Missing the Value Season... 7 days at All-Star Movies during the peak of Spring Break

[polynesianbride]

Well, I'm going to try my hand at an official TR! We are in the process of planning a small Disney wedding and I had tried previously to post a small TR in my wedding planning journal from my 3-day trip last December but never finished it But I am determined this time since I need to practice so I can do a full report of our 2 week wedding trip! Writing is not my strongest suit but hopefully some of you will bear with me and follow along!

Well I will give you a quick introduction to us... My name is Adelia and I'm 29 years old, DF is Ryan and he is 27. Both of us are RN's and DF is finishing up his master's in anesthesia and will be graduating in August. We will be getting married on December 6 at Disney's Polynesian Resort- you can find more details than you ever wanted on this in my PJ (link in my sig). Since we are having a small wedding there is not much to plan but we decided we should use wedding planning as an excuse to go to Disney one more time. Unfortunately with DF's school the only time he had off was the week of 4/3-4/10... peak spring break time But we decided to fight off the crowds, pay the premium rates, and go for it. Here you will find the story of our time- the good and bad! Stay tuned for Day 1!

 

[polynesianbride]

We woke up at a bright and early 3:00 am so we could be at the airport at 4 am DF is a morning person and he always books the earliest flight- in this case 6 am and he always insists on being there the full 2 hours before. I on the other hand am a night owl (I work 7p-7a) and I sometimes play along with his early morning non-sense but let me tell you, this morning caused my first several days to be rough- nothing like starting out your vacation exhausted. We had some breakfast at McDonald's, boarded, and flew to Orlando with no issues

We are big fans of the Magical Express! If you have never used it I totally recommend it- it's so nice not having to pick up your bags, they really do just magically appear in your room. This is the 3rd time we've used it and we've never had a problem! Last time we went in December and had a HUGE line for the Magical Express though so we were worried that now with it being peak season it would be horrible but the line was short and we were promptly on our way to DISNEY! We made 3 stops (Coronado, All-Star Sports, All-Star Music) before arriving at All-Star Movies!

Up next... Resort Review!

 

[OhMari]

I had to look where you lived. Wow, 2 hours sitting in the airport for a early morning flight. My dh loves to risk things, and he thinks 30 minutes before departure is soon enough to get to the airport. I told him no way, they start boarding now 30 minutes before. So at least I get him there an hour before our flight.

Love wedding reports. I hope you enjoy writing this TR, so you will be back to let us read about your wedding.

 

[sejejoemmiev]

Great Start! Can't wait for the rest!

 

[polynesianbride]

I had to look where you lived. Wow, 2 hours sitting in the airport for a early morning flight. My dh loves to risk things, and he thinks 30 minutes before departure is soon enough to get to the airport. I told him no way, they start boarding now 30 minutes before. So at least I get him there an hour before our flight.

Love wedding reports. I hope you enjoy writing this TR, so you will be back to let us read about your wedding.

We live in Minneapolis, so it's a good sized airport but security usually runs smoothly- especially at 4 am when no one is there yet I would definately not try to arrive 30 minutes prior though 1-1.5 hours early is good! I will definately be writing a wedding report, I have found others reports so helpful in planning our wedding that I feel obligated to return the favor for future brides!

Great Start! Can't wait for the rest!

Thanks! Next update is coming up!

 

[polynesianbride]

I wanted to take a few minutes here and just give my full review of the All-Star Movie resort. I have stayed on Disney property 3 times before, once at Coronado and twice at Pop Century. I don't consider myself a resort snob by any means, I'm sure I would love the Deluxe resorts but I figure at Disney you don't spend much time in the room so it is a little silly to spend a ton of money on the room (of course for our wedding and honeymoon trip we are splurging a little more and staying at Caribbean Beach before the wedding and Club Level at Poly for our honeymoon). That being said I don't think I would stay at any of the All-Star Resorts again, not that we had an awful time but my stays at POP for the same $ have just been that much better

We checked in without problems. We paid for a preferred room and were placed in the Toy Story area, building 10, room 0850. As you exit the main building the Toy Story area is to the left.

The stair wells are concealed within the Bucket-O-Soldiers, our room was on the 2nd floor:

Compared to the "preferred room" locations we have had at POP it didn't seem too great but given that it is a busy time we figured it was ok. Our room faced a wooded area and was quiet but if you have kids I think they would be less than thrilled with the view and would want to be closer to the theming. The only theming we could really see was the army guys on top of the buildings.

