Inga
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Nov 21, 1999
- Messages
- 768
October 13-29th , 2006 WDW trip report
Cast: Me (Inga) 37, manager of physiotherapy department and DH, 39 computer nerd
Trip Outline:
2 nights CSR, 5 nights BWV, 2 nights ASMo, 4 nights BWV, 3 nights AKL.
Annual passholders, second trip in the last year (prev trip Dec 2005) as well as DVC members.
Total night stay at WDW Resort = 16 nights!
Special events: MNSSHP, Party of the Senses, Segway Tour
CSR:
Highlites:
beautiful resort, lovely room with view of water.
Very nice quiet pool for lane (lap) swimming
Lowlites:
The Peppermarket was a disappointment the food quality was not very good, and it was very expensive! It was difficult to find good food at the CSR. We had two eggs over easy one morning and it cost $2.00 per egg!
BWV
Highlites:
Location location location! The boardwalk is bustling with activity day and night. We enjoyed walking along the resorts at differne times of the day.
Walking to MGM and Epcot awesome, loved the freedom that provided, especially after Fantasmic and Illuminations!
Best DVC quite pool we have found yet, as well as a nice little activity area with air hockey and video games (we didnt use it but it seemed interesting).
Flying Fish and Spoodles awesome. We had our second best meal at WDW at Flying Fish, and Spoodles was good food at a reasonable cost so we went back several times.
Jellyrolls: this is a very interesting place to go the word dank is how I would describe the atmosphere; it takes a bit of getting used to. Once in, however, and after a few drinks to loosen up, it was a lot of fun and we stayed for several hours! All of my requests for songs were sung and I think there were a few difficult ones in there too.
Lowlites:
I did find the BWVs a bit noisy. We had a standard view for the first 5 nights and it was right next to the kids pool which doesnt stop day or night, then the next 4 nights we had a boardwalk view. Although we LOVED the deck on the preferred view for people watching and reading during the day, I felt at night it was a bit noisy, especially as the week progressed on.
Big River Grille was a big disappointment for us and we wont be back. We had tried it out several years ago, didnt like it but thought it would be reasonable to give it another try. We had the hummus which was just terrible (when we told the waiter it was the worst hummus we had ever tasted, he said well, at least you have the vegetables to eat interesting strategy. As it turns out in the end he did take it off the bill as we didnt eat it, but he didnt tell us he was going to do it and we found out when we got the bill ). The chicken quesadillas were excellent. We also shared a meatloaf at the waiters suggestion, it was ok. There are just too many wonderful places to eat at the boardwalk to waste time with mediocre.
Bus service: I have heard this complaint from other DISers, and have to concur why at a resort area like the Boardwalk should there be a shared bus service with so many expensive resorts! Even POP has its own bus! We would often get off at Swan and walk over to BWV because we could beat the bus by 8 minutes. There really needs to be an improvement in the bus service for these resorts.
Yaughtsmans Steakhouse: this wasnt really a lowlite, but it didnt live up to our expectations. The steak was excellent, the crème brulee was watery. The server had the dirtiest coat on that we have seen in a long time (they make them wear those white coats and there was a lot of food on those white coats yuck). It was a bit of a stuffy place, it was fine but probably wouldnt return.
Again, not really a low lite, but Beaches and Cream was so dirty when we ate there, the food was great, the sundae was good (not Ghiradelli good, but good) but the place was filthy!
All Star Movies
We have traditionally been Disney value resort travelers until we joined DVC. We went to ASMo to meet up with DHs sister. They were working on the pool (rat tat tat tat tat) while we were there, so really no ability to swim (we knew this before hand). DH and I are finding it more and more difficult to enjoy the value resorts once we got the taste of DVC with more amenities and kitchenettes we have become DVC snobs!
Animal Kingdom Lodge
We got a good room rate with our APs, $169/night with a beautiful view of the concrete savanna (ie parking lot just couldnt bring ourselves to pay for the good view!)
