*Edit: As of 1/23/2017, all identifiable photos of our traveling party have been deleted, for privacy reasons. I hope the TR still makes sufficient sense without them. 
This will be an unpolished, rough-and-ready trip report -- just a quick overview of our touring each day, along with thoughts on our resort (Caribbean Beach Resort, staying in Trinidad North, Building 32) and the places we dined (TS dinners: Skipper Canteen at MK, Boma: Flavors of Africa at AKL, Akershus Royal Banquet Hall at Epcot, Restaurant Marrakesh at Epcot, The Crystal Palace at MK, Hoop-de-Doo Musical Revue at FW, Ohana at the Poly; and CS lunches: Anandpur Local Café at AK, Liberty Inn at Epcot, Pecos Bill at MK, Columbia Harbor House at MK, PizzeRizzo at HS, and Be Our Guest at MK). Members of our party included me, DH, our son (10) and daughter (8), all from upstate NY and with our last visit to WDW having taken place in May 2014, and my mother-in-law, a native New Yorker who now lives in the southernmost regions of Texas and hasn't been to WDW in about 10 years. We all stayed together in the same room, with a split stay arrangement that gave us 6 days' worth of the "free" DDP (although we had to upgrade to parkhoppers and a preferred room to be eligible, making it more like a 40% discount on the DDP instead of a "free" offer -- still, better than a stick in the eye, right?)
Day 1 (Monday, November 14, 2016) – Planes, Trains and Automobiles: Arrival Day at the Caribbean Beach Resort
Per our usual practice (CONFESSION: after some bad experiences with checked luggage back when I used to travel frequently for business, I am obsessed with "packing light"), we were traveling carryon only and had packed just half of the clothes we needed (along with a laundry bag, detergent pods and dryer sheets, so I could do laundry mid-week). Each of us had a 21” rolling suitcase (DH’s and mine held each of our clothes, sandals and toiletries, one kid’s suitcase had both childrens’ clothes and sandals, and one child’s suitcase had our breakfast foodstuffs, glow sticks, ponchos, and other miscellany). For personal items, I had a tote bag containing travel documents, camera, electronics and earbuds, medications and the tiny crossbody purse that would be my park bag, while DH had a backpack with our pre-packed lunches for the flight, the kids’ autograph books, and reading materials. (Note: that backpack of his would be his park bag, and carrying it seemed to ensure that he got "randomly selected for additional screening" at every park, every time!) Even with only 4 carryons and 2 personal items between the four of us, there were still things we didn’t use/wear, yet all over the airport and at our resort we saw families who seemed to have a lot of “excess baggage” – e.g., a family of four grappling with a luggage cart containing two huge pieces of checked-size luggage, half a dozen maximum-sized carryons and an assortment of backpacks, tote bags, shopping bags and garment bags that made them look more like refugees than carefree vacationers! I’m always amazed by how to one family, overpacking helps to reduce stress (feeling prepared for any eventuality), while to others, like mine, overpacking would do nothing but add stress. Ah well - variety is the spice of life!
After our initial, short flight from Syracuse and a 3-hour layover at JFK (during which we changed from jeans to shorts), we landed in Orlando slightly ahead of schedule, just before 1pm. My mother-in-law, who was flying in from Texas, landed shortly thereafter, and we met her as she emerged from the monorail to the terminal at 1:30pm. After some hugs and catching up, we proceeded together to the Magical Express Welcome Center and were loaded directly onto a nearly-full bus bound for Caribbean Beach Resort, among others. We were the first stop, so before 2:30pm I was standing at the check-in desk. I had thought that our split stay (one night room-only at CBR followed by 6-night room+tix+dining package, still at CBR) might make check-in complicated, but within 5 minutes the CM had checked us in, confirmed that we wouldn’t need to change rooms, activated our tickets, made Fastpasses for us at the Magic Kingdom for that afternoon, and given me the full run-down of instructions for the next morning (when I would need to return to the Custom House to check us out and check us back in). Our room in Trinidad North was not yet ready. I would get a text ten minutes later that it was, but by then we’d left our bags with Bell Services, stepped across the road to the Barbados bus stop, and hopped a bus for the Magic Kingdom.