Our room was nice but you can tell that it is older than POP as the bedspreads, etc do show a little wear- no big deal though. There were 2 full beds, small table with 2 chairs, and dresser with TV (as is standard per value resorts). FYI there is no fridge or microwave at the value resorts so if you want this you should atleast go moderate.

Sorry it's out of focus

We did get a Mickey shaped towel to welcome us but we did not receive any more animals or anything the rest of the week

The bathroom was really cute and I like that the sink is outside of the shower/toilet area.

I loved the light above the table that looked like a popcorn box when the light was off but just appeared white when it was turned on.

Ok it says I have too many pictures so I will have to do it in sections

 

[polynesianbride]

So we set off to explore the rest of the resort! This is the Toy Story area:

If we would have known more about the resort I would have requested the Fantasia area since it is the BEST location. It is directly behind the main building and it overlooks the pool area.

There is a kids play area next to the pool:

And there is a bar attached to the main building right by the pool, we had several drinks there and the service was very good:

More of the Fantasia area:

This little hammock is tucked in the middle of the Fantasia area and would be a nice place to relax.

DF tried to move-in on Daisy

Behind the Fantasia are is the Herbie Love Bug area, this isn't my top pick for theming but maybe there is a Herbie fan out there.

It has a small water play area too:

Then we headed back to the 101 Dalmations area, if you turn to the right when you exit the main building you will find this area. This area was very cute as well.

Behind the 101 Dalmations is the Mighty Ducks area. This has a second smaller pool there.

 

[polynesianbride]

Overall the theming of the resort is great, definately comparable to POP. My big gripes with this resort thought were the bus service, food court, and Mousekeeping.

Bus Service
The bus service goes to Sports, Music, and Movies in that order. So you are the last to be picked up- we found this to be quite problematic as many times we would wait for 20 minutes or more only for an already full bus to come and only 2-4 people get picked up and the rest of us having to wait for the next bus to come in another 20+ minutes

Food Court
The food court was not bad by any means. It's your standard food court with burgers, pizza, sandwiches, hot dogs, chicken fingers, etc. It's just that I LOVED the food-court at POP so this paled in comparison. POP's food court is MUCH larger and has some more "adult" choices (my favorite is the reuben flatbread- YUM!) We did get the refillable mugs- we love having them as souvenirs. I really wish they still offered milk and juice at the beverage station still though, now it's just pop, gatorade, tea, and coffee. The beverage station was frequently out of ice though (which was probably due to how busy everything was not the resort itself).

Mousekeeping
As I said before the rooms did show more wear than the newer rooms at POP but that is not what I'm talking about here. For starters when we checked in there was a towel hanging on the back of the bathroom door that I'm guessing wasn't clean since that's where you are instructed to hang your used towels that you plan to use again, ok maybe it was an honest oversight. But then I began to notice the room had several gross stains on the walls and curtains...

I think the ones on the curtain were probably chocolate and spaghetti sauce but they really reminded me of blood. On the bathroom wall I'm hoping it was make-up or something but also reminded me of blood.

Then behind the ironing board I found an old carton of soy milk- definately not ours.

There was also mold on the shower curtain which really bugged DF but I figure that maybe they were just planning to change that soon

But what bothered me the most was that the sheets were not long enough to cover the bed. I woke up the first morning and felt that half of my legs were on bare mattress- eeeewwwww! At first I thought I must have just kicked them up in my sleep but then I stretched the sheet back down and realized they had made the bed so the sheet left atleast a foot of the mattress exposed.

Now this maybe this doesn't bother the average person maybe it's just that I'm a nurse and am overly conscious of germs and such. I have seen what other people's feet look like when I take care of them in the hospital and trust me I don't want my bare feet touching what their bare feet were I figured this clearly must have been a mistake so I left the covers back when we left for the parks and assumed they would fix it. However, when we return from the parks our room was made up and I checked and they had made it up the same way!!!!

I thought about just fixing it myself but DF was anxious to get back to the parks and I knew that by the time we got home I would be too tired and really annoyed that I had to re-make my bed. So I called and requested that it be re-made, I felt silly asking but it was really bugging me. It was re-made properly when I came home, I slept great, and left Mousekeeping a good tip hoping this would ensure it would continue to be made right but sure enough the rest of the trip it was made like before and I would have to come back and fix my bed each night before going to bed

 

[polynesianbride]

So after we snooped around the resort we got some lunch at the food court. As I mentioned above there was nothing wrong with the food court but I was disappointed bc there wasn't near as much of a selection as at POP (ok really I was just pouting bc I wanted my beloved Reuben Flatbread).
DF got the chicken fingers which were good.

