Editor’s Note: This blog is brought to you from our friend Alessandra Bisi from Italy. She promises to do a review of Halloween Horror Nights from last fall and information on international travelers. Thank you Alessandra!
I began planning this trip with months and months on advance, we are from Italy so we planned a long trip of two weeks and I was set and ready to go for our last week of September-first week of October thanks to Travel On A Dream; I had everything planned ADRS, schedules, shopping days, water park days, everything. I went with my boyfriend Alessandro, he didn’t knew anything about WDW and he definitely didn’t know what to expect from this trip.
When we arrived Alessandro was stunned with all the lakes around and in the property and his fishing soul began to kick in (he loves to fish since he was 10 years old) so he began to ask if I knew anything about fishing at WDW. I must say I was a little annoyed at the begging, I like to plan everything and thinking of sacrificing a morning in WDW for fishing wasn’t in my plans, but we eventually went to bell services and asked for some information. We stayed at POP Century and the lovely cast member Kelly from Australia helped us out even though she didn’t knew anything about the fishing experience.
First things first, the price, is about $ 270 for a two hour excursion (the price is PER boat and NOT per person) and $455 for four hour excursion. We chose the guided excursion which was a pontoon boat that can accommodate up to five people, I know there is a Nitrobass excursion which is the same price but it can accommodate up to two people. We chose the Guided Excursion with the boat up to five people, making reservations was easy (Kelly made it for us at guest services) and I think we got ours two days after we actually made the reservation. I also noticed that because we bought a Walt Disney World vacation package (hotel + tickets) we got a booklet with different kind of vouchers and there was one for fishing with a 10% off. Then it was time to choose the location, when we were there you could choose the following: Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground, Downtown Disney Marketplace, Contemporary Resort and Caribbean Beach Resort. We opted for the Contemporary Resort area (Bay lake and Seven Seas Lagoon), I love that resort (I stayed there when I was 15 years old with my parents around Christmas time!) and I thought we could also get a view of the Magic Kingdom.
So the day came and we were up and ready by 8.00 am as the excursion was at 10 am (there is also a 7am and a 1.30 pm which costs $235), we didn’t have a car so we decided to take Disney transportation to the Magic Kingdom and then took the monorail to the Contemporary. We arrived way before our time so we checked in at guest services and they told us to wait by the Marina 10-15 minutes before the excursion.We wandered around and when the time came our skipper Brandon arrived. When we hopped in the pontoon boat (it was a new and very pretty boat) Brandon kindly explained to us everything.
We had unlimited non alcoholic beverages (which was amazing as Orlando can get hot even by that time of the morning and that time of the year), fishing gear, rod and reel, live and/or artificial bait, he explained to us that it was catch and release and that we could fish black bass and there were also a couple of catfish (which were rare to catch) . He also asked us if it was our first time fishing, where we were from, which parks we visited, etc, he was beyond lovely and so informative, which made him a great company.
We used the live bates which Alessandro immediately learned how to do it, at the beginning I was a little skeptical so Brandon helped me but by the end of the day I did it by my self. We catch and released lots of black bass of all sizes while Brandon gave us some trivia about the lake, Walt Disney World Resort and fishing there. We were 2 hours and half fishing (because Brandon didn’t have any guests ’till later) when the time was up he drove us to Fort Wilderness Campground were we payed for the service, we also gave the voucher and got the 10% discount. After we payed he returned us to the Contemporary Resort were we decided to get lunch at the Wave Restaurant, even though we didn’t have an ADR we got in right away, it was AMAZING.
I enjoyed so much my time fishing, taking a little bit of sun and chatting with Brandon. Alessandro loved the boat, the live bates, Brandon and the whole experience as the place was amazing with that view. We do think it’s a little bit pricey for two hours but if you can managed another party you can split up the price. Even though the 1.30pm costs less I would highly not recommend that time at summer, spring or fall, we were there by fall and by 10am was stinking hot even though the boat has shade at some points. I think 7am is great for those parties that have to split up to do the experience, let’s say your husband and son/daughter want to fish and you don’t want to, they can perfectly go by that hour and by 9am they are free and can go with the whole family to the Magic Kingdom. We don’t know if we’ll do this experience again because of the price, but as a whole experience I totally recommended it if you have a fishing aficionado or you are one and specially if you can’t fish Black bass where you live.
