christygobar
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2005
- Messages
- 512
Cast of Characters:
Linda - mom, 52, goes with the flow of her bossy, perfectionist of a daughter. Spent much of her trip sick. Left my dad at home
Christy - daughter, 26, the ultimate in over-planning and the biggest Disney fan in the family. Single.
My dining review scale: 1-5 stars *****
Pre-planning:
In April, a co-worker and I booked a 3 day cruise on the Carnival Fantasy out of Cape Canaveral. Of course I couldn't be so close to Disney without visiting the parks, so I began working on a week-long vacation just for me that included 4 days at the parks! In early summer, my mom decided she wanted to go. She left my dad at home and at work. Thus began the planning of a girls-only trip to Central Florida! My co-worker did not join us for the Disney part, and my mom did not do the cruise.
As we have in our 5 previous trips, we booked the Comfort Suites Maingate East - an offsite hotel at $75/night (thanks to Mom's AARP rate). We have been happy with this hotel in the past.
And then later in the summer along comes a special in our newspapers....stay onsite, get the dining plan for free! Free you say?! We can't pass up free! We originally decide on Pop Century...but decide with 2 adults we would enjoy ourselves more in a moderate. So we booked the Port Orleans French Quarter.
Dreams Unlimited Travel and Barb have been amazing and I will use them again!
So...at that point, it's nearing upon our 90 days and it's time to start looking at meals. I booked ressies and cancelled ressies and re-booked them again. You know it's bad when WDW Dine says "oh! Let's weed through all of these cancellations and make sure we have everything correct, shall we?" LOL
And we find out that it just happens to be the Food and Wine Festival and Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. We decide to make the most of the first and not do the latter. We also had original plans to do Univeral Studios but cancelled them later. There's always next time
Friday morning, I wake up and do a little "I'm going to Disney World!" dance. I had to work 1/2 a day, but I wasn't all there
A few pointers:
1) I wore Crocs most of the trip and alternated with tennis shoes and flip flops. The crocs were comfy, but are NOT, I repeat, NOT good for when it is raining. They are very slippery and you have to be careful walking. My tennis shoes were not comfortable because your feet tend to swell up a bit after so much walking. They were really tight on my feet after the 2nd day. My worn-in flip flops were extremely comfortable, but had no tread. I slipped and fell on a slippery spot in an Epcot bathroom on the second day and got a nice bruise on my arm.
2) I wore a money belt. The first day, we kept fishing in each other's backpacks for our wallets. It got old. I put the Key to the World Cards, our IDs and credit cards into the money belt with a little cash and it was wonderful and much more convenient.
3) I thought the dining plan was worth it, but way too much food! Would I pay for it? Maybe. It would depend on who I was going with and what the circumstances were. A point of interest - my mom has only about 25% of her taste and smell senses that she once had (a virus killed off many of the nerve endings about 4 years ago)...so the dining plan was a little wasted on her. She has to rely on food textures to get the enjoyment of it. Especially once she got nauseated for 2 days. She wouldn't do the dining plan again.
4) Highly recommend POFQ. Beautiful grounds, quaint, quiet and the pool area was great. I will stay there again. We went to a couple of Deluxes and I have to say I still prefered the grounds of our resort.
So here we go!
We left Friday, Sept 30th, from DFW airport on American Airlines. I ran into two of my co-workers at my gate, flying home to New York from a meeting they had been in town for. Flight went on without a hitch, smooth and we landed in Orlando right on time. However, I must say that the screaming child on our plane the entire time prepared us for the numerous meltdowns we would see over the next week.
On arrival to Orlando, we had some confusion as to where the Magical Express counter was. We finally found it, waited in line and quickly boarded the bus and headed to our home for the next 6 nights....the Port Orleans French Quarter (POFQ). We were hungry since our flight was during our normal dinnertime, so as soon as we checked in and threw our carry on luggage into the room, we took the Downtown Disney (DTD) riverboat to grab a bite to eat. We hadn't allocated any of our dining vouchers for our first night there (Free dining!), so we paid out of pocket (OOP) at Earl of Sandwich. Between the two of us, we ordered a Le Frenchy (ham and brie) and a Chicken Florentine (roasted chicken, creamed spinach and mushrooms), as well as a strawberry chocolate smoothie and a strawberry banana smoothie. We also bought 2 bananas for breakfast on Saturday morning. Total was approximately $26.00. And the verdict? ***
I thought it was very yum! The bread was great and it tasted fresh. The smoothies were only ok. But I live on fresh fruit smoothies at home all the time, and I'm a bit spoiled to their taste. The banana had a fake flavor and the winner of the two was definitely the strawberry banana. But they were apparently addicting and I drank every bit of mine! LOL. The only bad part is that sometime in the middle of the day, they run out of muffin crowns. I was anxious to buy a couple as well.
So we didn't do much shopping since we knew we'd be back. Note to self: while the riverboat ride was nice, it was veeeeeery slow. We only took it that one evening. Oh, and they stop running when Marketplace closes. No big deal for us, but something to keep in mind.
Back at our room, our luggage was waiting for us, and we crashed after putting our backpacks together for the rest of the trip.
