As some of you may recall, I planned this Mother's Day weekend trip only about a month in advance as I decided to surprise my mom with this trip as a combination Mother's Day & birthday present since her 60th birthday was also this Sunday. Since our only planned park destination was Epcot for the Flower & Garden Festival, I wanted BCV as our first choice. However, I never got off the waitlist, even calling up to one day in advance, so we stayed at OKW in a 2BR. (OKW is actually our favorite DVC resort, with BCV our second favorite.) Before going I made PS for Boma's, Epcot's Mother's Day Brunch, and Marrekesh. I also asked the CMs to make a notation of my mom's birthday celebration with each PS and with the OKW reservation. The weather was wonderful the entire trip.
We checked in on Friday around 6 pm and my two requests -- NS and near HH -- were both filled. We had room 1410. We loved being right across the street from HH! Unlike the 2BR we stayed in December via an Interval exchange, there was no second access to the master bathroom via the laundry room. We had no need but we thought it was odd -- there would be no private access to the bathroom if we had guests sleeping on the living room sofabed. Are there many 2BRs at OKW like this? If so, I'll have to keep it in mind if we ever have additional guests.
Because my baby does not sleep well in a pack n play, we rented a full size crib for my son from A Baby's Best Friend along with a bucket of toys. As with the last time we rented from them, everything was already delivered to the Bell desk by the time we arrived. We were not happy with the toy rental and would not do it again.
We ordered takeout from Goods so we could relax in our unit. My mom LOVED our unit and the resort. She was so excited and happy about the accommodations!
We spent Saturday showing mom Downtown Disney. We had a great meal at Earl of Sandwich. We took the boat back to OKW and my mom asked about the log cabins we saw along the way. Are those available for rental? I'm not aware of any Disney resort near OKW with cabins for rent.
Later that evening we had dinner at Boma's and my mom was really awed by Animal Kingdom Lodge.
We went to Epcot on Sunday. I got my mom a birthday pin right after we got inside the park, and she enjoyed having all the "Happy Birthday" greetings throughout the day. The Epcot's Mother's Day brunch was a disappointment. For $29 + tax per person, we expected better food. A few meat items, the dessert selection, and the fruit were good; the other stuff were fine or just okay. We will not do it again. We didn't spend too much time in Epcot because my baby was exhausted. He is 13 months old and unused to all that excitement and sun (though we kept him shaded with a hat and/or umbrella). We arrived in Epcot around 10:30 am and left by 4:00 pm -- even that was too long and I regret not leaving earlier. (I was definitely exhausted because my son refused to stay in the stroller for most of the day and insisted loudly that I (and no one else) carry him. Walking around the park with a 23 lb. baby under the hot sun was not fun.) As a result, we didn't get to show mom much of Epcot, but my mom still thought it was a wonderful day. We ended up cancelling the PS at Restaurant Marekesh because we were too tired to return for dinner. We ended up with another take out order from Goods and ate in our unit.
For my mom's B-Day OKW staff sent a certificate wishing her a happy birthday. Also, on Sunday housekeeping left an autographed photo of Prince Charming and Cinderella and balloons in our room. (At check-in the CM asked about her favorite characters.) Very nice touches! Epcot Mother's Day Brunch staff forgot to do anything, even though I reminded the hostess about her birthday. I was hoping for a candle on a cupcake or something. Oh, well.
We originally planned to depart Orlando on Monday. But we missed our flight (due to various reasons). Because the next available flight that day was too late (as it would have totally messed up my son's bedtime), we opted to spend an extra night and leave on Tuesday. This is where being a DVC member really came in handy. With one phone call to MS and no need for payment, we got a 2BR back at OKW for one night. (By the way, I asked for availability elsewhere just to show my mom a different resort but nothing else was available, in ANY size unit.) I also returned to National to rent a car for a day. Previously we paid only around $75 (including taxes) for the 3 day weekend in a full size car because I had a coupon. Now National wanted to charge over $50 just for one day. My husband suggested checking out Magical Express since we kept seeing their buses in WDW. I told him I didn't think we could sign up on the same day, but after I rented the car (but before picking up the car) I called MS regarding ME. The CM said I should go to the ME counter on level 1 in terminal A (where we were at) for more information. I found the ME counter and there was a LONG line. After about 15 minutes wait, I was able to sign up for a roundtrip for all of us and I was very happy! It turned out that the OKW destination shared a bus with those going to Port Orleans/Riverside (two stops) and Saratoga Springs (after OKW). I can't remember how long it took for us to get back to OKW now. I know we didn't have to wait long before the bus departed from the airport, under 10 minutes; however, there were many people already on the bus and I don't know how long they waited.
