The Brits at the Beach Club - a 19 night special (FINALLY FINISHED) About This Page:

[chezp]

Introduction

This trip to Disney had been almost 2 years in the planning by the time we set off. In 2000, I celebrated my 28th birthday out there on 21 December and that night, I said to DH “wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were to come here for my 30th?” [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] That idea stayed with me and in January 2002, we finally booked our dream stay – 19 nights at the Beach Club, where we’d stayed in 2000.

In between, I changed jobs and we moved house, but despite this, the Disney vacation went ahead as planned, even though at times we weren’t sure how we would pay for our trip of a lifetime. [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

And so follows the trip report of all 19 nights in Disney – if you thought War and Peace was long, you may not have seen anything yet….

[ 03-01-2003, 03:35 AM: Message edited by: chezp ]

[chezp]

Day 0 – Saturday 14 December

When? Sunday 15 December 2002 - Friday 3 January 2003
Who? Myself, Cheryl and DH Mark
Why? Christmas, New Year and oh yes, my 30th birthday

A little bit of background first. This trip to Disney will be my sixth and DH’s fifth. As already mentioned, during it, we’ll be celebrating my 30th birthday, as well as Christmas and New Year and will be enjoying our first ever MVMCP and will be seeing the Candlelight Processional on Christmas Day. We had lots of meals already booked when we flew out there. I don’t eat any meat, although I do eat fish, while DH uses his vacation to eat as much meat as possible, as he doesn’t have any at home, unless we go out to eat.

DFIL and DMIL picked us up at around 2.30 p.m. and drove us to the airport, so we could check our luggage in before our flight the next day. Virgin Atlantic are still doing twilight check-in at the UK end, despite 9-11, although they have ended their luggage check-in at Downtown Disney.

We’d booked to stay the night at a nearby hotel, a lovely place with fantastic food, but we had to ask for extra heaters, as the heating wasn’t working and it was in the mid 30’s! [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] Having set the alarm for 7 a.m., we settled down to our last night of sleep before Disney, but keen not to sleep through the alarm, I was awake at midnight, 2 a.m., 3.30 a.m., 4.30 a.m. …. you get the idea! [img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

Next – we arrive and "what temperature did you say?"

[chezp]

Day 1 – Sunday 15 December

We were both excited and awake by 5.15 a.m., so there was no danger of us oversleeping! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

After hours of waiting at the airport, our flight left only a few minutes late. For those of you who haven’t experienced a nine hour flight, let me tell you it’s a long time! Knowing Disney is at the other end makes it all worthwhile and the fact that we managed to get the seats by the emergency exits, giving us a lot of extra legroom, also helped!

A couple of films and books later and we’re at Orlando. The pilot announced the temperature outside is 55, now hang on a minute, that sounds more like the sort of temperatures we get at home, not in Florida. What’s going on here?! [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

Not having been to America since 9/11, we noticed a big difference in security at the airport. The hand luggage checks are probably more thorough now than the ones we go through at home. Thanks to the tips on the Passporter boards (I’ll be saying this a lot during the report!), I ask whether the X ray equipment will harm my camera and, as it uses high speed film, I’m told it could and they examine it by hand. The security staff seem a lot more helpful and a lot less aggressive than during our last visit.

Before we left, I was worried about hiring our car with Avis, as it didn’t seem to be a popular option amongst Passporters. I needn’t have worried. Angel, who booked us in, could easily have been a CM at Disney, he was so friendly and funny. Having previously hired through Alamo, getting the car from the actual airport site was so much simpler than having to deal with shuttle buses to pick up your car. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] For the first time, we took the 417 to Disney and this was such a quick route.

