We took a different kind of WDW trip last week. Although we have our usual park trip planned in September, I decided to surprise my family with a water park vacation over the week of the 4th.
For the first time, we stayed off property. I was able to get a summer room deal at the Hilton Bonnet Creek. The rate was excellent and a full breakfast buffet was included in the room price.
The weather was incredibly hot and muggy. It rained every day, sometimes multiple times per day. We were grateful that we felt no real desire to go into the regular parks (since we will be back in September for those). I cannot imagine how uncomfortable the parks were.
We were VERY impressed with the Bonnet Creek Hilton. For about the price of a peak season Value room on WDW property, we had a spacious room, two double beds, and the included breakfast each day.
Things I LOVED about the Hilton Bonnet Creek:
The things I did not love about this hotel:
Rather than going to any of the regular parks (heat! humidity! crowds! blech!), we went water parks only. We spent one day at Aquatica and one day at Blizzard Beach, and the rest in the hotel pool.
Aquatica: Somewhat crowded. By early afternoon lines for slides were >1 hour. In the mid-afternoon, a corker of a rainstorm hit. For the first part of the storm, the park staff kept everything open, even though we could clearly hear thunder. Then suddenly they went into panic mode and tried to rush everyone out of the water and into buildings. Of course there aren't enough shelters so many people just tried to get out of the park. With rain ponchos on over their wet bathing suits
laughing
. Every time a big crack of lightning hit, the huge gangs of Brazilian girls would scream at the top of their lungs. 
The drainage in Aquatica is really bad. The walkways ponded up to 12 inches deep (!). Even those of us standing under a sheltered area next to one of the restaurants were standing in 6-8" deep water. The interior of the restaurant itself was raised slightly and water did not flow into it, but it's tiny and few people could stand inside. I really can't imagine their liability if lightning were to hit because there was hardly anyplace to actually get yourself out of standing water and under a shelter at the same time.
We ate lunch at Waterstone's and were unimpressed with the food quality. It was worse than when we last ate there, the year that park opened (2008 or 2009 I think).
For those of you with young kids - Aquatica does not seem to enforce a family friendly dress code. The infamous summer Brazilian tour groups were out in force, and the girls are into thong bikinis. Aquatica staff did not ask them to cover up. They kept their tops on at least...
Blizzard Beach: We went here another day. Opened the park and stayed until it closed (11 hours or so). It was shockingly empty - I don't know where all the people were over the 4th week, but it wasn't here. I expected it to be busier due to the heat. There were no lines for anything except one ride (I forget what it's called but it's a race where only 2 tubers go at a time, it's just a very slow loading ride.)
The park was in good shape overall but the water was very littered. I suspect that the staff is having trouble keeping up with the daily storms tossing debris into the pools. The lazy river was absolutely full of junk though, more than I have ever seen in it. It really needed to be cleaned up.
There was a rainstorm in the early afternoon. Disney shut down the chair lift as they always do, well ahead of the storm. There was not significant lightning though and they left everything else running during the ~90 minutes it rained. And yes, more people put on rain ponchos over their wet bathing suits.
We ate the counter service lunch. DH's sandwich was good but the rest of it was not; DS barely ate half his pizza (and he has a huge appetite so if he passes on finishing something, it's pretty bad).
Disney does enforce family-friendly dress code so the Brazilians wore cutoffs or shorts over their suits.
Raglan Road:
We had dinner here one night. We were given a great table near the stage and saw the band's entire set. The food was delicious as always, though DS's fish seemed a bit greasier than it has in the past. DH had risotto and I had Pie in the Sky and both were great. The service was slow, but we wanted to listen to the music so we did not care. The restaurant was only about 2/3 full the whole time we were there, which we felt was very odd - we've been going there for years, and even in Value season there was always a wait.
Paradiso 37:
Ate here one night for the first time. The food was good, but not great. DS had typical kids meal and he liked it. DH had skirt steak and I had a seafood sampler type thing. The place was not more than 2/3 full at any time, which again seems odd because I'm used to not getting a table without an ADR. They had staff parked outside with the menus trying to get people to come in and eat both nights we were at DTD.
