Our Do's and Don'ts While Exploring Disney, US & Gatorland:) 01/21-02/03

[carebee21]

Cast of Characters:
DH-32 Not a Disney lover at all but he's learning
Me- 29 I love vacations and planning and Disney holds a special place to me!
DS- 7 He loves vacations, the beach and Disney!
My Sister- 27 She was tagging along for the week when she found our we were doing US/IOA. She's a huge Harry Potter fan.

DS & I

DH & DS


Background:
We took our first trip to Disney World in 2009. We stayed 10 days at POR and loved the resort. However, our trip was not as magical as it could have been. It was rainy the majority of our trip, DS got strep throat, followed by me. Then DS got pink eye. By the time we got home, DS & I both had walking pneomonia. So due to our illnesses, we didn't get to do/see as much as we would like, so I knew we would be planning a 2nd trip at some point in time. However, we live 4 hours from Disneyland and go there often, so it's was difficult getting DH to agree to a trip. Finally, he decided he wanted to do US/IOA, so we were able to get our trip in by combining that.

Due to the extra parks and thanks to free dining (which we upgraded from QS) we decided we would stay for 2 weeks. We debated Value VS. Mod very heavily for awhile. But with the added cost of adding my sister to our room, purchasing US tix and needing a rental car, we settled on value, thinking it couldn't be that bad... Afterall, it still is Disney property.

During the course of our trip, we did 7 days at Disney, 2 days at US and 1 day at Gatorland.

PS: I don't have most of my pics loaded yet, so I'll write the report and add more pics later!

 

[carebee21]

Day 1: My DS had a minmum day at school, so we had booked flights that left after he got out of school. Air Tran ending up changing our flight time about a month before we left so we ended up pulling DS out of school 20 minutes early. Our friend took us to the airport and off we went.

We checked our luggage and made our way through security seamlessly. We went to the bathroom, grabbed sandwiches and drinks to eat on the plane and just as we were walking to our gate, they started boarding. So it worked out perfectly. We were very nervous flying Air Tran as we had heard quite a few stories about their flights being delayed/cancelled/not on time, etc. But every one of our flights arrived early. We landed in ATL about 20 minutes early, so we had an hour and 15 minute layover. We went to the bathroom and DS got an icecream. It was then time to board the next plane. We landing in MCO 20 minutes early again. It worked out well, since my sisters flight was late and ours was early, we both landed at about the same time. We all grabbed our luggage, and went to the car rental counter. We got our rental car and arrived at Pop at about 1 am.

I did the early checkin online, but it was not faster. First off, we waited in the online check-in line, and no one was working the counter. We stayed there until people in the regular line who got there after us were being helped, at which point in time, DH got in the regular line. Just as soon as he got in that line, someone came out from the back and gave us our welcome package. I saw the room was in the 80's and was far away. I asked if she had anything closer, and after checking her computer, she said she didn't, and to check back in the morning. At that point in time, it was almost 1:45 (yes it took us 40 minutes to check-in, so we left.)

We drove over to our room, which was right by the parking lot. It made it easy to wheel our luggage in. We set our alarm clocks as we had breakfast reservations and went to bed.

I couldn't sleep. We were right by the parking lot, so I could hear everyone walking by our room all night and in the morning. I could hear every toilet flush. Plus, the bed was really hard and I just couldn't sleep. It was a long night for me!

Lessons learned for the day:

Do's for next trip: Definately request a room not by the parking lot!
Use Air Tran again if they're the cheapest. Our flights were just fine and always early!!!
Don'ts for next trip: Do online check-in. It wasn't faster.
Arrive so late. We were way tired and it certainly didn't help us adjust to the time change.

 

[jesemeca]

Hey there. Yea! I get to be first! I hope you had a great trip. And I enjoyed meeting you at breakfast. I have a picture of you and your son if its okay to post. I just started my trip report too. Can't wait to hear more.

 

[carebee21]

Day 2: Since I couldn't sleep, I was up pretty early. I called the front desk and asked about changing rooms and was told there was nothing available, but could check later. I asked about upgrading to a preferred room and was still told nothing available.