After a brief rest back at the resort DH and I took our baby to Magic Kingdom (using our new annual pass
) for his first haircut at the Harmony Barber Shop on Main Street. I read about this shop on DIS and I so wanted to do this on one of our trips this year. Our son was born with a lot of hair and I've been doing a terrible job trimming his hair (and we do not have any haircut places in the area that specializes in baby haircuts). Our baby was NOT happy about the haircut and he was loud about his displeasure throughout; however, he did not shed any tears and he ended up looking so adorable! For $14 we also received a Mickey Ear hat with "First Haircut" embroidered along the rim, a certificate and a packet of his hair trimmings. It was a great experience!
As for our ME return bus, we were told at the airport that the resort will let us know what time the bus will pick us up the next morning for our flight. While riding on the bus the video announcer also said the night before our flight the resort will tell us when the bus will pick us up the next day. However, when I asked the CM at the OKW check-in, she had no clue and she gave me a phone number to call ME. Later that night we called and talked to another CM at the OKW front desk and he also did not know anything about having to tell guests when ME will pick us up the next day. It was not organized. We called the number he gave us and we got a message stating ME was closed for the night! We talked to someone else at the OKW front desk and was given a different number to call. This time we talked to someone and it was a good thing we called because we were not listed on their pick up sheet.
For our 12:50 pm flight, we were told we will be picked up at 9:40 am. I thought that was terrible, but oh, well. It actually took us about 40 minutes to arrive at the airport. It was not fun hanging out at the airport with a 13 month old for more than two hours before our flight; though even if we had not used ME we would have aimed to arrive about two hours in advance given our bad experience missing the filght the day before. I appreciated having the free transportation but I have mixed feelings as to whether we would use it again.
We also had an additional two plus hours for a layover in Atlanta later that day. By the time we got home my warm and fuzzy feelings about our wonderful WDW vacation was gone and I was just so exhausted from the travel day that I started dreaming of taking a vacation away from my sweet but demanding baby!
Anyway, overall we enjoyed our first time Home and we look forward to returning. However, the difficulty of travelling with a demanding baby has lessened our enthusiam about the next trip. We miss the experience we had travelling with our son back in December -- at 8 months old he was a perfect traveller, happy as long as he was held and as long as he got to look around. Now he screeches, whines and yells if I don't respond to his demands to be picked up, walked, entertained, etc. If we were at home I'd let him go at it, but in a public place I did whatever I could to keep him quiet. And he only wanted me 90% of the time.
I'm concerned that our next trip to WDW is a long planned trip in 10 days (yikes!) off-site at a Marriott timeshare with my FIL and BIL. I'm not sure I'm ready to travel with the baby again so soon after this trip and I am unhappy about the fact that we'll be off-site and we'll have to count on driving around everywhere. While a bit slow we have really come to enjoy the convenience of Disney transportation.
We checked in on Friday around 6 pm and my two requests -- NS and near HH -- were both filled. We had room 1410. We loved being right across the street from HH! Unlike the 2BR we stayed in December via an Interval exchange, there was no second access to the master bathroom via the laundry room. We had no need but we thought it was odd -- there would be no private access to the bathroom if we had guests sleeping on the living room sofabed. Are there many 2BRs at OKW like this? If so, I'll have to keep it in mind if we ever have additional guests.
Because my baby does not sleep well in a pack n play, we rented a full size crib for my son from A Baby's Best Friend along with a bucket of toys. As with the last time we rented from them, everything was already delivered to the Bell desk by the time we arrived. We were not happy with the toy rental and would not do it again.
We ordered takeout from Goods so we could relax in our unit. My mom LOVED our unit and the resort. She was so excited and happy about the accommodations!
We spent Saturday showing mom Downtown Disney. We had a great meal at Earl of Sandwich. We took the boat back to OKW and my mom asked about the log cabins we saw along the way. Are those available for rental? I'm not aware of any Disney resort near OKW with cabins for rent.
Later that evening we had dinner at Boma's and my mom was really awed by Animal Kingdom Lodge.
We went to Epcot on Sunday. I got my mom a birthday pin right after we got inside the park, and she enjoyed having all the "Happy Birthday" greetings throughout the day. The Epcot's Mother's Day brunch was a disappointment. For $29 + tax per person, we expected better food. A few meat items, the dessert selection, and the fruit were good; the other stuff were fine or just okay. We will not do it again. We didn't spend too much time in Epcot because my baby was exhausted. He is 13 months old and unused to all that excitement and sun (though we kept him shaded with a hat and/or umbrella). We arrived in Epcot around 10:30 am and left by 4:00 pm -- even that was too long and I regret not leaving earlier. (I was definitely exhausted because my son refused to stay in the stroller for most of the day and insisted loudly that I (and no one else) carry him. Walking around the park with a 23 lb. baby under the hot sun was not fun.) As a result, we didn't get to show mom much of Epcot, but my mom still thought it was a wonderful day. We ended up cancelling the PS at Restaurant Marekesh because we were too tired to return for dinner. We ended up with another take out order from Goods and ate in our unit.
