Hello, everyone! This is my first post, but I read through this entire thread before we left for POR, and I just wanted to thank everyone for their posts and how much you all helped me! Especially Andre and Venomhatch. Your knowledge/advice are very helpful.
We had an absolutely wonderful time! We stayed in the Royal Rooms in Oak Manor, sent a fax a few days ahead of time (Venomhatch's template), and the room was situated very well and was quiet overall. We had a bit of a hitch with our new fridge (it didn't work), but it was corrected. The resort is absolutely gorgeous! It was so nice to come back there after a day of hoofing it all around the parks, and feel so relaxed by the trees and the beautiful river. I will definitely put this resort at the top of my list to stay at another time! However, we probably will not be returning to Disney anytime soon. Maybe when our one-year-old is around 7-8, so she can remember Disney, too.
The Magic Bands worked great for us, and it was awesome to be able to pull legacy FPs, too. I hope that privilege doesn't go away for POR guests too soon. We had another slight hiccup because I couldn't get
MDE to work on my phone (Android-based). But THANKS to the advice here, I had written down all of our FP+ reservations, dinner reservations, shows/parades, etc. on index cards for every day. The family we were traveling with just took a photo of my index card each day with their phone. It worked awesome, and I'm so glad we didn't have to visit a kiosk every day just to see what our plans were.
I have one big piece of advice for everyone. We used Magical Express, which overall was a good experience. However, the one big irritation was that although our flight arrived at 5pm, they didn't get our luggage to us until 3 AM. Yes, that's right, they knocked on our door at 3 in the morning to give us our suitcases. Not such a pleasant way to start a vacation. When I talked to a Cast Member about it, she said that in the future, if our luggage hadn't arrived by the time we were going to bed, that we could just call bell services and ask them to bring our luggage in the morning. She said that they just assume that guests want their bags ASAP unless told otherwise. This makes sense, to a certain point, although the reason we didn't think of calling is because we never thought our bags would arrive that late. I had heard sometimes of lag times of 5-6 hours, but 10 hours? That's rather ridiculous. Anyway, just so all of you know that you can call Bell Services and request that they bring your luggage at around 7-8 am if it hasn't arrived by bedtime.
The food court was easy to use although it took a good bit of time, even when there weren't crowds. We ate cereal in our rooms each morning, which really helped with saving time. We were able to ride a lot in the first hour or two by getting to the parks by or just after opening. The bus system worked really well, and we only had one time when the bus just took forever, and that was because the poor driver was having a bad day (the sweet lady accidentally took us to Epcot when the bus was supposed to go to Animal Kingdom, and this was after a series of other issues). We caught all the buses at the South Depot. Several times the Magic Kingdom buses were standing-room-only, but it wasn't a big deal. On the way back from MK, we usually got off at the East Depot because the bus dropped off at that one before South, usually. One night we ate dinner at Boma at the AKL, and instead of dealing with taking a bus to a park and then to POR, we just got a taxi, which was exactly $20 (not including tip) for a van for 8 of us. It worked like a charm.
We left a tip for mousekeeping every day, and several days during our 8-night stay, we got towel animals! Our girls loved them! And the Royal Rooms are just so cool. Our room had the new runners which, along with the pretty pillows, made the beds look great. I actually liked the overall look better, as I thought that before the Royal Rooms looked a bit dark with all that wood paneling and dark bedspreads. And the beds felt so clean when you walked in after a hot day at the parks (it was 85 or so degrees the entire time we were there, while it ice stormed here in Dallas!). Also, we were warm enough with the sheet/blanket/sheet combo, which I had worried about before we got there. No need for extra blankets at all.
We rented a stroller through Baby Wheels Orlando, which worked great. We also rented a Glider Board through them - a wheeled board that attached to the stroller, which our 4-year-old could climb on and ride. It really helped her not to be too tired in the parks. She was even able to sit cross-legged on it when she was really tired. I highly recommend! The only thing is, they can't drop the stroller at bell services anymore, and you have to meet someone from the company out in the parking lot to receive and then drop off your stroller. But it was great to have the stroller at the resort, and it was easy to fold up for the buses.
Anyway, this is a very long first post! Since I got so much great help from you all, I would love to help anyone else who has any questions I didn't answer about our trip. It was a truly magical vacation, just so much fun! Oh, and this time of year, the Candlelight Processional at Epcot is not to be missed! (and you definitely need to do the Package). God bless you all!
--Mandy
we also put in for garden view connecting ??Are there connecting rooms in the Royal section?
