Mary Chase
11-30-2014, 11:49 AM
Just back from our trip to WDW - overall a very nice trip. Tried a few new things this trip - Water Parks & more ticket, park hopper, new restaurants, new attractions.
Day 1 (November 20) - Flew out of Akron/Canton on SW - connection in Atlanta (AirTran). SW flight was nice - not very full and we got to spread out a bit. AirTran was more full and cramped and I have to say that the AirTran plane was not nearly as nice as SW. Got into Orlando around 8:00, jumped on DME and got to CSR around 9:15 to a HUGE check in line. I will never understand why it takes SO long to check in. Anyway, got to the desk and because we had a continuing reservation (free dining for first 6 nights only b/c we added the add'l days on after our original booking), it took forever to coordinate not having to change rooms. They knew about the continuing reservation before we got there, I would have hoped it would have been worked out before. Anyway, I was hoping they would do their best with our room location request too (Casitas #4) - but we ended up in Cabanas #8A - bus top #4. For anyone who has stayed at CSR, that is the third stop and I always try to stay at bus stop #2 which is the first stop. If it weren't Thanksgiving week, it wouldn't have been a problem. I couldn't even get the Ranchos section (#3). After a long wait - I decided to just take it. The bus service wasn't too bad I guess - we stood more than we wanted to, but now that the kids are a bit older, it's not as big of a deal. Got to our room and crashed.
Day 2 - Epcot
Got to Epcot right at park opening and went to ticket windows to upgrade tickets to water park & more. Saw that park hopper was only $26 more so decided to do that as well. That ended up being a very good decision - as we would have missed fantasmic at DHS if we had not had the park hopper tickets. Went straight to Test Track since we couldn't get fast pass for it (we got Soarin' that day instead). Got on within 15 minutes. After that, went to Mission Space for our first fast pass - didn't really need it as it was only a 5 min wait. Then went to Innoventions and did Sum of All Thrills. Then Spaceship Earth - 20 mins early for fast pass so just decided to stand by. Short wait. Can't remember the order of the next few things - we did Nemo, Soarin', Living with the Land, Great Piggy Bank Adventure (always a must with my kids). Ate at Sunshine Seasons - always a favorite b/c of the dessert selection. DH got sweet & sour chicken, DS and I both got rotisserie chicken. Desserts - (both DS's) chocolate Mousse Cake and (DH) Strawberry Shortcake. The kids both got the mousse cake and I didn't get a dessert b/c I let my youngest take my dessert. In Hindsight, I wished I would have realized that we wouldn't use all of our snack credits because I love the carrot cake cupcake there! I did get it on our last day. Ended up hopping over to MK after lunch and rode a few rides in Tomorrowland. Can't remember if this was the day that Space Mountain went down - but we happened to be in the area when it came back up and we walked on - that was awesome.
Then we had dinner reservations at T-Rex in DTD, so we thought we'd walk to Contemporary and catch the bus there. We cut it a little too close on time - not realizing 1) the DTD bus is shared with Poly, 2) T-REX is way on the other side of DTD from the bus stop. So DH ran over there and we were about 5-10 mins late and it wasn't a problem. T-REX was one of our new dining experiences. Very cool restaurant! Kids loved it. DH got the ribs/chicken combo, I got the lasagna, DS1 got the steak and DS2 got the kids pasta. The best meal was probably the steak. Both me and DS2 did not like ours b/c of the marinara sauce - a little too spicy for us. DH said his meal was fine. We got the Chocolate Extinction to split for dessert. It was good, but as always, we are usually so full at the end of our dinner that we can barely eat dessert!
After dinner, went back to room to pick up some warmer clothes for the evening and went to Epcot. Rode Figment, Donald Duck Ride in Mexico, watched illuminations and one more ride on Spaceship Earth. Stayed a little bit for EMH and went back to the hotel.
To be continued....
Day 1 (November 20) - Flew out of Akron/Canton on SW - connection in Atlanta (AirTran). SW flight was nice - not very full and we got to spread out a bit. AirTran was more full and cramped and I have to say that the AirTran plane was not nearly as nice as SW. Got into Orlando around 8:00, jumped on DME and got to CSR around 9:15 to a HUGE check in line. I will never understand why it takes SO long to check in. Anyway, got to the desk and because we had a continuing reservation (free dining for first 6 nights only b/c we added the add'l days on after our original booking), it took forever to coordinate not having to change rooms. They knew about the continuing reservation before we got there, I would have hoped it would have been worked out before. Anyway, I was hoping they would do their best with our room location request too (Casitas #4) - but we ended up in Cabanas #8A - bus top #4. For anyone who has stayed at CSR, that is the third stop and I always try to stay at bus stop #2 which is the first stop. If it weren't Thanksgiving week, it wouldn't have been a problem. I couldn't even get the Ranchos section (#3). After a long wait - I decided to just take it. The bus service wasn't too bad I guess - we stood more than we wanted to, but now that the kids are a bit older, it's not as big of a deal. Got to our room and crashed.
Day 2 - Epcot
Got to Epcot right at park opening and went to ticket windows to upgrade tickets to water park & more. Saw that park hopper was only $26 more so decided to do that as well. That ended up being a very good decision - as we would have missed fantasmic at DHS if we had not had the park hopper tickets. Went straight to Test Track since we couldn't get fast pass for it (we got Soarin' that day instead). Got on within 15 minutes. After that, went to Mission Space for our first fast pass - didn't really need it as it was only a 5 min wait. Then went to Innoventions and did Sum of All Thrills. Then Spaceship Earth - 20 mins early for fast pass so just decided to stand by. Short wait. Can't remember the order of the next few things - we did Nemo, Soarin', Living with the Land, Great Piggy Bank Adventure (always a must with my kids). Ate at Sunshine Seasons - always a favorite b/c of the dessert selection. DH got sweet & sour chicken, DS and I both got rotisserie chicken. Desserts - (both DS's) chocolate Mousse Cake and (DH) Strawberry Shortcake. The kids both got the mousse cake and I didn't get a dessert b/c I let my youngest take my dessert. In Hindsight, I wished I would have realized that we wouldn't use all of our snack credits because I love the carrot cake cupcake there! I did get it on our last day. Ended up hopping over to MK after lunch and rode a few rides in Tomorrowland. Can't remember if this was the day that Space Mountain went down - but we happened to be in the area when it came back up and we walked on - that was awesome.
Then we had dinner reservations at T-Rex in DTD, so we thought we'd walk to Contemporary and catch the bus there. We cut it a little too close on time - not realizing 1) the DTD bus is shared with Poly, 2) T-REX is way on the other side of DTD from the bus stop. So DH ran over there and we were about 5-10 mins late and it wasn't a problem. T-REX was one of our new dining experiences. Very cool restaurant! Kids loved it. DH got the ribs/chicken combo, I got the lasagna, DS1 got the steak and DS2 got the kids pasta. The best meal was probably the steak. Both me and DS2 did not like ours b/c of the marinara sauce - a little too spicy for us. DH said his meal was fine. We got the Chocolate Extinction to split for dessert. It was good, but as always, we are usually so full at the end of our dinner that we can barely eat dessert!
After dinner, went back to room to pick up some warmer clothes for the evening and went to Epcot. Rode Figment, Donald Duck Ride in Mexico, watched illuminations and one more ride on Spaceship Earth. Stayed a little bit for EMH and went back to the hotel.
To be continued....