Trip Reports

• Time of Year: Winter
• Travel Method: Plane, Rental Car
• Resort: Port Orleans
• Accommodations: Standard Room
• Ages Represented in Group: Infant/Toddler, Elementary, Adult
• WDW Experience Represented in Group: Frequent
• Comments: Marc and his family visited WDW with friends. Three kids were in the party, Matthew (6), Jonathan (4), and Jennifer (6). The Kortlander's stayed at Port Orleans. Marcs report covers what they did, with special emphasis on his opinions of the resorts and other details of WDW.

Trip Report 2/22-2/28

Let me begin by apologizing up front for a rambling report, now let me warn you that there are some negative comments contained in my report, so if reading something negative about WDW affects you please do not continue.

OK, here we go!

The players: me my wife Jeri, and my 2 boys Matthew (6) and Jonathan (4), also with us are Ara and Carmen with their daughter Jeniffer (6) We all flew Delta Express with A&C taking a 7 am flight and we are on the 9 am all from Newark NJ, the flight is uneventful and everyone should know that Delta Express means a small crowded plane with the minimum space between seats and NO food service, so make sure to either eat at the airport or bring your own snack, the family nest to me brought bagels and cream cheese, she offered me one but I felt funny dipping into their cache of supplies.

We arrived at MCO right on time and the baggage came out promptly, part of the package I arranged was a car from Alamo, now I've been through their MCO facility before and didn't really care for the way they operate but the package's price was right so I thought that it would be OK to suffer this minor inconvenience, WRONG! we get to the spot where the Alamo bus picks up from MCO arrivals and found over 100 people waiting for a ride, I asked one fellow how long he was waiting he said about 15 minutes! just then a bus appeared and it turned into a mob scene of pushing luggage carts running over peoples toes and other assorted mayhem, I told my wife to take one boy and go upstairs to the 3rd level departure area and to wait there while me and my 6 year old jumped in a cab to go to get the car, 12 dollars later we got to Alamo and encountered a line but moving line and we retrieved the other half of the family without incident.

We went straight to Port Orleans and a few wrong turns later we arrived and checked in. Ara had arrived 2 hours earlier and got us into building 5 and he requested adjoining rooms but when we got there the adjoining room was reserved but wasn't made up, to be honest it worked out for the better as we go a 3rd floor room which is what I wanted to begin with and Ara and family was one level down, no big deal!

We went to the food court and had an off hour snack, one thing about the food court, the food is pretty good, the prices are OK but when there is a crowd, IMHO it just doesn't work too well, the food court is at it's best at off hours.

From there it was to the pool, and it is really a neat pool for the kids, they have a dragon slide, "alligators" that squirt water at the pool and it is no deeper than 4 ½ feet, over the week it was hard to pull the kids away from the pool!

We planned on a walk along the canal to look at Dixie Landings but a rain shower ended that plan so we {all 7 of us}relaxed a bit and then headed out to the Boardwalk to rustle up some dinner. Here is a lesson learned, ALWAYS GET YOUR DINNER PLANS SET UP EARLY we got lucky! We got to the Boardwalk around 6:30 and the men went out in search of seating for dinner, Flying Fish and Spoodles couldn't get us in for 2 hours so we tried the River Brewery(?) they said about 90 minutes which worked out fine by us, we found the wives and kids being entertained buy a street magician and my 4 year old was in stitches he loved the guy! we walked a bit and then we rented one of those 4 wheel bikes for six and peddled around the lake, on the second spin we stopped by the brewery and they were ready to seat us [about 20 minutes early] so I returned the bike and we sat down to eat outside on the Boardwalk, unfortunately the rain returned but the staff outdid themselves and set us up inside for a not memorable but good meal.

Sunday:

My wife wants to go to services at the Poly so we drive over there and I take the boys and we hop on the monorail to the MK we get there at 8:15 but they will not open until 8:30, I enjoy a cup of coffee a CM stationed outside with a coffee pot offers me and we wait, some characters come out and visit with us and the boys get to shake hands with the bears from the jamboree and Daniel Boone there were others but I can't remember who. At 8:30 they let us in and we walk the length of Main Street and up to the "castle" we don't particularly like the cake concept but knowing that it is not permanent makes it into an interesting but ugly oddity. We are to meet up with my wife and Ara and his family at City Hall at 9:15 so we head back down Main St. and watch the end of a show from up in the RR station and then we went into the 25 Anniversary Welcome center, get out badges and watch the "infomercial" on the way out we could've taken a litho but I decided not to take it now. We met up with my wife and friends and took the railroad to Adventure Land.

