Here is our trip report for April 7-12th. It was 2 adults and a 7 month old son. You may or may not agree with our thoughts on the resort, but to each his own. It's our report and our opinion of the resort.
April 7th - Arrive at MCO and finally get ourselves to the DME area, after getting a little lost (wrong terminal side) Take the bus to the All Star Sports and go inside to check in (we picked up our bags so we knew we would have them before midnight) We get all checked in and ask about a package we mailed to ourselves. The woman looked lost and went in the back to look, said she didn't see it. We said ok will probably be here on Monday then. We got to our room which was in the baseball area, so you had to walk past the Touchdown rooms. We had room 8210 which was 2nd floor close to the parking lot that leads over to ASMusic. The rooms are pretty tiny, we had to struggle to get the stroller and bags in the door. The beds look to be doubles not queens, would have been better if there was only 1 bed in the room, they were really tight with 2 beds. Went into the restroom and there were sunflower seeds on the floor (which I left to see if they would be cleaned up the next day) and I looked at the 2 bottles of shampoo and 1 was a used open bottle, sitting on top of the bathmat (sorry may not be gross to some, but to me that is just wrong to leave a used open bottle for another guest to use, it was apparent that it was used, it had aout 1/4 of the bottle gone). I threw that bottle out. We went down to grab some late dinner and then headed back to go to bed.
April 8th: Easter Sunday - we were heading to MK this day, breakfast was granola bars on the go. We arrived at the park soon after it opened. We got a photopass picture as well as photos with our camera taken in front of the train station just after the girls dressed in Southern Belle dresses came out and lined up out front. We got into the park and saw Daisy Duck and Pluto signing autographs right in the front so after I got my birthday pin and Easton a 1st visit pin, we got in line for photos with both. Right before we were up, Daisy had to leave for a min as did Pluto. They came back a min or so later and we went up to have our picture taken, Easton was in awe just staring at Daisy as he held her finger, it was so cute. We decided to skip Pluto this time around, figured we would catch him later on. We started to head down Main Street and got our picture taken with the castle in site. Our first stop was Tomorrowland and Space Mountain for fastpasses for Jarett. Next stop was the Laugh Club which is a really cute addition to Tomorrowland. Went back to Space Mountain and while I fed Easton his breakfast, Jarett rode SM 2 times. We went to TTA and rode and noticed Stitch standing pretty much alone near Carousel of Progress. We only had about 2 people in front of us and then we were up. Easton was fascinated with Stitch's nose and would touch it constantly, for pictures he would hold Stitch's hand. We loved that we got to spend so much time getting pictures without anyone bothering us.
Next stop was Frontierland & Adventureland. We went to Tom Sawyer's Island andwalked around there for a bit. The wait for Pirates was at least 30 mins so we by-passed that, we went to the Tiki Room and Easton just loved the lights and seeing the birds. We grabbed lunch at Peco's while the parade was going on. We then headed back to Main Street to see about getting Easton's haircut. We had to wait about 15 mins as there was only Mikael working at the time, soon after MaryLou came in so we got her as Easton's barber. While we were waiting, a family day parade was going on right out near the shop, so watched that for a min or 2 until it was our turn for a cut. She had a little seat set up for Easton to sit on (he just started learning to sit up so it was going to be interesting, but he did great) At the end of his haircut, he got First Haircut Mickey Ears, a certificate and we received his hair in a wrapper along with pixie dust inside. (usually the pixie dust - Mickey heads and confetti, is put on people's heads, but since he is a baby it wasn't put on his head) he looked adorable as you can imagine.
We went to grab a seat for the 3:30 parade near the front of the park since we had dinner reservations at 5 over at Whispering Canyon at the Wilderness Lodge. While we had about 45 min to kill before the parade I headed to the watch shop to get my watch fixed, the guy was in that could fix it and I was all set. One of the CM's inside gave Easton a Prince for the Day sticker, which will go in his souvenior book, we headed back to my seat for the parade with Easton. They had a mini Easter parade and then the Mickey parade and when it was all over, we headed out to catch the boat to Wilderness Lodge. We got over there and to the restaurant, checked in and figured we would try just a highchair with Easton. Ordered our meals and decided to get the stroller as Easton was struggling in the highchair too much to be comfy. We forgot how noisy it is in the restaurant with the yelling and such so Easton was pretty upset through much of dinner (he doesn't care for loud noise) At one point one of the servers was next to me about to yell for the table behind us, and he moved up 2 tables so as not to yell right next to us and cause my son to cry anymore. We left there and decided to head to the boat to go back to Magic Kingdom for the extra hours. SpectroMagic was starting at 9pm so we picked a spot to watch it come down Main Street, we chose near the castle. After the parade we went to Fantasyland, as Jarett wanted to take some pics. It started to drizzle so I took Easton into some of the stores near there. He wanted to get pics of Toontown, but it was closed down, he didn't even care about the characters just wanted pics of the building, but we couldn't. We didn't ride anything in Fantasyland, so we decided to hit the Haunted Mansion. It was getting late at this point so we headed out to get back to our hotel and bed. The handle came off in my hand for the sink, put it next to the sink for mousekeeping to take care of the next day.
