My first trip report!

Alright, I've never done this before so I apologize if it's horrifically boring!

We left Saturday August 4th at o-dark-thirty. The kids ages 5 and 8 jumped out of bed when we told them it was time to go to Disney World!. We flew into Tampa because of frequent flyer miles, rented a car from Alamo and headed to the Caribbean Beach Resort. We arrived at 3:30 and met up with some of our group. I was impressed with the CBR. Very lush and quiet. We stayed in Jamaica because of the reccomendations I've read on these boards! The rooms were a good size for a family of 4. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the curtain separating the sink area from the room. It was the first hotel I've seen it in and it was great. Strange thing to get excited about I know. :lol: We went swimming right away to let the kids get that under their belts. The pool was neat but very crowded. The plain pool near our room was empty but not as neat. So this was a trade off! Next we headed to Downtown Disney for a couple of hours of shopping and dinner. Then back to the room for bed.

Sunday Oct 5th Epcot and MNSSHP.
We arrived at Epcot about 10 minutes before opening. When they let us in we immediately fastpassed Test Track and tried to go on Mission Space but it was closed. We did body wars and Energy then went back for our fast passes. Kids love Test Track. Oh yeah, I saw Keenan there and because he always says to say hi when we're there, I did. He looked a little embarassed and confused.
:lol:

MS finally opened and we fast passed it. We ate lunch did Honey, Coke station, and headed back to MS. I confess, I used the chicken out door just before boarding the capsule. They must say 20 times before you reach that point not to ride if you are prone to motion sickness. I finally decided I should believe them. There were 23-11 adults 12 kids- in our party. All the adults loved it, three of four of them were a bit nauseous afterwards but still said how well done it was. Everyone of the kids tall enough to ride thought it was great and wanted to get right back on. The playground was great to keep the ones occupied not tall enough to ride.

Let me rant here for a minute. The new way they are handling baby swap and fast pass are really bad. For instance on test track with the old baby swap some of the party rode and when done, the baby watchers went back through the exit and got right back on. Now they make the baby watchers go back through the entire fast pass line. That can take 20 minutes or so. We did not like it at all. This seemed to be standard at most of the rides. Disney used to be the best at baby swaps. Now they're messing it up!

To be continued!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

We left Epcot at 3:00 to swim and let the kids rest before MNSSHP. We arrived about 20 minutes before opening and went in. There were lots of people there, long lines for pictures and treats, but other then that we walked on to most rides. Space Moutain was a walk on, Buzz 5 minute wait, Tea Cups walk on, etc. By 10:30 everything was really slowing down. By then even toontown was fairly empty. Walked on to Barnstormer, Magic Carpets, Pirates, etc. The kids had their faces painted in toontown with not wait. We didn't realize how much money we were saving by doing this at MNSSHP. It was free for us, and the rest of the week they were charging 10-15 dollars for the same designs. We thought the parade and fireworks were great. We left at midnight and enjoyed the light crowds.

One complaint about MNSSHP. The candy. Now before I go on, I realize the highlight of the night is not candy bars that I can buy at Wal Mart every day of the week. BUT the candy had been soooooo built up to us. I had read a few times there were full size candy bars, there's already candy in your bag when you walk in, they gave handfuls of candy especially at the end of the night, you could leave with one or two full bags per person, etc. When I called to buy tickets even the CM on the phone told us how much candy we would get. NOT even close to true. With all four of us trick or treating we combined our candy at the end of the night and had less then half a bag. (Small shopping bag size)
At one stop we were literally given a single starburst. Yes, you read that right, one single square. We never got more then two small pieces of candy, and that was rare, and towards the end of the night, Adventureland was OUT of candy. Completely OUT!! How can that happen? Disney knows how many people were coming!

Now having said that, let me say again I realize this is just candy we're talking about. But we had been led to believe we were going to be trick or treating DISNEY STYLE. Didn't happen.

On a positive note, we all did agree we would do MNSSHP again. It was a neat and different experience.

Okay I'm only through day two!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Alright, I'll try to compact this some more.

