Amy's Fabulous Split StayTrip Report!!!! (Finally)... About This Page:

[Buffalogirl18]

Please fasten your seat belts, put your seat backs in their upright positions, and keep your arms and legs inside the ride vehicle at all times....here we go................

The destination: WDW of course!

The dates: April 27 through May 5

The resorts: 6 days at CBR in a Pirate Room, 3 days at AKL in a Savannah View Room

The Characters: Me- mom (Amy) age 35, DH (Tony) age 39
DS15 (Michael), and DS7 (Matthew)

So, we were way too excited to sleep Sunday night! Tried desperately to keep the boy's normal routine for bedtime, as if it were a school night, but it was really hard. Matthew kept yelling down the stairs with tons of questions "MOMMY! Did you pack my ____?" Fill in the blank, he wanted to take the entire house with him, every toy he owned, all of his drawing supplies, all of his books, dvd's, even our cat! I had to explain that cats do not travel well and that he could only take what he could fit in the one small tote bag that I allotted him to carry on the plane to keep him busy during the flight. I also reminded him that if he took up too much space in the suitcases that he wouldn't have room to bring any souvenirs home. He said "sure I will - Daddy can just carry them on the plane for me!" Little stinker!!! Then there's Michael, being 15 has it's own set of challenges. He wanted to just stay up all night playing xbox360. His theory is that he wasn't gonna be able to sleep anyway, so why even bother trying - he'd rather be playing a game, than staring at the dark ceiling all night! I told him nice try - and lights out!

DH and I eventually got to bed after 11:00 but I don't think either of us fell asleep before 12:30.....

Then beep-beep-beep....4:00AM!!!!! It's time!!!! Everyone jumped up at once! It's finally here! It's Disney Day! We all got up, dressed, cleaned up, too excited to eat, figured we would just do that at the airport. Thankfully the Buffalo airport is only 15 minutes from our house, so we don't have far to drive. We just went through our check list of what to close up, turn off, pack up, oh - feed that darn cat too! (woops!) Luckily we have good friends close by who care for him while we are away, and they do a great job with George (our cat) and the house. We always feel better knowing that they are in good hands!

We are very lucky that there are non stop flights on Southwest from Buffalo to Orlando, and it only takes about 2 hours and 20 minutes to get there! Our flight took off at 7:15am and we got there about 9:40am! It was a very smooth flight, and I had gotten up at 7am Sunday morning to check in online, got us A17-20 boarding passes, so we sat in rows 4-5 on the plane.

When we got to the DME counter at 9:55, there was a LOOOONG line! I have never encountered that before! It was very disappointing, since we expected to just pick up and go! The entire roped off area was filled with people, and the whole seated waiting area was filled with family members waiting for those in the line. And there were only 5 CM's at the counter, which did not help things. I was chatting in line with a lady from Canada, and she informed me that the Canadian 7-4 deal had just begun last week? I was surprised to hear that, I just assumed that the discount was the same for everyone, can't see why it would start so late in the year for Canada? Anyhow, it took about 20 minutes to get through the line, but after that we got right on a bus. Our first resort for our stay was CBR, and we were on a bus with people going to CBR, CSR & POP. CBR was the first stop! We arrived about 10:45, and it was pretty busy there at check in time, however we only waited about 5-7 minutes before we were called to check in. I opted NOT to do online check in for CBR or AKL on this trip for a few reasons: 1. because of all the stories I heard about those lines actually being longer than the regular check in lines, 2. because I had some specific room requests that I wanted to be sure I could get, 3. because these were both resorts I'd never stayed at before and I wanted to get a feel for them right from the start at check in.

The online check in area had about the same wait time as the regular check in area did while I was there, by the way.

The Custom House at CBR is really nice, but very tucked away from everything else, and the only time we saw it was to check in! Our room was not ready when we got there, so they gave us a card with a number to call after 3:00 to get our room number. We took our carry on bags to the bell service counter and they stored them for us - later that evening when we got to the room I called them and they brought them right over within 10 minutes - no problem!

So, after check in we decided to hop a bus over to Hollywood Studios. The one thing I didn't like is that you can't catch a bus from the Custom House, you have to walk over to Barbados bus stop to get the bus. Which isn't so bad, it's just 2 minutes walk, and a cross a small street. We waited about 10 minutes for the bus. The bus will stop at every "island" and also at Old Port Royale before leaving CBR and heading to it's destination/park/DTD/water park, etc. Some people might think that would be a pain or take a long time, but it really does not, usually 5-10 minutes max - and that's no longer than it would take if for example you're staying at Boardwalk/Beach/Yacht (actually that takes a lot longer) for the buses to get to all of them before you head to a park, or Wilderness Lodge/camp, or now AKL & Kadani share buses too! Oh, and most definitely it is a lot less time than it takes to stop at the All Stars. So, CBR actually takes less time. And, staying in Trinidad South, we were very lucky in that we were the last stop to be picked up 90% of the time - so they would pick us up at the bus stop and then head straight out to the parks! And, coming back to the resort, we were usually the 3rd or 4th stop to get off, they normally start at Barbados or OPR and then go around from there. So, we normally never waited more than 5-10 minutes for a bus, and we usually got to the parks in the same amount of time. I clocked Magic Kingdom one morning and it took 14 minutes.

So, let me start with some pics and reviews of CBR: