Spring Break 2016 or "Is this the trip my family talks me into riding Everest??"

[pmurphy713]

Hello fellow Disney lovers! I have been reading trip reports for years and this is my first attempt at trying one myself. Would appreciate any comments or feedback from you as I go along. Just a warning....my husband says that I write like I talk (and I love to talk about Disney), so I'm very conversational. Also, during the report, I will have a tendency to go on rabbit trails and/or chase squirrels, so you cannot say that you weren't forewarned, just skip those parts and go to the next interesting one. You won't hurt my feelings!

So, let's get started - First the cast of this trip

• Barry - 50 something, financier of many Disney trips
• Pam - also 50 something, lover of all things Disney
• Katelyn - 21, oldest daughter
• Natalie - 20, youngest daughter
• Bryant - Katelyn's 23 year old boyfriend
• Blake - Natalie's 20 year old boyfriend

We all live in Mobile, Alabama on the Gulf Coast. Both girls and their boyfriends attend the University of South Alabama here in Mobile. Each boy still lives with their parents and the girls live here at home with us. Katelyn is a senior in Mechanical Engineering, Natalie is a Sophomore in Marine Biology, Bryant about to graduate with a degree in Music Education and Blake is a Sophomore in Psychology. Blake and Natalie met in high school and have been dating for almost 4 years and Katelyn and Bryant met in college and have been dating 2 1/2 years. This will be Blake's third trip with us and Bryant has NEVER been to Disney, ever (I cannot imagine!!!) As a family, the four of us have been to Disney World approximately 25 times. Barry is the only one of us who has been to Disneyland, but there is always a talk about a trip there!
My love of Disney began as a child when I watched The Wonderful World of Disney each Sunday evening. I loved the stories about Disneyland and always wished that I could go there. When I was 14, my wonderful grandparents took my cousin and myself to Disney World. At that time, they were building Epcot and The Magic Kingdom was the only park. We stayed there a day and I still have many wonderful memories of that time. After I grew up and got married and had children, my DH and I wanted to plan a vacation. I begged to take the girls to Disney World. My husband was doubtful and said, "it's just a theme park, like Six Flags. Why do you want to go there so badly??" I finally convinced him and after much planning, we went, stayed in one of the Garden Wings of the Contemporary and had the most wonderful time. I knew that I had a Disney World convert on my hands when my husband said to me on the way home, "So, when can we come back??" Since then we have been many times. But, I digress (I told you I would!)
We started planning this Disney trip back in May of 2015 and decided on the kids' spring break. I wanted this to be a great experience for Bryant's first trip, so thought it would be wonderful to stay in a Grand Villa at Old Key West. Our DVC home resort is Kidani, but our points go farther at OKW. When I booked, a GV wasn't available so I booked a two bedroom instead and waitlisted the GV. We began purchasing our tickets one at a time so we wouldn't have so much out of pocket. The family gave me one for my birthday in July, but unfortunately purchased only a 5 day, one park per day ticket so we would have to change it once we got there. Each girl saved up and purchased their own park hopper, Blake bought his and Katelyn split the cost with Bryant since it was his first time. The girls and I got Barry one for Christmas and we were all set to make the rest of our plans. Each month as we got paid, we would purchase Disney gift cards from Target. The goal for this trip was not to put anything on a credit card. I love cash visits. That way, I feel like everyone can enjoy the trip and not worry about finances.
On New Year's Eve, Bryant's parents and family came over to celebrate and his dad mentioned to me that he hoped Bryant would be able to go with us. He was finishing up school and looking for a job. We hoped that if he got a job before we left, that he would be able to take off and go with us. The planning continued, I made fast passes 60 days out, made our dining reservations, tweaked things a little and waited until it was time to be in Disney World. About 25 days out, I was checking my DVC account and noticed some extra points were gone. When I checked my reservations, I saw that we had gotten our waitlist request and now had a 3 bedroom villa. I was so excited. Everyone could have their own bed and the boys could share a room and the girls would share a room as always. Unfortunately, this excitement was short lived when Bryant got a job and would be unable to go with us. Those were some sad days as Katelyn was torn between going to Disney without him or staying home and working that week. She eventually decided to go and we would plan on him going the next trip. I called DVC to change our villa to a 2 bedroom, but there was NOTHING available in a 2 bedroom anywhere on property. It looked like we would be rambling around in a huge villa. Oh, well, the struggle we put up with at Disney.
As the day approached when we would be leaving, I was finishing up some things at work. I am the office manager/bookkeeper at an Early Leaning Center where I formally taught 3K. Everyone there, and I do mean everyone, knows of my love for Disney. I have a small Mickey, Minnie and Goofy on my desk and lots of the children come in to visit them. My co workers were all wishing me a wonderful trip. My friend that works with me in the office told me to get out of there at 12:30 rather than my planned 3:30 and I happily took her up on it. It had turned into a rather nasty, rainy afternoon and I would much rather be at home packing that sitting at a computer. When I got home, Natalie was already out of school for the week and we decided to go grab a quick lunch at Panera and pick up a few last minute things at Target. When we got back home, Katelyn was there and told me Bryant would be coming by to say goodbye later that evening. Barry finally arrived home, we ate dinner and packed the car. We were leaving for my favorite place at 4 am Saturday morning. We would pick Blake up at his house on our way out of town. I was so excited to be heading to Disney that I woke up at 2:20, thirty minutes before my clock rang. We all grabbed the last of our things, got in the car, picked up Blake and were off!

