Our Drama-Filled May 2010 Bay Lake & Beach Club Trip Report(OMG-ITS MY FINAL UPDATE!)

[DizGirl20]

While we waited to get let in, it started to rain hard for like 5 minutes. (As a brief aside, when we watched the weather channel either Saturday or Sunday, it forecasted either isolated or scattered thunderstorms for every day of the trip - Monday morning was the only rain we experienced the whole week!)

Hi - I had posted earlier in this thread that we were there the same week. Funny, we went to DHS that morning and I don't remember any rain at all. The only rain I recall was around 5pm that afternoon when we were back at BCV. And yes, I was worried about the weather forecast as well and we never used our Mickey Ponchos once!

Enjoying your TR - I am reliving our vacation week all over again with you!

 

[TigerLaw]

Hi - I had posted earlier in this thread that we were there the same week. Funny, we went to DHS that morning and I don't remember any rain at all. The only rain I recall was around 5pm that afternoon when we were back at BCV. And yes, I was worried about the weather forecast as well and we never used our Mickey Ponchos once!

Enjoying your TR - I am reliving our vacation week all over again with you!

As DVCers who suffered through the rains of May 2009, I can tell you I worried about the weather way too much on this trip, but luckily, it was all good in the end (if a bit too hot!)

 

[5forDiz]

Very much enjoying reading your TR and great photos too Your passion for Disney really comes through in both

 

[Mick@Tink]

One of the best TR's I've seen in awhile! Great pics. On par with DVC Mike!

 

[TigerLaw]

Very much enjoying reading your TR and great photos too Your passion for Disney really comes through in both

Thanks so much for the kind words! Some would call it an obsession, but we know better!

One of the best TR's I've seen in awhile! Great pics. On par with DVC Mike!

Again, thanks for the kindness - DVC Mike - wow that's high praise indeed!

 

[TigerLaw]

Monday, May 17th (cont.)

Anyway, with respect to the rental car issue, the Dollar location was at the Regal Sun - directly across the street from Once Upon a Toy at DTD. It took like 15 minutes, but we got a new rental car - a Sonata. When got back to our room, I figured out that I had lost my second camera and starting calling around with no luck. I figured I left it out at our crappy table at Donald’s, but no luck as of then. We ended up going down to the BLT pool for like 90 minutes or so. While it was nice and all, we both thought the pool itself was too small in terms of area and depth (there was hardly anywhere that was more than 4 feet deep - maybe we’re just spoiled w. stormalong, but I just don’t think BLT’s pool will be able to handle summer crowds all that well. I did like their simple slide though!

After our pool time together, we came back to the room to nap before our big MK EMH night. Melissa slept w. no problem (she never has a problem sleeping!) but I was too worked up over the camera, so around 3pm or so, I stopped trying to sleep. Eventually, I called over to Donald’s directly and someone had turned the camera in! This of course meant I had to drive back out to AK to pick it up, but that was a small price to pay!

Dinner that night was at Ohana’s. Even w. ressies, it took almost a full hour to get seated and then we had a crabby waitress to boot - so not the best experience at one of our favorite disney dining experiences. Perhaps even worse, for some reason, I wasn’t all that hungry, which is a cardinal sin if you're at Ohana’s! We both attacked the best dessert ever though!

After dinner we headed over to MK. I had planned to get there by about 8pm, but due to our dining issues, we ended up coming in like maybe around 8:45pm. Luckily, I found a decent “second row” spot to watch the first spectromagic parade (I know, it was my third time seeing it in three nights, but Melissa hadn’t seen it yet). Here are some MORE spectro pictures:









For some reason, I can't remember the name of this bad guy, but he never "opened up" in the sat. night showings of spectro I saw, so seeing him work properly this time was a first for me







Once the parade was over, we fought the crowds up main street and I went over to tomorrowland to get a FP for space mtn. Originally, I had thought about coming into the park for a couple hours that afternoon to get a bunch of FPs using my DVC cards, but didn’t b/c I figured MK would have their FP machines set up like MGM did, with one open for the DVC cards. Unfortunately, the MK fastpass machines were NOT done like this. Thankfully, a space mtn. CM gave me a set of FPs. We first though rode the peoplemover and we both agreed we missed the old voice-overs. Next, we headed back over to the tomorrowland bridge to watch the Wishes fireworks, which were great as always. From there we rode space mtn. for the first time since its 2009 rehab. We have never been big space fans (too jerky) and never ride it more than once or twice a park visit, but I did think the ride was a bit smoother this time around. Next on the grand MK tour, we did philharmagic with like a 5 minute wait. By that point it was 11pm, so the EMH hours were in effect, but we were both pretty tired, so we decided to head out and call it a night.

