The vacation that almost got cancelled: Disneyworld, Gulf Coast, Universal and more!!

RDarling

Ears earned!
Joined
Feb 22, 2009
Our well planned vacation almost didn't happen because it was scheduled for 9/10/17, the day Irma decided to set upon Disneyworld. Our flights for Sunday 9/10/17 were cancelled. We decided to drive to Lake Norman, NC from Corning NY on Saturday the 9th and stay with family (2 cars, 4 adults/ 61, 36, 35, 30, and 4 kids/ 9,8,6,3). We continued to assess the situation on Sunday, and stayed at Lake Norman Sunday night. Monday morning we headed south with a back-up plan to stay with friends in SC if it was too dangerous. By Monday am the storm had passed through Florida and was tropical in Georgia and SC. We had to drive a couple hours in hard rain and wind but nothing we had not experienced before. Lots of downed trees and ripped billboards, nice and slow driving. By the time we got to Savannah, Georgia the sky was blue and the sun was shining. Roads were empty and my brother from Jacksonville guided us through the Orange Park loop in JAX due to flooding. I 4 was empty but of course we had a brief traffic jam in downtown Orlando.

We cruised into Disneyworld on Monday night, 9/11/17 staying the first night at All Star Movies, a last-minute reservation since our original Sunday and Monday rooms had been cancelled. Check in line was super busy, because lots of Florida people without power were checking in, with their pets!! It was super nice to talk to locals who were temporally relocating to Disney and our Cast Member (CM) at check in was great. While we were waiting one of the CM’s invited the kids to be first in line to see Woody and a green soldier from Toy Story. The 3-year-old began to see what going to Disney was going to be like!! We got three (expensive but not so good) pizzas and took them back to the room, then right to bed!

We had a non-refundable 4-night stay at the Polynesian Resort starting on the 12th-16th. It was a Disney Vacation Club (DVC) rental and we did not pay for the cancellation/insurance. 2 rooms, it was use it or lose it. We never put our family in danger and I hope we didn't make it harder for the Florida people dealing with a hurricane and the loss of power. Since I tend to go in September a lot, I will now highly recommend paying the little extra for the cancellation feature of the DVC rental, even with it's limitations. I highly recommend renting DVC and have done so 2 times now. Once at Bay Lake Towers and this time at the Polynesian, for half the cost of normal rates.

We did lose our Sunday and Monday night reservations at Shades of Green (SOG), and our Sunday night reservations at Chef Mickeys, plus our Monday 9/11/17 fast passes at Magic Kingdom (MK) and lunch at Be Our Guest (BOG) but that was fine. The lady I cancelled with on the phone for Chef Mickeys and BOG felt so bad! She had been cancelling hard to get reservations all day. It was a bummer missing our Monday MK day but they were closed and we weren’t there yet!!

On Tuesday 9/12/17 we went to Hollywood Studios (HS). We stuck to our original schedule but added Mickeys Not So Scary Halloween Party (MNSSHP) on Tuesday evening so that the kids could have a MK experience on their first park day. This might have been a little too ambitious. We walked 28,421 steps that day, doing HK during the day and then MNSSHP.

At HS we signed up for the Jedi Training and did our fast passes (FP). The four grandkids love the Jedi Training and it shows in the pictures the photopass photographers took! We had quick service lunch at Backlot Express. Enjoyed Beauty and the Beast and Frozen, plus saw Chewie and the other Star War characters. Kids loved the 4 rides and rode some of them multiple times. My all-time favorite is TOT.

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We were sort of late for MNSSHP but we made it, saw lots of characters, trick or treated, did some rides, did the dance party and watched the parade and fireworks. We could have been in MK at 4 for the MNSSHP but HS, dinner at Captain Cooks and other things took priority. We didn’t get there until 8:00 pm and got back to our rooms about midnight!

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One of my granddaughters lost a baby tooth on our first night at the Polynesian and the front desk provided a pin to wear and some presents from the tooth fairy and Tinkerbell!!

We loved the Polynesian and I ended up doing a lot of pool time at both pools. Once again, we had a great cast member for check in who was able to grant our room requests. The Oasis pool was as enjoyable as the Lava pool due to its proximity to our rooms. Our room was in Tokeleau right on the first floor near the Oasis pool and the big tree that fell over during Irma. I saw them cut it up. This resort was on my bucket list of places to stay. I loved it there and will go back. By the way the Bucket list family was there too, we didn’t see them in person, but I sure did enjoy their posts!!

On Wednesday, we went to Animal Kingdom (AK) around lunchtime. We never got FP for Flight of Passage (FOP) at the 60 day out booking and had been stressing about that but I was able to book 8 FOP FP’s from all those people having to cancel because of Irma. We had lunch at Rainforest Café. We loved FOP, it was so special that we added another AK day to the end of our trip. I actually went to MK once and AK twice, never thought that would happen!! My grandchildren were in awe, yelling out happy sounds and words of joy while experiencing this ride. We rode it again when we went back and it was just as good.

