Beautiful Resort [13 - 27th september 2012]

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grumpybearchemo
Posts: 47
Joined: April 14th, 2011, 12:01 pm

Beautiful Resort [13 - 27th september 2012]

Unread post by grumpybearchemo »

This was my 4th time staying at the french quarter. There was 3 adults, myself, my mum and dad, travelling from England. All staying in the same room, which as ever was fine, but I think 4 adults in the same room would be alittle crowded.
This was our first visit since the refurbishment, the room was lovely and clean. I think it looks alittle brighter in the rooms since the refurb, the only thing we didn't like was the bed covers [the purple top cover] which was sooooo scratchy and the maid didnt seem interested in putting it on the bed and was often tucked the the corner, which was fine with us as it was too uncomfortable to sit on. The maid often left us little towel creatures, very cute and welcomed.
We received a free quick service dining plan for our 2 week stay, we had had the normal dining plan before on our last 3 trips, with that you get a table service meal and a quick service meal, along with 1 snack each day, which we found really contolled what we were doing each day with the pre-booked table service restaurants every day, but with the quick-service plan we were free to go wherever we wanted each day, which we really enjoyed and we will be doing the quick service plan on our next stay.
With the quick service plan you get 2 quick service meals aday each, which was more than enough food as the portions are so large in disney. Also you get 2 snacks aday [only for visiters from the U.K], which I believe changes to 1 snack aday, which would be more than enough. On our last day we found we had 53 snacks left, so we went to the french quarter giftshop called Jackson Square Gifts and we had 3 huge bags of candy to take home as gifts, which would have cost £102! really quite shocking, so disney changing the snacks to just 1 snack per person per day would most defiently save them money.
Every morning we went to the pool [apart from when we went to typhoon lagoon], as we found that was the most quiet time of day to go swimming and then went for late breakfast at the quick service restaurant at the resort, called Sasssagoula Floatworks and Foodcourt, there was more than enough to choose from, my parents often had the ham and cheese omelette which came with breakfast potatoes, I often went for the Bounty Platter, which had scrambled eggs [I always asked not to have that as I don't eat egg] a biscuit, sausage, bacon, breakfast potatoes and a small mickey waffle, as i asked for no egg sometimes the server would ask if i wanted an extra biscuit or waffle, but not always, it depended on the server I never asked as the was more than enough food on the bounty platter.
We didn't have a car for the majority of our stay, so used the disney transport, the buses to the theme parks and the boats between riverside, french quarter and downtown disney, the only problem we had was if the boat or bus was too full, which only happened once on the bus, which was going to epcot and was dropping rather rude people off at riverside, who refused to move to let my mum on with her electric scooter, so we would have to wait for the next bus, which was extremely unfair, so I had quite an argument with the driver, which upset my mum a fair bit, all because of some overweight lazy rude people that refused to move from the seats that fold up for a wheelchair to get on. But as we hadn't been on the monorail yet, which my dad loves going on we got on the magic kingdom bus that came 2 seconds after, then went on the monorail to the polynesian resort to have a late lunch at captain cooks, the polynesian quick-service, that was lovely, I had the aloha pork sandwich, abit like pulled pork with hawaiian coleslaw, my mum had the grown-up grilled cheese, which both came with fries or other options and my dad had haiwaiin flatbreak [pizza] all were fab!. We then walked to transportation system down a little pathway [I've never used before] and got on the monorail to epcot. So out of a bad experience, not any fault of disney and its resorts, we had a great time at the polynesian and on the monorails.
Only once was the boat too full after filling up at riverside to take us to Downtown Disney, at the busiest time of day to go downtown, which is around 5pm to 7pm, as many people spend their evenings there, as there are many lovely places to eat there, with Wolfgang-Puck Express, Earl of Sandwich and Cookes of Dublin, all have great food, all get quite busy in the evenings, we only ate at downtown once on this visit, at the Cookes of Dublin, which had lovely food and we didnt have any trouble gettin a seat even with my mums scooter, I had the battered burger, which had tomato chutney and garlic mayo in, with chunky english chips [aka french fries], my mum had the classic fish and chips, my dad had the scallops and chips, which are deep-fried scallops, he loved those, but being on the dining plan you could only have a cookie, fruit or ice cream as a dessert, alittle disappointing, but we got a "strawberry roll" a rather gourmet looking version of an english cake called a swiss roll, which we charged to our room instead and just got the cookies for a later time. I defiently recommend Cookes of Dublin.
