The Really Good, The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and The Truly Amazingly Horrendous

Introduction

Travel dates: (local time)

Outbound: Leave SJC Thursday, October 25 7:20pm. Arrive MCO Friday, October 26 6:00am.
Inbound: Leave MCO Monday, October 29 5:00pm. Arrive SJC 11:00pm.
Travel method: Air. Delta. SJC-LAX-MCO, MCO-ATL-SJC.
Resort: Caribbean Beach.
Accommodations: Standard 1 king, Trinidad South, building 39.
Ages Represented in Group: 38 (me), 35 (Jen).
WDW Experience Represented in Group: Nine trips together in the past twelve years; various trips with family in the distant past.

Cast of characters:

Jennifer, wife, 35, travel agent.
Me, 38, software engineer, MousePlanet system engineer / MousePad Administrator / MouseStation DLR Bureau Chief.

A Prefatory Note:
This report deliberately does not touch on the major reason for our trip: the Tower of Terror 13th Anniversary Race. This is because I along with fellow MousePlanet staffers who ran and others who attended the after-party are collaborating on a recap article, which should run on MousePlanet.com next week.

The Really Good

Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party – worth the money. Lots of fun. Great parade! Didn't care much for the fireworks but the rest was so good it didn't even matter. So many people dressed up! Such great costumes! And I loved being recognized.

Epcot's Food & Wine Festival – the little booths add a fun extra element to the World Showcase. All the food I tried was yummy, prices were reasonable, portions were decent.

Spending so much time with friends I rarely get to see at all, and when I do see them it's in usually the midst of MouseAdventure staffing craziness. It was great to see and play with my friends in a no-pressure situation. Plus, met a few cool new people.

The Adventurer's Club never disappoints, but this may have been one of the best times we've had. Among the many highlights:

Samantha Sterling, Pamelia Perkins and the maid sang “Mutual Admiration Society” in Samantha's Cabaret. This had been skipped the last few times we've visited.
Hathaway Browne sang “The Sheik of Araby” (with no pants on) in the Hoopla (Hoopla!).
Otis T. Wren, played as a Scotsman this time instead of a Southern gentleman, sang “The Scotsman”–you may have heard it on Doctor Demento. Here's a YouTube clip, unfortunately with an audience that appears to be dead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoaGycu5UqQ

Earl of Sandwich – I still don't pretend to understand how Disney allows this place to exist, serving good quality food in sufficient quantity at reasonable prices, considering that the alternative is lesser quality and more money at Disney-owned eateries. Quick service with a smile every time.

Caribbean Beach staff – don't know who managed it, but our room was available when we checked in at 7:30 AM. The fact of its availability was a huge relief since we would be able to shower and change after that miserable red-eye flight. As to actually getting into the room, see below.

The maintenance person who came to fix the water diverter in the tub faucet was there quickly, diagnosed the problem immediately and promised it would be fixed by the time we got back—and it was. Perfect outcome.

Disney's Magical Express – our first time using it. Followed directions to the check-in desk, told them how many bags we had checked, waited a few minutes to board our bus, got on the bus and headed out straightaway. Could not have gone more smoothly, and they picked up all three checked bags and had them delivered to our room later in the day.

The Good

Monsters Inc Laugh Floor – much improved from the soft opening preview we saw last December. Still not great, and probably not something I'd go out of my way to see again, but enjoyable enough.

The bartender at the Adventurer's Club – made a great drink called the “Trick or Treat” and gave me a copy of the recipe, but was both s-l-o-w and overworked.

Caribbean Beach Bell Services – it wasn't made clear from the DME information we received the day before we departed that Bell Services would transport not only our luggage but ourselves to the on-site airline check-in desk. The Bell Services CM who came to pick up our bags was friendly and gracious and very helpful.

Overall, the room was acceptable; the bed was what we'd requested, a single king, and was reasonably comfortable though the pillows were either too soft or rock-hard; good water pressure and temperature in the shower; working air conditioner that wasn't too loud.

The new boat ride at the Mexico pavilion is a fun and well-done update of the sadly dated original. A bit obvious in the storyline, perhaps, but really nice to see the Three Caballeros back in action.

