I hope that this information will also help others planning vacations both to WDW and to other places.

What went well

Spending five solid days at the parks

We only visited Walt Disney World itself and avoided other attractions such as Universal Studios.  For just WDW, this time proved to be exactly what we needed.  Had the weather been warmer and we were visiting Blizzard Beach, we would have wanted an additional day.  Given the size of the parks and how much there is to do, five days was just right.

The Disney Deluxe Dining Plan

Disney food prices are quite expensive.  In particular their sit down restaurants are quite pricy.  Breakfast each morning for the four of us was $60.  Lunch varied from $70 to $110 and dinner varied from $90-$180.  These prices do not include tips.  Given these prices, the dining plan enabled us to save significantly.  It also provided us a good break to get away from the chaos of the parks and experience some very interesting restaurants.

Making dining a big part of the planning

In addition to spending a great deal of time figuring out how much time we needed at the parks and in which order we wanted to see them, I also spent a great deal of time planning which restaurants to visit.  A number of the restaurants – particularly Coral Reef, Citricos, and Sci-Fi Diner, have their own characteristics and provided as much enjoyment as the rides.  For future vacations, I will also spend time looking for interesting places to eat.

Planning what rides to go on and when

The parks were a lot more crowded than we expected, but by using the strategy of visiting popular rides early in the morning combined with FastPass, we rarely had to wait.  We did have access to the tour plans mentioned in the Unofficial Guide to WDW mentioned below – but they were basically worthless.  They either did not contain the rides we were interested in, did not factor in eating meals, or assumed we could get our kids up at the crack of dawn to get to the parks before they open.

Filling our days solid with entertainment, combined with resting intervals

In the past, we often felt that we spent too much time at some locations.  At other times, things just moved at too frantic of a pace and we became tired too quickly.  During this trip, we were quite busy while we went on ride after ride, but we had about an hour each for lunch and dinner that we used to relax.  This worked out quite well – allowing us to move at a fast pace but buffer it with relaxation periods.

Taking the new Canon G11 instead of an SLR

For once, I did not want to drag around a larger SLR and lenses.  A number of people did this at the parks and while WDW did provide storage for many of the rides, this wasn’t the case for all of them.  The G11 worked out quite nice here and fit in my pocket when not in use.

Taking the kids at ages 5 and 6

We saw a lot of babies and younger children at the parks and many of their parents looked quite miserable.  While WDW rides are in general tame, there are a number of them that will terrify younger children.  Our older son was still scared by many of the rides while the younger one had absolutely no problems.  There are also height restrictions on some of the rides that in a few cases did not allow our five year old to ride.  From this experience five years old is probably the bare minimum I would want my child to be to take them to the parks.  Younger than that and the trip becomes more for the parents than for the kids.

What went OK

Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge

We stayed here for the entire trip in a room with a savannah view.  The idea was for the kids to see animals from the room when they wake up and this worked well on one occasion.  While the hotel definitely caters to kids, we were so busy at the resorts that we made little use of it.  In addition, the rooms were quite small and the bed was among the least comfortable we have ever slept on.  I had originally planned to stay at the Grand Floridian but decided against it because I was worried the kids would not find it as interesting.  We visited the Grand Floridian to eat at Citricos and for the hotel itself this assumption was accurate.  Therefore, while I was not very impressed by the Animal Kingdom Jambo House resort, it was probably a decent choice.

The Weather

Of course it is impossible to predict the weather and how was I to know that Seattle would be on average twenty degrees warmer than Orlando while we were there.  On the other hand, except for our last day it hardly rained there.  We were able to do all of the rides except for the water related ones, so it wasn’t that bad.

Going in the 2nd week of January

The guide book listed below stated that the second week in January – after New Years when all of the kids have gone back to school – is the best time to go.  Instead, the parks were quite crowded and we needed to strategize how to see things in order to not spend too much time in the lines.  Luckily, we did not spend much time in the lines do to careful planning – though some rides reached wait times as long as 120 minutes.

What didn’t go well

The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World

This book should be renamed – “The whiner’s guide to WDW”.  Most of this book was completely unhelpful and often completely false.  The reviews of restaurants were not accurate and the descriptions of the rides – in particular how appropriate they are for kids – was not correct.  I just really had the impression that the authors have never been anywhere outside of Disney World and have no concept of the outside world.

Disney’s vaunted customer service

When I visited the parks fourteen years ago, I marveled at how happy everyone at the resorts was and the degree to which people (called “cast members”) would go through to make sure you had the best trip possible.  This is no longer the case and I even found the service to be rude on occasion.  In general I would give their customer service an “OK” rating.

