The most fantastic, magical things can happen ............... Day 03 Update/July 18

[franandaj]

Sounds like a great start to the trip! It's always nice to be comfortable on the plane! Worth the extra $$'s!

 

[dizneeat]

Sounds like a great start to the trip! It's always nice to be comfortable on the plane! Worth the extra $$'s!

Couldn't agree with you more! Hope your trip is going well too!!

 

[Flossbolna]

I really like your report on the Premium Economy!! Sounds great! And being first off the plane is definitely a bonus!

I have discovered AutoEurope, too. However, now that Michael is driving, we rent directly in the US since he already has insurance.

The pizza looked wonderful, but what a nasty surprise about the parking at the hotel! Did I miss it, I could not really figure out which hotel you were staying at. I guess somewhere on Hotel Plaza Boulevard?

 

[dizneeat]

I really like your report on the Premium Economy!! Sounds great! And being first off the plane is definitely a bonus!

We were pretty happy with it. And being first off was a huge draw for us, together with the "just two seats" concept.

I have discovered AutoEurope, too. However, now that Michael is driving, we rent directly in the US since he already has insurance.

We have always been lucky with AutoEurope and I would recommend it to anyone who needs a car in a foreign country. But, we have reverted back to Hertz for our next trip. There IS a little twist in the Budget rental and second reason was that Hertz is by far closest to Port Canaveral and has more people working on a busy day.
And that in your case Michael is the renter was what we suspected. Guess it is much easier since he has insurance in the first place.

The pizza looked wonderful, but what a nasty surprise about the parking at the hotel! Did I miss it, I could not really figure out which hotel you were staying at. I guess somewhere on Hotel Plaza Boulevard?

Pizza was super nice and just to walk into that WPE got us right into vacation mode!
The hotel was the Wyndham right opposite from Disney Springs on Hotel Boulevard. To be honest, I would not stay there again and would not recommend it. While it was clean and had all the amenities, where we were located it could have been a Motel 6 as well. I had looked at several hotels and then picked this one because it was just a "bridge" away from Disney Springs.

 

[MickeyReeds]

Love reading your trip reports! This one is off to a great start. Too bad about the parking/luggage hassles!

 

[dizneeat]

Love reading your trip reports! This one is off to a great start. Too bad about the parking/luggage hassles!

Great to have you "come along" for the trip!
It was a very magical trip, even though it had a hiccup or two along the way. But a truly lovely trip as a whole.

 

[GoofyFan1515]

Let's see how far you can fall behind. Happy to have you here.

So I go back and read your intro and find myself thinking.............WOW, this IS a lightning fast TR......I'm a whole trip behind! Luckily it was just a teaser of things to come.

You're off to a great start, but I kept finding myself worried that you were giving so many details about how smoothly everything was going, that big BUT was just around the bend when you said..... and THEN............ where we get to read about everything coming to a screeching halt. So glad that didn't ever really happen. Sounds like things really worked well with your flight and your category choice. And I have to admit, that is some pretty good looking food, especially for airline food.

I have thought about staying at one of the Hotel Blvd resorts before, but for whatever reason there was just something about them that kept me from pulling the trigger. Sounds like you had another one of those experiences that I have read about a few times that make you just go

 

[Teri1]

Sorry I am late, but getting caught up!

 

[Poolrat]

Marv and your signature brought me over !!!!! Looking forward to hearing all about it. We too took a little hiatus and it will be not quite a year when we go back in Oct. THe annual pass dates adn the fact that I had to let points build back up again made that a pretty wise choice.

There was a long line at the Hertz counter and I was happy they had been far too expensive and we had chosen Budget this time.

There was no one in sight when we drove up and unloaded the car, so we asked for bell services and were told that no one was available.
Which left us struggling with our luggage over the thick carpet and not exactly knowing where to go.

Well that is not a very Disney Welcome..... oh wait your were not at a Disney resort. After being up for so long you sure did not need more work and more thinking.

The hotel was the Wyndham right opposite from Disney Springs on Hotel Boulevard. To be honest, I would not stay there again and would not recommend it. While it was clean and had all the amenities, where we were located it could have been a Motel 6 as well. I had looked at several hotels and then picked this one because it was just a "bridge" away from Disney Springs.

Well at least the bridge led you to the happy place. You finally got this vacation kicked off right with a meal at WPE and that vacation feel.

 

[c3h3a3r]

Along for the ride

 

[Minnie&Nana]

Oh, my 22 hours!! Not sure I would hold up that long! You and Tom are amazing...trekking all that way from Austria, then having to schelp 5 peieces of luggage up and down escalators ...all done with the happy thought of Disney being the destination. Hmm....I would have liked to see a photo of you and Tom balancing on those escalators! You had such a good attitude at the hotel as well! What a long walk to the room and how could they not have found someone t help with the luggage? So much for customer service!

