Trip Report- POR 7/5-7/11

[togatrackgirl]

We just got back from our first time trip/Honeymoon to Disney and can't wait to go back. It was awesome!!!

From the moment we left Albany, NY it was pefect. We used the Magical Express which to us was priceless. Loved the idea of not having to worry about our luggage after we checked it! Nice benefit.

Check in at POR went very smooth. We stayed in Parterre Place which I think was the perfect location. It was a 1 minute walk to a quiet pool, 5 min or less walk to the food court and 5 or less to the south stop for the bus depot which is the main stop.

The room was a bit on the small side but very nice and clean, loved the two separate sinks and the curtain to separate the bathroom from the living/bed area was great. The fridge and hair dryer were nice bonuses. Loved the king size bed it was very comfortable and mousekeeping was very friendly and gave me everything i asked for everyday. Extra towels, extra sheets, extra coasters to bring home with us. She was a wonderful person. We tipped Mousekeeping $3 a day and on the last two days left $5 each day.

The resort is absolutely beautiful! The landscaping is breathtaking and it is so relaxing there. We loved seeing the wild life all around Disney espcially the cute lizards, tree frogs and different birds. We just loved them!

Now to a hot topic. The busses at POR. We prepared ourselves for the worst and were extremely impressed with the bus service. Please keep in mind that we were at the first stop and sometimes by the last bus stop the bus was full with standing room only but that usually only happened when we went back out to the parks in the evening. We were actually so surprised at how frequent the busses came. There were many a time as we were walking to the POR stop we would see our bus pull away and we never had to wait more than 10 EVER going to the parks. Maybe we were just lucky, but we couldn't have been that lucky every day!

We did have an extremly long wait to get picked up from DTD but it was Saturday night at like 11, so that was our own fault for trying to catch a bus at that time. We waited a good 30 minutes or more for a bus that night and the ride took forever to get back to POR. Actually we both got a little motion sickness on that ride home! We got off at the West Depot at about 12 or so and we totally couldn't find our way to our room! POR is bigger than you think!

We experienced more full standing room only busses late at night on our way back. It was never so crowded that it made me uncomfortable. And if there were moms holding babies or elderly many people, including us, were happy to give up our seats to them.

We had a wonderful overall experience at POR and would highly recommend it to others. I would like to try another resort if/when we ever go back just to try somewhere else, I would just hope that the resort I picked was just as nice as POR.

My review of our experiences at Epcot up next......

 

[disneycutie84]

Sounds good so far!

 

[mommyintn]

Glad to hear that about POR we are going for our 1st stay in November.

 

[UtahMama]

Hey! Glad to find such a good trip report early! Our family will be staying at POR Sept5-14 and cant wait! I'll be sure to leave the parks a smidge earlier so we dont have standing room only on the bus with our stoller, toddler and 2 little boys and a teen boy, diaper bag, camera equip., cooler, and two pissy parents.
Keep up the great work!

 

[togatrackgirl]

We went to Epcot on our first and last day of our honeymoon.

Tips: Get the mini mister fan for $3 at Walmart before you come!!! My honey thought that I was crazy when i came home with it and packed it. By the time we left Disney we had agreeded that it was one of the MUST haves visiting any of the parks!!!! We would have died without it!

Bring a hat or umbrella to give yourself some shade at Epcot it is hard to come by there, especially in the World Showcase! Don't forget the sunblock!

On our first day at Disney World we got up around 7 give or take, I went to the food court to get some coffee while he showered and then I jumped in when I got back. We were both very excited about going to Epcot for the day.

Got on the bus at POR around 8 and since there were no other families at any other of the bus stops it took us less then 10 minutes to get to Epcot. This was a great first experience of bus system.

When the busses drop you off at a park they let you know at what gate your resort will be picked up at. If you are not paying attention, don't worry as there are signs up letting you know which one you will be getting picked up at.

We arrived at the park very EARLY which wasn't a bad thing. They started letting us into the park around 850. We were a little confused at first of what to do.

Do we have to go to the window, or just get into a line? So I had hubby get into the line and I went up to the window. The woman said that all i needed to do is put my resort key into the machine in line, put my two fingers in the finger slot, squeeze my fingers together and finally get the card and go throught the turn style. Someone would be there to assist us if we had any problems, she handed me a map and a schedule of the shows for the day. Perfect!

Tip: Look at the maps of the park you will be going to the night before and get a game plan together. Fast pass as much as you possibly can!!!!!!!

