Feb 9-15 Port Orleans RS Trip Report

DisneyDugger · Feb 17, 2004

Day 3 - Magic Kingdom

Day 3 – Wednesday Feb 11 - EPCOT
Temp 82, overcast with sunny periods. Forecasted rain but it never came.

Again we arrived at 9am and didn’t take advantage of the EE. Headed over to Mission Space for a FP but walked right on as a Single. Another wow experience! But I did get motion sickness and was queasy for an hour afterwards. Then we all tried GM Test Track and Ellen’s Energy. I convinced the kids to go back and try Mission Space with me again and they loved it. I just threw-up internally! I thought the second time around would be easier – not. Then we headed over to The Land for lunch and did the rides/ shows in there. Then walked around the east side of World Showcase. We left early after Spaceship Earth (the big Golf ball) for a swim back at PO because we were getting tired and hungry. Dinner at Boatwright’s. Good food but nothing spectacular. (I never did get there for breakfast and the Stuffed Banana Waffles :-( .We then headed back down to DQuest to end off the night.

Day 4 – Thurs Feb 12 - Magic Kingdom
Same weather as yesterday. Again they were calling for rain but it never came.

Missed the EE again! First Character Breakfast at Crystal Palace for 10:10am. Good buffet selection and lots of characters for pic’s. Spent the day mostly at Adventureland, Frontierland, Liberty Square, and Fantasyland. Then did all the rides like Swiss Tree, Jungle Cruise, Pirates, Magic carpets, Splash M, Goofy’s Jamboree, Haunted Mansion, etc… Saw the 3pm parade which was a little weird as a CM was killed merely a day before in that freak float accident. The weird part was the parade went on as if nothing had happened at all. Sort of that “the show must go on” mentality.

Then another Character Dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern for dinner at 5:30pm which was by far the best meal we had all week. Great old fashioned Thanksgiving Buffet served to your table. The PS timing was perfect because we finished up at 6:40pm and headed off to the Castle to find a spot for the Fireworks show. Another WOW experience. The best fireworks we had ever seen!

Then back to the hotel for a swim and relax. Our feet are pretty sore by this point and I’ve got a few small blisters on my toes!

Day 5 – Friday Feb 13 - Animal Kingdom

Cool temp around 75 and overcast. Rain pending.
Finally managed to get everybody out of bed and at the park by 8am!! This just proves that God does answer prayer! Straight away to the K.Safari and it was great to see a lot of animals. Our truck driver/guide was really funny and played-up the whole story line. The kids were right into it! Actualy did it again later in the day but the second time is never as good as the first.

Character Breakfast at Donalds Breafastsarous with Mickey and Pluto. The waiter there was excellent with magic tricks for the kids. Pulled the old ketchup in your face gag on my wife. Really got her! Then on to Tough to be a Bug, Rafiki’s Planet Watch, Indiana Jones, etc… All of the 3D movies in each park were well made. Saw the 4pm parade right at the Camp Minney Entrance so we could then dash onto the last showing of the Lion King Musical to close out the day at AK.

Dinner at The Rainforest Café in DD. Yet another WOW experience. We had never ever heard of Rainforest so what a surpprize when we walked in. UNBELIEVABLE. We all went ape in excitement! Thank goodness we had reservations because it was a 1.5hr waiting line to get in (after all it was Friday night). Closed out the night at DQuest again.

Probably the best day of the week. Everything was just brilliant.

Day 6 – Saturday Feb 14 - Shopping and Blizzard Beach

Forecast of rain finally materialized by 10am. It was a light on/off type of rain. We were suppose to go to Kennedy Space Centre and Cocoa Beach for our off-property day but we changed it to go shopping at Belz Outlet Mall and then to Disney’s Blizzard Beach water park. Good decision to stay out of the 4 Parks because we heard they were very busy as it was the start of the Presidents Day weekend.

Shopping at the two Character Stores in Belz Malls was a bit of a let-down. No real deals there except on discontinued clothing with “…2003…” written on them, only small sizes, or really bad looking shirts that nobody would buy. We did find some cheap pins to trade later with CM’s back at Disney. Had lunch at McDonalds – first meal under $70 all week – only $28! (By the way – your food is more expensive than here in Canada, both groceries and fast food).

Head to BB for the afternoon. It was practically empty and we just ran back and forth from the chairlift to the rides for three solid hours !

And for the grand finale to our Valentines Day we had a Character Dinner at the Grand Floridian 1900 Park Fair with Cinderella, Prince Charming, and a few side kick characters. Princess Aurora was also there as an added bonus.

Then back down to DQuest for our last evening at Disney. It was packed because of the rain.

Day 7 – Sunday Feb 15 – Kennedy Space Centre and Cocoa Beach

Well we just couldn’t get out of bed on this day. We were content to just go about the morning a little slower knowing that we weren’t going to any parks, and that we had to check out of the room by 11am. So much for getting to KSC!

