Disney World Trip Report
 

I know that most people go to other sites for Disney vacation reviews but I wanted to post mine here as well as at disboards.com in case someone here is interested in going soon. This is going to be in multiple postings and I am sorry this is so long but I do hope it helps someone.

My husband and I and another couple (all in our early 30's) went to Disney from 12/25-12/31. Technically our friends went from 12/26-12/30. We flew out from Atlanta at 8:30pm and were to arrive around 10:00pm. We rented a Dodge Stratus from Dollar for the cheap rate (for that time period) of $200. Everywhere else we checked we were getting rates of $489 and higher. The flight and the car rental pickup went very smoothly. I have to warn you about the rental car thing. They tell you that there is not a gas station between the airport and Disney. We laughed as we saw gas station after gas station along the exits. I think it is crazy that they lie like that. Of course, our concierge at our hotel tried to tell us the same thing. Oh well.

Our hotel saga - We had booked King, non-smoking rooms at the Hilton. The Hilton had screwed our reservations up and had us in double smoking rooms. We noticed this before we left thankfully and started trying to get it fixed. We finally got a manager who agreed to pull our room on Christmas Eve so that we would have one. Mind you it took about two days of arguing to get it fixed. We were prepared for it to still be wrong and it was. We had called and confirmed on Christmas Eve that they had the room and that they had us down for a 11:00pm arrival. We get there about 11:30pm and they do not have a room ready and the only room they have coming available is a double/smoking room and it would not ready for 45 minutes. I asked why they did not have our room ready and why they did not have the correct room available. They told me that they had us down for a later arrival and 11:30pm was not considered to be late. I ignored that comment and told him to get a manager because this was not acceptable. I explained what we reserved and that not having a room ready and not having that room ready was not going to work. They never brought a manager out but gave us an executive suite room. For the record, when staying there, the rooms ending in 44 are all executive type suites. They have double door entry. The rooms are decent in size but could certainly use some renovations as the bathroom wallpaper was peeling and had some pink mold around the bottom of it. The bathrooms are small with only room for one sink. The was not a dressing area outside the bathroom either. However, we were happy that the bed was king size and the room was non-smoking.

Our friends arrived the next day and the same thing happened to them except they were told that obviously someone needed to explain the reservation process to them as they are not guaranteed to get the room they reserved. She showed them her confirmation from their website and he told her that it did not mean a thing. She booked this room directly through them and they told her she would have a king, non-smoking. He told her that if they just had to have the room they requested then they would have to keep that room that night and then check out at 5:30am the next day to get a new room assignment. My friends are much nicer than I am and agreed to this. Her room smelled horribly. They promised to bring an air purifier but never did. Her room was small and also in need of renovations (stained carpets and peeling wallpaper). Her new room the next day was better (no stains) but the wall paper was ripped in places and still peeling. Throughout our stay we heard constant complaints about rooms being wrong and even being overbooked. I was amazed at how Hilton was operating. They acted like they could care less. I have never seen so many unhappy guests in my life. When our friends checked out they noticed that they had been charged $8.50 for mini bar use each day. First, you have to cut the tab on the mini bar to use it which they never did and second they were charged this because of the Diet Pepsi's that she would buy to drink at a gas station. They did not even have Diet Pepsi's in the mini bar. She argued the charges and they took all but $0.05 off their bill. Not sure why they left it but what a scam. We decided to check our bill on the TV just in case since I purchased a lot of drinks off site and brought them in. We did not have that charge but they were charging us more per night than they quoted. I brought down our confirmation and argued the bill with the same guy as before. He could not understand where I got my amount from. Not sure why he was having problems since it was printed off their site. In the end, he came up with a dollar amount about $120 cheaper than they quoted us so I had him sign his name, put the amount and write that this was the to be our total bill and date it just in case we had trouble. Two people behind us were also fuming because they were being charged more and one person beside me was mad because he never ordered champagne and they charged his room for a huge bottle of Dom. I completed a survey about the hotel through the TV and I am not sure this is a coincidence or not but when we got our final bill an additional $75 was removed.

