Things we learned during our stay last week

[Cherokeezebra]

- Never trust the weatherman, no matter how many days in a row he says the same thing
- If changing resorts during your stay, and you're on the dining plan and want to see the Candlelight Processional, try not to book a dinner that uses two of your dinners on the same day you move between resorts. What happens is you end up planning to use the last dinner from your first reservation, and another from your next reservation, you now have two different cards, but the Disney dining computers are not setup to "accept payment" using two separate cards. In this case, you have to use your card from the new reservation for both dinners, and you need a very understanding front desk manager at your resort to make very good notes in the computer for the concierge the next morning to transfer the "expired/unused" dinner to the new card.
- If you've never been involved in the Christmas Tree swap, it is truly a wonderful thing.
- There are only so many reservations allowed for backstage tours using discounts. If they have reached their max, even though there are still spots open for the tour, it will show as full and Disney would rather have open spots on the tour than to have too many spots filled with discounts.
- When booking the AK backstage tour, there is NO ONE at AK who can tell you if spots are available or not. You must call the Tour number for all Disney tours and don't expect anyone at any park to help you...UNLESS you tell them the computers were down last night and you were told to ask for help at Guest Services at the park, then they are suddenly able to help you and book the reservation they knew nothing about the day before.
- We are 0 for 2 getting all of our luggage delivered to our room using Magical Express and their 2-3 hour average. On our first trip, we had one bag waiting for us when we checked in, the other bag came 4 hours later. On this trip, we landed at 8:00pm, and finally got our only bag (with all our clothes and toiletries) at 1:45am, and that only after calling bell services 3 times!
- If using Magical Express going home and you check your bags at the resort when checking out that morning, then you go play at the parks and your flight is later in the day, there is a very good chance (happened to us) that your luggage goes ahead without you and goes on an earlier flight. Then you can only hope it gets collected by the luggage people at your destination airport and doesn't walk out the door as it goes around on the luggage carousel without you there to pick it up.
- If using Magical Express and they tell you to be out front of your resort 3 hours before your flight, and you still haven't seen a bus 2 hours before your flight, find a sympathetic bellman to call a taxi for you and have the resort pay for it!
- Beware when using your dining plan to pay for the double dinner charge for the Candlelight Processional. You'll notice that the meal isn't listed when the check is brought to you, and the suggested tip has been based only on the more expensive cost of the tickets to the show rather than the lower cost of the meal. Why in the world should we pay a tip to the waiter or waitress for the cost of show tickets???
- If you've never been the weekend or week of Christmas, make sure you understand the crowd issues before you decide to go and that you are okay being there during large crowds and long lines.
- There is only one place in all of Disney to see the NFL Network, and that is at ESPN Zone on the Boardwalk. And it is cold outside sitting on the boardwalk next to the water for the majority of folks who can't get inside and have to watch the game on screens setup outside the restaurant.
- Overall, great trip, but very disappointed in the overall scaling back of holiday decorations throughout all the parks this year compared to years past.

 

[Telcogirl]

- - If changing resorts during your stay, and you're on the dining plan and want to see the Candlelight Processional, try not to book a dinner that uses two of your dinners on the same day you move between resorts. What happens is you end up planning to use the last dinner from your first reservation, and another from your next reservation, you now have two different cards, but the Disney dining computers are not setup to "accept payment" using two separate cards.

I must say that is a very unusual way to approach the DDP. I don't know that I would ever have been able to try and use two different reservation credits for one meal. When we check out of our resort, we know that we have until midnight of that day to use up the rest of our entitlements from the DDP. You are lucky that the resort manager was able to straighten that all out.

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- If using Magical Express and they tell you to be out front of your resort 3 hours before your flight, and you still haven't seen a bus 2 hours before your flight, find a sympathetic bellman to call a taxi for you and have the resort pay for it!

Were you at the bus stop at least 15 minutes prior to your 3 hour departure time? I do remember seeing that posted on the ME documents. I guess sometimes the buses run ealry, but I have never heard of them not showing up at all.

 

[Cherokeezebra]

We were at the bus stop 45 minutes early. They said there were bus problems all day due to the incoming crowds.

 

[MrsBlovesDisney]

- - If using Magical Express and they tell you to be out front of your resort 3 hours before your flight, and you still haven't seen a bus 2 hours before your flight, find a sympathetic bellman to call a taxi for you and have the resort pay for it!

...been there, done that.

Thanks for all the other tips!

 

[rynosmom]

- - If using Magical Express going home and you check your bags at the resort when checking out that morning, then you go play at the parks and your flight is later in the day, there is a very good chance (happened to us) that your luggage goes ahead without you and goes on an earlier flight. Then you can only hope it gets collected by the luggage people at your destination airport and doesn't walk out the door as it goes around on the luggage carousel without you there to pick it up.


So true...We check our bags with the resort in the am and ended up having our flight delayed 5 hours. When we finally arrived in Newark we went to the assigned Carousel for our flight and our bags never came out. With no help from airport staff we found 2 bags on a carousel and 2 other bags in lockup. All of our bags went out on a much earlier flight.

 

[matt and beth]

Interesting post.

I thought the decorations were scaled back some as well.

Be happy with you four hour wait for the luggage. Try 6 hours. The last piece didn't show until the morning. Two diffrent couples staying in the same room from two different flights experiencing the same problem in our room. Still beter than carting my own luggage with my three children.

 

[bz8bls]

We returned yesteday morning...the last time we were at WDW for Xmas was four years ago, and I do think that the decorations were scaled back...just didn't have the' WOW' factor for me as it has in the past. My husband's family thought it was fantastic though (first time visitors).