A seed was planted and here’s what grew....Magical Memories - Page 30 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Sounds like you have it pretty much figured out for your next trip . I hope that it will not be to long before you can start planning your next visit to WDW.
Great final thoughts! I wish we had an auto train or even a regular train that would travel between here (Atlanta) and Orlando........ Looking forward to the rest of your final thoughts.....
Sounds like you have it pretty much figured out for your next trip . I hope that it will not be to long before you can start planning your next visit to WDW.
Yeah, we're figuring things out but it will be a while - we don't want to go back until Fantasyland is done (so we're looking at no sooner than 2013 )
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Originally Posted by B.M.
Great final thoughts! I wish we had an auto train or even a regular train that would travel between here (Atlanta) and Orlando........ Looking forward to the rest of your final thoughts.....
Thanks - the train is fun but not always the best mode of transportation for short distances (which I consider Atlanta to Florida to be)
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Originally Posted by Cam22
Great wrap up, Darlene! so much for sharing another trip with us!
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Originally Posted by chezp
Great wrap-up!
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Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
Great wrap up Darlene!
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Originally Posted by KMB733
Great wrap up!!!
Thanks guys. I will have more coming though. I'll have several parts to the "my final thoughts" portion of my TR. Once I started typing, lots of things I felt worth mentioning popped into my head but I didn't want to do a huge post so I'm splitting it up. So just keep an eye out for the rest.
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I loved your trip report, thanks! I have only ridden on a train once when I was little but can't remember it now. It seems like it would be fun and I have looked into it for a Disney trip, but we are only 8 hours away so not cost effective for us. I can't wait to read the rest of your wrap up.
These really aren’t in any particular order. It started to have an order but as I thought of things, I wanted to type it up before I forgot what it was I wanted to say. So here we go to my final thoughts on:
All Star Sports Resort:
We love this hotel. We don’t love sports and the huge icons don’t mean much to us so why do we love it? Because it means we’re on Disney property. We’re all happy to be there and for me, I don’t care if it is the cheapest room on the property (well not really, we do go for preferred over standard), I’m in Disney. We don’t really need much, basically the bed, the bathroom and the pool. Staying preferred, it’s really nice to be close to the parking lot, the pool, the laundry room and the food court. Outside of that, we don’t really spend a lot of time at the room - pretty much all of our waking hours are spent at a park. It’s rare that we spend any time in the room, but the times we have, we’ve spent it having dinner and just relaxing where it’s nice and quiet. And for some reason, we find the food tastes a lot better when we eat in the room. We don’t know why it does, it just seems to.
And while it’s not home, it is home away from home and we’re just so comfortable there. I think getting the 2 connecting rooms and having room to "spread out" helps as well. Abby has her space and Lenny and I have ours. When it’s bedtime for her, Lenny and I can stay up later if we want or if we all go to bed at the same time, I can wake up early in the morning and accomplish a few things without worrying that I’m going to wake Abby up.
As much as I’ve thought next time around we should stay somewhere different, I really don’t care to. I know I’m a really odd duck, but I don’t care about the themeing of the hotels. I can’t see any of that when I’m in the parks or asleep so I just can’t see spending the extra money. Plus too, when we were doing our penny pressing adventures and going to every hotel, none of them jumped out at me and had me saying "we have to stay here." For the most part, the contrary happened. Pretty much there was something at every hotel that had me saying "I DON’T want to stay here." Even my beloved Fort Wilderness and Treehouse Villas - as much as I loved all the years we stayed in them, I couldn’t go back to them now. So all in all, we love staying at AS Sports and we won’t hesitate to stay here again.
My breakfast versus lunch plan:
In theory, it was going to work out absolutely great. We’d get up early, go have a nice breakfast and then do whatever during the day. There would be no grumpiness because we hadn’t eaten and the next meal would be x amount of hours away. I wouldn’t have to worry about bringing snacks into the parks and taking up room in the backpack. We could avoid stopping in the middle of our day to make a lunch ADR. Like I said, it sounded great but the more I thought about it, it wasn’t such a great plan anymore.
I still had concerns about my dietary issues. It would be a really rough start to each day if we showed up at our ADR’s and there wasn’t a lot for me to eat. I would have been fine with that, but Lenny would not have been and I didn’t want to hear from him that we didn’t get our money’s worth of a meal for me. Then, as the school year went on and it was increasingly harder for Abby to get out of bed, I couldn’t see us waking up early every morning at Disney. Yeah, I could have woken her up but where’s the fun in waking up a child to go eat - especially my child? Some kids would probably be fine with it but I know Abby. Waking her up early for ANY reason only results in a bad day for her. No way was I going to ruin our vacation by making her get out of bed - especially every day.
