Very short review - 2 adults, 1 toddler, 1 week at POFQ

Rabel · 28 Jan 20, 10:07 AM

Please be gentle with me - this is my first attempt at doing anything like this. I have decided to post a summary of our trip as I know how helpful I found other people's reports so hopefully at least one person finds this helpful.

The cast: me (>40, default planner, organiser, packer), DH (>40, only really wanted to do Pirates of the Caribbean), DS (aka Trouble, >3, has been to Disney two times before).

When: January 2020

Flights: Virgin Economy Classic, in the bubble (LGW to MCO)

Duration: 1 week (yes it was a little short but I hadn't anticipated doing this trip, we went over so that DH could go to a conference so only had limited time)

Stayed: POFQ, building 4, overlooking a nice garden area that everyone smoked in (v smelly) and the loading bay which started at 4am. Had the QSDP included.

Onto the report...

Travel - we were in the bubble and had three seats across. The last 2 times we also went with Virgin but were in premier economy. Honestly these seats were OK (I missed the leg room), and the three across worked well for us. I am debating whether it is worth booking PE again until Trouble is a little older. I did find that the kids selection on the entertainment system was limited (he watched the same programmes over and over again) but everything else seemed to work. We had to wait over an hour on arrival into MCO to get through passport control (and had a Trunki which was very helpful for some of it). On the way back we had to queue for over 95 mins to get through passport and security at MCO which was horrific and we almost didn't make the flight.

Travel to and from the airport - we used the Magical Express to get to the resort, which worked well although took a long time. The return journey in the hire car was easy (there is a new petrol station near the exit which is expensive but useful if you need to top up the fuel). We did pay extra to check in at Disney Springs which we find very useful and so much easier than lugging everything across MCO.

Resort - we had visited POFQ before but hadn't stayed there. The overall summary is that we liked the pool area, the feel of the resort and the decoration. However, the check in staff were incompetent (didn't link my park tickets with the magic bands, needed prompting to set up my pin number for QSDP and didn't give me any information about the resort despite me asking - by that point I had a small boy running riot and just wanted to give up). Any time that I had to go back to check in to ask or query something I was treated like a nuisance, even when the area was empty at 6am in the morning, so wasn't very happy about that and have fed back to management through the address in the welcome letter in the room.

We opted out of housekeeping and had no issues with that but wasn't told how to get rid of rubbish so just kept dumping it in the bin by the lift. The room wasn't brilliantly clean when we arrived but it wasn't too bad. There was an issue with the air conditioner unit which was leaking when we arrived. We turned it off, reported it and then was surprised when maintenance decided to enter the room when we were in there without knocking (think that the chap was surprised as well). That also got reported to management!

There was limited choice in the food court, but it does have the multiple choice coca cola machines which was lovely. We did walk over to Riverside which has more choice and enjoyed the ice cream over there! We did have to make sure that we got all of the sides with the kids meals at FQ (they had a tendency to hand over the main sandwich and forget the apples/grapes that came with it and that were kept behind the counters).

We did the Beignet Dash on Sunday morning ($15 plus tax which almost makes it $16). All three of us had to pay to take part (the minimum age was 3) and they only accepted magic band payments on the morning. There was about 30 odd people doing it, and a good split between runners and walkers. There were plenty of kids signed up as well. I am pleased to report that Trouble ran about 80% of the course, with some detours to chase a duck and a lizard, and was not the last to finish. It was about 1.2 miles long, however it is an out and back route and there were a number of groups who decided to cut the course short and just get the plastic medal and badge and beignets. This is not a run I would pay to repeat, but it was fun to do. I would say that you need to eat the beignets when they are fresh and outside; there is a lot of icing sugar on them and it goes everywhere.

Disney transport - all of the bus and boat drivers were lovely. However the tracking system they have is useless and the "arrivals board" at the resort rarely worked. The buses are noisy and Trouble did not like that bit. The Skyliner worked really well. I am not a fan of heights and found that it was rather peaceful (with the exception of the wobbling when the wind caught it). It is not the quickest way to get between EPCOT and Hollywood Studios - walking is much faster - but it is a nice way to see the surrounding area.

