lisaw
01-09-2009, 08:27 PM
Got home this morning, coming home never gets any easier :sigh:
Had a fantastic time - so glad I can cope with the heat and August crowds other wise that would have been us done for a few years :lol:
Loved Kidani Village - the pool area is fantastic and Saana was fab - DH's new fave restaurant.
Kidani is very quiet compared to Jambo House - kind of feels like you are walking into someone's front room when you enter the lobby :lol: But still as beautiful. The covered carparking area is very welcome in the heat. Our room was probably as close to Jambo lobby as Kidani - 5/6 minute walk to each. Kidani definitely needs some kind of quick service area though although we did eat breakfast off site a fair amount when we didn't have ADR's due to the limited choices at the Mara - well it gets limited after 3 weeks and we are used to the larger food courts for breakfast at ASMo and POR. We discovered Bob Evans this time and was nicely surprised compared to a lot of our offsite breakfast experiences on previous trips :eek:
We will eat offsite a lot more in the future - the dining plan has definitely limited food choices at Disney when you are there a while, everything starts to taste the same and there are less interesting choices now as things have to fit into the dining plan - if you wanted to grab a snack most places had the same choices - brownie, carrot cake, chocolate cake.
Also paying for an adult for Daniel (11) at buffets really pushed the prices up and next time we go Caitlin will be 10 so buffets (especially dinner ones) will be out..
Our favourite disney restaurants this time were Saana, Boma as always (especially breakfast), Tusker House for breakfast and dinner was very good, Kona Cafe, Raglan Road and Biergarten.
Had our worst experience at California Grill - never again, snooty server and overpriced not great food - I wasn't even impressed with the observation decks - a concrete service area covered in bird poop :sorry::lol: - we will be back to Citricos next time :yes:
Off site we really liked Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze and Texas de Brazil, and our old favourite Sweet Tomatoes :D
Highlights - The Pirate and Pals Firework Voyage - fantastic very well done, just glad I wasn't celebrating an anniversary :eek: :lol:
Hoop de Doo review - as always, love it! :D
The characters in Flight Balloon at DTD - was a bit of a mission to find it flying when we were available to do it but it was great when we finally managed - awesome views :yes:
The Wishes dessert party was good - even though we had to be rolledout of there at the end :lol:
Boggy Creek airboat ride was fab - highly recommend :D
Standing in the carpark at POR watching the shuttle go up at midnight last Friday night - even though it was just a long orange streak in the sky it was still an amazing sight :yes:
It was great meeting up with Teresa, Robyn and Jack for a few things TRex was very funny, even buying the dessert just so the kids could clap as it arrived at our table :laugh: - feels quite surreal meeting up with somebody at Disney you know from England and met through a disney site :yes:
We visited most of the DVC resorts this time and know the ones we want to stay at now are VWL, OKW, BWV and AKV - possibly SS.
Oh and it's probably an age thing but I think I visited every single disneyworld restroom :laugh: I am quite an expert on what doors have the biggest gaps - the ones at the start of DHS I don't even know why they bother with cubicles! You can actually hold conversations with the people either side of you under the partitions :rotfl:
Had a fantastic time - so glad I can cope with the heat and August crowds other wise that would have been us done for a few years :lol:
Loved Kidani Village - the pool area is fantastic and Saana was fab - DH's new fave restaurant.
Kidani is very quiet compared to Jambo House - kind of feels like you are walking into someone's front room when you enter the lobby :lol: But still as beautiful. The covered carparking area is very welcome in the heat. Our room was probably as close to Jambo lobby as Kidani - 5/6 minute walk to each. Kidani definitely needs some kind of quick service area though although we did eat breakfast off site a fair amount when we didn't have ADR's due to the limited choices at the Mara - well it gets limited after 3 weeks and we are used to the larger food courts for breakfast at ASMo and POR. We discovered Bob Evans this time and was nicely surprised compared to a lot of our offsite breakfast experiences on previous trips :eek:
We will eat offsite a lot more in the future - the dining plan has definitely limited food choices at Disney when you are there a while, everything starts to taste the same and there are less interesting choices now as things have to fit into the dining plan - if you wanted to grab a snack most places had the same choices - brownie, carrot cake, chocolate cake.
Also paying for an adult for Daniel (11) at buffets really pushed the prices up and next time we go Caitlin will be 10 so buffets (especially dinner ones) will be out..
Our favourite disney restaurants this time were Saana, Boma as always (especially breakfast), Tusker House for breakfast and dinner was very good, Kona Cafe, Raglan Road and Biergarten.
Had our worst experience at California Grill - never again, snooty server and overpriced not great food - I wasn't even impressed with the observation decks - a concrete service area covered in bird poop :sorry::lol: - we will be back to Citricos next time :yes:
Off site we really liked Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze and Texas de Brazil, and our old favourite Sweet Tomatoes :D
Highlights - The Pirate and Pals Firework Voyage - fantastic very well done, just glad I wasn't celebrating an anniversary :eek: :lol:
Hoop de Doo review - as always, love it! :D
The characters in Flight Balloon at DTD - was a bit of a mission to find it flying when we were available to do it but it was great when we finally managed - awesome views :yes:
The Wishes dessert party was good - even though we had to be rolledout of there at the end :lol:
Boggy Creek airboat ride was fab - highly recommend :D
Standing in the carpark at POR watching the shuttle go up at midnight last Friday night - even though it was just a long orange streak in the sky it was still an amazing sight :yes:
It was great meeting up with Teresa, Robyn and Jack for a few things TRex was very funny, even buying the dessert just so the kids could clap as it arrived at our table :laugh: - feels quite surreal meeting up with somebody at Disney you know from England and met through a disney site :yes:
We visited most of the DVC resorts this time and know the ones we want to stay at now are VWL, OKW, BWV and AKV - possibly SS.
Oh and it's probably an age thing but I think I visited every single disneyworld restroom :laugh: I am quite an expert on what doors have the biggest gaps - the ones at the start of DHS I don't even know why they bother with cubicles! You can actually hold conversations with the people either side of you under the partitions :rotfl: