We're not back yet, but we left Florida yesterday. DS6 kept asking why we couldn't spend another week there and/or move to Florida.
We had such a fantastic time. Between Old Key West, Bay Lake Tower, and Boardwalk Villas the BLT was far and away our favorite, we got a Lake View room that had a view of the castle and fireworks. DHS ended up surprisingly being our favorite park, with Epcot a close second but I loved the easy monorail transportation to Epcot from BLT, and you can't beat the extra bathrooms. BWV we had a standard view right above the lobby, but could see the top of IllumiNations from our balcony and such easy access to the BW it was great too, just the room itself was not as to our style as BLT (and the parking was so far).
Favorite meal was Les Chefs de France lunch ... we ordered a ton of apps and several desserts, had a leisurely meal with Remy popping in that was awesome. Wolfgang Puck Express was probably our second favorite.
Best surprise of the trip was when a buddy of mine from a few years ago saw that I was in Orlando, and he offered us comp tickets to Universal since he works there now! DS loved the Marvel area and Minion Madness, adults loved Jurassic Park and butterbeer. Probably ended up spending about 1 tickets worth on parking/photos/souveniers, but still a great deal and worth changing some of my other plans for.
Best "experience" that we'll have to repeat every trip now was watching IllumiNations from the pontoon boat. No better view, the captain telling us the story was just so special, and got to meet some other DISsers from the DVC boards to boot.
DS6 also really enjoyed Gatorland, he'll want to go again if we go anytime soon. The adults liked the airboat ride more, but I don't know that we'd feel the need to repeat the experience, it was just pretty unique to be skimming around a swamp and we saw a dozen or so gators plus some other wildlife.
Thinking about doing a TR once we get our Photopass CD back, just to relive the memories for myself. I did upgrade to annual passes just in case (it was $20, which I made up in discounts on WPE & our souveniers).
What surprised me the most was how long it really took to do everything. We got almost everything on our list done in the first week going at a breakneck pace, but just barely, then had some repeats the second week. Even with most of the rides being walk ons, and the ones that weren't we were able to fastpass and/or switchpass effectively, just going between attractions seemed to take forever where in DLR we got twice as much done in the same amount of time. We had some good luck and bad luck with the buses the first week, but agreed that the next time we go to WDW, we'll get a car the whole time since it just reduced our stress level so much to be going places on our own schedule. (Though the family we travelled with really enjoyed the not driving part, so they wouldn't if given the choice.)
So now I have 3 years to talk DH into buying a small contract at BLT for a trip in 2016 ...
She got all of the aches out and I felt 100 times better!