April 9th - We slept in later than we expected. So we decided to get some breakfast at our resort, which we just happened to luck out and get what was left of breakfast foods, we were given chocolate chip pancakes and bacon, after that they were serving lunch already. We headed to the bus to go to MGM, as did what seemed like the whole resort. It was a bit of a rainy day so had Easton's cover on his stroller and a poncho for me, Jarett wore his windbreaker. We walked around to Tower of Terror to get Jarett a fastpass, while I took Easton to see about getting a fastpass for Rockin Roller Coaster for Jarett (didn't get one as it was going to collide with dinner reservations. We planned to see the Beauty and the Beast show as well as the parade. We had time to kill so went to see the Honey playground and get some pics of Easton, things were wet so he didn't sit on much. We went to see Muppets, although we didn't plan to go this time. We walked down Mickey Avenue and went in to see Mickey at one location, got Easton's pic taken and headed to watch the parade before heading to see Beauty and the Beast and for Tower of Terror. Headed back up to the front to get to our reservations. Ate then headed to the private entrance for the Fantasmic show and walked up there for the 8:30 show. after the show we went back to our resort for bed. Mousekeeping just stuck the handle back on, didn't screw it on so it came off again.
April 10th - Poured like crazy all day, do got a late start. Stopped at the front desk to tell them about the handle for the sink, they said someone would be up later to fix it. We headed to Epcot, Jarett couldn't get on anything, everything had long waits. We got lunch at Season's in The Land. Walked around to Club Cool and Jarett took some pics of the flowers. We went to Imagination and to Honey, I Shrunk the audience. We went into the building to see Figment and got lots of interaction time with him by ourselves. Photographer was just snapping pics like crazy. We headed to the monorail to go to the Polynesian for dinner at O'hana and then to Downtown Disney to pick out Easton's ornament. We hit Nemo since earlier the lines were too long. The ride was cute but short. We proceeded to go and get pics of Easton with the sharks. Propped him up in Bruce for photopass photos and Jarett's photos. Soarin' the line was still long so since we were coming back tomorrow we didn't try to get any rides in. We went to Character Connection and saw: Minnie, Mickey, Pluto, Goofy, Chip and Dale, which by the time we reached C &D Easton had enough excitement for the day. We left to head to bed and get laundry done. Handle was not fixed on the sink
April 11th - got up at 6:30 to get to Epcot for opening, was sunny today. We got there before the gate was opened, once opened Jarett went to get his Soarin fastpasses while I stayed in the shade to feed Easton breakfast. We then headed to get him fastpasses for Mission Space and Test Track. I grabbed a danish for breakfast. Headed back to Soarin for Jarett's 2 rides. We then headed back to Mission and Test Track before heading to our lunch reservation at Le'Cellier. It was getting really hot and humid after lunch so we left and went back to our hotel to hit the pool. The baseball pool was full of people playing football and baseball and just being pretty rough with no space for a family with a baby. We headed to the main pool instead. Hit the wading pool first to get Easton use to the water then we moved to the big pool, he had fallen asleep in my arms so we stayed a while longer then went back to our room to change and go to Downtown Disney to get Easton's ornament. After walking around there for a while we went back to our hotel and grabbed some dinner. Got packing and went to bed. We had a major storm move in and at about 11 heard everyone yelling as they scrambled to get out of the pool, was pretty funny really. Finally the handle was back on the sink properly. But the sunflower seeds were still present on the floor (remember these were there when we got into the room) Jarett was upset to not find a package that he ordered in the room, he called and they still had it down at the store. He went down and got it. It was my b-day present from him.
