OKW Report 1/1-1/5 with Observations

[coachjoe92]

Great trip to OKW last week. No room issues. We got all our room requests and ended up with a first floor at Turtle Pond. Not my favorite location but not bad. Room was clean and in good shape with everything working properly. I was disappointed that NO ONE said "Welcome Home". Its not a really big deal, but it is something I look forward to.

Crowds were much heavier than I expected. It was not overwhelming but just heavier. (I have seen much worse). Even a couple of the CMs commented that they expected things to clear out more after 1/1 but they didnt. I usually take it as a challenge to plan well enough to attack the crowds and still do everything we want. AK on 1/3 was unbelievable. The wait to get through bag check and the turnstiles was over an hour by around 10:00 am. We did Donalds breakfast that morning so we had already rode Everest twice by that time and were heading to EPCOT.

A couple of cool things that happened. Space Mountain went down while we were on it. We were stranded inside for about 10 minutes. The lights came on and we got to see everything inside. I thought this might kill some of the magic, but it was actually pretty cool. Then when we got back to the loading area, they let us go again since we were stranded. Not bad since the wait was over an hour.

We also got picked for a "Disney Dream". We were stopped going into Mission Space and given a "Tower Tour" of how the ride operates and got to go into "Mission Control". We got to ake pictures and got a neat certificate and then went to the front of the line. We had fast passes when we got picked, so after the tour we went right back around and rode again.

Overall a really great trip, but I do have a few observations.

1. I think almost every kid there got Heeleys for Christmas. I know there has been much discussion about this topic that I am not readdressing, but these kids were skating everywhere around CMs and I never saw anyone say anything about them.

2. Same for smoking. Maybe it was because the crowds were larger, but I saw MUCH more smoking in Non-smoking areas that ever before. I am not saying that all smokers are disrespectful, but it does seem that they are beginning to greatly outnumber the respectful ones. I was hoping this might be a greater New years Resolution that it was.

3. Bus Service was below standards. Again maybe because of the crowds, but we waited longer overall for bus service than we are use to. Some of our waits were 30-45 minutes.

But overall the trip was great. We are already looking forward to returning during Spring Break.

 

[dianeschlicht]

Thanks for the great trip report! I'm surprised that you didn't get any "Welcome homes", because we usually get numerous ones each trip. I was also surprised at the bus service comment. Were these wait times in the morning and evening, or only midday? We have had an occational midday wait expecially from a park back to the resort, but rarely wait at the resort more than a few minutes.

 

[coachjoe92]

The primary bus waits were early morning and mid day. The waits in the evening were not as bad, but were still somewhat longer than usual.

The absence of "Welcome Homes" surprised me too. The CMs were friendly, but I kept waiting to hear it and never did.

 

[dianeschlicht]

Wow! We have always had spectacular service in the mornings, but sometimes have waited midday and especially at the parks. That is a different report than we usually hear. I wonder if the Marathon was to blame for some of that? We have had some bus issues on Marathon days before.

 

[coachjoe92]

We waited almost 1 hour for a MK bus one morning. That was the worse wait we had. I didnt think the Marathon crowd had arrived yet, but you may be right.

 

[byoung]

Great report.

 

[elijahpep]

Thanks for the very intereting trip report. When we had our first stay at
OKW we never heard the first phrase of WELCOME HOME. Kinda felt a little down about it, but we figured you pick your self up by the bootstraps and consider, "Hey, We're
at DISNEY!" That's what we did anyways~ LOL

KINDA scared about the heelies report! I think everyother kid in our town got them.

Thanks again for the great report!~

~DW

 

[simzac]

We were there the same time as you, only stayed a little longer, 1/1 to 1/8. When we checked in, we were told welcome home at least 5 times by different CM's each time. As far as the buses, we only had one wait over 20 minutes, that was marathon sunday, which didn't surprise us. All other waits were usually 10 minutes or less. We also stayed in the Turtle Pond section and loved it. Only 13 minute walk from building 39 to the HH.

 

[Jets fan]

We found the bus service at OKW to be great but we did have to wait around 15 mins mostly. Although one evening on our way to Epcot, we got on the bus at South Point and two golfers got on at the Hospitality House. As we were exiting OKW they rushed up to the driver and said they thought that this was an internal bus. The driver proceeded to drive to SSR, go all around SSR, exit and take the golfers all the way to Turtle Pond. The driver never made one announcement, or apologised for this. The golfers stank of drink and were just laughing when people were complaining about missing dinner reservations. All in all it took us 45 minutes to get to Epcot!!

 

[dianeschlicht]

We found the bus service at OKW to be great but we did have to wait around 15 mins mostly. Although one evening on our way to Epcot, we got on the bus at South Point and two golfers got on at the Hospitality House. As we were exiting OKW they rushed up to the driver and said they thought that this was an internal bus. The driver proceeded to drive to SSR, go all around SSR, exit and take the golfers all the way to Turtle Pond. The driver never made one announcement, or apologised for this. The golfers stank of drink and were just laughing when people were complaining about missing dinner reservations. All in all it took us 45 minutes to get to Epcot!!

My guess is they slipped the bus driver a 50, and he took it!