Low and behold there are signs everywhere telling you how to go through the turnstyles but I was too excited to think of reading any signs at 8 in the morning!

It is very easy to get into the parks and like the kind woman said there is always a cast member around to ask for help.

So, where was I...

Oh yeah, they let us in about 8:50A but wouldn't let you pass the rope once you got to the center of Epcot. The characters came out first to "open" the park. It was cool to see them all the first day we were at Disney, there was Goofy, Mickey and Minnie, Donald, Chip and Dale, and Pluto.

You can also find these characters in the Character Connection right near this area. In this area you can have the Disney Photo Pass people take pictures of you with the characters or you can do it yourself. It is a nice quick way to see these characters. It was always quiet when we went into Character Connection and a nice place to use the rest rooms and relax for a minute in the AC!

So once the rope dropped and you could go where ever you wanted we decided to go to Soarin first. I heard so many good things about it here on the Dis Boards that we decided to get a fast pass and then to go on it, this way we could ride it twice. Since we were at Epcot so early Soarin was walk on. Wow, let me tell you this ride is intense!!!!!

We couldn't believe how realistic it was. We were able to sit in the front row and it was just amazing. When you flew over the pine trees you smelt the pine, same with the orange orchards. You could feel the wind in your hair and it was just great.

I do want to warn those of you with motion sickness problems. I get motion sickness pretty bad and this ride made me feel sick towards the end of the ride. (the second time through did me in though!) I promised myself before we left to get to Disney that I would ride as many rides as I could tolerate, so most days I took a dramamine before we left for the day. Seemed to help me for most things.

After our first time on Soarin we went on the boat ride. The name escapes me at the moment but it was a very interesting and educational ride. The hydroponics they used were amazing and the produce that came from it was huge!!! If my summer garden was only like that we could feed the neighborhood

After the boat ride our fast pass was ready to go on Soarin again. My motion sickness kicked in and i had to close my eyes and kept praying for the ride to end the second time through. So my advice to the motion sickness people of the Dis Boards- ONCE IS ENOUGH!

Ok so let me tell you the time frame of this. We went on Soarin twice and the boat ride all before 10A! We were extremely happy about that!

From there we got a fast pass for Honey I Shrunk the Audience and while waiting for that to come up we went on the Figment ride. This ride was extremely cute but definately for kids. (Just saying for those of you who might want to pass such a ride up.)

Honey I Shrunk the Audience was our first 3D experience at Disney. It was very fun, I also got a little motion sick with the 3D glasses on when it felt like they were moving us around the room. I think it was just left over from Soarin though. This was our least favorite 3D experience at Disney, not to say that it was bad but we felt the others were much better.

We decided to go over to Test Track at that point and saw that the fast passes were for our lunch time so we couldn't get them. We decided to go after lunch to get fast passes (big mistake by the time we made it back they were gone for the day!!!) We decided to skip Mission Space all together.

After that we still had time before our lunch reservations at Coral Reef so we went into the Living Seas to check that out. It was extremly busy in there when we got there so we passed on watching the show with Crush (I am sorry we missed this) and explored the dolphins, manatees and the other little aquariums there.

We had an ADR for 12:30 at Coral Reef and were starving by that time since we did not have breakfast or any snacks that morning. We arrived a little early and were seated within 5 minutes. We both agree that this was the best meal of the entire trip. We had the same exact thing and ended up eating here twice.

Shrimp cocktail, sirloin steak and the Chocolate Wave. DELISH!!!! If we were not on the dining plan we would not have been able to afford to eat here. This bill for lunch including tip came to $104.99, so thank goodness for the dining plan!

After lunch we headed back to the resort for a break (a dip and a nap)..... be back soon with more of Epcot a review of Test Track and going around the World.

 

[almousefan]

I can't wait to hear more about your trip. Sorry to hear about the motion sickness! That's a bummer! Glad you got to enjoy Soarin' at least once!

 

[jmskinner]

Enjoying reading about your first trip. We just took ours also and also stayed at POR in Panterre Place we were room 9797.

Congratulations on getting married!

 

[togatrackgirl]

I am glad that everyone is enjoying my reviews. I am so happy to be discussing our trip, everyone at home here is totally sick of it. So thank you all for listening!


We completely missed Test Track on our first visit to Epcot. After our afternoon nap and dip we returned to Epcot for the evening and there was a really bad storm, lightning, thunder and tons of rain, so TT was closed. We decided to double back and go on Spaceship Earth, perfect place to escape the storm for a bit and it was walk on. Fun ride.