We went to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party on Tuesday 18th September, we had never been to that before and it was fantastic! We all loved it, there is amazing fireworks, Hallowishes, the best I've ever seen at disney [even better than their 4th July fireworks], Boo to You Parade, which is showed twice an evening, best parade I've seen also, I normally can't stand parades, but this was great and a show infront of the castle called The Villians Mix and Mingle, showed 5 times a night, but i missed it as the last 2 shows were cnacelled due to the stage getting wet from earlier rain, but the villians still came down to "Mingle" [they come down to do meet and greets]. We still have candy from the trick or treating stations, they give you bags as you go into the park, they were well and truly full when we left at 12 in the evening [closing time]. You can go into the party at 4.30pm, even though the party doesn't really start untill 7pm, as thats when the non-party goers have to leave the park. I plan on going to the halloween party on our next visit.
I don't think I could ever stay off disney-property ever again, missing out on all the benefits of staying in disney, with the "key to the world card" which you use to get into your hotel room, getting into the parks, for your dining plan and charging to your rooms, also sending items you've bought back to your resort, when you do that you fill in a form, they will be then send your items to your resorts gift shop for you to pick up the next afternoon [apart from food, even Mickey Sprinkles which I bought], when your items have arrived at the resort, the staff will send a message to your in-room phone telling to you can collect your items, you must take your receipt with you to pick them up.
Also the extra-magic hours, which is when a select park opens an hour early or stays open around 3 hours in the evening. We went to these afew times during our visit, but only to the evening hours as we never got up early enough to do the morning hours.
Something that was new for me this stay at the French Quarter was the resort activites like the pool games, roasting marshmallows at the cajun campfire, I did this afew times, but my parents don't like marshmallows, so I didn't go to it often, I went on "offical talk like a pirate day" [never heard of it], so i got a free little pirate rubber duck, very cute.
Also there are movies on the lawn, which was right next our room building [building 6]. The entertainment staff hand out towels, the same ones as the ones at the pool, to sit on and watch the films. I watched Oliver and Company and some of Incredibles before to poured with rain and everyone went running for cover, often there was lighterning in the sky as we watching the films. Also I went over to watch Tangled at Riverside's Movies on the lawn, which was a very small area to watch and lights surround the area so you can't watch the film very well, as the light was reflecting off of the projecter screen, I'd never seen that film so wanted to watch, even though during dark scenes you couldn't see. The films change monthy and you can see them on this website, I printed our months off so we had a copy in our room. I was disappointed that for the first month ever at French Quarter they didn't show The Princess & The Frog for that months movies, which I wanted to watch as I've never seen it.
We had the same room as our last visit, as that is what we put on our request when we booked via our travel agent, which was lovely as I didn't have to remember which room number we were in as I already knew it. We booked a water-view room, but overlooking the river, as we didn't want to overlook the pool, we were on the third floor in building 6, also another request if we couldnt have the same room. But as always Disney gave us everything we asked for and gave us a fantastic holiday, and we will be back again, maybe 2014 the same time of year. The hopefully the fantasyland expansion at magic kingdom will be finished.
Disney we'll be back again and again.
garyrhodes
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Joined: May 19th, 2014, 2:37 pm
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Re: Beautiful Resort [13 - 27th september 2012]

Unread post by garyrhodes »

That time of September is really tough for visitors to find out place to stay specially with family. I am always book accommodation first before visit any unknown place. It release my stress when travel with family members. Thanks to share this wonderful post here.
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