One thing I noticed on the bus to MK – on that day and every day thereafter – was a welcome rebirth of common courtesy. My mother-in-law appears perfectly healthy and looks far younger than her 78 years, even though her hips bother her quite a bit. Regardless, even though DH, the kids and I found ourselves standing up on fully-packed buses nearly 50% of the time, my mother-in-law was almost never left standing. Even on packed buses with weary late-night travelers, some nice individual – everyone from a 20-something hipster girl to a middle-aged man with a veteran’s cap – would always offer her their seat without even being asked. In fact, it seemed like everywhere we went, people were just a little more chatty and friendly and tolerant of one another than I remember from previous trips. Nobody was rolling their eyes or complaining about the imminent delay when scooters rolled up to the bus stops, and none of us were rammed by the strollers or elbows of overly-aggressive guests trying to push their way through crowds in the parks, even during the rope drop rush. I don’t know if it’s the fallout from an election season that has been hurtful and traumatic in some way for nearly everyone, or whether we just got lucky, but it seemed like other guests were just kinder to one another this time around, which in turn, made our whole experience that much more pleasant.
We arrived in the Magic Kingdom around 3:30pm – just 2 hours after our party had met up at the airport – and toured Adventureland and Frontierland, using Fastpasses for the Jungle Cruise (God bless the CM who let us use our Jungle [Jingle] Cruise FP+ 15 minutes early in order to get us to our dinner ADR on time – “makin’ some Disney magic,” as he put it), Splash Mountain and POTC, and doing Swiss Family Treehouse, the Tiki Room, the Country Bears and Magic Carpets of Aladdin in standby.
We had a delicious dinner at the Skipper Canteen, seated in the attractively-appointed Adventurer’s Club room. We split the falafel appetizer, which everyone enjoyed even though none of us had ever tried falafel before. The diced tomatoes and red onions with which it was garnished added plenty of flavor, although the onions were so strong that we could still taste them the next morning! I had the duck noodle bowl, which was exactly the kind of flavorful comfort food I had hoped it would be. My husband had the steak and enjoyed it, as well. (I don’t recall what anyone else had – my duck noodles and I were in a world of our own and I had been too excited to sleep the night before, so I was running on fumes at that point.) We really appreciated how different the menu was from the typical homogenized in-park fare, and would gladly eat at Skipper Canteen again. Next time I resolve to try the whole fried fish! The only negative was that at the end of the meal, we had go outside the restaurant to use a restroom and wash up, because the Ladies’ Room inside was closed due to some massive overflow from one of the toilets. “Bathroom issues” became a running theme, in fact – several times during the week we encountered restrooms that had been temporarily closed due to similar problems, which climaxed with a visit to the Custom House ladies’ room at CBR on check-out day, where we discovered a fetid, jet-black puddle, four feet in diameter and growing, that was bubbling out of the central floor drain and creeping ominously across the floor. (My husband and son reported that the same thing was happening at that moment in the mens’ room.) We saw a CM rushing to the scene moments later, alerted by a previous guest, but it was a sight that was not easily forgotten, especially if one has ever seen the B-movie horror classic, “The Blob.”
We left the Magic Kingdom around 8pm to get settled in our room. My MIL had put a yellow DME luggage tag on her checked bag when she checked it at the airport that morning in Texas, and much to her relief, it was there waiting for her. We called Bell Services and the rest of our bags were delivered about 40 minutes later (albeit with the handle of my husband's carryon torn completely off!!! I'd have complained vociferously had I not paid $28 for that bag when I bought it 4 years and 6 trips ago). Once we had our bags, unpacking and settling into the room took only a few minutes, by which time the kids had already donned PJs and were crawling willingly into bed. Everything but the sink faucets (which leaked water onto the counter every time you turned them on) was clean and in good working order, and the beds and pillows were very comfortable. Even the bathroom fan worked, which is something that seems to be broken in 90% of the hotel rooms we’ve ever stayed in. Mousekeeping did a great job and left adorable vignettes made up of our kids’ stuffed animals each day, although we discovered on a couple of our “relaxed morning” days that if we didn’t leave the room until after 11:00am, it wouldn’t get cleaned at all. (Apparently our mousekeeper’s schedule only allowed for a single stop mid-morning, with no opportunity to return later – that, or our cute customized Pinterest-inspired tip envelopes just weren’t sufficiently impressive to entice a second visit.) Although there were five of us in the room, we found the space to be sufficient for all of us and our things, and I was happy to see that even with the Murphy bed down, there was ample space to walk around it, so we weren’t bumping into it in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom. (I did bring a set of collapsible hanging organizer shelves for the closet area which held all of the kids’ clothes and swimwear and even some of mine, which made up for the fact that we couldn’t really use the drawers under the Murphy bed, since it was down all the time.)
