Dancind
Tinkerbell's Mom
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2001
Just back Wednesday from our annual Mom & Daughter Back to School trip, and we had a terrific time! Yes, it was hot, hot, hot, and crowded, and we were very close to a lightning strike in DTD, but we met up with DIS friends for the last half of our trip and had a great time anyway. Some notes below are slightly negative, but were the only negatives. We had some great meals, especially the sushi at California Grill.
We checked in on July 25, after taking ME from the airport. I think we got to the resort about 4:30, making good time after our 3:30 landing. Waiting in line to check in, I noticed that there were three CM's working the desk, but one was on the end kind of hiding behind another one. I tried to catch her eye several times, but she was acting like she couldn't see me. She wasn't doing anything, so I kept trying. Finally, she called me over. The studio she assigned sounded like it might be smoking, so I asked her. "Oh no, it's not a smoking room!" Then she hustled us out of there. You know the rest, it was! I was pretty mad about having to go back, but at least they didn't charge me for cleaning. I wrote down this lady's name, I will have to try and find it now. I think it may have been the last studio available (obviously, they didn't block ours off), because I heard something about "corporate room override" while they were trying to find me another room. They gave us 161, which is the room you see when you walk in the door by the single elevator, with a patio right next to the road. I thought it would be really noisy, but was so tired it didn't bother me the first night, so we cancelled a request to move (with a $35 cleaning fee quote!). It did bother me later in the week.
The room was nice, no problems, and all the other CMs were very nice. The new selections in the gift shop were all good, and it was nice to be able to fill a mug there. Very busy at all hours though! They have a separate station for picking up packages, which was an excellent idea.
Bus service was pretty good except for Downtown Disney. We made three trips there for shopping and PI, and it was always at least half hour wait to get a bus, then it was standing room only. If you go in the morning and come back in the afternoon, you get to stop at both Boardwalk and Typhoon Lagoon BOTH ways.
I will repeat what another poster said about SAB, they were NOT enforcing the wrist bands, and the pool was packed to capacity. We had a very hard time finding chairs. I sat by the slide exit pool one afternoon and watched people stroll in with their towels and swimsuits under their clothes from Epcot, they were even allowed down the slide! Seems like it would be easy enough to turn away people without wrist bands on the slide at least.
We had one really, really bad waitress at Prime Time. We have never gotten a "fun" waiter, but this one was just terrible. We had to resort to sticking our hands out to stop her when she would run by our table. On the other hand, we ate at Cape May twice, and the servers there are wonderful. Dottie was a real sweetheart, she even thanked me for giving her my DDE card, and she applied the discount to our entire party of 12!
After being lazy for most of the trip, we decided to get to some parks at opening the last five days or so. We went to MK Saturday morning, since they had late EMH on Friday. We were amazed to get on Peter Pan in 10 minutes, and did most of the Fantasyland rides within 30 minutes with no wait! We hadn't done any of these since DD was little, and she's 14 now! After that, we walked on Buzz, got Fastpasses with an early time for Stitch, had breakfast, did Stitch, and we left about 11:30, just as the crowds started rolling in. I highly recommend this strategy!
We did attend the DVC party at PI, and thought it was really nice. DD got a Goofy balloon that was quite amazing, we got to be in the trivia game, we tried and tried to win a monkey at the carnival game (no luck), had a Mickey bar, the kids danced a little, a good time was had by all. We used the wrist bands, too, and went to the Comedy Warehouse and Adventurer's Club.
Those are the highlights. I'll check back for questions!
We checked in on July 25, after taking ME from the airport. I think we got to the resort about 4:30, making good time after our 3:30 landing. Waiting in line to check in, I noticed that there were three CM's working the desk, but one was on the end kind of hiding behind another one. I tried to catch her eye several times, but she was acting like she couldn't see me. She wasn't doing anything, so I kept trying. Finally, she called me over. The studio she assigned sounded like it might be smoking, so I asked her. "Oh no, it's not a smoking room!" Then she hustled us out of there. You know the rest, it was! I was pretty mad about having to go back, but at least they didn't charge me for cleaning. I wrote down this lady's name, I will have to try and find it now. I think it may have been the last studio available (obviously, they didn't block ours off), because I heard something about "corporate room override" while they were trying to find me another room. They gave us 161, which is the room you see when you walk in the door by the single elevator, with a patio right next to the road. I thought it would be really noisy, but was so tired it didn't bother me the first night, so we cancelled a request to move (with a $35 cleaning fee quote!). It did bother me later in the week.
The room was nice, no problems, and all the other CMs were very nice. The new selections in the gift shop were all good, and it was nice to be able to fill a mug there. Very busy at all hours though! They have a separate station for picking up packages, which was an excellent idea.
Bus service was pretty good except for Downtown Disney. We made three trips there for shopping and PI, and it was always at least half hour wait to get a bus, then it was standing room only. If you go in the morning and come back in the afternoon, you get to stop at both Boardwalk and Typhoon Lagoon BOTH ways.
I will repeat what another poster said about SAB, they were NOT enforcing the wrist bands, and the pool was packed to capacity. We had a very hard time finding chairs. I sat by the slide exit pool one afternoon and watched people stroll in with their towels and swimsuits under their clothes from Epcot, they were even allowed down the slide! Seems like it would be easy enough to turn away people without wrist bands on the slide at least.
We had one really, really bad waitress at Prime Time. We have never gotten a "fun" waiter, but this one was just terrible. We had to resort to sticking our hands out to stop her when she would run by our table. On the other hand, we ate at Cape May twice, and the servers there are wonderful. Dottie was a real sweetheart, she even thanked me for giving her my DDE card, and she applied the discount to our entire party of 12!
After being lazy for most of the trip, we decided to get to some parks at opening the last five days or so. We went to MK Saturday morning, since they had late EMH on Friday. We were amazed to get on Peter Pan in 10 minutes, and did most of the Fantasyland rides within 30 minutes with no wait! We hadn't done any of these since DD was little, and she's 14 now! After that, we walked on Buzz, got Fastpasses with an early time for Stitch, had breakfast, did Stitch, and we left about 11:30, just as the crowds started rolling in. I highly recommend this strategy!
We did attend the DVC party at PI, and thought it was really nice. DD got a Goofy balloon that was quite amazing, we got to be in the trivia game, we tried and tried to win a monkey at the carnival game (no luck), had a Mickey bar, the kids danced a little, a good time was had by all. We used the wrist bands, too, and went to the Comedy Warehouse and Adventurer's Club.
Those are the highlights. I'll check back for questions!
