ADP Live From Disney World & Universal
- Thread starter ADP
- Start date
crazydisneyman
<font color=blue><marquee>My "Muddy Buddy manly si
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2007
Have a safe trip back to Indy!
Thanks for all the updates!
Thanks for all the updates!
ADP
<marquee><font color=red>I'm a huggin' fool</marqu
- Joined
- Sep 2, 2006
We didn't make it over to IOA today, but we heard wait times to get into WWoHP were not too bad
I'm sure it's raining back in Indy. It never fails. When I'm travelling it's raining.
Yes, it wasn't crowded at all, but a nice line was building outside the park as we were leaving.
jerseygirl81
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2008
I enjoyed reading your live t/r and all the great pics! Linda 
crazydisneyman
<font color=blue><marquee>My "Muddy Buddy manly si
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2007
ADP said:
It sounds like you did everything right and you had slot of special experiences. I hope that everyone had a great time.
my3princes
<font color=red>Looking for a milestone to claim<b
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2004
Thanks for taking time to share your vacation with us. It sounds like you had a wonderful time. It got me even more excited for our 3 week vacation that is just weeks away 
ADP
<marquee><font color=red>I'm a huggin' fool</marqu
- Joined
- Sep 2, 2006
some Final Thoughts -
I mentioned in my post above that this was one of the best trips we've ever had to Orlando. I had to think a bit why this was the case, but it was sort of obvious. We enjoyed plenty of new experiences this trip, but even better than that we were able to harden some relationships with friends. We consider Orlando our 2nd home so even seeing many of our local friends and getting to know them better was a lot of fun. Plus, it seemed like a good number of DISers we know personally were in town. Seeing them also greatly enhanced our trip.
Everything we expereinced for the first time really went over well. The Magic Kingdom's Nightastic fireworks show is wonderful. Seeing it as part of a fireworks cruise experience in the Seven Seas Lagoon was something I'll never forget. It was a great perspective because you can see the perimeter fireworks as well. Sharing it with a group of 10 friends made it even more special.
Some may agree or disagree, but we thought the Hoop De Doo Review was terrific. It kept us laughing most of the show. We thought it was very well done. The food was ok, but to be honest I wouldn't book this dinner show again for the food. You can get the same food at a much more reasonable price next door at Trails End.
We got a lot of entertainment and enjoyment out of our day at Star Wars Weekends. We accomplished everything we set out to do for on Saturday. About our only complaint was the final show of the day. The Hyperspace Hoopla really needs to be inside a theater. The crowd around the Jedi Training stage is not suitable for this end-of-day event. You can't get a good perspective of the show with so many guests crowded around the stage.
Food -
Most of the food this trip was good. A few standout meals in our minds were Mama Dellas at Portofino Bay, Mama Melrose and Teppan Edo. These three get the gold medal for sure. Wow! If you've read this trip report you know the Spiderman character breakfast was a real downer. The food was awful
One other observation. Food choices at the Disney buffets seem to be disappearing. This was very noticable at Chef Mickey's. I didn't notice this too much at Cape May, but Tusker House and 1900 Park Fare I also noticed a reduction in food choices. Although I still believe the dining plan provdes you with a lot of food it was nice to save a little money through the dining plan program. We are DVC members so we did not have to pay the seasonal price increase for the dining plan. Without the plan we would have paid the seasonal price increase. It saved us a bit of money.
Resorts -
All of the properties we stayed at are beautiful. With the exception of our late check-in at Portofino Bay and a TV remote issue at Saratoga Springs we didn't have any problems with our stays. We really enjoyed the large rooms at Portofino Bay and Saratoga Springs (1-Bedroom). All of the pools at each resort were outstanding. The fitness centers were also well maintained and provided all the equipment I needed for a good workout. Here's how I rate the fitness centers; Saratoga Springs, Kidani Village, and the center at the Mandara Spa. Every room we checked into was clean. all of the common areas were well maintained. Portofino Bay is a beautiful property. I hiope you all agree through the photos I posted it's beautiful? I'd certainly stay there again in a heartbeat.