Overall, we really enjoyed CBR, although our feelings might have been different had we not been constrained to stay in a “preferred” room close to Old Port Royale (food court/gift shop/feature pool) in order to be eligible for free dining, or if we’d had to visit the Custom House more than twice. (I walked to the Custom House early on the morning of our second day to do check-in/out for our split stay, and we walked there with our luggage on our last day to check out. Both trips were a scenic walk, but having to go that far was frankly a pain-in-the-tush, and there was no other option as the internal resort shuttle wasn’t running before 7am. Should you find yourself in the same situation, note that you won’t find any signage for Custom House if you’re trying to walk there from inside the resort – instead, just walk to Barbados and follow the signs to the Barbados bus stop, from which you’ll be able to see the Custom House across the road, and then walk across the road to it. Also, we learned that you can now take carryons with you on the internal resort shuttle, which I don’t believe was the case in days past.)
The resort is good-sized, although that size helps communicate the laid-back Caribbean theme. We also found the bus service to and from the parks to be outstanding. Never before have we had a Disney stay that didn’t include at least one anomalous, 40-60 minute wait for a bus. This time around, we virtually never had to wait for a bus – either at the resort, or at a park – for more than 10 minutes, and our average wait was probably closer to 5 minutes. Just one time we had to wait 15 minutes, and we’d been so spoiled by the short previous waits that it felt like an eternity! Even when the bus arrival screens in the CBR depot for Trinidad North indicated that our bus wouldn’t arrive for 20-30 minutes, an “unadvertised” bus to our destination would always pull up long before that time. While it’s true that the resort has more bus depots than any other (7 stops), those depots are only about a minute away from one another, so it never felt like we were wasting a lot of time on the bus, even though we were the next-to-last stop coming and going. (As someone else recently noted on here, do keep the bus routes in mind when making a request for a village, if you are relying on bus transportation. For us, Jamaica was always the first pick-up and first drop-off to/from all of the parks, followed by Aruba, Barbados, Martinique, Old Port Royale, Trinidad North and Trinidad South.) After staying at CBR, I’d recommend it to anyone. The only negatives we found were the far-flung location of the Custom House, and the equally far-flung location of the Magic Kingdom CBR bus stop (#32 – near the extreme end of the third bus loop), which was one heck of a long walk, especially by the time of our 4th and 5th visits to the MK…
This will be an unpolished, rough-and-ready trip report -- just a quick overview of our touring each day, along with thoughts on our resort (Caribbean Beach Resort, staying in Trinidad North, Building 32) and the places we dined (TS dinners: Skipper Canteen at MK, Boma: Flavors of Africa at AKL, Akershus Royal Banquet Hall at Epcot, Restaurant Marrakesh at Epcot, The Crystal Palace at MK, Hoop-de-Doo Musical Revue at FW, Ohana at the Poly; and CS lunches: Anandpur Local Café at AK, Liberty Inn at Epcot, Pecos Bill at MK, Columbia Harbor House at MK, PizzeRizzo at HS, and Be Our Guest at MK). Members of our party included me, DH, our son (10) and daughter (8), all from upstate NY and with our last visit to WDW having taken place in May 2014, and my mother-in-law, a native New Yorker who now lives in the southernmost regions of Texas and hasn't been to WDW in about 10 years. We all stayed together in the same room, with a split stay arrangement that gave us 6 days' worth of the "free" DDP (although we had to upgrade to parkhoppers and a preferred room to be eligible, making it more like a 40% discount on the DDP instead of a "free" offer -- still, better than a stick in the eye, right?)
Day 1 (Monday, November 14, 2016) – Planes, Trains and Automobiles: Arrival Day at the Caribbean Beach Resort
Per our usual practice (CONFESSION: after some bad experiences with checked luggage back when I used to travel frequently for business, I am obsessed with "packing light"), we were traveling carryon only and had packed just half of the clothes we needed (along with a laundry bag, detergent pods and dryer sheets, so I could do laundry mid-week). Each of us had a 21” rolling suitcase (DH’s and mine held each of our clothes, sandals and toiletries, one kid’s suitcase had both childrens’ clothes and sandals, and one child’s suitcase had our breakfast foodstuffs, glow sticks, ponchos, and other miscellany). For personal items, I had a tote bag containing travel documents, camera, electronics and earbuds, medications and the tiny crossbody purse that would be my park bag, while DH had a backpack with our pre-packed lunches for the flight, the kids’ autograph books, and reading materials. (Note: that backpack of his would be his park bag, and carrying it seemed to ensure that he got "randomly selected for additional screening" at every park, every time!) Even with only 4 carryons and 2 personal items between the four of us, there were still things we didn’t use/wear, yet all over the airport and at our resort we saw families who seemed to have a lot of “excess baggage” – e.g., a family of four grappling with a luggage cart containing two huge pieces of checked-size luggage, half a dozen maximum-sized carryons and an assortment of backpacks, tote bags, shopping bags and garment bags that made them look more like refugees than carefree vacationers! I’m always amazed by how to one family, overpacking helps to reduce stress (feeling prepared for any eventuality), while to others, like mine, overpacking would do nothing but add stress. Ah well - variety is the spice of life!
