I've never done a trip report, just wanted to post some of my thoughts from our most recent trip. We had requested a king room, and were in 9767, Parterre Place, building 95. A decent ways, but really not far, from the main building and bus stops. I LOVED this resort! We stayed at POFQ in January and also loved that one. DH liked POFQ better... no real reason given. He said POR didn't feel Disney enough for him. (And POFQ did? 
)
Background:
Me - 42 Disney nut
DH - 35 Disney nuttier
this was our 8th visit together since 1997
We are premium annual pass holders
Upon arrival we were thrown out of sorts as our room was not ready. It was 2:15pm. We didn't know if we should hang out and wait or just store the luggage and head to the parks... the luggage people were totally overrun, as 2 magical express busloads had just arrived. We of course got frustrated with having to haul our stuff PLUS the groceries we got, but it was mostly our fault for being indecisive. And the CM's were grumpy from the influx.
Our normal routine is to check in, unpack a little, wash our faces and hit the ground running as fast as we can. We had a 6pm adr for Boma, meeting some friends who were visiting at the same time.
We decided to store the luggage and head to Animal Kingdom (the ADR at AKL made that decision for us) After having to go back to our luggage 3 or 4 times because we kept forgetting stuff (poor cm's) we were on our way. I called the resort around 3:30, got the room #, and called luggage to ask if they could send our luggage up. Nope, have to be in the room. I was a little surprised at that - I don't think I've had that happen before. So, we ate like pigs at BOMA, wandered the AKL for awhile, and our friends dropped us off by 8:30pm. We were a little grumpy, "wonder how long it will take them to get our darn luggage to us" grump grump grump. It took all of 10 minutes.
One thing of note, throughout the whole trip, was the heat and humidity. The last time it was that hot and humid for us at Disney was July 1997. We typically go in Oct or Nov. Were there Jan of this year. Yowza! It drained us fast!
We spent Monday at the Studios with our friends, rode everything we wanted to, without much waiting at all. We used fast pass as much as possible. The crowds were moderate, with a noticeable thinning out around 4pm. (Did I mention the heat?) We ate at SCI FI. Won't do that again, but it was fun. The food was so-so, service was good, but I hated that it was so dark. I really thought the experience was not worth the price. And even though it was so hot outside, we about froze our tails off in there. DH even went outside before our food arrived to thaw out.
Tuesday was FOOD AND WINE FESTIVAL DAY!
We picked Tuesday for Epcot in hopes of being less crowded than on a weekend... and it was not bad. Soarin' was of course the longest wait... even with a fast pass it was about a 15 minute wait. (not bad at all, but longer than expected when you have a fast pass) Loved the attraction - had been on the one at Disney West before. One thing about that area though, it is a cluster. Going down the ramp/ stairs getting in and out of the Soarin' area is very unorganized. And when we went back with our fastpass, the waiting area was chaotic. I guess they are still working all that out, but it ain't like they are new at queues. Just an observation, certainly didn't spoil anything for us. The F&WF did not disappoint! Between the 4 of us I'll bet we tried just about everything there. Lots of great food. I bought the recipe book. I think my favorites were the beef skewers in Australia, the potato/leek soup in ireland, the chocolate covered canoli in Italy.... Well, I'm a food-a-holic so it's hard to choose! I'm a chardonay drinker, so didn't really try anything new in that area. In fact, I was laughing because I paid $3.25 for a glass in France for a wine that I buy at the local Sam's club for about $6 a bottle. I may be able to buy it cheaper at home, but it's not the same without the Disney atmosphere! 
Our friends left Wednesday morning, so DH and I struck out for Magic Kingdom. The heat really got to us on this day... and opened a great door for us! We've never visited either of the water parks in any of our previous visits... you know - "Aw, we can go to water parks at home blah blah blah" Yeah, well, not like these water parks! We went to Typhoon Lagoon at about 2:30 on Wednesday and had a blast! **Note, take water shoes like aqua sox or tevas** We loved it so much we went back on Thursday, too. The longest wait was about 15 minutes ONE time on the banana whatever at Crush & Gusher. What a great discovery. Highly recommended.
Went to the Halloween party Thursday night. It stayed fairly busy right up to when we left at about 11:45. The parades were FANTASTIC and the fireworks MAGNIFICENT. And of course the candy. There were so many people dressed up, it was great! (adults and children alike) We didn't dress up, but did wear matching tshirts - so we decided we were Twinkies.