PO had us on the express check-out payment option where they just bill your Visa automatically. When I picked up the invoice off the door handle they had me charged for $70 for the fridge. I went to Guest Services and they corrected it but good thing I looked at the invoice.

We then headed out to do our free round of mini-golf at Fantasia Gardens. That Package free-bee option was worth $46 for us and it was great bang for the buck. It was also a lot of fun given that none of us golf much.

At 12pm the sun finally broke through to a gorgeous day and we then headed off to Cocoa Beach along the Atlantic Coastline. We said good bye to Disney in the rear-view mirror with a happy tear, and then really cried at each toll booth along the Highways! We don’t have tolls here in Ontario so to fork out a buck every 20 miles seemed upsetting.

Had lunch on the Cocoa Beach Peir and then relaxed on the beach and swam in the sweet salt of the ocean. It was our kids first time and they enjoyed it. Then at 4pm we headed back to Orlando airport, dropped off the car and flew out at 7pm.

Return to Ontario with 10 degree temp (-22 Celcius).

It truly was a great vacation. It had every component of what a good vacation should have – thrills and shrills, R&R, great food, a comfortable room, and easy on the wallet – well not that easy!

We’ll be back. Not sure when but ….

Oh ya, FYI - we met 4 separate friends while there from back home. Wonderful freaky coincidences.

AND our only major disappointment was with the lack of service from the PO Fulton’s Store Manager. One of our Park purchase packages did not arrive back to the Resort which included special pirate items only found in Pirate of the Caribbean gift shop. Disney staff had three days and three attempts to rectify the replacement of the items and failed each time. Finally they offered to mail the items to us or have the money refunded. In hoping the items would arrive by the last day we waited it out, but ended up having to refund the money. Our son’s heart was broken to have to go home without the items. I ended complaining to the Manager at Fulton’s and she only offered to mail them to us. But that wasn’t the point. My complaint was they promised for three days to rectify a simple problem within 24 hours and failed to do so. They could have sent somebody over to MK and gotten the items personally instead of relying on the Disney courier system. In the end the Manager barely offered an apology and did nothing to compensate my son for the poor service. Even a couple of Disney Dollars would have offered some condolence for him but she offered nothing more. A poor approach to ensuring the customer is happy. A bitter experience to have on our last day.

Other than that and not accommodating our initial room request, everything else was great.

I think that's it.

I welcome any of your comments.

Cheers

surfsupdon · Feb 17, 2004

Thanks for adding your report.

I'm looking into Liberty Tree Tavern as a character dining dinner. I'd like the home cooked meal feel with all the vegetables. And I've heard that it is a fun experience. You mentioned it was the best meal of your trip, is it safe to say that the price was good for everything? Only b/c character meals are expensive and some locations don't get great reviews.

But glad your trip was enjoyable. I enjoyed the report.

DisneyDugger · Feb 17, 2004

Originally posted by surfsupdon
I'm looking into Liberty Tree Tavern as a character dining dinner. I'd like the home cooked meal feel with all the vegetables. And I've heard that it is a fun experience. You mentioned it was the best meal of your trip, is it safe to say that the price was good for everything? Only b/c character meals are expensive and some locations don't get great reviews.

Yes it was well worth the $22 per adult. They do offer to bring as many seconds as you wish but the first helping was plenty for us. You get all three of beef, turkey and pork lion for meats along with mashed potatoes, garlic seasoned green beans, awesome stuffing, and a few other main entree items.The beef seasoning is really good. The cherry crisp dessert with icecream was a perfect finish.

I wouldn't say the service was anything extrordinarily special but they are in traditional Yankee Doodle era clothing and our server was pleasant. Throw in the photo op's with the characters and it makes for a nice dinner.

Try for a PS that times well with the closing Fireworks show!

cherrynegra · Feb 17, 2004

That was an excellent report Dugger. Felt like I was there. You certainly did a lot of character meals. I didn't do any when I was there last Dec because I didn't have any kids. But I think this year I'll just go anyway. Kids or none. Heck. I'm a kid. That should count.

DisneyDugger · Feb 17, 2004

Originally posted by cherrynegra
You certainly did a lot of character meals. I didn't do any when I was there last Dec because I didn't have any kids. But I think this year I'll just go anyway. Kids or none. Heck. I'm a kid. That should count.

Go for it!!

Yes we maybe went a little overbaord with the Character meals as we did 4 through out the week. A little expensive but we wanted to try out as many things as possible with the kids. I probably would only do 1 or maybe 2 next time as the kids will be older and probably won't be into the Character thing as much.

aim · Feb 17, 2004

:sohappy: Great report! I just ate at Liberty Tree on Christmas Eve. I loved it! I'm not a fan of the characters always there though, lol, but the food was yummy! The salad was the best I've ever had at WDW! It was sooo good! The dessert was good too!

