Poly Oct 2010 trip report - preview

[Serverman]

Going to the POLY Sept 30 - Oct 7 2010!

Just wanted to make a post outlining our trip plans and then do a follow up afterwards to give a perspective on what we had going in and how it all turned out.

I will be updating this post as I go with the preplanning info leading up to our trip and then doing a wrapup post to explain the good, the bad, and the ugly (hope not) of how the trip went down. Hoping that it will be useful to others in some way seeing as these forums have been a great help to me over the past few months as I have been planning my own trip.

If there are any questions or comments, please feel free to post. If there is anything you feel I may be missing or have overlooked/want more detail on - just let me know.

So, fasten your seatbelts and hang on tight -it's going to be a bumpy get-a-way!

 

[Serverman]

First off, a little background...

DH - me
DW - Marisha
DD6 - Arianne
DS4 - Wesley

We live in Utah and our family vacations usually revolve around the west coast. My DW and I were married a bit over 11 years ago and spent our honeymoon at WDW - off property, as cheap as possible - she worked for the airline so we got free flights and discounted hotel room.

2 years ago we went on a full week family vacation in So Cal - Sea World, Wild Animal Park, and Disneyland. The DD loved it - got to do the Ariel dinner in full princess dress up. DS was only 2 at the time and spent much of the trip in the stroller napping. We drove down and stopped in Vegas on the way so it wasn't too hard on the kids to be couped up in a car for the entire 13 hour trip. We wanted to wait until the kids were a bit older before we ventured into air travel or going cross-country.

This year, I finally relented to my wife and we decided it was time to take the plunge and book a trip to WDW. I told her that we weren't going to pinch pennies if we were going to go through all the trouble to travel that far for that long with two young kids (full week at least). We also weren't going to take out a second mortgage either - so we had better find a way to strike a happy medium.

We laid out an idea for a trip that would take us to WDW for an entire week around sept-oct. From our Disneyland trip, we knew we wanted to go to the not-so-scary halloween party - so the trip revolved around dates wre that was possible. We had a few other "must have" requirements:

1) must stay on property (we didn't want to rent a car and wanted to take advantage of all the Disney extras afforded the guests staying on property)
2) must be able to accomodate the 4 of us in one room
3) must be flexible to our budget without being the bargain basement (we wanted a vacation to remember fondly - not just a normal hotel room that was way overpriced)
4) couldn't break the bank, but still be better than we are used to - we wanted an upscale trip for what is turning out to be our 10 (11) year anniversary of our honeymoon.

DW first comment was about how cool the POLY looked. I looked at the price and said "not cool". I then started to do some research on every Disney Hotel available and work out the pros and cons. I'm a detail freak if you haven't guessed...

Another family we know took a recent trip out to the POFQ this spring and gave us a great rundown of what they liked and didn't like about it. I told my wife that the budget hotels probably weren't going to cut it for the level of comfort I was going for, but that the moderate Disney hotels were looking pretty decent. I was judging on a price versus comfort level mainly also taking into account the kids and theming -pool, decor, etc...

The New Oreleans theme wasn't really our style, but the pool looked kind of cool from a kid perspective. After reading a lot of reviews on the boards, I was leaning towards Coronado. My wife kind of liked the POFQ resort based on the friend saying how cool their trip was, but she still had her heart set on the POLY.

After discussing all of our options, DW asked about the possibility of doing a split stay with either the Coronado, POFQ or possibly even staying a night or two at the POLY as well. Back to the trip calculator for me. Trip cost wise, it was getting kind of funky especially considering we were trying to work out a "Magic Your Way" trip package and they make you buy at least one day worth of park tickets. They also have no option to book multiple resorts on one trip plan so the booking agent told me the only way to do it was to book one hotel with one day of park tickets and the second hotel with the balance of days we would need in the park - each with the proper number of nights we would be splitting our trip for. 7 nights and 8 days... it was doable, but got really strange logistically. Also working dining into the equation... yeah right.

