not everyone can bring their own. A lot of the meals are really expensive too for what you get although it didn't feel quite as bad for us this trip as the exchange rate was much better than we have had in the past.

What was the problem with inventions? we quite enjoyed our meal there but it was certainly very expensive and as DLP dreams said we didn't find the characters very 'fun'

 

[Johnny_boy]

WIFI - WHY do none of the hotels have free wifi? for £150 a night its so basic! We stayed in a hotel in bussy saint george the night before and they had free wifi and it was 40 euro a night for the hotel room! 10 euro a day or 4.50 an hour is absolutely ridiculous.

A big low here is the price. I know it's Disney and I know it's expensive but this time, it just seemed worse than ever. 4 euro for a bottle of water is just extortionate and taking the pee to be honest. Yes it can be avoided by planning in advance and getting water at the train station, but sometimes when you're in the hotel and just need a drink its just...$$$

The wi-fi price bothered me as well, we ended up getting a coffee and snack in McDonalds and using the free wi-fi there.

That is a ridiculous price for water, we just drink tap-water when we're there, you can fill/re-fill bottles outside the toilets. My daughter quite often orders water as part of a meal deal so we tend to get some there and just re-fill the bottles. I'm not a big fan of mineral water for various reasons.

 

[Ware Bears]

Welcome back glad you had a great time overall.

It's a shame you were disappointed with your meals in Inventions and Annettes - especially the one in Inventions because it's so much more expensive. I'm quite intrigued as to what was so terrible as we've always had a lovely meal in there so I'll look forward to reading your review. Glad the one in Walt's was nice though!

And yes, it is expensive unfortunately there's no denying that. We noticed last year how much prices had increased in the three years since we'd last been and I guess they'll be even worse this year.

Loved your photos.

 

[tennisfan]

Welcome back, I agree about the Wifi but considering WDW on site hotels are only starting to roll out free Wifi, I can't see DLP doing it soon.

Having said that €10 isn't too bad considering Holiday Inn Express were charging £14.99 for 24 hours 2 years ago, which was a pain especially as I had to spend 6 weeks in one

 

[Kittina]

The Sequoia lodge really is lovely. There are two decks out the front. There weren't many seats there - 2 or 3 tables on each side but there was rarely anyone sitting out there. There's a foosball table too. 2 euro a game which was nice in the sunshine with a cocktail

the mad hatter photo was in the store in the village, i can't remember the name but it had lots of art work and you can go upstairs to see some more. i loved that one but it was way too expensive!

Inventions was a big disappointment as we traditionally have it as our last meal on the day we leave. We were unsure if we should go this time, as we'd spent such a lot of money on the other meals but thought we would go for it as we usually enjoy it so much. It was only the lunch time buffet. The hot food looked as though it had been sat there for hours and was never replaced the whole time we were there. The veg was cold, the pasta was stuck together and hard, the risotto was like sludge, brown lettuce..the meat was stone cold too and labelled incorrectly. It was just shoddy and awful. I should have complained but I was exhausted and after the reception to my complaint at annettes I really didn't want to argue about it so just paid and left. It may have just been an off day because we have had good meals before, but i was just so disappointed with the meal and the 95 euro price tag (with 2 drinks) just..bah!!

 

[WDW Princess 71]

Can anyone tell me if the wifi "per hour" price must be used all in one continuous hour? Or can you log on for 15 minutes, log off, and then go on again later or the next day to keep using the remaining time? I just want to skype call for 10-15 minutes a day.

 

[Kittina]

nope it is one continuous hour. you can't use it in bits. i wanted to do that too. ended up spending about 25 euros on internet as i had to check in with work and family and my phone wasn't working (my own fault, didn't turn roaming on before leaving the uk, its a new phone)