So with that knowledge, I went back and rethought our plans. I’m glad I changed my mind and did a some of every meal. And now I have this year’s experience to help plan with future meals. Would I do breakfasts again? Sure, I would do some but definitely not all. And I would definitely mention my dietary problems again. That worked out well with the exception of 2 restaurants
The dining plan / my dietary issues / the meals we had and what might happen in the future to them:
We make full use of our dining plan and really it’s so worth it for us. This trip, we paid approximately 865 for the dining plan but yet the food total came in at approximately 1150!!! I know a lot of people say buffets/family style meals are a waste of the dining plan but apparently either those people don’t like buffets or they don’t put much thought into it. ALL of our meals were buffet and family style - and we even went to a 2 credit meal - CRT. So for the dining plan, we would definitely get it again and do the same thing - buffets and family style. This way I know everyone will have something they can eat.
As for me and my dietary issues, I would work that differently though. It worked great for this trip but after a while - especially for the dinners - boiled potatoes, green beans and broccoli got old very quickly. I can’t say for sure what I’d do differently. Maybe I would just have it noted for breakfast meals which are by far the worst ones for me. I don’t know. It all depends upon when we go and what types of meals they have then.
CRT - it was an absolutely fantastic way to start the vacation. I know some people have had bad experiences here but ours was just wonderful. It was the first breakfast I’ve had in years that didn’t make me sick, Abby saw all of the Princesses, and Lenny loved his meal and got not only seconds but also thirds. So if it’s mentioned for a future trip, I would actually consider it again (which is funny because I used to say we would never eat there - I guess that proves I should never say never)
TH - If it still has the character breakfast buffet, this will be a must do. It was the best meal for me all week. I know Abby enjoyed it and I’m pretty sure Lenny did too and on top of if being the best meal, it just really was a great way to start our AK day.
Akershus - It was enjoyable again. Truthfully, the only reason we eat here is because of the Princesses and if Abby wants to see them, we’ll go back as the food has been good too.
GG - A fantastic restaurant. If it’s kept as a character meal, we definitely want to go back. It really was the best interaction we had all week and that alone made the meal worth it.
CP - Now that we have a plan for here (we run up and get a bunch of plates before the characters then sit and relax to eat what we took), we liked this meal and would certainly go here again unless Abby outgrows Pooh and Friends.
Ohana’s - what can I say about here? Abby likes it, Lenny enjoys the food and then there’s me. Twice we’ve eaten here and twice the food has disagreed with me. The first time because I didn’t know it would happen, the second happened despite having a special diet noted (vinegar was used despite my stating no acids). Plus when you add in the fact that we did not receive any/not even offered any Mickey Waffles for Abby like all the tables around us were and our server spent next to no time at our table, if I had the choice of returning here again or going someplace else, I would choose someplace else.
1900 PF - It was good this year but the Prince coming over to "waltz" with Abby made the meal. That created such a wonderful memory of the meal but would I eat here again? Yeah the food was good enough (this always ends up at the end of our vacation when we start getting sick of eating) and I would go back unless Abby doesn’t want to.
CM - This is one place I think we’ll skip in the future. We’ve done a few dinners that while Abby and I enjoyed, I’ve come to find out Lenny was less than thrilled with them. And knowing that and with the treatment I got from the Chef for this vacation (had an answer for everything I mentioned and was the ONLY chef all week who did not walk around the buffet tables with me to make sure I could eat what was there), I think it’s time to give some place else a try.
HDD - we didn’t do this one this year but when we went to FW for the Trails End Buffet Abby asked if we could eat here instead. There was no Disney magic that day as I couldn’t get us in but I would think about it for the next time. I wasn’t thrilled with the HDD the time we did do it but what’s the point of a family vacation if we can’t all do something we like?
As for CS places, where we ate was fine. Cosmic Rays seemed to be the favorite of Lenny and Abby. Me, I’m not particularly fussy with the CS. I just made sure we went places that had something for everyone to eat. I didn’t have a favorite but neither did I have one that I would say never again about. And what’s really odd is while I have some problems with the food at the TS places, I never seemed to have problems with the CS foods. I really have no idea why that is, but it is what it is.
I agree with you about the value resorts; not only do I like to stay there to save money- but my kids and I love it and have no serious desire to stay elsewhere.....
Glad you had a good experience with CRT, we had a less than stellar experience when we ate their in 2008, but I'd like to give it another try next trip........
Thanks Darlene for the great review of all the restaurants. I'm sure that all of your observations will make it easier for some to make their ADR's.
It is always fun to follow your TR and your closing comments are great.
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. I hope that it will not be to long before you can start planning your next visit to WDW.
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so much for sharing another trip with us!
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