So the wife and I just got back from spending ten days in Orlando. My wife arranged the trip through Costco Travel. We stayed at the Port Orleans Riverside resort, which was a lovely place of individual lodges set along the river. A few observations:
1. Living in Seattle, we are no strangers to rain. We were, however, strangers to the torrential downpours during a thunderstorm. Our flight flew almost all the way to Cuba before circling back to land at Orlando to avoid a thunderstorm. It continued as we rented a car and drove to Disney World. Even with the wipers on high, they could not keep up. I decided to follow the lead of the locals and drive at 35 MPH on the freeway during the storm.
2. We don't get much combined heat and humidity in Seattle, and there were several days of temps in the mid to high 70's with rain and very high humidity. It was like a sauna. In January.
3. It was not crowded at all, except for MLK weekend, at which time a lot of people came and brought their kids.
4. The multi-day park hopper tickets are the best deal.
5. We were disappointed in the number of rides that were down when we were there. If the ride was 'temporarily closed' when you were at the park, it sucks to be you, and there are no refunds. If the ride goes down while you have already been waiting in line for over an hour, and they evacuate you out of the building, you do not get a priority ticket to avoid the line when the ride starts working again.
6. We ate at a number of higher end restaurants at the resort, and the food was uniformly excellent. Expensive, however and a pint of IPA will run you about $ 12 and a glass of pinot grigio will run you the same or higher. Even at the food court at the resort, a small bowl (6 ounces) of oatmeal was $ 6.
7. We liked Magic Kingdom and Epcot the best. My wife liked Animal Kingdom; I would have liked it more if the animals were out and about. The Star Wars complex in Hollywood Studios was really well done.
8. Our two favorite rides were Rise of the Resistance and the Big Thunder Mountain. The Haunted House, Ratatouille, Pirates of the Carribean, and Avatar were also good. The rapids ride and Himalaya ride in the Animal Kingdom, and the Tower of Terror were all down while we were there.
9. Harry Potter at Universal Studios was good.
10. My favorite part of the trip was the Kennedy Space Center. Take the bus tour and go through all the exhibits.
11. Boo and hiss to Budget for giving us a rental car that had clearly been smoked in. Budget couldn't even be bothered to clean the smoke film off the interior windshield. There was a large sticker on the driver side window saying a $450 cleaning fee would be charged for smoking in the vehicle. I am going to send a nasty email to corporate about this. We were about 15 minutes away from the airport when we finally figured out what the smell was, and at 9 pm at night, I was not going to return during the thunderstorm to exchange the car.
12. We were surprised to see the number of people our age who were also there without any kids. We did not realize how popular it would be for our age group.
13. All of the Disney staff we interacted with were universally knowledgeable and polite.
14. Flying from the upper left corner to the lower right corner of the country is a long flight. A bit over six hours on the flight home.
15. I had mistakenly thought you could just walk from park to park on walking paths. I was wrong and there are no paths connecting the parks. They have an excellent free bus shuttle service and my wife had us ride the aerial tramway a few times.
16. Disney Springs was a 30 minute boat ride from the resort. It is a restaurant/entertainment/shopping complex and we had a couple of good meals there and were able to get souvenirs for the grandkids at the Disney Store there.
17. You have to pass a metal detector to get into any of the parks or Disney Springs. I kept getting pulled aside for a bag check until I figured out that it was the emergency cell phone battery pack that was setting it off. Once I left that in the room, no more bag check. They have a strict no weapons or knives policy, so I didn't even have a Leatherman with me. But since we did carryon luggage only, that would not have gotten through TSA at the airport anyway.
All in all, we enjoyed it and would recommend it to others.
