This will be a different type of Disney trip report.  I’m at a conference for a week in Orlando so will be attending Walt Disney World when I can at night.  Leanne (Tink) and Alex will be here later in the week but their trip report will be quite a bit different.

Also… this is my first trip to Walt Disney World but I am an experienced Disneyland visitor so I’ll do a lot of comparing of the 2 resorts while it is fresh in my mind.

Trip Dates: June 2^nd – 8^th ( conference 3^rd – 6^th with registration on the 2^nd… the 8^th is a travel only day)

The conference is Microsoft’s Tech-Ed.  My company is paying my registration, flight, hotel and meals.  This is a $2500+ cost to my company so I can’t blow off the conference to spend more time at WDW.

Flight out

I hate flying east.  1^st… it’s always crowded.  Even with a months advanced registration I have a middle seat.  Luckily a family has 5 of the 6 seats in the row so they asked me to talk the window seat.  The flight was supposed to leave at 10:19AM MDT but we were a little late getting out an dodged thunderstorms most of the way. So it took the full 3 ½ hours plus to get there.  2^nd thing I hate about flying East…. That 3 ½ hours is really 5 ½ hours because of the time change.

Transportation to the Hotel

My company will spring for a taxi or town car if I am not renting a car but Leanne needs the town car when she comes in.  So I’m paying for my own transportation and needed cheap.

Mears does just about all the transportation in Orlando so I booked a $16 one way shuttle.  Mears has an automated kiosk right by baggage pickup where you put in your confirmation number and they print out a ticket.  Then you take it outside and hand it to the person by the buses they give you a wait time and one of those buzzer things like restaurants use. 

That was pretty slick.  What wasn’t slick is that I was told it would be 40 minutes.  After 40 minutes that brought in a taxi for us. (Mears runs most of the taxis)  Unfortunately I was the last of 3 drop offs and it took 1-1 ½ hours to get to the hotel.

I know $16 compared to $50-70 for a town car or taxi is a big savings but taking 2 hours to go 30 miles is painful.

Hotel

We’re staying at the Hilton in Downtown Disney.  I had to have a conference hotel so I had buses to the conference but I also wanted a Disney Hotel for those perks.  The Hilton is not owned by Disney but does offer the Extra Magic Hours and Disney Transportation.

The Hilton is a nice high end hotel but have some issues:

• Internet costs $9.95 a day.
• The WiFi is weak and slow which is why I haven’t been posting
• The network connection is at the desk and my cable wouldn’t reach to the bed.
• A refrigerator is ~8.00/day.
• 2 double beds and not queens. (from conversations I overhead this is normal)

The nickel and dining irritated me… our $90/night hotel at Disneyland had all of the above for free.

The grounds, shops, bars and restaurants are nice (not that I had time to use any of them) but I probably wouldn’t stay here again.

It’s close to 6:00 when I settled in at the hotel I had not had breakfast or lunch so I decided I had to eat…. There was a nice little bar in the hotel that served a good sirloin hamburger.

That done I had to go over to the conference center to registered.  By the time I do that it’s after 8:00.

I have no clue how the transportation works at Disney World.  I managed to miss one bus and ended up at the transportation center after 9:00.  (I though the buses went directly to the Magic Kingdom). I figured out I had to take the monorail and ended up in the park right before fireworks (10:00). 

Of course the park closed at 11:00 that night.

Its dark and I have no clue where to go.  I know the Disney Worlds lands are similar to Disneyland so I figure I’ll go right and circle the park.  Stitch’s Great Escape has no wait so I hop in there.  I had no clue if it was a ride or a show.  Turns out it’s a little of both.  Great ride.

I hop on Buzz Lightyear.  Hate it.  It’s one of my favorite rides at Disneyland but I had no desire to ride it again at WDW. 

I continue my circle through Fantasyland.  Having Small World embedded in the middle of it was weird.

I continue on and hit Haunted Mansion and it’s a walk on.  I love WDWs version.  I continue on and see that Splash is a walk on.  I like the wider logs but didn’t like the music as much.

It’s almost 11:00 and I’m heading out.  They had setup the parade ropes and I commented to some kid that they must have an early parade in the morning.  He informed me that the light parade was at 11:00.  I thought he was crazy since the park closed at 11:00 but when I got to the Hub the Spectra Electric Light parade had started and I stayed and watched it.

I was torn… I love the Electric Light Parade at Disneyland.  WDWs version has better floats but I did not like the music as much.

So I’m not out of the parks until 11:30.  I did manage to find my bus but still was not back at my room until ~12:30.

I still have work to do and have to be up at 7:00… long day.

Day 1 Comments

3 ½ hours in a plane

2 hours to get to my hotel

1 ½ hours on my conference buses or waiting for them.

Add to that 2 ½ hours on buses or waiting for buses to go to WDW for 2 ½ hours

I know I’m going to dislike the transportation at Walt Disney World.

Disneyland Comparisons

Size – The whole Walt Disney Area is huge but the Magic Kingdom did not seem much bigger.

Rides – Haunted Mansion I like better at WDW which is saying a lot since that is one of the better rides at DL.  Splash has more comfortable logs but the music was different and I didn’t like it as much.  Stitch of course is only at WDW. Buzz Lightyear was a huge disappointment.  I knew the guns were mounted which I could live with but hated that the targets were really just the same.  It’s hard to describe to someone that hasn’t ridden them both what the difference is.

I’m going to hate the transportation at WDW.  It’s especially tough because I’m only able to go to the parks in the evenings.

Even when the parks close early (and 11:00 seems early in June) it’s a late night because of the travel time back to the hotels.

Andy

(I doubt if the rest of the trip will be put up until we return)

Now, why do you hate Buzz so much?  We liked it.  I don't like that the guns are mounted but what about the targets????  I like that you go through the tunnel part.....Disneyland's queue area is way better (I love the actual writing on the Etch-A-Sketch----at WDW it's permanent writing). 

I was not surprised that it's $10.  That's what we paid last year at Disneyland...and our hotel didn't even have it's own connection, we connected to the neighbor hotel's (paid to them..not pirated or anything) connection..even though the hotel claims that THEY have Wi-Fi.  Ugh!  At the All Star Movies the connection is on the bedside table but I didn't pull it out to see how long it was. 

I'm anxious to hear how Toy Story was!!!! 

Mynde - All it takes is faith and trust...and something I forgot...Dust...just a little bit of Pixie Dust 

I wish the Buzz's ride was like DL so that it would have different levels to aim for but I have heard that the ones farther away give you more points.

Have lots of fun

Kristi

Kristi

That's one hour for transportation in the best case.  2 hours coming and going.  I'm used to leaving my hotel room and walking 5-15 minutes to Disneyland.

This means typically we had to take everything we need for the whole day.  Since we have a camera bag for our SLR and a video camera it gets painful.  Especially if we shop also.  At DL we just make runs back to the hotel and only take what we need for the next 4 hours.

Mynde - There are a number of different types of targets with different point values at Disneyland.  You have to have a strategy to maximize points.  At DL it is one of my favourt rides.... at WDW I avoided it.

Internet - I really need decent connections available all the time.  I have to dial into my work computer several times a day and I have to connect to my home computer daily for customer support and to run some processes.

I would have paid the $10/day but the Hilton WiFi was very weak in the rooms so I would've had to sit at the desk when connecting.  For weak WiFi I could actually connect to the Shearaton and since I was at a Microsoft conference I could use their connections to talk to work and home.  One night I had to pay because I had to connect to work.

The lousy connection is the main reason only one day of trip report got up.  To stay connected right now I'm lying on the bed with my knees up and the laptop pointing towards the window.

There is no excuse for a high end hotel to have such lousy connectivity.

Andy