As I got to punching in the numbers to include a split between the Coronado and the POLY, we found our days kept skewing towards wanting to spend the majority of the week at the POLY. What can I say - we just kept getting won over reading all the reviews, seeing all the pics, and wondering if we really should just go to Hawaii instead... But no - we finally agreeed that our splurge on this vacation could include all the coolness of a tropical Hawaiian Island and all the awesomeness of Disney in one. In the end the cost wasn't all that different - came out to less than a thousand dollars and even less than that if we tried to work in all the split stay options we were considering.

The way it all worked out was mainly due to the "free dining plan" promotion and the fact we changed the dates from the second week in October - around the 15th - to the very end of Sept to the 7th of October. (our work schedules are weird and it's actually better for us to go Thursday to Thursday) this ended up saving us a couple hundred bucks on the rooms and the flights. It also rearranged all the planning I had done to make sure we got all the cool shows like Fantasmic and the not-so-scary halloween party included in the dates we would be at the World.

So in short, that's the "brief" story of how we decided to stay at the POLY.

More planning info to come....

 

[Serverman]

So the first thing on my mind after booking the trip was...

I HAVE TO GET ALL MY ADRs DONE ASAP!!!!

I had been reading a lot on the boards about how hard it was to get a hold of Disney Dining and how you would probably have to settle for times that weren't normal meal times. After reading a particularly funny item on "how to get a rezzie at Cindy's" I figured I was in for a small battle. I was able to take my rough plan for the parks (what days we would be where) and the reviews I had read on all the restaraunts (excluding the signature places that we didn't feel the kids would appreciate) and came out with a list of places we wanted to eat at and the days/meals we wanted to eat there.

Great to have your options laid out so you can blast through the process on the phone with the Dining Agent. You can also go online now with the greatly enhanced reservation system and scope out your options ahead of time or even just book them yourself. The new system was being installed on the site when I needed to make my initial reservations so I didn't have that option.

Since I got on top of the ADRs right away I was able to get good times on the right days within the first week of the 180 days prior booking window. Here's the list of places that I got bookings for:

Chef Mickey's
Donald's Safari breakfast
O'hana - dinner
O'hana - breakfast (can't wait to try the tonga toast)
Tutto Italia - return to the place we had our honeymoon splurge dinner
Cinderella's Royal Table
Spirit of Aloha
Hollywood and Vine - breakfast

I had a few more reservations booked for other places on various days of our trip, but due to further planning and event times decided we couldn't make them. That gave us better flexibility and made it so that we could use up our quick service credits more freely. I would suggest people book whatever they can when you find yourselves out 180 days - you can always cancel, but you might find down the road you won't be able to add that one place you wanted but weren't sure if you should book earlier on.

One big tip I found is that you can get breakfast reservations at the park restaraunts at times before the park officially opens. You kind of need to worry about making it there on time (I'll report on how well this works for us), but the agent I talked to about this said that the reservation is good for up to 25 min past the time you made it for. What this does is it gets you into the park before it opens - you just have to give the attendant at the gate your reservation number and they will let you in with your normal park passes. No lines, in before others - even the extra magic hour people, and if you eat fast, you can be in line for the most popular rides before anyone else is even in the front gate. Again, I'll report on how well this works out for us as we have a couple of reservations to try this on.

I'm really big into food (pun intended) and after listening to all the podcast reviews I am totally ready to experience all that WDW Dining has to offer. Not to spoil the fun, but I want to put it out there that yes, we are Mormon and we don't drink anything with alcohol, no tea, no coffee, no smoking... etc.

Most of the places we wanted to go to were the Character meals. The kids go crazy for the characters and the parents here are basically big kids too. We had a wonderful experience with the Ariel's Grotto Dinner at Disneyland and wanted to repeat that experience at WDW as much as possible. Since we were on the Regular Dining plan as a result of staying at the POLY (deluxe resort) with the free dining offer, we were going to use every last bit of it we could.

I first broke my list down into Table Service and Quick Service. Problem #1 was most every place we wanted to eat turned out to be a Table Service location. Problem #2 was that Cinderella's Royal Table and The Spirit of Aloha Luau (can't stay at the POLY and not check out the Luau) both clocked in at 2 table service credits as well.