We went on Splash Mountain, BTMRR, we cut over and went on pirates, my wife took the boys up into the treehouse and then we went to the CB Jamboree, after that we headed towards the HM but the line was LONG so we headed to Its a Small World and after that we walked around the "cake" and watched a bit of a show there, while the kids watched the show I went and got our name in for the lunch buffet at the Crystal Palace, 40 minute wait, the food was pretty good and we all loaded up! the characters seemed a bit harder to come by than I am used to at these character meals and in the 90 minutes we were there Tigger came by and visited twice, Eyore blew right by use and we had to beg to get Pooh over to the table, but he came and the kids got to say hello and we all left full of food and happy to have met the characters.

From there we went towards Tomorrow Land and went in the Time Machine, did a swap on Space Mountain because my little one chickened out at the loading area, so my big one lucked out and did it twice with only one wait. After SM we went over to Toontown and visited Mickey and went on the new roller coaster there.

Tip: if the line for the coaster is long I wouldn't wait for it, it is over in a flash and the coaster is too much for the infants and not enough for the big guys.

We hopped on the train again and went back to Adventure Land we were going to try Splash Mountain again but the line was about 40 minutes long so we headed towards HM and walked right in again the little one didn't want to go so my SO waited for us. We were starting to loose our energy so we went to the presidents to see the show and get a nice rest off of our feet, when the show ended we went out and waited for the Spectromagic parade, we sat right in front on the fence wall by the entrance to the presidents and waited about 40 minutes for the parade, IT WAS worth the wait we really enjoyed the parade but we were all pooped so we started out of the park and hit a wall of people on Main Street. We worked our way down to the welcome center, got our lithos and went back to the hotel.

Now here is a scientific answer to all those who don't know if the Disney transportation is fast or if driving yourself is faster:

Our car was at the Poly and Ara used the buses to get to the MK from Port Orleans, We took the monorail to the Poly and when we walked into the lobby of PO, Ara and family stepped off the bus! Now considering that this was about as busy as the buses get, and they even had to let a full bus leave without them, you got to give credit where it is due, One for Disney Transport!!

Monday:

Today we went to MGM, now I know that there is alot of talk about MGM vs. Universal and my opinion is that they are both very good but you have to appreciate the differences between the two places. And if you can realize the potential in each park you can enjoy each of them for what they do good.

OK enough about that and before I boor you with the details let me say that this is my fourth time to MGM and this was my best trip there!

We all had a BLAST!

First we did ST twice and then we walked into Muppets 3d, from there we went over to the Indy show and waited about 40 minutes in 3rd row seats for a great show that we all enjoyed, after the show we had a bite at Pizza planet and the kids played a few games. We walked around to the front of the sound stage and waited on the steps there for the parade which the kids loved and we thought was pretty good to! We jumped onto the end of the parade and walked right into the Little Mermaid which was also a very nice show. From there we walked down towards the Dalmatians promo, took some pics of the kids and went on the back lot tour, which has been revamped since I last took it, they show us a quickie water effects bit and the we took the usual tram ride.

From there the kids wanted to play at the HISTK play area but it was way to crowded to be enjoyed, at this time Ara and family decided to head out and we wandered a bit and the we saw the Hunchback show which my wife really enjoyed, it was a well executed show with some great acting and nice songs! I even spied a CM who was working crowd control at the show and I guess she is an actress want to be who "sang" along to Esmerelda's big song.

After the show we went back on Star Tours one more time and then headed back to PO.

We met up with out friends and took a boat from PO to the Marketplace and as soon as I got off the boat I went to the Rainforest to put our name in for dinner, 1 hour 45 minute wait!

Tip: most of the restaurants do not seem to be able to handle larger parties so if you can split you larger group into parties of 4, you will get seated sooner!

The long wait really didn't matter because we expected a wait and we wanted to do some strolling and shopping anyway. We walked and shopped and we got seated 10 minutes early.

