Sigh

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Well, I suppose I had better change my countdown timer then....or rather get rid of it !

The UK is so claustrophobic...I hate coming back.

 

[KayleeUK]

Tell all please........

Time to get yourself another countdown

 

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Originally posted by KayleeUK
Tell all please........

I don't really have time to produce one of those really good indepth trip reports, so Ill summarise here with some highs and lows and random thoughts........I will try and keep it in order as best I can. Maybe it should be moved to trip reports if deemed too long for here.

Party was myself, wife, daughter 1.5y, daughter 3.5y, sister in law, father in law & mother in law.

Firstly the Virgin outbound Flight......first time I have flown with them (and I still think Laker in 1996 has been my best flight so far), and i was quite impressed...not sure I was about £200 more than the likes of travel city direct impressed, but it was OK. Made good time, was about 8 and a half hours. The On Line Check-in was a bit messy, there were 7 of us to enter details for and it took me several attempts to get it right as it kept repeating members of the party. I ended up enterering 9 details, and it took me about an hour. It was superb at the airport to go to an empty online checkin line though. Some of the in flight entertainment units were a bit iffy, they had bad pictures, and the games wouldnt load, that was a little dissapointing, although with the kids, it was limited what I could do with them anyway. 7/10

Immigration - Not as bad as I thought it would be, given it was the first day of the new fingerpriting and photographing of all visitors scheme. As usual, I chose the shortest line, which ended up being the slowest and we were nearly the last through. The photo process didnt take very long. 6/10

Car hire - Very long queuing time, probably related to being last through immigration. Funny how you buy a "fully inclusive" package, and "still" they find some extra insurance to try to sell you....was wise to that though and was having none of it. Was offered an upgrade from 7 seater minivan to an 8, refused it, but it seemed to be an 8 anyway. The car was pretty decent, it was a Chevrolet Venture that had done about 16,000 miles ( www.chevrolet.com/venture ). We managed to fit in all our luggage OK (just), but the central locking (or lack of it) was a nightmare. I had to open everything up everytime we got in it as my key only opened the drivers door. On last day I was clearing out all our trash before packing to make sure we didnt leave everything, and I found a bag in the boot next to the spare tire.....in this bag was a small sealed bag containing a remote central locking keyfob !!!!! 5/10

Hotel, The Sheraton Vistana Resort, LBV. Was quite worried about this place, having read some bad press about some of the older units there being a bit "tired"....we used the online checkin facility ("diamond line") requesting Cascades, which is their newest units....we were told none available, so I gave a second choice, which was again unavailable, so they said they would see what they could do with my 3rd choice unit (which I didnt really want). Upon arrival, the express checkin diamond line area was closed, but only because there were no queues whatsoever, which was nice....and the very nice girl on check-in was able to find a Cascades unit for us, so we were well pleased. The appartment was superb....a little smaller than Westgate Lakes rooms that we had 18 months ago, but it was very clean, child safe, nicely decorated, and had everything we needed. It was also a stones throw from one of the 7 pools, and an onsite shop/pizza hut (which had a tabletop Galaga machine to lplay whilst waiting for pizza, so I was well happy with that). Its a shame you can't guarantee what unit you will get at Vistana, because If I knew I could guarantee Cascades no matter what, then I wouldnt hesitate going their again, but some of the older units did look old, and I dont think I would like to stay in them. There was no crib or high chair in the room when we arrived and we had to phone for them, but they came within the hour. And the push to get us to attend their "welcome meeting" (ie timeshare hard sell) was minimal. I didnt answer the phone, and after 10 messages unread, it was full so they gave up trying. The guy on the welcome desk was a pleasant guy though, we were talking football, and Brett Favre got a concussion in the week 5 match, and he left a message to tell me about it. 8/10

Theme Parks :

Magic Kingdom. We went on the Friday which according to Simons book is the quietest. He was dead on, it was near empty. There was next to no queuing, I recal waiting 55 minutes for Winnie the Poo last time we were there, this time we walked straight on. Some rides we were able to stay on for another ride as it was so quiet. Longest queue was Dumbo on one occasion, which was about 20 minutes, but that fell to about 5 minutes later on in the day. We waited for about 15 minutes for Splash Mountain, only for the ride to breakdown just when we were next on it. My only gripe was that 2 rides my 3.5 year old really wanted to go on (aladdin and something else) were closed for renovation. We went back on a hop one night for the fireworks, and it was absolutely packed. Dont ya just love that mad dash to the car park after the fireworks, especialy the folding and unfolding of the strollers with two sleeping kids.

MGM, cant recall the day, but a similar story regarding the queues.

Animal Kingdom, we went on its quietest day (according to Simons book), but it turned out to be absolutely packed, no idea why. We didnt go on all we wanted to, for example 55 minutes for Primeval Whirl...you just cant do that with 2 kids to pacify, so we came away slightly dissapointed, but we did get to see and do most things.

Islands of Adventure. Visited several times, always fairly quiet, around 15 minutes was the worst queue time. My eldest (to my surprise) loved Flight of the Unicorn, and pretty much everything at Zeus' Landing. This is our favorite place, we love it here. It was about as busy as it was a few years back when we were fortunate enough to be there during "park preview week".

Universal Studios. There wasnt an awful lot for us to do there, we couldnt be bothered with Terminator etc again, and I cant believe they still persist in having an "I love Lucy" attraction ??????? But we went to see Shrek, which was excellent, but the fast passes had run out for the day for The Mummy, so we had to go back another day to go on that. The 3.5 year old loved the Barney area, and especialy Woody Woodpecker and ET though.