After our initial, short flight from Syracuse and a 3-hour layover at JFK (during which we changed from jeans to shorts), we landed in Orlando slightly ahead of schedule, just before 1pm. My mother-in-law, who was flying in from Texas, landed shortly thereafter, and we met her as she emerged from the monorail to the terminal at 1:30pm. After some hugs and catching up, we proceeded together to the Magical Express Welcome Center and were loaded directly onto a nearly-full bus bound for Caribbean Beach Resort, among others. We were the first stop, so before 2:30pm I was standing at the check-in desk. I had thought that our split stay (one night room-only at CBR followed by 6-night room+tix+dining package, still at CBR) might make check-in complicated, but within 5 minutes the CM had checked us in, confirmed that we wouldn’t need to change rooms, activated our tickets, made Fastpasses for us at the Magic Kingdom for that afternoon, and given me the full run-down of instructions for the next morning (when I would need to return to the Custom House to check us out and check us back in). Our room in Trinidad North was not yet ready. I would get a text ten minutes later that it was, but by then we’d left our bags with Bell Services, stepped across the road to the Barbados bus stop, and hopped a bus for the Magic Kingdom.
One thing I noticed on the bus to MK – on that day and every day thereafter – was a welcome rebirth of common courtesy. My mother-in-law appears perfectly healthy and looks far younger than her 78 years, even though her hips bother her quite a bit. Regardless, even though DH, the kids and I found ourselves standing up on fully-packed buses nearly 50% of the time, my mother-in-law was almost never left standing. Even on packed buses with weary late-night travelers, some nice individual – everyone from a 20-something hipster girl to a middle-aged man with a veteran’s cap – would always offer her their seat without even being asked. In fact, it seemed like everywhere we went, people were just a little more chatty and friendly and tolerant of one another than I remember from previous trips. Nobody was rolling their eyes or complaining about the imminent delay when scooters rolled up to the bus stops, and none of us were rammed by the strollers or elbows of overly-aggressive guests trying to push their way through crowds in the parks, even during the rope drop rush. I don’t know if it’s the fallout from an election season that has been hurtful and traumatic in some way for nearly everyone, or whether we just got lucky, but it seemed like other guests were just kinder to one another this time around, which in turn, made our whole experience that much more pleasant.
We arrived in the Magic Kingdom around 3:30pm – just 2 hours after our party had met up at the airport – and toured Adventureland and Frontierland, using Fastpasses for the Jungle Cruise (God bless the CM who let us use our Jungle [Jingle] Cruise FP+ 15 minutes early in order to get us to our dinner ADR on time – “makin’ some Disney magic,” as he put it), Splash Mountain and POTC, and doing Swiss Family Treehouse, the Tiki Room, the Country Bears and Magic Carpets of Aladdin in standby.
We had a delicious dinner at the Skipper Canteen, seated in the attractively-appointed Adventurer’s Club room. We split the falafel appetizer, which everyone enjoyed even though none of us had ever tried falafel before. The diced tomatoes and red onions with which it was garnished added plenty of flavor, although the onions were so strong that we could still taste them the next morning! I had the duck noodle bowl, which was exactly the kind of flavorful comfort food I had hoped it would be. My husband had the steak and enjoyed it, as well. (I don’t recall what anyone else had – my duck noodles and I were in a world of our own and I had been too excited to sleep the night before, so I was running on fumes at that point.) We really appreciated how different the menu was from the typical homogenized in-park fare, and would gladly eat at Skipper Canteen again. Next time I resolve to try the whole fried fish! The only negative was that at the end of the meal, we had go outside the restaurant to use a restroom and wash up, because the Ladies’ Room inside was closed due to some massive overflow from one of the toilets. “Bathroom issues” became a running theme, in fact – several times during the week we encountered restrooms that had been temporarily closed due to similar problems, which climaxed with a visit to the Custom House ladies’ room at CBR on check-out day, where we discovered a fetid, jet-black puddle, four feet in diameter and growing, that was bubbling out of the central floor drain and creeping ominously across the floor. (My husband and son reported that the same thing was happening at that moment in the mens’ room.) We saw a CM rushing to the scene moments later, alerted by a previous guest, but it was a sight that was not easily forgotten, especially if one has ever seen the B-movie horror classic, “The Blob.”