***WARNING, NEGATIVE COMMENTS AHEAD***

Now here is where it all falls apart, they send us to the back of the place and give us a table that is in the middle of a seating area right behind the host podium and on the walkway to the rest rooms, it was like being seated in the middle of an intersection but because we were a group of 7 we had a limited choice of tables to choose from, the CM said if we cared to wait another 20 minutes we could maybe get a better table but we were ready for our adventure so we took the poor table.

Now it become a nightmare! we were seated at 8:15 and the tables around us were seated about the same time, we ordered wine and beer and then we placed the food order, Carmen and I both ordered ribs, the waiter returns about 5 minutes later and apologizes but reports that there are no more ribs so we reorder, I knew we were in trouble but I never expected to sit for 56 MINUTES with no food no nothing! The kids fell asleep at the table! at about the 40 minute mark I found the waiter and told him to make the kids food appear, after 10 more minutes I went to the host and demanded a manager, the food then finally showed up and the manager breezed by the podium but I suppose seeing the food she thought all was well and never came to me. The waiter placed the kids meals in front of the kids whose heads were on the table SLEEPING, I went back to the podium and said that I still hadn't seen a manager, the manager came by and I very calmly described what happened and she apologized and off to reduce the bill by taking off the kids meals and also the drinks, I tried to explain that I really didn't care about the money but I was really pissed off because they really blew my night out my kids night out and our friends night out, I don't believe she ever really got what I was getting at. Just as an aside the next day the kids were watching the Disney TV promos and one came on for the Rainforest and the both said "euuu, we never want to go there again!"

You can make of this what you like but for a place to run out of a dish is one thing but to make us wait for a table and then have the waiter, the kitchen and then management screw up so badly is incompetence that is beyond belief.

***massive rant over***

Tuesday we split from our friends as they want to leave WDW and play tourist and we couldn't think of a worse idea!

The weather was kind of cloudy with a bit of rain so we went to the new Fantasia miniature golf and play a very expensive round of golf. They have a familiar miniature golf and a {for me} unique challenge course which is more like real golf but it isn't as big as a pitch and putt course, we all a had a fun round of golf the sun came out so we ran over to Blizzard Beach, this was the first time there for us and we were amazed at how nice it was! it wasn't crowded and there seemed to be something for ever level of swimmer from toddlers to thrill seekers to lazy bums like me!

We went on the family tube ride and then we rafted around the park, the boys went on a few of the milder water slides and then we had lunch.

***Disney Magic Moment***

We went to a hot dog shack near one of the pools and we ate on some picnic benches opposite the shack, there is music that is piped in at a pretty loud volume and just as we were finishing our dogs the Macarena came on. Our little guy gets up and does his version of the dance and because our backs were to the shack we didn't know we had an audience of the 5 or 6 CM's who weren't very busy at the time, the song ended and all of a sudden there is clapping, cheering, hooting and hollering! My little guy was so embarrassed over all the attention the CMs were giving him but they were all smiles and it was really fun! To top this off one of the CMs comes over to him and gives him an ice cream for being such a good dancer (of course she brought one for big brother too!)

This was real Disney Magic for all of us!

In the evening I had made PS for Flying Fish and booked a night out for the kids at the child care at the Boardwalk {I forgot the name of the facility} There they had dinner, played video and computer games, drew pictures and watched movies, the kids loved it!

The adults had an extraordinary dinner at Flying Fish! it started as a potential disaster as we arrived about 10 minutes early for dinner but they said it would be around a half hour longer, so the gave us a beeper and we headed to the cocktail lounge in the hotel, after about 45 minutes, no beep! so I asked the bartender to call the restaurant for us and they said to come down they've been waiting for us! Apparently they put the wrong beeper unit number onto our seating tag! Hey no harm-no foul, we were seated and we had a spectacular full dinner, This was the best food I have ever had at WDW! I cannot say it is the best food at WDW because I haven't tried all the different place but I know food and this place is great!!!