Linda - mom, 52, goes with the flow of her bossy, perfectionist of a daughter. Spent much of her trip sick. Left my dad at home
Christy - daughter, 26, the ultimate in over-planning and the biggest Disney fan in the family. Single.
My dining review scale: 1-5 stars *****
Pre-planning:
In April, a co-worker and I booked a 3 day cruise on the Carnival Fantasy out of Cape Canaveral. Of course I couldn't be so close to Disney without visiting the parks, so I began working on a week-long vacation just for me that included 4 days at the parks! In early summer, my mom decided she wanted to go. She left my dad at home and at work. Thus began the planning of a girls-only trip to Central Florida! My co-worker did not join us for the Disney part, and my mom did not do the cruise.
As we have in our 5 previous trips, we booked the Comfort Suites Maingate East - an offsite hotel at $75/night (thanks to Mom's AARP rate). We have been happy with this hotel in the past.
And then later in the summer along comes a special in our newspapers....stay onsite, get the dining plan for free! Free you say?! We can't pass up free! We originally decide on Pop Century...but decide with 2 adults we would enjoy ourselves more in a moderate. So we booked the Port Orleans French Quarter.
Dreams Unlimited Travel and Barb have been amazing and I will use them again!
So...at that point, it's nearing upon our 90 days and it's time to start looking at meals. I booked ressies and cancelled ressies and re-booked them again. You know it's bad when WDW Dine says "oh! Let's weed through all of these cancellations and make sure we have everything correct, shall we?" LOL
And we find out that it just happens to be the Food and Wine Festival and Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. We decide to make the most of the first and not do the latter. We also had original plans to do Univeral Studios but cancelled them later. There's always next time
Friday morning, I wake up and do a little "I'm going to Disney World!" dance. I had to work 1/2 a day, but I wasn't all there
A few pointers:
1) I wore Crocs most of the trip and alternated with tennis shoes and flip flops. The crocs were comfy, but are NOT, I repeat, NOT good for when it is raining. They are very slippery and you have to be careful walking. My tennis shoes were not comfortable because your feet tend to swell up a bit after so much walking. They were really tight on my feet after the 2nd day. My worn-in flip flops were extremely comfortable, but had no tread. I slipped and fell on a slippery spot in an Epcot bathroom on the second day and got a nice bruise on my arm.
2) I wore a money belt. The first day, we kept fishing in each other's backpacks for our wallets. It got old. I put the Key to the World Cards, our IDs and credit cards into the money belt with a little cash and it was wonderful and much more convenient.
3) I thought the dining plan was worth it, but way too much food! Would I pay for it? Maybe. It would depend on who I was going with and what the circumstances were. A point of interest - my mom has only about 25% of her taste and smell senses that she once had (a virus killed off many of the nerve endings about 4 years ago)...so the dining plan was a little wasted on her. She has to rely on food textures to get the enjoyment of it. Especially once she got nauseated for 2 days. She wouldn't do the dining plan again.
4) Highly recommend POFQ. Beautiful grounds, quaint, quiet and the pool area was great. I will stay there again. We went to a couple of Deluxes and I have to say I still prefered the grounds of our resort.
So here we go!
We left Friday, Sept 30th, from DFW airport on American Airlines. I ran into two of my co-workers at my gate, flying home to New York from a meeting they had been in town for. Flight went on without a hitch, smooth and we landed in Orlando right on time. However, I must say that the screaming child on our plane the entire time prepared us for the numerous meltdowns we would see over the next week.
On arrival to Orlando, we had some confusion as to where the Magical Express counter was. We finally found it, waited in line and quickly boarded the bus and headed to our home for the next 6 nights....the Port Orleans French Quarter (POFQ). We were hungry since our flight was during our normal dinnertime, so as soon as we checked in and threw our carry on luggage into the room, we took the Downtown Disney (DTD) riverboat to grab a bite to eat. We hadn't allocated any of our dining vouchers for our first night there (Free dining!), so we paid out of pocket (OOP) at Earl of Sandwich. Between the two of us, we ordered a Le Frenchy (ham and brie) and a Chicken Florentine (roasted chicken, creamed spinach and mushrooms), as well as a strawberry chocolate smoothie and a strawberry banana smoothie. We also bought 2 bananas for breakfast on Saturday morning. Total was approximately $26.00. And the verdict? ***
I thought it was very yum! The bread was great and it tasted fresh. The smoothies were only ok. But I live on fresh fruit smoothies at home all the time, and I'm a bit spoiled to their taste. The banana had a fake flavor and the winner of the two was definitely the strawberry banana. But they were apparently addicting and I drank every bit of mine! LOL. The only bad part is that sometime in the middle of the day, they run out of muffin crowns. I was anxious to buy a couple as well.
So we didn't do much shopping since we knew we'd be back. Note to self: while the riverboat ride was nice, it was veeeeeery slow. We only took it that one evening. Oh, and they stop running when Marketplace closes. No big deal for us, but something to keep in mind.
Back at our room, our luggage was waiting for us, and we crashed after putting our backpacks together for the rest of the trip.