Monday Oct 6, MGM. We slept in a little and arrived an hour after opening. Tower and Rock N Roller Coaster already had 60 minute waits so we fastpassed Tower. We headed off for the shows. Hubby and brother in law got incredibly close to Hot Seat in Millionaire but just missed. We rode Tower and fast passed the coaster. Both still great great rides.
Tha evening for dinner we booked the Fantasmic package at Hollywood and Vine. Reservations for 23! :lol: We'd never done it before an would reccomend it. Fantasmic was full that night and we loved not waiting in line. We sat on the far side, but there are no bad seats for that show. The food at Hollywood and Vine was quite good also!

Tuesday Oct 7, Animal Kingdom. We were there at opening and went straight to the Safari. Animal Kingdom felt crowded all day but we never really waited for anything! Lion King - the best show in the parks IMHO - was only 3/4 full. Great appreciated the air conditioning! We liked primeval whirl too! It was a fun little coaster! I don't understand why the height restriction is so high on that one though. For dinner we had ressies at Rainforest Cafe. Fun place to eat. Full prices though.

Wednesday Oct 8, Magic Kingdom. Ressies at Cindy's at 8:15. It was wonderful. My daughter never wanted to leave. Even Sleeping Beauty was there. They all signed my daughters princess hat and had plenty of time to stay and chat and take pictures. I can't say enough good things about it. Afterwards we walked on to Dumbo and then walked into Philharmagic. We all agreed it was excellent. MK was empty that day. We walked on to everything. We left at 3 and headed to Disney Quest. We really like Disney Quest. We've never payed for it, it's always been included in our tickets. It didn't get crowded until 8:00 or so. Before that we walked on to everything. Pirates was our favorite.

Alright 3 more days to go!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Thursday Oct 9th. Sea World. Yep we left the magic for a litte while but the kids have never been, and the whole family got in free because my husband is in the air force. It was fun. Petting the dolphins was incredible. Definitely not in the same league with Disney, but a fun day. That night we had PS at Chef Mickey's. This was our third time to go and we have never been disappointed. The character interaction is excellent. We watched Wishes from the roof of the Contemporary. We never would have know about that had it not been for these boards so I must thank you all! Beautiful. Incredible view.
Half our party went to the Cinderella dinner at the Grand Floridian that night. They did not enjoy it at all. They said the characters didn't spend any time with them. Posed for pictures and took off. It was a seafood buffet that night and they said the smell was overpowering.

Friday Oct 10th. Typhoon Lagoon and Epcot. Typhoon Lagoon was really neat. We normally go to Blizzard Beach. Shark reef was great as was the wave pool. That afternoon half our party went back to Disney Quest then we all met at Epcot to walk around the World Showcase and watch Illuminations. Yakitori sticks in Japan, yummy!

Saturday Oct 11th. Relax and change hotels! Everyone else in our party left that morning. We stayed one more night to try out the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Woohoo 5 stars! We loved it. We had a savannah view. The kids spent the first hour on the balcony watching the animals. The swimming pool was great Boma was excellent.

Sunday Oct 12th. Breakfast at Mara and flight home. Sadness abounds. We had a great time!

 

[Coree]

Great trip report. Thanks for sharing!

 

[RAZORBRAD]

Sounded wonderful, sorry you had to come home.

 

[Katherine]

Great trip report!:sohappy:

 

[fngoofy]

Hi there, great report!

Too bad about the baby swap thing.
Having previously worked attractions at Disney for a little while, I can see why they have gone to this though.

1. Guest Management/Safety. It makes things alot easier when the exit is the exit and the entrance is the entrance.

2. Show. The queue (while not fun when over 30min) is an integral part of the attraction in many cases, missing this detracts from the attraction. Imagine not getting the pre show at TT and just hopping in, you'd still have fun, but you would miss the whole settup (and in some cases safety speil and instructions.)

3. Guest Perception. It makes for upset guests and confused guests when you have some people queueing up at the back door and bypassing others. Using the FP lane keeps things in order and everyone happy about their time in the queue.

p.s. I wish I could go back in Feb having just been in Oct!!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

p.s. I wish I could go back in Feb having just been in Oct!!

:lol: I've been wondering if I should remove that little blurb. My husband and I are still in negotiations about that trip!

Thanks for the baby swap info. I agree you do need to see the shows for the rides. But if you've seen them multiple times, it was nice to skip them timewise!