Parks - these were a lot busier than I expected, mainly as we were there over Martin Luther King day/weekend. The crowds did drop off on the Wednesday. We were limited in the rides that we could do as DS wasn't keen on loud noises or dark experiences - I had to take him out of Philharmagic, he then refused Haunted Mansion and Muppets 3D. I did get him to enjoy the Beauty and the Beast singalong and the Frozen singalong. He loved Barnstormer, Aliens Swirling Saucers and Frozen Ever After. He really loved the playgrounds (Boneyard in Animal Kingdom, Dumbo area in Magic Kingdom and the EPCOT play area round the back of the old Mouse Gear). Whilst not a park, DS enjoyed seeing the Cars characters at Art of Animation. The area was under renovation when we visited but does look lovely.

QSDP - this worked rather well for us. We booked breakfast at Be our Guest (and I managed to get a reservation for the end of our stay with 24 h notice) and enjoyed the food there - although the kids porridge was cold by the time it got to the table. It did get busy and there was a wait for the food. We sat in the Rose Gallery each time which was quieter and lighter. We had dinner twice in Pizzafari Family Style which was very nice and I would happily go back. The rest of the meals were hit and miss, due to trying to feed DS and carrying a tray on my own. We ended up swapping quite a few credits for sweets on the last day - could only do snack credits in World of Disney and Ghirardelli for some reason but was able to swap out meal credits for 3 snacks at Goofy's Candy Store. I would normally use snack credits on coffee/cake but the queues were too long at Starbucks in the various parks and there was a lack of other choices (the cake selection at POFQ was poor). We really enjoyed the ice cream and brownies at Ghirardelli!

Overall - this was booked at short notice and I didn't have much time to plan what we were doing (didn't know whether it was going to be 2 or 3 people each day due to DH' plans). The holiday weekend was much busier than I expected, and the weather varied from 25C down to 6C during the day. It was the first time staying at POFQ and I am not certain whether I would stay there again just due to the staff - the resort itself was lovely although very loud. I missed the convenience of walking to Disney Springs from Saratoga Springs. We were not keen on the bus system - too erratic - so may decide to hire a car if we go again (and I do have a long planned break booked in December which we may cancel). We also had issues with staff members at the park entrances, which I was not happy with. However, we did have a lovely time and enjoyed doing rides together (I am the wimp in the family and did scream all the way through Barnstormer). The character meets were great for DS and we have some lovely photos!

Apologies for the slightly meandering report!

welsh wizard · 28 Jan 20, 10:32 AM

Thank you for sharing very useful. It is hard with a little one but worth it for the wonderful memories.

Woohoobb · 29 Jan 20, 09:14 AM

I�m with you on all these points. MLK weekend was bedlam! Cast members have left a lot to be desired and things haven�t improved on subsequent days. We are still out here and I�m ready to come home! I�ve avoided MK like the plague as it�s just horrific and the tour groups are downright lethal! This will be our last Disney trip for a good while now as I just can�t be bothered to go 10 rounds for everything, especially eldest daughters age (I�ve been forced to carry her passport with me as they refuse to believe she�s under 3! ).
Glad you had a good time with your son and the characters!
Your first foray into trip writing was great 👍

Rabel · 29 Jan 20, 09:20 AM

Originally Posted by Woohoobb

I�m with you on all these points. MLK weekend was bedlam! Cast members have left a lot to be desired and things haven�t improved on subsequent days. We are still out here and I�m ready to come home! I�ve avoided MK like the plague as it�s just horrific and the tour groups are downright lethal! This will be our last Disney trip for a good while now as I just can�t be bothered to go 10 rounds for everything, especially eldest daughters age (I�ve been forced to carry her passport with me as they refuse to believe she�s under 3! ).
Glad you had a good time with your son and the characters!
Your first foray into trip writing was great 👍

Thank you, it wasn't just me! I don't think that the cold weather helped much either, but some of the cast members on the gate were missing the magic. We did have some lovely interactions (mainly with the costumed characters) and the photopass photographers were very good.

I hope that you have managed to enjoy the rest of your trip and explored the non-MK parts of Disney.

Woohoobb · 29 Jan 20, 09:32 AM

Originally Posted by Rabel

Thank you, it wasn't just me! I don't think that the cold weather helped much either, but some of the cast members on the gate were missing the magic. We did have some lovely interactions (mainly with the costumed characters) and the photopass photographers were very good.

I hope that you have managed to enjoy the rest of your trip and explored the non-MK parts of Disney.

