Well, we are home and its snowing and we miss the YC already. But boy what a great week. No complaints whatsoever.
For what its worth here are my two cents:
What started out rough with DH and that chaos of getting him out of Toronto ended beautifully.
We arrived at YC at 11:58pm Saturday evening. That meant no one to greet us at the lobby when we drove up, no one to check us in on the 5th floor. And that would have been just fine, but I ran into some problems that people should be aware about. The CM issued charging privileges to my 11 year old and didn't want to take the time to fix that problem, now granted I could have stood there and argued but I was tired and knew I would enlist the CMs on the 5th floor to help in the morning, so the CM on ground floor told me not to worry that without the pin number, DD would not be able to charge. Well, most of the rfid machines were down when we were there so this was not the case, and if she had lost her card there could have been trouble - not one cm asked for id when we used our cards to purchase items and we had not signed the back. The check in cm also informed me the hotel was out of gold cards and so everyone was using blue keys. I am not picky so whatever right?
Next morning I go straight to 5th floor concierge and they immediately fix charging privileges on dd keys and miraculously the gold keys appear as did all sorts of paperwork and information that previous night CM did not give out. IMO, if you arrive late at night, check back in the morning to make sure everything is ok, just to be sure, thats just been my experience and not specific to YC.
Folks, that was my only "negative" experience at the YC. And when I told the 5th floor cm about the experience, they went out of their way to correct the problem. The next day we even got a voice mail from the manager making sure we had everything we needed and apologizing. Now that is service. We enjoyed every other aspect. Having CL was perfect because the BC marketplace is a little walk and with hungry kids in the morning, the lounge was very convenient.
The lounge never felt crowded to me no matter what time we were there. Though there was this one lady who would wear her robe, you know the ones they give you in the room, to the lounge every night at appetizers. Then her mother, or who appeared to be her mother, started showing up in her robe so the two of them would come in their robes. um, yeah, that was a bit out of taste for me. sorry, we are not all family and this is not your living room...i don't mean to offend anyone but there was clearly nothing underneath that robe if you catch my drift...eeeww!
Anyhow, there was never a line and that was a pleasant surprise since I've stayed Poly CL and always encountered lines around the food areas.
We were amazed at the low crowds last Sunday in MK. We were so surprised. We went in at 10:45. Walked on Jungle Cruise, POC, then checked DS in for his haircut at the barber shop. Turned out that the woman who cut his hair and I went to the same high school - small world! We then ate lunch at Pecos and headed to Haunted Mansion, again not even a 10 minute wait. We went on Buzz in under 10 minutes and on the new Ariel ride which we walked on. It was weird! After doing some photo pass pictures we had a reservation at BOG and that was fabulous. It was a full long day but fabulous.
Monday had more of the same low crowds, we did extra morning hours at Animal Kingdom and by 10 had done EE and safari and seen the Nemo show. So we hit Tusker House for breakfast and some touring and then headed out to rest up for Pirates League and Pirates and Pals fireworks voyage which was fabulous.
Tuesday we went to Sea World. Now, my dd and dh love Manta and Kracken so they hit those and then we all did the log flume, can't remember name of it and guess what - thats when we saw them and they were every where - the tour groups....my goodness, it was so overwhelming! We went on to feed some sting rays, did the new turtle trek and then had lunch at Sharks Underwater Grill and then called it a day - we preferred to be at SAB then fighting those groups..it was difficult.
So - you know the rest of the story.
My family got to meet Teena! And we promise we will bring tomatoes next time!
Thought I would post some photos of our rooms view. Remember we booked GV and received a LV room. Now, i think they may look at this as a bad view because of the round roof right in front but i think it was perfect. Our room was 5233 and we had 2 queens and a daybed. Loved it!
view to the right
view to the left
view straight on
ds enjoying kids section of lounge
look we have SAB to ourselves!
tie dying t shirts by the pool
watch out for the shark honey!