AgentC
07-14-2012, 01:37 AM
The cast
Me
DH(hotel only plan!)
DS (6)
DD (4)
DF (dear friend)
FH(friend’s husband)
FD (friend’s daughter 10)
FS(friend’s son 5)
Originally I had planned to meet my friends on the morning of the 5th at Animal Kingdom. They had been renting a villa for the non-Disney part of their trip. When I mentioned that I wasn’t sure what time, we’d get there because my kids are super slow in the morning; they invited us to stay at the villa the night before. My husband had decided he did want to be part of the trip, but he only wanted to hang out at the hotel, go to the group dinners and he had to leave a day before me and the kids, so we set off on 2 cars for the villa. We didn’t get there until about 10:30 (see note above about slow kids) and fell right into bed.
The next morning my friends managed to leave before us (yep, slow kids). The third family would be staying at the villa one more night and joining us on Saturday. We got to Caribbean Beach as my friends were walking for the bus to Animal Kingdom. It was only 10 am so the rooms were not ready yet. We decided to meet them after breakfast.
This was our first time at Caribbean Beach. The check in area was nice and clean. Since it was early there was no line. Since my husband would not be coming to the park with us, the cast member tried very hard to find us a room that was ready but she could not do it without moving our room away from my friends so we choose to wait and I gave them my cell number to text me when the room was ready.
The front desk gave us a pirate sword and eye patch for my son and a wand with a star and tiara for my daughter. These proved to be lots of fun for the trip especially once the boys got together and played pirates in the room.:pirate:
We went to Port Royale for breakfast. I was pleased to see Mickey waffles. DS has 2 requests when we we go to WDW- he has to meet Mickey and he has to have his Mickey Waffles. One down, one to go. One note-After I had paid for our meal, my daughter decided she wanted a soda in addition to her milk. When I went to pay the cast member, gave me a small cup and told me not to worry about it. This would not be the only time on this trip where a cast member did something a little extra for us. :mickey:
Since everything was packed in my car, we left the car with my DH so he could bring the luggage to the room when it was ready. He prepared for a morning by the pool and we headed to the bus stop.
This was a new experience for us. We always take our car. The wait wasn’t bad. Maybe 5-10 minutes though my son was starting to get impatient since we saw 1 DTD bus, 1 DHS bus, 1 Epcot bus and 2 MK buses before the Animal Kingdom bus arrived. It was around 11 and the bus was deserted.
It wasn’t long before we got there and we hadn’t even made it to the entrance when my son started complained about the heat. Apparently during his 3 weeks of air conditioned summer vacation, he had forgotten what it was like to be outside. I stopped at a gift shop right outside the gates and we loaded up on Powerade and those mister fans. I have to admit the mist felt pretty good. It was going to be a long hot day. :fan:
DF and her family were in Dinoland. DF and FD were odd to ride Primevel Whirl with their FastPass, while FH, FS, my kids and me headed into The Boneyard, after a quick pit stop where DS convinced me that he and DD needed explorer helmets. The kids went over the The Dig Site and played happily in the sand while FH and I sat under a fan and caught up. When they had had enough sand, we went to the main playground where they tried out the slides, but soon everyone agreed it was too hot and time for lunch. We met up with DF and FD and headed to the Flame Tree Barbecue.
I was happy to see that my favorite pavilion which looked out over Expedition Everest was almost empty. Flame Tree was also remarkably quiet for lunch time. Since we had had a big breakfast my family got drinks and snack, but my friend’s family had a barbeque feast. Everything was excellent as always except we all agreed that the key lime dessert was much too sweet. While we were there a turtle and quite a few fish swam up to the wall. The kids were fascinated by the turtle.
My friends had a limited number of attractions they were interested in and had managed to do many of them before we arrived. The only thing left was the Kali River Rapids but as you would expect on a July day, the wait time was out to 65 minutes. Since we had received a text that the rooms were ready, we decide to go back to the hotel and enjoy the pool instead.
