Florida flowers and Caribbean cruising LIVE TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 3/8 - Page 8 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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I'll really be excited to hear how the hot air balloon pans out!! I seriously looked into this for our most recent trip.... I found that Orlando has really, really good deals on genuine hot air balloons compared to placed around here.... Unfortunately we didn't make the time for it...
Oh there's still quite the story to come on that... that's all I'll say for now....
loving all your plans. You sound like you pack a lot in like I tend to do!
I must admit I do read your trip reports and think how much you pack in. I know people say we're like the Energizer bunnies, but I really think you are - you seem to get up so early and last a lot longer into the night than we do!
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We had dinner with Michael and Judy too and they are super nice
Cheryl, I have had the exact same situation when trying to book ADRs for our October 2014 trip as well as our upcoming May 2015 trip. I can only book one a day even though the calendar shows all our dates for the whole trip are within the +10 because we are staying on property. Disney has the most annoying website, which makes me wonder if they poorly pay their tech personnel.
Who knows? You'd think Disney would pay well to get the best possible people for something as important as their website.
Pre-trip report – part five: can I get Be Our Guest?
Sunday 31 August
Today was the big day – the day when I attempted to get dinner for Be Our Guest… I was all set before 6:00am EST, having checked that our booking window would be open for our stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge Villas, and it was.
At the appointed time, I searched for Be Our Guest on the night I wanted… and what happened? The Disney website crashed on me! Then it wouldn’t open, so I moved off the laptop and on to the desktop, just in case it was an issue with the Wi-Fi, and fortunately this time, it opened fine… only I then had to log in again. I could feel precious minutes ticking by, and I was beginning to wonder if anything would be left by the time I finally had a chance to check..
I finally plugged in the date I wanted, and…
… well, I have to say I was amazed at what I saw next, so amazed in fact that I should’ve thought to get a screen shot of it, but I wasn’t thinking straight. There were three times available for it! I was stunned, as I wasn’t just booking for us, I was booking for Bob and Larry too, so I needed a table of four. I grabbed the earliest slot at 6:05pm, then a few minutes later, after I completed booking everything else I wanted, I did wonder about getting the slightly later slot at 6:45pm. I figured it would be gone by now, but it was still there, so I was even able to swap the time slots. You couldn’t make it up!
As for the other meals, I got what I wanted at exactly the same for all of them:
Chef Mickey’s for breakfast
Portobello for dinner with Bob and Larry
Tusker House for lunch
Boma for dinner
Shula’s Steak House for dinner
Result! I’m so pleased that so far, it’s been so easy to get everything I wanted. I just hope that’s the case for our final set of bookings that I can make on Thursday, as I won’t be able to get online to do those until the evening our time, so about 12:00pm EST. There’s nothing in there that I expect to be that popular, so fingers crossed, it will all be fine.
Tuesday 2 September
I finally managed to snag tickets for La Nouba by Cirque du Soleil tonight! As you may remember, I’d been stalking the website for literally weeks now, waiting for them to open up the elusive 28 February show. I mean, who the heck has all of February available, apart from the last day?
Well, tonight I figured as we were into a new month, maybe it would finally be available… And it was! I managed to grab exactly the tickets I wanted.
The way it works now is that the tickets start with the most expensive “golden circle”, which is literally two rows, rows E and F, in the central section facing the stage. Now, as you can imagine, those are extortionate. Then the next tier down covers the rest of that central section, and they’re called “front and central seats”. Now, next to that central section on both sides are Tier 1 seats, which are essentially the third highest price, and they’re nowhere near as pricey as the other two sets. Well, I managed to snag two seats, right next down to the central section in row E. Remember row E in the central section were the “golden circle” seats? Well, we’re literally just across the aisle from them, so we get pretty much the same view for a fraction of the cost – result!
Thursday 4 September
Today was the final day for me to make the rest of our ADR bookings, and as I mentioned before, there was no way I could do when they opened up, as I had a really heavy and very long day at work. I left the house at 7:10am, and didn’t get back in until 5:45pm. This is not usual for me, but it was an event that I’d organised, so I had to log on around 1:00pm EST when I got home. Luckily, there was nothing I was going for that would be tough to get…
I managed to get the following:
Lunch at the Hollywood Brown Derby
Dinner at Il Mulino at the Swan with Bob and Larry
Dinner at the Flying Fish Café with Bob and Larry
Lunch at Beaches and Cream with Bob and Larry – wow, was that a weird feeling, booking for that, as I’d never been able to do that before!
