Hi everyone!
Fresh off a week long trip to WDW, and wanted to do a report of everything I experienced in this trip. I'm going to do my best to be detailed and give each park/day it's own post to give it time to breath and to give some ability to converse on individual topics easier.
Starting my trip, it actually began before Disney. We flew into Miami on Sept 21st. We were supposed to see Weezer the Sunday before at the Wharf but through some issues we ended up missing it. So I surprised my fiance by changing flights, booking a hotel, renting a car for us to see Weezer at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood FL.
The concert was amazing. Weezer really brings it. If you are old enough to do casinos, Hard Rock is a good time. We had dinner a Kuro, which is a Japanese small plate concept dining. Everything is designed to eat as a shared plate and you are supposed to order as you go. It was OUTSTANDING! I highly recommend the oysters 3 ways and the Wagyu Beef plate.
Sunday we rented a convertible and made the 3 hour trek from Miami to Orlando. Now, they are more expensive, but I have nothing but great things to say about SIXT as a rental company. The BMW 4-series convertible was $180 one way, but it was meticulously detailed, low milage, and a mid level equipped ride (black car and black leather scared me, but it had ventilated A/C equipped seats!). Additionally there was no nickel and diming of fees and everything. The price they show you is the price all in. I made the switch after the $90 rental with Alamo then told me that i might not get the luxury car I wanted AND they showed me all the fees that made it actually be $265.
Onto Disney. We stayed at the Boat and Yacht Club, on the Boat side. The soon to be Sister in Law picked this location for the pool since we had 4 kids in the group between 5-10. Personally, I would have picked different resorts for the money on Disney's property, but we all have our different dials that get us to stay somewhere.
Let's start with the bad and get to the good.
Checking in was a mixed bag. The good is that with the new system you can check in, have your room number, and room key via your phone well before arriving. The fiance and I requested a room with a single king bed, and so did the soon to be MIL and FIL. But the SIL requested that we all end up close together, so it took longer to get a 4 room block, and those of us that wanted king beds ended up with 2 doubles instead. Disney should really look into making some setups where there are king size bed suites mixed in for situations like this. Another hiccup in the system was our travel agent put me as the "child" account when we booked, meaning I didn't have my own account. So when we showed up, by app didn't have access to a room key. The concierge, thankfully, was good at navigating this. I'm not sure what the issue was along the way, but it was annoying as it got me frustrated and my fiance frustrated that I couldn't just figure it out and needed to ask someone.
Beaches and Cream for dinner was rather - forgettable by the end of the trip. I had the Grilled Cheese and Tomato Cream soup. There was so much cream and basil in the soup, there was almost no tomato taste to it and it had the consistency of pudding. The grilled cheese part, while very messy, was also very good. I was rather disappointed in my meal at the end because of the combination of how bland everything was with how it didn't quite taste the way you would expect. It felt like it's meant to be a kid friendly dining but trying to be a little more "upscale" in presentation. Doesn't work. Just be a beachside like diner. Heck even my dessert, a root beer float, I expected something to be special about it. Maybe a home made ice cream or a hand mixed root beer. Nope. It tasted like something you could make at home by going to the grocery store.
Side note on dining - the fiance is gluten free. While Disney was incredibly accommodating - they will only do it as if it's an allergy, which made wait times on all our food about 50% longer than non-gluten free. They need to get better at having a middle ground on the gluten thing. The only way all our food got prepared is if the head chef for a spot did it and a manager delivered. Get me the option to have gluten free (but not allergic) just available on the menu to keep up pace. It created a few complaints from the group as we got slow service multiple times in the stay.
Martha's Vineyard bar became our sanctuary. It's not a full service bar (meaning they won't make you anything) but man the options are good. Our bartender the first night was amazing (JJ) as he constantly talked to everyone, even while making drinks, joked around and just made it a great experience. The Whiskey Breeze quickly became a go to drink for all of us in the group. As far as food goes, we got the Loaded Potato Barrels. Pretty standard potato skins but on tots instead of skins, the big part being it was house made cheese sauce and it was fantastic. The wings also get a thumbs up from us.