I had the turkey ciabatta sandwich which came with chips or pasta salad. I got the pasta salad it was ok but the noodles were not quite done enough so they were kinda chewy. The sandwich was ok but the bread was dry. Probably wouldn’t order it again.

And of course you get dessert with every meal with the dining plan- DF had the chocolate swirl cheesecake which was really good and really rich and I had the carrot cake which I love

Then we headed over to MK. It was way more crowded than what we are used to.

I despise crowds and actually wasn’t a big fan of Disney til we went during value season. Unfortunately due to DF’s school schedule the week of Easter was our only option, which we’re told is one of the busiest weeks of the year.

DF’s family for some odd reason always goes to Country Bear Jamboree first, so keeping with tradition that’s what we did. Now if we were arriving in the park at park opening I would definitely not allow this but seeing as it was mid-afternoon and the lines for everything were long so it didn’t really matter. We only had to wait about 5 minutes for this anyway so it worked well.

Here’s DF’s favorite bear: “There was blood on the table…”

Next we headed to Haunted Mansion. The line was about 30 minutes which is about the max I can tolerate but it seemed to move quickly.

The worst part was after you exit the room that is either stretching or falling there was absolutely no organization. You are shoulder to shoulder with everyone and there is no queue just people pushing and shoving as we slowly got closer to where the room narrows and you are forced into a single file line.
Seems like they would have something with more order during the busy times.

We then headed over to Splash Mountain and Big Thunder but the lines were greater than 1 hour for both of them. So we grabbed a Fast Pass for Splash Mountain (our all-time favorite). We decided to abandon trying to ride too many of the great rides and headed over to Fantasy Land. We hopped in line for Philharmagic and it only took us probably 10-15 minutes to get in! Then we got on Snow-White, Pooh, and the Tea Cups all with about 15-20 min waits. I was super excited to go on Tea-Cups bc DF never will bc he hates spinning- he agreed as long as I didn’t spin the cup and he was fine.

I love the little mouse that comes out of the tea-pot.

After that we headed to Tomorrow Land and got on Astro-Orbiter. This was surprisingly a long line ~30 minutes. Neither of us had ever been on it though so we waited (since there was a wait for everything- Space Mtn was 90 min). You have to take an elevator to get up to this ride and even though you’re not in it long it was crowded and HOT- much closer than I like to be squished in. Usually elevators don’t make me nervous (I’m in them constantly between the hospital where I work and my 35 story down-town apt) but all I could think was “Please God don’t let this elevator break, please let the doors open soon!”.

Then we hopped on Transit Authority then the Carousel of Progress. After that it was time for our Fast Pass for Spash Mtn with just enough time before dinner.

Now with Splash Mountain you usually get a little wet but neither of us have ever gotten SOAKED… til this time! And trust me we’ve ridden it A LOT! I’m not sure if they added this feature or if it just wasn’t on the past 10 times we've been. We were sitting in the back row and when you are going up while going past where the big drop is, if another boat drops you get SOAKED. Now it doesn’t seem to hit every boat and it appears sometimes it’s the front row and sometimes it’s the back. But when it happens there will not be any part of you that’s dry. I’m talking completely drenched even through my jeans and my shoes were squishy shoes- eeewwww. We were in so much shock by how wet we were that we didn’t really enjoy the rest of the ride. The people in the front of our boat were totally fine and found it hilarious that we were drenched. I wouldn’t have minded too much if it were the middle of the day but by this time the sun had set and we were on our way to eat dinner in the air conditioning at Ohana. Lesson learned, sit in the middle when riding Splash Mountain before dinner or better yet- don't ride Splash Mountain right before dinner.

 

[OhMari]

I got a post card in the mail, when I returned home from WDW in Feb. did you get a card. I would of been really upset, and asked to be moved to POP at least.

I think you can get wet anywhere on Splash Mountain. I'm like a magnet to getting soaked everytime. Doesn't matter where I sit. You did pretty good for getting to the park later in the day.

 

[Cinderella Girl]

Love your TR so far!!! It is so cool that you are having a Disney Wedding. That is my dream some day. Love that you are from Mpls too. My family and I were in Sanibel Island the same time you were in Disney, our crowds were CRAZY too! Can't wait to hear more.
Molly

 

[TinkerbellLuvr]

Loving your tr!
Can't wait for the rest

 

[solfan68]

Awesome, awesome pics. Love these little details. Enjoying the TR and can't wait for the next installment.

 

[polynesianbride]

I got a post card in the mail, when I returned home from WDW in Feb. did you get a card. I would of been really upset, and asked to be moved to POP at least.

