First off, I should note that we woke up at the ridiculous time of 3:00am NDT (that’s 1:30am Florida time). Why do I mention this? I think it may have coloured my impressions for late in the day, particularly the supper at Narcoossee’s.
Oh, I should also mention that my Trip Reports are likely going to be ridiculously long, detailed, and possibly boring. I’ll try to through in some humour though. You’ve been warned.
Our flight was on Air Canada, departing at 5:50am, connecting through Montreal (and some Burger King breakfast), and on to arrive at MCO at 12:10pm. The flight was uneventful, I slept a bit, Rin slept a lot, and I watched Super 8 (which I enjoyed) as well as part of Green Lantern.
Some of you may know that we had planned on doing the Archery Experience shortly after we arrived, but we felt the expense was unneeded, and we didn’t want to have to rush out of the airport. So once we arrived, it was a leisurely stroll to baggage, on to the Alamo Electronic Kiosks (which were amazingly fast, point to Alamo) and on to the garage. Here, I left Rin with all of the luggage at the front of the garage, and went skipping (yes, I skipped, real men skip) through the row of cars to find the one I wanted. After jumping in and out of every car there, I finally found two I liked, at the very end of the row. I was going between a Mazda 3 and a Hyundai Elantra. While I think the Mazda would have been more fun to drive, I went with the Elantra, since it had XM Satellite Radio, and I love AltNation.
So I waved Rin to come down, and she just stood there. I waved again, she waved back. Oh yeah, the luggage. So I sprinted back to her, and told her to hurry since I didn’t want anyone to take our car. She asked why I didn’t just grab the keys. I didn’t have an answer to that. Still don’t. So I grabbed the two biggest suitcases and proceeded to sprint back to the car. Sprinting with big suitcases is actually more like jogging...
We left the garage, and it was nice to be back in Florida. Sun, palm trees, warmth. Then we hit the toll roads. I've never understood toll roads. If you don't have money to build a road, don't build it. Simple. The main toll booths are still manned, but we did run across a couple on secondary exits that require exact coins, so be aware of that if you’ll be doing a lot of driving. I even saw a sign for a single exit that was SunPass only, but that was later in the trip, on the way to Tampa. Also, if you’re using a GPS, and it tells you to ‘Keep Left’ at the tolls, like mine did, don’t. The left lanes are all SunPass only.
Now, I’m going to sound a bit stuck up here, but only because I’ve stayed Club Level twice before, and I was expecting the same service. When we arrived at Animal Kingdom Lodge, the Security Guard took my ID, gave me my parking pass, and Welcomed me Home. That felt nice, it was the first I’d heard it in almost 3 years. He even radioed ahead to let the attendants know that a Club Level guest was arriving.
We pulled under the porte-cochere, hopped out of the car, and everyone just stood around looking at us. We started getting all of our luggage out, still, everyone stood looking at us. As we started hauling everything in, someone finally approached us, asked if we were the Brandeaus, and offered to escort us to the Lounge for check-in. Not once were we offered Bell Service, nor any help with our luggage.
Once at the Lounge, check-in was a bit of an ordeal. The girl couldn’t figure out how to assign us a room since none were ready (which was understandable, since we were there almost 3 hours before check-in), and once they did figure it all out, they told us we’d have to take our luggage back downstairs to check it with Bell Service. Internally, I almost exploded. I didn’t pay over $400/night to continuously cart my luggage around. Luckily, before the last few things were finalized (and after I’d wandered over to grab some lemonade and a cookie from the food area, yum yum, free food), she corrected herself and offered to have Bell Service come pick up our luggage. We were told we’d get a text when our room was ready.
So, after all was said and done, we decided to explore the resort. Even though we’d stayed here for around 11 nights over the course of 2 trips, we’d never really explored properly. We wandered the lobby, checked out the gift shop a bit (we’d been here many times before for Rin), and wandered out onto the Savannah. My, it was hot. Not just “Oh, we’re in Florida” hot, but “I think we’ve somehow wound up in hell” hot.
But, we had water, sunscreen, and our room wasn’t yet ready, so we sat on a couple of rocking chairs watching the animals, then wandered to other parts of the Savannah. We came across a (relatively new?) female Cast Member by the name of She-Earl (Seriously. We think it might be pronounced like Cheryl.) from South Africa. We talked for a long time, about the animals, about how hot it was (she found the weather to be ridiculous, so it wasn’t just us), about the various parks and the rides in them, and about snacks throughout the World. We probably talked to her for around 2 hours, until I got a text saying our room was ready.