The trick was trying to find the best balance of using our meal credits, getting to go to the most character meals that we could, and trying not to pay out of pocket any more than we had to. What turned out to work for us in planning things out was scheduling to use our quick service credits mainly for lunch and for nights when there was a big event that we didn't want to miss due to ADR timing issues. We plan on using the credits for the bigger events and then paying out of pocket for the breakfasts due to the lower costs. I will include in the post trip wrapup how all of this went down.


Our kids eat a lot and aren't that picky, but we are looking at the kids menus and don't see a whole lot more than chicken nuggets at most quick serve places. Our quick serve choices are going to focus on finding places where the "regular kids menu" has a bit more to offer. So far places like Flame Tree bbq and the 50's diner/sci-fi diner seem to have some extra options. I'll report on what we find in my wrap up as well.

We don't think that we will have a problem using our snack credits as we fully expect our kids to be bugging us every 10 min for some kind of treat. We plan on taking some snack food with us into the parks and will stay well hydrated. Right now we are debating bringing regular bottles of water or going for something like the Hydro Flask that was mentioned in a recent podcast. We know that the soda fountains will refill your normal sized containers with ice water for free.

That's all I can think of right now that deals with dining - I'll fill in and edit as I go and then follow up with my post trip report later on.

 

[Serverman]

When we went to Disneyland 2 years back, they had the Disney Photopass system, but we had no idea what was going on - we certainly didn't want to get sucked into paying for something that we didn't want to pay for.

This time around, I've done my homework. I read a lot of information about the photopass system used at WDW and want to share some of the info that I have found in this report. I'll ask people reading to correct me if they think I'm wrong and I will post any updates as I validate them or find out for myself in personal experience.

People seem to be a bit confused about how this system works and all the options they have can be a bit overwhelming. Fear Not!! Serverman is here to answer your technical questions.

First off, you can use it or not use it - it's up to you. You won't have to pay a dime if you don't want the pictures or if you get the pictures taken and don't like the shots. There is no minimum to buy and those photopass cards don't cost anything either.

Something to know before you go - there is an option right now to pre-order the PhotoPass CD - http://www.disneyphotopass.com/previsitoffer.aspx
You can get it with or without the personalized cover photo book.

If you plan on getting the CD, preorder it. If you think you might like to get the CD, preorder it. If you don't know what the CD is or don't know if you'll like the pictures taken or don't know how much you will use the service, preorder it. The preorder is fully refundable if you don't use the code they send you when you prepurchase the package. The problem is, the preorder offer for the CD is only good on pictures loaded onto your account AFTER you make the preorder. This means anytime after you place your preorder up to any point in the furture that you place the actual CD order, you will get whatever pictures are loaded in your account that have been "claimed", have not expired, and are from any number of photopass cards you load up.

Second big issue people have is that they believe that you can only have one card per account. You can load as many cards into the same account that you want and all those pictures will be on the PhotoPass CD that you order as long as you don't let them expire - 30 days from when the picture is taken to when you must "claim" them on your account and then another 30 days from then until you must place your order for the product or buy an extension to the time they are stored online.

Use as many cards as you like - get all the cool designs - not-so-scary halloween, water parks, pixie hollow, space mountain, food and wine, etc... If there are any special offer cards or cards that say that any pictures specifically on that particular card are subject to special pricing offers - then make sure and use that particular card to get the shots taken that you'll want to have that promo used for.

Make sure and record the code from the card somewhere safe - take a picture with a camera/cellphone. Without that code, you'll have a problem claiming your pictures if the card gets lost. I've heard Disney is pretty good about finding lost pictures in the system, but I wouldn't leave it to chance. If you leave the card in your room, just ask for another card the next time you get a photopass cast member to take your picture... I dare you to see how many cards you can get. Just remember you will need to enter the codes on the website for each card you want to claim the pictures that were taken with that code.

Lastly - the photopass CMs will take your picture with your own camera if you ask. Just don't overwhelm them with a bunch of cameras from everyone in your group. Also, you should probably have a strap on the camera or they can refuse to handle it due to possible accidents.