No it wasn�t just you! This was our last �give them the benefit of the doubt� trip. In all honesty it�s just not magical anymore. The constant penny pinching that is so blatant just detracts from everything. We did a �cheap� top up holiday just before Xmas and took the kids to seaworld/Busch gardens for the Christmas lights (I�m no fan of captive animals but Sesame Street was excellent and we basically camped out there everyday) and had a much better time. The decorations are better than Disney and the Sesame Street Xmas parade was brilliant. Getting to Busch is a bit of a pain with the smalls but it was worth it. The Xmas stuff was brill and Sesame Street over there has an epic playground (we basically stayed there the whole day). I didn�t mind paying admission for them even when the adults literally went on nothing because it wasn�t the �eye watering costs� of Disney. If you decide to do the dec trip I�d seriously consider switching parks and just wander. We loved the get up and have a leisurely breakfast before hitting the parks for a few hours then back for bed. The kids were on schedule (they are on it now as well) and not so overwhelmed with crowds. It was super busy over thanksgiving but the next week you could skittle around the parks and not hit anyone 🥳

Rabel · 29 Jan 20, 12:00 PM

It really is a pity - I have wanted to see the Christmas decorations over there for so long. I haven't tried Seaworld for about 25 years but am very tempted with the Sesame Street bit (even the manatee exhibit in EPCOT was rammed when we went this time - it is normally deserted). Thank you for the suggestions, to be honest DS would probably be as happy playing on slides and swings as in the parks but we got some lovely photos of him cuddling the characters.

Serious thinking time!

Woohoobb · 29 Jan 20, 12:59 PM

Originally Posted by Rabel

It really is a pity - I have wanted to see the Christmas decorations over there for so long. I haven't tried Seaworld for about 25 years but am very tempted with the Sesame Street bit (even the manatee exhibit in EPCOT was rammed when we went this time - it is normally deserted). Thank you for the suggestions, to be honest DS would probably be as happy playing on slides and swings as in the parks but we got some lovely photos of him cuddling the characters.

Serious thinking time!

Sesame Street has a load of character meet and greats. My eldest loved meeting Elmo and Cookie Monster. We must have done at least 50 over the 2 weeks. They also have the Count, and some of the newer ones who�s names escape me meeting outside on the street. It also has 7 rides: a small teacup ride, the seacarousel, rollercoaster, flat train ride, an up in the air teacup ride, a drop ride and a weird almost pirate ship ride but it went side to side and swung round. She had the best time and the rides over at Busch in sesame are different again. They had a cool little baby water ride and a dumbo-esque ride. A few others but I couldn�t get her off those two 😂 there were literally no lines anywhere I think the most we waited was 10 mins. Much more manageable with a toddler, although she is very good in a queue. Have a google for pics the maps don�t do it justice!

Rabel · 29 Jan 20, 02:38 PM

Originally Posted by Woohoobb

Sesame Street has a load of character meet and greats. My eldest loved meeting Elmo and Cookie Monster. We must have done at least 50 over the 2 weeks. They also have the Count, and some of the newer ones who�s names escape me meeting outside on the street. It also has 7 rides: a small teacup ride, the seacarousel, rollercoaster, flat train ride, an up in the air teacup ride, a drop ride and a weird almost pirate ship ride but it went side to side and swung round. She had the best time and the rides over at Busch in sesame are different again. They had a cool little baby water ride and a dumbo-esque ride. A few others but I couldn�t get her off those two 😂 there were literally no lines anywhere I think the most we waited was 10 mins. Much more manageable with a toddler, although she is very good in a queue. Have a google for pics the maps don�t do it justice!

I want to meet cookie monster! Sounds brilliant, and just up my street even if DS has no idea who they are (although to be fair he didn't know who some of the characters were in Disney either). It's on my list, thank you.

Nic18076 · 29 Jan 20, 02:55 PM

Thank you for posting. I think we had the same room the first time we went to POFQ - the lorries restocking the Foodcourt seemed to be going all night. We were lucky though and I went to reception (almost in tears because of lack of sleep to be honest), and because it was August and not that busy for them they were able to move us. It�s a shame that the staff were not helpful to you - I hope that you get some response to your feedback. I guess everybody can have an unhelpful moment but it�s not good if they were all at that end of the scale all the time.
I know what you mean about those beignets - icing sugar explosion! 🙂

Rabel · 29 Jan 20, 03:13 PM

Surprisingly the room is marked as "low noise" on the touring plan website, but those lorries just didn't stop. When I went to ask the staff the next morning they helpfully told me they were sold out, so I ended up relying on ear plugs and exhaustion. I think that we had the back up staff given how unfriendly and unhelpful the majority were.