Wednesday:

we went to EPCOT, nothing too new here, saw the new Ellen show, body wars, horizons (time for a revamp), and then we headed over to HISTA, waited a few minutes for the show and enjoyed this one again, this was our friends first time and we didn't clue them into what it was like, I almost busted a gut when the mice hit and Carmen almost hit the ceiling! Unfortunately their daughter didn't care for it at all! We went and had some fast food from the place in front of Mexico and then we into spaceship earth. We let the kids run free in a very empty Inoventions where I think I've discovered a new Hidden Mickey, I have to check that site on the web and see if this one has been reported yet. We saw the semi impressive VR demo and let the kids play the videos while I surfed the net a bit.

We had early dinner reservations at the Coral Reef and had a very unimpressive meal in a great setting. There were diver galore in the tank, it must have been a group that they allow to dive the tank. After dinner the kids didn't get to see enough fish so we went into the sea and the kids spent about an hour with the Manatee and the porpoises.

We then road the boat across the lake and saw the movie in France and hat some coffee and pastry and then watched Illuminations from the bridge there. Illuminations has been beefed up a bit and was a nicer version than what I've seen in the past. Then we joined the LONG march out!

Thursday was Typhoon Lagoon day and again the kids loved it! my big guy couldn't get enough of the wave pool and I really enjoyed the rafting around the park. This place really took alot out of me though, I banged my head in the sub they have there and then I took a massive sting from some kind of bee! That was the nastiest sting I ever got! The first aid people where nice but there really wasn't much that could be done.

Typhoon is more family orientated than BB and the crowds there reflected the wider appeal of the park, it was very crowded but not crowded to the point of being unenjoyable. We all had fun but that bee sent us back to the hotel a bit earlier than planned. And the kids hit the pool again for an hour or so!

Thursday night we planned another kids night away from the parents, this time at the Cubs Den at the WL, the kids really loved this place! They had more video games here than the club at the Boardwalk and they even brought in the animals from the nightly animal show at the WL, this night they brought in a snake and Magoo the blind owl.

The adults had another great dinner at Artist's Point, this place is not quite as good as Flying Fish but it isn't too far behind at all! We had a really nice waitress who after I asked her to fill a plastic bag up with ice for my sting went and mad a baking soda salve for me that she insisted would take the sting out of the sting. I can't say if the salve worked or the ice worked or the two bottles wine worked but I had no pain when I left the restaurant!

With the kids being watched we took a very quick visit to Pleasure Island, stopped in a 8 trax and the adventurers club and we were turned away from the jazz show so we just went back to the WL and collected the kids.

Friday was go home day so we spent the AM at the hotel pool, then we took a boat to the Marketplace and bought sandwiches from the Gourmet store and then we headed back to PO and off to the airport.

Here is a concise summary of my views and experiences of the week at WDW...

Plane to WDW:

• Delta Express is a bare bones, basic transport operation, very competent transportation, but absolutely nothing beyond the actual transport. This is not a complaint, just a view of what Delta Express is.

Auto rental:

• Alamo at MCO handles about 45% of all the cars rented at that airport, the operation is huge and is usually capable of processing a large number of rentals, IMHO the problems arise when 3 or 4 planes arrive at once and the service gets overwhelmed and breaks down. If you can, try and rent a car from a rental agency that is within the terminal, it might cost a bit more but it is one less hassle to contend with.

Lodging:

• I have been to WDW 7 times now, staying on property, off property, and even just a day trip. This time, by far, our stay at Port Orleans was the BEST time we've had at WDW!
• The room is very adequate, the food court was handy, good food at a reasonable price as long as you avoided the prime time eating hours then the service can be slow. We often opted for the full service Bon Familles full service restaurant adjacent to the food court. The restaurant was fairly priced and offered a fine selection with out having to deal with the crowd at the food court.
• The grounds at Port Orleans were nice, well maintained and on a manageable scale. The pool was, according to the kids, "awesome."
• Port Orleans seems to be in the middle of WDW and is convenient to everything WDW has to offer. The bus transport is very good and there is even a boat to the Marketplace.
• I think that for the money PO is one of the best options available at WDW.
• The difference between PO and the more expensive resorts is:
  • Density of the property
  • Scale of landscaping and themeing
  • While the rooms are about the same size, the bathrooms are smaller at PO than the more expensive resorts
  • Guest services offered are slightly less than at the more expensive resorts, i.e.: no concierge service and no child care on site.
• The only flaw with PO seems to be the noise that the plumbing makes, I was in a 3rd floor unit but we could hear the adjoining rooms toilet flushes, our friends who had a 2nd floor unit heard much more noise.
• Regarding building choice at PO, I preferred building 5 because it is centrally located near the pool, main building, and boat dock. Others might enjoy building 1 because it is far away from all the hub-bub of the central area of the resort, either way it is a great place to stay.
• Finally the hotel was 100% booked and aside from the busy at prime time food court, nothing else seemed crowded.