By Friday the heat and humidity were almost unbearable for us. I can only assume it had something to do with the hurricane. We went to Animal Kingdom in the morning, DisneyQuest for awhile, ate at Earl of Sandwich (YUM!) shopped a little, then ate dinner at the resort. Friday the skies finally opened up. Had a good downpour from about 3:30 to 5 ish. The food court was just right. And we discovered that our Disney Dining Experience card worked at the food court as well as at the sit down restaurant. Nice bonus! Went to Pleasure Island because we love the Comedy Club and have to visit it at least 3 times or we feel like we missed something.
We went back to Epcot on Saturday, ate at the Biergarten (a fave) and went back and relaxed at the hotel waiting for our car. We left that evening, in the nick of time. (were scheduled to leave at 6:20, finally left by 7:40pm, causing us to miss our connection in Dallas) It was storming pretty good. Had to spend the night in Dallas. ** I want to also make a note of something here. In January, we flew Delta. Atlanta had an ice storm, so we were delayed by a day leaving. It was a battle to even get DH and I on the same flight out with them. Then it was "okay, you're booked. Bye" with no offers to help find lodging or suggestions. We knew they wouldn't pay for it because it was weather related, but they just shooed us away. When we landed in Dallas this past weekend, on American, they had several employees there to greet us (we had already figured out we weren't going to make the connection) with a slip of paper that said we had all been re-booked for the first flight out the next morning to our respective destinations (everyone on the plane missed their connections) and had a shuttle waiting for us to take us to a hotel they have an arrangement with for $39 per night rooms. Now THAT is customer service.
So, all in all, one of our best, most fun trips. We love Disney, are going back in January, and will probably always go at least once a year. Some observations though.. our room was dirty - not bad, just dusty all around the TV, and my socks were very brown from walking around on the carpet (eek!)
The bathroom was clean. The CM's were prompt when we requested more towels... and we also asked them to adjust the fridge for us. Very prompt - maintenance was in our room in 5 minutes. I noticed several things broken in the parks, and lots of trash on the ground at Magic Kingdom. Please don't misunderstand - not trying to be a downer, just observations. Several of the "oldie" video games at DisneyQuest were broken. The "Skee ball" machines were all torn up and bedraggled looking, with a lot of the lights burned out... And I wish it were easier to get to Downtown Disney from some place other than the resorts. And on the very positive side, most of the CM's we encountered were very friendly and smiling and helpful. (save for the poor luggage keepers) The food and wine festival was very well organized, the CM's there were super friendly and fun (even before the mango wine and beers from around the world
)
Hope everyone is safe and sound out there with Wilma blowing through. Counting down to January!
) Background:
Me - 42 Disney nut
DH - 35 Disney nuttier
this was our 8th visit together since 1997
We are premium annual pass holders
Upon arrival we were thrown out of sorts as our room was not ready. It was 2:15pm. We didn't know if we should hang out and wait or just store the luggage and head to the parks... the luggage people were totally overrun, as 2 magical express busloads had just arrived. We of course got frustrated with having to haul our stuff PLUS the groceries we got, but it was mostly our fault for being indecisive. And the CM's were grumpy from the influx.
Our normal routine is to check in, unpack a little, wash our faces and hit the ground running as fast as we can. We had a 6pm adr for Boma, meeting some friends who were visiting at the same time.
We decided to store the luggage and head to Animal Kingdom (the ADR at AKL made that decision for us) After having to go back to our luggage 3 or 4 times because we kept forgetting stuff (poor cm's) we were on our way. I called the resort around 3:30, got the room #, and called luggage to ask if they could send our luggage up. Nope, have to be in the room. I was a little surprised at that - I don't think I've had that happen before. So, we ate like pigs at BOMA, wandered the AKL for awhile, and our friends dropped us off by 8:30pm. We were a little grumpy, "wonder how long it will take them to get our darn luggage to us" grump grump grump. It took all of 10 minutes.
One thing of note, throughout the whole trip, was the heat and humidity. The last time it was that hot and humid for us at Disney was July 1997. We typically go in Oct or Nov. Were there Jan of this year. Yowza! It drained us fast!
We spent Monday at the Studios with our friends, rode everything we wanted to, without much waiting at all. We used fast pass as much as possible. The crowds were moderate, with a noticeable thinning out around 4pm. (Did I mention the heat?) We ate at SCI FI. Won't do that again, but it was fun. The food was so-so, service was good, but I hated that it was so dark. I really thought the experience was not worth the price. And even though it was so hot outside, we about froze our tails off in there. DH even went outside before our food arrived to thaw out.
Tuesday was FOOD AND WINE FESTIVAL DAY!
