Quick Trip Review

[silence]

We just got back from 5 days in the parks. LOVE this time of year, no lines for anything! We were in the parks Monday-Friday.

There were 5 of us for 3 days and 8 of us for 2 days when my brother and his kids came up from Oceanside.

Highlights of the week:

• DS getting picked to talk to Crush.
• DD getting picked by Captain Orlando to steer the Mark Twain (out of the blue, we didn't even ask!)
• DS getting picked to be a Jedi. (he is going to be Darth Vador for Halloween, so this was such a highlight for him)
• Eating lunch and meeting the chef at Carnation Cafe.
• Eating lunch at Cafe Orleans for the first time and enjoying a Monte Cristo sandwich.
• NO lines!
• Seeing the characters on Friday in costume! Donald as a pumpkin!
• Woody's Round Up area crafts, a great break for the kids.
• AWESOME weather (rain? what rain!)
• Fireworks from mainstreet.
• 102 pics on photopass
• Capt Jack spending tons of time talking with my kiddos on the island.
• FAST PASS for Haunted Mansion on Friday saved TONS of time!
• Our first ANUAL PASSES!!!!! (note: we upgraded the day they increased the pricing, however, since we were upgrading tickets that had been used that week, we did get to pay the lower prices)

Low-lights of the week:

• Issues with our hotel - (note, we did not stay at a good neighbor hotel) since we made reservations in July they changed their breakfast policy (no more free hot breakfast) and no more free personalized shuttle. Made a call to the corp. office, they extended hot breakfast through our stay (it was set to cancel the day we checked in) and gave us free passes on ART for the week. We won't stay here again, which is a shame, we had enjoyed this hotel on several prior trips. They are in Orange, which is nice, and a larger room since it is a suite. However, we will now go back to staying on site or at HoJo's.
  
• Parents (yes ADULTS) arguing at Woody's Round Up as one parent got mad when some kids "cut" in line for pumpkins. To be fair, I don't think they realized there was a line and the one parent made a really big deal out of nothing, even after the parents of the "offenders" apologized.
  
• ART - now, we had the shuttle to ourselves basically all week long, however, we were on the longest route according to one driver (L) and the earliest we could get to the park on EE days was AFTER it had already opened (15-20 min) so we didn't get to take full advantage. They were on time and very friendly, but this was kind of a bummer since we had tickets with TWO EE days.
  
• PFF - what a mess. This was the longest line of the week (45 min I believe) to be really RUSHED through to see Sleeping Beauty, Fairy Godmother and Snow White. I know others have had a good experience here, we did not. It really wasn't worth the wait for us, we'll book Ariel's again before going back here.

Now, it's time to start planning our next trip! With AP's, we can go whenever we can....though, the 8 hour drive is kind of a hassle.