Sea World. Not brilliant for us really, given the ages of the kids, and the eldest's new found white knuckle ride addiction, there wasnt much there for her. She loves Dolphins, and the stadium was closed for renavation, but she did get to throw a ball to one in the dolphin pool area, which she was made up with. The new bit around the tower was nice, and I had the joy of taking my eldest on one of those pink swan boat rides, which after about 5 minutes of (you pay for 30), she was bored with.

Busch Gardens. Really Quiet, maybe only about 200 cars in the car park there !. Height restrictions paid their part on the enjoyment of my 3.5 year old here though.....the little carousels etc dotted around didnt really do it for her. We managed to get on gwazi etc though, but Rhino Rally was saying 55 minute wait for some reason so that was skipped. Also I was annoyed because my sat nav unit crashed and said its gps position was unreliable. I knew the way home anyway, but thats not the point....I spent the whole journey home worrying it was broken (its expensive).

Wet n Wild. Went a few times, very enjoyable. New ride there wasnt up to much really, quite tame. Some of the photos from there have given me a wake up call though, I look like im 6 months pregnant ! Time for a diet.

Shopping, managed quite a lot, and had to buy 2 more suitcases to get everything back !
Mall at Milenia was very impressive, some shops a bit too upmarket for us though. Premium outlets was almost walking distance for us though, and that was quite good (although I dont like how its outside though). Belz is pretty rubbish these days, but the Vans store is good still. Festival Bay looks superb, and will be great when the units are filled. Walmart supercentre still amuses me watching the obvious "first time brits" walking around looking in awe of the size and disorder of the place...Super Target is much nicer. Bought plenty of clothes, a few GBA SP's for friends, a logitech MX1000 laser mouse, Donkey Konga, and about a million toys and clothes for the kids (hence the 2 extra suitcases).

Eating. Binged like usual on Junk Food, my favorite selection being Wendy's Nuggets and ChickFilA's Waffle Fries (the 2 are next door to each other near our hotel which makes it easy to mix them). Went to an Outback Steakehouse for the first time, which I enjoyed. Also had nice meals at TGI's and Jungle Jims. We also went to the PacMan cafe, which I think is new, its where XS-Orlando used to be at Pointe Orlando. I originaly wanted to go there to buy some Pacman merchandise, but it turned out they only sold "pacman cafe" merchandise, so that was a dissapointment. We went in via the upstairs, straight off the car park, and there is only a lift to get you down to the cafe. The place was empty, so we sat ourself at a couple of tables and waited....no-one came to us, so I went for a look at the Museum bit, where I saw a "wait here to be seated" sign, so I stood there, and sure enough someone came over to us. I said we were already seated and wanted to order some food, to which she replied "you have to let me seat you", so believe it or not, in an empty cafe, she moved us off the 2 tables on to two different ones....tut. The food they served there was surprisingly very nice, although I was annoyed to get a whole pizza, when the leflet I had advertised them as selling pacman shaped pizzas (with a peice missing effectivley)....now I know I enjoyed eating the "extra" piece that shouldnt have been there, but if your going to advertise such a product, at least supply it !! I cant see that place lasting too long though to be honest, like most things at Pointe Orlando....they just cant seem to survive there.
Ponderosa breakfasts were as wonderful as usual, I love those sausages, but was dissapointed they no longer did those diced onions. To make up for it though they had some sliced roasted potatoes which were very nice. I could just do with a Ponderosa breakfast right now.

Inbound Flight. Early check-in at Downtown disney was wonderful...especialy as we had extra bags. It wouldnt have been possible to bring back so much had we not had this facility. Hats off to Virgin for supplying it. Its wonderful. I drove down there with my inlaws and a load of cases, then went back for the rest of the cases and the the rest of the family, checked out of the Vistana, then back to Downtown Disney. The bags were gotten rid of in about 10 minutes, leaving us with just the car seats to sort at the airport, which worked very well, again straight to the front of the online checkin line, avoiding the queues. We were also allocated bulkhead seats and not charged the premium for them. We never asked for this, so it seemed rather good. Unfortunately, one of the tv sets didnt work whatsoever, and the other 2 the games didnt work. The flight made good time, 7hrs 15, which is the fastest ive ever done it in, but it might as well not have.....as we were 1 hour ahead of schedule, there wasnt a landing bay for us, so they stuck us in some remote corner of Manchester Airport, and we had to be bussed over to the terminal for baggage collection. Not only that (and Im going to sound heartless here), some swine at the back of the plane had taken ill, so they wouldnt let us get off the plane until medics were able to come on to attend to the sick person. Not only that they didnt turn off the seatbelt warnings till it was all sorted, so we were left sat for probably half an hour, and try explaining that to a 3.5 year old and a 1.5 year old straining for freedom.

One final word on the storm damage....nothing much to be seen in the mainstream theme park areas, but its clear to see in the residential areas, loads of blue tarp and pool enclosures damaged. I saw a motel off the 17:92 with the roof ripped off it, and there was a hotel that had a side of it made up of glass panes that were about 95% smashed.

A little bit more than originaly planned to say really, so maybe best moved to trip reports afterall.

Regards.
D

 

[KayleeUK]

Thanks for that I will move it over to Trip Planning but link it from the Community Board

 

[Miffy2003]

Thank you for telling us about your trip

 

[SusanEllen]

Thanks for taking the time to write your report--a detailed one after all. You certainly brightened up my lunch break. Now I can go back to work with my own happy WDW memories in mind called up by tales of your adventures. Thanks again, Susan

 

[Cochise]

One thing that disturbs me Dave about this report is not the description of yourself in Wet n Wild but more and more people seem to be a little annoyed with the IFE being of a poor standard, something which is not good enough for a firm that likes to pride itself on its service. Queue the letter to virgin i think.