Less than two hours after we touched down, we were at our destination – the Beach Club. I didn’t think that was bad going, considering that included clearing passport control, customs and baggage reclaim. It was wonderful to be back and I admit I felt a tear in my eye. After so much planning and waiting and anticipation, we were finally here. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

Straightaway, we noticed differences. No poinsetta Christmas tree at the entrance, no illuminated reindeer at the security check point and guest services to the left as you enter is no longer there. Instead, check in and guest services are now on the right as you come in, which we initially thought made sense. We were to change our mind about that during our stay!

The check in process was very quick, even though Jessica was still training. We would find out later on why the check in process was so quick – more of that to come! Then for the room assignment. Would we get the no smoking fourth floor room with a balcony, as I’d requested in our fax a few days earlier? Another Passporter tip here and something I’d never have thought of doing before.

We were in 4634 and it met everyone of our requirements, with the added luxury of a courtyard view and off to the right, we could see the lagoon and the Boardwalk, so it was a sort of water view. We both immediately commented that it seemed to be a bigger room than we’d had two years ago. The room just couldn’t be better – thank you Passporter!


The "sort of" water view from our room

As soon as we’d unpacked, we were hungry, so we went to see if we could change our PS for the Cape May Café. I’d deliberately made it for 8.20 p.m., as we’d had a terrible journey from the airport to Disney and hadn’t arrived in time for our 7.30 p.m. Well tonight 7.00 p.m. was available, in just ten minutes time, so after getting our “must have” autograph books and free guest pins, we were in there.

After reading another trip report, which ranked all the restaurants on a 1 – 10 scale for service, value for money, atmosphere, starter, main course and dessert (or just food for something like a breakfast buffet), I thought we’d do the same, as we found the rankings really useful when deciding where we wanted to eat.

Cape May Café Me DH
Main course 7 8
Dessert 8 N/A
Service 6 6
Atmosphere 7 7
Value for money 6 7

Average score: 6.88

Overall, I think it’s fair to say that we were a little disappointed with the Cape May Café. [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img] Traditionally, this has been one of our favourites, but I felt the repeated price hikes (it’s now $23.99 and two years ago, it was $19.99 for roughly the same selection) meant it wasn’t as good value for money as it had previously been. Additionally, I found the salmon a bit dry and the mussels on the cold side, although the shrimps (what we Brits call prawns – that took some getting used to!) were wonderful and DH told me that the meat was very good, particularly the ribs and the chicken. And I have to admit that the chocolate chip cookie I managed for dessert was truly wonderful. [img]graemlins/yuma.gif[/img]

Afterwards, we went for a walk to get rid of some of the calories we’d just put on. Again, we noticed the Christmas decorations were very understated, compared to 2000. And for the first time ever, I saw people in Martha’s Vineyard. So it does open sometimes! I went through the whole of our last vacation thinking it never opened for business!

Then we got the shock of our lives when we went outside. Boy was it cold! Now, hang on. We were meant to have left this behind in Britain! We were cold even in sweatshirts and our walk around the Boardwalk turned into a walk from the YC back to the BC. Still, at least the hot apple cider they were giving out free of charge to resort guests helped to keep our hands warm. I haven’t had cider since a bad experience on my 18th birthday, but this was lovely, more like mulled wine than cider and with a distinctly cinnamon taste. A really nice touch and one very much appreciated by two very cold travellers.

The best thing today was arriving at Disney.
The worst thing today was the nine hour flight to get there.
The funniest thing today was the look on our faces when we went outside the Beach Club for our walk!
Today we tried getting the plane seats by the emergency exits.
And the result was that we had a far better flight with a lot of extra legroom.
The most magical moment was arriving at the Beach Club.

Next: Animal Kingdom, Animal Kingdom Lodge and “how many characters?!”

[ 02-01-2003, 12:40 PM: Message edited by: chezp ]

[TINKN]

Great start! Looking forward to 18 more installments just like it. Make it a novel if you want to. I wouldn't mind at all.

[chezp]

Day 2 – Monday 16 December

We don’t normally have a problem with jetlag when we arrive in Florida, but this time we did! [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] Having been asleep before 9 p.m. last night, we were awake again at 5 a.m., before fortunately managing to get another two hours sleep. No matter. Today was AK and an early start anyway.

As we went down to breakfast, I noticed how many copies of USA Today were outside the rooms in our corridor, indicating most of the rooms were full. We’d noticed last night that the lobby was very busy, more so than we’d expected and more than the same time two years ago. All this is a good sign for Disney.

Our first disappointment of the day was that Beaches and Cream is no longer open for breakfast. [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img] We did love going there on our last trip, but putting breakfast in the Riptide lounge is closer to the rooms and it’s more intimate. We both had a chocolate muffin, something we’d never eat at home for breakfast and I couldn’t even finish mine!

We were at Animal Kingdom by 8.40 a.m. and what struck me straightaway was all the characters. Before we even got into the park, we’d got Suzy (Cinderella) and Meeko with virtually no queue. Having read lots of tips about scrapbooking on Deb Wills’ site, I then grabbed a CM to take a photo of us under the AK sign, so that the photos would explain in pictures where we were on which day.



We were through the security checks very quickly and they weren’t as thorough as we’d expected. To be honest, we found the Disney security checks were really just lip service than anything else. The amount of times that various parts of our rucksack weren’t searched was frightening. I think it was only on the last day that we were there that someone looked in every single compartment. On the first morning, even though they told us they wanted to see every pocket, they then told us not to bother with the smaller ones, which seemed very odd.

Once inside, we headed straight for Kilimanjaro Safaris and rode twice with no wait. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] We couldn’t believe the difference between the two. In a matter of minutes, the hippos were back in the water and the white rhinos had hidden themselves, as had the lions, but the alligators, giraffes and zebra were all available for close up photos. I wish the same could be said for the gorillas in the Pangani Forest Trail…

Next on the list was It’s Tough To Be a Bug, after getting Baloo’s autograph and picture. So many characters and as a result, such short queues. We both thought ITTBAB was shorter than we remembered. Anyone else think that? It seemed to be over almost as soon as it had started. At least this time, we didn’t have any screaming children leaving halfway through. DH asked the youngster next to him if she had seen it before and she had – what a relief! Even though AK seemed to be quiet, I noticed ITTBAB was full, which did surprise me. Where did all these people come from?

On our way to Festival of the Lion King, we got yet more autographs. Stitch became one of my new favourites, even though we still haven’t seen Lilo and Stitch. In my book, any character who tickles my back while DH takes our photo is fine by me! [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] By this point, we’d seen seven characters in less than three hours at the park!


With my new friend Stitch!

Now FOTLK, we love this show. Here’s a trip for all returning visitors to Disney. Look through your photos and videos from your previous trips and think about what you didn’t film or photograph last time. When I looked at our video from 2000, I realised we’d barely recorded any of FOTLK, so I made sure I had the video camera running through most of the show, so that we have a permanent reminder of it.

After the show, we were starting to get hungry, so we stopped off at Pizzafari. For counter service (and as you’ll soon realise, we didn’t eat a lot of counter service food!), we thought we’d judge on the quality of the food, value for money and the size of the portions.

Pizzafari
Quality good
Size of portions good
Value for money good

It does have a limited choice though and for me, as a vegetarian, it was cheese pizza or nothing. From there, we visited Rafiki’s Planet Watch. We’d avoided this in 2000, as we hadn’t though much of it when we went in 1999. I’m glad we made the effort. It has changed there in three years and it’s far more fun now. I loved the animal cams and spent ages focusing on the rhinos and elephants and also learnt a lot of interesting facts from the videos they had there.

On the way back on the train, we learnt even more interesting facts, courtesy of Dave, our conductor. Did you know that Disney hand planted 3000 trees from Asia in that section of AK when it first opened or that Kilimanjaro Safaris covers 100 acres and that’s bigger than the whole of the Magic Kingdom. [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

A quick walk through the Maharajah Jungle Trek failed to find us any tigers, the first time that’s ever happened. Just goes to show that you can’t rely on animals to perform on cue, even if this is Disney!