Highlites:
Beautiful details in the room, amazing lobby. Just a beautiful resort all around!
Jiko restaurant was amazing, loved it so much the first night we made 2 more reservations for dinner for the following nights. It was delicious, the service was excellent, and it had a nice relaxed but fine dining feel to it. Wonderful!
Checking out the Savanna with night vision goggles fun! They do it each night from 9-11 while we were there.
Watching the animals from the different lookouts.
Sitting by the outside fire and chatting with other guests in the evening.
Lowlites:
I think AKL needs a quiet pool, we werent about to jump in the main pool with the tones of kids in it, it was too crazy. We predict that when they build the DVC rooms on AKL they will build a quiet pool, as most resorts do have more than one pool.
AK:
This is the first time we did Expedition Everest, and it was awesome, we absolutely loved it and did it over and over again! Lots of fun. I found that when you sat on the right side it was even more impressive because you couldnt see the stairway that is on the left, and it made it even more creepy as you feel you are going to go over the edge. We want to do it at night some time when AK has EMH at night, but never ended up making it there at that time. Fastpass is a must to ride this ride as the lines were long.
Epcot:
Food and Wine Festival:
o Segway tour; This was the 2 hour tour, we had done the hour in December but were really looking forward to more time on the Segway. Unfortunately we were too early to have the new Segways that Disney is purchasing to replace their fleet, but we did have a chance to try them for a few minutes at the innoventions Segway station that they have. Anyhow, the Segway 2 hour tour was an hour of instruction and navigation on the Segways, and then an hour going around World Showcase before it opened at 11:00am. It was great and we would highly recommend doing the tour, although my DH and I felt that we probably might be ready for the next level of speed (max speed with the keys we were using was 5mph max and we easily could go that fast). I can understand why they need to put limits on it, but it would be nice if they had another level where you could go a bit faster for those that feel really comfortable on the Segway. The tour through World Showcase has you stopping at different countries and giving some quick facts. We were supposed to be finished at 11 but went over to about 11:20, so we had to navigate around visitors (which I think is fun anyhow) and everyone looks at you quite strangely, yelling at you Are you having fun? Where can I do that? and taking pictures of you on your Segway (it is quite hilarious to be one of the spectacles!)
New rides at Epcot: Nemo and Friends: We had advanced screening of this ride (turns out it was opening up to everyone just a week later) and it is a neat little ride. Loved the Nemo characters projected in the real tank.
Old Favorites: We did our usual of eating at Rose and Crown during Illuminations, worked out great. We also ate at Le Cellier, it was only ok, a but grungy and loud. We were amused to hear we were seated in the PEI province section, only to ask what makes it the PEI section thought perhaps it was shaped differently, or had different decorations or something nope, they just call it PEI. It would be neat if the different sections of the restaurant were decorated to represent the different provinces! Given how popular the restaurant is, I am sure they are not thinking they need to do any renos!
MK:
New pirates of the Caribbean is great! Love the Davy Jones images projected on mist, as well as the Cpt Jack Sparrow additions, he makes the other animatronics look archaic. We did this many many times and really enjoyed it.
MNSSHP: Loved it, it was great. We all dressed up, and got tones of candy. Missed the parade but saw the fireworks which were really worth seeing (front of the castle is best viewing to get the 180 degree firework effect). As we have heard from previous posts, at the end of the night on the path from Toon Town to Tomorrowland, the cast members are giving the candy out in handfuls, trying to get rid of it. One fellow put one scoop in my bag that was so big it filled half of the bag! Candy was good, about 50% chocolate-type. Lots of raisins which wasnt that exciting.
MGM:
We did this many times, nothing new at this park that we hadnt done before. I was wondering whether they keep the Osborne family of lights stuff up for most of the year as a lot of the light structure was up and in place already (not turned on). Favorities at MGM include as always Muppets, Tof T and RnR and they didnt disappoint.
We ate lunch at Brown Derby, it was only ok, my fish smelled fishy so I didnt eat it (the waiter took it off the bill) and I am not sure if we will be back, just wasnt spectacular.
