Our May, 2017 trip….. Final Thoughts

Every time we plan a trip for ourselves or for clients, we always have high expectations for the trip itself. 

But….. when we plan a Disney trip…… we have extremely high expectations for Disney and their effect on our trip. 

Why you ask? 

Because it is Disney! Their standards are much higher! 

A Disney vacation is a high priced vacation. Their rooms are priced way above the rooms you can get off site. But their amenities are also of higher value. 

They charge $7.50 for a can of BudLite……. $15.00 for an overcooked burger and fries……. and now $5.00 for a Mickey Bar! 

You better believe that I hold Disney accountable. 

And I  must say….. Disney did NOT disappoint during this trip!

From the time we arrived….. until the moment we left we were entertained and surrounded by memory making experiences that you just don’t get anyplace else. 

Yes….. there were a few bad experiences.  There are some on every trip. 

One night after watching the Rivers of Light show at Animal Kingdom we waited for over a half hour for a bus ride back to the Boardwalk. 

I complained to a transportation manager and said that there wasn’t any acceptable excuse for not having enough busses waiting for the thousands of people exiting the park at closing. 

With the Magic Band technology,  Disney knows exactly how many resort guests were in the park…… what resort they would be returning to and how many busses were needed.

He seemed annoyed but kept his smile as I complained. I told him I expected more from Disney and Disney had let all these people down. We had our bus about five minutes later. 

A couple of days later, we were leaving the Animal Kingdom just before the Rivers of Light show, there was a bus waiting and another pulled in after ours pulled out. The same manager was working….. and Sig said that he saw him look at us but turned his head as he walked by. Maybe he did listen after all.

Some other bad experiences that Disney handled well were………. one person in our party dropped a hotdog while trying to pump mustard on it. Disney replaced it immediately with another one for no charge. 

Another person in our party ( me ) dumped their Diet Coke while leaving the counter. Somebody accidentally hit my arm at he same time I bumped into a railing while walking away from the counter. Disney replaced it…. again,  no charge.

Patti tried her hardest to order a birthday cake for me about a week before the trip but had to ruin the surprise for me when a Disney employee didn’t promptly return a call. She was extremely frustrated! 

We stopped by the Boardwalk Bakery the day before my birthday to see what they had available over the counter because she was adamant about me having a birthday cake on my birthday. 

Patti told the lady behind the counter about her bad experience.  She insisted we tell the manager. After giving him the details he apologized profusely and told Patti he would make sure to have a cake waiting for her the next day.

When Patti went to pick it up she was pleasantly surprised by the cake itself and the fact that the manager was waiting for her. He personally waited on her and said Mickey wouldn’t allow her to pay for it. It also had a special design on top. 

We enjoyed my birthday cake with our friends while sitting on the Boardwalk…. it was very tasty! 

I always like to speak about my favorite experience during the trip….. but this time I am having an extremely hard time picking just one. There were too many!

My morning of golf at Lake Buena Vista Golf Club was special. It was the most enjoyable round of golf I’ve ever played.

But so was my first ride on the new attraction in the new section, Pandora called the Flight of Passage in Disney’s Animal Kingdom! It was mind blowing good!

Then there was that birthday cake! 

And watching my friends in the British Revolution perform and rock the U.K. in Epcot! 

There was also some celebrity sightings this week. We were blessed to meet Mr. Paul Charron and his beautiful wife Lorena on our first night at the Magic Kingdom. They have a YouTube channel called The Motorhome Experiment which draws thousands of views each week.

Patti and I  have watched them so much, we felt we knew them before we met them. By the way….. if you tell Paul he is a celebrity, he blushes and denies it. 

There was Sig’s run in with Peter Noone, the lead singer of Herman’s Hermits in our hallway at the Boardwalk Villas. His villa was just down the hall from ours and Sig and Lisa’s villa. 

And Patti and I met our favorite future Disney Channel Star, Ms. Kadie Allison at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. 

Let’s talk about other challenges……..

Traveling alone allows for freedom to do what you want, when you want to do it. Patti and I have our Disney trips down to a science.

But we had two other couples meeting us……. sharing the good and the bad with us. Before I go any further with this…… we loved having our friends with us at Walt Disney World! 

One couple has as much Disney experience as we do. The other couple visited Walt Disney World about 17 years ago and had foggy memories of their last trip. We wanted to make sure they enjoyed this trip and learned from it because they are planning on taking their grandson there.

But it is hard for us to coordinate early morning meeting times at the park….. we are rarely on time. We all tried and we were mostly successful. Meeting after 11:00am is easy for us. *insert wink here*

Air travel……. We’ve all seen the negatives shown about the airlines. But we flew Southwest Airlines again and everything was perfect both ways. We had outstanding service….. on time departures and arrivals. We are proud to be a Rapid Rewards members. 

All in all…… this trip was an overwhelming success! Memories were made…. friendships were made stronger.

Patti and I have several more trips in various stages of planning. We have our next one booked at Boardwalk Villas in mid October but it might have to be canceled because we are supposed to be meeting her son and family but they are expecting a new baby in July. Will they feel like traveling with a three month old baby? We will see. 

Disney’s Photo Pass Photographers…….. I highly recommend Memory Maker to all my clients. We got some great photos during this trip that helps preserve the memories!  

I hope you have enjoyed reading about our experiences, thoughts and memories made during our trip. Even though it takes a lot of effort to produce this blog…… it is a labor of love. Your comments are always appreciated.