OK, I guess it's my turn...

[Metsoskil]

I read a lot of other people's reports and tips before my trip, so now that mine is over, I guess it's time to recipricate. The Fam: myself, DW, DD4 and DS18mo. We're from PA and drove down. Stayed with family in Boca and then in Orlando for a few days prior to the Disney portion of the trip.

The Trip: August 2-15. 3 nights at OKW studio, 7 nights at Sheraton Vistana Villages timeshare, 3 nights at POFQ. We had 10 day park hoppers and tix to the P&PP on the 11th. We had one day built in as a break day. It was a long trip, so I'm not going to run down every day, but here are some random thoughts...

We froze a case of H2O before leaving home and used that in our cooler to bring a few perishables. Each day we went to the parks we brought in a few bottles of water and snacks for the kids. When we ran out of water we just reused the bottles and filled them from a 2 1/2 gallon jug from Publix that cost a few bucks.

We decided to buy two Maclaren single strollers instead of a double stroller before going down (we figured our double jog stroller would be too cumbersome). It was a great choice. For the few times that we needed one adult to be able to push both strollers, we picked up stroller connectors for 10 bucks.

On our first morning we went to MGM and had lunch at Sci-fi. The food tasted like feet and the service was slow, but the theming was awesome. Wouldn't go there again. One plus - DD got juice that came with a light up Tinkerbell. That Tink went on all of the dark rides with her and helped with her fear of the dark. We brought a small flashlight with us for this purpose, but Tink was preferred, of course. That was very helpful.

MGM is a great place for kids to meet characters, but not that great otherwise. Both kids liked the Little Mermaid and Muppets, and Playhouse Disney Live was OK, but there wasn't much else. Playhouse Disney is outdated. DD loves Higglytown Heros and Little Einsteins, DS loves Handy Manny and none of them are in the show. They liked it anyway. I guess it's being revamped soon.

Morning Extra Magic Hours during a busy time aren't worth it. Not sure about evenings 'cause we didn't use them. I did overhear one guy say that Space Mt. had a 75 min wait at 2AM. The park gets rediculously crowded by 10AM. We found that the mornings that we went to the park that had EMH the previous evening were much less congested for longer.

We left the parks every day around 1 for naps and rest. Both times we stayed at a Disney resort our room was ready for us early (we had checked in before going to the parks in the morning to get the free parking and the rooms were ready before 1 both times.) The day we stayed at the timeshare, we rode the monorail for 1 1/2 hours while the kids napped in their strollers.

Having a touring plan in the mornings was invaluable. Never waited for more than 20 min for a ride. When the lines got long, we left. We always went to the parks in the evenings with no expectations, and anything we got to do was bonus.

We were at the parks for ropedrop almost every day. When at the MK, go to the right after you get into the turnstiles. Otherwise when you watch the goofy show before they open the park, the sun will be right in your eyes.

At Epcot, characters come out in almost every country at 12:20 or 12:30. By getting to the places where they meet about 5 min early we were able to meet lots of characters with almost no wait. The characters seem to interact with the kids more when they are the first in line. Ask the retail store cast members who will be coming out and at what time. They almost always know.

Places to meet characters in the WS:
Canada - Brother Bear Characters come out at 3PM
England - Pooh characters and Alice at 12:20
Int'l Gateway - We saw Chip and Dale there at 12:30 a couple of times
France - Aurora (garden) at 12:30, B&B charaters at 12:20
Morocco - Aladdin Characters at 12:20
China - Mulan at 12:20
Italy - We were told that Pinoccio and Geppetto meet at 12:20, but we had already met them at MK.
Mexico - Donald supposedly meets here, but we already met him.

We ate at Marakesh in Morocco for dinner one night. The food was decent. The belly dancer comes out on the hour and chooses a few girls to dance with her. DD got to dance and had a blast. We got some great pictures. Definitely worth it.

The pastries and Crepes in France were good, but we get ones that are far superior when we go to the beach every year. Rehoboth Beach - Cafe Papillon in Penny Lane.

We had lunch at the San Angel Inn in Mexico. Food was great. One of my faves.