One other small complaint that came up later in the trip - but Disney's meal plan is both well defined and poorly explained. We got 1 snack, 1 quick service, and 1 sit down meal per day on property. Sounds clear right? Well the bar food counted as one of your sit down meals. And we didn't know that. Oh and in some cases you alcoholic beverage is covered, but other times its not included. It's kinda hit or miss. And then in some places (take my Whiskey Breeze) a drink is part of your meal, but in another place the same drink is not covered due to it being available but not a 'signature' drink for the eatery. It did take until the 3rd night of the trip when the 'host' for Martha's Vineyard explained it all to us that we realized we have been really messing up our meal plans. There was a few times we just said "sure" to using the meal plan at places we should not have done that (ie breakfasts from the marketplace are a quick service, but no one there told us that was a terrible value). They don't even do a good job marking what is what type of service, as it was up to us to figure out which was which.
Our end suggestion in the survey to Disney was to put symbols on everything. Create one for snack, one for quick service, and one for sit down. Put those symbols on the signs to the spot you are at. Or just train the F&B staff to be open about telling you if you are making a mistake or not. But we made too many mistakes where by the final day we had 6 quick services and 7 snacks to use, so it was a day full of eating. I would rather they did something like time frames - breakfast meal to use until 10:30, lunch from 11-3, dinner from 4-on; one of those meals each day can be a sit down service, then you get 1 snack to use outside of that. (To add to the confusion, some spots take two sit down meals to cover it on the plan, and it's in tiny print at the bottom of the menu).
Oh - last thing. We were a group of 11, so gratuity was always auto added at 18%, and it's not part of your dining plan, so it automatically goes on your credit card every time, so you have no option to cash tip when you are a bigger group. And even when we wanted to split out based on the families, it was still added on there automatically. We were all watching our credit card bills and it was crazy that it was $150-250 every day in tips that were on that.
Fresh off a week long trip to WDW, and wanted to do a report of everything I experienced in this trip. I'm going to do my best to be detailed and give each park/day it's own post to give it time to breath and to give some ability to converse on individual topics easier.
Starting my trip, it actually began before Disney. We flew into Miami on Sept 21st. We were supposed to see Weezer the Sunday before at the Wharf but through some issues we ended up missing it. So I surprised my fiance by changing flights, booking a hotel, renting a car for us to see Weezer at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood FL.
The concert was amazing. Weezer really brings it. If you are old enough to do casinos, Hard Rock is a good time. We had dinner a Kuro, which is a Japanese small plate concept dining. Everything is designed to eat as a shared plate and you are supposed to order as you go. It was OUTSTANDING! I highly recommend the oysters 3 ways and the Wagyu Beef plate.
Sunday we rented a convertible and made the 3 hour trek from Miami to Orlando. Now, they are more expensive, but I have nothing but great things to say about SIXT as a rental company. The BMW 4-series convertible was $180 one way, but it was meticulously detailed, low milage, and a mid level equipped ride (black car and black leather scared me, but it had ventilated A/C equipped seats!). Additionally there was no nickel and diming of fees and everything. The price they show you is the price all in. I made the switch after the $90 rental with Alamo then told me that i might not get the luxury car I wanted AND they showed me all the fees that made it actually be $265.
Onto Disney. We stayed at the Boat and Yacht Club, on the Boat side. The soon to be Sister in Law picked this location for the pool since we had 4 kids in the group between 5-10. Personally, I would have picked different resorts for the money on Disney's property, but we all have our different dials that get us to stay somewhere.
Let's start with the bad and get to the good.