A late evening at WGP looks to have been just right after your adventures!

Looking forward to the next installment!

(Trying to finish an email I've tried to get to you for months! iCloud lost ALL of my emails and it took forever to finally get all back...still not sure if some are missing...but yours was in the disappearing cloud ...now that I have it back can finally get one off to you. Sending big hugs to you and Tom. )

 

[Pinkocto]

Great start

Sounds like a very smooth travel day except the unpleasant parking situation. The airplane food looks surprisingly delicious.

Very nice ending to the day going to Disney Springs for dinner.

 

[jedijill]

Premium Economy sounds like a really nice investment. The extra legroom is worth its weight in gold...getting off sooner is just icing on the cake!

The hotel/parking experience was crazy. Glad you made up for it with a great vacation kick off meal at WPE!

Jill in CO

 

[dizneeat]

So I go back and read your intro and find myself thinking.............WOW, this IS a lightning fast TR......I'm a whole trip behind! Luckily it was just a teaser of things to come.

Sounds like things really worked well with your flight and your category choice. And I have to admit, that is some pretty good looking food, especially for airline food.

We were really pleased with Premium Economy. And having that extra legroom makes a huge difference arriving after a 10 hour flight. Hey, and being at the head of that line for immigration is a huge help as well.
As far as food goes - I have to admit that on the flight TO the US Lufthansa has always had some really nice food. Yip, it's warmed up, but still tasty and the chicken was still moist.

I have thought about staying at one of the Hotel Blvd resorts before, but for whatever reason there was just something about them that kept me from pulling the trigger. Sounds like you had another one of those experiences that I have read about a few times that make you just go

Thing is, we come in late due to our flight (arrived shortly before 7pm), then with immigration and picking up a car it gets even later and we really thought that spending quite a number of points for BC just to arrive late was not really a good use of the points. So we looked around and we have stayed at several Wyndham resorts all over the US and since this one was just opposite Disney Springs it would be a good choice. It was just not what we were used to (from Wyndham) and what we expected. Well, live and learn.

Sorry I am late, but getting caught up!

You are perfectly on time - the next chapter we meet some AWESOME friends!

Marv and your signature brought me over !!!!! Looking forward to hearing all about it. We too took a little hiatus and it will be not quite a year when we go back in Oct. THe annual pass dates adn the fact that I had to let points build back up again made that a pretty wise choice.

Ups, thought I had sent you a bat signal! But .....

to another one of my trip reports.

Ah, the points juggle. Tell me about it. We need to take a break in 2017 too, as I used up the rest of 2015 for our BC stay in March and 2016's and 2017`s points for our summer stay. Oh well.
Did you buy the annual pass with the blockout dates? We were so lucky. I had bought a voucher in early 2015 (before the price hike) and was worried we would get a blockout dates one. But thankfully they exchanged it into a platinum one, which even got us free photopass!

Well at least the bridge led you to the happy place. You finally got this vacation kicked off right with a meal at WPE and that vacation feel.

Having not been in a year Disney Springs looked so different, but the bridges are really neat, no more trying to cross those busy roads. And YES, WPE was awesome to kick off the vacation. We had not been in 2 years and were missing our fellow Austrian's restaurant a lot!

Along for the ride

Glad to have you here.
It was a great holiday for us, hope you enjoy reading about it as much as we enjoyed living it.

 

[dizneeat]

Oh, my 22 hours!! Not sure I would hold up that long! You and Tom are amazing...trekking all that way from Austria, then having to schelp 5 peieces of luggage up and down escalators ...all done with the happy thought of Disney being the destination. Hmm....I would have liked to see a photo of you and Tom balancing on those escalators!

Yip, it was a pretty long travel day. The things we do to get to Disney.
I guess we were a pretty funny sight on the escalator. But I really don't like to have to trek all the way to pick up my luggage, which took forever the one time we tried it and then trek back to the rental cars and in the end it worked out pretty well.

You had such a good attitude at the hotel as well! What a long walk to the room and how could they not have found someone t help with the luggage? So much for customer service!

It was good they did not understand any German. There were a few not so nice words on the way to the room. They did have bell services when we checked out, but there was only one guy that we saw and I guess he was already off when we arrived.

A late evening at WGP looks to have been just right after your adventures!

YES! We were so missing WPE and to have dinner there was reason to book the "fun" Wyndham in the first place.