We left the Magic Kingdom around 8pm to get settled in our room. My MIL had put a yellow DME luggage tag on her checked bag when she checked it at the airport that morning in Texas, and much to her relief, it was there waiting for her. We called Bell Services and the rest of our bags were delivered about 40 minutes later (albeit with the handle of my husband's carryon torn completely off!!! I'd have complained vociferously had I not paid $28 for that bag when I bought it 4 years and 6 trips ago). Once we had our bags, unpacking and settling into the room took only a few minutes, by which time the kids had already donned PJs and were crawling willingly into bed. Everything but the sink faucets (which leaked water onto the counter every time you turned them on) was clean and in good working order, and the beds and pillows were very comfortable. Even the bathroom fan worked, which is something that seems to be broken in 90% of the hotel rooms we’ve ever stayed in. Mousekeeping did a great job and left adorable vignettes made up of our kids’ stuffed animals each day, although we discovered on a couple of our “relaxed morning” days that if we didn’t leave the room until after 11:00am, it wouldn’t get cleaned at all. (Apparently our mousekeeper’s schedule only allowed for a single stop mid-morning, with no opportunity to return later – that, or our cute customized Pinterest-inspired tip envelopes just weren’t sufficiently impressive to entice a second visit.) Although there were five of us in the room, we found the space to be sufficient for all of us and our things, and I was happy to see that even with the Murphy bed down, there was ample space to walk around it, so we weren’t bumping into it in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom. (I did bring a set of collapsible hanging organizer shelves for the closet area which held all of the kids’ clothes and swimwear and even some of mine, which made up for the fact that we couldn’t really use the drawers under the Murphy bed, since it was down all the time.)
Overall, we really enjoyed CBR, although our feelings might have been different had we not been constrained to stay in a “preferred” room close to Old Port Royale (food court/gift shop/feature pool) in order to be eligible for free dining, or if we’d had to visit the Custom House more than twice. (I walked to the Custom House early on the morning of our second day to do check-in/out for our split stay, and we walked there with our luggage on our last day to check out. Both trips were a scenic walk, but having to go that far was frankly a pain-in-the-tush, and there was no other option as the internal resort shuttle wasn’t running before 7am. Should you find yourself in the same situation, note that you won’t find any signage for Custom House if you’re trying to walk there from inside the resort – instead, just walk to Barbados and follow the signs to the Barbados bus stop, from which you’ll be able to see the Custom House across the road, and then walk across the road to it. Also, we learned that you can now take carryons with you on the internal resort shuttle, which I don’t believe was the case in days past.)
The resort is good-sized, although that size helps communicate the laid-back Caribbean theme. We also found the bus service to and from the parks to be outstanding. Never before have we had a Disney stay that didn’t include at least one anomalous, 40-60 minute wait for a bus. This time around, we virtually never had to wait for a bus – either at the resort, or at a park – for more than 10 minutes, and our average wait was probably closer to 5 minutes. Just one time we had to wait 15 minutes, and we’d been so spoiled by the short previous waits that it felt like an eternity!
Even when the bus arrival screens in the CBR depot for Trinidad North indicated that our bus wouldn’t arrive for 20-30 minutes, an “unadvertised” bus to our destination would always pull up long before that time. While it’s true that the resort has more bus depots than any other (7 stops), those depots are only about a minute away from one another, so it never felt like we were wasting a lot of time on the bus, even though we were the next-to-last stop coming and going. (As someone else recently noted on here, do keep the bus routes in mind when making a request for a village, if you are relying on bus transportation. For us, Jamaica was always the first pick-up and first drop-off to/from all of the parks, followed by Aruba, Barbados, Martinique, Old Port Royale, Trinidad North and Trinidad South.) After staying at CBR, I’d recommend it to anyone. The only negatives we found were the far-flung location of the Custom House, and the equally far-flung location of the Magic Kingdom CBR bus stop (#32 – near the extreme end of the third bus loop), which was one heck of a long walk, especially by the time of our 4th and 5th visits to the MK…
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