April 12th: my b-day - We have breakfast reservations at Donald's Breakfastasurus. We head in and go to the Safari first and the wait is only about 10 mins or so, we ride the Safari and really got a good view of the animals this time. We left there and headed to breakfast. Stopped at Everest first to get the fastpass. As we ate soon the characters came out and as we were almost finished the came to our tables. So we got pics with Mickey, Donald, Pluto and Goofy. After that we headed Everest for Jarett to get his rides in, I sat near Nemo the Musical with Easton and fed him breakfast. After Jarett came to where I was, the show was getting ready to start in a little while, so we got in line to go in. We got inside and the show was really good, Easton seemed to like all the action going on. After the show we headed to Camp Minnie & Mickey. Easton fell asleep on the walk there so we let him snooze for a while before seeing the characters. We went to the walkway for Pluto and got a bunch of pics there, then went to Goofy, Minnie and finally Mickey. After we got those pics, it was quite warm out so we headed to go inside and see the Festival of the Lion King and after that we decided to head to the front to get a spot for the parade. We tried to get the spot with the most shade and it just happened to be a prime spot from what the CM's were telling me. The characters all came up to Easton and touched his hand or foot. It was really cute. After that we left to hit our resort, grab our last bite before heading to the airport on DME.
The trip was good, it was priceless to see Easton's face upon seeing the characters.
Only bad part of the trip was our resort:
- handle coming off the sink and taking days to get it fixed
- sunflower seeds on the floor in the bathroom upon check-in
- bed sheets were scratchy at our feet, they were too small for the bed
- used shampoo bottle sitting on our bath mat at check-in.
- All the noisy teenagers constantly playing ball and almost hitting people in the head as you walk by to get to the food court or buses.
- One morning the hot breakfasts were not available at all, it was all fruit or other things similar.
- They overfill the buses since it's the same bus for all 3 resorts. It's horrible when you have to share the same stop at the parks and end up standing with a baby in your arms, to finally have someone have their little kids stand up when there are teens that should be the ones to stand instead of the little kids that easily can fall down with a sudden stop. But oh well, what can you do.
Will never stay at this resort again, some may love it, but definately not us. We will go with Pop (own bus system) or a moderate or if we can swing it a deluxe instead. Sure it was Spring break, but still no reason for people to act as they did, I think some checked their brain at the desk when they checked in.
April 7th - Arrive at MCO and finally get ourselves to the DME area, after getting a little lost (wrong terminal side) Take the bus to the All Star Sports and go inside to check in (we picked up our bags so we knew we would have them before midnight) We get all checked in and ask about a package we mailed to ourselves. The woman looked lost and went in the back to look, said she didn't see it. We said ok will probably be here on Monday then. We got to our room which was in the baseball area, so you had to walk past the Touchdown rooms. We had room 8210 which was 2nd floor close to the parking lot that leads over to ASMusic. The rooms are pretty tiny, we had to struggle to get the stroller and bags in the door. The beds look to be doubles not queens, would have been better if there was only 1 bed in the room, they were really tight with 2 beds. Went into the restroom and there were sunflower seeds on the floor (which I left to see if they would be cleaned up the next day) and I looked at the 2 bottles of shampoo and 1 was a used open bottle, sitting on top of the bathmat (sorry may not be gross to some, but to me that is just wrong to leave a used open bottle for another guest to use, it was apparent that it was used, it had aout 1/4 of the bottle gone). I threw that bottle out. We went down to grab some late dinner and then headed back to go to bed.
April 8th: Easter Sunday - we were heading to MK this day, breakfast was granola bars on the go. We arrived at the park soon after it opened. We got a photopass picture as well as photos with our camera taken in front of the train station just after the girls dressed in Southern Belle dresses came out and lined up out front. We got into the park and saw Daisy Duck and Pluto signing autographs right in the front so after I got my birthday pin and Easton a 1st visit pin, we got in line for photos with both. Right before we were up, Daisy had to leave for a min as did Pluto. They came back a min or so later and we went up to have our picture taken, Easton was in awe just staring at Daisy as he held her finger, it was so cute. We decided to skip Pluto this time around, figured we would catch him later on. We started to head down Main Street and got our picture taken with the castle in site. Our first stop was Tomorrowland and Space Mountain for fastpasses for Jarett. Next stop was the Laugh Club which is a really cute addition to Tomorrowland. Went back to Space Mountain and while I fed Easton his breakfast, Jarett rode SM 2 times. We went to TTA and rode and noticed Stitch standing pretty much alone near Carousel of Progress. We only had about 2 people in front of us and then we were up. Easton was fascinated with Stitch's nose and would touch it constantly, for pictures he would hold Stitch's hand. We loved that we got to spend so much time getting pictures without anyone bothering us.