Everyone got up and we drove to Polynesian for our Kona cafe breakfast reservation. My sister and I had Tonga Toast, DH has macadamia nut pancakes and DS had goofy toast. DS didn't like his, but the Tonga Toast was so big I only ate about half of it and DS ate the other half and loved it. Breakfast itself was pretty good, but our server was really slow. Once we got out of there, we drove to Magic Kingdom for our first park day. Even though it was already past 11 am, the monorail and boat options were pretty crowded. Since it was cold, we took the monorail. This is where we learned it's not such a good idea to drive to MK, but rather take the bus, as it drops you off right in front of the park, without taking seperate transportation. Oh well. Live and learn!!!
DS at breakfast:

The park itself was packed. We headed toward Adventureland and did Aladdin's Flying Carpets, Jungle Cruise and Pirates. We then grabbed a fast pass for BTMR and rode Haunted Mansion. We walked through fantasy land but it was so packed we went straight thru to tommorrowland. FP for space were gone, so we rode the people mover and then grabbed FP for Buzz. We had dinner reservations at Kona Cafe for dinner, so we headed up front and hopped on the monorail.
Dh & I on Aladdin:

We arrived at Kona Cafe about 10 minutes early and were quickly seated. The 3 of us adults ordered the teryaki steak. DS had chicken noodle soup and mickey raviolis. The food was really really good. Perfectly cooked, decent cut of meat. This was DH's fav meal of the trip. DS wasn't hungry and really only ate the soup, which he said was good. For dessert, DH and Sister got the Kona Cone and I got the White Chocolate Cheesecake. They were all good. DH shared his cone with DS because DS didn't want his own dessert. He pretty much ate all of the cotton candy, but DS declared this his fave dessert
Kona Kone:

We headed back to MK on the monorail. We started in Tomorrowland, doing Stitch, Monsters Inc, Carousel of Progress, using our FP for buzz and then riding the tea cups. We watched the fireworks from behind the castle, as this was sisters only day in the park and she wanted to ride as much as she could. We knew we were coming back again, so let her do what she wanted. We then headed over to BTMR to use our FP. Once we used our FP, we watched the electric parade. This is one of sister and my favs. We grew up going to Disney Land and it's just the music alone makes me happy!

After the parade we made our way out of the park, rode the monorail back to the TTC and got in our car. It was a zoo, but as stated earlier, we learned our lesson about brining our own car! We got back to the resort, filled our mugs and headed off to our room. I again called up front and asked if they had any closer rooms. She said no, but said we could call again tomorrow. At this point in time, we decided to unpack and this is where we would be for the long haul...

In front of carosuel of progress:

Lessons learned for the day:

Do's for next trip: Kona Cafe for Dinner is on our must do list. Yummy!
If you must stay value, book a preferred room. However, we will never stay value again, just wasn't for us, but I'll discuss that in my recap.
Don'ts for next trip: Don't park a car at MK. It's much easier and faster to take Disney busses.
Don't watch the fireworks behind the castle. Definately not the same!!!
Avoid MK on Saturday's, if you can. It was really packed!

 

[WINNIEGRACE]

joining in!! My 4 year old caught pink eye on our 2009 visit also!Unfortunately, we had no experience and didn't recognize it as pinkeye so rather than calling our primary care dr back home for a prescription we ended up with a big urgent care bill and missed a Christmas Party
We have stayed a Coronado Springs on one trip and then at All-Star Music, Movies and Pop. I have to say that POP was the worst with the noise issue-I honestly think it was built the most cheaply and quickly-the all night toilet flushing was terrible! We won't be going back to Pop again but the other values were fine. Thanks for sharing your report-looking forward to reading all about it!!

 

[carebee21]

Day 3: We got up this morning and went to the food court for breakfast. It was packed. But after awhile, we got our food, paid, found a place to sit and ate. The food was your standard cafeteria type breakfast food. Nothing great, but nothing bad. Now, this is where we learned that using a CS for breakfast, especially if you have already purchased a refillable mug is a waste of credits. You get a meal and a drink, no extra "dessert" like fruit. And since we had the mugs, the drink wasn't a big deal to us. However, since my sister was only staying a week, we had her extra credits, so we did end up using them for breakfast routinely. However, if we didn't have her credits, this would have been the meal we paid out of pocket for.

After we ate, we we rode the bus to Hollywood Studios. We got there at about 10:30-11:00 and made our way into the park. We headed straight to Toy Story, but fast passes were already gone. I wish they had a sign somewhere that says FP are gone before you go back there (or maybe they do and we missed it?) We decided not to wait right now, as we would do that later. We went on the Great Movie Ride. We then headed down to TOT and RNRC. TOT had the longer wait time, so we got FP for that and waited in line for RNRC. DH doesn't ride this, so he waited for us. DS loved this ride! We then headed away from this area. We saw muppets 3D and went on the backlot tour. We then had a fantasmic dinner package at Mama Melrose.

I was nervous about the meal since I have read a lot of mixed reviews. This is the only restaurant that sat us late, about 20 minutes after our reservation time. For our appetizers, sister and I had mixed greens, while DH had mussels. He said the mussels were ok, he thought they had been sitting awhile. For our meals, I had a steak in a chianti sauce. It was amazing. This was the best meal I had on this trip. It was absolutely perfect and the flavor was just amazing. Sister had the chicken pipette. She liked it and I had a bite and it was pretty good. DH had the Oven Baked Chicken alla Parmigiana. He said it was olive garden like but still ok, just not what he was expecting. DS got pasta with alfredo sauce, which he liked. We all got the Mama's Tiramisu for dessert. It was nasty. It has a funny taste to it and was just not good.

We left the restaraunt, and headed to TOT to us our fast passes. After that, we rode again, since the standby line was small. It was then time for Fantasmic. I am so glad we did the package, because the place was packed, and I wouldn't have waited that long to see the show and get a good seat. Fantasmic was a good show and I'm glad we saw it (last time we were there, it got cancelled due to the rain)

After Fantasmic, we head to Toy Story. The wait time was still 60 minutes, so we just decided to wait. It was the last thing on our list. However, the wait wasn't that bad. We only waited about 40 minutes.

After that, we left and went back to Pop. DS was hungry, so he ate in the food court, while we all got a snack. We all then headed off to bed!

Lessons learned for the day:

Do's for next trip: Get a refillable mug at the resort. We used ours alot and it saved us lots of money.
Grab a Toy Story Fastpass at opening. We were only a couple hours after opening and they were gone!
Book the Fantasmic Dinner Package if Fantasmic is in your plans. I can't image waiting hours to get a seat.
Mama Melrose is also on our do again list. I know it gets mixed reviews, but the meal was good.
Don'ts for next trip: Don't think that Pop food court is going to be fast. We thought it would be quick, but we were still there for at least 45 minutes most mornings...
Don't try to eat during EMH. I wanted to get a snack, but a lot of the places, including the writer's stop were already closed. I just assumed they would still be open.

 

[carebee21]

Day 4: DS and I got up early this morning as we had a DIS meet scheduled for 7am in the food court. We grabbed our food and meet up with Jesemeca and RJMum. It was really nice to meet a couple of people and instead of feeling like I was meeting up with strangers, I felt like I was catching up with old friends. Definately a fun experience! During the meet up, DH and sister made their way to the food court and ate as well.

After that, we headed off to US. It was a fast and easy drive and after parking, we made our way through city walk and into US. We had debated which park to do, but since rain was scheduled for this afternoon, we decided to put off IOA, since that's the park we were most interested in, in case the rain was bad.

The park was completely empty. We walked right on everything, with our longest wait being maybe 10 minutes. We were done with all but one of the rides by lunchtime. Universal was nice in that there were no waits, but I wasn't that impressed. Most of the rides were simulators and the other few rides, I was really uncomfortable in. The rides are made for skinny people and being pooh sized, I felt really cramped and squeezed into the rides. Also, the test sets were nothing like the real seats. For example, I tested the modified seat on Rip Ride Rockit. It closed perfectly. It wasn't tight and I was comfortable and even had excess room. Once in the modified seat on the ride, the bar wouldn't close. I was so embarrased, however the lady said she could close it, if I didn't mind being squished. I said sure, since I figured I would be so embarraseed getting off the ride, and she slammed the thing shut. My legs both had huge bruises and I was crying in pain the whole ride. It's my own fault, but the test seat was absolutely nothing like the ride. For Mummy, I also tried the test seat, and the regular one was just fine, but on the actual ride, I was really crowded and it was tight, again, nothing like the test seat. Anyways, we ended up leaving the park at around 2-3 ish having done most everything.
DH & DS

We went back to the resort and rested for a bit while I did a load of laundry. After that, we went to downtown disney. Just as the bus let us off, it started absolutetly downpouring. We made our way to Wolfgang Pucks express and ate dinner. The food was ok. Nothing special, but not bad. We continued to shop, since it was clear the rain wasn't going away. We just made do and dealt with it. Thankfully, this would be the only time it rained during our whole trip!
Jonathan with the treat he got from Goofy's Candy Shop:

After that, we went back to the resort and headed off to bed early!!!!!!