COMING UP - WILL WE EVER ACTUALLY GET A ROOM AT BCV?!?

 

[Kelrykengab]

Glad you found your camera! Have a couple kids and then you can use that "time out" table to your advantage . Sorry about the rental car. I am dissapointed to hear there is not a difference in the Muppets; they were rehabing that when I was there. You lucked out at AK with the no waiting. That happened to us in 2008, but sadly, not this year. Oh Well. As always, great pix!

 

[tink too]

Loving your TR and fabulous photos.

Sorry to hear about all your problems though - glad you didn't let them spoil your vacation.

BTW - the bad guy from the Spectro parade is Chernabog from Fantasia.

 

[TigerLaw]

Glad you found your camera! Have a couple kids and then you can use that "time out" table to your advantage . Sorry about the rental car. I am dissapointed to hear there is not a difference in the Muppets; they were rehabing that when I was there. You lucked out at AK with the no waiting. That happened to us in 2008, but sadly, not this year. Oh Well. As always, great pix!

As a follow up, supposedly, days after we wentr to muppetvision, the flat screens and digital movie print appeared, so I must have just missed it. I ready did get lucky w. the camera - the rest of the week, before we left ANYWHERE we were like, got everything? got the cameras?

Loving your TR and fabulous photos.

Sorry to hear about all your problems though - glad you didn't let them spoil your vacation.

BTW - the bad guy from the Spectro parade is Chernabog from Fantasia.

thanks for the scoop - never knew whether that was a disney character or not.

 

[alldiz]

Thank you so much for taking the time to write an amazing review.
With simply sensational pictures.....and i love the way you put them in foursomes so reader friendly
I'm ready to book my next trip....i'm slighly in withdrawal and your review is putting me over the edge.
I'm dying to try BLT...I haven't caught up to speed yet....but is it worth another trip....and what is your favorite DVC...
Carry on
Kerri

 

[TigerLaw]

Thank you so much for taking the time to write an amazing review.
With simply sensational pictures.....and i love the way you put them in foursomes so reader friendly
I'm ready to book my next trip....i'm slighly in withdrawal and your review is putting me over the edge.
I'm dying to try BLT...I haven't caught up to speed yet....but is it worth another trip....and what is your favorite DVC...
Carry on
Kerri

Thankfully, my favorite resort is my home resot - BCV. In terms of a mini "review" of BLT, here's my two cents (trying to look past our check in issues which I have tried to keep out of this TR):

1. I thought I would hate the "modern" furnishings, but I really didn't.

2. As I said in my report, the pool is simply too small, and once you compare it to stormalong bay, its a sad joke.

3. I liked being able to walk in and out of MK obviously, but similar to AKL, its at the expense of all the other parks. The walk in and out of Epcot is simply one of my wife's favorite parks of staying at disney. We used to take the boat over to MGM, then one day, I woke up and said, "hey, we can drive over in like 5 minutes-no more crowded boats that take 30 minutes plus!")

4. It bugs me that EVERYTHING is over at CR. An example, I wanted to use my refillable mug in the morning - so I go down to the pool - nope, can't do it - not open until 11am, but its open at the CR. To me, for the amount they charge for a room at BLT (either in terms of cash or points) I shouldn't have to walk over to the CR's food court to get a soda. And that's pretty much everything - no gift shop, no counter service, no check in desk, etc. etc.

5. OVERALL, while I'm glad we tried it out, I wouldn't add on there (still holding out hope for a Polynesian DVC!). My wife agrees w. me as well on pretty much all the above, and she's nowhere near the DVC nut I am! Just not really our thing. If BCV is boked up, I think we would head over to OKW next (loved those big 1 bedrooms!)

hope this helps - would be glad to discuss further!

 

[schoen]

Great report!!!

How long was the sales presentation at BLT? I am trying to get my DH to go, but he isn't too interested, and thinks it will be high pressure. Also, how many fast passes did they give you?

Thanks and keep up the great report!

 

[TigerLaw]

Great report!!!

How long was the sales presentation at BLT? I am trying to get my DH to go, but he isn't too interested, and thinks it will be high pressure. Also, how many fast passes did they give you?

Thanks and keep up the great report!

I didn't think it was high pressure at all - I'd say you spend like 75 minutes up in the lounge first (watching videos, doing trivia challenges and then last 5-10 is "here's the BLT deals were offering"). then they broke people who wanted to see rooms in groups - we didn't do that since we were staying there (so maybe the hard sell starts then but I didn't get a sense they were doing that) then they give you your fastpasses - each person who attends geta a "debit-like" card that you can put in the FP machines up to 3 times and it gives you a FP to ride right away (no wait times).