JBSLJames · Feb 18, 2004

"Medical Fridge" free? For drugs that must remain refridgerated, I assume. Like Insulin. I know my wife needs a diet coke each morning, so would that classify as medicine??

DisneyDugger · Feb 18, 2004

Originally posted by JBSLJames
"Medical Fridge" free? For drugs that must remain refridgerated, I assume. Like Insulin. I know my wife needs a diet coke each morning, so would that classify as medicine??

Apparently Disney will provide a very small "medical" fridge for free. I never did see one but others have said it might hold about 2 cans of pop but not a small bottle of water (too tall).

You might try our approach and ask for one and then hope they give you a room with a normal bar fridge. It holds quite a bit: even a 2L bottle of pop and five water bottles on the door. It also has a small freezer compartment. The fridge is the same size as what you get in camping pop-up tent trailers.

JBSLJames · Feb 18, 2004

Thanks for the tip. You never can tell.

Zipadeedoodah · Feb 18, 2004

Great trip report...thanks for adding it! One question...how were the crowds while you were there. I have a trip planned for Feb 27-March 2 (9 more days!:sohappy: ) Hopefully the crowds won't be bad.
:wave:

DisneyDugger · Feb 18, 2004

Originally posted by Zipadeedoodah
Great trip report...thanks for adding it! One question...how were the crowds while you were there. I have a trip planned for Feb 27-March 2 (9 more days!:sohappy: ) Hopefully the crowds won't be bad.
:wave:

It was still techically "low season" for the first 4 days of our vacation and the crowds reflected that (Monday through Friday). We didn't really need PS's for any of our meals except on the weekend. On Friday it became "High-Season" but it didn't seem all that busy in AK.

It drizzled rain on Saturday so the Parks were lower than high-season #'s, and we had other plans for Sunday so I can't comment.

But your dates seem smack in the middle of Spring break (March Break to us Canadains) so numbers may be on the busy side.

I think weekends will be busy in general from here on in until Fall. There are major events happening every weekend. Our special event was the Daytona 500 being run in Daytona and that raises the numbers a bit at Disney.

Just make your PS's (with a few extra's just in case) and use FP - I'n sure you'll be fine!

cheers

DisneyDugger · Feb 21, 2004

Just a few more points I thought I would express:

- PORS Boatwrights dinner food and service was excellent and priced ok. We didn't order any alcohol or appetizers so that helped I guess. We found the food portions to be excellent everywhere we went so we stopped ordering appetizers after the first meal.

- the pre-Presidents Day crowds were low for us in the parks. It never really seemed overly busy but then we didn't go to the Parks on Saturday or Sunday of the Presidents weekend.

- if you really needed to save a few bucks and couldn't afford to buy the Resort refillable mugs then you could save your $2 coffee styrafoam cup and refill it each day in the food court (pop too I guess). I saw a few people doing this. This of course is not being very honest but the comment I heard was that they wanted extra $$ to provide a coffee maker in the room. We brought our own drinks but I personally would have expected a coffee maker in the room as part of the Room fee.

- to save more on food expenses we brought our own breakfast food and had late brunches or Character Breakfasts. We brought stuff like bread/ buns, peanut butter, fruit, dry cereal, and boxed fruit drinks. The kids found it great and it helped us save at least $200 through the week. But I wish I had remembered to try the stuffed banana waffles at Boatwrights. Maybe next time I guess.

- Dream Maker package folks - beware that the $25 Planet Hollywood meal coupon option is not accepted during the hours of 6pm - 9pm. So that pretty much kills it for dinner. We got messed up with this and PH would not make an exception. It worked out for us though because I just happen to also have a PS at Rainforeast Cafe which ended up being an awesome surprize for us.

cheers

77johnson77 · Mar 2, 2004

wow great trip , I had fun reading it, long but great!

Katherine · Mar 2, 2004

Sounds like you had a great time! Great trip report!

MKCP 1985 · Mar 2, 2004

Your report was really enjoyable. Thank you for the effort! One question - did you all do the Disney Quest together, or did the kids go while you tried something else? One more - what did you think of Disney Quest, overall?

CAPTAIN HOOK · Mar 3, 2004

Sounds like a greta trip - nice report, thanks

DisneyDugger · Mar 4, 2004

Originally posted by MKCP 1986
did you all do the Disney Quest together, or did the kids go while you tried something else? what did you think of Disney Quest, overall?

We all did DQ as there is lots for everybody to do. Our kids were 10 and 8 so we were not comfortable in sending them alone.

The weekends and rainy nights get quiet busy in there. Go during the week, and there's enough for three or four nights of fun.

It has alot of "Classic" video games for us 30 and 40+ folks which will bring you back to your teenage years!!

cheers

Feb 9-15 Port Orleans RS Trip Report

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