The Bad

Food & Wine Festival – too much beef and other mammalian items I couldn't eat. I had to skip several countries entirely since the whole menu was inedible to me.

The CM who checked us in at CBR – I remember her name but as we had a discussion with the front desk lead about her, I won't mention it here – was not exactly rude but was some combination of bored, slow, glum, distracted, disinterested and annoyed, all at the same time. Not exactly the first impression you want when arriving at your Disney hotel, especially after a miserable red-eye flight.

I'd forgotten the power brick for my laptop, so it remained off all weekend. Maybe this item should be promoted to “Good”, huh?

Reflecting on our stay at CBR (and last year's at POFQ), even discounting the unfortunate events surrounding our check-in and arrival, we are having a hard time seeing the value-vs.-price difference between the Moderates and the Pop Century, and will likely be returning to Pop for future trips.

The removal of live CMs from Living with the Land is really unfortunate and, I hope, soon reversed.

The Ugly

On the DME return trip to MCO, we had taken advantage of Disney's on-site airline check-in and so had only carry-on luggage (backpack, laptop bag, camera bag). Some other passengers hadn't checked in at their hotels, so their large baggage was in the buses cargo hold. The problem: when we arrived at MCO, passengers were not allowed to leave the bus until after the driver had removed that luggage from the cargo hold. Even though we didn't have any checkable bags, we still had to wait for those who did. This seemed pointless and an example of so-called “safety theater” since the explanation given by the driver was “for your safety, please remain seated while the baggage is unloaded.”

Our room at CBR was in Trinidad South, building 39. I'll wait while you pull up the property map... (http://albums.mouseplanet.com/GuidesHotelMaps/BLI000.gif) Yes, we were as far as it was possible to be from the Custom House and Old Port Royale/Centertown. The internal resort shuttle made pretty frequent rounds, but buses to the theme parks seemed to either start at our stop (thus going all the way around the property before leaving for their destination) or hit all the other stops first when returning. This property is just too big, too spread out.

In addition to the key/lock problems noted below, there were other issues with the room when we entered for the first time, primarily among them being the water diverter in the tub faucet did not work to divert water to the showerhead. We made it work enough to take showers and then called the housekeeping/maintenance department to see if it could be fixed. The person on the other end grudgingly agreed to send a maintenance person around to look at the faucet, but was positively rude when Jennifer also asked that the bathroom be refreshed at some point during the day since we had in fact taken showers after the miserable red-eye flight.

Smart Watermelon is no longer available at Club Cool!

I've come to the conclusion that there are only two valid reasons for on-property guests to use Disney transportation:

You are going to the Magic Kingdom and don't have AAA Diamond parking, don't want to take the Monorail or ferry, or otherwise can't deal with the TTC.
You are going to Downtown Disney and might be, or plan on being in a condition at the end of the night where driving back to your hotel would be contra-indicated.
If one of these does not apply, drive to your destination. Unless your time is worth nothing to you, always rent a car at WDW.

The Truly Amazingly Horrendous

Southwest Airlines, my air carrier of choice, doesn't do overnight (“red-eye”) flights. If we'd taken the very first flight from San Jose on Friday morning, we would not have made it in time for the Halloween party that night, so a red-eye it had to be. That left Delta. Delta, who if there is any alternative at all I will never, ever, ever fly again—and certainly not out of San Jose, where Delta occupies a tiny grungy corner of the aged and obsolete Terminal C. Passengers actually walk out onto the tarmac and board the plane via a staircase, just like in the '70s. The flight from SJC to LAX on a tiny commuter plane (Embraer RJ135/145) was unusual (to me) but not too bad, but the cross-country flight from LAX to MCO on a Boeing 737-800 was, as I've said already and will no doubt say again, miserable. Did you know that the port window seat in aisle 13 on 737-800s has no window? Neither did I, until we boarded and I found myself sitting next to a solid bulkhead for six hours. Delta has reduced both the seat width and pitch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_seat#Seat_size) (the space between rows) to what should be a criminally low value, which means people such as myself with slightly longer-than-average legs are simply miserable (there's that word again). Don't bother asking for an exit row, either, unless you're a super-premium member of Delta's frequent-flyer club. You can't book exit rows on the Web site or by phone, and they're gone by the time you get to the gate. All of this is only made worse when, as I was, you are seated behind someone who insists on reclining the seat back in front of you.