The bus came fairly quickly and was once again pretty empty. Back at the room, the boys entertained themselves for a while play pirate. The beds in the Pirate rooms are pirate ships and each boy captained a bed. Our families spilt up with my friend’s son going for a nap and my kids going to the pool.
The pool area at Caribbean Beach is very nice. There is a faster longer pool slide, a shorter pool slide and a great kid’s area with three mini slides plus a bucket that dumps water out at timed increments. My two complaints about the pool area were there were not enough lounger chairs for the number of people there and there was very little shade. There are no trees in the area. The main pool area had 2-3 umbrellas and the kid’s area had 2. It was very hard to find any shade. I also found the pool to feel rather crowded compared to the other moderates I have stayed at but that may just be because I am not used to going in the summer when more people are using the pool.
Next up was dinner at the Polynesian. My friends where eating at ‘Ohana. I had waited too long to book so we were at Kona Café. We would join up later on the beach to watch the fireworks. We did not have a good night at Kona. Our waiter was very nice but service was slow.
My children had both order pasta with butter and salt. I had the grilled scallops and panko shrimp. My husband had the Teriyaki steak. It took 35-40 minutes for the food to come out which meant we were sitting there for an hour before we were served. The kid’s pasta was dry. My food was tasteless and not very hot. Only my husband’s steak was good. When we complained, the manager agreed and took everything off the bill except my husband’s meal. I really enjoy the dessert at the Kona and was disappointed that I didn’t have a chance to have any. Even though we had an 8 pm ADR, it was now 9:45 and we wanted to go watch the fireworks.
The beach area was busy but we had no problems finding a few empty lounge chairs. We met up with my friends (who had enjoyed their meal at ‘Ohana) and enjoyed the fireworks. :fworks: I really like the perspective of watching them across the lake and it is such a nice bonus that they pipe the music in. After that we headed back to CBR for a good night’s sleep. We had a busy day planned at Magic Kingdom the next day and I was determined to make the opening show.
Overall, a very nice first day.:thumbsup:
Me
DH(hotel only plan!)
DS (6)
DD (4)
DF (dear friend)
FH(friend’s husband)
FD (friend’s daughter 10)
FS(friend’s son 5)
Originally I had planned to meet my friends on the morning of the 5th at Animal Kingdom. They had been renting a villa for the non-Disney part of their trip. When I mentioned that I wasn’t sure what time, we’d get there because my kids are super slow in the morning; they invited us to stay at the villa the night before. My husband had decided he did want to be part of the trip, but he only wanted to hang out at the hotel, go to the group dinners and he had to leave a day before me and the kids, so we set off on 2 cars for the villa. We didn’t get there until about 10:30 (see note above about slow kids) and fell right into bed.
The next morning my friends managed to leave before us (yep, slow kids). The third family would be staying at the villa one more night and joining us on Saturday. We got to Caribbean Beach as my friends were walking for the bus to Animal Kingdom. It was only 10 am so the rooms were not ready yet. We decided to meet them after breakfast.
This was our first time at Caribbean Beach. The check in area was nice and clean. Since it was early there was no line. Since my husband would not be coming to the park with us, the cast member tried very hard to find us a room that was ready but she could not do it without moving our room away from my friends so we choose to wait and I gave them my cell number to text me when the room was ready.
The front desk gave us a pirate sword and eye patch for my son and a wand with a star and tiara for my daughter. These proved to be lots of fun for the trip especially once the boys got together and played pirates in the room.:pirate:
We went to Port Royale for breakfast. I was pleased to see Mickey waffles. DS has 2 requests when we we go to WDW- he has to meet Mickey and he has to have his Mickey Waffles. One down, one to go. One note-After I had paid for our meal, my daughter decided she wanted a soda in addition to her milk. When I went to pay the cast member, gave me a small cup and told me not to worry about it. This would not be the only time on this trip where a cast member did something a little extra for us. :mickey:
Since everything was packed in my car, we left the car with my DH so he could bring the luggage to the room when it was ready. He prepared for a morning by the pool and we headed to the bus stop.
