The Hilton... A Lot Cheaper Than I Expected

It happened again, Allison was reading about accommodations in and around Disney World, and we came across another hotel that peaked our interest.  This time however is was a hotel that wasn't an official Disney hotel, but it had some perks of the classic Disney hotels, the Hilton Orlando Lake Buena Vista.  We never really gave much thought to hotels outside of the Disney parks because we wanted to enjoy the benefits that come with staying on property.  The problem is, the Hilton is one of the only non-Disney hotels to enjoy some of the benefits of the Disney hotels, including extra magic hours.

The main advantage to the Hilton, the price.  The Hilton hotel can be almost half the price as many of the on site resorts, and from what I've read it's a pretty nice hotel to boot.  It also offers shuttle services to all of the parks, and is walking distance to Downtown Disney.  So it's pretty close to a Disney resort, for a lot less money.  It doesn't offer a few of the perks like free delivery of purchases back to your hotel room, and access to certain facilities, but it still seems pretty good.  Once again Allison and I had to try and figure out if we should change our hotel plans once again.  This time, Allison made a chart featuring the Hilton, the Yacht Club resort, and Port Orleans resort, comparing the advantages and the disadvantages.

Yacht Club	Port Orleans	Hilton
Likely $550/night (high season)	Likely $250/night (high season)	Likely $130/night; $209 comparable to Yacht Club (based on website)
Plus taxes	Plus taxes	Plus taxes
		Plus $22/night “daily resort charge plus taxes
Free parking	Free parking	Parking $13/night
Free wifi	Free wifi	Wifi – part of “Daily resort charge”
Free extended theme park hours	Free extended theme park hours	Extended theme park hours – part of “Daily resort charge”
Free transportation to all parks every 20 minutes or more	Free transportation to all parks every 20 minutes or more	Transportation to the four theme parks only – part of “Daily resort charge”. Schedule unknown.
Onsite movie screenings (+ movies on TV??)	Onsite movie screenings (+ movies on TV??)	Unlimited movie rentals – part of “Daily resort charge”
$15 for unlimited drinks (resort refillable mug) - optional	$15 for unlimited drinks (resort refillable mug) - optional	2 coffees or 2 bottles of water/day – part of “Daily resort charge”
Free parking at parks/water parks/etc.	Free parking at parks/water parks/etc.	$17 (?) to park at water parks or other theme parks
TOTAL: $565 + tax	TOTAL: $265 + tax	TOTAL: $182 + tax TOTAL: $262 + tax
Concierge service for Disney	Concierge service for Disney	Guest services at parks
Purchases delivered	Purchases delivered
“Best pool in park”	Pool with slide	Pool
Gym		Gym (extra $$??)
Coin laundry ($4)	Coin laundry ($4)	Only laundry valet (likely $100-250) or off-site
Near Epcot (monorail to MK), Hollywood Studios	Near Downtown Disney	Near Downtown Disney
Bracelets/card do everything	Bracelets/card do everything	Bracelets plus credit card plus hotel key to carry
Fridge in room	Fridge in room	NO fridge in room

After making this chart and talking it over, we eventually decided that the Hilton probably won't work for us.  While we do like the price, the location is really important to us.  So we've decided that the Yacht club is still our number one pick.  The thing is, after thinking about it some more, and reading a bit on Port Orleans, I'm starting to rethink which hotel we might stay at on the grounds.

Sweet Treats I Want To Try

There are several specific treats I want to sample on this epic Disney trip.  As you might imagine, if you're familiar with my other website candycritic.org, many of the must have foods I want to try are sweet. There are a few savoury snacks I'd like to sample as well, but I'll talk about those later on.

The first treat I want to try is the legendary Dole Whip.  Having said that I'm not even really sure what a Dole Whip is.  All I know about the Dole Whip is it's some kind of pineapple based ice cream dessert/drink.  If you research the Dole Whip online, you'll quickly realise that many people are obsessed with them.  In fact you may have a hard time finding any negative reviews for them at all.

The next treat worth mentioning is something called Skool Bread.  Similar to the Dole Whip it's very popular amongst Disney fans, and also similarly I have no idea what it really is.  I know that it's a popular Danish dessert, but that's obvious because the only place it's available is at the Danish pavilion at EPCOT.  It seems to be some kind of cream filled pastry, and that can't be bad.

Mickey Mouse ice cream sandwiches are another treat I don't want to miss.  Other than the shape there doesn't seem to be anything special about these, but I give high marks for treat themes.

Other than these specific treats there are a few general treat categories I plan to explore.  I hear that Disney makes some pretty tasty cupcakes all over the parks, so I'm sure I'll sample at least one of those.  I'm also interested in trying a few of the many ice cream snacks available, in particular I'd be interested in the Kitchen Sink sundae.

I think I have little to worry about when it comes to finding sweet treats at Disney World; I do have to worry about how I'm going to manage to sample them all.

Anniversary

The main point of making this trip to Disney World is to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.  Normally for our anniversary we like to buy ourselves one shared gift that lines up with the appropriate material for that anniversary.  For example, for our eighth anniversary we bought copper pans, because the eighth anniversary is copper.  The 10th anniversary material is emerald, and frankly we can't think of anything either one of us would want containing an emerald.  So Disney was the perfect second option.

I've been doing some research on celebrating anniversaries at Disney World, and there are plenty of options.  The first and most important thing to do is make sure you tell someone at your hotel, or guest relations, that it's your anniversary.  Apparently they'll give you a pin that will tell the world you're celebrating an event.  While we're not really interested in cashing this in for freebies, we are curious about the kind of attention we might get.

If you're even more committed to celebrating you can order special room decorations for when you arrive.  I've checked them out online and most of the anniversary set ups are kind of tacky, and very over priced.  A few of the other event gifts look interesting, but they're still horribly over priced.