Sounds like a very smooth travel day except the unpleasant parking situation. The airplane food looks surprisingly delicious

It was going like clockwork until we hit the parking piccup. And both, the food on the plane and at WPE were yummy!

Very nice ending to the day going to Disney Springs for dinner.

Perfect ending to our travel day!

Premium Economy sounds like a really nice investment. The extra legroom is worth its weight in gold...getting off sooner is just icing on the cake!

It is just what we needed! A bit more legroom and the close proximity to the exit made it perfect for us. Don't get me wrong - we never complained about flying economy, but we are both older now and being so squeezed in is just no more fun.

The hotel/parking experience was crazy. Glad you made up for it with a great vacation kick off meal at WPE!

I would not have minded the valet parking so much had it not been for transporting ALL of our luggage. But it all worked out in the end and we were rewarded with WPE pizza!

 

[dizneeat]

Day 2, March 21

Long time no see! - Part 1

Our inner clocks not being set on US time we both woke up around 5am and sat in bed watching TV for a while.
Around 6.30 we got up and Tom brewed some coffee and after having a shower we sat on the beds and sipped our coffee while watching a little more TV. Around 8.30 we had packed up everything again and were ready to head back to Disney Springs for breakfast.
A few minutes before 9am we arrived there, looked around Wolfgang Puck’s Express if our friends had already arrived and they had not, so we walked over to the bus stop to wait for them.
They texted us that they were on their way from Pop Century and we were excitedly looking at every bus until theirs finally arrived. We had not seen Teresa and Mick, who we had first met on a cruise on the Disney Wonder in 2010, for a long time and it was wonderful to hug them again. After that first cruise together in 2010 we had met briefly in WDW and then planned to cruise together in 2013. We were all booked and looking forward to a Fantasy cruise when they had to cancel because of an awesome event, their first grandchild. Then in 2015 we tried to sail together again and this time we had to cancel. So, when they came up with the idea to come to WDW for a few days we were super excited. Especially excited when we learned that they would bring one of their daughters, Tiffany, and their second grandchild, little Otto.
So after we had stopped hugging and jumping for joy we all headed over to Wolfgang Puck’s Express for breakfast. There was no big discussion what I was going to order, and this time Tom had decided to share with me, as I never ever finish my breakfast there.
And hearing that Tiffany was not sure what to get little Otto we decided to share a waffle with him as well. And while I was still in line waiting to place my order I see someone out of the corner of my eye. Our favourite server and friend who works at WPE, Maritza. It was my time to actually place my order, but as soon as we were done I headed over to her and more hugs were in order. Needless to say that she looked after our table during breakfast. Once we had all ordered and sat down we all chatted and watched little Otto, who is as cute as a button. Didn’t take long until everyone’s breakfast arrived and we all tucked into our goodies. Tom and I shared a

Breakfast Pizza, Scrambled Eggs, Bacon, Mozzarella, Cheddar, Carmelized Onions and we ordered a side of Ranch dressing as this is how the pizza used to served. We also shared a

