Terapin
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2007
Well, we survived!
We decided Thursday afternoon to head to Disney the following day from Toronto, Ontario with two adults and two kids. Just a quick report to say how things went! We were there July 31-Aug 3.
Flights: As we were making our minds up ALL morning flights from Toronto were sold out of 4 tickets. We ended up flying out of Buffalo at 8:05am (I think), which meant a *very* early morning. We left around 3ish in the morning and arrived at the terminal door at 6am. The border crossing was very smooth with only 3 cars ahead of us. We flew out JetBlue. We called Magical Express when we landed per instructions, and got to the resort fairly quickly.
Reservations: Frankly this part was miserable. I tried to book online earlier in the day but the shopping cart feature wouldn't allow us to check out at the final step. We were booking with pass holder discount. I tried and tried, and then it declined my credit card. After being on hold with my cc company, they said the charge had never attempted to go through, and the problem was at Disney's end. I called Disney reservations and got the most frustrating clerk who was of no help at all. We wanted a monorail resort and she didn't even know which resorts were on the monorail, I kid you know. So you can imagine trying to book a package with a discount just didn't go anywhere. I hung up and called back again. This was now 8:30pm and my pregnant self was feeling pretty frustrated that we had tickets but no reservations. I handed the phone to my partner and he got it sorted out, but the call took almost 2 hours! There was definitely issues with the system as she said it was sooooo slow and she couldn't get anything to book for almost an hour. And then it would drop our rooms, and we'd have to move to a different room category. Lo and behold, we finally had a room, no discount (grrrr), a deluxe dining plan, and our annual passes.
I booked some dining reservations and got some great ones last minute! We went all out as my partner's kids had never been to Disney. We got a lunch reservation for Friday at Crystal Palace and dinner at CRT, Saturday we got Grand Floridian Cafe for breakfast, Akershus for lunch, and dinner at Biergarten. Sunday we had breakfast at Tusker House, and lunch at Yak and Yeti. Monday we had breakfast at 1900 Park Fare. That's how we used our 9 credits. Some of our lunch times were late, but we were accommodated early when we asked and were willing to wait. We also paid OOP for Prime Time Diner as a late lunch.
The kids still didn't have annual passes and I couldn't get the online reservation system to add them to our account (still issues with the order processing at the 'Review' stage). So I did it on the bus from Orlando to our resort and then got our FP+ selections done on the bus for 4 days. It sure made the time pass quickly. We were the second stop on the bus from the airport. We got pretty much everything we wanted except Space Mountain, Mine Train, and Toy Story. We were totally flexible about times, however, and order of the rides and did a fair amount of park-crossing.
Check-in: We booked one of the outer rooms at the Grand Floridian and got Sago Key. I would have preferred main building but there were no rooms available. The room was ready when we arrived (yay!) and we dropped off our bags and headed to the parks to our 1900 PF ressie and some FPs to get us started.
Weather: Friday was hot and sunny for the day, enough that we bought a mister fan. It rained most of Saturday, most of Sunday and for the morning on Monday. Most of the rain was pretty heavy, although some of it was slower and less annoying. I'd say 3 hours a day, mid-day, was moderately heavy rain that made being out and about unpleasant. A few hours were less intense and not as bad to be out in, and about an hour was misty rain and fine without our ponchos. And then sometimes it was just overcast. Definitely more rain than I have encountered personally, and more than the 30-60 minute showers I heard so much about. We made the most of it, and endured the wet shoes.
We managed to use our snack credits over the 4 days (I adore those caramel apples I gotta say!), and used the refillable mugs twice only.
We packed up Monday morning and enjoyed the rare privilege of resort check-in for our Southwest flight home at 845pm that evening. Usually we fly into Toronto and don't have that option. We got boarding passes with B28-32 positions. We dropped our bags at the Bell Services and headed to Hollywood studios. We were picked up at 4:50pm by a completely full ME bus. Our flight home wasn't full so we had two rows at the back to ourselves. The luggage is slow to come to the carousels in Buffalo so it was just arriving as we got there and had used the bathroom, and I walked the long walk at 7.5 months pregnant through the terminal.
The parking cost $50ish US for the 3.5 days in the economy lot (not the furthest, not the closest, out in the open, but still just a short walk to the terminal.
We got to the border after a quick fast food stop, and there were only a few cars. A far cry from earlier in the day I imagine on a holiday day! The drive home was uneventful and we fell into bed!
The girls had an amazing time, and their autograph books were jammed packed of tons of signatures. They enjoyed pin trading, and got a few stuffies. We won some stuffed animals in Animal Kingdom, and bought a couple t-shirts. We totally packed in a very full weekend and saw fireworks to boot!