The princess breakfast at Akershus was good. They had lox on the buffet, and the food was good. DD loved meeting the princesses, although we all enjoyed CRT better (more on that later). The pics of DD and Belle in her Yellow dress came out great, although I nearly coughed up my eggs when I heard how much I would have to pay for it ($31). I coughed up the money also.

CRT was absolutely amazing. We did the 180 day thing and secured ressies for 8:05 (first seating). We got to the counter first and DD was chosen as the Princess of the Day. She got about 5 min. of one on one time with Cinderella before anyone else was allowed in, and was asked to open the castle so that everyone would be allowed upstairs to the dining room. Priceless. We got done with breakfast around 8:50 which allowed us to be downstairs for ropedrop. We were able to ride everything in Fantasyland by 10. It was our favorite morning on our trip. We will absolutely do again.

The pirate and princess party is worth every penny. Rides had almost no wait (we didn't try any of the 3 mountains, though). Lots of great photo ops, and we met lots of characters. The stepfamily was hilarious. Yelling at some kids for ringing the bell in Pooh's playful spot, telling my DS, who had started crying that he was leaking. They played the parts very well. Only Cruella DeVille came close to being as "in character" as they did.

Photopass is awesome. We had 330 pics in our account by the end of the trip and got the CD. Wish I knew before the trip that I could have saved 25 bucks by buying ahead of time.

There's lots more, I'll add later...

 

[DisneyNotes]

Thanks for taking the time to write up your adventures and share them with us.

 

[Metsoskil]

A couple more things while I've got a few minutes...

The Lands End Beach Trekkers I bought before going were great. I found them to be more comfy than sneaks. They are breathable, which was nice in the 95+ heat, and I didn't have to worry about walking around with wet feet after water rides and rainstorms (it only rained on us once in 2 weeks).

We liked POFQ better than the OKW studio. The studio was a little bigger, but when your kids are napping, one room is still one room. Having the counter service restaurant in POFQ was a plus, and the pool slide was a little more mild for DD. I liked the theming better also. We made sure to spend some time at both of the disney resorts while we were staying there. Not so much at the timeshare.

We realize now that we are definitely on-property kind of people. It's worth the extra $ to us to be 20 min closer when going back for naps, and there's just a different feel at a disney resort than off-property. I don't have anything negative to say about Vistana Villages, other than it's not Disney. Having the extra space at the timeshare was nice. We were in one of the 880 sq. ft. one bedroom units. It was nice having the extra room during naps, but we did fine in the disney resorts also. DW and I started watching the first season of 24 on my laptop during naptime for the kids. We shared a pair of earphones from her Ipod.

Gas is cheaper in Florida than it is in PA by about 15 cents.

Having a car while down there was a must for us. It's so much faster than Disney transportation (with the possible exception of going to the MK since you bypass the monorail). Plus, it's one less line to wait in at the end of the day when you are exhausted. Even if we fly in the future, we'll probably look into renting a car if we can afford it.

We ate at the AKL at Boma, and that was incredible. Food was great, kids got chosen to help play the bongo drums. Not having to wait for the food to come since it's a buffet is a nice bonus also. Plus, the AKL is an experience in itself. The kids really enjoyed going out to see the animals after dinner, and there was a nice cast member out there who happily explained all kinds of neat facts to DD. Much appreciated.

Speaking of animals, AK didn't impress me. It was the only park that my wife and I had not been to before. We didn't miss much (although Everest is the best ride in any of the parks). As far as animals go, the kids saw more at the Bronx Zoo when we went earlier in the summer. As far as rides, there's not much there for the kids. Maybe we'll enjoy it more when the kids are older. DS is just a little too young to sit through shows longer than 20 min regardless of how great they are.

O'hana was a neat place to have dinner. DD loved all the games and singing, and the dessert was amazing. DW asked for seconds, which is highly unusual for her. One negative - we all had amazing gas for 2 days from the massive quantities of meat we consumed. My vegetarian parents would tell us that it serves us right.

More to come...

 

[krismom]

Thanks for all the great tips- my kind of trip report...direct and helpful!