Checking in was a mixed bag. The good is that with the new system you can check in, have your room number, and room key via your phone well before arriving. The fiance and I requested a room with a single king bed, and so did the soon to be MIL and FIL. But the SIL requested that we all end up close together, so it took longer to get a 4 room block, and those of us that wanted king beds ended up with 2 doubles instead. Disney should really look into making some setups where there are king size bed suites mixed in for situations like this. Another hiccup in the system was our travel agent put me as the "child" account when we booked, meaning I didn't have my own account. So when we showed up, by app didn't have access to a room key. The concierge, thankfully, was good at navigating this. I'm not sure what the issue was along the way, but it was annoying as it got me frustrated and my fiance frustrated that I couldn't just figure it out and needed to ask someone.
Beaches and Cream for dinner was rather - forgettable by the end of the trip. I had the Grilled Cheese and Tomato Cream soup. There was so much cream and basil in the soup, there was almost no tomato taste to it and it had the consistency of pudding. The grilled cheese part, while very messy, was also very good. I was rather disappointed in my meal at the end because of the combination of how bland everything was with how it didn't quite taste the way you would expect. It felt like it's meant to be a kid friendly dining but trying to be a little more "upscale" in presentation. Doesn't work. Just be a beachside like diner. Heck even my dessert, a root beer float, I expected something to be special about it. Maybe a home made ice cream or a hand mixed root beer. Nope. It tasted like something you could make at home by going to the grocery store.
Side note on dining - the fiance is gluten free. While Disney was incredibly accommodating - they will only do it as if it's an allergy, which made wait times on all our food about 50% longer than non-gluten free. They need to get better at having a middle ground on the gluten thing. The only way all our food got prepared is if the head chef for a spot did it and a manager delivered. Get me the option to have gluten free (but not allergic) just available on the menu to keep up pace. It created a few complaints from the group as we got slow service multiple times in the stay.
Martha's Vineyard bar became our sanctuary. It's not a full service bar (meaning they won't make you anything) but man the options are good. Our bartender the first night was amazing (JJ) as he constantly talked to everyone, even while making drinks, joked around and just made it a great experience. The Whiskey Breeze quickly became a go to drink for all of us in the group. As far as food goes, we got the Loaded Potato Barrels. Pretty standard potato skins but on tots instead of skins, the big part being it was house made cheese sauce and it was fantastic. The wings also get a thumbs up from us.
One other small complaint that came up later in the trip - but Disney's meal plan is both well defined and poorly explained. We got 1 snack, 1 quick service, and 1 sit down meal per day on property. Sounds clear right? Well the bar food counted as one of your sit down meals. And we didn't know that. Oh and in some cases you alcoholic beverage is covered, but other times its not included. It's kinda hit or miss. And then in some places (take my Whiskey Breeze) a drink is part of your meal, but in another place the same drink is not covered due to it being available but not a 'signature' drink for the eatery. It did take until the 3rd night of the trip when the 'host' for Martha's Vineyard explained it all to us that we realized we have been really messing up our meal plans. There was a few times we just said "sure" to using the meal plan at places we should not have done that (ie breakfasts from the marketplace are a quick service, but no one there told us that was a terrible value). They don't even do a good job marking what is what type of service, as it was up to us to figure out which was which.
Our end suggestion in the survey to Disney was to put symbols on everything. Create one for snack, one for quick service, and one for sit down. Put those symbols on the signs to the spot you are at. Or just train the F&B staff to be open about telling you if you are making a mistake or not. But we made too many mistakes where by the final day we had 6 quick services and 7 snacks to use, so it was a day full of eating. I would rather they did something like time frames - breakfast meal to use until 10:30, lunch from 11-3, dinner from 4-on; one of those meals each day can be a sit down service, then you get 1 snack to use outside of that. (To add to the confusion, some spots take two sit down meals to cover it on the plan, and it's in tiny print at the bottom of the menu).
Oh - last thing. We were a group of 11, so gratuity was always auto added at 18%, and it's not part of your dining plan, so it automatically goes on your credit card every time, so you have no option to cash tip when you are a bigger group. And even when we wanted to split out based on the families, it was still added on there automatically. We were all watching our credit card bills and it was crazy that it was $150-250 every day in tips that were on that.