AMC Fork and Screen:
We have been to one of these in another city and enjoyed it, found the food good. The difference with this one at DTD from the other one we went to is that you get to select your seats in advance, which was nice. We bought Cars 2 tickets two days ahead of time and had our pick of seats. The service was good. The food was not as good as the one we'd been to previously. DH liked his burger. DS got chicken tenders and fries; the fries were good but the chicken was not very and he ate little of it. I got a quesadilla that I did not even finish, it was very unimpressive and I would never order it again. All that said, this is a fun way to watch a movie even if you don't eat a full meal (you can just get regular theater concessions too). You have a nice reclining chair, preassigned seating and a lot of space around you to relax.
DTD in general:
We took a couple of years off from WDW after going 2 times per year for most of 1998-2008. DTD has changed quite a bit- some for the better, some for the worse. TS restaurants are not as packed, and I think perhaps it's that the Value resorts no longer get table service with the free dining deal so there are fewer guests competing for TS spots.
Ghiradelli was good but as overcrowded as always. That place needs to be doubled in size...
Earl of Sandwich was as good as it ever has been. We had sandwiches and frozen lemonade here, all delicious. I shudder to think how much foodstuff they go through in a day because the queue is LONG but they move people through it at a very rapid pace. They must serve I don't know how many thousand per day.
Otherwise, we were prepared to spend some money on Disney stuff, because it had been a few years and most of our t-shirts had been worn into the rag bin by now. We were disappointed in the items for sale though. In the end we bought some items from the Lego store and a couple of small things in the WoD store. But no shirts and no household goods, there just wasn't anything great to be had. I am not used to coming home from Disney with souvenir money still in my pocket! Maybe September will be different.
Anyway, hope the info is helpful to someone! Highly recommend the hotel if you want a place to stay that is sort of on property but cheaper than WDW resort hotels.
Xie
For the first time, we stayed off property. I was able to get a summer room deal at the Hilton Bonnet Creek. The rate was excellent and a full breakfast buffet was included in the room price.
The weather was incredibly hot and muggy. It rained every day, sometimes multiple times per day. We were grateful that we felt no real desire to go into the regular parks (since we will be back in September for those). I cannot imagine how uncomfortable the parks were.
We were VERY impressed with the Bonnet Creek Hilton. For about the price of a peak season Value room on WDW property, we had a spacious room, two double beds, and the included breakfast each day.
Things I LOVED about the Hilton Bonnet Creek:
- The lobby and common areas are lovely and well-maintained. The staff was unfailingly polite and offers of help were constant.
- The room's AC includes a dehumidifier. We swam every single day and our suits and towels dried within a few hours in the room. Even with 3 people showering and wet suits/towels hanging up to dry, the room was never muggy.
- The hotel pool is terrific. It's large, was never overcrowded, and has a nice lazy river! Towels are provided on the pool deck, which is nice.
- The breakfast buffet at the Harvest Bistro was very good. The usual scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, waffles, pancakes, pastries, muffins, a big fruit bar, yogurt, granola, cereals, and a made-to-order omelette/egg station. A variety of juices and the servers were all very pleasant. It normally costs $19.95 per person but was included with the summer getaway room rate we had.
The things I did not love about this hotel:
- The vanity area is inside the bathroom with the shower and toilet. Makes getting ready harder when you have several people in the room.
- The parking garage is at the opposite end of the hotel from the elevators to access the rooms. Hiking the entire length of the hotel got tiresome.
Rather than going to any of the regular parks (heat! humidity! crowds! blech!), we went water parks only. We spent one day at Aquatica and one day at Blizzard Beach, and the rest in the hotel pool.
Aquatica: Somewhat crowded. By early afternoon lines for slides were >1 hour. In the mid-afternoon, a corker of a rainstorm hit. For the first part of the storm, the park staff kept everything open, even though we could clearly hear thunder. Then suddenly they went into panic mode and tried to rush everyone out of the water and into buildings. Of course there aren't enough shelters so many people just tried to get out of the park. With rain ponchos on over their wet bathing suits
laughing. Every time a big crack of lightning hit, the huge gangs of Brazilian girls would scream at the top of their lungs. The drainage in Aquatica is really bad. The walkways ponded up to 12 inches deep (!). Even those of us standing under a sheltered area next to one of the restaurants were standing in 6-8" deep water. The interior of the restaurant itself was raised slightly and water did not flow into it, but it's tiny and few people could stand inside. I really can't imagine their liability if lightning were to hit because there was hardly anyplace to actually get yourself out of standing water and under a shelter at the same time.
