imadisneyfanatic
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2000
- Messages
- 177
Hi everyone! This is my very first trip report! 
We booked our trip through Dreams Unlimited and my agent was Michelle H. (You guys she is just wonderful!)
Cast:
Me Kathy (31) Disney fanatic and obsessive planner
Husband Richard (35) Skeptic about trusting Dreams Unlimited with our travel plans. Loves Disney but hasn't been for 12 years. (Very hard to please by the way)
Daughter Shelley (10) This trip was totally for her birthday celebration (at least that's our grown up excuse when you get "that look" from co-workers) She is wearing an air cast on her leg so we have to rent a wheelchair everyday.
Dates: 10/27/01 through 11/101
Resort: Caribbean Beach, Room 3246, Trinidad North
Package: Discovery Magic
Even though we live in Florida, it is a 7 hour drive to WDW. We arrived at CBR at approximately 12:30pm. Check-in went smoothly and took less that 30 minutes total. I got everything that was requested on my reservation (Trinidad North). As part of our package we also got 100 year celebration luggage tags, 3 pins (for pin trading), and $75 Disney dollars to spend! It was like Christmas when we checked in! (Note: I had ordered one of those "I'm going to WDW packages" from Gifts of a Lifetime so Shelley already had her Pin Lanyard, autograph book, and Guest of Honor Badge when we arrived). We were starving so decided to drive to our room and eat lunch at the food court. Our room was on the 2nd floor and was wonderful. I stayed at CBR about 7 years ago and it looked brand new and extremely clean. Even hard-to-please hubby was impressed. The table in the room had 4 of the refillable mugs and 3 rain ponchos available for you to take (instead of making a special trip to Old Port Royale (OPR). They were wrapped in plastic and the money would be placed on your room account. The mugs were $9.95 and the ponchos were $4.95. Skeptical me decided to wait on the mugs till we got to OPR to see if they were cheaper at the food court. The food court at Old Port Royale was a short 5 minute walk along the lake. The resort is just breathtaking! The food court only had 3 out of 5 vendors open (slow season cut backs I guess) so I never got to try the chicken. We had double cheeseburgers and Shelley had chicken strips. The food was very good and not too pricey. The mugs were the same price as the ones in the room (felt very good about that). There is a very nice souvenir shop at OPR as well. This is where we had to trade our free pin vouchers for the pins. There were 3 to choose from so we chose one of each and gave all 3 to Shelley. (All the CMs in the store were wearing their pins and soon Shelley was able to start trading with them. By the way, all CMs were very nice about trading and never said no or hesitated one bit to trade)
Finally, off to the Magic Kingdom! We arrived at the MK around 2:30pm and it was crowded! I was a little surprised! We rode Splash Mtn. first (Shelley's birthday wish) Since Shelley was in a wheelchair we never had to wait in a long line but I noticed most waits were 30-45 minutes without Fastpass. We tried to ride Peter Pan but the CM there would not let us in the handicapped entrance without a Fastpass. I asked if we could just wait in line and he said no and offered me a fastpass. We decided to come back another day since we had PS for dinner soon. Fantasyland was a madhouse of people. We had PS for dinner at Cinderella's Royal Table. Richard and I had Prime Rib and Shelley had a cheeseburger. For dessert I had chocolate mousse and Richard had Strawberries with chocolate fondue. The food was excellent and the total was $113.74 (we used our Magical Wish for this meal).
After riding more rides, our next goal was to see the Fantasy In the Sky fireworks. Michelle at DU had arranged Preferred Viewing PS for this event so we arrived 15 minutes early to see it. The spot was pretty good and came in handy with all of the crowds. Shelley loved Tinkerbell flying directly over our heads. Finally we stayed and watched SpectroMagic. It was beautiful of course and we got to meet a wonderful family from England. This is a good time to mentions all of the Britans we met. It seemed like all of Great Britain was at WDW! They were wonderful folks to talk to and meet.
It was time to end our first day and give our dying feet a break so we took the bus back to our room. The bus service was wonderful and we never waited longer than 10-15 minutes for a bus.