One of the best moments was on the boat from MK to GF. We got on just as the fireworks were starting and the boat captain 'pretended' to be lost and meandered along the lagoon, arriving at the dock of the GF just as they were ending. He even moved the direction of the boat so both sides could see, under the guise of not being able to see the dock. It was a lovely pixie dust Disney moment.
Being 7.5 months pregnant at Disney was exhausting some days. We walked about 10k per day says my step tracker. I tried to rest as much as I could when the others went on rides I couldn't go on, and eating at sit down restaurants was really good. Even drinking as much as was comfortable, I was still a little dehydrated at times. It was hard to get value at buffets as my appetite was so small. It was hard to get enough protein with all the yummy carbs and fruit at the buffets, and a small appetite. There were really good and healthy choices at all the buffets and I tried hard to choose what was best for my baby. I was impressed at Crystal Palace (lots of yummy salads with sweet potatoes and greens).
Our favourite meal was 1900 Park Fare breakfast. We saw Alice, the Mad Hatter, Pooh, Tigger, Mary Poppins. The Mad Hatter and Tigger were great, and these were the best character interactions of our trip. The food was pretty good: I liked making a breakfast burrito, but nothing special. My favourite dish was the gnocchi at CRT! So, so yum with greens and yummy things along with the gnocchi. My favourite snack was the plain caramel apples. Some goodness with the badness! The most room for improvement was the latte at the book nook place in HS by the Muppets. So watery and not worth the money. We were really surprised how stripped down HS was. RRC was down and without a FP for Toy Story we were done in a few hours and saw everything.
We did a lot of pin trading and buying pins. It was interesting to see how some things were only available at some kiosks, so it was worth checking at each kioskWSE. Even the bigger stores didn't have all the things from the kiosks. Our favourite pins were the new alphabet ones, but we again disappointed how the distribution of pins in so-called random packs doesn't seem random at all anymore. We got 5 of 400 limited edition pins in one case, and 4/100 in another case, and 4 packs of identical sets of 5 pins that were supposed to be random. Boo.
Anyhow, that's our trip! Super fun and now no more travel for me! This baby in my belly has been to Tokyo Disney, and WDW x2, and DL x 2 now. Spoiled mama!
We decided Thursday afternoon to head to Disney the following day from Toronto, Ontario with two adults and two kids. Just a quick report to say how things went! We were there July 31-Aug 3.
Flights: As we were making our minds up ALL morning flights from Toronto were sold out of 4 tickets. We ended up flying out of Buffalo at 8:05am (I think), which meant a *very* early morning. We left around 3ish in the morning and arrived at the terminal door at 6am. The border crossing was very smooth with only 3 cars ahead of us. We flew out JetBlue. We called Magical Express when we landed per instructions, and got to the resort fairly quickly.
Reservations: Frankly this part was miserable. I tried to book online earlier in the day but the shopping cart feature wouldn't allow us to check out at the final step. We were booking with pass holder discount. I tried and tried, and then it declined my credit card. After being on hold with my cc company, they said the charge had never attempted to go through, and the problem was at Disney's end. I called Disney reservations and got the most frustrating clerk who was of no help at all. We wanted a monorail resort and she didn't even know which resorts were on the monorail, I kid you know. So you can imagine trying to book a package with a discount just didn't go anywhere. I hung up and called back again. This was now 8:30pm and my pregnant self was feeling pretty frustrated that we had tickets but no reservations. I handed the phone to my partner and he got it sorted out, but the call took almost 2 hours! There was definitely issues with the system as she said it was sooooo slow and she couldn't get anything to book for almost an hour. And then it would drop our rooms, and we'd have to move to a different room category. Lo and behold, we finally had a room, no discount (grrrr), a deluxe dining plan, and our annual passes.
I booked some dining reservations and got some great ones last minute! We went all out as my partner's kids had never been to Disney. We got a lunch reservation for Friday at Crystal Palace and dinner at CRT, Saturday we got Grand Floridian Cafe for breakfast, Akershus for lunch, and dinner at Biergarten. Sunday we had breakfast at Tusker House, and lunch at Yak and Yeti. Monday we had breakfast at 1900 Park Fare. That's how we used our 9 credits. Some of our lunch times were late, but we were accommodated early when we asked and were willing to wait. We also paid OOP for Prime Time Diner as a late lunch.