Lessons learned for the day:

Do's for next trip: Stop by Goofy's Candy Shop. Lots of yummy goodies.
Do laundry when the opportunity presents itself. You will thank yourself later!
Don'ts for next trip: Plan on Universal Studios being an all day park in the offseason. It was a half-day park.
Don't trust Universal's test seats. They are signaficantly smaller.
Don't allow yourself to get smooshed in a seat. The ride and trying not to be embarrased were not worth the pain and bruises incurred.
And honestly, if you're a bigger person, I wouldn't even bother with Universal. There's just not enough to do or see to justify the prices.

 

[carebee21]

Hey there. Yea! I get to be first! I hope you had a great trip. And I enjoyed meeting you at breakfast. I have a picture of you and your son if its okay to post. I just started my trip report too. Can't wait to hear more.

Yes, it's ok to post the picture!!! I can't wait to read your trip report

 

[carebee21]

Day 5:
We slept in this morning as we had a 9:50 reservation for Ohana. Stitch is a fav character for my DS, so this was a must do. We drove and after DH getting a little lost (we ended up in the MK parking lot!) we arrived and checked-in on time. We were seated about 5 minutes later and promptly brought drinks and food. And then we waited and waited and waited for characters. We were done with breakfast before one character came. It took 1hour 15 minutes until the first character came, and then the others followed back to back. But just prior to stitch coming, which would have been the last character, he went on break. We were frustrated and not happy. I just thought it was silly that all 4 characters were grouped together and that it took so long to see any characters. Finally we got out of there.
Ohana:

Sister and I were going to Epcot alone this day. DH and DS were just going to drive around and check out Orlando and see where the day took them.

During my first trip, I wasn't really impressed with Epcot. I found little to do there and just didn't like it much. However, Sister really wanted to go (and the only day I had planned was later in the trip), so I agreed to go with her when we were planning. I got lucky and got a Le Cellier reservation about 2 weeks before we left. Anyhow, I'm so glad I did go with her. I ended up loving the park.

It was a perfect day out. The weather was so nice and the park was not crowded at all. We started off going on SSE, Test Track and Mission to Mars, the orange side. We then walked over to Living with the Land and got FP for Soarin. We then went through some of the countries. We went through all of the shops and got grey goose slushies (we tried both kinds ) and crepes in France. We then walked some more and went to our Le Cellier reservation.

Now, I'm sure I'm going to get bashed by the Le Cellier faithful, but I wasn't impressed. Actually, I thought this was flat out not good. I got the cheese soup, which I didn't care for at all. I then got the Kansas Coffee Rubbed Steak, which was fatty, grisly, and over cooked. The sour cream mashed potatoes were amazing though! My sister got the soup and prime rib. I had a bite of her prime rib and thought it was decent, but not great. Then for dessert, she got the smores and I got the chocolate moose. I was so excited for the moose, but something seemed off about it. I can't explain it, it just wasn't that great for me. I was really disappointed by this as I had high hopes for this restaurant...

Anyhow, we left and continued shopping and working our way around the world. We got another snack at the Karmel shop. Yummy!!!!!!!!!

After we finished in the countries, we went on Journey into Imagination, Soaring and then called it a night.

Overall, it was a really good day. It was nice to have a break from my son. It was nice to shop and get some good drinks and snacks. However, I'm still a bit conflicted on Epcot. It was fun and I had a nice time, but honestly, I think it's a lot of money to pay admission into a place, just to eat and shop. But truth be told, we would go back, and we actually ended up adding an extra epcot day into our trip

During the day, DH & DS drove around Orlando and went to a few comic and card shops (DH owns this type of business so he always checks out other shops to get ideas and be social) and then him and DS went to Downtown Disney and ate at T-Rex for dinner. DS said he had a good day

Lessons learned for the day:

Do's for next trip: Get away from your child for a day, if you can. I love my son, but it was really nice and relaxing to shop and enjoy a park without him.
Do get lemon grey goose slushies. I'm not big on alcohol but these were really good.
Stop by the karmel store in Germany. YUM!!! YUM!!! YUM!!!