More on tomorrow's report!
We booked our trip through Dreams Unlimited and my agent was Michelle H. (You guys she is just wonderful!)
Cast:
Me Kathy (31) Disney fanatic and obsessive planner
Husband Richard (35) Skeptic about trusting Dreams Unlimited with our travel plans. Loves Disney but hasn't been for 12 years. (Very hard to please by the way)
Daughter Shelley (10) This trip was totally for her birthday celebration (at least that's our grown up excuse when you get "that look" from co-workers) She is wearing an air cast on her leg so we have to rent a wheelchair everyday.
Dates: 10/27/01 through 11/101
Resort: Caribbean Beach, Room 3246, Trinidad North
Package: Discovery Magic
Even though we live in Florida, it is a 7 hour drive to WDW. We arrived at CBR at approximately 12:30pm. Check-in went smoothly and took less that 30 minutes total. I got everything that was requested on my reservation (Trinidad North). As part of our package we also got 100 year celebration luggage tags, 3 pins (for pin trading), and $75 Disney dollars to spend! It was like Christmas when we checked in! (Note: I had ordered one of those "I'm going to WDW packages" from Gifts of a Lifetime so Shelley already had her Pin Lanyard, autograph book, and Guest of Honor Badge when we arrived). We were starving so decided to drive to our room and eat lunch at the food court. Our room was on the 2nd floor and was wonderful. I stayed at CBR about 7 years ago and it looked brand new and extremely clean. Even hard-to-please hubby was impressed. The table in the room had 4 of the refillable mugs and 3 rain ponchos available for you to take (instead of making a special trip to Old Port Royale (OPR). They were wrapped in plastic and the money would be placed on your room account. The mugs were $9.95 and the ponchos were $4.95. Skeptical me decided to wait on the mugs till we got to OPR to see if they were cheaper at the food court. The food court at Old Port Royale was a short 5 minute walk along the lake. The resort is just breathtaking! The food court only had 3 out of 5 vendors open (slow season cut backs I guess) so I never got to try the chicken. We had double cheeseburgers and Shelley had chicken strips. The food was very good and not too pricey. The mugs were the same price as the ones in the room (felt very good about that). There is a very nice souvenir shop at OPR as well. This is where we had to trade our free pin vouchers for the pins. There were 3 to choose from so we chose one of each and gave all 3 to Shelley. (All the CMs in the store were wearing their pins and soon Shelley was able to start trading with them. By the way, all CMs were very nice about trading and never said no or hesitated one bit to trade)
Finally, off to the Magic Kingdom! We arrived at the MK around 2:30pm and it was crowded! I was a little surprised! We rode Splash Mtn. first (Shelley's birthday wish) Since Shelley was in a wheelchair we never had to wait in a long line but I noticed most waits were 30-45 minutes without Fastpass. We tried to ride Peter Pan but the CM there would not let us in the handicapped entrance without a Fastpass. I asked if we could just wait in line and he said no and offered me a fastpass. We decided to come back another day since we had PS for dinner soon. Fantasyland was a madhouse of people. We had PS for dinner at Cinderella's Royal Table. Richard and I had Prime Rib and Shelley had a cheeseburger. For dessert I had chocolate mousse and Richard had Strawberries with chocolate fondue. The food was excellent and the total was $113.74 (we used our Magical Wish for this meal).
After riding more rides, our next goal was to see the Fantasy In the Sky fireworks. Michelle at DU had arranged Preferred Viewing PS for this event so we arrived 15 minutes early to see it. The spot was pretty good and came in handy with all of the crowds. Shelley loved Tinkerbell flying directly over our heads. Finally we stayed and watched SpectroMagic. It was beautiful of course and we got to meet a wonderful family from England. This is a good time to mentions all of the Britans we met. It seemed like all of Great Britain was at WDW! They were wonderful folks to talk to and meet.
It was time to end our first day and give our dying feet a break so we took the bus back to our room. The bus service was wonderful and we never waited longer than 10-15 minutes for a bus.
More on tomorrow's report!
