Thursday, August 7, 2014

The Grand Floridian at Walt Disney World!


In the summer of 2013 we were treated to an absolutely amazing vacation.  We were put up for for 3 days in the gorgeous Grand Floridian Hotel at Walt Disney World.  Now Disney is only an hour away from where we live and between my Mom's friend who gave me tickets every year for Christmas, and my sister who worked there for several years, I have been to Disney more times than I can count. But I had never experienced Disney like this.



When we first got to the hotel we opted against the valet parking, primarily to save money to spend on important things.  So we park across the street and drag our luggage to the front door.  We are greeted before we make it to the front door by a very sharply dressed and warmly welcoming young maitre d wielding a tablet.  He goes through his programmed, yet genuine sounding, spiel as he leads us through the door.  What an imposing and breathtaking view the lobby is.  We ooed and aahed as we soaked in the realization that this was our home for the next 3 days.  The young man then asked our name.   After punching it into his tablet he says "oh, wait here i'll get your key cards."  His surprise, albeit slight, was kind of worrisome.  We looked at each other with puzzled expressions for the two minutes it took to grab our key cards and a cart for our luggage.  He could see our confusion.  "We are heading to the upper floors." he said matter-of-factly and our luggage was placed on a cart by another man. "Follow me," he continued and strode off towards the elevators.  He passed out our cards in the elevator and explained more.  "In order to get to the 3rd floor where your room is you have to first swipe your card on this sensor here and then push the number 3, or else it won't let you up."  We were blown away.  Not only were we in this amazing hotel but we were on the private floors! We were way out of our element but loving every second.

When we step off the elevator we are greeted by a man introduced to us as our concierge.  He smiled warmly, motioned to the desks, and informed us that if we needed anything at all to see them and to not go downstairs with the rif-raf.  We got a good laugh out of this the whole trip. He was calling the people that had to stay on the two downstairs floors rif-raf. and we couldn't even afford to stay down below if we wanted to.  We were taken to our room and our luggage was placed lovingly around. The maitre d had gave us a rundown on everything else involved, like navigating to the parks and information on the restaurants, and then left us to get settled in.  
We had park hopper passes, we had paid for meal plans, and we had spending money.  The rest of the trip was really a blur. We did anything and everything. We made sure to go to magic kingdom, animal kingdom, epcot, and blizzard beach specifically. Where we had a blast at each one. We even had fun lounging around at the hotel and its gorgeous pool late at night.  We ate a lot of really great food including the highlight at Narcoossee's in the Grand Floridian itself were we could see the Epcot fireworks from our tables window.
It was truly and amazing and unforgettable experience that I think we will all treasure forever.



















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