Hey everyone,
So I've been a long time lurker here basically posting rarely here and there. Thus, this is my first trip report and I hope you enjoy it! I went to the World with just my mom from September 28-October 3 and we stayed for the first time at Coronado Springs. We had a 6am flight out of New York, so we arrived at the airport at the god awful hour of 4am on Wednesday morning. After working for 8 eight hours followed by 6 hours of class the day before, saying I was in a bit of a lack of sleep induced coma was being gentle. It didn't help that my lovely cat who usually wakes me up to be let out of my room at 4am on the dot chose that particular morning to try out 2am. So basically, I was running on no sleep, but who cares? We were on our way to Disney World!
We were really looking forward to this trip as it held a lot of firsts for us. We're by no means new to visiting the parks, we've gone every year since I was born, sometimes twice. But this was the first time we would be going outside of the summer months or Christmas time, the first time staying at Coronado Springs, the first time on the Disney Dining Plan, the first time doing a tour, and the first time we would be traveling without at least a few other members of our family. Plus when we planned our trip in April, we didn't even realize at the time that the Food and Wine Festival would be going on or that it would be the 40th Anniversary. So needless to say, we had a lot of expectations and excitement for all of the new things we would be experiencing.
Thankfully our flight was actually on time and we even landed early! Upon getting to MCO, we waited only about five minutes before boarding our Magical Express bus and barely thirty minutes later we were walking into the lobby of Coronado Springs. My family has stayed everywhere ranging from the Polynesian to the All Stars, but our favorite resort has always been Port Orleans French Quarter. I think this is because it's where we have the most memories, therefore it feels the most "Disney" to us. Nevertheless, my mom and I were pretty excited to try a new hotel. Coronado Springs was gorgeous and we knew we were impressed the moment we entered the lobby. We had previously requested building 9B which was close to the lobby and main bus stop. We normally are able, even in the peak seasons, to obtain a room in the building we request. Unfortunately we ended up with a room at the back of the resort, but we weren't going to let it bother us. Thus we declined the offer for bell services to take us to our room and set off to drop off our things and head out to Epcot. Mistake number one right there. Given that it was now around noon and the Florida sun was blazing, we were melting in the warm clothes we had worn on the plane. Plus, we did not realize how freakin big the resort actually was. We finally made it to our room ten minutes later, toting all of our luggage and sweating. We were a little grouchy that it would be a somewhat inconvenient walk to the lobby, but we saw that we were near a bus stop and once again didn't let it bother us. Once changing, we headed to our bus stop...only to find it literally infested with bugs. I'm talking crawling on the floor, walls, ceiling, benches, our arms, legs, hair. It was disgusting. These are apparently "love bugs" that are native to Florida around this time of year, but there were so many of them it was actually impossible to stand in the bus stop. We finally gave up making the best of our room and decided to try our luck and return to the front desk to see if something closer was available. After a lengthy walk back and waiting at the desk for a while, we finally received a room in the building we originally requested and all was well. One interesting things was that when we complained about how unbearable the bugs were in that one stop, we were almost ignored by the cast members at the desk. We took that as a sign that the bugs would be everywhere and we would just have to deal, but after our first encounter we virtually did not see another one of them during our entire stay. So it was just that one bus stop that was a problem. We also had to drive through that stop and several others every day on the way to our stop to be dropped off. We noticed consistently that the other stops were all fine, but for some reason bus stop #3 was party central for the bugs. I'm sure other people near that stop must have complained, and I'm surprised that the situation was as bad as it actually was.
Anyway, as I said all was well for us and we were finally on our way to Epcot. By this point it was around 130 and we were starving. We hopped on Spaceship Earth since there was no wait, then headed over to The Land to Fastpass Soarin. Then we ate what was arguably our best quick service meal of the entire trip at Sunshine Seasons. I got a sandwich on ciabatta bread that was HUGE with strawberry shortcake and my mom got a Chinese noodle dish with chocolate cake. Both meals were do delicious, we vowed to eat there again, but somehow never got the chance.
After finally eating we hit Living with the Land and debated whether we were going to actually go to the Behind the Seeds tour we booked. Before we realized it was the 40th Anniversary, we had booked the tour for Saturday morning. But now that we knew there were going to be special celebrations in the Magic Kingdom we were toying with the idea of foregoing the tour. Next we headed over to Journey Into Imagination which is one of my favorite rides and I bought myself a great Dreamfinder shirt from the store located there. I then decided I was going to try Mission: Space. The last time I rode it was actually when they were doing a soft opening and it was not officially fully operating yet. My mom had actually gone on it as well then and ended up with a horrendous ear ache that knocked her out for two days of our trip. That story plus the always long lines had prevented me from riding since, but seeing that there was no line and I'm normally never bothered by any kind of ride, I decided to go for it. And let me tell you, I am so glad I did. I went straight for the orange path and remembered just how awesome a ride it was. Next up was Test Track which we basically walked right to the loading platform for, then back to Soarin to use our Fastpasses. Soarin being my mom's favorite ride, it is always one we frequent.