For my mom's B-Day OKW staff sent a certificate wishing her a happy birthday. Also, on Sunday housekeeping left an autographed photo of Prince Charming and Cinderella and balloons in our room. (At check-in the CM asked about her favorite characters.) Very nice touches! Epcot Mother's Day Brunch staff forgot to do anything, even though I reminded the hostess about her birthday. I was hoping for a candle on a cupcake or something. Oh, well.
We originally planned to depart Orlando on Monday. But we missed our flight (due to various reasons). Because the next available flight that day was too late (as it would have totally messed up my son's bedtime), we opted to spend an extra night and leave on Tuesday. This is where being a DVC member really came in handy. With one phone call to MS and no need for payment, we got a 2BR back at OKW for one night. (By the way, I asked for availability elsewhere just to show my mom a different resort but nothing else was available, in ANY size unit.) I also returned to National to rent a car for a day. Previously we paid only around $75 (including taxes) for the 3 day weekend in a full size car because I had a coupon. Now National wanted to charge over $50 just for one day. My husband suggested checking out Magical Express since we kept seeing their buses in WDW. I told him I didn't think we could sign up on the same day, but after I rented the car (but before picking up the car) I called MS regarding ME. The CM said I should go to the ME counter on level 1 in terminal A (where we were at) for more information. I found the ME counter and there was a LONG line. After about 15 minutes wait, I was able to sign up for a roundtrip for all of us and I was very happy! It turned out that the OKW destination shared a bus with those going to Port Orleans/Riverside (two stops) and Saratoga Springs (after OKW). I can't remember how long it took for us to get back to OKW now. I know we didn't have to wait long before the bus departed from the airport, under 10 minutes; however, there were many people already on the bus and I don't know how long they waited.
After a brief rest back at the resort DH and I took our baby to Magic Kingdom (using our new annual pass
) for his first haircut at the Harmony Barber Shop on Main Street. I read about this shop on DIS and I so wanted to do this on one of our trips this year. Our son was born with a lot of hair and I've been doing a terrible job trimming his hair (and we do not have any haircut places in the area that specializes in baby haircuts). Our baby was NOT happy about the haircut and he was loud about his displeasure throughout; however, he did not shed any tears and he ended up looking so adorable! For $14 we also received a Mickey Ear hat with "First Haircut" embroidered along the rim, a certificate and a packet of his hair trimmings. It was a great experience! As for our ME return bus, we were told at the airport that the resort will let us know what time the bus will pick us up the next morning for our flight. While riding on the bus the video announcer also said the night before our flight the resort will tell us when the bus will pick us up the next day. However, when I asked the CM at the OKW check-in, she had no clue and she gave me a phone number to call ME. Later that night we called and talked to another CM at the OKW front desk and he also did not know anything about having to tell guests when ME will pick us up the next day. It was not organized. We called the number he gave us and we got a message stating ME was closed for the night! We talked to someone else at the OKW front desk and was given a different number to call. This time we talked to someone and it was a good thing we called because we were not listed on their pick up sheet.
For our 12:50 pm flight, we were told we will be picked up at 9:40 am. I thought that was terrible, but oh, well. It actually took us about 40 minutes to arrive at the airport. It was not fun hanging out at the airport with a 13 month old for more than two hours before our flight; though even if we had not used ME we would have aimed to arrive about two hours in advance given our bad experience missing the filght the day before. I appreciated having the free transportation but I have mixed feelings as to whether we would use it again. We also had an additional two plus hours for a layover in Atlanta later that day. By the time we got home my warm and fuzzy feelings about our wonderful WDW vacation was gone and I was just so exhausted from the travel day that I started dreaming of taking a vacation away from my sweet but demanding baby!
Anyway, overall we enjoyed our first time Home and we look forward to returning. However, the difficulty of travelling with a demanding baby has lessened our enthusiam about the next trip. We miss the experience we had travelling with our son back in December -- at 8 months old he was a perfect traveller, happy as long as he was held and as long as he got to look around. Now he screeches, whines and yells if I don't respond to his demands to be picked up, walked, entertained, etc. If we were at home I'd let him go at it, but in a public place I did whatever I could to keep him quiet. And he only wanted me 90% of the time.
I'm concerned that our next trip to WDW is a long planned trip in 10 days (yikes!) off-site at a Marriott timeshare with my FIL and BIL. I'm not sure I'm ready to travel with the baby again so soon after this trip and I am unhappy about the fact that we'll be off-site and we'll have to count on driving around everywhere. While a bit slow we have really come to enjoy the convenience of Disney transportation.