 

[pmurphy713]

DAY 1 - TRIP Down and Ragland Road and Disney Customer Service

We live approximately 525 miles from Disney, so we make the trip in about 8 hours, give or take with a couple of rest breaks. We drove to Tallahassee and stopped to get gas and some breakfast. We stopped at Cracker Barrel right off the interstate. Breakfast for the five of us was $60.48 which I paid for with two American Express gift cards and $20.00 cash which covered the rest and a tip.

We arrived about 2:00 at our home for the week, Old Key West, did express check in and found out our room was ready. We stopped by and picked up our purple box from Owner's Locker (a huge packing saver), our groceries from Garden Grocer (I don't remember the amount for those, but I had paid for them a month earlier, approximately $75.00) and headed to our HUGE room. We had all decided on the way down that we wanted to rest for awhile and head over to Disney Springs for dinner. We all got a snack from our Garden Groceries and crashed. Barry and I had reservations at Ragland Road for 6:30. We also had to change my ticket over from a Magic Your Way ticket to a Park Hopper, and purchase our Tables In Wonderland card, so we needed to allow time for that. The kids had decided at home that they were just going to wing it that night and see what they wanted to eat when they got there. We had invited them to Ragland Road with us, but they just weren't interested. We were both tired from driving, so decided to take the bus to Disney Springs. The bus stop for Turtle Pond was just outside of our parking area, so it was extremely convenient. We all left our room about 5:00, caught the bus to DS and made it there within 15 minutes of leaving the room. This was starting out to be a wonderful trip!

Once we arrived, the kids said goodbye to us old folks and said they would keep in touch via text and would probably head back to the room fairly early as we had such an early start from home. We headed over to Guest Relations and thus, began our first adventure of the trip! Let me preface this by saying, I have been to Guest Services in every park and DS and have never really encountered a problem. However, tonight was not going to be the same. First of all, we left our DVC membership cards back at the room (totally MY fault, not Guest Services). However, after a 15 minute or so wait, we made it to a Cast Member who was SUPER nice, upgraded my park pass and talked to him about purchasing our Tables In Wonderland. He said, "No problem. Are you eligible for a discount, AP holder, DVC member??" I said, "Yes, we are DVC members." He asked to see my card, at which point we realized that we had left them in the room. The kind cast member said that wasn't a problem, he actually just needed a member number, checked with his supervisor to make sure that was correct, and said he could issue us one at the DVC price - $150.00 instead of the normal $175.00. Well, at this point, my phone decided to have a spasm and not connect to the internet and I didn't want to keep him waiting anymore. He had been so patient, said come back in a little while and we will get you taken care of, just get us that number. I smiled and graciously thanked him for his help and said we would return after dinner.

By this time, our 6:30 reservation time was approaching. So we headed on over to Ragland Road to make sure we checked in at least 15 minutes early. When we got there, there was a very long line. I went to get in the line to check in and read the sign (always a good thing to do) and it said this was for walk ups for the outside tables. Ok, that wasn't us, so I looked around and found the check in desk. It was about 6:15 and the Cast Member said it would probably be about 10 minutes. Perfect! We stood outside and listened to the Irish folk singer for a few minutes, wandered over to check out the menu to Morimoto's new restaurant and by that time our buzzer buzzed and we went in an were seated at a cozy end table for two. This was the week of March 17, St. Patrick's Day, so the St. Patrick's Day celebration was in full swing. As we were seated, a pair of young men came out on the main stage. We enjoyed listening to them and they played for approximately 20 minutes. The décor here is very dark woods, beautiful high ceilings, absolutely lovely. Our server's name was Natalie and she was wonderful. Barry decided on the Bangers and Booze ($20) and and Irish Craft Beer Flight ($10). My choice was Braised Be Beef ($26) and water. After Natalie took our order, she brought us our drinks and explained the beer flight. It was a selection of four different Irish beers ranging from an almost champagne light one to a very dark lager. I'm not a big beer fan, but wanted to taste them. I thought to two dark ones were very heavy and didn't like them at all. I much preferred the lighter one, but wasn't fond of any of them. Barry really enjoyed the dark lager and said he would definitely get it again. The glasses were about a half pint each which I thought was excellent for the cost. As we were soaking up the atmosphere, Natalie also brought us some Irish soda bread and a wonderful dipping sauce. I don't know exactly what was in that sauce, but it was heavenly!