Overall Trip Highlites:
Buying another add on of DVC points for VWL!
Segway tour, Party of the Senses, MNSSHP with our two nieces and SIL/BIL
Trying out different resorts, different restaurants (especially Jiko)
Relaxing at the BWV pool
Being able to walk to Epcot and MGM from BWV!
Expedition Everest!!!!
Overall Trip Lowlites:
The trip lowlites are pretty minor, but here they are:
The moves every few days to a new resort took some time and energy, and sometimes the luggage transfers did not work out as timely as we thought (from the BWV to AKL, they forgot to send it to AKL so the luggage guy from AKL had to drive to BWV to pick it up after we called and waited several hours). There were different issues such as this during each transfer, sometimes it worked out perfectly, sometimes it did not.
I still am amazed at how busy it was at many of the parks and DTD. DTD was crazy Earl of Sandwich has really caught on and the line up in there were really long but still great sandwiches and a good deal for Disney standards.
We were not on the receiving end of any Year of a Million Dreams experiences (I really wanted a pair of golden ears, oh well!!) even though we were there for over 2 weeks!
I would be happy to answer any questions you may have!
Inga
Cast: Me (Inga) 37, manager of physiotherapy department and DH, 39 computer nerd
Trip Outline:
2 nights CSR, 5 nights BWV, 2 nights ASMo, 4 nights BWV, 3 nights AKL.
Annual passholders, second trip in the last year (prev trip Dec 2005) as well as DVC members.
Total night stay at WDW Resort = 16 nights!
Special events: MNSSHP, Party of the Senses, Segway Tour
Resorts
CSR:
Highlites:
beautiful resort, lovely room with view of water.
Very nice quiet pool for lane (lap) swimming
Lowlites:
The Peppermarket was a disappointment the food quality was not very good, and it was very expensive! It was difficult to find good food at the CSR. We had two eggs over easy one morning and it cost $2.00 per egg!
BWV
Highlites:
Location location location! The boardwalk is bustling with activity day and night. We enjoyed walking along the resorts at differne times of the day.
Walking to MGM and Epcot awesome, loved the freedom that provided, especially after Fantasmic and Illuminations!
Best DVC quite pool we have found yet, as well as a nice little activity area with air hockey and video games (we didnt use it but it seemed interesting).
Flying Fish and Spoodles awesome. We had our second best meal at WDW at Flying Fish, and Spoodles was good food at a reasonable cost so we went back several times.
Jellyrolls: this is a very interesting place to go the word dank is how I would describe the atmosphere; it takes a bit of getting used to. Once in, however, and after a few drinks to loosen up, it was a lot of fun and we stayed for several hours! All of my requests for songs were sung and I think there were a few difficult ones in there too.
Lowlites:
I did find the BWVs a bit noisy. We had a standard view for the first 5 nights and it was right next to the kids pool which doesnt stop day or night, then the next 4 nights we had a boardwalk view. Although we LOVED the deck on the preferred view for people watching and reading during the day, I felt at night it was a bit noisy, especially as the week progressed on.
Big River Grille was a big disappointment for us and we wont be back. We had tried it out several years ago, didnt like it but thought it would be reasonable to give it another try. We had the hummus which was just terrible (when we told the waiter it was the worst hummus we had ever tasted, he said well, at least you have the vegetables to eat interesting strategy. As it turns out in the end he did take it off the bill as we didnt eat it, but he didnt tell us he was going to do it and we found out when we got the bill ). The chicken quesadillas were excellent. We also shared a meatloaf at the waiters suggestion, it was ok. There are just too many wonderful places to eat at the boardwalk to waste time with mediocre.
Bus service: I have heard this complaint from other DISers, and have to concur why at a resort area like the Boardwalk should there be a shared bus service with so many expensive resorts! Even POP has its own bus! We would often get off at Swan and walk over to BWV because we could beat the bus by 8 minutes. There really needs to be an improvement in the bus service for these resorts.