I think you can get wet anywhere on Splash Mountain. I'm like a magnet to getting soaked everytime. Doesn't matter where I sit. You did pretty good for getting to the park later in the day.

I did just get a postcard in the mail this week- I am definately going to complete the survey! I never even thought about asking to be moved, I'm glad someone else found it gross other than me!

We've ridden Splash Mountain hundreds of times in previous years and we always get a little wet but have never been completely soaked from head to toe! Maybe we've just been lucky til now!

Love your TR so far!!! It is so cool that you are having a Disney Wedding. That is my dream some day. Love that you are from Mpls too. My family and I were in Sanibel Island the same time you were in Disney, our crowds were CRAZY too! Can't wait to hear more.
Molly

YAY! Too fun that you are from Minneapolis as well! Spring break is such a busy time everywhere! Disney weddings are wonderful, they really do everything for you so it makes it super easy!

Loving your tr!
Can't wait for the rest

Thanks! I'll get moving on my next update!

Awesome, awesome pics. Love these little details. Enjoying the TR and can't wait for the next installment.

Thanks! Glad you're liking the little details! Next installment coming up!

 

[tiggerrifficheidi]

I LOVE the pic of you in the teacup! That's a keeper!

 

[polynesianbride]

I LOVE the pic of you in the teacup! That's a keeper!

HAHA! I was sooooo happy in that pic... I was still getting over the shock of when DF said "Let's ride the tea cups!" Glad you found my TR!

 

[polynesianbride]

So after our drenching experience on Splash Mountain it was almost time for our dinner reservation at Ohana. We took the monorail to the TTC because I wanted to walk through the Poly grounds a bit before dinner and sneak a peak at Sunset Pointe. We didn't pause to take any pics unfortunately bc we were so uncomfortable and wet. DF decided he wouldn't be able to sit through dinner in his wet shirt so he just stopped in the gift shop and bought a new one We checked in and had a seat at the bar. We both ordered Lapu Lapu's, which are my favorite because they come in a pineapple. The ones we got this time were especially delicious, when I had one in Dec it was a bit too strong for me- this one had the perfect mixture of juice and rum- not too sweet and not too strong

Here we are completely exhausted since we have been up for 16 hours on only 4 hours sleep at this point but happy with our Lapu Lapu’s:

Dinner was great we were seated right next to the window with a decent view of the castle. We love this restaurant and are planning on having dinner here with all our guests on our wedding night- not very traditional but we aren’t having a formal wedding- our theme is tropical and we want everything to be casual and FUN! Our server was very nice and said that if we wanted to eat very slowly we could see the fireworks from our seats. We had planned to watch them from the beach anyways but I thought it was nice that she let us know she wasn’t going to rush us out of there. I didn’t take pics of the food this time but will post my pics from my December trip in case anyone is interested. In case you are not familiar with Ohana’s it is an all-you-can eat meal served family style. In the center of the restaurant is a huge fire pit where you can watch them cook all the meat on long skewers, the meats are then brought to your table on the skewers and served right off them!

First you get salad which has a delicious Honey Lime dressing on it and bread.

Next come the appetizers pot stickers and teriyaki chicken wings:

They give you 3 dipping sauces- I think they were sweet and sour, teriyaki, and spicy mustard but I’m not positive. The mustard one was my favorite:

Next comes the sides stir fried vegetables (mainly broccoli) and noodles (they used to have au gratin potatoes that were AMAZING- the noodles aren’t bad but I would rather have the potatoes)

Then the meat starts coming around:

Shrimp (the shells are on, I don’t mind this but DF hates it) These are seasoned really well:

Turkey and Pork, last time these were really dry and WAY too salty (and I love salt)- this time was much better though:

Steak, this time my piece was a little more done than in this pic but it was still good:

They keep coming around asking if you want more, but one serving of everything is more than enough for me.

And the grand finale is the bread pudding a la mode with banana caramel sauce, this is super yummy:

Our waitress also brought us a cupcake and “Just Married” pins, our reservation had on it that we were there planning our wedding but she said they don’t have pins for that . We didn't wear them but I was thrilled to get these bc I had heard rumors they were getting rid of them (which I don’t think is true) but I’ve stashed then in with all my wedding stuff just in case they don’t have them in Dec.

Since we were more than stuffed she packed the cupcake up for us and I had it for breakfast the next morning.

Then we headed out to the beach and grabbed a hammock and watched Wishes. They pipe the music in on the grounds which is nice but I would have loved for it to be just a bit louder (I love Wishes). I hadn’t seen the fireworks from the Poly before but it was a great view and very romantic!