This was a new experience for us. We always take our car. The wait wasn’t bad. Maybe 5-10 minutes though my son was starting to get impatient since we saw 1 DTD bus, 1 DHS bus, 1 Epcot bus and 2 MK buses before the Animal Kingdom bus arrived. It was around 11 and the bus was deserted.
It wasn’t long before we got there and we hadn’t even made it to the entrance when my son started complained about the heat. Apparently during his 3 weeks of air conditioned summer vacation, he had forgotten what it was like to be outside. I stopped at a gift shop right outside the gates and we loaded up on Powerade and those mister fans. I have to admit the mist felt pretty good. It was going to be a long hot day. :fan:
DF and her family were in Dinoland. DF and FD were odd to ride Primevel Whirl with their FastPass, while FH, FS, my kids and me headed into The Boneyard, after a quick pit stop where DS convinced me that he and DD needed explorer helmets. The kids went over the The Dig Site and played happily in the sand while FH and I sat under a fan and caught up. When they had had enough sand, we went to the main playground where they tried out the slides, but soon everyone agreed it was too hot and time for lunch. We met up with DF and FD and headed to the Flame Tree Barbecue.
I was happy to see that my favorite pavilion which looked out over Expedition Everest was almost empty. Flame Tree was also remarkably quiet for lunch time. Since we had had a big breakfast my family got drinks and snack, but my friend’s family had a barbeque feast. Everything was excellent as always except we all agreed that the key lime dessert was much too sweet. While we were there a turtle and quite a few fish swam up to the wall. The kids were fascinated by the turtle.
My friends had a limited number of attractions they were interested in and had managed to do many of them before we arrived. The only thing left was the Kali River Rapids but as you would expect on a July day, the wait time was out to 65 minutes. Since we had received a text that the rooms were ready, we decide to go back to the hotel and enjoy the pool instead.
The bus came fairly quickly and was once again pretty empty. Back at the room, the boys entertained themselves for a while play pirate. The beds in the Pirate rooms are pirate ships and each boy captained a bed. Our families spilt up with my friend’s son going for a nap and my kids going to the pool.
The pool area at Caribbean Beach is very nice. There is a faster longer pool slide, a shorter pool slide and a great kid’s area with three mini slides plus a bucket that dumps water out at timed increments. My two complaints about the pool area were there were not enough lounger chairs for the number of people there and there was very little shade. There are no trees in the area. The main pool area had 2-3 umbrellas and the kid’s area had 2. It was very hard to find any shade. I also found the pool to feel rather crowded compared to the other moderates I have stayed at but that may just be because I am not used to going in the summer when more people are using the pool.
Next up was dinner at the Polynesian. My friends where eating at ‘Ohana. I had waited too long to book so we were at Kona Café. We would join up later on the beach to watch the fireworks. We did not have a good night at Kona. Our waiter was very nice but service was slow.
My children had both order pasta with butter and salt. I had the grilled scallops and panko shrimp. My husband had the Teriyaki steak. It took 35-40 minutes for the food to come out which meant we were sitting there for an hour before we were served. The kid’s pasta was dry. My food was tasteless and not very hot. Only my husband’s steak was good. When we complained, the manager agreed and took everything off the bill except my husband’s meal. I really enjoy the dessert at the Kona and was disappointed that I didn’t have a chance to have any. Even though we had an 8 pm ADR, it was now 9:45 and we wanted to go watch the fireworks.
The beach area was busy but we had no problems finding a few empty lounge chairs. We met up with my friends (who had enjoyed their meal at ‘Ohana) and enjoyed the fireworks. :fworks: I really like the perspective of watching them across the lake and it is such a nice bonus that they pipe the music in. After that we headed back to CBR for a good night’s sleep. We had a busy day planned at Magic Kingdom the next day and I was determined to make the opening show.
Overall, a very nice first day.:thumbsup: