MALEFICENT98
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2007
- Messages
- 13
Just returned yesterday from WDW!! This is my first trip post so I hope I do ok. A little background first- we made plans to go to Virginia Beach for Labor Day weekend. Unfortunately Ernesto wanted us to go to Disney instead! We decided to spend New Years at Disney. 
The "we" are myself, fiance and his mom. His mom is so cool!! Love her dearly and we all have great times together.
Day 1 - Fri Dec 29th
Flight departed Wilmington, NC at 7pm and after the connection we landed in Orlando at 11:18pm. Our Mears driver was ready and waiting to take us to Saratoga Springs. No need for baggage claim - CARRY ON BAGS!! We arrived at about 12:05am. Checked in and then ordered pizza - we were hungry! We had 2 studio rooms and they were really nice. We stayed in the Paddock buildings and our rooms were 6236 and 6247. The building was very close to the bus stop and pool. The walk to the Carriage House was less than 10 minutes! After the pizza it was off to bed. Had a big day ahead of us!
Day 2 - Sat Dec 30th
Mom and I were up and ready to go by 9:30am. Dear fiance was a bit under the weather so we let him rest in hopes that he would join us later in the afternoon. First stop was the Contemporary to see the Christmas decorations then we went on the monorail and got off at the Polynesian to see the new Captain Cooks. Looks great! Then it was off to the Grand Floridian to visit some friends that I know and look at the beautiful gingerbread house. We then headed to the Magic Kingdom to see the wonderful Christmas decorations on Main Street. It was VERY busy there so we left after about 10 minutes. Yes we only stayed in the MK for 10 minutes! But at least we were able to see Main Street in all it's Christmas glory. We dcided to get back to Saratoga to check on the fiance. He was feeling a bit better so we all get ready to head to MGM for the rest of the day. We were able to get dining at the Brown Derby at the last minute. (all our dining was last minute even on NYE!) We arrived at MGM and walked to the tip board to check out the times. Everything was a long wait of course but being Disney veterans we decided to check out the first Fantasmic show, dinner then the Osborne Lights. It all worked out great! We were able to snag seats for Fantasmic which we have not seen in a few years so it was wonderful to see again. Of course the audience did the wave before the performance and that was fun. Fantasmic was awesome as usual. After the show we went over to the Brown Derby to see if we could get in a little earlier and we were able to get a wonderful table outside. The weather was beautiful the whole weekend! Our server Jason was absolutely fabulous. Mom has some food allergies and Jason had Chef Russell come out to make sure that her food was just the way she wanted. The food was the best! We all enjoyed out meals and everything could not have been better! If you ever have dinner at the Brown Derby ask for Jason! He is the best. After the grest dinner we went to the Osborne Lights. FABULOUS!! Loved the snow and the lights to the music was absolutely wonderful. The crowds were not that bad at MGM on this evening. Of course there were crowds but you could confortably walk around the park. The main attractions had the lines - RNR, TOT, Mermaid etc. Overall we realy had a great night at MGM. We intended to head back to the MK for EMH but knowing the long day ahead of us the next day we went back to Saratoga to get some rest.
Day 3 - Sun Dec 31st NEW YEARS EVE!!
We were up and off to EPCOT by 9:30am. We decided to get lockers at the International Gateway since the plan was to get a taxi back to Saratoga from te Beach Club at the end of the night. We had sweat shirts and jackets just in case the weather turned cool in the evening. So off we went into the Wold Showcase and coffee was the first thing of business. The day was spent just people watching and seeing the wait times go up and up! There was a line for El Rio de Tiempo!! Can you believe that! We were able to get on it later in the evening because knowing that it was going into rehab. They said 40 -45 minutes but the line really moved quickly and actually we noticed that they sped up the ride. It was faster than usual. The wait time for Maelstrom was 80 minutes at one point in the day. Test Track was 90 minutes and Mission Space at one point wa 130 minutes. There were huge crowds and it was very, very busy there of course. We went up to the front gates for a while and watched the floods of people enter the park. We were curious if the park was ever going to reach capacity. They kept the people coming in. Lunch was at Nine Dragons and it was really good. When we left the restaurant they had a lobby full of people waiting to get seated so we ate at a great time because it was not very crowded. Dinner was not so great honestly. We dined at Alfredo's and I know it was NYE and very busy however that should never be an excuse for poor service and bad food. The fettichini alfredo was not fresh, it looked like it was sitting for a while. It had too much parmesan in it as well. We did tell the manager and he was kind enough to give us 50% off the bill but his excuse was that it was the bus person's fault not the server because she was one of the top servers at Disney. We only saw our server Desiree at the beginning and end of our dining experience. I would like to give them another try but I would avoid Alfredo's during the holiday season or maybe try them for lunch instead of dinner. That really was the only downer to our whole whirl wind weekend. Disney had 4 DJ's set up all around Epcot and we saw a few of them keeping the tunes going. It was really cool. We were able to get seats by the Fish & Chips quick service there in the UK to watch Illuminations. They had 2 shows - 7:30 and 11:40pm. We thought that the crowds might thin out after the first Illuminations but it did not. Illuminations was great of course but after the show they then they started the NYE fireworks by telling us which countries who already celebrated NYE. That country had fireworks and they lit it up which was cool. Then when it was USA's turn they had the globe do the count down and the fireworks were amazing!!! They just kept going and going - so awesome. After Epcot fireworks you could see the fireworks from PI and MGM so we got 3 shows. We let things filter out a bit before we went to our locker ( we did need the sweatshirts by the way) and then called for a cab on our way to the Beach Club. We left Epcot about 12:15 then got our cab by 12:30 and back to Saratoga about 12:50am. Sometimes it pays to get a cab instead of waiting on a Disney bus.
Day 4 - Mon Jan 1, 2007
Well it was departure day. Did not want to leave but we had a Mears car coming at 11:40am. I was able to walk over to DTD to get those last minute gifts and I did walk over there from Saratoga and the walk was only about 10-15 minutes. This all depends on where your building is but you can walk to DTD from Saratoga or you can take a boat. We never had time to do the boat but maybe will do that next time were there just to experience it. It was off to the airport and home. Departure day is always a bummer
Overall it was a great weekend! As long as you know that the parks are going to be crowded you can have a great time because you know what to expect. We were in WDW back in October so we really did not worry about getting on the attractions - we just enjoyed being in the parks and watching what was going on around us.
Hope that you enjoyed my first trip report. There will be more to come since we are Annual Pass holders so there is at least one more trip this year!
The "we" are myself, fiance and his mom. His mom is so cool!! Love her dearly and we all have great times together. Day 1 - Fri Dec 29th
Flight departed Wilmington, NC at 7pm and after the connection we landed in Orlando at 11:18pm. Our Mears driver was ready and waiting to take us to Saratoga Springs. No need for baggage claim - CARRY ON BAGS!! We arrived at about 12:05am. Checked in and then ordered pizza - we were hungry! We had 2 studio rooms and they were really nice. We stayed in the Paddock buildings and our rooms were 6236 and 6247. The building was very close to the bus stop and pool. The walk to the Carriage House was less than 10 minutes! After the pizza it was off to bed. Had a big day ahead of us!
Day 2 - Sat Dec 30th
Mom and I were up and ready to go by 9:30am. Dear fiance was a bit under the weather so we let him rest in hopes that he would join us later in the afternoon. First stop was the Contemporary to see the Christmas decorations then we went on the monorail and got off at the Polynesian to see the new Captain Cooks. Looks great! Then it was off to the Grand Floridian to visit some friends that I know and look at the beautiful gingerbread house. We then headed to the Magic Kingdom to see the wonderful Christmas decorations on Main Street. It was VERY busy there so we left after about 10 minutes. Yes we only stayed in the MK for 10 minutes! But at least we were able to see Main Street in all it's Christmas glory. We dcided to get back to Saratoga to check on the fiance. He was feeling a bit better so we all get ready to head to MGM for the rest of the day. We were able to get dining at the Brown Derby at the last minute. (all our dining was last minute even on NYE!) We arrived at MGM and walked to the tip board to check out the times. Everything was a long wait of course but being Disney veterans we decided to check out the first Fantasmic show, dinner then the Osborne Lights. It all worked out great! We were able to snag seats for Fantasmic which we have not seen in a few years so it was wonderful to see again. Of course the audience did the wave before the performance and that was fun. Fantasmic was awesome as usual. After the show we went over to the Brown Derby to see if we could get in a little earlier and we were able to get a wonderful table outside. The weather was beautiful the whole weekend! Our server Jason was absolutely fabulous. Mom has some food allergies and Jason had Chef Russell come out to make sure that her food was just the way she wanted. The food was the best! We all enjoyed out meals and everything could not have been better! If you ever have dinner at the Brown Derby ask for Jason! He is the best. After the grest dinner we went to the Osborne Lights. FABULOUS!! Loved the snow and the lights to the music was absolutely wonderful. The crowds were not that bad at MGM on this evening. Of course there were crowds but you could confortably walk around the park. The main attractions had the lines - RNR, TOT, Mermaid etc. Overall we realy had a great night at MGM. We intended to head back to the MK for EMH but knowing the long day ahead of us the next day we went back to Saratoga to get some rest.
