cheapster316
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 24, 2014
Trip review 1/10-1/19 AOA, Disney Dream and POP
No pictures
A little background:
I had booked this trip in February. We wanted to try a Disney cruise so we picked a 4 night Dream out of Port Canaveral. We cruised about 10 years ago, every other year before kids and had been on Royal Caribbean, Princess and Carnival. We had looked into a cruise to nowhere out of NYC a few years ago and it was more than what we ended up paying for the 4 day. We did 2 nights in little Mermaid at AOA, 4 nights Disney Dream and 4 nights preferred 60s at POP.
The trip included me, DD 8, DS 5 turns 6 this week and DH. BIL and his friend did the same vacation but we booked through different TAs. I had used the same Disney specialist from before and loved her. He used one through his union at work who was not a Disney specialist and often gave him wrong information. I highly recommend using a Disney specialist.
Costs:
AOA with dining plan (1 quick serve, 1 snack and 1 table service) and memory maker was $753.10 for 2 nights
Disney Dream category 8D with large porthole room was $2664.76
POP with dining plan (same plan as above), 3 nights in a preferred room was $957.32
Trip was paid in full with Disney gift cards bought at Target with at least 5% discount using red card. I also purchased $1200 worth black Friday at 10% off and would save my Target gift cards ($5 when you buy 4 tooth pastes type deals and buy Disney gift cards with them). I think the initial deposit I used the Disney Visa.
I also budgeted my cruise tips with gift cards, BBB, stroller rental, dining plan tips with target purchased Disney gift cards and saved $50 in singles for room service, luggage etc. tips. I made up mouse keeping envelopes a head of time with $5 a day and had all of that budgeted before I went. I also had $200 plus in Disney rewards visa that I used on the cruise and a few gift cards from DMR I had saved.
DH and I both opened Chase Visa Southwest cards separately when they had the 50,000 bonus miles. If you spend $2,000 in the first 3 months you earned 50,000 miles. You still have to pay taxes and I added the early bird check in, so it was $144.80 for 4 round trip tickets plus $100 fee for each card. Well worth it for direct flights from NY to Orlando.
Day 1 Saturday 1/11
We got to the airport almost 2 hours early, the airport recommended 1.5 hours. The line for Southwest was huge and we spend maybe 45 minutes waiting to check luggage in. No time to eat, I grabbed stuff from Starbucks and boarded the plane. Our flight arrived on time at 11:05 and we left on the magic express for AOA at 12:11, bus lane #5 and arrived at 12:38, second stop.
Our room was ready and located next to bil and friends room. We were in building 7 Ursula on the 3rd floor overlooking the lake. It was a beautiful view. We had stayed in a Cars suite 2 years ago and with the cruise I could not justify the suite. I was concerned that the walk would be too much, but realistically it was only 2 nights. The walk was about 5 minutes. It was not horrible; however we rarely filled our drink mugs because it was not convenient to walk both ways for a drink. The walk goes through Lion King and we were the first building after LK. I had requested 1st floor, close to transportation and having the room ready above every other preference via online check in. DD is scared to death of Ursula. We would joke with her everytime we walked by the statue that he but was facing the walkway and say, look it is Ursula's but.
The room was clean, loved the details and the shower pressure was awesome. We walked to the food court and had lunch. We got our refillable mugs and bottled drinks. I learned that you got at a quick service a drink (can be bottled), snack and meal. DH and I got create your own burgers (I added fried shrimp, yum), with fries, bottled drinks for the room, full size desserts and the kids split one create your own burger. The food court was chaotic. Lines do not move fast and sometimes your food was cold before you got to the table. I asked a cashier before I ordered the food about the snacks and she told me anything in the bakery case, or bagged snacks counted as well as gelato. Gelato can be gotten after your meal, they stamp your receipt and you have 90 minutes to get it after you eat. DD loved the gelato and got it 3-4 times.
My tip is the lines are on both sides of the cashier, they take turns waiting on each side. If you see someone with a bunch of mugs to activate, go to another line as they take a few minutes to process.
I did have difficulties with finding a beverage dispenser with just water so DD had lemonade. Also there was never enough ice and you have to have your cup exactly right on the dispenser for the chip to read it. Once I spilled the drink and had to wait to refill it because it is timed. It was not long maybe a minute or 2 but frustrating.
AOA uses real plates and utensils which is a nice touch. However they were out of forks and I forget what BIL ordered but you needed a fork. They were often out of straws, utensils and many drinks were not working, as well as they could not keep up on filling the coffee and cream.
