Let me just start by saying that the title of this report has me just as surprised as you. In fact, as I said multiple times to my husband on the ride home, I am almost a little ashamed by it. But, the long and short of it is, Universal far exceeded our expectations. For a brief summary of what lead to this trip, and what we had planned, take a quick stop over at the pre-trip report here. Now... on with the show!
Day 1 - Drive & Check-In To All Star Music
Somehow, despite never really having succeeded with this in the past, we managed to keep this trip a secret from our son right up until the moment we were ready to walk out the door. Keeping to our typical Monday morning schedule, I woke Aaron at 5:50am to get him ready for school. I got him dressed, got his breakfast, and he sat down at his computer (as he usually does) to play some games before it was time to head out. At 6:30, when I would typically tell him it was time to shut down and leave, I instead said "Oh! Before we go, I found this super cool video on YouTube that you need to see!" As he shutdown his laptop, I quickly made the video I had uploaded as hidden, public, and handed him the iPad to click play. Here's what he saw:
Here's his reaction:
And with that... we were on our way! We jumped into the car (which of course we had already packed the night before) and headed out at exactly the time I wanted to be pulling out of the driveway (6:35).
The drive went incredibly well. With Aaron's diagnosis, I really didn't know what to expect this time. The last trip was like living in one of those typical family vacation skits where the kid asks every 5-minutes if you are there yet, despite there being 7-hours left to the trip. Couple that knowledge with the fact that we were taking my husband's Camaro, which had just been outfitted with a new, loud, exhaust system that has a lovely drone at high speeds, I was prepared for the worst 8 hour drive of my life. Turns out, I made two very smart decisions in prepping for this trip...
We completed online check-in, providing all the required information to be able to skip the lobby, in the hopes that when we arrived our room would be ready and we could head there after our long drive. About 10-minutes after we hit Orlando, the text came in that our room was ready and we could do just that. Such an awesome change to the check-in system!
This is where things start to go a bit downhill as far as our Disney experience is concerned. Now, those of you that know me know that Disney is my life. I tend to be one of those annoying people that finds the positive in everything Disney is doing or has done, and have forever said that if you think anything is better than a Disney vacation, you aren't a true fan. I apologize in advance to you that are like me in that way because frankly, this part of our week was so very very "meh."
All Star Music
First thought upon driving to the parking area for our building...
Now, I had done my very very best to book this trip in a way that purposely avoided this sort of thing but, upon arriving to our parking lot and finding it had been completely blocked off to allow for masses of buses filled with teenage cheerleaders, I immediately knew I had failed.
Making things worse, as we arrived, the sky had become ominously dark and sure enough, as soon as we began to unpack the car and prepare for what was quite a long walk to our room (because the closest lot was blocked), it started to drizzle. We knew we had to make this happen fast!
As we made the trek from our car to the location of our room, we quickly realized we had been placed quite literally as far from the lobby as one could possibly be. We were in building 5, on the back end facing nothing but a swamp with signs saying to watch for gators/snakes. Given I knew that was fully on me (because I chose the resort and room type), I tried not to think about how much that would suck after a long day when my feet were tired and instead focused on how quiet it would be (right?).
Just as we got everything inside the room, the skies opened up and it began to pour. We spent a few minutes unpacking, donned our ponchos and prepared to make the walk to the food court to pick up our mugs and enjoy a little snack.
Literally, our only plans for this day were to chill out, and then head to Boma for dinner. The rain definitely helped to make sure we stuck to that. A little after 6:00, we piled into the car and headed toward Animal Kingdom Lodge. It was here that we immediately realized Boma is a much better deal when you have the regular Dining Plan. Stupidly, it hadn't dawned on me to look into just how much it was per person, especially with Aaron now being an adult as far as Disney is concerned. After tax and tip this meal came to $177 for the three of us, and that was with Aaron barely eating (a theme we dealt with throughout the trip - which came with a fair amount of irony given at home we can't get the kid to stop eating). Anyway, here is what my first trip to the buffet looked like:
The food was definitely good, but I don't know that it is something we'll do again. It wasn't quite as impressive as I had built it up to be in my head and, after that bill, I can't say it was worth it.
After Boma we headed back to our room. It wasn't until we got there that I realized I had made a big mistake in booking at a value resort... or at least, this one specifically. We hadn't stayed at an All Star resort in years. It was so long ago that Aaron was tiny and thus sharing a bed with him wasn't a problem. When I made the reservations, I somehow had forgotten just how tiny the beds were. I'm positive they aren't Queen sized... they must be Full? Either way, the size of the bed, coupled with the fact that the beds are in HORRIBLE shape (can feel/hear the springs, there are huge divots, very little actual padding left, etc.)... Bill and I didn't get much sleep our three nights at ASMu.
