Dreaming of a Disney spring break! THIS SECTION COMPLETED About This Page:

[scrappyjae]

Yep, sure wish I was there now instead of here, dealing with storms and some kind of freaky, funnel/micro burst thing that hit near a friends house just down the street from where I work. Curious to see what kind of damage it did, as a my co-worker who I stupidly sent out into that mess, called hysterical about it.

[lindawdw]

Welcome Home!!! Sorry you're flight to Disney wasn't so magical. It was quite a rough start but I knowfrom your live updates that you had a pretty nice trip Can't wait to hear more.

[emvenable77]

Great updates! Your room looks so nice! We hope to stay at the Beach Club...one day!

[Alex'sMummy]

Loving the photos of the car ride to wdw. The pics of the BCV are good too!!! Is it sad to say that seeing the H2O soaps in the pics of the bathroom made me feel excited??

I love the smell of the "mickey" soap- will have to stock up next time we go and buy some to take home

[goofysdtr]

Glad to hear things are straightening out for you! Jacuzzi--great way to start out!

[mommapants]

Sorry your flight had to deal with such PITA kids (and parents). Nothing like a refreshing bath/shower to make things right with the world. Looking forward to hearing more.

[KMB733]

Glad you arrived!! Great pictures from the Beach Club!!

[lazanya]

Yay! You made it ! Lovely pictures of your room.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by ilovedisney247

Yeah! You are home! NO pillows on the couch or bed huh?

Tell me about it! That was a real pain....

[chezp]

Originally Posted by disney_duke

That's one thing that I always try really very hard to do is keep my kids quiet and occupied on an airplane. It's no easy feat, but there's definitely ways to do it. I cannot believe the bad behavior from that family! Out of curiosity, were they American?

: they were British.

By the way, after the complaint I wrote to Virgin about not getting the seats we wanted and the food, I called them back today (they'd left a message for us to call them) and they've given us each 2,000 miles on our Virgin account for the inconvenience, so it does pay to complain! This is quite a lot, as a flight each way to Orlando in Premium Economy only gave us 8,000 miles....

[chezp]

Originally Posted by jennie622

Unbehaved children on flights is as horrible as turbulence IMHO. I had the displeasure of a child kicking my seat and when I said something she yelled at me and called my the B word!! It's possible for unruly children to enjoy flying - locked in the overhead bin!!

Oh my goodness - classic!

[clio]

Sorry about the unrulely children on the flight. some people just don't care what their children do. About a week ago a woman gave each of here children a whistle and told them not to blow them in the store. You can guess how well they listened. Your room looks really nice. I hope the rest of your vacation gets better.
Liz

[B.M.]

Glad you were able to get checked in and settled without any problems...... Great pictures!

[chezp]

Thursday 7 April – part four: we didn’t want to wear our dinner!

By now, I had finally caught up with Wendy and we agreed to meet up in our room at 6.15pm. It would be the first time meeting all her clan – with the exception of Ben of course, who we’d got to know in December 2009 on our last trip. I will admit that the kids weren’t necessarily what I expected. Firstly, Gabby was exceptionally quiet and I know, from phone calls with Wendy, just how loud she usually is and then there was Carlee, who Wendy had told me was quiet. Not a bit of it! : We chatted away and got on great. Josh towers above everyone and was full of questions for us, while Michael was quite quiet.

We stood there chatting for a while and handed out the gifts we’d bought them – lots of chocolate for the kids and an Easter bunny and keyring from Harrod’s, while I got a gift card for Bath and Body Works – how well my best buddy knows me!

We headed down shortly afterwards, especially as Michael was asking when we were going to eat.



We checked in at the Cape May Cafe and stood outside, chatting for a few minutes. Just when we figured that there’d be a wait to get in, Wendy sent Josh back to the room to pick up the chocolates they’d bought for us and, of course, wouldn’t you know, the buzzer went off a moment later. Ben volunteered to stay behind and wait for Josh and the rest of us went in.



We sat there for a while and met our server, Kim, who explained about what was on offer at the buffet, but at break neck speed. There sounded like there was a great selection up there, but we were wondering what had happened to Ben. Josh turned up at the dinner table with the chocolates for us, which were in great condition, despite Wendy’s concerns about them melting in the heat. But where was Ben? He was nowhere to be seen.