Sprint's coverage inside WDW parks and hotels is just awful. Coverage at Downtown Disney is just barely acceptable. I don't know if the problem is Sprint not wanting to install cells in RCID or RCID not permitting the installation, but I do know it's not limited to Sprint. The funny thing is that the short-lived Disney Mobile was a MVNO (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MVNO) reselling Sprint service; you'd think Disney would have wanted good Disney Mobile coverage on property.

When we first got to our room after the aforementioned miserable red-eye flight and checking in and being told the room was ready, our keys did not work. Luckily I'd compiled contact information for the hotel—Disney doesn't want you calling the hotels directly, it seems—so we called to ask that someone come out and let us in and were assured it would be no more than “five or ten minutes”. Twenty minutes later, a hotel staff person (“runner”) showed up, casual and surly as could be, and looked quite put out to have to open our room for us—and then waited around as if expecting a tip. Uh, yeah, no. After showering and changing clothes, we made our way back to the front desk to have the keys replaced (and discuss the front desk and runner staff with a lead). The new keys, we were assured, would definitely work. Of course, they did not, but we did not find this out until we returned to the room after a day at Epcot in order to change for the Halloween party. This time it was thirty minutes until someone finally came out—but this time the runner was truly apologetic and took the initiative to get the problem fixed, bringing new keys which again did not work and then calling for a maintenance person to come replace the lock. The lock, it turned out, was the problem, and we did receive new keys that worked before we left for the party. The problem was that the situation was handled so very poorly up until the final resolution.

The connecting return flight, on Delta, from ATL to SJC was also miserable. Sure, I had a window this time but the seat width and pitch were, if possible, even smaller than on the outbound flight. We were delayed leaving ATL for around 30 minutes, after we'd boarded the plane but before we could push back from the gate. No air conditioning when parked, of course. We did finally get off the ground, but (likely partially due to residual soreness from the race) I was in pain for pretty much the entire flight. I don't know how Delta can get away with this inhuman treatment of steerage class passengers. The worst part is that, again, exit rows were not available so I'd asked at the gate about a first-class upgrade. I was told, yes, seats were available; the upgrade price is $125/person; I don't qualify for an upgrade because my ticket is “non-upgradeable”. I could not form a cogent response to this. The first-class seats did go unsold and empty, and I was, yes, miserable for the entire flight. Never, never again. I'll take the extra vacation day for travel if that's what it takes to avoid these stupid people.

Summing Up

I seem to have gone off ranting again. Overall, I'm glad we did the trip. Seeing our friends and meeting some new ones, doing the Halloween party and the ToT race, Food & Wine and the Adventurer's Club, and just the general joy of being at WDW seems to make up for the rest of the nonsense and stupidity that surrounded the trip.

We'll be back in May for a few days before we depart on the Magic's Westbound repositioning cruise; probably staying at Pop Century, and definitely flying Southwest.

Sheesh, make me feel bad for not even starting mine yet!

Interesting experience with DME at MCO - Generally, I've had to wait for all the passengers to get off before the driver will start unloading (because he's there to lend a hand (literally) as you get off) - but this last time he didn't do that. I think that's a YMMV kind of a thing based on the driver.

You're making me really sad we didn't make it back to Adventurer's Club. We tried one night, but it was closed until 10:30 for a private party, and we were just not waiting around for that!

Odd about the Halloween party for you guys - I kind of decided that the parade is just not worth the extra bucks for me, and nothing else was 'special' enough to pay any extra. I wonder if it had to do with the 'level' of costume you were in, and the size of the group of people?

Wow ... Sorry about the poor experience. :(

Sheesh, make me feel bad for not even starting mine yet! I mentioned it in the Disneyland news segment on the podcast that ran today, so I had to have the trip report up!