Still pouring we decided to walk into the World Showcase and got dinner at Cantina de San Angel, counterservice, and we both got the combination plates. Huge portions and it was just delish, we would back there to eat again!

After we ate we decided to go into Mexico. It is absolutely beautiful inside, that temple looks so real! We walked around the marketplace and just loved everything there.

As we were leaving Mexico we heard the announcement outside that Illuminations was going to be held and that it would start in 45 minutes. We figured that since we were already sopping wet that we would stand in the light rain and get a spot right there at the rail next to one of Mexico's street stands. For us it was a great spot but we have never stood anywhere else so I could be completely wrong.

Illuminations was great! My hubby thought that the globe and the fireball special effects were awesome. I took tons of pictures with one of the disposable cameras that I had brought, so you can only imagine my dismay when i got home and developed the night time pictures and NONE of them came out for any of the evening shows at Disney. Not Illuminations, Fantasmic, or Wishes. I was heart broken! I have no clue what I did wrong.

I was happy that I had planned a "free" day on the last full day of our trip to go back and do whatever we wanted because although we spent hours upon hours at Epcot that first day we did not get to see any of the World except Mexico so we just HAD to go back on the free day to finish Epcot up.

On our last day we returned to Epcot, we arrived there around 10 this morning, we slept in the last day because we were SOOOOOO exhausted. The first thing we did was to head over to Test Track and snag fast passes then headed into Club Cool to sample the colas from around the world. I read about this on the boards too and couldn't wait to sample the available flavors. China's Watermelon was good but just like everyone said Italy's Beverly was just like strong cough syrup!!! YUCK!!! This was extremly fun!

After that we headed over to Coral Reef again for our ADR at 11:30. Delicious AGAIN! We were kind of rushing at the end of the meal because it was towards the end of our fast pass time for TT. My hubby said oh let's skip this. Now if you knew hubby at all (he LOVES cars, especially GM cars) you know I had to convince him to go on this. We got into the fast pass line and began walking into the building, he was like this is so COOL and started taking pictures of everything. It was so cute.

This ride was one of my favorite rides on the entire trip. It was just plain fun. Not scary, not too fast, it was just right. Very fun. So we get off the ride we start walking down the hall and there SHE sits. His passion....the other love of his life.....the brand spanking new Corvette Z06, in what color you ask? His all time favorite that bright yellow! Let me tell you how much he loved me for convincing him to get on that ride!

He was like a little kid, smile from ear to ear. He had to stay in that room for a while because they shut metal curtain type things and switched the cars behind them. He enjoyed all of the car "shows" but was thrilled with the Z06! We walked into the Test Track store and there was a replica of car so we had to get that, and then there was a cast iron 69 Chevelle, and a 58 Corvette. I am telling you he was like a little kid in a candy store, I want one of them and one of that and oh don't forget i want one of those.

After that we started exploring the world going clockwise. We made sure to look around in every country. It was extremly hot this day and it seemed that there were NO places for shade around the world, except for going into the countries. I was happy to get to China where I bought myself an umbrella and they wrote my name on it in Chinese for me. The little bit of shade it provided to us was needed! I also bought fans and cute little purses. In Japan I bought tons of different Sake and got myself a pearl and had it mounted for a necklace. Mine was 7.25 so it was no big deal but the little girl that went after me got a very large one and they banged the gong for her. To get a pearl it was around $14 and I chose a mounting to be worn on a necklace and that was another $25, if I wanted a necklace it would have been more.

We were exhausted!! I know that I said that before but not only was it our last day so we had been walking for days, but Magic Kingdom had EMH the night before and we didn't even go to sleep until almost 3 and woke up around 8 or so!!! Add the heat, the shopping and all tha walking= us being extremely tired!!!!

We took our time and went through the rest of the countries which was perfect as we had ADR's for 4:50 at Le Cellier. We were so happy to just sit down. Dinner here was very good and we would go there again. They brought us out a special "Congratulations" dessert which was really nice. The steak kabob and the cheese selection was AWESOME!! The filet's were cooked perfectly and my honey couldn't stop saying that the maple creme brulee was great (he says that it is his very close second dessert to the Chocolate Wave).

We had a great time at Epcot between the rides and visiting all of the Countries. For us there is no way that we could do everything in Epcot in a single day. This for us would be a two day park to not feel rushed. Soarin, Test Track, Spaceship Earth, Illuminations, Coral Reef and Le Cellier are to us not to be missed.