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That night we had the Ohana Twilight Feast room service, which was delicious. I highly recommend ordering room service for this meal, it is a real value. We got 2 adult and 2 kids meals for 8 people and it was way too much and the same food as if you went to the restaurant for a way lower cost. We also liked Captain Cooks, eating there 2 or 3 times. Tonga toast at Captains Cooks was awesome!

Thursday the 14th of September 2017 was Epcot day. We did the regular rides and Frozen because my daughter had been there 3 times and never been able to ride it. Nice day but we went late and left rather early. The kids loved the Cool Club but not the Beverly drink! Quick service at Electric Umbrella was bad, couldn’t even eat my cheeseburger. Not big fans of the Epcot Illuminations fireworks so we went back to the Polynesian, enjoyed the boat parade and MK fireworks and pools.

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Friday was our BIG DAY!!

We had FP for the hard to get rides in the am at MK, then at 10:10 we had Bibbity Bobbity Boo for my 4 granddaughters. For the price, value and outcome get the buns, the colored braids were not so good. Make sure you go over to the store and get the photopass shoots, the photographer does a great job and takes a ton of pictures. It was really fun to be with those Disney photographers, they were the best. Next we went to Cinderella’s Royal Table at the castle for lunch. We had a really good lunch and character experience with the princesses. I was really pleased with my entrée which was filet and shrimp. Kids loved the dessert. The big girls will remember this. That evening we again enjoyed the boat parade and MK fireworks, which you can see while in the pool or hot tub at the Polynesian!

We left the Poly on Saturday the 16th after some pool time and headed to the gulf coast, where we had three nights in a 3 bedroom condo called the Seaview in Madeira Beach. Loved the washer and dryer and the huge balcony with a gorgeous gulf view. This place never even lost power during Irma. We saw dolphins every day and went to Egmont island for shelling on a ferry. We ate out once at Dockside Daves which was across the street. It was an average meal and economy dining area. The rest of our meals were cooked or grilled at the condo. They had a nice pool and hot tub that we enjoyed numerous times and the condo has direct access to the beach. My son in law went deep sea fishing and got to eat his catch with his family! I also took a side trip to Clearwater beach, which is much rougher water but nice sand. It was a lot more crowded than Madeira Beach.

Came back to Orlando on Tuesday the 19th, most of our family went back for another day at MK while my youngest daughter and I went to Universal. My daughter and her family found a last minute reservation at an off-site resort called Cypress Pointe for their last two nights. She said of all the places they stayed, that was their favorite and the least expensive. We had Royal Pacific rooms at Universal, express pass, 3 parks and 4 days. We liked the Harry Potter lands the most. Most of the other rides were fun especially the Mummy and Hulk. We could have had 4 days at Universal but we were done in about 2.5 days. We didn’t like a lot at the Royal Pacific Resort and were relieved to leave. No balconies, long, long hallways… The place just didn’t appeal to us and service wasn’t great. Parking at the hotel is expensive and the garage for self- parking is far away from the hotel lobby. By the time you walk from your room to the lobby and then to the parking garage, you have gone over a mile. The hotel location was very convenient to the parks with the boat ride or walking path and the express pass was worth it. Volcano Bay was cool and I would like to try that again. The fast-moving Lazy River was super fun. Some of their slides look very scary!

Our final day we all met back at Animal Kingdom, FOP was worth a second visit. Glad we got to do it again. I was able to secure FOP FP for 2 a couple days before. My daughter and son in law hit the FP lottery with a CM giving them 6 FP for all regular rides for their family of 6, 6 FOP FP plus 6 Rivers of Light FP. This was due to their My Disney Experience (MDE) being totally screwed up. I enjoyed the Lion King and Finding Nemo shows. The Satuli café was one of our favorite quick services.

I stayed at a little mermaid room at Art of Animation on our last night. It was cute with nice Little Mermaid decor in the room. The room was way too far from the lobby, main pool and buses, I would defiantly pay for a preferred room to get closer to the blue pool, lobby and buses. There was a nice pool in the little mermaid section with lifeguards but we did not get in much swim time because someone had an accident that closed the pool.

We choose to drive to HK and AK rather than use buses, as they take so long. As long as you are a resort guest the parking is free. Monorail to MK from the Poly was great except for one breakdown and our Polynesian rooms were a quick walk to TTC for Epcot.

I prepaid for photopass and all 8 members of our group were able to use it. We ended up with just under 1000 pictures. I ordered the $30 CD when I got home, as it was very confusing trying to download all those pictures. We spent a lot of time doing the character/princess attractions and got some beautiful pictures of the girls interacting with them. Photopass is definitely worth it.

We could have had one more park day on Friday, but we were parked out!! Friday the 22nd we drove back to upstate NY. PS I drove 2745 miles for this trip!! 52 hours!!
 

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Great review, we stayed at the Poly for 9 nights the end of August, we left on Labor Day so missed Irma!
 

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