We left early Sunday morning at 6am from home to London gatwick, we had already checked in online so it was just a matter of checking bags, getting through security and getting some food. Gatwick is a boring airport so nothing much to say... We did buy a go pro. We boarded the plan at 1pm and took off swiftly. We flew with Virgin and the flight was pretty uneventful I had pre booked our seats and got the ones grouped as two at the back of the plane, this is a great tip as you get more leg room and more room for bags plus you can move about with out annoying any strangers.
After 8 and a half hours we arrived at orlando international. My fiance and I were lucky enough to be traveling on the same esta as last year and so getting through security was really fast as we got to use these awesome robot screens they have. And then the first bit of magic on our trip... All four of our bags came off the plane first and all together, we had our bags before the rest of the party had even gotten in the security queue.
After the long walk through OIA we got to the magical express, checking in was easy... But we did have to wait forever for it to fill up I would say almost 45 minutes, I was more then glad we hadn't tried booking adrs for this night. We got going and made it to old key west about 6:30....
This is where things started to become a little less magical we got off the bus and walked to the lobby which was empty, and on check in stood one lonely cast member, playing with his cell phone. We stood and waited for 5 minutes, he didn't look up once so I passive aggressively coughed to get his attention... He looked up for a second then back to his phone and waved us over to him... "Name" he barked at as no welcome home, no smile, no magic. We had a first timer in our group which was on file... No button. He the said "I have a room request due to a disability, who here is disabled?" "Me" I replied shocked, then came the biggest blow "you don't look disabled" he snorted. "Anyway we have fulfilled you request, regardless, you room is here" in fairness it was close to the hospitality house.
We headed to the room and as I had reckoned it would, our bands didn't work, so back to our friend on check in, he just took our bands and said "oh I didn't active them" no sorry. We then headed back to the room and got in... Oh my god old key west is this worst resort disney offer, our room was disgusting... It had a hole in the wall. No wifi and smelt like a boys locker room, like old damp towels.
Anyway we weren't going to let their spoil out night, we headed to the boat to downtown and grabbed some holiday sandwiches at earl of sandwich which wee amazing. However our best friend at old key west hadn't activated our dinning plan. The lovely cast member at EOS could see it was there though and the manager gave us our food on the house which was great, we then picked up out $200 gift card from booking our trip and headed back to OKW....
I will try to write a day, a day going forward but I thought I would jump ahead to explain what happened OKW, when we came back the next day for an afternoon swim we noticed the DVC members acted snobby towards us, one even tutted at my tattoos and when trying to use a quiet pool the people around it who were all talking and hanging out all stopped and left when we got there. When we walked back past the lobby we noticed the managed standing at the magical express treating guests with hugs and smiles... Far different from the service we got, so we went to the concierge to complain about the cash member who checked us in, she basically said that we had no proof and "what did she want her to do" she couldn't have cared less. So I asked to speak to a manager, we dealt with HOPE, who was fantastic she tried to move us to the grand Floridian but it was sold out and the. The poly but cause it doesn't have a pool atm we were reluctant to stay there, in the end we were moved to port Orleans riverside and given two separate rooms in the preferred rooms, the alligator bayou, our rooms view was of the water wheel. As well as moving us, she also gave us 3 extra fast passes a day for the rest of our trip, this made park touring very easy as they were blanket passes, we could have literally met Anna and elsa three times in a row if we had wanted to (we didn't) she also gave us a $500 gift card, since returning home disney have been I. Touch as I had mentioned that we may move our honeymoon to go to Tokyo instead of WDW in March because the service we had gotten at a 'deluxe' in order to secure us coming back disney world have sent us a further $300 gift card as a wedding present from Mickey and Minnie, added 3 extra blanket fast passes to our dates which will be a huge help in March and have said they will do their very best to upgrade us on our honeymoon, we are staying woods view at wilderness lodge and they have said they hope to move us to concierge level and have promised some disney Magic when we arrive in our room.
All this has been very nice but it only goes a small way to make up for they way I was spoken to discriminated against by that first cast member....
Good news is after moving resorts our trip was amazing... Day two to follow
we had a pretty horrific experience with a CM with the manager of yachtsman's rolling her eyes at us but I followed her there and then and told her that she was out of order. TBH I have in the past had the same response from a CM about not looking disabled, that was in 2008 though and before I knew better to say something to their manager, I just went out and cried.
we were super lucky and our fast passes just happened to be open when we got to each attraction, by 2pm we were sitting having a frozen coke and ridding dinosaur by 3pm we had finished our meet and great with baloo and Louie and were leaving the park having done everything , it's a werid tradition but we always stop in rain forest cafe for a drink at the bar cause why not. At 4:30 we were heading to Magic Kingdom for the evening.
in case you were wondering I had the clicking and ribs combo as a counter service credit.