MK:

• MK on Sunday was crowded but not unmanageable, you did have to wait at some rides but you could have chose to skip a ride if the crowd was too big and try later. Being that all of us had been here so many times there was no pressure to so or do anything so we just "went with the flow" we had a great time and did almost all the "must" do's without any anxiety, we even took a 2 hour break for lunch.
• The Spectromagic parade should not be missed at all costs!
• Part of the reason for the crowds was that we went on a Sunday but we couldn't have told the kids to wait another day!

MGM:

• This trip was the most enjoyable time I ever had at MGM, why? I can't say but the place was very busy but it was also hassle free! Again there was no mad rush to see any specific thing or ride and that takes a lot of the pressure off. We went where we wanted when we wanted without any long waits excepting the Indy show which we wanted to get good seats for so we waited in our 3rd row seats about 40 minutes. We went on star tour numerous times with the only wait being for the ride to complete its cycle and everything else was the same.

Epcot:

• Of all the parks, EPCOT seemed the least crowded, the only wait was for HISTA and that was not long at all. We arrived here at 10 am and there was still a line for spaceship earth so we skipped it and returned later. We didn't go to much of the World Showcase and we concentrated our activities to the front of the park. We did take the boat over to the back of the World Showcase saw the movie at France, a personal favorite and we watched Illuminations from the bridge near there. Former Illuminations shows to me were always a ho-hum thing but the spruced up version being done now is worth sticking around to see.

Crowds:

• The place was busy but not to the point of being a problem, if a large crowd was encountered at an attraction it was easy enough to skip that one move on to the next and come back later.

Brazilians:

• They were here, so were Argentineans and also noticeable were US school groups. There was no one group any more obnoxious than any other group. The most obnoxious people where the few inconsiderate dolts who acted as if what ever attraction they were going to was the last to ever be offered.
• Being obnoxious is not confined to one group or another, we encountered some very nice and friendly South American kids and some extremely rude Americans!

Sea Gulls:

• Definitely a problem that has to be addressed in some areas of all the parks! STOP FEEDING the BIRDS signs would go a long way to ending the problems these rats with wings create.

Water Parks:

• Blizzard Beach is more water slides and things for kids 10 and up, The is a lot for all to do and anyone can have a great time here, but the families with younger kids would enjoy Typhoon Lagoon more, and the larger crowds there is testimony to my observations.

Pleasure Island and The Marketplace:

• We really didn't have enough time to give PI a fair shot but from what I saw I came away very under whelmed by the place. Maybe if I was 15 or 20 years younger and was willing to party the night away I'd have a different view of the place. The marketplace is constantly being improved and tweaked and is a great place to stroll, window shop and even buy things!

Food:

• As I ranted earlier the Rainforest was a disaster service wise, other than that the food at the parks was decent and the food at the resorts can be FANTASTIC!
• This is the one area of immense improvement over my earlier visits, Disney has made gigantic strides in upgrading the level of service, presentations and quality of the food. It seems as if some of the restaurants have brought in professional restaurant help and the great results reflect the new emphasis on the quality of the product the restaurants deliver.
• If that wasn't enough, I think that the level of service the quality of food served and the very reasonable prices charged make Disney resorts a great place to dine and entertain!

Child Care:

• We used 2 of the resort evening child care services, the one at the Boardwalk and the Cub's Den at WL the kids liked the Cubs Den a bit better but both are good choices, the cost is a bit steep but then again, they did feed and watch over our most precious possessions! Their kids enjoyed their Disney nights out!

CMs:

• They are all 99.99% great, there is always a clunker but overall these people are the best!
• Our little joke is that anyone who works outside of WDW is a WDW reject!
• The only rude CMs we found were at PI but I suppose that is the nature of the animal there.

I hope that I haven't skipped anything and if you need more details feel free to drop me a note, I'll tell all in private.

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