The kids still didn't have annual passes and I couldn't get the online reservation system to add them to our account (still issues with the order processing at the 'Review' stage). So I did it on the bus from Orlando to our resort and then got our FP+ selections done on the bus for 4 days. It sure made the time pass quickly. We were the second stop on the bus from the airport. We got pretty much everything we wanted except Space Mountain, Mine Train, and Toy Story. We were totally flexible about times, however, and order of the rides and did a fair amount of park-crossing.
Check-in: We booked one of the outer rooms at the Grand Floridian and got Sago Key. I would have preferred main building but there were no rooms available. The room was ready when we arrived (yay!) and we dropped off our bags and headed to the parks to our 1900 PF ressie and some FPs to get us started.
Weather: Friday was hot and sunny for the day, enough that we bought a mister fan. It rained most of Saturday, most of Sunday and for the morning on Monday. Most of the rain was pretty heavy, although some of it was slower and less annoying. I'd say 3 hours a day, mid-day, was moderately heavy rain that made being out and about unpleasant. A few hours were less intense and not as bad to be out in, and about an hour was misty rain and fine without our ponchos. And then sometimes it was just overcast. Definitely more rain than I have encountered personally, and more than the 30-60 minute showers I heard so much about. We made the most of it, and endured the wet shoes.
We managed to use our snack credits over the 4 days (I adore those caramel apples I gotta say!), and used the refillable mugs twice only.
We packed up Monday morning and enjoyed the rare privilege of resort check-in for our Southwest flight home at 845pm that evening. Usually we fly into Toronto and don't have that option. We got boarding passes with B28-32 positions. We dropped our bags at the Bell Services and headed to Hollywood studios. We were picked up at 4:50pm by a completely full ME bus. Our flight home wasn't full so we had two rows at the back to ourselves. The luggage is slow to come to the carousels in Buffalo so it was just arriving as we got there and had used the bathroom, and I walked the long walk at 7.5 months pregnant through the terminal.
The parking cost $50ish US for the 3.5 days in the economy lot (not the furthest, not the closest, out in the open, but still just a short walk to the terminal.We got to the border after a quick fast food stop, and there were only a few cars. A far cry from earlier in the day I imagine on a holiday day! The drive home was uneventful and we fell into bed!
The girls had an amazing time, and their autograph books were jammed packed of tons of signatures. They enjoyed pin trading, and got a few stuffies. We won some stuffed animals in Animal Kingdom, and bought a couple t-shirts. We totally packed in a very full weekend and saw fireworks to boot!
One of the best moments was on the boat from MK to GF. We got on just as the fireworks were starting and the boat captain 'pretended' to be lost and meandered along the lagoon, arriving at the dock of the GF just as they were ending. He even moved the direction of the boat so both sides could see, under the guise of not being able to see the dock. It was a lovely pixie dust Disney moment.
Being 7.5 months pregnant at Disney was exhausting some days. We walked about 10k per day says my step tracker. I tried to rest as much as I could when the others went on rides I couldn't go on, and eating at sit down restaurants was really good. Even drinking as much as was comfortable, I was still a little dehydrated at times. It was hard to get value at buffets as my appetite was so small. It was hard to get enough protein with all the yummy carbs and fruit at the buffets, and a small appetite. There were really good and healthy choices at all the buffets and I tried hard to choose what was best for my baby. I was impressed at Crystal Palace (lots of yummy salads with sweet potatoes and greens).
Our favourite meal was 1900 Park Fare breakfast. We saw Alice, the Mad Hatter, Pooh, Tigger, Mary Poppins. The Mad Hatter and Tigger were great, and these were the best character interactions of our trip. The food was pretty good: I liked making a breakfast burrito, but nothing special. My favourite dish was the gnocchi at CRT! So, so yum with greens and yummy things along with the gnocchi. My favourite snack was the plain caramel apples. Some goodness with the badness! The most room for improvement was the latte at the book nook place in HS by the Muppets. So watery and not worth the money. We were really surprised how stripped down HS was. RRC was down and without a FP for Toy Story we were done in a few hours and saw everything.
We did a lot of pin trading and buying pins. It was interesting to see how some things were only available at some kiosks, so it was worth checking at each kioskWSE. Even the bigger stores didn't have all the things from the kiosks. Our favourite pins were the new alphabet ones, but we again disappointed how the distribution of pins in so-called random packs doesn't seem random at all anymore. We got 5 of 400 limited edition pins in one case, and 4/100 in another case, and 4 packs of identical sets of 5 pins that were supposed to be random. Boo.
Anyhow, that's our trip! Super fun and now no more travel for me! This baby in my belly has been to Tokyo Disney, and WDW x2, and DL x 2 now. Spoiled mama!
Last edited:
