Trip Report Darth Vader and family's april vacation

So, my trip has been in the making for a couple of years as I needed to save a bloat load of money for this trip.

Well, the week came and went and here's a synopsis of what we enjoyed

Summary:
9 day trip (day 10 is a true travel day). Details of our trip is below but before I delve into that, I wanted to touch on some observations.
1. The Polynesian resort is awesome, my kids loved the pool, and we ended up there nearly every night.
2. The buses were not horrible, maybe we were just lucky, but we usually have to wait quite bit and at times get a second bus, because of people on motor scooters and their entourage (sometimes large), not so this time.
3. Lift/Minnievans, while not cheap, they were a Godsend. We would have missed our hoop-dee-doo reservation if it weren’t for that service. We used them here and there when it made sense.
4. Disney is expensive, and it seems every time I turned around, I was getting dinged for something. My girls had mentioned that if Walt Disney appeared in 2018 and saw the state of Disneyworld, he’d be disappointed, i.e., profits first, instead of creating an environment for families
5. Mousekeeping - I know other people complained about lackluster or even poor service, but we always had top notch service. This time was the exception. We had experienced multiple days that they did not come into our room and clean it (even though we were gone early). Other days they knocked on the door at 6:00pm or later to clean the room. Additionally, on another day they just gave us towels and didn’t do anything else (we didn't ask for towels, they just showed up to do it and instead just gave us towels). I’ll be sure to mention this during a survey that I’m sure to get. I’m a little bummed out that a deluxe resort as the poly would have such poor service.

... more to follow

 

[DarthVader]

Day 0
Drive to Albany NY: We had planned to drive to Albany instead of flying out of Boston, due to the excessive cost of flights out of Boston since we’re in April vacation. The plan was to leave at 6:00pm, well 6:00pm turned in to 7:30. Thanks to members here we were going to partake of a Park Sleep Fly offer so we arrived in Albany around 11:00pm at the Best Western. A decent (not great) hotel.

Day 1.
Shuttle to the airport was nondescript, the flight thankfully was also uneventful. One odd note, was that JetBlue asked for volunteers to gate check their carry on. My wife volunteered to gate check her bag, yet we then found out that we were not to get the bag at the gate in Orlando (as was the case before), but at baggage pickup - so much for enjoying the benefits of MDE. My wife scoffed at my mention that we’d arrive at the resort at 8:00pm (we touched down at 5:30pm) but after waiting waiting a solid half hour for that one bag, she was less sure. We walked to terminal B for MDE and after checking in we waited an extremely long time for a bus - well over 40 minutes. We NEVER waited that long before, and we weren’t the only ones complaining or waiting a long time.

Arrival at the Poly was just before 8:00pm, and of course I had to say I told you so . Our room was expansive, and instantly I was thankful to upgrade from a studio (one bed, one sleeper sofa) given what I saw. My kids packed bathing suits in their carry on and after eating went right to the pool.

 

[DarthVader]

Day 2.
Trip to MK. We arrived at the park at 8:50, just before the “rope drop” and boy was the park crowded. We enjoyed our fast passes, and the Orlando heat made it very interesting for our family You see we left Boston with temps in the low 30s. (I know crazy, its april) and it was actually snowing back home. The heat was a bit much for my kids and this was going to be an ongoing issue for our stay. One daughter had great difficulty with the heat which slowed down our plans.

Dinner at the Whispering Canyon was “interesting”, the food was good, though a bit pricey, and the yelling, such as for ketchup was “loud” I wasn’t really into the cacophony, but my kids seemed to enjoy it. The wilderness lodge was wonderful, and I want to stay there in the future, however the kids were unimpressed. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Day 3.
Animal Kingdom:

FOP was amazing, and intensive, I could not believe how intense that ride was, this certainly raised the bar for future rides. The standby line was consistently 140 minutes, Even as great as that ride was, I’m of the opinion that no ride is worth standing in line for 2+ hours - especially in Orlando heat. Other then FOP, I was underwhelmed by the Pandora land. With just two rides, and fairly small area in a square footage sense, there’s just not much to see. Visually what was there was stunning, don’t get me wrong, but there wasn’t enough of it, I guess

Mount Everest - this is the first time that my kids went on the Everest roller coaster and they absolutely loved the ride. So much so, they used my wife’s and mine fast passes to go on the ride a second time.

