Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa | Taryn's Mad Hatter Adventures

9/12/23

This short trip had been in the works for months. My travel agency owner called an informal meet up to help celebrate the agency’s 10th birthday!

I left my house at 2:30 a.m. to drive to the Philadelphia Airport. I picked up my travel bestie since she lives about 15 minutes from the airport. Our flight was earlyyyyyyyy on Frontier. We met up with another agent who was flying down just for the day.

We landed, got our luggage, ordered an Uber, and went to our resort, Disney’s Saratoga Springs. We changed, freshened up in the bathroom of the lobby, gave our luggage to bell services, and headed off to the bus stop for Magic Kingdom. We were inside the gates at 9:30 a.m.! Today was a Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party event, which meant the park was going to close to regular guests at 6:00 p.m. Those who purchased the event tickets were permitted to enter at 4:00 p.m., while everyone else had to leave by 6:00 p.m.

I was excited to see everything decorated for fall and halloween!

We didn’t really have a plan at all for the morning and afternoon. We checked wait times and decided to go directly to Haunted Mansion. It had a 20 minute posted wait time. From there we went to Pirates of the Caribbean. That was down for the entire morning until now. It had just reopened and we only had a 5 minute wait.

My travel partner got a return time for Tron. So we went over to Tomorrowland. I had a drink break and went on the People Mover while I waited for her. I also decided spur of the moment to make a lunch reservation at Liberty Tree Tavern, which is in my top 3 meals at Disney! There was plenty availability the day of, which is unusual.

In fact, look at the wait times for the rides at 11:00 a.m.:

I’ve been saying this for years…Not So Scary Halloween Party dates are GREAT days to visit Magic Kingdom as a park day! Enter at park opening, and be finished sometime between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. You should be able to hit a majority of the rides, and have some table service dining options if you did not plan ahead.

It was EMPTY!

Our lunch reservation at Liberty Tree Tavern was at 12:30 p.m.

Liberty Tree Tavern is served family style, all-you-care-to-enjoy. Current pricing is $39 per adult, $21 per child, plus tax and gratuity. All serving sizes shown were for two of us.

We started off the meal with the delicious rolls. These are served warm, and were slightly different than what I remembered from the last time I ate here. These have some kind of butter mixture on top. Regardless, they were soft and delicious!

Next was the Declaration Salad–Mixed greens, Apples, Cranberries, and Cheese tossed with Housemade Dressing

This salad was also different than I remember. It was good though. The dressing had a good flavor and was very light. I’m not a huge fan of cranberries, and these were a non-factor really.

After a short while, the main platter and sides came out.

House-made Macaroni & Cheese

This was very good! I like it so much better than the Stouffer’s that they used to serve!

Seasonal Vegetables (Green Beans! I have never seen them serve a vegetable that wasn’t green beans…) and Mashed Potatoes

These were yummy! We did get more of the potatoes. They really are so creamy and good! I personally like to eat the pot roast with them…

Roasted Turkey, Pot Roast, Oven Roasted Pork, Herb Stuffing

The turkey and pot roast are AMAZING! I don’t know that I even tried the pork because I love the other two so much! We did get more pot roast. The stuffing was okay, but I love the mashed potatoes so much that I don’t waste my time with the stuffing. 🙂

House-made Gravy is also served.

The grand finale course here is the Oooey Gooey Toffee Cake–Vanilla Toffee Cake, Chocolate Sauce, Vanilla Ice Cream

This is my favorite dessert in alllllll of the land! The cookie part is warm. IT’S SO DANG GOOD!

We were done eating around 1:30 p.m. We had some plans for the evening non-Disney related, and we still had some time before we had to go back to the resort.

We went to Fantasyland and went on It’s a Small World and Little Mermaid. We walked through the shops on the way out to the bus.

We were back to the resort before 4:00 p.m. I had received a text that our room was ready. So we went to Bell Services to get our luggage. They gave us three options. We could take our luggage and walk to our room. (Saratoga Springs is HUGE so that was a definite no!) We could go to the room and call for our bags. Or they could drive us on a golf cart with our luggage. Of course we opted for the golf cart! I did tip the cast member who drove us, as he carried our bags to the room for us.

We were staying in a 1 bedroom villa. Here’s a little room tour!

I absolutely love this resort. It’s been renovated, and I love the pull down bed in the living room vs. the old sofa beds that were not very comfortable. I also love the full kitchen in the villas. It’s nice to have the option for drinks and snacks.

My friend had scheduled someone to come to the room to give us henna tattoos.

We loved the final products!

After our tattoos, we jumped in an Uber and went to dinner with some friends that live in Windermere. It was a fun night! And we were ready to hit the ground running the next day at Hollywood Studios!

9/30/21

I was so excited to be able to get away during the middle of my daughter’s soccer season, and visit the most magical place on Earth for the 50^th anniversary celebration that was set to officially begin on October 1st! My friend and fellow travel agent Jamie, booked a room the second they were released for our dates. We knew it would book up quickly. I was unlucky with trying to make a reservation with my DVC points. She booked us at Art of Animation in a Little Mermaid room. Just a few weeks ago, I was browsing the DVC website to see if there was any availability, and Saratoga Springs Resort popped up! I snagged a Deluxe Studio in the Preferred section. I was excited to stay here because the rooms have recently been refurbished!

My flight was SUPER early…5:40 a.m. from Philadelphia. I was hoping to avoid a crowded airport with this early time, and make the most of my arrival day.

Upon landing at MCO, I was greeted with these cute wraps on the monorail shuttle to the main terminal.

I wasn’t sure what to expect as far as wait times for the Magical Express, but I decided to get my luggage from baggage claim and head that direction before making a decision to Lyft to the resort.

To my surprise, I was the ONLY person there! One person came after me, so there were only 2 people total on my bus besides the driver.

It was a quick trip to our resort, as we were the only stop. Upon arrival at the resort, there was some construction/refurbishment going on at the main lobby area and around bell services. This caused a little bit of crowding and confusion, but the bell services cast members were working hard trying to get everyone handled! There were little kiosks set up outside for those checking in.

I was starving, so after checking my luggage with bell services (since my room wasn’t ready), I went directly to The Artist’s Palette to check their breakfast options. You no longer HAVE to mobile order, although it is still an option with signage all over the place telling you how to do it. You can walk in here and order your food. I chose to do this so I could take some pictures.

There is a grab and go section, which I did not get to experience on my last trips in May and June! So things are slowly getting back to “normal.”