Our Trip - The Good & The BAD!

[jlsDisney]

Let me begin by saying that I love Disney. My parents began taking us when we were in middle school. Now, I have my own children and this trip was their second. I say all this because we were less then happy this time around. We took our DD's last year when they were 3 and 15m and had a great time. This year they're 4 and 2 and we did not have nearly as good a time.

I'll do this trip report as others have done and break it down into chapter days. I'll try to be as honest as possible and lay blame where it's truly due - whether it was my fault or Disney's. So here goes:

The Cast:

Me (DW): early 30's
DH: early 30's
DD1: 4
DD2: 2

My mother and father and aunt and uncle also were on this trip, but we didn't really spend much time with them, so I'll limit my rantings to our own observances.

Trip: 9/23 - 9/29

Day 1 - Our Arrival 9/23 Saturday:

We arrived at Orlando airport about 5:15. We immediately boarded our ME to the hotel with very little waiting (about 5 - 10 minutes). The first change we noticed from last year was that there was no movie - it was one long commercial. Last year the girls got to watch Monsters, Inc. We were all a little disappointed with this change. But we move on.

Our hotel was ASMusic. Let me just tell you - we HATED it. Last year we stayed at POFQ and had a great time. Let's just say we will NEVER stay in another value resort. It was a horrible experience. Since I'm going day to day - I'll tell you all about our experiences on those days. To start, we arrived about 6:00pm for check in, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited some more. The line was horrible and they didn't have nearly enough CM's. Finally, by 7:15 we were checked in and heading to our room - which was in the very last building of the hotel - the Cowboy Boots. Did I mention we have two small children? This walk took 10 minutes every day to the bus terminal and 10 - 15 minutes at the end of the day when everyone was so tired. I cannot honestly say if we would have had a better trip if we had been put in a closer building. The fact is, we weren't.

To be fair the room size was not much different than POFQ. But there was less storage. But that's to be expected. Plus, we were travelling with what they consider to be an infant and were supposed to be given a pack n play. It wasn't there. We didn't even call them about it, she just slept with one of us.

After dinner with the extended family in the main building we head back to our room where we fully expect our luggage to be. It's not there. By this time it's 10:00 pm. Disney had originally told us that the luggage takes 2 to 4 hours to make it to your room. This was 5. I called the front desk and here's the conversation.

Me: Hi, could you tell us when we can expect our luggage.

CM: What time did your flight arrive:

Me: 5:15

CM: (flippantly) Luggage takes 3 to 5 hours to make it to the hotel room from the time your flight lands.

Me: So in the next 15 minutes we'll be getting our luggage?

CM: (pause) (pause) Well, it seems luggage is running a little slowly today, but it should probably be there sometime between 11:00 and 11:30 pm.

Okay - I have to pause here and explain my next comment. I realize that the CM is not the luggage fairy and can't magically make our luggage appear in our room. But I was a little irritated by her attitude and frankly irritated that it was taking so long to bring two suitcases to our room. So I won't sugar coat my next comment. It is what it is. That's my only excuse. I'm sorry.

Me: I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do with that information. I have two small children here that need to go to bed.

CM: Do you want me to find our where your luggage is?

Me: Yes, please. (Of course, why did she think I was calling?)

After a long time on hold - maybe 10 minutes:

CM: It appears there's quite a backlong and your luggage is still at the airport. You should get it around midnight sometime. I've notified my manager that you have called and they'll be on the lookout for it.

Me: Alright. Thanks. Bye.

Yes, it was midnight by the time our luggage arrived and no the manager never said a word to us.

This was the beginning of our wonderful time at Disney. I'll be posting our days one by one and I'll try to be as accurate as possible. I'd like to give a genuine feel to how our vacation went. Was it all bad? Of course not. Was it all good. No, but there was a lot of good. But to sum it up - had we had this experience last year, it would have been quite a few years before we came back to Disney. As it is, we have had a good experience in the past so we know it's possible. I'm just not really sure what went wrong this time. Maybe someone can shed a little light as our experiences unfold. Thanks for reading.

 

[DisneyFan06]

I hope you have more good than bad. I am sorry it didn't turn out to be the best.

 

[Cass]

Magical Express does not sound either magical or express

What a crappy arrival experience.. looking forward to reading more - the good & the bad.

 

[gavsmom]

Oh I hope it gets better....Yet another reason I feel the need to rent a car.

 

[jlsDisney]

Day 1 - The Magic Kingdom

We woke up early to go to the Magical Beginnings at Magic Kingdom. If they continue this and you have small children - I highly recommend it. My girls are not morning people, especially my 2 year old, but when she saw Snow White playing with the kids, she immediately smiled and wanted to play. This is also a good time to get pics of the cast because there just wasn't that many people there that early. This was by far the best idea that Disney has had for the little ones. The characters were riding the rides with the kids and playing in the streets with them. They do not "pose" for pics with the kids or sign autographs, but the kids don't care about this at all. They were just thrilled to be able to hold hands with them and play. My little ones played with Snow White, Dopey, and Goofy. They rode the Carousel with Chip and Dale with Chip actually coming over to play with them and Stitch was riding Dumbo. I'm sure there were others - I know that Wendy and Peter were out as well as Minny and Daisy, but it was only an hour and we didn't get to see everything. In fact, that's my only complaint , I wish it could have been longer.

