Jack & Monica
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2002
Originally, I had planned on giving a detailed summary of our trip JAN 19-5 FEB. Because of a lack of personal time, I am going to give my perceptions of our trip. I will highlight things that stood out to us. Some of the observations will be on the food, startegies for attacking the parks (what worked and what didn't work), the shows at WDW, the Star Wars View experience, our day at Universal, I will post a cruise specific thread in the Disney Cruise Line area. I will make specific, objective (i hope) comments on Disney vs. Universal and DCL vs. other cruise lines. -*=-0987654321`
First the who/what/where:
Trip Participants: Me (DH), DW, DD13, and DMIL
Timeline: 1 night at Boulder Ridge (WL) 1 BR Villa; 7 night western caribbean sailing on the Disney Fantasy; back to WDW for 9 nights (Mother-in-law flew home on 27 JAN after the cruise) at BR.
Overall impressions:
Trip was wonderful.
Wilderness Lodge is my new favorite resort. We got a 1 BR Villa for just the 3 of us simply because it had a washer and dryer. My first priority for room placement at every resort is closeness to the bus pickup point. We had room 5519. WHAT A VIEW!!! I highly recommend this room. The room was right off of the elevator on the top floor. It is a corner room. It had two veranduhs. One faced northwest facing the Copper Creek Villas and the courtyard between. the other faced NE with a direct view of Bay Lake and the Boulder Ridge Pool below. One of my DD's favorite things was to watch for the Electric Water Pageant each night. We did use the boat transportation when we went to the Magic Kingdom which was a good 5-minute walk to the pier on Bay Lake. Housekeeping gave us ample packets of coffee, two laundry detergent packets, and dryer sheets each day (as we used them). Now that the construction is finished -- the place is beautiful.
Transportation: I know that many folks have had vastly different experiences with the transportation at WDW, all I can say is that with one exception, it worked as Disney advertized. The exception was a communication failure. Because i employ the strategy of using the Morning EMH, I wanted to know when the first bus/boat left each morning. I asked several cast members and the answer was consistently 1 hour before the park opens. Unfortunately this is not accurate. I know this because we got to the bus station for our first park day (Monday 29 JAN -- Animal Kingdom) at about 6:50. We did not get the bus to AK until about 7:15. We still made it to AK before rope drop, but I thought we were not off to a confidence inducing start! I later found out that the first bus actually arrived at 6:30 (90 minutes before the park opened). I found this out when I talked to a transportation cast member at the bus stop. (Disney has limited personnel assets that they try to place at the bus depots at each resort). It is not 100% but the cast members waiting in the morning at the resort bus stops are usually transportation folks. This info (90 min first bus) checked out for each of the later days of our trip). In fact, we spent 5 days at Disney Parks and usually park hopped. We waited longer than 20 mins 2 times and both of those times, it took 25 mins for our bus. All of the other times, we had very minimal waits.
The boat transportation worked even better. We took the boat a lot because at the end of every park day we ended it by stopping by MK to get our packs of Sorcerers of the MK cards. We never had to wait more than 10 mins for a boat back to WL. We found it much easier to get to the boat docks than to walk to our bus pick up point at MK. I was amazed at how many people stayed at the FW camp grounds. The boat for the Fort Wilderness Camp Grounds (which shares the dock with the WL boat) always had 2-3X the number of people on the WL boat.
Magical Express was absolutely flawless both coming and going. We were really lucky. We literally waited about 5 minutes both on our arrival and on our exit. I truly believe we just really go lucky. I have waited as much as 40 minutes in the past.
First the who/what/where:
Trip Participants: Me (DH), DW, DD13, and DMIL
Timeline: 1 night at Boulder Ridge (WL) 1 BR Villa; 7 night western caribbean sailing on the Disney Fantasy; back to WDW for 9 nights (Mother-in-law flew home on 27 JAN after the cruise) at BR.
Overall impressions:
Trip was wonderful.
Wilderness Lodge is my new favorite resort. We got a 1 BR Villa for just the 3 of us simply because it had a washer and dryer. My first priority for room placement at every resort is closeness to the bus pickup point. We had room 5519. WHAT A VIEW!!! I highly recommend this room. The room was right off of the elevator on the top floor. It is a corner room. It had two veranduhs. One faced northwest facing the Copper Creek Villas and the courtyard between. the other faced NE with a direct view of Bay Lake and the Boulder Ridge Pool below. One of my DD's favorite things was to watch for the Electric Water Pageant each night. We did use the boat transportation when we went to the Magic Kingdom which was a good 5-minute walk to the pier on Bay Lake. Housekeeping gave us ample packets of coffee, two laundry detergent packets, and dryer sheets each day (as we used them). Now that the construction is finished -- the place is beautiful.
Transportation: I know that many folks have had vastly different experiences with the transportation at WDW, all I can say is that with one exception, it worked as Disney advertized. The exception was a communication failure. Because i employ the strategy of using the Morning EMH, I wanted to know when the first bus/boat left each morning. I asked several cast members and the answer was consistently 1 hour before the park opens. Unfortunately this is not accurate. I know this because we got to the bus station for our first park day (Monday 29 JAN -- Animal Kingdom) at about 6:50. We did not get the bus to AK until about 7:15. We still made it to AK before rope drop, but I thought we were not off to a confidence inducing start! I later found out that the first bus actually arrived at 6:30 (90 minutes before the park opened). I found this out when I talked to a transportation cast member at the bus stop. (Disney has limited personnel assets that they try to place at the bus depots at each resort). It is not 100% but the cast members waiting in the morning at the resort bus stops are usually transportation folks. This info (90 min first bus) checked out for each of the later days of our trip). In fact, we spent 5 days at Disney Parks and usually park hopped. We waited longer than 20 mins 2 times and both of those times, it took 25 mins for our bus. All of the other times, we had very minimal waits.
The boat transportation worked even better. We took the boat a lot because at the end of every park day we ended it by stopping by MK to get our packs of Sorcerers of the MK cards. We never had to wait more than 10 mins for a boat back to WL. We found it much easier to get to the boat docks than to walk to our bus pick up point at MK. I was amazed at how many people stayed at the FW camp grounds. The boat for the Fort Wilderness Camp Grounds (which shares the dock with the WL boat) always had 2-3X the number of people on the WL boat.
Magical Express was absolutely flawless both coming and going. We were really lucky. We literally waited about 5 minutes both on our arrival and on our exit. I truly believe we just really go lucky. I have waited as much as 40 minutes in the past.