Up next MGM......

 

[mikayla73]

Congratulations on your wedding! I am looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip. Just one question though .. was Le Cellier compable to Coral Reef in terms of price?

 

[travelbug]

I'm really enjoying your trip report, and look forward to more!

Congratulations on your recent marriage!

 

[javamom]

Subbing!

 

[theirish68]

We are from the same neck of the woods... My family is from Niskayuna!
We are going to be staying at POR in May 2007 so I'm enjoying your report... Did you have one for the other parks you visited, from the responses I'm guessing you have, I must be missing them.

Track opens in a couple of weeks...

 

[togatrackgirl]

We are from the same neck of the woods... My family is from Niskayuna!
We are going to be staying at POR in May 2007 so I'm enjoying your report... Did you have one for the other parks you visited, from the responses I'm guessing you have, I must be missing them.

Track opens in a couple of weeks...

Wow never thought that I would be meeting a local someone on the boards! Can't wait for the track to be open!

I will be adding to this thread later tonight about MGM, tomorrow Animal Kingdom and last but not least Magic Kingdom! It seems to take me a while to get all of my thoughts together and have them make sense.

So sorry everyone if you are waiting on me! I will try to write faster!

 

[togatrackgirl]

Congratulations on your wedding! I am looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip. Just one question though .. was Le Cellier compable to Coral Reef in terms of price?

Le Cellier was very similar in price to Coral Reef. Coral Reef for lunch came to $104.99 including tax and tip, and if I recall correctly Le Cellier for dinner came to $118 with tax and tip. Le Cellier's appetizers that we ordered were more expensive. If you go to www.allears.net they have menus with the prices and from what I saw at that site the prices looked exactly the same as what we paid.

If we had to choose between the two we would pick Coral Reef. I am telling everyone that Chocolate Wave is to die for!!!!! I still talk about it every day, hopefully my craving for it will go away by next week

 

[togatrackgirl]

I want to start again by thanking everyone for all of your kind words.

Friday was our day at MGM and it had EMH in the morning that day. So we got up early AGAIN and made it to MGM before the park opened. Hubby had a problem with his room key letting him into the park this day so instead of being able to watch the park opening "show" we spent some time at guest services to get him a card for the day so we could use the fast pass machines. This was easy and painless.

Just so you all know, if you are keeping a cell phone or pager in your pocket along with your card key it can demagnatize your card and it will not work.

So as soon as we finished getting him a new card the park officially opened! Woo hoo, we had heard before we left that MGM was great so we were very excited to be there. We quickly beat feet to get a fast pass for Tower of Terror and got into line for Rock and Roll Rollercoaster. Once the line started moving for RnR we were sitting down on the ride in about 5 minutes.

I absolutely love Aerosmith and have seen them in concert about a dozen times so I was loving everything about this ride! Too bad the line moved SOOOOO quick that I felt like we missed the ambiance of being in line and listening to their music and looking closely at the posters and other stuff!

They bring you into a "sound booth" where Aerosmith greets you and invites you to come to their concert. Only problem is that it starts really soon so they order you up a quick way to get there (the rollercoaster!). You quickly get into the rollercoaster and you stop for just a second and then......
You scream your fool head off because you go from 0-60 in 2.8 seconds and start right into loops and cork screws . The ride itself is over very quickly, maybe 2 minutes at the most.

Talk about an eye opener for the morning! Now I had quite the rush but hubby, not so good. When we got off the ride he b-lined it outside where he was feeling and looking like this: His face was a shade of green, no lie! So I had him sit down for a few minutes and gave him some gum to chew. He said that the ride being in the dark was what got him.

I, the motion sickness queen, was very happy that I took the dramamine that morning!

So after a quick 5-10 minute break we went straight to Tower of Terror to get into the Fast Pass line. Now the great thing about this was that we had just watched the Twilight Zone Marathon over the holiday weekend, so walking into this ride was extremly fun! They shuffled us into this room where they explained the story of the elevator and the people who went missing in it and how we've now entered the "Twilight Zone"!

We wait in line a little longer to get into the elevator. We were seated in the very back row and luckily I was on the outside where i could hang on to a hand bar. The door open and you start moving forward you hear and see the sights and sounds of the Twilight Zone and then we stopped, the lights went out and then the doors in front of us opened and then...... holy freaking crap!!!!! An amazing drop!!!! They must have dropped us 5 floors the first time through, then you spring back up and STOP. Then they open the door again and woop there you drop again, and again, and again.