My room was always clean and well kept. The only problem I had was they had left two rollaway beds in our room up against the wall. I repeatedly asked to have them removed but they never did. We just called it wall art. Since the room was large enough. We kind of forgot about it. My friends ordered a pizza one night and threw the remainder in the trash. The cleaning service kept taking the box out of the trash and putting it back on the table for some reason. The finally through it away themselves outside.

I had heard noise complaints about this hotel before so I was kind of prepared. The door does come a few inches off of the ground so that I could see the feet of my friends when they would come get us so you could hear a good bit of noise and I could hear the toilet flushing and water running in the room about us. Personally that did not bother me as much as it did my husband. He was not mad at the hotel because I do not think that putting the door down further would have stopped us from hearing parents and their children yelling down the hall to each other at all hours of the night. I also heard security come to the rooms on a regular basis. At night I felt like I was at Myrtle Beach in those dump hotels we use to rent as High School Seniors. I chalked it up to the lack of common sense on the hotel guests' part and not the fault of the hotel itself. I do have to wonder why people think it is okay to yell in hallways.

My thoughts - The Hilton is good for those of us who do not need to be submersed in Disney 24/7 and do not want to spend the dollars for the Disney property. I am more inclined to spend the money on a nice resort on an island than just when visiting Disney. The Hilton provides free transportation to the parks and early entry into the parks. Also, just as if you were staying at a Disney resort, you can purchase items at the parks and have them delivered to your hotel at the Hilton. The downside is, the Hilton is not worth their price due to the decline of the rooms and the hotel front desk staff. We had a tower card that allowed for free drinks (no alcoholic), snacks, and a continental breakfast everyday as well as concierge service. The concierge service may be great for making reservations but as far as useful information, I did not find him helpful at all. We fared better on our own and that was okay. The hotel did not ruin my stay by any means and they certainly made up for their mistakes with me but the overall attitude I observed them giving makes me pretty displeased with this hotel. Unfortunately you have to get an rude with them to get was you are paying for and then they hop. The nice people were basically told to get over it. My first instinct is to tell you I would never stay there again. Unfortunately I like the perks they offer and I am not inclined to pay the price for Disney Resorts and I am not impressed with Disney's Value Resorts so I am at crossroads on this one. Fortunately, it will probably be a while before we go back so maybe things will have changed. Forgot to also mention that when we first drove up, we could not get anyone to help us with our luggage so we drug it up ourselves. The attendant was too busy sitting on his cell phone outside. GRRR. This may sound like my vacation was ruined but honestly this was a very small part of our time here. I would fuss about what was wrong they would fix it and I would be on my way. No big deal and even though the rooms were in serious need of updating, they were not so bad that we were miserable.

Part II -

We got the park hopper pass and went to Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, Epcot, MGM, Downtown Disney and Universal City Walk. We had heard we were going at the busiest time of year and were prepared for long lines. It really was only bad at Magic Kingdom. Animal Kingdom got up early and managed to finish the whole park (shows included) by 3:00pm. I was pretty impressed. We went to Magic Kingdom after that and road about 5 rides before leaving to meet our friends for dinner (they were at Universal). The next day we did Epcot and again got up early and we did not have any problems doing everything we wanted. The next day we went to Magic Kingdom and finished it up. There were 2 shows I did not get to see and we did not get to ride Space Mountain because it went down the two times we tried so we gave up but we did everything else. Then we went to MGM and missed the Indiana Jones show (which I am sad about) but we did everything else. My favorite park is probably Animal Kingdom but that is because I love watching animals so much so we went back to that park and hung out. We also went to Universal City Walk because I just had to go to Margaritaville. We also hung out at Downtown Disney. It was nice to have a drink and watch people on the water. Of course that is where I made a few purchases for family and friends. Of note for the parks, we only needed to use the Fast Passes for Magic Kingdome. Every where else, since we went first thing when they opened, we cruised through the lines without any problems.