Interesting experience with DME at MCO - Generally, I've had to wait for all the passengers to get off before the driver will start unloading (because he's there to lend a hand (literally) as you get off) - but this last time he didn't do that. I think that's a YMMV kind of a thing based on the driver. This was our first time trying DME--Jennifer needed to know how it worked firsthand to advise her clients--but it will probably be the last. However, the on-site airline check-in service is excellent and can even be used if you're not using DME! That's an important tip for next time.

You're making me really sad we didn't make it back to Adventurer's Club. We tried one night, but it was closed until 10:30 for a private party, and we were just not waiting around for that! Ouch. On the other hand, the club really picks up around then, so if you had stayed it might have been all right. But yeah, it does make for a late night.

Odd about the Halloween party for you guys - I kind of decided that the parade is just not worth the extra bucks for me, and nothing else was 'special' enough to pay any extra. I wonder if it had to do with the 'level' of costume you were in, and the size of the group of people? I don't know if we'd make a special trip just to do the Halloween party, but since we wanted to go for the ToT race it made sense to do both.

Wow ... Sorry about the poor experience. :( Did you read the "Summing Up" section? Yeah, some aspects sucked but the rest more than made up for it.

Overall, I'm glad we did the trip. Seeing our friends and meeting some new ones, doing the Halloween party and the ToT race, Food & Wine and the Adventurer's Club, and just the general joy of being at WDW seems to make up for the rest of the nonsense and stupidity that surrounded the trip.

Thanks Andrew. Can you finish my report for me? ;)

I didn't know Jen was a travel agent? I bet she finds you guys great deals! :cool:

Thanks Andrew. Can you finish my report for me? ;) Yeah, I'll get right on that.

I didn't know Jen was a travel agent? I bet she finds you guys great deals! :cool: On occasion. :fez:;)

Thanks -- love the format!

Interesting to hear your opinion on the moderate vs. value. We stayed at Pop for the first time last summer and while I liked it, I really love POR (haven't stayed at any other moderate, but definitely hope to). When money's tight though, no question, Pop is the way to go.

I so agree with you about using a car. We use a mixture of rental car and Disney transportation, but a rental has become a must for us and we just budget for it now. There are just too many situations where a car is so much more pleasant or time saving for us.

Notes taken to avoid Delta and try Earl of Sandwich!

castmembers are human to ....... right !! you handled everything right with the lead , i always ask for the manager. leads sometimes take up for under performing & rude cm.all it takes is for one bad experince to ruin a vacation . and that will be all the GUEST remembers years from now.

Thanks -- love the format!

Me, too. I think I may try that in the future for my own trips.

I'll have to try Earl of Sandwich as well!

Did you read the "Summing Up" section? Yeah, some aspects sucked but the rest more than made up for it.

Sure I did. I read the whole report. All I can tell you is that when I finished, I felt like you were describing a real downer of a trip. Just my opinion. Perhaps I mis-read it, and it really wasn't as bad as it sounded.

"Summing Up" -- 3 lines of text

"The Bad," "The Ugly," & "The Truly Amazingly Horrendous" -- 86 lines of text.

Surely you can understand my confusion. :)

Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad your trip was not as bad as I read it to be. I'd hate for anybody to go to Walt Disney World & have a bad time. I was just commenting based on the feeling I was left with after I mis-read the report.

"Summing Up" -- 3 lines of text

"The Bad," "The Ugly," & "The Truly Amazingly Horrendous" -- 86 lines of text.

Surely you can understand my confusion. :)
Valid point, but I wasn't counting lines when I wrote it--just trying to get my experiences into print before they faded away too much. I don't think it's unusual that "bad" experiences had more of an impact than "good", but overall there was more good than bad.

I almost forgot, here is the list of candy and goodies we brought home from the Not-So-Scary Halloween Party (sheet 2). Sheet 1 is the Mickey's Halloween Treat stuff from Oct 12.

Hmmm, October is a good time to go because you get Halloween Party *and* Food and Wine Festival...