 

[MeLaNie9]

Thanks for all the info!
Can you tell me where you got your stroller connectors? And do they fit many different brands of strollers? We just bought a second Graco Mosaic stroller (umbrella folding, lightweight, but with cup holder and bottom basket) for our upcoming trip since we will be taking our younger DS this time (our sons will be 3 and 1 at trip time). I thought that we might need the connectors but haven't seen them anywhere. I couldn't find them on BRU online.
Thanks for the Epcot character info....I must say that I didn't know so many characters were around in WS. We caught Chip, Dale, and Goofy (at international gateway) once and Pluto (I think by America pavillion?) once but have never seen any of these others there!
I think that staying on property is really great if you have young kids (that nap), esp. if you can stay at a monorail resort or a resort that you can reach parks by walking. We have stayed at the Poly - great to just get on and off monorail with kid in stroller and YC - short walk from Epcot international gateway and we just walked across Epcot from monorail station when going to and from MK, again that meant that DS could just stay in stroller (invaluable when he slept in it) and we could enjoy the sights of Epcot instead of sitting in a bus.

 

[Metsoskil]

We got our stroller connectors at Babies R Us. They are made by a company called Prince Lionheart. They seem like they'd work for most umbrella strollers, although the strollers probably have to be identical for them to work well. Before we bought the strollers we asked the guy at the store to let us try them out and we hooked up a Maclaren Triumph to a Maclaren Something Else and it wasn't that effective. The two Triumphs were fine together, though. The only thing with the connectors is to not back up the strollers when they are connected unless you lift the front wheels. Otherwise they lock up with each other. It took me about 5 min. to figure that out, but once I did there were no problems.

Some other things worth mentioning...

We got our kids name tags similar to the ones the cast members wear from some place online (not sure where) with their names engraved. It was neat because the cast members and characters seemed to interact with them more. More importantly, it was nice for the Photopass photogs to be able to call DS by name to get him to look at the camera. The tags were also available in some of the stores at Disney, but they only carried the red tags with 2007 on them (that's what DS had). We got DD a pink princess tag which I didn't see anywhere down there, and she got lots of comments from cast members.

We started the pin thing, although I'm not sure that we'll trade. It was nice to get some pins of things that we did together like CRT, the other restaraunts, the resorts and such. We're looking forward to adding on when we do other things in the future. DW and I did get a "Last day 1999 First day 2000" pin from an online auction to add to the collection since New Years Eve 1999 was the only time we had ever been to Disney together previously. That was an incredible night, btw. We ended up at MGM and the way Disney set up the park made that night one of the most memorable of my life. And the computers did not all shut down from the Y2K problem...

We also started a lanyard for each of the kids. DS got a pin of Lightning McQueen (Cars is his fave movie) and a Jungle Cruise pin (he really liked the ride).

I made a deal about halfway through the trip w/ DD that every day she went without whining I'd buy her a pin. She got 4 out of 5 and we bought her an extra Goofy's Barnstormer Pin since that was her favorite ride.

More later if I can think of them...

 

[Metsoskil]

A few more things that I thought of...

DD and I got our hair cut on Main St. on a Monday at 10:30 AM. There was no wait. Penny gave me a great hair cut. Michael cut DD's hair, and I think it looks great, but DW prefers the cut that DD usually gets near my in-laws' house in Carlisle, PA. DD did get pixie dust in her hair after the cut, though, which was really cool.

Just found out today that the World of Disney Store in NYC uses photopass for character meetings and that you can use the same photopass card that you get at WDW. One of the photogs at WDW told us that even though they tell you that the pics will be gone in 30 days, it's usually closer to 6 mo. before they get deleted.

 

[madge]

How long would you say it took to get to the parks from Vistana Villages? We're staying there in October - any hints you can share about that resort would be much appreciated

 

[Metsoskil]

Re: Vistana Villages...

Nice enough resort. They have several different 1 bedroom suites ranging in size from 400 something sq. feet to 882 square feet. We made sure that we had the bigger room, and that was really nice. The kids really enjoyed the jacuzzi tub as much as the pool. We picked up a bath bomb (?) from the girly bath store in DTD that had Mickey confetti in it and dropped it in their bath one night, and they loved it.