There are also a bunch of places in the parks that do "magical" shots that include Disney characters superimposed on the picture. Things like Tinkerbell sitting in your hand, Stitch popping up out of the ground, Mickey sitting on the bench next to you. Check with a photopass CM to see if they can assist you in finding these spots - only certain photopass CMs are trained to take certain types of these shots.

Hope this helps clear up some of the confusion - I'll see what I find in actual pratice and give an evaluation of the whole experience and the value/quality of the CD. I will be preordering and we will see how that goes too.

 

[Serverman]

Going to post some tips and tricks that I feel may be cool to try out and then give some feedback once I see how well things work.


1) Make early morning breakfast reservations at the restaraunts in the parks in order to get in early and beat the gate crowds/rope drop rush.

This worked out very well. Getting into the parks without any lines and getting the fresh view of an empty theme park is awesome. Great pictures, early access times – might need to hurry the meal a little bit, but it works out pretty well if you time it right.

2) Order the PhotoPass CD preorder offer to save money on the actual product - fully refundable if it turns out you don't want or like the pictures taken.

3) Make ADRs exactly 180 days in advance if possible - as soon as the first date of your resort reservation is 180 days away you can make restaraunt reserverations for any day on your entire trip even if the dates go beyond 180 days in the future.
I tried this out and it works great. Just make sure and tell the Dining Agent that you have a multiple day resort reservation and you shouldn't have any problem with making reservations like this. Sure helps a lot to be able to be ahead of the normal crowd when it comes to Disney Dining. Btw, it doesn't work like that if you aren't staying on property at Disney.

4) If you don't have the PARK HOPPER option on your Magic Your Way base tickets, then they are only good for one day admission to ONE park for each day. You cannot use them to go to two parks in one day by purchasing additional days on the ticket. Some sales agents may tell you differently, but you will be unpleasntly surprised when you get to the gate to your second park and they won't let you in. You can, however, leave the park and return to that same park later in that same day without "using" additional days ticket credits.
i.e. you purchase a 5 day base ticket pass and you are only going to one park each day for 4 days, you can't use that 5th day in order to go to two different parks on one of those 4 days. You would actually have to come back on that 5th day if you wanted to use that 5th day ticket.

5) Soft drink stations in the parks will refill your personal sized containers with ice water for free upon request. Sure beats lugging around a case of water and trying to keep it cold all day.
Huge thanks to the PODCAST crew for the suggestion on the Hydroflasks. We got two of the widemouth 24" ones and they came in very handy. Extremly cold water that stayed that way all day. We got refills whenever we wanted from any drink stand for free. Really nice when you are standing in line for a ride and need to get a little refreshment. Remember to empty them out before going through airport security.

6) Stroller rentals are getting expensive - but if you do rent one and then later hop to another park that same day, you will have to return the stroller before you leave the first park - but you can take your receipt to the next park and pick up another stroller without any additional cost - all subject to availability however.
I suggest renting a stroller from an outside source like the one advertizing on this site - MUCH better stroller (anything is better than the hard molded Disney plastic strollers) and much cheaper especially if you are looking at multi day rentals. They will deliver direct to your resort and pick up from the same place so you don't have to go anywhere to do it. We'll get a report for you all on how this goes for us - we have a double stroller reserved for the week we are there.

We rented the double city mini stroller for the week and ended up using it the one day at Epcot. I can tell you it was very worth it to have even if just for that one day. It was a very nice stroller with lots lof compartment storage, fold down backs for little naps/fireworks seats, etc... If our kids hadn't been so incredibly awesome walking around everywhere we would have needed it more, but it was a good thing we had it for the day we needed it most.

7) Order a double burger and then get an extra bun - it's cheaper than buying two burgers and all the condiments are out on the islands so you can put anything you want on each burger.

Dining pan - didn't care. I guess we might have been more upset at what our kids ate/didn't eat had we been paying straight up for our food. With the dining plan, another bonus, we didn't care at all. They got the food they wanted and it didn't matter if they finished it or not. They had enough to keep them full. In fact, we usually got the side of carrots and a cookie for each meal and we ended up packing the cookie in the backpack and having it later for a snack if they got hungry mid afternoon.


More as I think about them...

 

[Serverman]

Here is the link to the trip report post.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=38515686