The moral of the story is to avoid the back of building 4 in FQ!

28 Jan 20, 10:07 AM	#1
	28 Jan 20, 10:07 AM Rabel Very Serious Dibber
Rabel Very Serious Dibber Join Date: May 17	Very short review - 2 adults, 1 toddler, 1 week at POFQ Please be gentle with me - this is my first attempt at doing anything like this. I have decided to post a summary of our trip as I know how helpful I found other people's reports so hopefully at least one person finds this helpful. The cast: me (>40, default planner, organiser, packer), DH (>40, only really wanted to do Pirates of the Caribbean), DS (aka Trouble, >3, has been to Disney two times before). When: January 2020 Flights: Virgin Economy Classic, in the bubble (LGW to MCO) Duration: 1 week (yes it was a little short but I hadn't anticipated doing this trip, we went over so that DH could go to a conference so only had limited time) Stayed: POFQ, building 4, overlooking a nice garden area that everyone smoked in (v smelly) and the loading bay which started at 4am. Had the QSDP included. Onto the report... Travel - we were in the bubble and had three seats across. The last 2 times we also went with Virgin but were in premier economy. Honestly these seats were OK (I missed the leg room), and the three across worked well for us. I am debating whether it is worth booking PE again until Trouble is a little older. I did find that the kids selection on the entertainment system was limited (he watched the same programmes over and over again) but everything else seemed to work. We had to wait over an hour on arrival into MCO to get through passport control (and had a Trunki which was very helpful for some of it). On the way back we had to queue for over 95 mins to get through passport and security at MCO which was horrific and we almost didn't make the flight. Travel to and from the airport - we used the Magical Express to get to the resort, which worked well although took a long time. The return journey in the hire car was easy (there is a new petrol station near the exit which is expensive but useful if you need to top up the fuel). We did pay extra to check in at Disney Springs which we find very useful and so much easier than lugging everything across MCO. Resort - we had visited POFQ before but hadn't stayed there. The overall summary is that we liked the pool area, the feel of the resort and the decoration. However, the check in staff were incompetent (didn't link my park tickets with the magic bands, needed prompting to set up my pin number for QSDP and didn't give me any information about the resort despite me asking - by that point I had a small boy running riot and just wanted to give up). Any time that I had to go back to check in to ask or query something I was treated like a nuisance, even when the area was empty at 6am in the morning, so wasn't very happy about that and have fed back to management through the address in the welcome letter in the room. We opted out of housekeeping and had no issues with that but wasn't told how to get rid of rubbish so just kept dumping it in the bin by the lift. The room wasn't brilliantly clean when we arrived but it wasn't too bad. There was an issue with the air conditioner unit which was leaking when we arrived. We turned it off, reported it and then was surprised when maintenance decided to enter the room when we were in there without knocking (think that the chap was surprised as well). That also got reported to management! There was limited choice in the food court, but it does have the multiple choice coca cola machines which was lovely. We did walk over to Riverside which has more choice and enjoyed the ice cream over there! We did have to make sure that we got all of the sides with the kids meals at FQ (they had a tendency to hand over the main sandwich and forget the apples/grapes that came with it and that were kept behind the counters). We did the Beignet Dash on Sunday morning ($15 plus tax which almost makes it $16). All three of us had to pay to take part (the minimum age was 3) and they only accepted magic band payments on the morning. There was about 30 odd people doing it, and a good split between runners and walkers. There were plenty of kids signed up as well. I am pleased to report that Trouble ran about 80% of the course, with some detours to chase a duck and a lizard, and was not the last to finish. It was about 1.2 miles long, however it is an out and back route and there were a number of groups who decided to cut the course short and just get the plastic medal and badge and beignets. This is not a run I would pay to repeat, but it was fun to do. I would say that you need to eat the beignets when they are fresh and outside; there is a lot of icing sugar on them and it goes everywhere. Disney transport - all of the bus and boat drivers were lovely. However the tracking system they have is useless and the "arrivals board" at the resort rarely worked. The buses are noisy and Trouble did not like that bit. The Skyliner worked really well. I am not a fan of heights and found that it was rather peaceful (with the exception of the wobbling when the wind caught it). It is not the quickest way to get between EPCOT and Hollywood Studios - walking is much faster - but it is a nice way to see the surrounding area. Parks - these were a lot busier than I expected, mainly as we were there over Martin Luther King day/weekend. The crowds did drop off on the Wednesday. We were limited in the rides that we could do as DS wasn't keen on loud noises or dark experiences - I had to take him out of Philharmagic, he then refused Haunted Mansion and Muppets 3D. I did get him to enjoy the Beauty and the Beast singalong and the Frozen singalong. He loved Barnstormer, Aliens Swirling Saucers and Frozen Ever After. He really loved the playgrounds (Boneyard in Animal Kingdom, Dumbo area in Magic Kingdom and the EPCOT play area round the back of the old Mouse Gear). Whilst not a park, DS enjoyed seeing the Cars characters at Art of Animation. The area was under renovation when we visited but does look lovely. QSDP - this worked rather well for us. We booked breakfast at Be our Guest (and I managed to get a reservation for the end of our stay with 24 h notice) and enjoyed the food there - although the kids porridge was cold by the time it got to the table. It did get busy and there was a wait for the food. We sat in the Rose Gallery each time which was quieter and lighter. We had dinner twice in Pizzafari Family Style which was very nice and I would happily go back. The rest of the meals were hit and miss, due to trying to feed DS and carrying a tray on my own. We ended up swapping quite a few credits for sweets on the last day - could only do snack credits in World of Disney and Ghirardelli for some reason but was able to swap out meal credits for 3 snacks at Goofy's Candy Store. I would normally use snack credits on coffee/cake but the queues were too long at Starbucks in the various parks and there was a lack of other choices (the cake selection at POFQ was poor). We really enjoyed the ice cream and brownies at Ghirardelli! Overall - this was booked at short notice and I didn't have much time to plan what we were doing (didn't know whether it was going to be 2 or 3 people each day due to DH' plans). The holiday weekend was much busier than I expected, and the weather varied from 25C down to 6C during the day. It was the first time staying at POFQ and I am not certain whether I would stay there again just due to the staff - the resort itself was lovely although very loud. I missed the convenience of walking to Disney Springs from Saratoga Springs. We were not keen on the bus system - too erratic - so may decide to hire a car if we go again (and I do have a long planned break booked in December which we may cancel). We also had issues with staff members at the park entrances, which I was not happy with. However, we did have a lovely time and enjoyed doing rides together (I am the wimp in the family and did scream all the way through Barnstormer). The character meets were great for DS and we have some lovely photos! Apologies for the slightly meandering report!

