Just back, a few thoughts!

[Gingerlife]

As some of you may have seen I posted a thread on here, a few weeks ago, regarding not wanting to go on holiday due to my fear of flying. Well I went and so I thought I would share a few highs and lows, especially as this was our first time on site with the dining plan.

We flew with TUI in premium on the Dreamliner and the crew were fantastic. I had a complete meltdown prior to getting on the plane and was praying that my appendix would rupture so that I had a reason not to fly (It didn't so I had no excuse). The look of panic on my face when boarding the plane must have been bad as one crew member took me to one side, sat me in the crew seat and had a chat with me. He was brilliant and looked after me, like a small child, the whole flight. In fact all of the crew in premium were excellent, nothing was too much trouble for them and they were fantastic with a young autistic boy who asked lots of questions and was quite demanding of their time. They took him for a walk inside the plane, regularly chatted with him and were just great.
The Dreamliner was great, it felt quite spacious inside and it was a smooth crossing, thankfully.

Sanford
We were in and out of Sanford within 30 minutes of landing and were on our way in our hire car to Coronado Springs.

Coronado Springs
This was our first time staying on site as we have always stayed on international drive previously and was to be our first time on the quick service dining plan.
Check in was quick and easy, we received our magic bands and were given the option of opting out of mouse keeping, which we decided to do, as we always make our own bed and clean up after ourselves anyway. We received a $130 gift card for this via email and found it no trouble asking for clean towels, bedding and top up on the toiletries when required.
The hotel is lovely and very well maintained although there is still some construction ongoing it didn't affect us at all as we were staying in the Casitas area overlooking the smaller pool.
The room was great, although we did feel that the finishing touches could have been better such as lots of grout on the tiles that hadn't been cleaned off, may be we were just being picky but it felt like it had been rushed.
The main downside to our stay here was the volume of cheerleaders, they were everywhere and although they were polite and respectful (most of the time) it meant that the main dining area was chaotic all the time. It was noisy and had long queues whenever we went for something to eat. However we also discovered that the food in the El Mercado (quick service) wasn't too good. We never had a hot meal and when we complained to the serving staff they weren't interested so we gave up eating there and used the other hotels or parks instead.
The cheerleaders were competing at different times throughout the day, so they were always around,and particularly liked using the pool near our room to practice their lifts in the water as well as their chants, late in to the night. Again nothing seemed to be done about this by the hotel staff and when we did speak to them about it we were told that they were all over the resort so we couldn't be moved to get away from them (we didn't ask to be moved just for a bit of quiet at midnight).
Having visited the other Disney hotels during our visit we both stated we would probably try somewhere else next time we stay onsite.

The Dining plan
We felt like it was a lot of food, even on the quick service plan. Having read other trip reports on here prior to going we had an idea of places to eat so that we didn't live on burgers, so thanks for the help as i think we would have struggled otherwise.
It did feel a bit limiting as to where we could eat without paying out of pocket and said we would look to stay at a deluxe resort next time so that we could have table service meals with more choice of locations.
I kept a running total of all the meals and snacks we consumed and the cost came to £736 should we have paid for them. Although we would probably have eaten off site, like usual, if we didn't have the plan. We also had 10 snack credits left and 6 meal credits at the end of the holiday which we swapped for Goofy sweets, which will go down well at work.

Annual passes
This is the first year we have upgraded to annual passes as we are going back in October to stay with friends in their villa. Again I asked advice on here regarding the cost and everybody was really helpful as we had no idea what these should be. Using the passes at both Disney and Universal we saved £219 on parking and discounts on merchandise/food etc.

Final thoughts
We had a great holiday, the weather was hot with a couple of storms thrown in for good measure and lots of love bugs. We managed to do all of the rides we wanted to do and also had some down days to just chill out and relax.
The parks were busy but extra magic hours helped as did the fast passes.
Epcot Flower and Garden festival was great and we tried lots of food using snack credits which we probably wouldn't have done otherwise as they did seem quite pricey for the size of the portion.
I was a bit disappointed with Hollywood studios as it does feel as though the place is being taken over by Star wars and as we are not fans (don't shoot us) it was a bit lost on us.
We will stay onsite again in the future but would like to try the deluxe plan instead and a different hotel.
Looking forward to going back in October.

[Labboy]

Great report, thankyou for taking the time to put it together, i love reading trip reports.

[Gingerlife]

Thanks, I didn't know whether to bother or not as its obviously just our opinions but thought that if anybody was considering the dining plan for the first time it may help.

[Moorlandman]

Great report. Sounds like you had a great time. Avoid Feb-May if you don’t like school groups or cheerleaders - they are not a problem in the summer

[lottiesmum0]

Good report- I feel for you with the cheerleading- I heard there were a lot of groups x

[disneypars]

Great report glad you enjoyed yourselves. Shame about the cheerleading groups though.