Hoop Dee Doo - always an enjoyable show, however they have a new group of actors and I think the prior actors did a better job. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good show, but I did prefer the other ones. Food was bordering on excessive (in a good way), and I waddled out fully stuffed.

I'll post more later...

 

[DarthVader]

Day 4.
Epcot
As I noted in another thread, I was very frustrated by the fact that we had to go through a security checkpoint at the Poly’s monorail and to go through another checkpoint at Epcot. Based on some responses there’s some very simple solutions, but disney doesn’t seem interested in doing that. My wife started going bagless because of that, the wait was excessive - It added like 40 minutes.

The flowers were amazing, Disney certainly does a great job and Epcot was popping with color

Soarin ride was underwhelming - at least for my kids now that they did FOP, but its one of my wife’s favorite ride. I treated my kids to a henna tattoo that sadly barely lasted the week - a hundred dollars down the drain. . My kids enjoyed the countries more then they had previously, though the heat prevented us staying there too long. Plus a major storm front was inbound so we we wanted to be sure we didn’t get caught in that so we headed to the exit, but we went onto the Mexico ride first which sadly caused us to be in the middle of the storm. Dinner reservations later that evening was at BOG and MK was quite empty thanks to the torrential downpours that were scheduled to continue through 8:00pm
.

Day 5
AK - 2nd visit.
We decided to go on the standby for the Navi River ride, the wait was 65 minutes or 85 I forget exactly. Sadly the wait was well over 2 hours, which frustrated us to no end. Part of the problem is the prior day’s storm front cleared out the heat and so we’re in shorts and t-shirts waiting, and it was down right cold. We weren’t the only ones shivering, the temps were in the mid/high 50s, which is a far cry from the mid to high 80s the prior day. Anyways, we waited to what was a very disappointing ride. All of us got off the ride scratching our heads, in that we waited 2+ hours for that? Overall as I mentioned above, Pandora is disappointing, and this ride just reinforces that idea.

Thanks to the Park Hopper, we had reservations at the Rose and Crown, this is one of my favorite places to eat and so this was definitely a high point in the day


Day 6
MK - 2nd visit.
Temps continue to be unseasonably cool, no complaints at this point. Warmer then day 5, but not anywhere near the mid 80s. We went on the Pirates ride, and I noticed the auction section was changed to be much more politically correct. I really didn’t understand the change, not why they changed it, but rather what they changed it too. The new scene doesn’t seem to make sense, at least to me. Buzz Lightyear and 7 dwarves were our other fast passes and my kids loved those. We got to the park early enough to race to Splash mountain, though it was closed in the morning. Luckily it was opened later in the day

.

 

[DarthVader]

Day 7
Blizzard beach
High temps returned today, just in time for the water park, and my kids loved blizzard beach. Not much to say about this, other then how quickly the umbrella and cabana rentals disappeared. We failed to get to the water park at 10:00am and so we lost out on either rental. We still found a fairly secluded spot that was shady for the majority of the day. No picks today since we packed lightly due to the water.

Day 8
Epcot - 2nd visit.
We learned from our prior mistakes and this time, we made sure that no one had any bags, so we could streamline our trip. We went on the Frozen ride, thanks to our fast pass, while cute and interesting, I thought the maelstrom ride was better, but I guess I’m old school. I was surprised at the excessive line for spaceship earth. Its a nice ride, don’t get me wrong, its definitely a must do ride, but man alive I can’t recall seeing lines that long for that ride. We had planned on only spending 1/2 the day at Epcot and then travel to Disney springs, but the day just got away from us as we enjoyed the entire day. That’s not to say it was without issues. We waited 45+ minutes on a line for the Nemo ride, only to be turned away because the ride broke down. The standby estimate was 20 minutes and we were right at the merge of the fast passes and standby lines. We were waiting in the dark a very long time, until they finally closed the ride.

We walked over to Figment and we had some time to kill before our lunch reservation at the Italian restaurant, and as luck would have it, the ride broke down while we were on it. We were stuck in the car, no way to leave. Thankfully The ride finally started and we ran to Italy, just making our reservations.