Even though we were exhausted at this point we still headed back to the Magic Kingdom and watched the parade and did a bit of shopping on Main St before heading back to All-Stars and my soon to be discovered short sheeted bed.

Next up: Easter Sunday at Donald's Safari Breakfast, Animal Kingdom, and Typhoon Lagoon

 

[polynesianbride]

So we woke up bright and early the next morning, Easter Sunday, to make to Animal Kingdom. We had dining reservations for Donald's Safari Breakfast at 10:15 and we wanted to get as much of the park done before that as possible.

We arrived and it was really foggy so we weren't sure if we should go on the safari right away or if we should wait til it lifted. We decided we would just go because we were afraid if we waited the line would get too long and we'd miss our breakfast. It was definately harder to see animals and I gave up on taking pics be they weren't turning out great but we still saw a fair number of animals.

Rhino:

Baboon:

Ostrich:

Cheetah:

All the cats were out, we could see the lions better than we have ever seen them before but the pics didn't turn out well. We didn't see the giraffes or the elephants as well as we usually do though. Then we headed to Expedition Everest and were able to get on with just a 10-15 minute wait. While in line I noticed the scariest deer I had ever seen:

We then went over and hopped on Dinosaur with only a 5 minute wait.

Then it was off to Bug's Life, we just barely made that showing, but again- NO WAIT

We still had a little time left over so we walked some of the trails and looked in some of the shops, then headed off to breakfast.

Our ressie was at 10:15 and we checked in about 10:05. There were tons of people waiting and they told us they were running behind. We got seated shortly after 10:30 so it wasn't too bad. When they seat you they take your pic with Donald which they then try to sell to you later for a ridiculous amount (sorry don't remember the exact amount). They also take a pic for you with your camera and thanks to the lovely invention of digital I already knew ours turned out and looked essentially the same as the one they took.

Goofy was going around when we got seated so we waited and got pics with him. After he had been around we still had not seen any wait-staff so DF went up to get some food while I waited. I saw people get seated after us and their beverages arrive, finally our waitress came and took our drink orders so I headed up to the buffet.

The selection was very good. They had a large selection of cereals and pastries. They had biscuits and gravy, several types of eggs (scrambled, frittatas, and quiche), a couple types of potatoes, bacon, sausage, a carving station with ham, Mickey waffles, etc. I also really like how Disney will have some area's that are lower for the kids- I had never noticed it before but it was also like this at Cape May's so I think it must be all the buffets.

When we got back to the table, still no beverages. Part of the reason this really annoyed me was because they have the same juice they have at Ohana which is mango orange or something like that- bottom line is that it is DELICIOUS and I was planning on having 12 glasses of it!

Mickey came around and another server was kind enough to take this pic for us, we also asked about beverages since we hadn't seen our waitress in a long time:

And we went up for another round, and when we came back FINALLY my juice was there I did manage to get one more glass in for a total of 2- that's 10 short of what I was planning on Daisy came around and then it was Goofy again so we decided it was time to go.

We hadn't seen our waitress in a very long time (it was actually another staff that brought my second juice too) so we finally asked another wait staff for our bill.

Overall it was a good experience, the food was good, the characters rounded often, I like the atmosphere, but the service was horrible. Other tables around us seemed to be getting great service, it was just our waitress so don't let it discourage you from going Our waitress did actually bring our check but I did not leave a good tip- and this is rare for me bc I used to be a waitress.

When we came out of the restaurant we noticed it was visibly more crowded and we decided it was time to retreat for the day. I found a new hidden Mickey I hadn't noticed before:

It was just outside Tamu Tamu Courtyard:

We wanted to try to get on Kali River Rapids before we left but the line was over an hour for it so we decided to skip it so we would have enough time to get to Typhoon Lagoon. We did catch Finding Nemo on our way out of the park which I just LOVE Sorry didn't take any pics this time. It's really cute though if you haven't seen it. It was hilarious though bc there was a lady sitting behind us who was going on and on about the Lion King and how wonderful it was and then was telling her whole family that Nemo was sure to be a disappointment since Nemo is "just a short film version of the movie" (it's really a live stage show) and she didn't understand why is was so crowded I didn't correct her, decided the surprise would be better!

Up next: Typhoon Lagoon, back to AK, and the quest for Zebra Domes!

 

[shippedtosea]

hey! I just realized you started at TR! so I am joining in. We are doing both Ohana's and Tusker House so I am glad you enjoyed them. I can't wait.

 

[Flurbee]

Hey there!!! Just subscribing!!! Will post more later after I actually read this!!