Day 4: Hollywood Studios!
My sister in law and brother took my older son Logan to do a rope drop. I think they went to magic kingdom for rope drop, then went over to Hollywood Studios. They loved it! They were able to zip around and ride so many rides! My inlaws took Dean, my younger son, to start out at Hollywood Studios. The previous day took a ton of energy out of Mitch, and so we lazed at the resort to let him sleep in a bit. Once he was awake, my dad, Mitch, and I took the boat down to Disney Springs. We had an incredible lunch at the Boathouse, kind of on a whim! It was my favorite dining experience, and actually, we went back there to eat again later in our trip. My dad was very funny about the dining pass and ordered WAY too much food, simply because he was astounded he could. Like, someone was going to take back the giant steak and oysters he had ordered. We went back to POR for naps for the hubby!
Later that evening, we left the kids with my inlaws, and the rest of us went to Disney Springs on the boat again. We ate at Bongos and had ourselves quite a few mojitos. We experienced another snafu when we waited around almost 90 minutes for them to clear our check, but the dining plan system wasn't working. So we had a bill for over $600 (plus tip) for our group, as they couldn't get the deluxe dining plan to ring through. They were literally turning off lights, and had put chairs on the tables, and we were still sitting there while they tried to figure it out. Eventually my husband just paid it with a credit card, so we could try to get it resolved the next morning at our resort. Rum and I are great friends, so we had a nice ride back to the resort and passed out!
Day 5: Started with me going back to the front desk, again. After waiting in line behind others who were checking out, and finally getting someone, it took about an hour for them to resolve the dining plan issue, charge the dining plan, and issue a refund to the card for everything but the tip. However, the day actually started much earlier, for Dean, Mitch, SIL, and my dad, who took a private fishing excursion in the wee hours of the morning! This was the highlight of the trip for my husband, and if we'd had time, he really wanted to do it again. The fishing guide was extremely knowledgeable and knew all the best places to fish. They were pulling enormous fish out of the water the whole morning, and watched the sun rise from the water by Disney Springs.
By the time they returned, I had the dining issue resolved finally, and we made our way to Epcot! This trip was during the International
Festival of the Arts, so there was incredible food and artwork everywhere! We went to Soarin' first, which is what I was MOST looking forward to! I had only been on the one at CA Adventure (Ill-advised, as I was 8 months pregnant at the time. Turned out fine for me!), and it was my favorite Disney ride to date. It did not disappoint! We also went on the Nemo ride after that, and then spent some time checking out the aquarium!
The rest of our party (13 people!) made their way to Epcot eventually, and we all met up at some point. It was only about lunch time when I had gone to charge something to our room, and got an email notifying us that we had reached that $1000 limit and would be billed accordingly. Except... we hadn't spent even a quarter of that yet. I checked our Disney account, only to find the name "Barbara Johnson, DVC" had been ringing charges through to our room the whole time we'd been at POR! I lost it at that point, you guys. I feel like I had spent at least half of my trip dealing with one problem after another, at that point. I left my
scooter with my brother, hobbled to the front of the park in tears, and took an Uber back to the resort. I was absolutely sobbing by this point, and my Uber driver was the sweetest guy on the planet. He refused to take any money from me and handed me some cash from his tips because I wouldn't cancel the ride and "take" his money/time he was spending. I was in the lobby talking with one manager and then another, and then yet another, for well over 2.5 hours. They were placating, but offered nothing in exchange for the time I had thus far spent resolving countless problems. I felt so upset that this trip, this one and only of its kind for us, was being wasted because of so many ridiculous issues. I felt like this wasn't a "deluxe" resort, sure, but it was still a Disney Resort, and expensive at that, and by this point... I mean it was just all unacceptable. One or two things happening, fine, but this was just way over the top. I was asking if they could move us to literally any other resort, any level of service, I didn't care. I just didn't want to be at that one anymore. They had no idea how the other lady's charges were put on our account, but it took them a long time to get it sorted. Meanwhile, my family rode the test track, went to the Frozen thing, saw a bunch of street shows, and had a great all time, while I was crying in the lobby of the POR.
Eventually they resolved to give us a small refund on the overall price of our room/package, which was like $400 or something. I felt that was a very, very sub sufficient apology, as I really had spent so much time trying to handle these problems that really shouldn't have been a problem, but I was tired of fighting and handling all this crap, so I said it was fine. The manager (the third one) came and sat with me because I needed to gather myself, and I had sat down over by the window for a minute of peace. He knew I was upset, knew their solution wasn't really enough, and said he wanted to give us some magic back in our trip. He asked me to trust him for our plans the next day, and said he would handle everything, and if I was okay with it, for us to just go along with the fast passes and plans he'd put together on our account. I told him that was okay, and we'd be spending the next day at Animal Kingdom. Mitch came back early from Epcot (my younger brother was still zipping around on my scooter in Epcot. He loved being the pack mule for the day!) and we both napped in our rooms for a bit.
That evening, my parents took the kids (I don't remember what they did, but I think they had come back early to hang at the resort with the kids!) and my brother, SIL, Mitch, and I got ourselves ready for our reservation at Be Our Guest! Beauty and the Beast is my all-time favorite fairy tale, and favorite Disney movies (the animated and live action, both!) We were so excited to make our way up the walk to Beast's castle. SIL was freaking beyond herself and adorable, and she & Lumiere led the way. Our table was in the big dining room, and the napkins were rolled into roses! Unfortunately, this was my least favorite food (and oh boy, had we dined like royalty this trip!) but my favorite ambiance! The gray stuff was not delicious, as I think it had sat out for a very long time, and was rubbery. The food was really salty and greasy. Like we cared.... we were in Beast's castle!! We were giddy and ridiculous as we met Beast himself, and hubby & I had ourselves a smooch in front of the beautiful stained glass artwork. As we exited the castle, we saw the tail-end of the fireworks over the big castle. I was a little sad to have missed it, since this was my #1 "must-see," but I figured we'd be back another night to see it. We split off there, and brother & SIL went in search of a specific Disney puzzle she was looking for.
Mitch and I made our way quickly onto several rides! First we went on Pirates, which was so awesome. I think we went on Haunted Mansion as well, and then to Jungle Cruise. He harassed the poor tour guide, with his creepy Elmo voice, and it went down as one of my all-time favorite memories. She was almost in tears she was laughing so much, as well as the other people on the boat were. It was very funny, and we enjoyed our little cruise, plus creepy Elmo. So the terrible day, ended with spending time with my lover, and honestly, that was one of the most fun nights I think we'd ever had together.