Trip Reports

My name is Betty. I send you my planning trip report and I hope it will have its place among the very good ones I've already read. A little information on me: I live in France but I want to insist on the fact that I am Caribbean (from Guadeloupa and Martinique). Thanks a lot for the interest you will give to the beginning of my trip report.

Dates:

At WDW from 08/24/98 to 08/30/98
The crew:

My sister (Mylène, 31),
My boyfriend (Steeve, 26),
and me (Betty,25).
The Background:

Steeve and I have already spent 5 days at WDW in August 1997 (August 24-August 29). At that time of the year, the parks weren’t too crowded. These 5 days were fabulous but, coming from France, we knew we couldn’t afford such vacations before a long time.

Why did We Come Back?

Everything started in February when we started wondering where we would going to spend our Summer holidays. We had a lot of destinations in mind, particularly the French West Indies where we actually come from. One day, Steeve told me, "why wouldn’t we go back to WDW." From this moment, I started planning our vacation.

This time we wanted to spend one week off-site to visit the other attractions offered by Orlando and then to spend one week on-site.

Planning:

First, I asked my sister if she would like to come with us ; she was obviously ok but she didn’t know if she could afford it, so I started to make different plans to see how much this trip would cost .

The first thing (and one of the most expensive) was to check for the airplane tickets. The value season just starts on the 17th of August for some Airline companies. The cheapest ticket I found was about US$610 for a departure on the 19th of August and a return on the 31st of August.

We had to add the price of the Orlando motel ($209 for 7 nights), the rental car, the All Star Music Resort for 6 nights and the LOS passes. The trip was now estimated at $1200.

It seemed a little too expensive for us (Steeve is a student and he has a job too, and I’ve just started to work as a commercial assistant in September after having finishing my English studies).

We were starting to look at another vacation destination when I saw on the web an on-line reservation site where the tickets airlines were $120 less expensive with the same Airline companies (Northwest) and we could even left 2 days earlier. No more hesitation, we had to go.

This is What We Planned:

Departure on the 17th of August from Paris CDC airport.
Spend 8 days /7 nights (08/17-08/24) at the Travelodge Suites Kissimmee with a rental car (AVIS).
Then spend 7 days/6 nights (08/24-08/30) at the All Star Music resort with a LOS.
For our last night, we decided not to book any hotel room and to see if we could find a good deal at the Ocala welcome center. I hope it will work!
From the moment the reservations had been made and confirmed, I started to surf on the web, to read as much reports as I could, and to visit all WDW web sites I found.

I have to say a big thank you to all of you that helped me with such detailed trip reports. I have nearly printed them all and as I spend 2 hours/day in transports, I always make sure I’ve got one in my bag.

I’ll write my report and send it to you as soon as I come back. Feel free to e-mail me if you have any advice or tip to give me before I leave. (And sorry if the English is not perfect.)

Final Plans

After having sent my trip planning report, here is the report of the trip I made Orlando last summer. As you will be able to notice, it will not be as detailed as many of other reports because I didn’t take note every evening (only at the beginning of the trip in fact). In spite of this, I expect that my trip will be interesting for you to read.

This trip was prepared essentially by me from February to the date of departure: I read a lot of trip reports and I kept going on the radp newsgroup where I found a lot of information thanks to the kindness of all of you. I even organized several meetings between us in order to talk about the attractions we wanted to do, the restaurants we wanted to go to…i.e.

I must admit that sometimes I bothered Mylene and Steeve but I was very happy in preparing the trip like that.

This is what we planned:

Departure on the 17th of August from Paris CDC airport.
Spend 8 days /7 nights (08/17-08/24) at the Travelodge Suites Kissimmee with a rental car (AVIS).
Then spend 7 days/6 nights (08/24-08/30) at the All Star Music resort with a LOS.
For our last night, we booked a room at the Caribbean Beach Resort taking advantage of a very interesting $84 rate.
The Trip

We left on Monday, the 17th of august from Roissy CDG one hour of delay; after having waited one hour in Detroit, we took a flight to Orlando and arrived around 7pm.

We went to the Avis desk to take our car and 15 minutes after we were driving a Chevrolet Cavalier (we had been freely upgraded from a subcompact).

We arrived to our motel the " travelodge suites kissimmee " around 9 PM. Our room was very large, with a fridge and a micro wave and we also had a continental breakfast; all this for $34/night.

We unpacked, went to the Mc Donald’s for diner and went in bed.

I’m not going to detail our first week because it was an off-site week; briefly, this is what we did during the first 7 days of our trip:

Wet n Wild: a fantastic water park
Universal studios (2 times): all the attractions were fabulous
Clearwater Beach: the beach was splendid
We made an airboat ride
We went to "Pointe Orlando"
We made a lot of shopping: the Lake Buena Vista Mall, the Kissimmee Manufacturer Outlet and the Beltz factory Outlet.
These are the restaurants where we ate: the Black Angus, Little Italy, KFC, and others I don’t recall of. The breakfast was very important for us because we are completely fond of the american breakfast: we tried IHOP, Ponderosa, Schoney’s, and Denny’s which was the one we preferred.
The last day of our first week, we bought some orange and apple juices, and bottles of water: we had bought a little icebox that we filled with ice every night. It was very economical during our stay in Walt Disney World.

Walt Disney World:

Our WDW week won’t be as detailed as the first one because I was a little tired of taking notes.