After the magic hour ended we rode pretty much everything in Fantasyland and visited Ariel (my little ones favorite). We then visited Frontierland. Our 4 year old was tall enough to go on Splash Mountain this year and let me tell you, it was by far her favorite ride. She wanted to ride nothing but this. We were finally able to tear her away to ride some other things and then managed to get back to the castle for a late lunch.

Our lunch was around 2:00 in the castle. This year they were doing a princess breakfast and lunch inside the castle. Last year they only did a princess breakfast which we couldn't get into, but we did eat there for a regular dinner last year. They completely changed things from last year to this year and I'm not sure the change was for the better. Last year you could order off a regular menu and it was only one dining credit. This year they had a whole package thing for two dining credits. It was okay. The girls loved seeing the princesses, but it just seemed chaotic in the waiting room. Cinderella was in the waiting room and everyone got their pics with her for free. But it didn't leave much room for everyone waiting to be seated. When we finally did make it upstairs and the princesses started coming around, it seemed like they were very rushed. We did the Princess dinner at Akershus last year and it was much more relaxed. The dinner itself was good and everyone liked what they got.

After this I can't remember where we went. I think we must have went to Tomorrowland. I know we went on most of the rides there and had a good time. Then I know we went to Toontown to visit the characters. By this time it was getting late. We got in the line for the princesses and began talking to the lady behind us. She said from our point in the line it was likely to take 30 minutes or longer and that her husband was taking her girls to other characters while she waited in the princess line. We thought this was an excellent idea and did the same thing. I took the girls to see Pluto, Donald and Goofy while my DH waited in the princess line. Funny enough, I ended up behind the other lady's DH. We managed to do two lines in the amount of time it would have taken for one. By the time we were done with the second line, we hopped in line with my DH and were the second set to go in to see the princess line. I highly recommend this too. Splitting up got us to see double the characters in half the time.

After the characters, it was getting late and everyone had had a full day. We finally made it back to our hotel by around 9:30.

This gets me to the only good thing about our hotel. When we got back to the room, the girls stuffed animals were waiting for them in the window. We did not leave a tip this day and decided to do so the next day. So on to day 2.

 

[jlsDisney]

Day 2 - MGM

We woke up early this morning to go to the character breakfast at MGM. The characters they had were Leo and June and Jojo and Goliath. Before we left that morning I had my DH leave a tip for the mousekeeping, but there was no envelope or anything so we just left it on the little table in the room. More on this when we return for the evening.

Breakfast was and excellent breakfast buffet. We did another character breakfast buffet and a character lunch buffet at different places, but this was by far the best food and the best character experience. Everything was excellent. Our reservations were for 9:00 - park opening, but we arrived early and got right into the park before everyone else. I definately recommend doing this as well, you can get excellent pics without everyone crowding around you.

After breakfast we headed over to see the Little Mermaid and Playhouse Disney - both a must for preschoolers. Then we travelled down the one road (I can't remember the name) and saw character after character. There just wasn't a lot of people around so the characters were even playing with the kids a little. Goofy and my DD4 were dancing in the middle of the street.

After the characters we went and saw the Muppets and my DD4 and DH went on Star Tours. This was the hottest day of our stay and eveyone had had it by 1:00pm so we decided to go back to our room for a few hours. This worked really well for us.

When we came back to our hotel room, it had been cleaned and the girls stuffed animals (there were three) were arranged on a sofa made out of two pillows on the bed with the remote control and were watching Toon Disney cartoons. The girls were enthralled. DD4 wanted to know how they got the remote and how they were able to come alive at Disney World. This was extra special pixie dust that none of us expected and it made our day. But the really special thing is that the room was cleaned and our mousekeeper had arranged the girls things but had also cleaned the little table where the tip was - but didn't take it. Yes, our tip was still on the table. She obviously didn't realize it was for her and she was so honest that she left it. I remember seeing different Datelines and 20/20's where they were exposing the dishonesty of the cleaning staff at hotels in Florida - I have to rave about the honesty of ours. She was great. After today we started leaving her tips in the little card that she left with her name on it if we had any problems. She always left us a note thanking us and wishing our stay was wonderful. She did different things each day for the girls and I will elaborate on a day by day basis. She was the only thing that made this hotel bearable. I cannot rave about her enough.

Around 4:00 pm we went back to MGM and spent the rest of the day enjoying ourselves. DD4 went on Tower of Terror - twice - even though she said she didn't really like it. Did I mention she's pretty fearless? We stayed through the end of evening fireworks show and then went home tired.

Our next day was spent swimming and going to Downtown Disney. Neither of which went very smoothly.

 

[jlcd]

Can't wait to hear more!