Next stop was Frontierland & Adventureland. We went to Tom Sawyer's Island andwalked around there for a bit. The wait for Pirates was at least 30 mins so we by-passed that, we went to the Tiki Room and Easton just loved the lights and seeing the birds. We grabbed lunch at Peco's while the parade was going on. We then headed back to Main Street to see about getting Easton's haircut. We had to wait about 15 mins as there was only Mikael working at the time, soon after MaryLou came in so we got her as Easton's barber. While we were waiting, a family day parade was going on right out near the shop, so watched that for a min or 2 until it was our turn for a cut. She had a little seat set up for Easton to sit on (he just started learning to sit up so it was going to be interesting, but he did great) At the end of his haircut, he got First Haircut Mickey Ears, a certificate and we received his hair in a wrapper along with pixie dust inside. (usually the pixie dust - Mickey heads and confetti, is put on people's heads, but since he is a baby it wasn't put on his head) he looked adorable as you can imagine.
We went to grab a seat for the 3:30 parade near the front of the park since we had dinner reservations at 5 over at Whispering Canyon at the Wilderness Lodge. While we had about 45 min to kill before the parade I headed to the watch shop to get my watch fixed, the guy was in that could fix it and I was all set. One of the CM's inside gave Easton a Prince for the Day sticker, which will go in his souvenior book, we headed back to my seat for the parade with Easton. They had a mini Easter parade and then the Mickey parade and when it was all over, we headed out to catch the boat to Wilderness Lodge. We got over there and to the restaurant, checked in and figured we would try just a highchair with Easton. Ordered our meals and decided to get the stroller as Easton was struggling in the highchair too much to be comfy. We forgot how noisy it is in the restaurant with the yelling and such so Easton was pretty upset through much of dinner (he doesn't care for loud noise) At one point one of the servers was next to me about to yell for the table behind us, and he moved up 2 tables so as not to yell right next to us and cause my son to cry anymore. We left there and decided to head to the boat to go back to Magic Kingdom for the extra hours. SpectroMagic was starting at 9pm so we picked a spot to watch it come down Main Street, we chose near the castle. After the parade we went to Fantasyland, as Jarett wanted to take some pics. It started to drizzle so I took Easton into some of the stores near there. He wanted to get pics of Toontown, but it was closed down, he didn't even care about the characters just wanted pics of the building, but we couldn't. We didn't ride anything in Fantasyland, so we decided to hit the Haunted Mansion. It was getting late at this point so we headed out to get back to our hotel and bed. The handle came off in my hand for the sink, put it next to the sink for mousekeeping to take care of the next day.
April 9th - We slept in later than we expected. So we decided to get some breakfast at our resort, which we just happened to luck out and get what was left of breakfast foods, we were given chocolate chip pancakes and bacon, after that they were serving lunch already. We headed to the bus to go to MGM, as did what seemed like the whole resort. It was a bit of a rainy day so had Easton's cover on his stroller and a poncho for me, Jarett wore his windbreaker. We walked around to Tower of Terror to get Jarett a fastpass, while I took Easton to see about getting a fastpass for Rockin Roller Coaster for Jarett (didn't get one as it was going to collide with dinner reservations. We planned to see the Beauty and the Beast show as well as the parade. We had time to kill so went to see the Honey playground and get some pics of Easton, things were wet so he didn't sit on much. We went to see Muppets, although we didn't plan to go this time. We walked down Mickey Avenue and went in to see Mickey at one location, got Easton's pic taken and headed to watch the parade before heading to see Beauty and the Beast and for Tower of Terror. Headed back up to the front to get to our reservations. Ate then headed to the private entrance for the Fantasmic show and walked up there for the 8:30 show. after the show we went back to our resort for bed. Mousekeeping just stuck the handle back on, didn't screw it on so it came off again.