Disney Springs,
All I can say about this is , WOW, I’ve not see this since the renovations and its mind blowing with what Disney did. I was a bit bummed out that the World of disney is a fraction of what it used to be, but the rest of the area is awesome. We only visited a tiny portion of Disney Springs. We’ll have to return there on another trip.

 

[DarthVader]

Day 9
MK 3rd visit.
We went on some different rides, like a full train ride, and Ariel’s grotto, but our fast passes were our favorite rides. This being our last day of vacation and all. So we all enjoyed thunder Mountain, 7 dwarves and space mountain.

We went to Huck Finn island and enjoyed a peaceful walk, took some snapshots of the mine train, and then headed on to the Disney train and went around the park. It was definitely a low key but extremely enjoyable visit.

Lunch at Tony’s was surprisingly slow, and the waiter gave us a bit of grief, when I told him, that my kids (12 years old) want kids meals. He didn’t want to do that as “policy”. I told him, its a waste of food for my kids and a waste of money. He went to ask his manager, after an excessive wait, he returned and said he was able to give us a one time variance. Now let me say that I have ordered a kids meal for myself at the whispering canyon, and my kids all week ordered kids meals both QS and TS, and this is the first time someone gave us some trouble on this.

Lunch was later in the day and after watching the 3:00pm parade and do some shopping we retired to our resort to pack

Our farewell dinner was at Chef Mickey and while its a pricey endeavor (being a buffett), it was top notch. I absolutely love Chef Mickey, and it was such an enjoyable time. A great way to end our vacation on a high note

 

[DarthVader]

Day 10
Travel day (no pics)
Got up at 6:00am, finshed packing, took the MDE to the airport. Thankfully this time we didn't wait a long time for the bus. We sprung for the extra-legroom for JetBlue and I think I'll do this everytime for the trip home, as it includes TSA pre-checks and so that made life a lot easier to get through.

Touched down around 2:10, got the luggage and called Best Western for the shuttle (to pick up our car). They said it will be there in 10 minutes. 15 minutes later, I called again and they told be he'll be right there. Waited another 15 minutes, I was about to call yet again, but he showed up. 30 minute wait for a shuttle that is less then 2 miles from the airport was frustrating.

The drive home was nondescript and we finally arrived home at 6:30pm. A 12 hour travel day, and being as such we were very tied.

Epilogue.
Just looking at the room charges that hit my credit card, and at the risk of being premature, expenses were down compared to what I budgted. Magic band expenses (primiarly food), was only 1,250. I paid some dinners from my debit card, so I'd say meals were probably under 2k. Based on what I read here, I was half expecting 3,000 for meals, even though I budgeted 2,000 for meals. We did cancel some reservations but overall we did just about everything we had hoped.

My kids are already asking to plan for the next Disney vacation, this time at the beach club - sigh. I've raised my girls on a champagne taste, but I'm on a beer budget.

I'm debating whether to go in 2020, or 2021. The latter will be a huge celebration, but that translates into huge crowds. I may opt for an extended weekend trip to do one a RunDisney race, but that's up in the air at the moment.

I'm thankful to God that I'm blessed to be able to visit Disney, and thankful that we had no major issues in travelling or during our stay.

all in all this was a great vacation and its a wrap, now back to reality

 

[James J]

Day 9
MK 3rd visit.
We went on some different rides, like a full train ride, and Ariel’s grotto, but our fast passes were our favorite rides. This being our last day of vacation and all. So we all enjoyed thunder Mountain, 7 dwarves and space mountain.

We went to Huck Finn island and enjoyed a peaceful walk, took some snapshots of the mine train, and then headed on to the Disney train and went around the park. It was definitely a low key but extremely enjoyable visit.
View attachment 279543View attachment 279545View attachment 279544



Lunch at Tony’s was surprisingly slow, and the waiter gave us a bit of grief, when I told him, that my kids (12 years old) want kids meals. He didn’t want to do that as “policy”. I told him, its a waste of food for my kids and a waste of money. He went to ask his manager, after an excessive wait, he returned and said he was able to give us a one time variance. Now let me say that I have ordered a kids meal for myself at the whispering canyon, and my kids all week ordered kids meals both QS and TS, and this is the first time someone gave us some trouble on this.