When we got off the ride I heard other people say that they had never been dropped so many times on that ride. I was shaking like a leaf! My honey loved the feeling on this ride. I think it was his favorite! I would go on it again but it freaked me out.

After we finished ToT we headed straight to the other side of the park to get a fast pass for Lights, Action, Motor show. Time frame: it was only about 8:45 give or take at this point!!!! When we got to the other side of the park there was NO ONE there. Literally. If you saw the pictures you would die. It looked like there was no one in NYC or San Fran!

So we decided to go on the Back Lot Tour, i think that this ride lasts about a twenty minutes or so. Less then a 10 minute wait. This was fun and was about how movie producers actually make action sequences. They first brought in unsuspecting volunteers from the wait line who were to act in the scene. I will warn you that one of the volunteers got tons of water dumped on her, so BEWARE if you are selected! The people they chose were complete hams and made it hysterical!!!! We couldn't stop laughing.

From there they shuffle you onto a tram to bring you around the back lot. Now just so you know if you sit on the LEFT side of the tram you are likely to get wet if not soaked. The right side you will get a little spray. The tram brings you to a controled environment to show you how Hollywood makes an action sequence. There is a burning truck and then all the sudden an explosion....water comes steaming down the mountain, at first not so much and then there is tons! Now that's how you make a movie. The people sitting on the left got pretty wet. From there they show you cars (Herbie), planes (pearl harbor**i think thats what they said**) and wardrobes (Narnia) that have been in famous movies. Again lots of fun!

After that ride we went over to the Muppet 3D show and low and behold it was just starting and we were the first in line with like no one there! This show was very cute, we thought it was a step up from Honey I shrunk the audience. If any of you watched the Muppets when you were a child, then it will bring back fond memories for you! The only Muppet missing was Animal.

When that was finished it was time for us to walk over to Lights, motor, action! I just knew that my hubby was going to love this! Now I don't remember how long we had to stand even with the fast pass but it was a while, in the hot sun for a bit. I just asked hubby and he thinks that from the time we got in line (we were not early for this, somewhere about 10 min or so into the fast pass time) to sitting up in the bleechers was about 30 minutes, and by the time they filled in the rest of the seats with everyone else it had to be a total of an hour.

Once they let us in we went up the stairs and found an area right in front of a fan. Perfect! This show was GREAT!!! This show again showed you how producers pull stunts off and make them look so real in the movies. I don't want to ruin it for anyone so i won't say much more, but it was well worth the wait! Hubby kept saying I want to do that for my job, imagine getting paid to do that? Him and cars, he is so cute.

I think that this show lasted about half an hour. Their stunts are very cool, I worried constantly that they were going to run into each other, so fast, so many 360s! Wooo it was great.

After that it was around noon. Can you believe how much we got done?? This was awesome! So we decided to grab a fast pass for the next Indiana Jones show and grab some lunch at Backlot Express.

Backlot Express had the best burgers we had on the entire trip! Tender, juicy! We also got a chocolate bundt cake and a strawberry parfait for dessert. Everything we had from there was delish! I must say that our timing for this was bad because it was packed. I had hubby find a seat and I stood in line and ordered the food. By the time this was done we were rushing to make it to our fast pass appt. I think it was 12:45, maybe 1.

So we head over to IJ the place is packed! I mean filled to the brim. Luckily we did have a spot but it was only after a CM yelled out as loud as she could "hey can you hear me" audience yells "yeah" She said "good, now move over to your left so we can fit all of these people in". Well it worked everyone that was standing got a seat.

The announcer lady was very funny and asked for volunteers from the audience and had them do silly poses. She told them that they were all going to be a part of today's stunt show and to not forget to sign the waivers before they came back out in costume. FUNNY! So the show starts, it is Indy's sequence in Raiders of the Lost Arc which was very fun to watch and then.......torrential downpour and they cancelled the show because the sky turned black and there was lightening everywhere. Very freaky, they said that they were sorry but for safety reasons they had to cancel the show (very understandable) and that we could stay there under shelter as long as we wanted. We decided to head back to the resort, seeing that we accomplished so much that morning, to take a rest and come back for our ADR at 6:30. We never did make it back to see the entire show, I guess we have to leave it for the next trip!

Stay tuned to see what we did that night... Hollywood & Vine, The Great Movie Ride, Fantasmic.......