Disney also keeps suggesting that we do something grown up, like dinning with candlelight or visiting a spa.  I think we might consider one of these options since a little romance is always nice.  Our main goal however is to have a character breakfast on our anniversary morning with Goofy.

Restaurant Reservations

The one aspect of this trip that worries me most is the Advanced Dinning Reservation (ADR) program at Disney World.  The program is designed to make it easier for people to make dinning reservations at popular restaurants, and up to 180 days before your trip.  While I don't mind planning out a few things before our trip, I really feel like the ADR program doesn't work with our style of traveling.

First of all we're not really sure which parks we're going to visit on which days.  There are lots of factors that go into choosing your parks, weather, extended hours, and tiredness.  Many of these factors you won't know until much closer to the date.  I don’t want to be running from one park to another just to eat, and that means if I make a reservation I have to choose that day to be at a particular park.  How am I supposed to know where I want to eat 180 days before I leave, let alone the day before?

My second problem with this plan is the fact that it's really geared towards those that travel to Disney World regularly and are familiar with the menus at the park.  I'm not really sure which restaurant is great and which aren't.  Sure there are lots of reviews to read, but so many of them are very personal, and I want to know if a restaurant is up my alley.  Most reviews I read compare these restaurants to other restaurants in Disney World, and since I'm unfamiliar with any of these restaurants these reviews are not really that useful.  This system of reservation really caters to those who travel to Disney World often, because they know more about these restaurants than I do.

I keep hearing stories of many of the restaurants filling up with reservations well in advance, and I don't want to be stuck eating just fast food.  I want a few nice dinning experiences, but I'm worried that when we get there, anything that's nice will be full.

Greatest Or Worst Piece Of Disney Merchandise?

I came across this new addition to Disney's merchandise line.  Just in case you've ever wanted to look like Uncle Walt, you can make sure your facial hair is up to par.  I'm also fairly partial to the Sulley Fu-Man-Chu as well.  I'd like to tell you that this is a joke, or at the very least unofficial, but it's real and it's from Disney.

Youtube Channels of Note - Part 5 - Disney World Documentaries

Various Disney Documentaries – This isn’t really a YouTube channel, it's more of a good search term in order to find videos online.  There are dozens of documentaries on the Internet all about Walt Disney World.  There are high production shows that show you all the ins and outs of some of the attractions, and there are people who set up a camera on a ride and let you experience it at home... sort of.  I'm sure many of the high production documentaries that appear to have at one time been on TV, are not posted with the permission of the creators, so you may see them come and go.

You also have to keep in mind that many of these documentaries may spoil the magic for you.  Before you sit down to a documentary about the park, keep in mind that they're goal may be to give away a few secrets.  You may be getting backstage tours, thus teaching you how "the magic" works, or you may be seeing things from the ride that are meant to surprise you (but now they wont since you know they're coming).

I'm a big fan of knowing how things work, so these documentaries are right up my alley.  I've shown a few of them to Allison (who's not so keen on learning about the magic) but most I probably won't.

Youtube Channels of Note - Part 4 - Disney Vacation Planning DVD

The Disney DVD's online - I've been trying to order the official Disney travel DVD's for about a year now.  I love watching high quality production DVDs all about planning my trip.  Unfortunately it appears that Disney can't send these DVDs to my address (my mailing address is very complicated), so I decided to see if anybody had posted them on YouTube.

Fortunately for me, someone has, and best of all there are many to choose from.  You don't just have to watch the latest incarnation of the travel DVD's, I've found some as old as 1996.  You may be wondering why you'd want to watch old Disney DVDs, and it's simple, the new DVDs focus on the new attractions.  The old DVDs will cover in more detail attractions that were new at that particular time.  I’m very interested in learning about the updated Star Tours ride, but since it's old news, the latest DVD glosses over it.  However the older DVDs cover it in much better detail.

The problem I've found with looking for Disney travel DVDs on YouTube is the quality can vary greatly.  Often it's random clips that people have filmed with a video camera off of their TV.  I'm also fairly certain that Disney has not given anybody permission to post these DVDs, so they may get pulled off now and again.  It's a shame, I wish Disney would just post these in an organized fashion for all to enjoy.  After all it's promotion for their parks, and it's something they're giving away anyways.

Youtube Channels of Note - Part 3 - WDW Radio

WDW Radio - WDW Radio is a YouTube channel where you follow Lou Mongello, an exceptional Disney World fan, on his fact finding missions about the Disney World.  Lou has two themes to his posts on YouTube.  One of themes we see Lou wandering around the parks checking out new attractions or pointing out some tips.  In the other theme he's sitting behind a microphone talking about the latest Disney World news.

WDW Radio is a pretty positive look at the Disney parks, Lou Mongello doesn't often have anything bad to say about the parks, and when he does, he often glides over it with little detail.  The segments where he walks around the parks are by far my favourites, however the news segments are very informative.  The only real fault to this YouTube channel is the constant reminding that he has other websites, books and merchandise available for sale.  Thought I can't fault him considering the amount of free information he provides.

Youtube Channels of Note - Part 2 - Disney Parks

Disney Parks - Disney's official theme park YouTube channel is obviously the least neutral channel, but it's still very informative.  Often this is the place where you learn true information about what's going on at the parks.  There is 0 speculation going on here, because everything you see is official.  You also have to do a bit of sorting since the channel covers all of their parks and not just Disney World.

If you follow other blogs and YouTube channels you'll get more information, however this is the channel to confirm all speculation. This channel is also very well produced, and many of the videos are fairly entertaining.

The only true downfall of this channel is the complete lack of neutrality.  Everything on this channel is about getting you to a Disney park to spend your money.