Belgian Waffle, topped with whipped cream and fruit between the two of us and little Otto. Everything was really good and we sat, chatted and ate and after that we still stayed on for a bit. Teresa handed us some presents, a large Easter basket with lots of different sweets and they had brought a “jar” of Moonshine for Tom, as their daughter lives in an area where they produce it. Our gifts were still in our suitcases in the room, but we were to meet again lateron anyway. All too soon it was 10.30am and we needed to head back to the Wyndham to retrieve our luggage. So we said goodbye to our friends and walked across the bridge and into the hotel and up to our room.
We did a quick restroom stop, then started to haul our luggage down to the lobby again. I had put all our snack purchases and my big travel handbag into one of our pieces of luggage and so it was a struggle, but we were still able to lug all 5 pieces in one go. Once in the lobby I helped Tom get our luggage out to valet before walking back to the front desk to check out. Check out was easy and done quickly and I returned to Tom who told me that he had handed in our slip of paper, but he had been told it might take a while. Well, a while it took. We were standing there for half an hour and finally all the people who had been waiting with us had gotten in their cars and driven off and we were sure ours would be brought by soon. Well, it wasn’t. We waited and waited and waited some more until one of the valets asked if we still waited for our car. Yes, we are still waiting. So she looked for our key and one of the valets went running. Took about 5 minutes and then our ride arrived. We loaded our stuff inside and off we went.
We were stunned driving along Buena Vista Drive when we saw all the construction that was going on. And soon we turned right and went towards the Beach Club. It was now close to noon and we were sure our studio would not be ready, but at least we would be able to leave our luggage there. There was a quick stop at the security booth and a friendly “Welcome home”, and off we went to the main entrance, only there were several buses and cars parked all around so we went over to the parking close to the villas and tracked over to the reception desk.
Now, I had done online check in and was thinking that check in would be a breeze. So we walked in, were greeted in a very friendly way and then looked for the on-line check in counter. Thank god for online check in, as there were quite long lines at the two other counters. There were two cast members laughing and joking while we waited.
We must have been standing there for several minutes until one of them turned to us and asked if we were waiting for something.
Yes, we wanted to check in.
“You have to get in line over there!” – “But we have done online check in!” – “You have to get in line over there!” O-kay!
Not very happy, but we got in line, we were on vacation and these cast members were not to be disturbed. So we waited in line for another 10 minutes, then got to the front of the line and a cast member. We told her that we wanted to check in and had done online check in and she pointed to the two other cast members.
I was not going to get over there again and told her that they had sent us here and would she please check us in. No problem! I handed her my paper work and she found us in the system, told us that there was already a credit card on file and did we have any form of ID.
Yes, we did and we handed her our driver’s licenses.
She looked at them, turned them around and then said that she needed to see a passport.
Now, we have checked in with our driver’s licenses several times and our passports were in one of the big bags in the car.
Could she just check us in and we would come back later to pick up keys? NO! She needed a passport and she needed it now.
Okay, that meant that we had to walk all the way over to the parking lot and go find the passports and trek back again. Well, not happening. We walked over to the car, found the passports after a few minutes of unloading and loading again, got in the car and drove over to the front entrance, where we were told they were very busy and could we park in the self park lot. Thankfully I didn’t have anything to throw, so I just told the guy that we had done that and I was not going to go back to the parking lot.
So in the end we were allowed to park close to the front entrance.
Guess what, when we got back there were lines again.
We did not even bother with online check in and happily enough it was another cast member who checked us in. She was really nice and apologized that our room was not ready, but they would text us. So I asked if they could text a “foreign” phone and no they could not, but she could email us. Now, that would work. She handed us our magic bands and we were finally checked in and my mood had gotten back to where it had been before check in.
Outside we asked to have our luggage stored and then finally drove to the parking lot to park the car.
And then we were on our way. We had a little time left and wanted to head right over to Epcot to start exploring the Flower and Garden Festival and snack on some of the offered food. We needed to pick up our annual passes and headed to guest services. The cast member was struggling with his computer and I got worried, because I had bought the voucher more than a year ago and they had changed to block out annual passes – well, that was not what I had wanted. But it turned all out well, our annual passes turned into platinum passes, which even gave us free photopass, something we had not used in a long time. And just a minute later we found ourselves scanning our new annual passes and heading into the park.
And stopped right in the little shop there and tried out the magic bands by buying one of the Easter Egg hunt maps. Map in bag we started towards England and enjoyed some of the topiaries while strolling along. And then we came to Canada and Tom deserved something he had been missing for over a year, a Moosehead!

And while he was still enjoying it, we got a text that our room was ready. Sweet, but we wanted to do a little more exploring.
There is a DVC kiosk close to Canada and we picked up two 25 year anniversary buttons there and proudly wore them.
We strolled further, admired the displays with the Monorail going overhead

and then we came to a Joffrey’s kiosk, that offered something called

Tiki Torch. The description said, Frozen Passion Fruit thrills with juicy sweet flavours, a hint of tartness, blended with Grey Goose Vodka. Sounds yummy, so we got one and it did not disappoint. Sipping our drinks we moved on through Mexico, Norway and China.

When we reached the USA we decided to finally try some of the food offerings.

To be continued ..........​

 

[Pinkocto]

Oh my goodness, I am appalled at all to un-Disney like CMs in one place. Im sorry all that negativity was happening

What fun to get together with friends for breakfast though. I have never managed to get to Disney Springs early enough for breakfast.

Did Tom like the moonshine? I've heard it's powerful stuff!

Yay for getting into Epcot and that the vouchers were exchanged for Platinum passes.

 

[jedijill]

Wow, your hotel experiences have not been magical! Glad the Ap vouchers worked out so well. I really hope the rest of your trip is more magical.

Jill in CO

 

[Teri1]

Wow what is the deal with WDW and customer service. Sorry they weren't too magical at check-in. Remember we thought it was great using the magic bands to skip check in and going straight to our room at Pop, only to be given a dirty room. At least they were able to get us into a clean room without us having to walk all the way back to check-in. My co-worker had a bad check-in experience with no customer service at Port Orleans-Riverside on her Disneymoon. I felt bad because I had bragged that we had great service there and then it was not so good. I hope Disney improves on this.

 

[englishrose47]

subbing and going back to read