My DD20 has just been accepted for the spring 2013 semester. Can anyone give me a run down on the different "personalities" of the varying apartments. She is 20 entering the program, so all we know is she will be "wellness" whatever that means. She does not have to cover all her expenses herself, so if it's a case of we have to pay $40 more a month to be in a newer, nicer place, then that is what I would prefer to do.
You don't have the option of upgrading your dd's CP apartment by offering Disney more money. She can make a request for a specific apartment complex, but in the end, she will get what she gets -- by which I mean, she may have a choice and she may not. It all depends upon what's available when she checks in. Obviously, the earlier you check in that morning, the better chances you have for having a variety of options.
When my dd got to check in, she was the third person in line. Even still the options were: an apartment for 4 at Vista or an apartment for 2 at Chatham. There was nothing available at Patterson. She chose the Vista 4 bed because she thought the odds were greater that she'd find a compatible roommate/friend if she had 3 others to pick from instead of just one. All of her roommates had the same offer and all chose the Vista 4 bed for the same reason. They all met in line that morning because at the time, there was no roommate matching available to them.
Vista is the older apartment complex, but when we were moving her in with her roommate's parents, all of the parents were commenting on how much nicer the Vista apartment is compared to the dorm rooms they were leaving behind. None of the girls really complained about living in Vista during their time there and in the end, they thought all the angst about where they were going to live was much ado about nothing.
I'll also note that my dd spent so much time away from the apartment, that the quality of the apartment was inconsequential to her. The only thing she really complained about was the unreliability of the internet connection.
Vista is known as the party apartment, but my dd didn't really experience that. She had two roommates who went OUT and partied every night, but they didn't party at the apartment. On the other hand, she had friends in both Patterson and Chatham who had roommates terminated for underage drinking
in their apartments.
She also knew people who got terminated while on the "party bus" -- there is a bus that goes to the Disney apartments and picks the kids up and brings them to nightspots. They would then get on the bus and come back to the apartments. Occasionally, however, the party bus people would be met by Disney security and be terminated on the spot. One night, an entire bus of kids was terminated while on the bus -- the kids were so rowdy, the bus driver pulled over, called Disney and the CP director came out and fired them all. (It's amazingly easy to get into bars and drink in Orlando, btw. Those two roommates of dd's that went out partying every night were 19 years old and got into bars every night and drank.)