Transportation -
Although we had an Alamo rental car most of our stay we did use Disney transportation on occassion. It seemed to be very good. I don't recall waiting longer than 15 minutes for a bus, boat or monorail. Considering the crowd levels I find that a very positive experience. There were times at park closing or after parades when the line to get a bus was long, but even then, the busses or boats showed up on a consistant basis. That's really all you can ask of both Disney and Universal. Our rental car experience with Alamo was very good. We rarely have a problem with them, and I must say they still seem to provide the best prices when renting with them at MCO. We'll keep using them as long as they keep providing good service at the current prices.
Theme Parks -
All of the parks were well maintained. Universal seems to be having some trouble with breakdowns at Rip Ride Rockit. We consistantly saw that ride down during our time at the park. Disney's attractions consistantly ran well. We saw Test Track down once and the Yeti on EE is still not working properly (Please fix the yeti ). The construction walls inside Fantasyland did not hurt our guest experience at all. So far it hasn't affected the land too much. The early part of our trip saw few crowd issues, but the second half of our trip was full of crowds. There was a noticable pick-up in crowd levels around June 13th and 14th. I'm sure as school systems started summer breaks crowds reflected it. No big surprise there. I was very fortunate enough to speak with Dave Parfitt during our vacation. I gave him our perspective on the grand opening of the WWoHP. Dave wrote a blog about our experience. You can read his blog and our perspective here. http://www.disunplugged.com/2010/06/20/harry-potter-opening-weekend-universal-orlandos-dark-mark/
I was fortunate enough to get to know Dave and become friends with him when we partnered together to run the 2009 Muddy Buddy before podcast cruise 1.0. It was nice catching up with him and I'm sure I'll see him in October or during December for PC 2.0.
Weather -
I thought we were very fortunate. The first 5 days of our trip saw fantastic weather conditions; low humidity, sunny and no precip. Once the humidity started to creep in we had afternoon showers for a couple of hours and then it would clear up for the evening. Pretty typical for Orlando.
My next trip to Orlando will be solo. I'm running in the Food & Wine 5K through the Magic Kingdom on October 1st. I hope everyone enjoyed the photos and perspective. Posting live photos from the parks and resorts is pretty cool. I find it amazing the mobile technology has evolved to the point where you can post photos within seconds to this site. When the 4G network and smartphones becomes more sophisticated it may even move to recorded video within seconds or even live video. Wouldn't that be cool. I hope more DISers with IPhones/smartphones can post live photos too. We can all benefit from it. It's another way we can get our Disney/theme park fix while we wait patiently for our next Orlando vacation.
Thanks to everyone who met up with us during this trip. It was great seeing and speaking with all of you. To those who we missed; hopefully we'll see you in the future. Until next time I'll keep in touch with you right here on the DIS!
I mentioned in my post above that this was one of the best trips we've ever had to Orlando. I had to think a bit why this was the case, but it was sort of obvious. We enjoyed plenty of new experiences this trip, but even better than that we were able to harden some relationships with friends. We consider Orlando our 2nd home so even seeing many of our local friends and getting to know them better was a lot of fun. Plus, it seemed like a good number of DISers we know personally were in town. Seeing them also greatly enhanced our trip.
Everything we expereinced for the first time really went over well. The Magic Kingdom's Nightastic fireworks show is wonderful. Seeing it as part of a fireworks cruise experience in the Seven Seas Lagoon was something I'll never forget. It was a great perspective because you can see the perimeter fireworks as well. Sharing it with a group of 10 friends made it even more special.
Some may agree or disagree, but we thought the Hoop De Doo Review was terrific. It kept us laughing most of the show. We thought it was very well done. The food was ok, but to be honest I wouldn't book this dinner show again for the food. You can get the same food at a much more reasonable price next door at Trails End.
We got a lot of entertainment and enjoyment out of our day at Star Wars Weekends. We accomplished everything we set out to do for on Saturday. About our only complaint was the final show of the day. The Hyperspace Hoopla really needs to be inside a theater. The crowd around the Jedi Training stage is not suitable for this end-of-day event. You can't get a good perspective of the show with so many guests crowded around the stage.