So off to our room. Two Queens instead of the King I had requested, but we were expecting that. AKL really needs more Club Level King Rooms. The one thing I was not expecting was the lack of Welcome/Birthday Package for Rin that has always been given to us for a special occasion (it has a small gift, note and, in this case, Birthday Pin). Strike... um... 3, I think. We got our luggage, unpacked, and I went back up to the Lounge to get scissors and ask about the package for Rin. It turns out they were behind on delivering them, and by the time I got back to the room, she had received it. Yay! They now give a replica Baobob Tree and AKL Pen. I should mention too that Carmen (the woman that I was dealing with at this point, I think I referred to her as Carmella on a 'live' post) was amazing, and made up for any previous issues. She even gave me three roses out of their flower arrangement to give to Rin as a birthday gift. The only problem with Carmen is that she wasn't there the whole time.
After some more messing about the room and the Lodge, including grabbing some of the free appetizers and pop, we headed to Hollywood Studios. Don’t ask me why we went there, we always do Magic Kingdom first. It just kinda happened. (EDIT: I figured it out. MNSSHP was on that night, so if we'd gone to MK, we would've been kicked out shortly) We mostly just wandered, but I think we hit Tower of Terror (a constant favorite), Star Tours (we were both happy with the update) and Rock’n’Roller Coaster (which seemed better than we remembered).
I also had my first true “I’m Home” moment as we walked toward the Sorcerer Mickey Hat from near Toy Story Mania. It was night, so everything was lit up, and something about it just felt right. Rin can attest that I actually held out my arms, and spun around a few times, like you see in cheesey movies.
Oh! I almost forgot. There was a wicked electrical storm going on, and we could see it perfectly from Streets of America. There was some awesome lightning, and I think I got a few good shots on my camera, but I haven’t looked yet to be sure. I forgot how much I missed lightning storms, we never get them here.
Alright, so, onto Narcoossee’s for supper. It was about 9:30pm at this point, so we’d been up for around 20 hours. Our waiter was Amer, from Germany, and Rin and I both really liked him. I’ve been looking forward to this meal since we ate here in 2009. We both ordered Chocolate Milkshakes to drink, but it turned out they’d been changed to Chocolate Smoothies. They were nothing like the fabulous milkshake I had had in 2009, but they were acceptable.
We placed the rest of our orders, and were brought some Sourdough Bread. It was ok, but a little crustier that I’d prefer, and I’m a huge fan of crusty bread. I’m also not a big fan of sourdough.
Then came the appetizers. Rin had the Lump Crab Cakes, and thought they were good, but that she’d had better elsewhere. I had the Rhode Island Calamari, and this is where I think exhaustion caught up to me. Nothing seemed right. First off, I had asked for it with Garlic Toast, which they didn’t do. Second, the calamari had rings and tentacles, and I don’t like the tentacles. Third, it just didn’t taste good. But again, I may have just been over tired.
Next came our mains. I had really wanted the Tanglewood Farms Chicken Breast with Bacon Vinaigrette that was recently taken off the menu. I asked the Club Level concierge to call ahead to request it, but she said it would be best just to ask our server. They didn’t have any Bacon Vinaigrette, so no chicken for me. I had the Grilled Filet Mignon instead, cooked Medium. The menu online says that it comes with Potato Gratin, but mine came with Roasted Potatoes and Vegetables. I can’t remember if I requested that, or if that’s how it comes now. It was ok, but nothing spectacular. I feel that I had much better steak later in the trip.
Rin had the Surf and Turf which she enjoyed. She felt the lobster was quite good, but that she too had better steak later in the trip.
Finally, dessert. We were both full at this point, so got the desserts to go. We never ate them since we were always full from everything else we ate.
Final Thoughts
Am I Glad I Ate Here? - Despite the fact that I was disappointed with the meal, I am glad I ate here. Basically, it gave me closure, and the knowledge that I won’t be going back any time soon. I’ll always treasure my first meal here, but I feel that it’s just not worth it to go back.
Would I Go Back? - Well, again, no. At least, not any time soon.
Rating: Me - 6/10
Rin - 7.5/10
Cost - $170.81 (Note that we were on the Deluxe Dining Plan, so these costs are just for reference, we didn’t actually pay that much)
After the meal, we were done. Hell, I had had enough of this day in the middle of the meal (I think I may have almost fallen asleep at the table), so we went back to the room, looked at the animals for a few minutes, and slept. Glorious sleep.
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