Yaughtsmans Steakhouse: this wasnt really a lowlite, but it didnt live up to our expectations. The steak was excellent, the crème brulee was watery. The server had the dirtiest coat on that we have seen in a long time (they make them wear those white coats and there was a lot of food on those white coats yuck). It was a bit of a stuffy place, it was fine but probably wouldnt return.
Again, not really a low lite, but Beaches and Cream was so dirty when we ate there, the food was great, the sundae was good (not Ghiradelli good, but good) but the place was filthy!
All Star Movies
We have traditionally been Disney value resort travelers until we joined DVC. We went to ASMo to meet up with DHs sister. They were working on the pool (rat tat tat tat tat) while we were there, so really no ability to swim (we knew this before hand). DH and I are finding it more and more difficult to enjoy the value resorts once we got the taste of DVC with more amenities and kitchenettes we have become DVC snobs!
Animal Kingdom Lodge
We got a good room rate with our APs, $169/night with a beautiful view of the concrete savanna (ie parking lot just couldnt bring ourselves to pay for the good view!)
Highlites:
Beautiful details in the room, amazing lobby. Just a beautiful resort all around!
Jiko restaurant was amazing, loved it so much the first night we made 2 more reservations for dinner for the following nights. It was delicious, the service was excellent, and it had a nice relaxed but fine dining feel to it. Wonderful!
Checking out the Savanna with night vision goggles fun! They do it each night from 9-11 while we were there.
Watching the animals from the different lookouts.
Sitting by the outside fire and chatting with other guests in the evening.
Lowlites:
I think AKL needs a quiet pool, we werent about to jump in the main pool with the tones of kids in it, it was too crazy. We predict that when they build the DVC rooms on AKL they will build a quiet pool, as most resorts do have more than one pool.
The Parks
AK:
This is the first time we did Expedition Everest, and it was awesome, we absolutely loved it and did it over and over again! Lots of fun. I found that when you sat on the right side it was even more impressive because you couldnt see the stairway that is on the left, and it made it even more creepy as you feel you are going to go over the edge. We want to do it at night some time when AK has EMH at night, but never ended up making it there at that time. Fastpass is a must to ride this ride as the lines were long.
Epcot:
Food and Wine Festival:
o Party of the Senses We attended the Oct 14th Party of the Senses and it was awesome! Probably the best part of it, however was the ability to talk to other partygoers. It is a bit overwhelming at first when you walk in because it is dark and there are people scattering here and there. You will have lots of time to get to everything so dont worry! We didnt find a sit down table and stick with one table all night, we wandered around to different tables, both standing and sitting tables and met lots of people. I dont think, however, contrary to other comments I have read about this event, that there were enough standing tables to go around so you need to be brave and approach others to join their table, but after a few drinks it wont be a problem. The cirque players were great but frankly we didnt spend a lot of time watching them as we were eating, drinking, and making new friends. There was free face painting so I went for it at the end of the night when the line was short
washed it off the next morning so didnt get much mileage out of it. We would definitely do this again. We each got a souvenir wine glass, and miraculously it did not break after transfers back and forth to numerous hotels!
o Sweet Sundays: We did this the day after Party of the Senses so would not recommend that timing. However, we did enjoy Sweet Sundays, we had Keigan (from Food Network, he had the best dessert at P of the S the night before). He was quite entertaining, very unstructured, and he had his assistants running all over the place. Was a good day to spend the afternoon, had lunch to boot but dont schedule an event like this right after P of the S.
o General Food and Wine Festival Activities: We found Epcot to be very busy this time of year, most days particularly the first week we were there. We had to wait over 30 minutes to get into any of the demos and many times did not get to have a taste as they would only give tastes to the first 100 people. I am not sure that we want to spend a lot of our time waiting in lines so we kept these sessions to a minimum. We did most of the additional sampling and the Australian wine tour, the food was ok, not sure we would focus on this part next time.
