A 2 Week Grand Villa Extravaganza! 2.5 Years Late... FINAL DAY!!

[Ngwira]

Love this TR.

 

[Duffy Lover]

this is what I feel like haha

I know... All good things must end. On the upside, you're planning a trip! And not just any trip, your daughter's first trip - at Christmas to boot! So exciting!!

I just spent the entire evening reading your trip report. What a wonderful trip you had. It was fun to relive it with you. We've stayed in 2br villas at both the BCV and OKW and loved them both. And the WL is one of our favorite resorts although we've only been in regular resort rooms.

Our OKW trip had seven people - DH and me, our son with his two sons, and my two sisters. It was our first time there and we loved the spacious 2br villa. And we all got along great. It was the right combination of family members and accommodations. Since we were all in one villa no one felt left out like they have when taking other trips.

By the way, our daughter, son in law, and two grandchildren live in Longmont. They moved there five years ago from the Chicago suburbs and love Colorado. I also have a cousin who lives in Walden. Is that anywhere near you?

My hubby and I rented an adorable house in "old town" Longmont back in 2004, its a lovely little town! And yes, Walden is near us. The school I used to teach at plays North Park HS (Walden) in all the sporting events. It is a small world afterall....

I'm so glad you are enjoying the report, it has been a labor of love. I too love staying together when we travel as a family, staying at DVC has essentially spoiled plain old hotel visits for me. There's nothing better than kicking up your feet in the living room and spending down time just hanging out with family. At a Disney resort, no less!

It's almost over

I know. I'm sad too...

Love this TR.

Thanks for reading - I've loved writing it!

Well Brie and Eme are home from their Disney trip (Brie is visiting!!) and we're just hanging around the house today, so perhaps - just perhaps, I might write the last day's update. I'll follow that up with some final thoughts, but yes, one more post and we're done. Sigh. On the upside it is less than two years away from our next big family adventure! Is that too soon to start a pre-trip report? See ya real soon!

 

[Duffy Lover]

A 2 Week Grand Villa Extravaganza! Extremely late final post: We leave WDW.


Day 15: Thursday June 14– Resort: VGF – Parks: None


Hi Friends! I started this trip report almost 2 ½ years ago and I wrote countless posts on our 14 night adventure, but I never finished my final update… all those posts and then I didn’t even finish- with ONE post left! Shame on me… Well, we are now 9 months (almost to the day) away from our next half-month adventure to WDW (15 nights this year!!) and my Mom, Pirate Granny, rightly has been on me to do this one final post. So here it is…


What’s interesting about our final day is it was a day that was not planned to the nth degree, but perhaps should have at least an alternate plan. We arose to find that Papa had already started his journey home, and was on his first leg to Georgia to see his brother. Once again there was just nine of us. The day was partly cloudy, but not rainy, and we rushed to finish our final packing so we could make it to our final ADR at 1900 Park Fare. After getting all packed up and our luggage checked in at the convenient airline check-in desk, we headed to breakfast, where we had the last Photopass pictures taken:

After which they let us know they were behind schedule by like 40 minutes. Sigh. So we wandered around the grounds. What was most frustrating about this is the fact that the weather was nice now, but it was forecast to rain later in the day. So a forty minute delay was a pretty big bummer. Once we were seated, we ate and we visited with the characters:

Wow. It just hit me as I added these photos. THEY ARE SO LITTLE! Clara was not even in kindergarten and now she’s in SECOND grade, Eme is in Fourth! The same is for the boys. In fact… Here are some recent photos:

Wow. Just wow. This last one is from our recent epic two-week (trend, anyone?) roadtrip to California, which included a three night stint at DLR. This was actually the first vacation Caz, myself and the girls took all on our own. EVER. Can’t complain though, we love vacationing with extended family! Ok… enough about our current reality, let’s wrap up the past…


After breakfast, it was raining. A lot. Pouring buckets, even:

Our plan of playing in the pool all day was thwarted. Instead we wandered the lobby taking in the shops, and lounged around in the upper lobby area by the elevators and the outdoor terrace:

Brie took a snooze, and was joined by Ryan:

Caz and I took a tour on the monorail, and in general, everyone was a little bummed that our plan of enjoying the pool was dashed. As we plan this upcoming trip, I think we’ll make sure we have multiple plans for our last day. I’ll save more of those details for the pre-trip report…


Anyways, the time drew near for the final ride of the trip - the MCO monorail. We all were on the same DME bus, but we split up at the airport. Caz was flying home to CO, and the rest of us to MI, although the girls and I were on a different airline. No one was delayed and our travels were smooth.


Whew. There you go. Done. Finito! Since then there have been a myriad of trips: My parents have gone several times, including the trip they took Josh and Eme on (see earlier in the report), my mom has visited with friends, I’ve gone with Mom for two nights, we’ve gone with just my sisters and my mom… And then of course there was our three days in California:

We obviously have a Disney problem... I *might* post one final update with overall final thoughts, but this *could* be it for this thread... Time will tell. Literally.

As for what the future brings, I’ve mentioned our upcoming trip (for the pre-trip report, click HERE to read up) and then Brie and my folks are taking Ryan and Clara in just over a month. After that - who knows! My dad has been retired for a while now (three years? four?) and my mom will retire soon (when, Pirate Granny - July ‘17? January ‘18?). Perhaps some day they will buy a place in FL, and we can spend ALL our family time in Florida. Who knows. Until then… and for the last time in this report…

 

[Pirate Granny]

FINALLY...but it was a super-great trip, and understand you didn't want to 'say good-bye'. Now we have our 2017 trip to look forward to

 

[Duffy Lover]

FINALLY...but it was a super-great trip, and understand you didn't want to 'say good-bye'. Now we have our 2017 trip to look forward to

Yay Buszia! It was hard to say goodbye to this trip. 2017 will be even better. I think we've come to understand that we don't have to do it all...

I wonder if I should quote some of the folks who read this report in the past so they know I've finally wrapped it up. Hmmm...

 

[Pirate Granny]

. Let the planning begin

 

[Duffy Lover]

. Let the planning begin

Indeed.