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At the time, Eitan and Nathan were 23 months and 10 months old.  Nelya wanted to take a nice relaxing vacation.  Her ideal vacation was resting by a beach, but she wasn’t against shopping.  My ideal vacation was exploring an exotic location.  I spent months searching for the ideal destination, with the end result being the island of Sentosa in Singapore.

Sentosa is a small island literally connected to downtown Singapore.  While it is very close to sites to see, it is geared towards families and has an aquarium, animal enclosures, a man made beach, and paths going through small patches of jungle.  The merlion above, which is the symbol of Singapore, is also found in Sentosa and at night there is a laser light show near it.  The following shot came from our hotel window.  Of course, the background leaves little doubt that we were in one of the busiest ports of Asia.

Singapore is a great place to photograph animals.  They have three zoos, seashores, and a large patch of tropical jungle called Bukit Timah.  Unfortunately my camera fogged up there so I don’t have any shots of it.  I do have shots of the other zoos.

They have an ‘ordinary’ zoo, which is a large form of the zoos we have near us.

However, they also have two very unusual zoos.  The first is a night zoo, which is located right next to the normal zoo and opens right when it closes, making it possible to do both in a long day.  The night zoo contains only nocturnal animals.

Finally, they have Jurong Bird Park, the largest zoo devoted to birds in the world.  The zoo is humongous and features the largest aviary in the world.  I would love to go back there with better lenses someday.

Singapore is extremely safe and about as clean as possible.  Everyone there is very friendly and helpful (friendliness is part of the schooling there) and I was rather taken back by the fact that whenever I looked lost, someone would stop and actually ask to help me – without any ulterior motives of selling me anything.

Nelya loved that her favorite flower, the Plumeria, was everywhere around.  Actually one of the most famous varieties of it is called Singapura.

Nelya also loved shopping, particularly in nearby Malaysia where she picked up the latest in fake fashions.  I liked the electronics malls, though the prices were higher than in the US – even after bargaining.  As for what Eitan and Nathan thought of the trip, the pictures tell more than words.

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First, the logistics.  This is the tallest building in the world used solely as a hotel.  While there are hotels located in taller buildings, those buildings also have office spaces and other uses.  The other detail is every room in this hotel is a suite.  Unlike the huge Las Vegas hotels with thousands of rooms, this hotel has only a bit over three hundred.  Even getting a close look at this hotel can be a challenge.  Every entrance to the hotel is blocked from several hundred meters by security personnel.  A select few visitors are allowed to see the inside of the hotel each day for fifty dollars a person.  Photography, though, is strictly forbidden.  Luckily, photography is not forbidden for guests.

The inside of the hotel features the tallest hotel lobby in the world.

Each floor has its own lobby and private butler.  When we first arrived in our room, we were given a “tour” for over half an hour.  Our room had a two story view and was 250 square meters in size.  When we first entered the room, we thought this must be the lobby!

The desk in the front had a laptop and printer available for use whenever we wanted.  Going passed and around the stairs we came to a bar and our living room.

The TV has multiple uses – from getting the standard (amazing variety of) channels, to getting free on demand movies, to seeing who is at the door when someone rings the bell.  The boxes on the tables contained a variety of sweets and dates.   The fruit bowl was filled each day and we received complementary copies of not only newspapers, but a variety of magazines.  The following is the view from the upstairs.

I love the touch of the projected clock on the wall.  Turning around there is the bedroom.

Although the bed looks small, it is huge.  If the pillows on the bed aren’t suitable, a “pillow menu” was available from which you can choose your ideal pillow.  We tried ordering a number of different pillows to test them out, but wound up kicking most of them off the bed.  The bed faces another full featured television and, in our room, a view of the Jumeirah Beach Hotel – which before the Burj al Arab was considered the best hotel in Dubai.

The bathroom was even more impressive.

By the sink was a complementary set of a complete line of Hermes products for him and her.  These weren’t tiny bottles – but were instead the full sized products.  Just the Hermes products would normally cost over $300 in a store!  The stand up shower had jets that hit you from the sides (very nice) and in the back was a huge Jacuzzi.

As nice as the room was, the service completely blew it away.  Our butler constantly brought us interesting snacks to try – such as some of the most delicious cookies I have ever had, to wonderful fruit drinks, to foie gras (“duck paste”).  All of this, as with everything else, was complementary.  While the hotel is expensive, they don’t nickel and dime you to death as they do in other hotels. 

