Trip Report What a whirlwind week!

When they say time flies I think that applies double to a Disney week!
Welcome and I hope you enjoy following along on our hectic but (I think) fun trip!

I started planning this trip a couple of months ago for all of my family. We haven't all been together since the pack up and move out week a year ago and I thought it would be nice for a family get together that didn't involve work. ( I CLEARLY forgot that while Disney is fun, it can also be work.)

Travelers included, myself Cindy, son Seth, his partner Jake, daughter Aleisha, son in law Julio, and the grandchicks, (who wish to be called Ariel and Elsa!)

When-March 27-April 1
Where-Was supposed to be all Poly Tower (more to follow on that.)

This would be the first trip for Elsa who had one goal the entire time, yep, she was meeting the other Elsa and she made sure everyone knew about it!

In my next post I will explain why these princesses are wearing their well used travel sneakers instead of princess appropriate footwear. It is quite the story.

 

[MickeyCB]

Wow…I can’t even imagine….what a rough start!!

Yep, bannana town!

Wow, just reading about your travel day made me anxious. I’m the sort of person who has to be early everywhere.

Looking forward to the rest of your report

I like to be at least a little early for sure.
And thanks for following along, I was enjoying your trip across the ocean report!

What a stressful travel day! Kudos to you, for handling every glitch of your journey with resourcefulness.

It was cracker jacks.

But, I did realize about an hour into the first flight (making lemonade out of lemons) that I was by myself, with a book and no kids climbing up my legs, so there was that!

 

[MickeyCB]

DAY 1-ARRIVAL

I left off with everyone finally in one place again at the Orlando airport.
We went downstairs and met our driver who waited while we gathered up our lugagge, had potty breaks etc. then he loaded us up and we were off to the Polynesian.

If anyone is interested we used Ace Limo service (a car service) and while they weren't super cheap they were excellent with their communication, they did everything they said they would including using a sparkling clean vehicle and 2 installed car seats that we requested.

We were supposed to be staying at the Poly Island Tower with a split stay. I detest split stays because I don't like repacking up and moving during vacation. The first night was to be a 2 bedroom lockoff and then a dedicated 2 bedroom for the rest of the stay. This happened because when I booked and right up till check in day no 2 bed dedicated ones were available for the first night.

So, Seth to the rescue again. I asked him if he could please go early to the hotel and see if there were any rooms that had opened up so we could combine. He usually protests these sorts of tasks but as he is now working in the hotel industry felt comfortable doing this.

He called me while on the plane to tell me he had bad news and good news. (And why not with the way the day had been going!)
He said when he went in to the main building to ask, the CM said uh-oh when he called the room assignment staff. He explained that there weren't any 2 bedroom lock offs but would it be ok if they could move us to the BUNGALOWS for one night?!!! No extra charge and a $200 credit for the inconvenience!!
Seth asked if we would be charged any additional DVC points as that was how we were staying and the CM said no they would eat the cost!!
Seth's response, well if you insist!

So with all of the crazy we got a very nice upgrade for the night.
We had mobile ordered Captain Cook's on our way to the hotel as no one had eaten all day (except for the 5 am MickeyD's.)
Aleisha, Julio and Elsa went to get the food while Ariel and I watched the suitcases and did a little photo shoot.

After they came back with the food, Seth and Jake came and met us in the lobby and we walked back to the bungalow to settle in and eat our dinner.

When we got to our room Seth and Jake had another suprise for the girls.
I had asked them if they could make shirts for the girls for our Chef Mickey's dinner we were going to be having later in the week but they also made them 2 other shirts. (For practice he said!)

I thought they were so cute and unusual!
This shirt making all started when I asked them if they could make me a few unique shirts for the trip. I love vintage Mickey and they made me this one.

I'm running out of photo space so will continue in the next post.

 

[MickeyCB]

Seth and Jake had also done another thing for me before we got there. It was Aleisha's birthday during this trip and in the past I have used Disney's service, Magical Floral and Gifts. They were pricey but had some cute things over the years.
I was super unimpressed with both the choices and the prices for what you got this year.
So Seth and Jake went and bought treats, a basket and made her a shirt too and had it there for her when we arrived!

This was a serious bargain compared to Disney's service and so cute.
The shirt was really cute too. Aleisha loves Tinkerbell.

After all of the gifts were handed out we settled in to eat in the really nice dining area of the bungalow.

And here are some room photos of the bungalow.

Kitchen minus food and people!

It was really interesting to realize that the bungalows have now been there 10 years. That was actually our motivation for buying DVC and Seth found me a 10 year anniversary pin.
But, sadly the bungalows are also starting to show wear and tear already. The corners weren't super clean, the toilet paper holder was broken and falling off,etc. Time for a little refurbishment.
Don't get me wrong, we've stayed here before and would again, but it could use a little touch up.

Up next, how about some fireworks?

 

[Swissmiss]

Thé t-shirts are fantastic. Do Seth and his partner sell their creations somewhere? They should if they don’t.

 

[littleroo]

Gotta love a little Disney magic with the bungalow! Those shirts are adorable and very well done. I agree they should set up a side hustle. The girls are adorable and getting so big!!!

 

[rshell68]

Are the t-shirts HTV or screen printed?? LOVE THEM!

 

[cgersic]

Wow, that bungalow is COOL!!!! I want to stay there! And I agree with everyone, the shirts are fabulous!

 

[LeighM]

Love the shirts they made! If they aren't selling on Etsy, they really should!

 

[MickeyCB]

Thé t-shirts are fantastic. Do Seth and his partner sell their creations somewhere? They should if they don’t.