At this point we knew we wanted to try and catch Fantasmic that night, so we headed over to the International Gateway to hop on the boat to Hollywood Studios. At this point it was around 5pm and we were amazed that we had accomplished almost everything in Future World including lunch in just over three hours. We could definitely get used to avoiding those summer lines and heat. Once we got to Hollywood Studios we went straight for The Great Movie Ride followed by our first ride on Star Tours since the re-vamp. It was awesome. We rode numerous times during our visit and only experienced one scene more that once. The graphics and quality of the video itself are really fantastic, I'm so glad they were able to breathe some new life into what was already such a good ride. It was then getting to be around the time for people to start lining up for Fantasmic, so wanting a good seat my mom went ahead to secure us a good spot. I headed off to ride Rock n' Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror, which I accomplished in about a half hour. There were literally no lines anywhere. Coming from the middle of July when it's so crowded you can barely walk without bumping into someone sweaty, this was so strange to me. Although like I said, I can definitely get used to the no crowds. I headed back over to Fantasmic and found my mom front and center with arguably the best seats we had ever had. It was then that my mom pointed up to the sky and I noticed what I had somehow failed to see throughout my whole walk to her...a giant lightening storm basically right above the stage. Knowing Fantasmic's cancellation policy well, we knew that there was a slim chance the show would happen when there was any chance of lightening let alone a giant storm. We should have cut our loses there (seeing as it was now 8 and we had been awake since 2am) but we stayed optimistic. Eventually an announcement was made that the show might be delayed...then another one saying the show might be cancelled, so we took that as our cue to just call it a day.
We headed back to Coronado Springs and decided to grab dinner quickly and just go back to the room to pass out. Apparently at this hotel, you have to be seated and waited on even for quick service dining. We had never encountered this before and were fairly confused. You actually have to wait for a maitre'd to seat you, a server comes and brings you your drinks, then you have to take a slip of paper and wait at a counter for your food. After eating, you take your slip of counter to the front of the place to pay. It was just a very odd system that we really weren't fans of, especially when we were so exhausted. But eventually we made it back to our room to pass out and catch up on sleep since we had the Keys to the Kingdom tour bright and early the next morning.
Day 2 coming soon!
(A question for everyone who posts pictures here, what is the easiest way to go about doing so? Flickr? I have some pretty good shots from the trip that I would love to share throughout my trip report. Thanks!)
So I've been a long time lurker here basically posting rarely here and there. Thus, this is my first trip report and I hope you enjoy it! I went to the World with just my mom from September 28-October 3 and we stayed for the first time at Coronado Springs. We had a 6am flight out of New York, so we arrived at the airport at the god awful hour of 4am on Wednesday morning. After working for 8 eight hours followed by 6 hours of class the day before, saying I was in a bit of a lack of sleep induced coma was being gentle. It didn't help that my lovely cat who usually wakes me up to be let out of my room at 4am on the dot chose that particular morning to try out 2am. So basically, I was running on no sleep, but who cares? We were on our way to Disney World!
We were really looking forward to this trip as it held a lot of firsts for us. We're by no means new to visiting the parks, we've gone every year since I was born, sometimes twice. But this was the first time we would be going outside of the summer months or Christmas time, the first time staying at Coronado Springs, the first time on the Disney Dining Plan, the first time doing a tour, and the first time we would be traveling without at least a few other members of our family. Plus when we planned our trip in April, we didn't even realize at the time that the Food and Wine Festival would be going on or that it would be the 40th Anniversary. So needless to say, we had a lot of expectations and excitement for all of the new things we would be experiencing.
Thankfully our flight was actually on time and we even landed early! Upon getting to MCO, we waited only about five minutes before boarding our Magical Express bus and barely thirty minutes later we were walking into the lobby of Coronado Springs. My family has stayed everywhere ranging from the Polynesian to the All Stars, but our favorite resort has always been Port Orleans French Quarter. I think this is because it's where we have the most memories, therefore it feels the most "Disney" to us. Nevertheless, my mom and I were pretty excited to try a new hotel. Coronado Springs was gorgeous and we knew we were impressed the moment we entered the lobby. We had previously requested building 9B which was close to the lobby and main bus stop. We normally are able, even in the peak seasons, to obtain a room in the building we request. Unfortunately we ended up with a room at the back of the resort, but we weren't going to let it bother us. Thus we declined the offer for bell services to take us to our room and set off to drop off our things and head out to Epcot. Mistake number one right there. Given that it was now around noon and the Florida sun was blazing, we were melting in the warm clothes we had worn on the plane. Plus, we did not realize how freakin big the resort actually was. We finally made it to our room ten minutes later, toting all of our luggage and sweating. We were a little grouchy that it would be a somewhat inconvenient walk to the lobby, but we saw that we were near a bus stop and once again didn't let it bother us. Once changing, we headed to our bus stop...only to find it literally infested with bugs. I'm talking crawling on the floor, walls, ceiling, benches, our arms, legs, hair. It was disgusting. These are apparently "love bugs" that are native to Florida around this time of year, but there were so many of them it was actually impossible to stand in the bus stop. We finally gave up making the best of our room and decided to try our luck and return to the front desk to see if something closer was available. After a lengthy walk back and waiting at the desk for a while, we finally received a room in the building we originally requested and all was well. One interesting things was that when we complained about how unbearable the bugs were in that one stop, we were almost ignored by the cast members at the desk. We took that as a sign that the bugs would be everywhere and we would just have to deal, but after our first encounter we virtually did not see another one of them during our entire stay. So it was just that one bus stop that was a problem. We also had to drive through that stop and several others every day on the way to our stop to be dropped off. We noticed consistently that the other stops were all fine, but for some reason bus stop #3 was party central for the bugs. I'm sure other people near that stop must have complained, and I'm surprised that the situation was as bad as it actually was.