We decided to go up to the buffet, wondering where he was and he wandered in, just as we got there. He’d missed Josh in the lobby, so had headed back to the room to look for him. We set about loading our plates up with the amazing selection that had been described to us, but sadly the reality just did not match it. There didn’t seem to be that much there and some of the items that had been mentioned were just missing completely. I loaded up as best I could, with Wendy promising to crack open the crab leg I put on my plate and she was as good as her word, when we got back to the table:

The crab wasn’t bad, but it’s frustrating to get so little meat from such a huge thing! Wendy demonstrated how to get the meat out....



The mahi mahi was nice, but too spicy for my liking. That was a theme of the food, it was either too spicy or didn’t have enough taste to it. A case in point is the peel and eat shrimp, which I went back to get, but that was very tasteless. Was there anything good at the buffet? The Caesar salad was superb and Wendy and family told me that the mac and cheese was excellent, but to be honest, these are basics, rather than more complex dishes, so the fact that these were good isn’t that much of a testament to this restaurant.



The one thing that really did annoy me was that the fried calamari was one of the specialties that was meant to be available tonight. The first time I went up, there wasn’t even a dish out. The second and third times, I asked about it and was told “it’ll be out in the next couple of minutes”, but nothing showed up. Not good, when you’re advertising it as a speciality. I would’ve liked to have tried it, but it was not to be...

Kim did not turn out to be the greatest of servers. She was nice enough, but what sealed it for us was her dropping the plates and managing to get food on Mark’s clean top, which was new on today – for the first time ever. He was not at all happy about that. :

We had such good time with Wendy and her family. Carlee showed me all the photos and video on her camera and there were some great shots, especially of their time on the Dream. I so cannot wait to get on that! Josh asked us loads of questions about the UK, while Gabby and Michael were pretty quiet, very surprisingly. We got Kim to grab a couple of photos of us – I hope Wendy has a better photo of the group, as I was totally hidden in the shot she got on my camera!

I did go and grab some desserts, although some of the discussion at the table at the time put me off eating some of it!



Some of the other desserts on offer!

Ben with some British chocolate!

All of us together – clockwise from Mark: Mark, Carlee, Josh, me (slightly hidden! ), Wendy, Gabby, Michael and Ben

Best buddies together!

Soon Josh, Carlee and Michael were heading off to head back out to the parks and we were left trying to deal with the check, with three on the Deluxe Dining Plan and the rest of us paying cash. I was shocked to see that adults pay $33 and children pay something like $15. I’m sorry, but for the selection on offer here, I do not think that represents good value for money. : We finally worked out who was going to pay what, but when the individual checks came out, it was so confusingly done, we had to call Kim over to explain it to us. Like I say, she wasn’t great, but of course, we ended up with having to pay an 18% gratuity, as we’d used Wendy’s Tables in Wonderland card. We both agreed that there was no way that we’d have given her that much if we’d had the option.

Cape May Cafe:

Food 7 8
Service 5 0
Atmosphere 9½ 8½
Value for money 6 6

Average score: 6.25

On the way out, we stopped to have a look at the stunning Easter cake they had, made with pixie dust apparently, which may explain the somewhat vacant look on Goofy’s face...



I got a few more photos of the much improved lobby sans pumpkin chairs...



... then we headed over to the Marketplace shop. Wendy and Ben warned us that it wasn’t good in here and that they had much less stock in here and they weren’t joking. : It was deserted in there, which was such a shame and no resort merchandise to be seen. They had spoken to a Cast Member about it and they told them that there would be more in the future, so that’s something at least.


Vinylmation figures – does anyone get this? We don’t! :

We strolled back towards our respective rooms, getting a shot of the Beach Club in the eerie night-time light on the way.



We bid farewell to each other in the elevator and headed back to our room. Unsurprisingly, given the very late hour for us, it wasn’t at all long before we were in bed and asleep.


The weather today was dry and cloudy with temperatures in the 40s in London and hot and humid, with temperatures in the high 80s in Orlando.
The best thing today was seeing Wendy and her family.
The worst thing today was that annoying family on our flight.
The funniest thing today was dinner with Wendy and her family.
Today we tried going back to the Cape May Cafe for dinner
And the result was it wasn’t great.
The most magical moment today was stepping off the plane and hearing the IllumiNations music.

Next: and we thought things were bad at home!

[Alex'sMummy]

Loving the pictures- sorry that you had bad service at Cape May.

The easter cake looks great