Food -
Most of the food this trip was good. A few standout meals in our minds were Mama Dellas at Portofino Bay, Mama Melrose and Teppan Edo. These three get the gold medal for sure. Wow! If you've read this trip report you know the Spiderman character breakfast was a real downer. The food was awful
One other observation. Food choices at the Disney buffets seem to be disappearing. This was very noticable at Chef Mickey's. I didn't notice this too much at Cape May, but Tusker House and 1900 Park Fare I also noticed a reduction in food choices. Although I still believe the dining plan provdes you with a lot of food it was nice to save a little money through the dining plan program. We are DVC members so we did not have to pay the seasonal price increase for the dining plan. Without the plan we would have paid the seasonal price increase. It saved us a bit of money. Resorts -
All of the properties we stayed at are beautiful. With the exception of our late check-in at Portofino Bay and a TV remote issue at Saratoga Springs we didn't have any problems with our stays. We really enjoyed the large rooms at Portofino Bay and Saratoga Springs (1-Bedroom). All of the pools at each resort were outstanding. The fitness centers were also well maintained and provided all the equipment I needed for a good workout. Here's how I rate the fitness centers; Saratoga Springs, Kidani Village, and the center at the Mandara Spa. Every room we checked into was clean. all of the common areas were well maintained. Portofino Bay is a beautiful property. I hiope you all agree through the photos I posted it's beautiful? I'd certainly stay there again in a heartbeat.
Transportation -
Although we had an Alamo rental car most of our stay we did use Disney transportation on occassion. It seemed to be very good. I don't recall waiting longer than 15 minutes for a bus, boat or monorail. Considering the crowd levels I find that a very positive experience. There were times at park closing or after parades when the line to get a bus was long, but even then, the busses or boats showed up on a consistant basis. That's really all you can ask of both Disney and Universal. Our rental car experience with Alamo was very good. We rarely have a problem with them, and I must say they still seem to provide the best prices when renting with them at MCO. We'll keep using them as long as they keep providing good service at the current prices.
Theme Parks -
All of the parks were well maintained. Universal seems to be having some trouble with breakdowns at Rip Ride Rockit. We consistantly saw that ride down during our time at the park. Disney's attractions consistantly ran well. We saw Test Track down once and the Yeti on EE is still not working properly (Please fix the yeti
). The construction walls inside Fantasyland did not hurt our guest experience at all. So far it hasn't affected the land too much. The early part of our trip saw few crowd issues, but the second half of our trip was full of crowds. There was a noticable pick-up in crowd levels around June 13th and 14th. I'm sure as school systems started summer breaks crowds reflected it. No big surprise there. I was very fortunate enough to speak with Dave Parfitt during our vacation. I gave him our perspective on the grand opening of the WWoHP. Dave wrote a blog about our experience. You can read his blog and our perspective here. http://www.disunplugged.com/2010/06/20/harry-potter-opening-weekend-universal-orlandos-dark-mark/I was fortunate enough to get to know Dave and become friends with him when we partnered together to run the 2009 Muddy Buddy before podcast cruise 1.0. It was nice catching up with him and I'm sure I'll see him in October or during December for PC 2.0.
Weather -
I thought we were very fortunate. The first 5 days of our trip saw fantastic weather conditions; low humidity, sunny and no precip. Once the humidity started to creep in we had afternoon showers for a couple of hours and then it would clear up for the evening. Pretty typical for Orlando.
My next trip to Orlando will be solo. I'm running in the Food & Wine 5K through the Magic Kingdom on October 1st. I hope everyone enjoyed the photos and perspective. Posting live photos from the parks and resorts is pretty cool. I find it amazing the mobile technology has evolved to the point where you can post photos within seconds to this site. When the 4G network and smartphones becomes more sophisticated it may even move to recorded video within seconds or even live video. Wouldn't that be cool. I hope more DISers with IPhones/smartphones can post live photos too. We can all benefit from it. It's another way we can get our Disney/theme park fix while we wait patiently for our next Orlando vacation.
Thanks to everyone who met up with us during this trip. It was great seeing and speaking with all of you. To those who we missed; hopefully we'll see you in the future. Until next time I'll keep in touch with you right here on the DIS!
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