We picked Tuesday for Epcot in hopes of being less crowded than on a weekend... and it was not bad. Soarin' was of course the longest wait... even with a fast pass it was about a 15 minute wait. (not bad at all, but longer than expected when you have a fast pass) Loved the attraction - had been on the one at Disney West before. One thing about that area though, it is a cluster. Going down the ramp/ stairs getting in and out of the Soarin' area is very unorganized. And when we went back with our fastpass, the waiting area was chaotic. I guess they are still working all that out, but it ain't like they are new at queues. Just an observation, certainly didn't spoil anything for us. The F&WF did not disappoint! Between the 4 of us I'll bet we tried just about everything there. Lots of great food. I bought the recipe book. I think my favorites were the beef skewers in Australia, the potato/leek soup in ireland, the chocolate covered canoli in Italy.... Well, I'm a food-a-holic so it's hard to choose! I'm a chardonay drinker, so didn't really try anything new in that area. In fact, I was laughing because I paid $3.25 for a glass in France for a wine that I buy at the local Sam's club for about $6 a bottle. I may be able to buy it cheaper at home, but it's not the same without the Disney atmosphere! Our friends left Wednesday morning, so DH and I struck out for Magic Kingdom. The heat really got to us on this day... and opened a great door for us! We've never visited either of the water parks in any of our previous visits... you know - "Aw, we can go to water parks at home blah blah blah" Yeah, well, not like these water parks! We went to Typhoon Lagoon at about 2:30 on Wednesday and had a blast! **Note, take water shoes like aqua sox or tevas** We loved it so much we went back on Thursday, too. The longest wait was about 15 minutes ONE time on the banana whatever at Crush & Gusher. What a great discovery. Highly recommended.
Went to the Halloween party Thursday night. It stayed fairly busy right up to when we left at about 11:45. The parades were FANTASTIC and the fireworks MAGNIFICENT. And of course the candy. There were so many people dressed up, it was great! (adults and children alike) We didn't dress up, but did wear matching tshirts - so we decided we were Twinkies.
By Friday the heat and humidity were almost unbearable for us. I can only assume it had something to do with the hurricane. We went to Animal Kingdom in the morning, DisneyQuest for awhile, ate at Earl of Sandwich (YUM!) shopped a little, then ate dinner at the resort. Friday the skies finally opened up. Had a good downpour from about 3:30 to 5 ish. The food court was just right. And we discovered that our Disney Dining Experience card worked at the food court as well as at the sit down restaurant. Nice bonus! Went to Pleasure Island because we love the Comedy Club and have to visit it at least 3 times or we feel like we missed something.
We went back to Epcot on Saturday, ate at the Biergarten (a fave) and went back and relaxed at the hotel waiting for our car. We left that evening, in the nick of time. (were scheduled to leave at 6:20, finally left by 7:40pm, causing us to miss our connection in Dallas) It was storming pretty good. Had to spend the night in Dallas. ** I want to also make a note of something here. In January, we flew Delta. Atlanta had an ice storm, so we were delayed by a day leaving. It was a battle to even get DH and I on the same flight out with them. Then it was "okay, you're booked. Bye" with no offers to help find lodging or suggestions. We knew they wouldn't pay for it because it was weather related, but they just shooed us away. When we landed in Dallas this past weekend, on American, they had several employees there to greet us (we had already figured out we weren't going to make the connection) with a slip of paper that said we had all been re-booked for the first flight out the next morning to our respective destinations (everyone on the plane missed their connections) and had a shuttle waiting for us to take us to a hotel they have an arrangement with for $39 per night rooms. Now THAT is customer service.
So, all in all, one of our best, most fun trips. We love Disney, are going back in January, and will probably always go at least once a year. Some observations though.. our room was dirty - not bad, just dusty all around the TV, and my socks were very brown from walking around on the carpet (eek!)
The bathroom was clean. The CM's were prompt when we requested more towels... and we also asked them to adjust the fridge for us. Very prompt - maintenance was in our room in 5 minutes. I noticed several things broken in the parks, and lots of trash on the ground at Magic Kingdom. Please don't misunderstand - not trying to be a downer, just observations. Several of the "oldie" video games at DisneyQuest were broken. The "Skee ball" machines were all torn up and bedraggled looking, with a lot of the lights burned out... And I wish it were easier to get to Downtown Disney from some place other than the resorts. And on the very positive side, most of the CM's we encountered were very friendly and smiling and helpful. (save for the poor luggage keepers) The food and wine festival was very well organized, the CM's there were super friendly and fun (even before the mango wine and beers from around the world
)Hope everyone is safe and sound out there with Wilma blowing through. Counting down to January!