April 10th - Poured like crazy all day, do got a late start. Stopped at the front desk to tell them about the handle for the sink, they said someone would be up later to fix it. We headed to Epcot, Jarett couldn't get on anything, everything had long waits. We got lunch at Season's in The Land. Walked around to Club Cool and Jarett took some pics of the flowers. We went to Imagination and to Honey, I Shrunk the audience. We went into the building to see Figment and got lots of interaction time with him by ourselves. Photographer was just snapping pics like crazy. We headed to the monorail to go to the Polynesian for dinner at O'hana and then to Downtown Disney to pick out Easton's ornament. We hit Nemo since earlier the lines were too long. The ride was cute but short. We proceeded to go and get pics of Easton with the sharks. Propped him up in Bruce for photopass photos and Jarett's photos. Soarin' the line was still long so since we were coming back tomorrow we didn't try to get any rides in. We went to Character Connection and saw: Minnie, Mickey, Pluto, Goofy, Chip and Dale, which by the time we reached C &D Easton had enough excitement for the day. We left to head to bed and get laundry done. Handle was not fixed on the sink
April 11th - got up at 6:30 to get to Epcot for opening, was sunny today. We got there before the gate was opened, once opened Jarett went to get his Soarin fastpasses while I stayed in the shade to feed Easton breakfast. We then headed to get him fastpasses for Mission Space and Test Track. I grabbed a danish for breakfast. Headed back to Soarin for Jarett's 2 rides. We then headed back to Mission and Test Track before heading to our lunch reservation at Le'Cellier. It was getting really hot and humid after lunch so we left and went back to our hotel to hit the pool. The baseball pool was full of people playing football and baseball and just being pretty rough with no space for a family with a baby. We headed to the main pool instead. Hit the wading pool first to get Easton use to the water then we moved to the big pool, he had fallen asleep in my arms so we stayed a while longer then went back to our room to change and go to Downtown Disney to get Easton's ornament. After walking around there for a while we went back to our hotel and grabbed some dinner. Got packing and went to bed. We had a major storm move in and at about 11 heard everyone yelling as they scrambled to get out of the pool, was pretty funny really. Finally the handle was back on the sink properly. But the sunflower seeds were still present on the floor (remember these were there when we got into the room) Jarett was upset to not find a package that he ordered in the room, he called and they still had it down at the store. He went down and got it. It was my b-day present from him.
April 12th: my b-day - We have breakfast reservations at Donald's Breakfastasurus. We head in and go to the Safari first and the wait is only about 10 mins or so, we ride the Safari and really got a good view of the animals this time. We left there and headed to breakfast. Stopped at Everest first to get the fastpass. As we ate soon the characters came out and as we were almost finished the came to our tables. So we got pics with Mickey, Donald, Pluto and Goofy. After that we headed Everest for Jarett to get his rides in, I sat near Nemo the Musical with Easton and fed him breakfast. After Jarett came to where I was, the show was getting ready to start in a little while, so we got in line to go in. We got inside and the show was really good, Easton seemed to like all the action going on. After the show we headed to Camp Minnie & Mickey. Easton fell asleep on the walk there so we let him snooze for a while before seeing the characters. We went to the walkway for Pluto and got a bunch of pics there, then went to Goofy, Minnie and finally Mickey. After we got those pics, it was quite warm out so we headed to go inside and see the Festival of the Lion King and after that we decided to head to the front to get a spot for the parade. We tried to get the spot with the most shade and it just happened to be a prime spot from what the CM's were telling me. The characters all came up to Easton and touched his hand or foot. It was really cute. After that we left to hit our resort, grab our last bite before heading to the airport on DME.
The trip was good, it was priceless to see Easton's face upon seeing the characters.
Only bad part of the trip was our resort:
- handle coming off the sink and taking days to get it fixed
- sunflower seeds on the floor in the bathroom upon check-in
- bed sheets were scratchy at our feet, they were too small for the bed
- used shampoo bottle sitting on our bath mat at check-in.
- All the noisy teenagers constantly playing ball and almost hitting people in the head as you walk by to get to the food court or buses.
- One morning the hot breakfasts were not available at all, it was all fruit or other things similar.
- They overfill the buses since it's the same bus for all 3 resorts. It's horrible when you have to share the same stop at the parks and end up standing with a baby in your arms, to finally have someone have their little kids stand up when there are teens that should be the ones to stand instead of the little kids that easily can fall down with a sudden stop. But oh well, what can you do.
Will never stay at this resort again, some may love it, but definately not us. We will go with Pop (own bus system) or a moderate or if we can swing it a deluxe instead. Sure it was Spring break, but still no reason for people to act as they did, I think some checked their brain at the desk when they checked in.
