I'm back from our week long (actually 9 days, 8 nights) trip to WDW.
Travel:
As some may know, we headed to WDW during our kid's April vacation and I was having a lot of issues with airfares during that time. The Boston area (including NH and RI) had airfare in the 4 to 6,000 dollar range for a family of 4. Thanks to the advice here at WDWmagic, we drove to Albany. It was a 3 hour drive, and a 3+ hour fight. Given everything that is included for traveling and accommodating the schedule, the day was completely lost. We left Boston at 8:30am, and arrived in Disney around 8:00pm. The drive wasn't bad at all, but I was surprised a little worried that the long term parking was full, and the economy lot was nearly at capacity. Prior advice was mentioned that it never fills up. We were lucky enough to get a spot without further stress.
The Resorts:
Our first night we stayed at the Pop Century, because our plans changed after making the Contemporary reservation and given the late our of our arrival it didn't seem to make sense to book another night that the Contemporary, but rather a value resort. I always wanted to try out the Pop, and it was a great resort. The food court was top notch, full of selection and lots of registers to move us long. The pool and theming was awesome.
For the rest of the vacation we stayed at the Contemporary, specifically the concierge level, and boy were we blown away by the level of service and free "snacks" Those free snacks saved us a lot of money. Most mornings we ate breakfast there and so on average we saved 40 dollars a breakfast. I think overall, given that we ate some dinners there, we saved close to 500 dollars on meal costs. I budged 2,000 for meals and we came in at the 700 dollar mark which is amazing..
Conversely, the Contempo Cafe was largely a disappointment, not only was it rather small for a resort of the Contemporary's size, but the setup of ordering at the cash register was rather odd for a Disney Deluxe resort. The selection was incredibly restricted compared to every other resort we stayed at. Overall, there was no motivation to eat there at all, unlike other resorts.
The parks:
Overall, the parks were not as crowded as I was worried about. MK of course was full, but not as much as I expected. Wait time for most of the rides were in the 40 minute mark, expect for the 7 dwarves and Space Mountain. A handful of times we got in a ride that was 20 minutes or under, including the pirates.
I was pleasantly surprised at how much HS kept my attention, with the major refurbishments going on, I thought we'd blow through the park in a couple of hours, but we stayed the entire day. The Star Wars Launch bay was particuarly a fun spot to spend time. We ate dinner at the Sci Fi and were largely disappointed with the place. its not our first visit there, but it was the worst experience. The food was fine, but the waiter was the issue, he refused to allow our kids to change green beans to potatoes because disney kids meals are balanced (hey we're on vacation and we're the parents). He also took 15 minutes to research an issue that my wife raised, leaving us just sitting there.
Epcot was nice, with the flower show going on. Crowd wise, it was not heavily populated and while Soarin was closed, we found a lot of other things to do.
Misc.
I was at Disney during the Dark Side 1/2 marathon so when registration opened up, I signed up. Kind of a pricey 1/2 marathon. I usually pay about 70 bucks for races of that length, but this was 200. Another bummer is that I had to get up at 2:30am to head to Epcot. Nothing like getting a few hours sleep just before running 13 miles. Overall it was an experience - one of which I think I'll avoid. I had fun, don't get me wrong, but man there were over 18,000 racers, and that was just too many for my liking. The first 5k split was 40 minutes. I stopped trying to have a good run time, and pulled off to get my picture taken given that there was no way I'd have a great run time.
Summarize
To end this, I have to say this was probably our best Disney vacation, The Contemporary stay increased our level of enjoyment, by more then I thought it would (for the money we spent). The parks were not as crowded as I thought they'd be for April and I had fun running my 1/2. My kids were wicked disappointed in heading home which is a mark of a great vacation
Travel:
As some may know, we headed to WDW during our kid's April vacation and I was having a lot of issues with airfares during that time. The Boston area (including NH and RI) had airfare in the 4 to 6,000 dollar range for a family of 4. Thanks to the advice here at WDWmagic, we drove to Albany. It was a 3 hour drive, and a 3+ hour fight. Given everything that is included for traveling and accommodating the schedule, the day was completely lost. We left Boston at 8:30am, and arrived in Disney around 8:00pm. The drive wasn't bad at all, but I was surprised a little worried that the long term parking was full, and the economy lot was nearly at capacity. Prior advice was mentioned that it never fills up. We were lucky enough to get a spot without further stress.
The Resorts:
Our first night we stayed at the Pop Century, because our plans changed after making the Contemporary reservation and given the late our of our arrival it didn't seem to make sense to book another night that the Contemporary, but rather a value resort. I always wanted to try out the Pop, and it was a great resort. The food court was top notch, full of selection and lots of registers to move us long. The pool and theming was awesome.
For the rest of the vacation we stayed at the Contemporary, specifically the concierge level, and boy were we blown away by the level of service and free "snacks" Those free snacks saved us a lot of money. Most mornings we ate breakfast there and so on average we saved 40 dollars a breakfast. I think overall, given that we ate some dinners there, we saved close to 500 dollars on meal costs. I budged 2,000 for meals and we came in at the 700 dollar mark which is amazing..
Conversely, the Contempo Cafe was largely a disappointment, not only was it rather small for a resort of the Contemporary's size, but the setup of ordering at the cash register was rather odd for a Disney Deluxe resort. The selection was incredibly restricted compared to every other resort we stayed at. Overall, there was no motivation to eat there at all, unlike other resorts.
The parks:
Overall, the parks were not as crowded as I was worried about. MK of course was full, but not as much as I expected. Wait time for most of the rides were in the 40 minute mark, expect for the 7 dwarves and Space Mountain. A handful of times we got in a ride that was 20 minutes or under, including the pirates.
I was pleasantly surprised at how much HS kept my attention, with the major refurbishments going on, I thought we'd blow through the park in a couple of hours, but we stayed the entire day. The Star Wars Launch bay was particuarly a fun spot to spend time. We ate dinner at the Sci Fi and were largely disappointed with the place. its not our first visit there, but it was the worst experience. The food was fine, but the waiter was the issue, he refused to allow our kids to change green beans to potatoes because disney kids meals are balanced (hey we're on vacation and we're the parents). He also took 15 minutes to research an issue that my wife raised, leaving us just sitting there.
Epcot was nice, with the flower show going on. Crowd wise, it was not heavily populated and while Soarin was closed, we found a lot of other things to do.
Misc.
I was at Disney during the Dark Side 1/2 marathon so when registration opened up, I signed up. Kind of a pricey 1/2 marathon. I usually pay about 70 bucks for races of that length, but this was 200. Another bummer is that I had to get up at 2:30am to head to Epcot. Nothing like getting a few hours sleep just before running 13 miles. Overall it was an experience - one of which I think I'll avoid. I had fun, don't get me wrong, but man there were over 18,000 racers, and that was just too many for my liking. The first 5k split was 40 minutes. I stopped trying to have a good run time, and pulled off to get my picture taken given that there was no way I'd have a great run time.
Summarize
To end this, I have to say this was probably our best Disney vacation, The Contemporary stay increased our level of enjoyment, by more then I thought it would (for the money we spent). The parks were not as crowded as I thought they'd be for April and I had fun running my 1/2. My kids were wicked disappointed in heading home which is a mark of a great vacation
