Chewysmom - so sorry to hear about that! My son and husband got hit during our stay too
For those of you not following along on the FB group, we got back from our trip late Wednesday night. I will recap as much as I can remember:
Friday night dinner at Beaches and Cream, checked in early, great waiter. My son got sick at the table, so I took him back to the room. Luckily we were staying at Beach Club, so it was a short walk. The waiter packaged me my own portion of No Way Jose which my husband surprised me with. It was good, but the hamburger was disappointing. Our room at BC had a beautiful view of the lake where we could see the HS fireworks. Concierge was kind enough to cancel our Saturday Cape May breakfast with no fee since my son wasn't feeling up to eating.
Saturday was HS. Took the boat from BC which was very convenient. Our bands wouldn't work to enter park. Took them a half hour to fix it. Gave us a FP for Toy Story and R&R. Crowds were lighter than I expected, except for the line for Santa was 4 hours! Had a great time. 3:10 dinner at Minnie's H&V was good. Good character interaction. Fantastic was wonderful as usual. Skipped JBJB since we didn't want to wait for 1.5 hrs in a crowd.
Saturday night checked into CB. Room smelled awful - stale/musty/smokey smell that hit you as soon as you opened the door. Walked back to concierge and they assigned us another room in a different village. Same awful smell. Went back to concierge in tears since it was now almost 10pm and we were exhausted. They gave us 2 other room options - one was farther away than i wanted to be from the food court and the other was an upper floor and CB has no elevators, neither of which was an option at this point. Asked to be moved to another resort. The only availability was Port Orleans Riverside, Boardwalk, and Contemporary. We chose Contemporary since 3 of our next 4 days we planned to be at MK. They comped us a taxi over there and bell services met us and took our luggage immediately.
Sunday was MK. 8:20 BOG reservation. We only ordered one meal for the kids to share. Waiter was super sweet and brought an extra drink so they each had one and an extra tray of pastries for us to share. Arrived later than I wanted and didn't have time to stop for pictures and didn't get a ride in on 7DMT. Dinner at Crystal Palace. Pretty slow service and character interaction. Reservation was for 6:05 and we didn't leave until about 7:40. Waited awhile for Eeyore to finally show. Interaction seemed more rushed. Had the best gluten free brownie ever. Asked the waiter to ask the chef how he made it. He came out with a mix and said the chef said to give this to you. Waiter said that's never happened before. I was super thankful for that!
Monday was AK EMH. Rode Safari with no wait and the animals were out and active. Dinosaur broke down while we were in line so maybe 30 min wait. Did Triceratops Spin and Lion King Show, lunch at Flame Tree BBQ (pretty good, lots of food), then EE. Waited for about 30 min for a bus to Epcot. FP for FEA - glad we didn't wait for that, pretty lame. Wandered through WS, saw La Befana in Italy but her mic was so low we couldn't hear her. Dinner at GG was good, decent character interaction. Had a FP for Test Track. Wanted to stay for Illuminations, so decided to wait in line for Soarin. Took forever, prob about an hour.
Tuesday was MK again. Monorail wasn't running so we walked. Made it just a few minutes before they let early reservations in, about 7:45. BOG was quick and we were off to 7DMT. Got 2 rides in before rope drop crowd arrived. This was probably our best day. Got a lot of rides in. Pirates broke down for a few minutes but they gave us a FP upon exiting. Dinner at Ohana. Got a drink at Tambu and were seated after about a 10 minute wait. Got a seat with a view of the castle. Really good food. Stopped to see the gingerbread house at GF on the monorail ride back. DH got sick shortly after we returned to our room
Wednesday I canceled BOG breakfast and lunch. Took it easy since we were exhausted. Dropped our bags at airline check in and my mom and I took the boys back to MK while DH rested a little more. He was able to meet up with us there. It was super crowded so we did our fast passes, loaded up at the confectionary, and hopped to Epcot since the boys wanted to do Soarin and Test Track one more time. Snagged a FP for Soarin. DH waited in line there with the boys while my mom and I ran around the WS trying to spend some of the rest of our dining credits. Started raining so their wait ended up being about an hour. We were definitely ready to head home at this point!
All in all it was a decent trip. Definitely didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped, but we still had fun. BC was wonderful and I'd definitely stay there again. CR was very contemporary - not my style of decor. But we had a beautiful view from our room, could see Electric Water Pageant, and the walk to MK was very convenient. Monorail service was slow but it was nice to not have to fold up the stroller. It didn't seem like there were as many photo pass photographers around. The bathrooms weren't very clean, cast member overall (aside from the ones at BOG and B&C) did not go out of their way. Most were polite but seemed rushed, perhaps overworked. Just very inconsistent. None of the restaurants recognized my son's birthday at all whereas last year he received a cupcake and a signed birthday card from characters at two different restaurants. So many rides broke down throughout the day at each park. I don't know, just not as magical as I expected I suppose.
Hope the rest of you have had/will have better luck than us! I think we might plan a cruise for our next trip. I need some relaxation!