Thanks, they don't and I think it could be a little side deal but not sure they're on board with it. They are both very creative people.

 

[MickeyCB]

Gotta love a little Disney magic with the bungalow! Those shirts are adorable and very well done. I agree they should set up a side hustle. The girls are adorable and getting so big!!!

The bungalow was a very nice treat. And I agree on the shirts, they took a lot of time making them.
The girls are cute but when you put them in a confined space it's like a WWE event! Just a wee bit feral!

 

[MickeyCB]

Are the t-shirts HTV or screen printed?? LOVE THEM!

I don't know what HTV is, they did them with a cricut is that the same thing?

 

[MickeyCB]

Wow, that bungalow is COOL!!!! I want to stay there! And I agree with everyone, the shirts are fabulous!

Yeah, we really liked it, and thanks about the shirts, I will let the guys know you all liked them.

 

[MickeyCB]

Love the shirts they made! If they aren't selling on Etsy, they really should!

Ty, I will let them know of your compliments and I agree they should sell them somewhere. Jake makes some kind of stickers and I asked if he sells them, but he said not yet.

 

[Swissmiss]

Thanks, they don't and I think it could be a little side deal but not sure they're on board with it. They are both very creative people.

Well tell them if they do decide to open a shop they already have several customers lining up to buy

 

[MickeyCB]

ARRIVAL DAY-(evening)

Our initial plans for the evening were to go to Epcot to meet up with my daughter's friend and family that are from Tampa, but they were tired and so were we so we decided to enjoy the ammenities of the bungalow instead. We would be able to hang out with them tomorrow anyway.

Seth and I walked over to Captain Cook's to get a few items for the morning, some milk etc.
It was an absolute mad house and remained that way for the entire week. There was only one cashier, 2 people handing out food orders that were completed and I think I counted probably 8 or more people back in the kitchen. Not sure who thought adding 268 new rooms to this resort without additional quick service was a great idea. It has always been too small even when it was just the old resort. Captain Cook's remained busy like this during our entire stay.

And I don't know about other people's experience but we weren't even able to eat at the new table service in the Poly Tower,Wailulu. On our last night there around 6 pm there was a 50 minute wait to be seated and when I tried to be sneaky and order on line, it listed over 2 hours!!!

We got a few items and picked up a couple of the resort mugs and headed back.

This was the view from the bungalows walk way of the Tower.

Earlier as part of our hanging out the girls had a blast in this little pool on the deck.

We ignored the watch out for the critters sign and settled in for the fireworks.
They pump the music for the fireworks show into the bungalow which is a nice touch.

The night water parade (the electrical water pageant) that comes right past on the lake is always fun too, but everyone was zonked by then and we didn't catch it.
This pic is from 2015, our first time to stay in the bungalows.

Fun little fact, the water pageant has been operational at WDW since 1971.

Tomorrow, let's meet some princesses!

 

[MickeyCB]

This was the view from the bungalows walk way of the Tower.

Ok I just have to add something, I'm replying to my own post.
I was just looking at my photos that I just posted, does that look like an alligator in the right lower corner of the photo?!

 

[Swissmiss]

Ok I just have to add something, I'm replying to my own post.
I was just looking at my photos that I just posted, does that look like an alligator in the right lower corner of the photo?!

it kind of does!

 

[MickeyCB]

it kind of does!

What I think is hilarious/oh my, is in the original post above I stated we ignored the watch out for critters sign!
And also I was complaining about Captain Hook's Cook's!

 

[MickeyCB]

MK DAY!

Day 2 of our trip started with packing up all of our crap stuff (hence why I detest split stays.)
Anyway we packed up all of our stuff and hauled it to bell services to retrieve later when we got our room in the tower.

We headed up the stairs for our first monorail ride of the trip.
We had a reservation to meet some princesses but had a little time to enjoy the trip up Main Street, but not much.
Right as we made the bend to MS I stopped for a minute and asked the girls if they "saw it?"
Ariel said the castle!! And Elsa started screaming, the castle, the castle!!! When I told them we got to go in there they were so excited! When we got back home they have a castle cup they drink out of and Elsa said to me, we went in dere.

We had time for a castle photo op.

And we got to listen to these guys as we made our way to the castle.

And also stopped for a minute to admire the murals inside the hallway.

We were meeting my daughter's friend and family that live in Tampa for breakfast at Cinderella's Royal Table and to get a reservation for 11 of us we had to break it into 3 separate ones. At check in they said it would be a small wait but they should be able to get us seated relatively close to one another.

We went inside to meet Cindy and the girls were stoked!

After we were seated and ordered the princesses started making their rounds. And I'm just going to put this out there, whatever those princesses are getting paid, it is not remotely enough!
Absolutely no idea what Elsa was trying to do here, but we're going with trying to kiss her hand, and I'm sticking to that.

Tell me you can't see Aurora saying in her head, just 2 hours to lunch break!

A couple of comments on CRT. As with a lot of things with Disney they continue to cheapen up. The little stars they give the kids to hold up during the little star show are now cardboard. I didn't know what you were supposed to do with them when you get them home before and they were plastic, now it's probably the trash. And as tech has become less expensive why couldn't those have a little light up mechanism?

They have figured out it is much wiser to hand out wands at the END of the meal, good move there, but I did't see any swords being handed out.

Our waiter was excellent and the food was very good, but I will say with the chaos going on I don't remember what I ate and not one of us took the time to take a pic of the food.

After we used the royal bathroom we headed down the stairs to head for our first rides!

 

[Swissmiss]

Love your t-shirt. (I’m sure you are going to tell me it is a J&S original )