Orlando/Disneyworld Thread (Part 3)

eviesdad

Going on Monday and staying I Drive. Have stayed before at hotels and villas. Villas are great with young kids as they can got to bed when tired, but planning to try and stay out all day this trip. Will report back in 3 weeks!

Margo99

Anyone know what is happening over at completeorlando ? as they havent replied to phone or email for nearly a week now.
Can anyone recommend a good alternative to them? as they are not making a good impression.

Birdie85

Hi all, back from 2 weeks at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and it was great!

A few little notes/tips for you!

Firstly, the Lodge is a fantastic resort but pretty far detatched from everything else (apart from Animal Kingdom). We would stay closer to Downtown Disney next time as it was pretty tiresome waiting for the busses then being stuck on it for ages, never seeming to get anywhere! Only other problem we had was that the beds were really uncomfortable, but I'm guessing that the beds (super hard with rubbish pillows) are standard across all their hotels so just something we have to put down as 'not to our taste'.

We got 'Happy Anniversary' badges from reception when we checked in as we said that we were there for our 1st wedding anniversary (it wasn't, we got married in February! Technically I guess you could say it was the 1st anniversary of our honeymoon though... ) in the hopes that we'd get a free upgrade, which we did! From wearing the badges we also got a free 'Premium Beach Space' worth $40 at Blizzard Beach (we got there at opening time and were lucky that we were the first celebrating couple to walk past the woman handing out her one free space a day ) and we got free desserts in Via Napoli, Teppan Edo, Kona (after breakfast and lunch but not dinner) and Boma. :T So my #1 tip is to get a badge and pretend that you're celebrating something, you may get freebies!

We were lucky to get into the new Fantasyland on Saturday (after a couple of failed attempts earlier in the holiday) and it is pretty cool. The Be Our Guest restaurant looks gorgeous and little girls will go totally gaga for it! I'd only bother doing the Enchanted Tales with Belle if you have a little girl and make her get a 'part' as the kids who get involved get a hug and a photo with Belle, and a bookmark!

Restaurants we loved were Kona at the Polynesian (we went for breakfast, lunch and dinner -different days!- and all were excellent), Teppan Edo at Epcot (expensive but a great experience), Yak and Yeti at Animal Kingdom (2nd best burger in Disney IMO) Raglan Road at Downtown Disney (Best burger in Disney IMO! Better at night when there's more entertainment and atmosphere, but a fair wait for tables) and Earl of Sandwich at DTD is excellent for a cheap meal, massive queue at lunch though! Boma and Sanaa at Animal Kingdom Lodge were very good if pretty expensive too. We weren't too impressed by Wolfgang Puck's this time, last year we went for lunch and loved it, this time we went on an evening and the place was full of screaming kids, the staff weren't very attentive and the food was just OK considering how much it cost.

We also had a night in the Hard Rock Hotel which was brilliant but not very MSE! If you can afford a night (£200) it is worth it for a treat and the Universal Express Passes are a big bonus and make it worthwhile as they cost $30 per day, each! We got there at 8.30am and managed to check in early and got our passes straight away so we had 2 days of early entry to the parks and express passes which was really good as I thought we'd only get 1 day since we were only staying a night! :T The only issue I had was that they wanted to charge extra for everything, like you could rent a fridge rather than have one provided and you had to pay for the wifi (it was free and very fast in the AKL) and the drinks at the pool bar were painfully expensive, but I guess it's to be expected as, according to the taxi driver who took us back to the AKL afterwards, it's *the* celeb hotel in Orlando!

tonymc

Kido wrote: »

Also does anyone know how far away Sea World and Aquatica are from Disney World resort where we're staying. Is it possible to get public transport, or do you really need to drive?

You can catch the Lynx bus No. 50 from the Transport and Ticketing Centre or Downtown Disney, to Seaworld. It runs every 30 minutes and takes around 20-30 minutes.

I'm fairly sure that from Seaworld you can get a complimentary shuttle to Aquatica as it is a 10-15 minute walk from Seaworld.

Pinky15

Wow some fab tips and advice. We are planning 2 weeks in 2014. We want to do Disneyland - is 1 week enough time to see everything or we could do the 2 weeks pass?
DD wants to swim with dolphins can we get a 1 day pass for discovery cove or is it just available as part of a package? Thanks in advance for any help

maemaesmummy

Pinky15 wrote: »

Wow some fab tips and advice. We are planning 2 weeks in 2014. We want to do Disneyland - is 1 week enough time to see everything or we could do the 2 weeks pass?
DD wants to swim with dolphins can we get a 1 day pass for discovery cove or is it just available as part of a package? Thanks in advance for any help

1 week enough..we spend several weeks a year in Orlando...13 weeks this year and I still haven't seen everything in Walt Disney World...:rotfl:

DC is for 1 day...it usually comes bundled with BG, SW and/or Aq tickets.

moneysavingmumofone

Pinky15 wrote: »

Wow some fab tips and advice. We are planning 2 weeks in 2014. We want to do Disneyland - is 1 week enough time to see everything or we could do the 2 weeks pass?
DD wants to swim with dolphins can we get a 1 day pass for discovery cove or is it just available as part of a package? Thanks in advance for any help

I think you can usually get a 14 day DisneyWorld ticket for the same price as 7 anyway? x

Pinky15

moneysavingmumofone wrote: »

I think you can usually get a 14 day DisneyWorld ticket for the same price as 7 anyway? x

Ah yes have just seen this on one of the websites. So if I got the 2 weeks pass (which includes a few other parks) plus the day discovery cove dolphin swim this would be plenty for the 2 weeks?:)

tonymc

Pinky15 wrote: »

Wow some fab tips and advice. We are planning 2 weeks in 2014. We want to do Disneyland - is 1 week enough time to see everything or we could do the 2 weeks pass?
DD wants to swim with dolphins can we get a 1 day pass for discovery cove or is it just available as part of a package? Thanks in advance for any help

As above, you can get a Discovery Cove swim package that includes 14 days unlimited access to Seaworld and Aquatica, or for a little extra, Busch Gardens near Tampa as well.

With regard to the Disney ticket question, the UK 5 or 7 day Premium and Ultimate tickets are valid for 14 days after first use, so you wouldn't be limited to just the week. In effect, the 5 day ticket gives you five days admission over the 14 day period, the 7 day 7 admissions, but the 14 day ticket gives unlimited access.

Note that you can quite often get the 14 day Ultimate ticket for the same price as the 7 day Premium, which would give you much more flexibility - you could have a few "half-days" in the parks rather than spending all day. They would also be more use if you are travelling with young children as they may not last for a full day - with the Ultimates, just call back on another day.

Also to note that the UK Disney Tickets also include the same number of admissions to the two Disney water parks and/or admissions to Disneyquest, as well as allowing you to visit two parks (or more!!) on the same day, useful if you want to visit say EPCOT just to see the fireworks.

Idiophreak

Pinky15 wrote: »

Ah yes have just seen this on one of the websites. So if I got the 2 weeks pass (which includes a few other parks) plus the day discovery cove dolphin swim this would be plenty for the 2 weeks?:)

Probably would be - but would be a shame to miss out on Universal..