Reflecting on our stay at CBR (and last year's at POFQ), even discounting the unfortunate events surrounding our check-in and arrival, we are having a hard time seeing the value-vs.-price difference between the Moderates and the Pop Century, and will likely be returning to Pop for future trips.

We've only stayed on property once, and that was at CBR. When we were planning our trip this time, we knew that we wanted to stay on property, so the question was where. We didn't want to splurge on Deluxe, especially for our first time, so we looked at the Moderates and Value, and given the various amenities and theming, we decided to go with a Moderate, and among those, CBR was the most appealing to us, the possible proliferation of pirates everywhere notwithstanding.

The times that we visited the Deluxe resorts, I was a bit wistful at the amenities that they had versus the Moderates, and it really made me want to stay at a Deluxe, though when the time comes, I'm not sure I'll be able to talk myself into the cost. But having stayed Moderate, I don't think I'd be willing to go Value. We absolutely loved the CBR.

I can imagine why you were seriously not happy with the location of your room, especially since you didn't have a car. When we made our reservation, we knew that we were going to have a car (since we had plans to visit the Universal parks and also because we like having the freedom that a car affords you), so we asked for a room that was fairly close to Custom House, near parking and on the first floor. We were given a room in Jamaica, which turned out to perfectly fit our requests. If we stay at CBR again, I would definitely request Jamaica again. I think I'd read that some people like Trinidad precisely because it's far away and quiet. Maybe the distance isn't as big of a deal with a car, but I was glad that when we came back at the end of the evening, it was a short drive to our room once we got back to the resort itself.

I almost forgot, here is the list of candy and goodies we brought home from the Not-So-Scary Halloween Party (sheet 2). Sheet 1 is the Mickey's Halloween Treat stuff from Oct 12.

I was wondering - how did you bring home all your candy? Did you just have extra space in your luggage? I ended up with 16 pounds of candy at MHT from the 31st, and I only had to carry it around and put it in the car. If my trip had involved an airplane flight, I don't think I would have accepted that much candy because I'm not sure I would have thought it was worth having to transport home.

Thanks for the great TR!

I was wondering - how did you bring home all your candy? Did you just have extra space in your luggage? I ended up with 16 pounds of candy at MHT from the 31st, and I only had to carry it around and put it in the car. If my trip had involved an airplane flight, I don't think I would have accepted that much candy because I'm not sure I would have thought it was worth having to transport home.

My costume included a backpack, which we used during the event to offload candy out of the little bags, so we dumped the entire 17 pounds of candy into it and took it as a carryon. Brought it home for trick-or-treaters, but we only had one little girl come up to the door, so most of the candy is now at our offices.

"Summing Up" -- 3 lines of text

"The Bad," "The Ugly," & "The Truly Amazingly Horrendous" -- 86 lines of text.

Surely you can understand my confusion. :)
Hmm... isn't that how summaries are *supposed* to work? :confused:

Brought it home for trick-or-treaters, but we only had one little girl come up to the door, so most of the candy is now at our offices.

You should have sent it to me - we had 50 children at our door and trick or treating is really only a developing tradition here in the UK - very popular on my estate though...

I really enjoyed your trip report and the format. My sympathies regarding the person in front of you on your outward flight. They always sit infront of me too ;)

I almost forgot, here is the list of candy and goodies we brought home from the Not-So-Scary Halloween Party (sheet 2). Sheet 1 is the Mickey's Halloween Treat stuff from Oct 12.

Thanks for posting that. I was curious about the type of candy they gave out. NOT NEARLY ENOUGH CHOCOLATE!!!

Our last trip we split our time between POP and POR. We loved POP and were very disappointed with POR. We will always stay at POP...well then again, the last time we were there was Dec. '03, and POP had just opened two weeks earlier, so we had a wonderfully spiffy brand new room. The room we had at POR was old and dingy dinjy? and dusty. Not impressed.

Great trip report. I enjoyed it.

Andrew, we took Delta to Ontario, CA for our DLR trip in August 06. I completely and totally agree with you about how awful they are. I'm not a huge girl, but I'm not a size 4 either, and I thought I would have to ask for a belt extender. I BARELY made it. Made me a nervous wreck to fly to MCO in March via Northwest, Boston in August via Northwest, and MCO in October via Air Tran. I didn't have problems with any other carrier. I laughed when I sat down on the Air Tran flight because there was a TON of room left on the belt. The flight crew on Delta were plain rude and mean. I won't ever fly them again unless I HAVE to.

I didn't have any problems with DME, per se, and would use them again. The lines at the airport were a bit long, but having the ability to check in all of my luggage at the resort was terrific. Our bus was really nice--both ways. Just the luck (or unluck??) of the draw, perhaps?

I've always, always been pro-Disney transportation. I think my confidence with them is slipping. Lines were often long and once I got mad and got out of line and got a taxi. Drivers were nice, but the LINES!!!!

Thanks for posting!! Always like to hear your opinions.

Great detail on the report Andrew. I can't believe you catalogued your candy take that way, made me laugh...i really like the Frootsie Rolls if you want to send me some! Did you guys wear your Good Eats costumes?
We usually fly Us Airways and it is fairly comfortable although they are the crankiest bunch of unhelpful staff that fly the unfriendly skies. I enjoy the fact that everyone is so nice when we fly Southwest but I hate the fact that we do not have assigned seating since we usually arrive at the airport at the latest possible time. The only time we flew Delta was on Song and I was so enamored we competing with the rest of the plane on the music trivia game that I tried to ignore the fact that worst than the leg room is the width of the chairs which gives me no place to put my long legs.
I have to say that my favorite "moderate" resort is Port Orleans Riverside and I absolutely hate Caribbean. As far as the "Value" resorts, I prefer "Movies", I prefer the giant Disney props to giant Rubicks Cubes!
I can't wait to read next week's report on the race, I really wish we could have come down for it.

Great report-- we're also Andrew and Jennifer--there must be some sort of club for that. . . :fez:

We had a similarly (if that's a word) bad experience at the Carribean Beach Resort, I think that the management there is horrible. I've stayed at all the other mods and never had such poor service. Again our issues were not resolved until the very end, after several attempts.

Glad you enjoyed the trip overall.

Great report-- we're also Andrew and Jennifer--there must be some sort of club for that. . . :fez:

You're the third A&J that I know of - there's also an Andrew and Jennifer (OK, really, Andy and Jenny), an older couple, from a.d.d. days.

Great detail on the report Andrew. I can't believe you catalogued your candy take that way, made me laugh...i really like the Frootsie Rolls if you want to send me some! Did you guys wear your Good Eats costumes? Yes, we wore the Good Eats costumes again. More people recognized us than at MHT, too.

I enjoy the fact that everyone is so nice when we fly Southwest but I hate the fact that we do not have assigned seating since we usually arrive at the airport at the latest possible time. If you check in early, at least you can get in the "A" group. The lack of assigned seats seems to really bother some people but I like it. Getting the seat I want becomes a matter of checking in early, getting to the airport on time and arrowing straight for the exit row; the alternative on airlines with pre-assigned seating is hoping against hope that no other passenger with higher "status" has called in a favor by the time we get to the gate. It also doesn't hurt that SWA tends to have the lowest fares for wherever we're going and there's no change fee if the fare drops.
The only time we flew Delta was on Song and I was so enamored we competing with the rest of the plane on the music trivia game that I tried to ignore the fact that worst than the leg room is the width of the chairs which gives me no place to put my long legs. We haven't flown Song, but I'm right there with you on the seat size issues.
I have to say that my favorite "moderate" resort is Port Orleans Riverside and I absolutely hate Caribbean. As far as the "Value" resorts, I prefer "Movies", I prefer the giant Disney props to giant Rubicks Cubes! I'm reconsidering what I said about Moderates vs. Values, especially after reading tdelaney's report of staying at POFQ. I liked the French Quarter a lot, but I wasn't sure it was worth the price increase. The more I think about it, and with other reports to back it up, I'm thinking the extra money is worth it.
I can't wait to read next week's report on the race, I really wish we could have come down for it.

It's supposed to run Friday. Hopefully we can have it finished in time.