We refilled the mugs, went back to the room and changed into bathing suits and put our bottled drinks in the mini fridge (no freezer and no coffee pot in room).I knew from this board that the big blue pool would be closing in the next few days for refurbs but we were not told by AOA, there was a sign when it was closed. We loved this pool. Lots of empty chairs, huge pool and we probably spent 2 hours in the pool. DH was told nicely by the lifeguard that the go pro was not allowed because it was on a stick.
I had a dinner reservation for Rainforest that I had made directly through them for 5:30. I called when we were eating lunch to see if I could push it back to 6:30 so we could enjoy the pool. I did with no problem. We changed and walked back to the bus stop. This time we tried a different path, instead of going through Lion King and the food court we walked around the outer edge of the parking lot to see if it was any quicker. It seemed like the same walk and at least we could look at the statues. A bus came quickly and we were at Downtown Disney by 5:05. We went to the toy store, pin store, another store that I could not name and they were selling things in a sale section 5 for $20. They had Ursula headbands that I wanted for the giant Ursula statue in front of our building. DD is terrified of Ursula, but quickly got used to the big statue. They were marked regularly $20 plus. I asked a worker how much if I only wanted one and she said $4. I was glad I asked.
We checked into rainforest about 6:15 for 6:30 reservation. She told me she would text me when it was our time. 45 minutes go by and DS is hungry. I asked how close we were and she made a noise and said oh, we can take you right now. They directed me to another line where we waited another 10 minutes more and finally texted me that it was our turn. The hostess then took our claim tickets and started seating the back of the line first. They really have a bad system for seating. We were finally seated and had a great waiter, Calvin. He brought the kids food out first and asked if we were on the dining plan. He then recommended the 3 most expensive entrees and said we could order any entrée, any non-alcoholic drink with free refills and a dessert. He quickly brought the kids food out, dino nuggets and bananas for both. DH had the ribs, steak and shrimp combo with French fries and I had the steak and shrimp combo (steak, shrimp scampi and coconut shrimp) with broccoli. The kids had ice cream sandwiches and DH and I were both stuffed, we asked for cheesecake to go (breakfast the next morning) and the waiter offered to combine our credits and get the volcano desert which is around $15, we told him no thanks. Total was $110.23 and I used a prepaid Disney gift card with $25 tip. (I bought $25 gift cards for my table service tips). We met up with bil in the pin shop and took the bus back to AOA. We were back by 8:33 and stopped at the food court to get cinnamon rolls as a snack credit for breakfast the next day. It was then bed time as we had magic kingdom up next.
No pictures
A little background:
I had booked this trip in February. We wanted to try a Disney cruise so we picked a 4 night Dream out of Port Canaveral. We cruised about 10 years ago, every other year before kids and had been on Royal Caribbean, Princess and Carnival. We had looked into a cruise to nowhere out of NYC a few years ago and it was more than what we ended up paying for the 4 day. We did 2 nights in little Mermaid at AOA, 4 nights Disney Dream and 4 nights preferred 60s at POP.
The trip included me, DD 8, DS 5 turns 6 this week and DH. BIL and his friend did the same vacation but we booked through different TAs. I had used the same Disney specialist from before and loved her. He used one through his union at work who was not a Disney specialist and often gave him wrong information. I highly recommend using a Disney specialist.
Costs:
AOA with dining plan (1 quick serve, 1 snack and 1 table service) and memory maker was $753.10 for 2 nights
Disney Dream category 8D with large porthole room was $2664.76
POP with dining plan (same plan as above), 3 nights in a preferred room was $957.32
Trip was paid in full with Disney gift cards bought at Target with at least 5% discount using red card. I also purchased $1200 worth black Friday at 10% off and would save my Target gift cards ($5 when you buy 4 tooth pastes type deals and buy Disney gift cards with them). I think the initial deposit I used the Disney Visa.
I also budgeted my cruise tips with gift cards, BBB, stroller rental, dining plan tips with target purchased Disney gift cards and saved $50 in singles for room service, luggage etc. tips. I made up mouse keeping envelopes a head of time with $5 a day and had all of that budgeted before I went. I also had $200 plus in Disney rewards visa that I used on the cruise and a few gift cards from DMR I had saved.
DH and I both opened Chase Visa Southwest cards separately when they had the 50,000 bonus miles. If you spend $2,000 in the first 3 months you earned 50,000 miles. You still have to pay taxes and I added the early bird check in, so it was $144.80 for 4 round trip tickets plus $100 fee for each card. Well worth it for direct flights from NY to Orlando.
Day 1 Saturday 1/11
We got to the airport almost 2 hours early, the airport recommended 1.5 hours. The line for Southwest was huge and we spend maybe 45 minutes waiting to check luggage in. No time to eat, I grabbed stuff from Starbucks and boarded the plane. Our flight arrived on time at 11:05 and we left on the magic express for AOA at 12:11, bus lane #5 and arrived at 12:38, second stop.
Our room was ready and located next to bil and friends room. We were in building 7 Ursula on the 3rd floor overlooking the lake. It was a beautiful view. We had stayed in a Cars suite 2 years ago and with the cruise I could not justify the suite. I was concerned that the walk would be too much, but realistically it was only 2 nights. The walk was about 5 minutes. It was not horrible; however we rarely filled our drink mugs because it was not convenient to walk both ways for a drink. The walk goes through Lion King and we were the first building after LK. I had requested 1st floor, close to transportation and having the room ready above every other preference via online check in. DD is scared to death of Ursula. We would joke with her everytime we walked by the statue that he but was facing the walkway and say, look it is Ursula's but.
The room was clean, loved the details and the shower pressure was awesome. We walked to the food court and had lunch. We got our refillable mugs and bottled drinks. I learned that you got at a quick service a drink (can be bottled), snack and meal. DH and I got create your own burgers (I added fried shrimp, yum), with fries, bottled drinks for the room, full size desserts and the kids split one create your own burger. The food court was chaotic. Lines do not move fast and sometimes your food was cold before you got to the table. I asked a cashier before I ordered the food about the snacks and she told me anything in the bakery case, or bagged snacks counted as well as gelato. Gelato can be gotten after your meal, they stamp your receipt and you have 90 minutes to get it after you eat. DD loved the gelato and got it 3-4 times.
My tip is the lines are on both sides of the cashier, they take turns waiting on each side. If you see someone with a bunch of mugs to activate, go to another line as they take a few minutes to process.
I did have difficulties with finding a beverage dispenser with just water so DD had lemonade. Also there was never enough ice and you have to have your cup exactly right on the dispenser for the chip to read it. Once I spilled the drink and had to wait to refill it because it is timed. It was not long maybe a minute or 2 but frustrating.
AOA uses real plates and utensils which is a nice touch. However they were out of forks and I forget what BIL ordered but you needed a fork. They were often out of straws, utensils and many drinks were not working, as well as they could not keep up on filling the coffee and cream.
We refilled the mugs, went back to the room and changed into bathing suits and put our bottled drinks in the mini fridge (no freezer and no coffee pot in room).I knew from this board that the big blue pool would be closing in the next few days for refurbs but we were not told by AOA, there was a sign when it was closed. We loved this pool. Lots of empty chairs, huge pool and we probably spent 2 hours in the pool. DH was told nicely by the lifeguard that the go pro was not allowed because it was on a stick.
I had a dinner reservation for Rainforest that I had made directly through them for 5:30. I called when we were eating lunch to see if I could push it back to 6:30 so we could enjoy the pool. I did with no problem. We changed and walked back to the bus stop. This time we tried a different path, instead of going through Lion King and the food court we walked around the outer edge of the parking lot to see if it was any quicker. It seemed like the same walk and at least we could look at the statues. A bus came quickly and we were at Downtown Disney by 5:05. We went to the toy store, pin store, another store that I could not name and they were selling things in a sale section 5 for $20. They had Ursula headbands that I wanted for the giant Ursula statue in front of our building. DD is terrified of Ursula, but quickly got used to the big statue. They were marked regularly $20 plus. I asked a worker how much if I only wanted one and she said $4. I was glad I asked.
We checked into rainforest about 6:15 for 6:30 reservation. She told me she would text me when it was our time. 45 minutes go by and DS is hungry. I asked how close we were and she made a noise and said oh, we can take you right now. They directed me to another line where we waited another 10 minutes more and finally texted me that it was our turn. The hostess then took our claim tickets and started seating the back of the line first. They really have a bad system for seating. We were finally seated and had a great waiter, Calvin. He brought the kids food out first and asked if we were on the dining plan. He then recommended the 3 most expensive entrees and said we could order any entrée, any non-alcoholic drink with free refills and a dessert. He quickly brought the kids food out, dino nuggets and bananas for both. DH had the ribs, steak and shrimp combo with French fries and I had the steak and shrimp combo (steak, shrimp scampi and coconut shrimp) with broccoli. The kids had ice cream sandwiches and DH and I were both stuffed, we asked for cheesecake to go (breakfast the next morning) and the waiter offered to combine our credits and get the volcano desert which is around $15, we told him no thanks. Total was $110.23 and I used a prepaid Disney gift card with $25 tip. (I bought $25 gift cards for my table service tips). We met up with bil in the pin shop and took the bus back to AOA. We were back by 8:33 and stopped at the food court to get cinnamon rolls as a snack credit for breakfast the next day. It was then bed time as we had magic kingdom up next.