Dinner at the Garden Grill
Yet again, the system would not let me book anything for our departure day, which was just crazy, but heck, the Disney website has glitches all the time, so I guess it’s only to be expected.
Now the one thing I just couldn’t get was breakfast at the Fresh Mediterranean Market at the Dolphin. I really wasn’t expecting that one to be tough to get, but it just wasn’t available. Very strange… I looked at all the other options available for breakfast that day, but none of them really grabbed me, so I left it. I figured I’d try again, and if it becomes available then great, and if not, perhaps we’ll try Trattoria al Forno for breakfast, if it offers it of course? I don’t know whether it will, from the information that’s available, but I’m assuming it will, given that Spoodles and Kouzzina always did…
That’s the other booking I can’t make right now – we’re hoping to have dinner at Trattoria al Forno with Bob and Larry, which is replacing Kouzzina, but we can’t make reservations just yet. I’m sure I’ll hear whenever reservations are accepted, and then hopefully we can snag one…
Saturday 6 September
I tried again today for breakfast at Fresh Mediterranean Market, and still nothing available – very odd. I also still can’t book anything for our departure day, so I guess I’ve got a few more days to wait before I can sort those out then…
Monday 8 September
Well, I was able to book Teppan Edo for our departure day finally, although I couldn’t get a breakfast at Garden Grove, which is very weird, given the issues I’ve had trying to book breakfast at Fresh. They’re up to Disney’s website, so I assumed that meant you could book them at 180 days out, but maybe I was wrong. It’s interesting, as I had no issues booking Shula’s Steak House, which is at the Swolphin…
Ok, I’ve just checked my PassPorter, and I was right, you can book at 180 days out, so why on earth are there no times available for any breakfasts there? Curiouser and curiouser…
Pre-trip report – part four: battling the Disney website to get our first ADRs
Anyway, I now have lunch booked at the Crystal Palace (donkey time! ) with Michael (rhinohunter) and his wife Judy. I literally only read yesterday how one of their trips would just overlap with ours, and mentioned when we’d be arriving, and he got straight in touch to see if we could meet up. Well, having already snagged lunch at the Crystal Palace, I managed to get a table for the four of us, so that’s all set.
Judy and I are looking forward to meeting both of you. I was glad that you were able to get the ADR changed to add us. You know that we almost missed you. The 21st is our last day this trip. We check out on the 22nd.
Great job in getting your ADRs especially BOG. Have you eaten at Portobello before. I'm always curious since it seems like a nice restaurant but I never read any reviews for it.
Our dates for Disneyland are Tuesday 8 - Friday 11 September. We can book the Grand Californian Villas on Sunday and so far, the availability is looking good. It would be great if we could meet up there too.
When I have definite dates, I'll let you know, but that was exactly the week I'd been looking at!
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Mickey's so happy to see me back, he can barely contain himself!
Fantastic news on BoG! And then finally the Cirque tickets as well, awesome. But what is with those other restaurants? No way could they be full already. Very odd indeed.
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Tanya
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Then it wouldn’t open, so I moved off the laptop and on to the desktop, just in case it was an issue with the Wi-Fi, and fortunately this time, it opened fine… only I then had to log in again. I could feel precious minutes ticking by, and I was beginning to wonder if anything would be left by the time I finally had a chance to check.. 
There were three times available for it! 
I was stunned, as I wasn’t just booking for us, I was booking for Bob and Larry too, so I needed a table of four. I grabbed the earliest slot at 6:05pm, then a few minutes later, after I completed booking everything else I wanted, I did wonder about getting the slightly later slot at 6:45pm. I figured it would be gone by now, but 
it was still there, so I was even able to swap the time slots. You couldn’t make it up! 
) with Michael (rhinohunter) and his wife Judy. I literally only read yesterday how one of their trips would just overlap with ours, and mentioned when we’d be arriving, and he got straight in touch to see if we could meet up. Well, having already snagged lunch at the Crystal Palace, I managed to get a table for the four of us, so that’s all set. 
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