Happy New Year! We're back and it was awesome.

The Dolphin assigned us the CORNER king 9th floor in the far most EAST wing. As Premex notes, these rooms have two balconies.

We had perfect unobstructed views of Epcot, the "big ball", the fireworks, much of what lies beyond at a nearby hotel plaza (other fireworks on some nights), the Boardwalk, the "lake", and much of the Swan.

It was AWESOME.

I can't believe we got that room.

The hotel was only at around 60% occupancy until the 31st, when locals came in to take more of the rooms as walk-ins.

The parks were actually pretty dead and it was a weird week, crowd wise. Disney didn't seem to know what to expect, so at times it seemed there were more employees than guests.

On the 30th, all the WDW Resorts sent out a memo to the guests to get to Epcot or your chosen park EARLY (and since it was "early entry" day, this means 7:30am), get your hand stamped and ticket read by the computer, and then come back to your hotel to sleep and rest. THEN, go back to your park for the fireworks.

So, we did that along with every one else and THAT was crowded waiting to get in. But since we could walk, it was no problem. For the first time in the history of Disney, there were massive traffic jams on the roads around the parks and resorts and by mid-day they had to close the freeway exits off I-4.

People using buses to get around from the resorts were screwed and had to wait hours just to move a few blocks.

Anyway, that night was amazing - incredible Illumination Fireworks - perfect view only 1 row of people from the front, and so many people when we tried to leave you couldn't even move.

The Dolphin had gifts in our room all week for the Millenium Package and on NYE, a breakfast starting at 12:30am with champagne.

All in all, a wonderful last minute trip in a great room and lots of neat family memories.

Thanks for the room tip!