The food - Knowing that we were going to be in jeans the bulk of the time, we decided to only eat at one nice restaurant while were there because we did not want to have to worry about our attire to much. We chose Fulton's Crab House and it was a bust. I was not impressed with the food at all. Service was okay but the food was just there. We also ate at Planet Hollywood, House of Blues, Nascar (instead of waiting 4 hours for Margaritaville), Rainforest Café, Mama Melrose, Tempura Kiku, Liberty Tree Tavern, Jungle Jims and Wolfgang Pucks. I had heard that we were asking for it by not having any reservations or priority seatings. However, we were fine with eating off site and eating at chains because were not real concerned about fine dining here. Our priority was to see and do the parks since none of us had been there since we were 4 (Epcot was not even in existence then). So we decided to grin and bare it. Aside from Margaritaville (which was the one place I wanted to eat), we managed to only have a 30 minute wait tops and those restaurants. Mind you, aside from Fultons, none were extremely fancy or nice but my favorites were Mama Melrose, House of Blues, Jungle Jims and Wolfgang Pucks. Oh, I also liked the sushi and Tempura Tiku. We ate lunch around 11:30-1:00 everyday and dinner we would eat around 6:30-8:30. So we ate at normal times. We just did not have trouble getting seated. I was not impressed with Rainforest Café, it was not bad just not great. I also did not like Nascar. To be perfectly honest though, we only ate there because were starving and the wait was nothing. I was also already disappointed that I could not eat at Margaritaville so that might have colored my thoughts as well.

We had a great time and I do look forward to going back sometimes. We were so beat though that we were fast asleep on NYE when midnight rolled around.

We were also in Orlando for 12/26-1-3 and since this was a last minute trip literally decided on on Christmas Eve and we drove down. I was not going to pay upwards of 200 a night for any of the DTD or WDW hotels. We did however make the mistake of staying at the WORST QAULITY Inn in Orlando on west Irlo Bronson blvd ( Eastmaingate Quality Inn) which again was an over booked nightmare with absolutely no concern.
We were given wrong room, broken A/C and this was a brand new hotel. Heated pool not heated, whirlpool cold and on and on. Manager actually said to us "how am I supposed to know what's going on everywhere" I'll Break for laughter.......our answer"because it's your job" Any time people complained and there were plenty he actually stood under the Choice Hotel 100% Satisfaction Guarantee banner and said there is nothing I can do.
To add insult to injury today we received a letter from stating while he realized he did nothing to help us that he hopes he can learn from our experience and make other peoples vacations less mesirible. Also he offered us a 50% discount on the first night of another stay at his hotel. As if that would ever happen again.
As for WDW we had gone to see Epcot Christmas around the world and it was magnificent. The Candle Light Processional was amazing and GAry Sinise who read the story of Mary and Joseph brought tears to our eyes. Our first trip to Animal Kingdom also and it was fantastic. I think they play up the whole Africa thing too much as it includes an Indian area and Dino land and so much more.
Universal's Christams Parade was great Macy's Balloons and all ...The line for Shrek was 135 minutes long and my husband insisted we wait for it as express tickets were gone and so were the books of express tickets for sale. His point was we had just been there in February and had seen everything else. He waited in line while I drank water on a bench with the other wives. Shrek was great, he was right too what else did we have to do. By the last 3 hours the ride lines opened up and we went on many others before we left. We had great weather and a great time.
Last thing while we were out one night I was flipping thru a hotel book. It seems that our QUALITY SUITES had been the Cedar Lakes trasient hotel up until Dec. 3,2003 no wonder the staff didn;t know how to deal with guests

beachdreams, by 'Cedar Lakes trasient hotel', does that mean it was formerly a homeless shelter?

whoops, message was intended for mrsbu