We contemplated going on the Kali River Rapids, but with temperatures still in the low 60’s, we decided it’d be too cold afterwards. Instead, as there were so few people around, we took our third trip of the day on KS, again with no wait. The animals were at their most inactive though, with many lying down. As consolation, the giraffes were so close, you felt as if you could touch them.

A second tour along the Pangani Forest Trail at last netted us some gorillas and then we went for our first visit of many to the shops. I was disappointed by the lack of Eeyore items and we also noticed there was a lot of children’s clothing available, but not much adult clothing. In that respect, WDW seems to be following the lead of the Disney Store. I personally think that’s a big mistake, as there are a lot of people with money to spend who don’t have children, like us.

As we sat down to wait for the parade, I was surprised by how many people were heading for the exit. It doesn’t look like the Jammin’ Jungle Parade is encouraging people to spend longer at AK. While waiting for the parade, my fanny pack, which had kept coming off at various intervals throughout the day, finally broke completely. I had to borrow DH’s and I thought we’d need a new one, but we actually managed fine with just the one, as I had all the money and passports anyway!

The parade was great fun. We were sitting in the front row and got lots of character interaction with Donald soaking us and Baloo and Dale both playing up right in front of the video camera. The footage we got was excellent. This is a parade worth seeing, although it’s a bit on the short side.

On our way out of AK, we stopped to look at the photos we’d had taken earlier in the day and this turned out to be a really bad experience. It took 35 minutes to get the photos we wanted. We kept pointing out people who’d selected and paid for their photos after ours and were receiving theirs, but CM’s kept telling us “they don’t come out in order”. Fair enough, but our photo had been sitting on a shelf next to them the whole time, something I eventually spotted. [img]images/icons/mad.gif[/img]

Next: with the photo delays, will we make our PS at Boma? Our first look at the Beach Club Villas, plus how new shorts can be a real pain!

[ 02-01-2003, 12:42 PM: Message edited by: chezp ]

[Teddysmom]

Great Report so far Cheryl. I am enjoying your sense of detail. Please keep it coming. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[TINKN]

Sounds like you had a great day at AK!

[joyjoy]

Wahey! I've been waiting for ya'll to get back and start writing! An excellent start to your report.

So they don't even have the veggie pizza at Pizzafari now? Man. Another one bites the dust.
Can't wait to hear about Boma and the rest of your trip.
Welcome back! [img]graemlins/wavin.gif[/img]

[CRCrazy]

Hey - great start to your report - we were freezing also on Sunday the 15th - we did MVMCP that night, and my girls got stuck on Splash Mountain - we couldn't tell the ride was down - no one was coming out, but no one was going in either - too cold at 11 PM!

[Mouseketeer]

I'm enjoying the beginning of your trip report, Cheryl. I can't imagine being at WDW for 19 days and having so much time to see and do everything. Can't wait to hear the rest.

Lynda

[waterbug62]

Hi Cheryl!

I've been looking forward to reading your TR!!!

Glad you made it back and can't wait to read more.

Sallie

[4disneyorbust]

hi!
I would love to read a very long trip report, go ahead and make it a novel! [img]graemlins/wavin.gif[/img]
really enjoying all the detail's so far, thank you for taking the time to write it.
Laura

[jakenjess]

I'm really enjoying your trip report so far. I also celebrated my 30th birthday at WDW (although that was 10 years ago [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] )! What a wonderful way to spend a special day. Looking forward to the rest of your report. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[tikibird]

YES - a new, and lengthy (19 days - that's incredible!) trip report for us all to enjoy! [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Love the ratings on your meals, and hearing about your first couple of days!

Next installment please.... [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[*Pixie*Dust*]

Great report so far, Cheryl. I can only dream about having 19 whole days in Disney World!