Lunch was later in the day and after watching the 3:00pm parade and do some shopping we retired to our resort to pack

Our farewell dinner was at Chef Mickey and while its a pricey endeavor (being a buffett), it was top notch. I absolutely love Chef Mickey, and it was such an enjoyable time. A great way to end our vacation on a high note
View attachment 279546View attachment 279547View attachment 279548

Love Mickey photobombing behind Goofy!

 

[DarthVader]

Love Mickey photobombing behind Goofy!

That was so awesome.

 

[MinnieM123]

Sounds like you and your family had a fun vacation, overall. The only two things that surprised me were the slow (or lack of) housekeeping for your room at the Poly (good lord, how much do they charge there per night??!! ), and also your mixed impressions of Pandora. From all reviews of FOP, it's an exciting ride, not to be missed. Great that you got to experience that. The Navi River ride seems to be split into two camps--people either love it or hate it. Unusual that a ride evokes such opposite reviews. (I haven't been to Pandora, so can't comment.)

Enjoyed your trip notes, and also enjoyed your photos. Your kids are cute--I love the pictures from Chef Mickey's in particular! Glad you and the family also arrived home safely.

 

[DarthVader]

(good lord, how much do they charge there per night??!! )

Exactly, we're paying an absurb amount of money, and yet, I got better housekeeping service at a Disney value resort. I was not too happy about it.

all reviews of FOP, it's an exciting ride

Oh, perhaps I worded my review awkardly, FOP was awesome, it definitely raised the bar, Navi River on the other hand was meh.

 

[MinnieM123]

Exactly, we're paying an absurb amount of money, and yet, I got better housekeeping service at a Disney value resort. I was not too happy about it.


Oh, perhaps I worded my review awkardly, FOP was awesome, it definitely raised the bar, Navi River on the other hand was meh.

Oh, no problem at all--I actually did realize you liked FOP , but not the Navi River. I was just making a comparison in the comments from many others who had experienced both. FOP was an overall winner with park guests, and the River was a bust for about 50% of the comments I read.

Glad you got to experience both though.

 

[winstongator]

Mount Everest - this is the first time that my kids went on the Everest roller coaster and they absolutely loved the ride. So much so, they used my wife’s and mine fast passes to go on the ride a second time.
.

How many people share FP+ like this? Asking for a friend.

 

[DarthVader]

How many people share FP+ like this? Asking for a friend.

No idea, but we've been doing this for years. For instance, my wife doesn't like space mountain, so I hang with her and let me girlies use our magic bands. Before FP+ it was a lot easier as you used tickets.

 

[fractal]

Enjoyed your report - straight forward, honest, and informative!

 

[DarthVader]

Enjoyed your report - straight forward, honest, and informative!

I hope I wasn't overly negative, because it was a great vacation. Yeah there was some bumps in the road and we were definitely thown some curves, but all in all, my family and I had a great time.

I think the best thing we did, was slow down, and not try to do everything, that included cancelling a number of dinner reservations while there.

 

[joejccva71]

Great report! Ahh The Poly. Great atmosphere, great location, horrible service. It's not the first time horrible service has come from this resort. It's actually not great at the GF either. It's why I prefer Animal Kingdom Lodge and/or Beach Club.

Btw, I'm from Massachusetts as well (Newton), and will be flying out of Boston on my May 12-22 trip. Lol. Gonna be fun to change from 30-40's weather to 80's-90's. We're staying at Beach Club.

 

[Fankle]

Really enjoyed your trip report - the good and the bad. Thanks for sharing it.

 

[DoraDoug]

I really liked how honest you were in your trip report! I intentionally booked our FP+ for Navi River first so that way we can enjoy the ride for what it is and not compare it to FOP the whole time. I've heard that most people are disappointed when they ride it after FOP. That being said, any ride would have a lot to live up to if I waited 2 hours for it!

 

[joejccva71]

I really liked how honest you were in your trip report! I intentionally booked our FP+ for Navi River first so that way we can enjoy the ride for what it is and not compare it to FOP the whole time. I've heard that most people are disappointed when they ride it after FOP. That being said, any ride would have a lot to live up to if I waited 2 hours for it!

Or going to AK first before Epcot if you've never been on Soarin. If you've never done either ride, you do Soarin first and then FoP.