When we arrived to the ASMR, we asked if we could have a room in the Calypso building and the cast member told us that we could and that the room was already ready. We were so happy!

But when we arrived in our room, we were "received" by a very strong tobacco smell. A housekeeper came and sprayed some product in the room and she told us that all the building was a smoking one. If the castmember had told us that, we would have never taken this room.

I called the guest service and they told me that we had not specified that we wanted a non-smoking room when the reservation was made. I answered that the reservation was made through a french agency and they never asked us anything about the room we wanted.

The only room available was in the Country Fair building. We didn’t take it.

We left to the MGM studios around 12am and I went and asked to the front desk if there was a room available in the non-smoking Calypso building. They told us there wasn’t but we could try another time later. This is what we did and a charming castmember called Wendy find us a room in the other Calypso building for the day after: our luggage would be transferred to our new room during the day.

I reported this story to show that the cast members do all they can to solve the problem the guests can encounter.

This is what we did during our 7 days in WDW:

Monday: We went to MGM through 4 PM and then we took our car back at the Avis desk located in the Hilton Lake Buena Vista Resort. From here we went to the DVM to take the bus to Typhoon Lagoon where we stayed through 8 PM: it was great and we stayed in the wave pool during more than 1 our screaming: "we want waves".

We ate at the ASMR food court and we crashed in bed.

Tuesday: We had breakfast at the food court and went to the MK where we stayed until the end of the afternoon parade: I was very impressed by it and we sang and danced all along the parade. Then we left because we wanted to go to Blizzard Beach but when we arrived there, it started to pour so we went back to the ASMR and went to the swimming pool after the rain. We ate at the food court and crashed din bed.

Wednesday: it was an Epcot day. We made all the attractions of the Future World. We turned back to the ASMR for a swim and at night we went to the Boardwalk and ate at the ESPN Club and turned back to sleep.

Thursday: wake-up at 6am because it’s an Animal Kingdom day. It was very hot this day, the hottest day of the holidays I think! We made the Kilimanjaro Safari, the Discovery river Cruise, It’s Tough To Be A Bug, The Legend of the Lion King and the Jungle Book. Mylene was ill that day so she didn’t come with us at the AK.

Then we went to Epcot and started the World Showcase where we stayed until the fireworks.

Friday: We went to the Grand Floridian for a character breakfast that we found very, very good; we used our flex feature there. Then we went to Epcot and finished the World Showcase. In the afternoon, we went to Blizzard Beach.

That night, it was an e-ride nights so we went to the MK through midnight. I think that this night was very profitable because we could make all the attractions we wanted without having to wait and we would have lost a lot of time if we had made them during the day.

Saturday: we went back to the MGM Studios to finish the park and in the afternoon we went to the Disney Village Marketplace.

In the evening, we went to the Polynesian Luau. We found it very good and the food was very good too. The lonely problem was to come back to the hotel because we had to go to the Transportation Center with the monorail, then to take a bus to Pleasure Island and then a bus to the ASMR.

Sunday: We packed our suitcase, went to check out and went to the front desk to have them transfer our luggage to the Caribbean resort where we would spend our last night.

We spent the morning phoning the Northwest to know which flight we could take to come back home (they were on strike, you remember?). We didn’t manage to have anybody so a cast member at the front desk told us to call other companies to see if there was a place for us. That’s what we did and we found a place on a United Airlines flight. After that I called KLM and finally manage to have someone who was very unpleasant and told me that we were not supposed to change our reservation alone. I started arguing with her but at last I rang off because I didn’t want to lose my time for my last vacation day; I will tell you more about that later.

After, we went back to the Animal Kingdom and we made all the attractions we have already seen because Mylene wasn’t with us the first time. We also made countdown to Extinction 2 times and we really had a blast (I bought the picture).

We went to the Caribbean Resort to check in and discover a very beautiful resort that was very quiet and peaceful (not like the ASMR). Above all, we paid this last night the same price as the room we had at the ASMR because I had booked it directly with the CRO from France. I don’t think that I will book my next vacation to WDW through an agency.

We spent the evening at Pleasure Island where we ate at the Bongos Cuban Cafe.

Monday: We had breakfast at the food court then we went to the DVM until our Tiffany Town Car driver came to take us to the airport.

Tuesday: We arrived in Paris CDG at 10 am and were at home at 11am.

General impressions:

I think that these were the best holidays I had ever done; it was very hot during our stay and fortunately we were not touched by the hurricanes that hit Texas and North Carolina.

The attractions I preferred: Tower of Terror (MGM), the Beauty and the Beast show (MGM), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (MGM), Splash Mountain (MK), Space Mountain (MK), HISTA (EC), Countdown to extinction (AK) and Safari ride (AK).

The Disney Animal Kingdom is wonderful but you should better go there when it’s not to hot because there are not as drinking fountains and shade as in the other parks.

The attractions I didn’t like: the Jungle Book (AK), The American Adventure (World showcase)

Last detail: Back in France, I sent an e-mail to the Northwest Company to tell them that I was not very happy of their "telephone welcome" and I have just received 3 Transportation credit voucher of $150 each. We still don’t know where we will go.

I don’t know when it will be possible for us to come back to WDW because next holidays we will go to the West Indies to visit our family.

I want to think all of you for the wonderful report you made that helped me to prepare my wonderful vacation.

If you have any questions, fell free to e-mail me.

Betty Aline

beti@club-internet.fr

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