Before our meal came, we also enjoyed some Irish step dancing performed to two ladies and two gentlemen. They were phenomenal! I could have watched them for hours. The performed several numbers and took a short break. By this time, our food had arrived and looked and smelled delicious. Barry's Bangers and Booze consisted of 2 sausages on garlic mashed potatoes with a beef stew spooned over it. It was yummy. My order of Braised Be Beef was a large portion of beef that had been marinated in Guiness and then cooked for about 8 hours, served over horseradish mashed potaoes with a side of parsnips and carrots. The meat was falling apart tender and absolutely awesome! We didn't have one complaint about our food other than the portions were so large that we had no room for their famous bread pudding (Barry's favorite). Sadly I paid our bill $59.64 and left a generous tip and told Natalie that we would definitely be back on our next trip to the world.

I was full and tired, but we still needed to get our Tables in Wonderland taken care of, so we stopped back by Guest Relations. The line was pretty long and I waited for the CM to take our name and had a seat. I didn't realize that she didn't understand my husband's name and incorrectly wrote "Mer" down instead of "Barry". One after the other, people were called up to the desk and taken care of. After about 30 minutes, they still hadn't called us and I decided to go and check. The CM who had written our name down said, "I don't have anyone by that name in the que. Are you sure that it was me?" I said yes, we have been here for a while and you checked us in. She kind of rudely pointed to her tablet and said, "I haven't had you, see? The only one I had down for Tables in Wonderland was this one and they left before they were waited on." It was then that I noticed they had put down "Mer". She told me I would have to wait again after everyone was helped, no apology or anything. I was disappointed and started to walk away when her supervisor asked what was wrong and she immediately took us to an available CM. When we spoke to the CM, she said she didn't just need our number as we were told before, but needed to see the card (again, MY fault, not hers). So we left and headed back to the room.

I was disappointed that we didn't get our TIW, but too exhausted to argue. While we were in line at GS, the kids texted and said they had gone back to the room and would see us in the moring for our first day at the MK. We arrived back at our room, full, tired and a bit disgruntled, but also very happy to be here.

 

[pmurphy713]

DAY 1 - TRIP Down and Ragland Road and Disney Customer Service

We live approximately 525 miles from Disney, so we make the trip in about 8 hours, give or take with a couple of rest breaks. We drove to Tallahassee and stopped to get gas and some breakfast. We stopped at Cracker Barrel right off the interstate. Breakfast for the five of us was $60.48 which I paid for with two American Express gift cards and $20.00 cash which covered the rest and a tip.

We arrived about 2:00 at our home for the week, Old Key West, did express check in and found out our room was ready. We stopped by and picked up our purple box from Owner's Locker (a huge packing saver), our groceries from Garden Grocer (I don't remember the amount for those, but I had paid for them a month earlier, approximately $75.00) and headed to our HUGE room. We had all decided on the way down that we wanted to rest for awhile and head over to Disney Springs for dinner. We all got a snack from our Garden Groceries and crashed. Barry and I had reservations at Ragland Road for 6:30. We also had to change my ticket over from a Magic Your Way ticket to a Park Hopper, and purchase our Tables In Wonderland card, so we needed to allow time for that. The kids had decided at home that they were just going to wing it that night and see what they wanted to eat when they got there. We had invited them to Ragland Road with us, but they just weren't interested. We were both tired from driving, so decided to take the bus to Disney Springs. The bus stop for Turtle Pond was just outside of our parking area, so it was extremely convenient. We all left our room about 5:00, caught the bus to DS and made it there within 15 minutes of leaving the room. This was starting out to be a wonderful trip!