Every time we left our room, the room was completely remade.  I heard that the entire staff of the hotel meets every morning and discusses their guests.  It seems like everyone knows you there and they are all beyond friendly.  One time we mentioned that we were going to take a walk by the beach.  Our butler quickly dropped off some complementary beach sandals and a beach bag in case we wanted to buy something.  We took a rather quick walk and came back up to find our room completely made.  On our bed was foot balm – in case our feet were hurting from the walk.

For breakfast, the food was exquisite and included pastries and fruits flown in from Europe and elsewhere in the world.  Perhaps the best breakfast I ever had was there.  I was glad that I booked the room with breakfast included – as the normal price was $100 per person.  The silverware, by the way, was Christofle ($20,000 for a set) and the plates were made exclusively for the hotel by a well known company that I have since forgotten.

Not only did the hotel have its own private beach and pool (with a life guard literally every 3 meters – there were so many life guards it was comical), but we had free access to the Wild Wadi amusement park.  This is a rather small park, but it makes up for its size in quality.  The tube ride is an interesting concept – where you sit in tubes and are jetted to the top of the hill where you then slide down.  That’s right – no walking up wooden stairs like in most other water parks.  Obviously I did not have my camera there, but I did get this shot of the super slide from a distance.

I had the opportunity to walk around the hotel and get some shots.

In the front of the hotel are fireballs that they have every so often.  The Burj al Arab was clearly the best hotel that we have ever stayed in, and we are planning to return there in 2011, when we will get to compare it with the new Burj Dubai – already the tallest building in the world and still growing.

One detail I forgot to mention before, while we were staying there Roger Federer was also a guest – in the same type of room that we had.  Of course, we did not get a chance to meet him.  Shortly before we checked in, Will Smith checked out.  A few weeks before we arrived, Madona stayed there.

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Imagine that someone woke up someday and thought.

“I live here in some desolate area of Wyoming, but I kind of like Chicago.  So, I’ll build Chicago right here.”

The scale of building in Dubai is matched by nowhere on Earth.  When we were there, every patch of ground in sight was the future location of some skyscraper.  The following shot gives you an idea.  This is part of the Marina complex, which is now complete.

Admittedly, the original reason we went to Dubai was for the shopping.  Dubai is well known as the shopping destination both of the Russian rich and famous as well as the bargain seekers.  Normally when we are bargaining for a price, Nelya and I will use Russian with each other to discuss what price we should offer.  This approach did not work at all there.  Neither did using Tajik, as the large persian population there understood it very well.

Although Dubai is known for its shopping, we weren’t really impressed by it there.  While every high end brand you can imagine is available there, the prices were not bargains by any means.  The silk souq did not really compare to the silk markets of Singapore and electronics and camera equipment were more expensive there than in the US.  We did however get decent bargains on gold and a beautiful silk Persian rug.  The quantities of gold in the gold souq itself was impressive.

Nelya and I both had fun at the spice souq, where you could buy vials of saffron for a quarter.  It was quite mind boggling seeing saffron for sale by the kilo.  The vials made great gifts for friends and coworkers upon returning. 

Malls in Dubai made the largest of our malls look tame.  They are currently constructing the largest mall in the world – far larger than the current largest mall located in Edmonton.  We went to a relatively new mall called Ibn Batuta, where each section of the mall resembled a different part of the world.  The following shot is of a ceiling in a mall, not a mosque or any historic structure.

The primary mistake we made with Dubai was not bringing our kids.  Like a lot of people, we were worried that the Middle East could be a dangerous place and was no place for children.  We could not have been more wrong.  Children are welcome everywhere there and there are many playgrounds and activities just for them.  Almost every hotel has baby sitting services.  Now I realize that the truth is the opposite.  The Middle East is one of the easiest places to take children, with children being far more welcome than they are in most places in the United States.

We started our trip in the Oasis Beach Hotel.  This was a very nice hotel and would easily qualify for at least 4 stars in the US.  Next to our subsequent destination it was a drop in the bucket, but for the price it was a very nice place.  The picture below was from our window.

Dubai is a very international place.  Tourist flock there from almost every corner of the world, with the exception of the United States.  We saw Germans, French, Russians, Indians, Pakistanis, Venezuelans, Chinese, Australians, and Kenyans there – but hardly a single American.  Although many signs are in Arabic, English is widely used there and most people understand it.  In fact I suspect more people understand English there than Arabic!

I will keep the highlight of the trip for the next day’s post though, where we had the chance to stay in the best hotel in the world.

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