(Day 2 to Follow)
Day 1 - Drive & Check-In To All Star Music
Somehow, despite never really having succeeded with this in the past, we managed to keep this trip a secret from our son right up until the moment we were ready to walk out the door. Keeping to our typical Monday morning schedule, I woke Aaron at 5:50am to get him ready for school. I got him dressed, got his breakfast, and he sat down at his computer (as he usually does) to play some games before it was time to head out. At 6:30, when I would typically tell him it was time to shut down and leave, I instead said "Oh! Before we go, I found this super cool video on YouTube that you need to see!" As he shutdown his laptop, I quickly made the video I had uploaded as hidden, public, and handed him the iPad to click play. Here's what he saw:
Here's his reaction:
And with that... we were on our way! We jumped into the car (which of course we had already packed the night before) and headed out at exactly the time I wanted to be pulling out of the driveway (6:35).
The drive went incredibly well. With Aaron's diagnosis, I really didn't know what to expect this time. The last trip was like living in one of those typical family vacation skits where the kid asks every 5-minutes if you are there yet, despite there being 7-hours left to the trip. Couple that knowledge with the fact that we were taking my husband's Camaro, which had just been outfitted with a new, loud, exhaust system that has a lovely drone at high speeds, I was prepared for the worst 8 hour drive of my life. Turns out, I made two very smart decisions in prepping for this trip...
- Purchasing a pair of active noise cancelling headphones that did an amazing job of making the sound of the car disappear.
- Setting up a hotspot on my phone for Aaron's iPad to connect to.
We completed online check-in, providing all the required information to be able to skip the lobby, in the hopes that when we arrived our room would be ready and we could head there after our long drive. About 10-minutes after we hit Orlando, the text came in that our room was ready and we could do just that. Such an awesome change to the check-in system!
This is where things start to go a bit downhill as far as our Disney experience is concerned. Now, those of you that know me know that Disney is my life. I tend to be one of those annoying people that finds the positive in everything Disney is doing or has done, and have forever said that if you think anything is better than a Disney vacation, you aren't a true fan. I apologize in advance to you that are like me in that way because frankly, this part of our week was so very very "meh."
All Star Music
First thought upon driving to the parking area for our building...
Now, I had done my very very best to book this trip in a way that purposely avoided this sort of thing but, upon arriving to our parking lot and finding it had been completely blocked off to allow for masses of buses filled with teenage cheerleaders, I immediately knew I had failed.
Making things worse, as we arrived, the sky had become ominously dark and sure enough, as soon as we began to unpack the car and prepare for what was quite a long walk to our room (because the closest lot was blocked), it started to drizzle. We knew we had to make this happen fast!
As we made the trek from our car to the location of our room, we quickly realized we had been placed quite literally as far from the lobby as one could possibly be. We were in building 5, on the back end facing nothing but a swamp with signs saying to watch for gators/snakes. Given I knew that was fully on me (because I chose the resort and room type), I tried not to think about how much that would suck after a long day when my feet were tired and instead focused on how quiet it would be (right?).
Just as we got everything inside the room, the skies opened up and it began to pour. We spent a few minutes unpacking, donned our ponchos and prepared to make the walk to the food court to pick up our mugs and enjoy a little snack.
Literally, our only plans for this day were to chill out, and then head to Boma for dinner. The rain definitely helped to make sure we stuck to that. A little after 6:00, we piled into the car and headed toward Animal Kingdom Lodge. It was here that we immediately realized Boma is a much better deal when you have the regular Dining Plan. Stupidly, it hadn't dawned on me to look into just how much it was per person, especially with Aaron now being an adult as far as Disney is concerned. After tax and tip this meal came to $177 for the three of us, and that was with Aaron barely eating (a theme we dealt with throughout the trip - which came with a fair amount of irony given at home we can't get the kid to stop eating). Anyway, here is what my first trip to the buffet looked like:
The food was definitely good, but I don't know that it is something we'll do again. It wasn't quite as impressive as I had built it up to be in my head and, after that bill, I can't say it was worth it.
After Boma we headed back to our room. It wasn't until we got there that I realized I had made a big mistake in booking at a value resort... or at least, this one specifically. We hadn't stayed at an All Star resort in years. It was so long ago that Aaron was tiny and thus sharing a bed with him wasn't a problem. When I made the reservations, I somehow had forgotten just how tiny the beds were. I'm positive they aren't Queen sized... they must be Full? Either way, the size of the bed, coupled with the fact that the beds are in HORRIBLE shape (can feel/hear the springs, there are huge divots, very little actual padding left, etc.)... Bill and I didn't get much sleep our three nights at ASMu.
(Day 2 to Follow)
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I absolutely love walking around there!