We ate lunch at Waterstone's and were unimpressed with the food quality. It was worse than when we last ate there, the year that park opened (2008 or 2009 I think).
For those of you with young kids - Aquatica does not seem to enforce a family friendly dress code. The infamous summer Brazilian tour groups were out in force, and the girls are into thong bikinis. Aquatica staff did not ask them to cover up. They kept their tops on at least...
Blizzard Beach: We went here another day. Opened the park and stayed until it closed (11 hours or so). It was shockingly empty - I don't know where all the people were over the 4th week, but it wasn't here. I expected it to be busier due to the heat. There were no lines for anything except one ride (I forget what it's called but it's a race where only 2 tubers go at a time, it's just a very slow loading ride.)
The park was in good shape overall but the water was very littered. I suspect that the staff is having trouble keeping up with the daily storms tossing debris into the pools. The lazy river was absolutely full of junk though, more than I have ever seen in it. It really needed to be cleaned up.
There was a rainstorm in the early afternoon. Disney shut down the chair lift as they always do, well ahead of the storm. There was not significant lightning though and they left everything else running during the ~90 minutes it rained. And yes, more people put on rain ponchos over their wet bathing suits.
We ate the counter service lunch. DH's sandwich was good but the rest of it was not; DS barely ate half his pizza (and he has a huge appetite so if he passes on finishing something, it's pretty bad).
Disney does enforce family-friendly dress code so the Brazilians wore cutoffs or shorts over their suits.
Raglan Road:
We had dinner here one night. We were given a great table near the stage and saw the band's entire set. The food was delicious as always, though DS's fish seemed a bit greasier than it has in the past. DH had risotto and I had Pie in the Sky and both were great. The service was slow, but we wanted to listen to the music so we did not care. The restaurant was only about 2/3 full the whole time we were there, which we felt was very odd - we've been going there for years, and even in Value season there was always a wait.
Paradiso 37:
Ate here one night for the first time. The food was good, but not great. DS had typical kids meal and he liked it. DH had skirt steak and I had a seafood sampler type thing. The place was not more than 2/3 full at any time, which again seems odd because I'm used to not getting a table without an ADR. They had staff parked outside with the menus trying to get people to come in and eat both nights we were at DTD.
AMC Fork and Screen:
We have been to one of these in another city and enjoyed it, found the food good. The difference with this one at DTD from the other one we went to is that you get to select your seats in advance, which was nice. We bought Cars 2 tickets two days ahead of time and had our pick of seats. The service was good. The food was not as good as the one we'd been to previously. DH liked his burger. DS got chicken tenders and fries; the fries were good but the chicken was not very and he ate little of it. I got a quesadilla that I did not even finish, it was very unimpressive and I would never order it again. All that said, this is a fun way to watch a movie even if you don't eat a full meal (you can just get regular theater concessions too). You have a nice reclining chair, preassigned seating and a lot of space around you to relax.
DTD in general:
We took a couple of years off from WDW after going 2 times per year for most of 1998-2008. DTD has changed quite a bit- some for the better, some for the worse. TS restaurants are not as packed, and I think perhaps it's that the Value resorts no longer get table service with the free dining deal so there are fewer guests competing for TS spots.
Ghiradelli was good but as overcrowded as always. That place needs to be doubled in size...
Earl of Sandwich was as good as it ever has been. We had sandwiches and frozen lemonade here, all delicious. I shudder to think how much foodstuff they go through in a day because the queue is LONG but they move people through it at a very rapid pace. They must serve I don't know how many thousand per day.
Otherwise, we were prepared to spend some money on Disney stuff, because it had been a few years and most of our t-shirts had been worn into the rag bin by now. We were disappointed in the items for sale though. In the end we bought some items from the Lego store and a couple of small things in the WoD store. But no shirts and no household goods, there just wasn't anything great to be had. I am not used to coming home from Disney with souvenir money still in my pocket! Maybe September will be different.
Anyway, hope the info is helpful to someone! Highly recommend the hotel if you want a place to stay that is sort of on property but cheaper than WDW resort hotels.
Xie