 

[carebee21]

Day 6: By this day, we were all a little tired and sluggish. I hadn't been sleeping well and was just plain cranky. We got up a little later than we wanted to and went to the food court for breakfast. After dealing with the crowds of people, not to mention all of the rude people, I just knew it wasn't going to be a great day.

But we were going to US IOA and it was the only day we were going and what Sister and DH were most interested in, so I knew I was just going to have to suck it up and deal with it.

We parked and arrived at US IOA. When we walked through the gates, I was most struck by the themeing. This entire park had beautifully themed areas, and it was a great place to just observe and photograph.

We went to Dr. Suess area first. My son loved the area and the characters (Cat In The Hat, Sam I Am and the Grinch. This park was more crowded than US but wasn't too bad.
DH & DS with Grinch:

We then went through the lost continent area into Harry Potter. Although I've never read any of the books or watched the movies, the area still looked to be nicely themed. However, it was packed in there. They were filming an upcoming promotional video and there were just wall-to-wall people. The first ride we saw was the dueling dragons, however, I tried the test seat and it wasn't going to work and since my son wasn't tall enough, my sister decided to skip it. I felt bad, because I didn't want her to miss something on our behalf but she wanted to. There was a small, little brown roller coaster that we collectively decided to skip. It has a 55 minute wait, and was very slow loading and looked pretty weak, so we decided the wait wasn't going to be worth it. The Harry Potter ride had a 45 minute wait. While DS and Sister got in line, I went to the test set. I didn't see any lights or anything to tell you whether you fit and it seemed to be pretty tight, but I couldn't find a cast member to help anywhere, so I decided to skip the ride. I was already irratable and then was sick of idiots thinking the test seats are an area to rest, so I just decided i didn't want to risk being shoved or squished into a seat, or worse yet, not fitting, so I didn't go. Dh also wasn't going, because he's not big on rides and since he couldn't see it, didn't want to make himself sick. So while DS and Sister went on the ride, DH and I got butterbeer slushes. They were good but really really sweet. After about 30 minutes, we got in line for the wand gift shop thing. The line just to get in was 40 minutes, so once they got off the ride, they met us over there. Sister got a butterbeer while DS finished mine.
Sister with Butterbeer:

Harry Potter:

After we were all done in Harry Potter, we got burgers to eat. We then went in the jurassic park area and rode the ride.

From there we went to the comic book area. The Ripsaw falls ride was closed for refurbishment, but DS, sister and I went on the river rapid ride. We got soaked and were so cold afterward, but DS loves those types of rides, and since Ripsaw falls, splash mtn. and kali river rapids were all closed, we decided to let him have his fun. They have huge people blowdryers that are $5 for five minutes of hot air blowing on you, so we all fit in one of those. It didn't really dry my clothes, but my hair was dry and it helped us warm up

From there, we went to the superhero area. We went on spiderman, which was an incredible ride. I'm not superhero fan, but the ride and technology used was really cool. I tried the test seat for Doctor Doom's Fearfall and I couldn't even sit in it. So Sister tried. She's a size 14, and she couldn't even get her butt in the seat. So I dunno if the test seat for that ride is incredibly small, or the seats are just insanely small, but clearly, we skipped that ride. I also tried the test seat for hulk and it wasn't going to close unless the thing was shoved down over my chest. I decided I didn't want to have a heart attack or not be able to breathe, so didn't go. DS was too small and DH won't get on that, so just Sister went. She liked it and said it was a good ride.

After that, we went through the shops and left at around 4ish.

All in all, I thought the themeing in this park was wonderful and I'm glad we got the opportunity to go. However, we will not be going back. A) there's not enough to do in the parks, and we found them (Especially US) to be pretty boring. B) I just don't fit their body type and was uncomfortable on most of their rides. Now, we've done several theme parks aside from Disney, but this was by far the worst park as far as fitting in stuff. Not only that, but DH, who is 6'1, found his legs were long on most stuff and he wasn't particularly comfortable either.

Lessons learned for the day:

Do's for next trip: Get to Harry Potter as soon as it opens. It gets packed fast and it's uncomfortably crowded!
Split a butterbeer slushie. They were good but sweet.
Don'ts for next trip: If you're a bigger/pooh-sized person, you may want to skip US IOA. Although this park was better themed and there was more to see, I still don't think it justifies the price if you can't ride/do most of the rides. But this is just my opinion and everyone has their own. I'm glad I did it, but we won't be back.