Anyway, as I said all was well for us and we were finally on our way to Epcot. By this point it was around 130 and we were starving. We hopped on Spaceship Earth since there was no wait, then headed over to The Land to Fastpass Soarin. Then we ate what was arguably our best quick service meal of the entire trip at Sunshine Seasons. I got a sandwich on ciabatta bread that was HUGE with strawberry shortcake and my mom got a Chinese noodle dish with chocolate cake. Both meals were do delicious, we vowed to eat there again, but somehow never got the chance.
After finally eating we hit Living with the Land and debated whether we were going to actually go to the Behind the Seeds tour we booked. Before we realized it was the 40th Anniversary, we had booked the tour for Saturday morning. But now that we knew there were going to be special celebrations in the Magic Kingdom we were toying with the idea of foregoing the tour. Next we headed over to Journey Into Imagination which is one of my favorite rides and I bought myself a great Dreamfinder shirt from the store located there. I then decided I was going to try Mission: Space. The last time I rode it was actually when they were doing a soft opening and it was not officially fully operating yet. My mom had actually gone on it as well then and ended up with a horrendous ear ache that knocked her out for two days of our trip. That story plus the always long lines had prevented me from riding since, but seeing that there was no line and I'm normally never bothered by any kind of ride, I decided to go for it. And let me tell you, I am so glad I did. I went straight for the orange path and remembered just how awesome a ride it was. Next up was Test Track which we basically walked right to the loading platform for, then back to Soarin to use our Fastpasses. Soarin being my mom's favorite ride, it is always one we frequent.
At this point we knew we wanted to try and catch Fantasmic that night, so we headed over to the International Gateway to hop on the boat to Hollywood Studios. At this point it was around 5pm and we were amazed that we had accomplished almost everything in Future World including lunch in just over three hours. We could definitely get used to avoiding those summer lines and heat. Once we got to Hollywood Studios we went straight for The Great Movie Ride followed by our first ride on Star Tours since the re-vamp. It was awesome. We rode numerous times during our visit and only experienced one scene more that once. The graphics and quality of the video itself are really fantastic, I'm so glad they were able to breathe some new life into what was already such a good ride. It was then getting to be around the time for people to start lining up for Fantasmic, so wanting a good seat my mom went ahead to secure us a good spot. I headed off to ride Rock n' Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror, which I accomplished in about a half hour. There were literally no lines anywhere. Coming from the middle of July when it's so crowded you can barely walk without bumping into someone sweaty, this was so strange to me. Although like I said, I can definitely get used to the no crowds. I headed back over to Fantasmic and found my mom front and center with arguably the best seats we had ever had. It was then that my mom pointed up to the sky and I noticed what I had somehow failed to see throughout my whole walk to her...a giant lightening storm basically right above the stage. Knowing Fantasmic's cancellation policy well, we knew that there was a slim chance the show would happen when there was any chance of lightening let alone a giant storm. We should have cut our loses there (seeing as it was now 8 and we had been awake since 2am) but we stayed optimistic. Eventually an announcement was made that the show might be delayed...then another one saying the show might be cancelled, so we took that as our cue to just call it a day.
We headed back to Coronado Springs and decided to grab dinner quickly and just go back to the room to pass out. Apparently at this hotel, you have to be seated and waited on even for quick service dining. We had never encountered this before and were fairly confused. You actually have to wait for a maitre'd to seat you, a server comes and brings you your drinks, then you have to take a slip of paper and wait at a counter for your food. After eating, you take your slip of counter to the front of the place to pay. It was just a very odd system that we really weren't fans of, especially when we were so exhausted. But eventually we made it back to our room to pass out and catch up on sleep since we had the Keys to the Kingdom tour bright and early the next morning.
Day 2 coming soon!
(A question for everyone who posts pictures here, what is the easiest way to go about doing so? Flickr? I have some pretty good shots from the trip that I would love to share throughout my trip report. Thanks!)