29 Jan 20, 09:14 AM	#3
	29 Jan 20, 09:14 AM Woohoobb Excited about Disney
Woohoobb Excited about Disney Join Date: Oct 16	I�m with you on all these points. MLK weekend was bedlam! Cast members have left a lot to be desired and things haven�t improved on subsequent days. We are still out here and I�m ready to come home! I�ve avoided MK like the plague as it�s just horrific and the tour groups are downright lethal! This will be our last Disney trip for a good while now as I just can�t be bothered to go 10 rounds for everything, especially eldest daughters age (I�ve been forced to carry her passport with me as they refuse to believe she�s under 3! ). Glad you had a good time with your son and the characters! Your first foray into trip writing was great 👍 Edited at 09:15 AM.

29 Jan 20, 12:00 PM	#6
	29 Jan 20, 12:00 PM Rabel Very Serious Dibber Thread Starter
Rabel Thread Starter Very Serious Dibber Join Date: May 17	It really is a pity - I have wanted to see the Christmas decorations over there for so long. I haven't tried Seaworld for about 25 years but am very tempted with the Sesame Street bit (even the manatee exhibit in EPCOT was rammed when we went this time - it is normally deserted). Thank you for the suggestions, to be honest DS would probably be as happy playing on slides and swings as in the parks but we got some lovely photos of him cuddling the characters. Serious thinking time!

29 Jan 20, 03:13 PM	#10
	29 Jan 20, 03:13 PM Rabel Very Serious Dibber Thread Starter
Rabel Thread Starter Very Serious Dibber Join Date: May 17	Surprisingly the room is marked as "low noise" on the touring plan website, but those lorries just didn't stop. When I went to ask the staff the next morning they helpfully told me they were sold out, so I ended up relying on ear plugs and exhaustion. I think that we had the back up staff given how unfriendly and unhelpful the majority were. The moral of the story is to avoid the back of building 4 in FQ!