Category: Travel – WDW 07

Evening adventures in the Magic Kingdom.

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Animal Kingdom time.

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We’ve been to Walt Disney World four times before, but each time we’ve stayed at Port Orleans (Riverside), one of the medium-priced resorts on the park property.  This time, though, there were no discount prices at PO-R, and the food court was under refurb, so Margie found us an alternative — Coronado Springs.

A comparison:

1. Both are medium-tier resorts at the park.
2. Both are, effectively, the same resort — same amenities, same rooms, same basic layout. 
3. The most obvious difference is the “dress”:  Old South Bayou/Plantation for PO, Southwest Resort for CS.  Both have their charm, and both are very nicely decorated and landscaped.
4. CS is several years younger than PO (opened in 1997), with a few extra lessons learned.
5. CS has a convention center attached.  This can add to some to the crowds, but also provides some extra amenities (a business center for printing off boarding passes, for example).
6. CS is significantly larger than PO.  We were at the furthest corner (7A) from the main facilities — a walk to the front desk was a 15-20 minute affair (though a pleasant enough walk).  Transport is by putt-putt cart (if you can flag one down), or by going to the Disney bus stops — all the busses stopping at CS would go to the back stops (2, 3, 4) before circling back to stop 1 (the main building).  The system works fairly well, once you’re used to it.
7. The PO “main pool” is fashioned as a swimming hole around a big mill (with various water sluices).  The CS “main pool” is an archaeological dig, complete with a big step pyramid (water rolling down it), various walls and patterns and idols, etc.  The CS food facilities there are more elaborate (rather than all in one, there is a separate bar, plus a food/soft drink window).  There’s also an arcade there (plus one up front, which was under refurb), and the playground is better integrated than the one at PO (which is tucked around back).  Both have water slides; CS’s is sunnier, which can be a pro or con.
8. Both places have “quiet pools” in the middle of the hotel room areas.
9. PO has a sit-down restaurant, the Boathouse, where the service is always veeeeeerrrry slow, though the food is okay.  CS’s sit-down restaurant is the Maya Grill, which has better service, though the food was only so-so (my rib-eye was dry where it wasn’t fatty).
10. PO’s “Riverside Mill” food court is pretty standard — wander around between different stations, get some “all-American” food, check out at the cash register, go find a place to sit in the cavernous (if scenic) hall.  CS’s “Pepper Market” is a bit different.  You get seated at a table and handed a card.  (Your seater also clears plates for you and fetches you drinks,, though you can do that yourself, too).  With the card in hand, you can go to the various food stations (which are generally southwest in “flavor,” though with plenty of variety, and including one that’s oriental at dinner), getting your card stamped with menu items you choose.  When you are done and want to leave, you check out, and the stamped cards tell the register how much to ring up.  As a system, it’s definitely more convenient (Katherine could go get seconds on something on her own, without one of us having to go back and pay for it), though it’s daunting to see everything priced a la carte.  More importantly, I found the food — in variety and quality — better at the Pepper Market than at the PO food court.  And the service was friendlier, too, I found — though there’s also a 10% service charge automatically tacked on.  I do have to wonder if the PO cafeteria makeover will incorporate the same gimmick (which would mean some rejiggering of traffic flows through there).
11. Both resorts have (non-interchangable) “bottomless mugs.” While the initial price of $11.95 seems steep, being able to grab for free a soda or ice tea or coffee (or refill of same) at both the Pepper Court and the Dig Site swimming pool (fill in analogs for Port Orleans) makes it a great deal if you’re there for more than a couple of days.  We bought two of them.
12. Rooms were laid out almost identically.  The TV “wardrobe” at PO is bigger with more shelf space — but without any usable space on top.  The room we were in was in fine shape.
13. While CS has a lake, and the option of renting boats to go tooling around on it, there’s really no place to “go” — while PO is on a river system that connects down to Downtown Disney, offering a very nice alternative way to travel down there other than bus (on the regular boat shuttle).
14. For both Epcot and the Magic Kingdom, the bus pickup for CS is much more convenient and close to the front than the one for PO.  No idea why.

Overall, which do I prefer?  Hard to say — I’d enjoy either of them.  I think the facilities (esp. the food court) at CS are a bit superior to PO, while PO has the major advantage of a boat shuttle down to Downtown Disney and a more convenient campus to maneuver.  balanced imperceptibly by that bus stop advantage for CS,   I’d probably, right now, give a slight nod to CS, but I’d stay at either of them without hesitation.

It does make me wonder what the other moderate resort, Caribbean Beach, is like.

(More reviews of CS vs PO.)

Continue reading “WDW07 – Coronado Springs Resort”

Our travelogue to Walt Disney World begins …

1. Got up waaaaay too early — 4:30a, planning on leaving by 5.  Quick shower, then woke up Kitten, got her dressed, last minute running about, headed downstairs, out the front door … and into snow.  Snow?  Ayup.  Lots of snow.  Snow on the trees … the grass … the driveway … the street.  Damn.  Loaded up the bags and got going.
2. The streets were snowy but not impassable by any means.  But a bit slick, as was E470.  Sometimes the snow was rutted, sometimes just a slushy mass, but I averaged 40-50 mph the whole way, including past at least three vehicles whose drivers has forgotten that Four Wheel Drive doesn’t mean Four Wheel Stop.  Things were a lot better up by the airport, but it still put me behind.
3. Despite the Curse of Dave Hill, International Man of Mystery, which had kept me from checking in online, we had no problem checking in at the counter.  No wary looks or mysterious trips into the back or rubber truncheons.  I will say that Southwest’s personnel were uniformly friendly and helpful.
4. Headed off to concourse C, and got to the gate with a good 45 minutes or so to spare, huzzah. It’s been years since I’ve flown Southwest (since ’94, in fact, when I moved to Denver).  Things have changed a scosh — no more little plastic seat order numbers, but zones based on when you check in, in the following order: Pre-Board folks, “A” for previous day Internet, “B” for same day Internet, “C” for checking in at the counter.  Katherine’s A got us in the A line … with four or five people in front of us already when we were there, so I stood in line, while Kitten lounged.  When it came time to board, though, the four or five became four or five families/parties.  Yikes.  We moo’ed our way in, and Katherine and I got decent seats for the flight, but it reminded me again of why SW was such a mixed bag.  The implicit competition to get a seat is a bit offputting.
5. Very little luggage in the overhead bins.  Weird.
6. Katherine’s First De-Icing!  How exciting!  And how delaying-us-half-an-hourish.
7. The flight itself was uneventful — I managed to nap a bit, though Kitten did not (and did her best, at least early on, to keep me from doing so).  Meal was a “Travel Snacks” box — a bag of 100 cal. of Lorna Doone cookies, some Ritz-n-Cheez, and some dried fruit.  Yowzah. 
8. Plus — peanuts.  Peanuts?  Peanuts?!  Nobody serves peanuts any more!  Peanuts cause people to die!  But … peanuts.  (Interestingly, on our flight back, there was an announcement that there was someone with peanut allergies on board, so no peanuts would be served.  Which seems a much more sane policy than just flat-out banning peanuts.  But I digress.)
9. No drink cart.  Drinks carried by tray from the kitchen.  Which is convenient for getting to/from the loo, but slowed down drink service a bit.
10. On the other hand, the head stewardess was a hoot on the PA.  “After you put on your oxygen mask, the mask will not inflate, but you will … [pause] … be receiving oxygen.  If you are traveling with a child, put on your mask first, then the child’s. If traveling with more than one child, choose the most promising one.”  And, “Once we reach the gate, the captain will turn off the seatbelt sign, indicating you can leap out of your seats and go nowhere.”
11. Once in Orlando, we eschewed the baggage claim in favor of the (ta-daaaah!) Disney’s Magical Express line down on 1.  Unlike Margie, I never saw a sign to do so, but the DME instructions said so. We’d received little travel tags for our two checked bags, and so when we told the lady at the DME counter we had two bags, she could have her little gnomes go get the bags for us and for transport to WDW.  Yay!
12. The bus ride was uneventful, too — I read, while Kitten watched the canned video about the wonders of WDW.  Thus we arrived at Coronado Springs (see separate entry on Coronado Springs, esp. compared to our old regular, Port Orleans).  Margie was done with her conference that afternoon, too, and she literally caught up to us as I was checking in.
13. I will no doubt be considered a romantic if I say that the best moment in the entire weekend was when Margie walked up to me right then and there.  I missed her something awful, and was very happy to see her.
14. We took the putt-putt up to our room (ironically, the only time we rode one), 7258, one of the Ranchitos, off in the way-way-north-forty.  We unpacked our limited baggage (Kitten and my carry-ons, plus Margie’s stuff).  We’d had presence of mind, knowing that our main baggage would be wending its way through the Magical Express to our room in a few hours, to pack our swim gear in our carry-on, so we changed into those duds and headed to the pool.
15. Nice pool.  Nice margaritas served at the bar.  And, unlike the last time we were at WDW, Kitten let herself be convinced that she would enjoy going down the water slide — which she did, turning into a water-sliding fool for the rest of the trip whenever we were there.
16. Got back to the room a couple of hours later, to find our bag had arrived.  Um … definitely singular (down to the tag reading “1 of 1”), whereas I was pretty certain I’d checked in plural (2).  Margie called the DME folks, who indicated they had the other bag (?) and it would be delivered in a couple of hours (??).  Oookay.
17. I’d have probably slugged off at the resort for the evening, but Margie and Katherine had other plans, and we changed out of swim gear and headed over to Disney/MGM Studios.
18. Katherine’s Number One Favorite Ride (going in) was Tower of Terror, so we headed there first.  It was, as usual, a lot of fun — certainly some of the finest “show” and set dressing in recent Disney history, and a fun ride to boot.  Resent, as usual, being dumped into the gift shop afterwards (esp. since there is never anything at the ToT gift shop I’ve ever found the least bit attractive), but what the heck.
19. And the timing was perfect for Margie’s dinner reservations, made at the Hollywood & Vine diner.  Except … they weren’t for 6:45, but 7:45.  Oops.
20. So we went over to Star Tours (fun as usual, if a bit worn, and if the crowds in the inevitable post-ride gift shop were typically annoying).  Then off to Sounds Dangerous, which we’d never gone on before — mildly amusing (and what is Drew Carey doing these days, anyway?). 
21. Then it was time for dinner.  Hollywood & Vine is a buffet diner, nicely appointed in a classic Hollywood style.  The food is of a good variety and quality, if nothing spectacular.  We were there well after the rush, but the food up on the line was all attractive and hot (
    to make up, perhaps, for the general low temp in the room).  We had a good dinner.
22. Kitten was seriously faded at this point, so we headed back to Coronado Springs.  Ironically, we never made it back to Disney/MGM, which is a shame, as there were a few more things there I wanted to see.  But it was a shortish kind of trip.
23. Our bag had, indeed, arrived, so we were able to finish unpacking and call it a night. Well, kinda.  Kitten went to sleep.  Margie and I went for a nice walk.  And we had brought our walkie-talkies, so Kitten could call us if she needed to (which, after a few tries to assure herself they worked, let her go to sleep).  We ended walking together around the whole complex, which was a nice way to end the day.

Bright and sunny and warm here, and no worries getting from plane to Disney’s Magical Express without any baggage hassle.

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