Day 3 - Sun Dec 31st NEW YEARS EVE!!
We were up and off to EPCOT by 9:30am. We decided to get lockers at the International Gateway since the plan was to get a taxi back to Saratoga from te Beach Club at the end of the night. We had sweat shirts and jackets just in case the weather turned cool in the evening. So off we went into the Wold Showcase and coffee was the first thing of business. The day was spent just people watching and seeing the wait times go up and up! There was a line for El Rio de Tiempo!! Can you believe that! We were able to get on it later in the evening because knowing that it was going into rehab. They said 40 -45 minutes but the line really moved quickly and actually we noticed that they sped up the ride. It was faster than usual. The wait time for Maelstrom was 80 minutes at one point in the day. Test Track was 90 minutes and Mission Space at one point wa 130 minutes. There were huge crowds and it was very, very busy there of course. We went up to the front gates for a while and watched the floods of people enter the park. We were curious if the park was ever going to reach capacity. They kept the people coming in. Lunch was at Nine Dragons and it was really good. When we left the restaurant they had a lobby full of people waiting to get seated so we ate at a great time because it was not very crowded. Dinner was not so great honestly. We dined at Alfredo's and I know it was NYE and very busy however that should never be an excuse for poor service and bad food. The fettichini alfredo was not fresh, it looked like it was sitting for a while. It had too much parmesan in it as well. We did tell the manager and he was kind enough to give us 50% off the bill but his excuse was that it was the bus person's fault not the server because she was one of the top servers at Disney. We only saw our server Desiree at the beginning and end of our dining experience. I would like to give them another try but I would avoid Alfredo's during the holiday season or maybe try them for lunch instead of dinner. That really was the only downer to our whole whirl wind weekend. Disney had 4 DJ's set up all around Epcot and we saw a few of them keeping the tunes going. It was really cool. We were able to get seats by the Fish & Chips quick service there in the UK to watch Illuminations. They had 2 shows - 7:30 and 11:40pm. We thought that the crowds might thin out after the first Illuminations but it did not. Illuminations was great of course but after the show they then they started the NYE fireworks by telling us which countries who already celebrated NYE. That country had fireworks and they lit it up which was cool. Then when it was USA's turn they had the globe do the count down and the fireworks were amazing!!! They just kept going and going - so awesome. After Epcot fireworks you could see the fireworks from PI and MGM so we got 3 shows. We let things filter out a bit before we went to our locker ( we did need the sweatshirts by the way) and then called for a cab on our way to the Beach Club. We left Epcot about 12:15 then got our cab by 12:30 and back to Saratoga about 12:50am. Sometimes it pays to get a cab instead of waiting on a Disney bus.
Day 4 - Mon Jan 1, 2007
Well it was departure day. Did not want to leave but we had a Mears car coming at 11:40am. I was able to walk over to DTD to get those last minute gifts and I did walk over there from Saratoga and the walk was only about 10-15 minutes. This all depends on where your building is but you can walk to DTD from Saratoga or you can take a boat. We never had time to do the boat but maybe will do that next time were there just to experience it. It was off to the airport and home. Departure day is always a bummer
Overall it was a great weekend! As long as you know that the parks are going to be crowded you can have a great time because you know what to expect. We were in WDW back in October so we really did not worry about getting on the attractions - we just enjoyed being in the parks and watching what was going on around us.
Hope that you enjoyed my first trip report. There will be more to come since we are Annual Pass holders so there is at least one more trip this year!