Once we arrived, the kids said goodbye to us old folks and said they would keep in touch via text and would probably head back to the room fairly early as we had such an early start from home. We headed over to Guest Relations and thus, began our first adventure of the trip! Let me preface this by saying, I have been to Guest Services in every park and DS and have never really encountered a problem. However, tonight was not going to be the same. First of all, we left our DVC membership cards back at the room (totally MY fault, not Guest Services). However, after a 15 minute or so wait, we made it to a Cast Member who was SUPER nice, upgraded my park pass and talked to him about purchasing our Tables In Wonderland. He said, "No problem. Are you eligible for a discount, AP holder, DVC member??" I said, "Yes, we are DVC members." He asked to see my card, at which point we realized that we had left them in the room. The kind cast member said that wasn't a problem, he actually just needed a member number, checked with his supervisor to make sure that was correct, and said he could issue us one at the DVC price - $150.00 instead of the normal $175.00. Well, at this point, my phone decided to have a spasm and not connect to the internet and I didn't want to keep him waiting anymore. He had been so patient, said come back in a little while and we will get you taken care of, just get us that number. I smiled and graciously thanked him for his help and said we would return after dinner.

By this time, our 6:30 reservation time was approaching. So we headed on over to Ragland Road to make sure we checked in at least 15 minutes early. When we got there, there was a very long line. I went to get in the line to check in and read the sign (always a good thing to do) and it said this was for walk ups for the outside tables. Ok, that wasn't us, so I looked around and found the check in desk. It was about 6:15 and the Cast Member said it would probably be about 10 minutes. Perfect! We stood outside and listened to the Irish folk singer for a few minutes, wandered over to check out the menu to Morimoto's new restaurant and by that time our buzzer buzzed and we went in an were seated at a cozy end table for two. This was the week of March 17, St. Patrick's Day, so the St. Patrick's Day celebration was in full swing. As we were seated, a pair of young men came out on the main stage. We enjoyed listening to them and they played for approximately 20 minutes. The décor here is very dark woods, beautiful high ceilings, absolutely lovely. Our server's name was Natalie and she was wonderful. Barry decided on the Bangers and Booze ($20) and and Irish Craft Beer Flight ($10). My choice was Braised Be Beef ($26) and water. After Natalie took our order, she brought us our drinks and explained the beer flight. It was a selection of four different Irish beers ranging from an almost champagne light one to a very dark lager. I'm not a big beer fan, but wanted to taste them. I thought to two dark ones were very heavy and didn't like them at all. I much preferred the lighter one, but wasn't fond of any of them. Barry really enjoyed the dark lager and said he would definitely get it again. The glasses were about a half pint each which I thought was excellent for the cost. As we were soaking up the atmosphere, Natalie also brought us some Irish soda bread and a wonderful dipping sauce. I don't know exactly what was in that sauce, but it was heavenly!

Before our meal came, we also enjoyed some Irish step dancing performed to two ladies and two gentlemen. They were phenomenal! I could have watched them for hours. The performed several numbers and took a short break. By this time, our food had arrived and looked and smelled delicious. Barry's Bangers and Booze consisted of 2 sausages on garlic mashed potatoes with a beef stew spooned over it. It was yummy. My order of Braised Be Beef was a large portion of beef that had been marinated in Guiness and then cooked for about 8 hours, served over horseradish mashed potaoes with a side of parsnips and carrots. The meat was falling apart tender and absolutely awesome! We didn't have one complaint about our food other than the portions were so large that we had no room for their famous bread pudding (Barry's favorite). Sadly I paid our bill $59.64 and left a generous tip and told Natalie that we would definitely be back on our next trip to the world.

I was full and tired, but we still needed to get our Tables in Wonderland taken care of, so we stopped back by Guest Relations. The line was pretty long and I waited for the CM to take our name and had a seat. I didn't realize that she didn't understand my husband's name and incorrectly wrote "Mer" down instead of "Barry". One after the other, people were called up to the desk and taken care of. After about 30 minutes, they still hadn't called us and I decided to go and check. The CM who had written our name down said, "I don't have anyone by that name in the que. Are you sure that it was me?" I said yes, we have been here for a while and you checked us in. She kind of rudely pointed to her tablet and said, "I haven't had you, see? The only one I had down for Tables in Wonderland was this one and they left before they were waited on." It was then that I noticed they had put down "Mer". She told me I would have to wait again after everyone was helped, no apology or anything. I was disappointed and started to walk away when her supervisor asked what was wrong and she immediately took us to an available CM. When we spoke to the CM, she said she didn't just need our number as we were told before, but needed to see the card (again, MY fault, not hers). So we left and headed back to the room.

I was disappointed that we didn't get our TIW, but too exhausted to argue. While we were in line at GS, the kids texted and said they had gone back to the room and would see us in the moring for our first day at the MK. We arrived back at our room, full, tired and a bit disgruntled, but also very happy to be here.