Here's a couple links w. more about it:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2405336

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2446741

hope this helps!

p.s. the food was no big thrill - it would hold you over, but its not a free lunch.

 

[ajf1007]

Ok - totally sucked in and subscribed! Love the pictures, they are so clear! Can't wait to hear more! Since my DH and I don't have children, it's always nice to get the perspective sans children.

 

[TigerLaw]

Ok - totally sucked in and subscribed! Love the pictures, they are so clear! Can't wait to hear more! Since my DH and I don't have children, it's always nice to get the perspective sans children.

thanks - should have a new report up shortly (its amazing how the little things like a job impact our ability to do the important things in life like trip reporting!)

 

[ajf1007]

thanks - should have a new report up shortly (its amazing how the little things like a job impact our ability to do the important things in life like trip reporting!)

I can't wait! I hear ya, the whole job thing is so over rated anyway! I mean, we're supposed to work for our paycheck too? What the heck!

Waiting patiently...while you do that work thing (while I'm at work too)...for your next update!

 

[TigerLaw]

[B]Tuesday, May 18th

Parks Visited: Epcot
Dining: T-Rex (lunch) Le Cellar (dinner)[/B]

Tuesday was our check out day at BLT and we were both excited to get back home at the Beach Club Villas. We packed up our suitcases and drove over to BCV. I checked us in hoping there would be an open room, but no such luck. No worries - we just left our stuff in the car and headed over to Epcot for its EMH morning.

Now one of my BIGGEST disney world pet peeves is how they handle Epcot openings in the international gateway area - in my view, Epcot resort guests should be treated EQUALLY to those entering at the front of the park - no more, no less. To me, that means that we should be allowed in early so that we can walk (not run) into future world to meet the front people at a rope line so everyone has an equal chance for that first FP, first character picture, etc. Now many of you know that how this works IN REALITY is often far from fair. I had read leading up to our trip that things were being handled better, so I was interested to see what would happen. Turns out, on the first day, they let us in like at 7:50 or so, so race walking, we got up to the back side of innoventions (by the wait times board) before the front rope drop occurred. There we had to wait until the masses joined us and we were then free to go. While I would have liked more time so I didn’t feel like we have to run to make sure we get there in time, it wasn’t a bad result (wait till you hear about Wednesday’s park open experience however!)

Anyway, at open we headed over for Soarin and got a couple rides in with little to no wait and a FP. Next we did Living w. the Land with no wait (got another FP as well). From there we did Spaceship Earth w. like a five minute wait before we rode Test Track together using one of our DVC fastpasses. Right before we were to get in a car, there was like a 5-10 minute “technical difficulty” delay, but no big deal. I rode a second time using the single rider line while Melissa shopped for a bit. We next headed back over to Soarin again and left with two sets of soarin’ FPs for later that night.

Here’s a couple pics from our Epcot morning:





We left the park and checked if our room was available and still wasn’t, so we headed over to Downtown Disney and had lunch at T-Rex for the first time.



It was pretty dead, so we walked right in and got sat next to a huge fish tank (and even saw Dory!) :



I had a phily cheesesteak sandwich which I couldn’t even finish and Melissa had a hamburger - we both like our meal better than our recent visits to rainforest, that was for sure!





Next we bummed around DTD, went into World of Disney and didn’t see anything we really wanted, so we headed up to my favorite store at DTD - the christmas ornament store!



We have a disney xmas tree and so every trip we try to find some new ornaments for the tree. We did see a couple things we liked, but overall, felt like there was less to choose from then in years pass (of course, we may just have a lot of it already too!). I went over to check out the art of disney store and then we headed over to winn-dixie to pick up some pool funnoodles and groceries for the room before heading back to BCV.

COMING UP - WE REALLY DO A HAVE A ROOM HERE CORRECT?!?

 

[DVC Mike]

This has been a great TR, TigerLaw - especially your photos!

 

[Luckymommyx2]

Another great installment with wonderful pics! You're now at my fav resort so I'm excited to hear everything! Can't wait for room pics and reviews, with a little SAB thrown in?!

 

[TigerLaw]

This has been a great TR, TigerLaw - especially your photos!

As someone who loves your reports, I really appreciate your kind words!

Another great installment with wonderful pics! You're now at my fav resort so I'm excited to hear everything! Can't wait for room pics and reviews, with a little SAB thrown in?!

LM, trust me, you will have more BCV pics coming at you than you will know what to do with in short order!