It takes about 10 minutes to the WDW sign on rt. 536 when going to the parks. Add 10 min or so to the TTC and MGM, 5 to EPCOT, and 15 to AK. To get to DTD it seemed easier to make a rt onto Vineland off International Drive and go the back way. (That way might be faster to MGM also, but we never tried it.) Overall it was pretty convinient to get back and forth, but less so than a Disney Resort, obviously.

We were in building 9 which was a hike from the pool. Building 7 seemed to be in a nice location.

There is construction going on, and we could hear it at night, but it wasn't nearly loud enough to keep us up. (and we're used to silence - we live on 10 1/2 acres on a dirt road in the middle of the woods.) Some of the buildings closer to the construction site might be loud, though. I'd request to be away from that (buildings 7, 8, and 9 were on the far side of the resort from the construction).

Negatives:

When you check in they don't give you a parking pass right away. You have to go to another window where they try and set up a timeshare breakfast for you as they get you your pass. It's not a big thing to say "no", but it wasted another 10 min of my time while the kids were in the car waiting to go back to the AK.

Finding a luggage cart to use without calling the bellhop is like looking for Mickey Mouse at Sea World. Call the bellhop at least an hour before you need him/her.

Hope that helped.

 

[madge]

Re: Vistana Villages...

Nice enough resort. They have several different 1 bedroom suites ranging in size from 400 something sq. feet to 882 square feet. We made sure that we had the bigger room, and that was really nice. The kids really enjoyed the jacuzzi tub as much as the pool. We picked up a bath bomb (?) from the girly bath store in DTD that had Mickey confetti in it and dropped it in their bath one night, and they loved it.

It takes about 10 minutes to the WDW sign on rt. 536 when going to the parks. Add 10 min or so to the TTC and MGM, 5 to EPCOT, and 15 to AK. To get to DTD it seemed easier to make a rt onto Vineland off International Drive and go the back way. (That way might be faster to MGM also, but we never tried it.) Overall it was pretty convinient to get back and forth, but less so than a Disney Resort, obviously.

We were in building 9 which was a hike from the pool. Building 7 seemed to be in a nice location.

There is construction going on, and we could hear it at night, but it wasn't nearly loud enough to keep us up. (and we're used to silence - we live on 10 1/2 acres on a dirt road in the middle of the woods.) Some of the buildings closer to the construction site might be loud, though. I'd request to be away from that (buildings 7, 8, and 9 were on the far side of the resort from the construction).

Negatives:

When you check in they don't give you a parking pass right away. You have to go to another window where they try and set up a timeshare breakfast for you as they get you your pass. It's not a big thing to say "no", but it wasted another 10 min of my time while the kids were in the car waiting to go back to the AK.

Finding a luggage cart to use without calling the bellhop is like looking for Mickey Mouse at Sea World. Call the bellhop at least an hour before you need him/her.

Hope that helped.

We're familiar with the area, a little bit ... we shop at Publix & the outlet mall quite a bit But your advice on which building to request is very helpful!! I do need to look at a map and see what rt. 536 is

thanks!

One other quick question - do you remember what kind of cookware/bakeware is provided?

 

[Metsoskil]

We had a full kitchen, and it was fully stocked with pots, pans, and dishes. Not sure about specifics because we didn't do much cooking, but I can tell you for sure that there was green ceramic plates and bowls, a tea kettle, and a pyrex measuring cup. We were only there for lunch for the most part and we ate PB&J, easymac, cold cuts, and stuff like that.

 

[Rylamouse]

We are staying there Sept 21st through 26th. (so excited, cant stand it!!) Anyway, can I just call with my reservation number and request a building, like 7 as you suggested? They honor that?

 

[madge]

We are staying there Sept 21st through 26th. (so excited, cant stand it!!) Anyway, can I just call with my reservation number and request a building, like 7 as you suggested? They honor that?

I'd like to know the answer to that, too!