o Segway tour; This was the 2 hour tour, we had done the hour in December but were really looking forward to more time on the Segway. Unfortunately we were too early to have the new Segways that Disney is purchasing to replace their fleet, but we did have a chance to try them for a few minutes at the innoventions Segway station that they have. Anyhow, the Segway 2 hour tour was an hour of instruction and navigation on the Segways, and then an hour going around World Showcase before it opened at 11:00am. It was great and we would highly recommend doing the tour, although my DH and I felt that we probably might be ready for the next level of speed (max speed with the keys we were using was 5mph max and we easily could go that fast). I can understand why they need to put limits on it, but it would be nice if they had another level where you could go a bit faster for those that feel really comfortable on the Segway. The tour through World Showcase has you stopping at different countries and giving some quick facts. We were supposed to be finished at 11 but went over to about 11:20, so we had to navigate around visitors (which I think is fun anyhow) and everyone looks at you quite strangely, yelling at you Are you having fun? Where can I do that? and taking pictures of you on your Segway (it is quite hilarious to be one of the spectacles!)
New rides at Epcot: Nemo and Friends: We had advanced screening of this ride (turns out it was opening up to everyone just a week later) and it is a neat little ride. Loved the Nemo characters projected in the real tank.
Old Favorites: We did our usual of eating at Rose and Crown during Illuminations, worked out great. We also ate at Le Cellier, it was only ok, a but grungy and loud. We were amused to hear we were seated in the PEI province section, only to ask what makes it the PEI section thought perhaps it was shaped differently, or had different decorations or something nope, they just call it PEI. It would be neat if the different sections of the restaurant were decorated to represent the different provinces! Given how popular the restaurant is, I am sure they are not thinking they need to do any renos!
MK:
New pirates of the Caribbean is great! Love the Davy Jones images projected on mist, as well as the Cpt Jack Sparrow additions, he makes the other animatronics look archaic. We did this many many times and really enjoyed it.
MNSSHP: Loved it, it was great. We all dressed up, and got tones of candy. Missed the parade but saw the fireworks which were really worth seeing (front of the castle is best viewing to get the 180 degree firework effect). As we have heard from previous posts, at the end of the night on the path from Toon Town to Tomorrowland, the cast members are giving the candy out in handfuls, trying to get rid of it. One fellow put one scoop in my bag that was so big it filled half of the bag! Candy was good, about 50% chocolate-type. Lots of raisins which wasnt that exciting.
MGM:
We did this many times, nothing new at this park that we hadnt done before. I was wondering whether they keep the Osborne family of lights stuff up for most of the year as a lot of the light structure was up and in place already (not turned on). Favorities at MGM include as always Muppets, Tof T and RnR and they didnt disappoint.
We ate lunch at Brown Derby, it was only ok, my fish smelled fishy so I didnt eat it (the waiter took it off the bill) and I am not sure if we will be back, just wasnt spectacular.
Overall Trip Highlites:
Buying another add on of DVC points for VWL!
Segway tour, Party of the Senses, MNSSHP with our two nieces and SIL/BIL
Trying out different resorts, different restaurants (especially Jiko)
Relaxing at the BWV pool
Being able to walk to Epcot and MGM from BWV!
Expedition Everest!!!!
Overall Trip Lowlites:
The trip lowlites are pretty minor, but here they are:
The moves every few days to a new resort took some time and energy, and sometimes the luggage transfers did not work out as timely as we thought (from the BWV to AKL, they forgot to send it to AKL so the luggage guy from AKL had to drive to BWV to pick it up after we called and waited several hours). There were different issues such as this during each transfer, sometimes it worked out perfectly, sometimes it did not.
I still am amazed at how busy it was at many of the parks and DTD. DTD was crazy Earl of Sandwich has really caught on and the line up in there were really long but still great sandwiches and a good deal for Disney standards.
We were not on the receiving end of any Year of a Million Dreams experiences (I really wanted a pair of golden ears, oh well!!) even though we were there for over 2 weeks!
I would be happy to answer any questions you may have!
Inga
