WH review - 5mins2disney - Fantasmic

dawnball

<font color=red>bouncie bouncie...<br><font color=
Joined
Jul 6, 2005
Since Windsor Hills Reviews seem to end up here more than in the Hotels review section I thought I would post here. Please move it if I should have posted elsewhere though.

We just stayed for 13 nights at the Windsor Hills townhouse "Fantasmic" which is a 3 bedrom, 3 bath end-unit townhome booked by 5mins2disney. In general we were very, very satisfied, and would cheerfully rent another of the units they book. We'd rent the same unit, but it's already full for our spring dates. For reference we have historically rented very discounted units (<$80/night for a 3 bedroom condo or <$100/night for a a 4 bedroom house). Price was more significant to us than luxury. We'd generally been frustrated by the units being unclean/not as expected or by management company hassles.

Location -

This town home is on the furthest-away from the gates/pool complex possible. That adds a whole 10-15 seconds of drive time to the gate, and possibly as much as a minute if you're walking to the pool. I'd been concerned about the distance being much more inconvenient than it ended up being. It had driveway parking for one car and an easy street space right in front for our second car. End units are definitely preferable to me now for street parking proximity.


Access -
A key was provided in a coded lock-box outside the door. No need to visit a management company on check-in or check-out. Since there was only one key and we had 2 vehicles and 4 adults, we left the key in the lock-box pretty much all the time. The lock box was easy to access, and that worked out very well.

Bedrooms -
There's a queen bed downstairs, a king upstairs and 2 twin beds in the other upstairs bedroom. The twin bedroom felt a little cramped, particularly since the television was in an entertainment center with doors. When the doors to the entertainment center were open it was hard for an adult to get through the room. The kids didn't seem to have any problem with it however. The rooms were nicely decorated as far as I could tell (I have no interior design sense) and there was an extra set of sheets for each bed, plus extra pillows and pillowcases. I know that in the king room we had plenty of drawer and closet space and I didn't hear any complaints from the rest of the family about storage space in the rooms.

Bathrooms -
The bathrooms were generously laid out and I never felt cramped in the least. This unit has waterfall-like shower heads that provide very gentle spray. They're mounted very high, but are on hoses so you can use it as a shower wand if you're so inclined. There was an included supply of toilet paper, and it was very convenient to not have to guess how much paper we were going to need and tote the extra home. There was also liquid hand soap provided in pump bottles.

Kitchen -
The kitchen was very well equipped, complete with a blender that I think we may have been the first people to use. There were dish washing liquid, dishwasher detergent and paper towels supplied. Some of the non-stick cookware had obviously been heated too much or was no longer non-stick, but there was a generous enough supply that we just used other pieces. The non-breakable (children's) dishes were not microwave safe, and there were only 3 plastic glasses. Since we mostly use paper plates for the kids on vacation and brought plastic cups it wasn't a big deal. There were plenty of mixing/storage bowls and utensils, which was a very nice change from other units we've rented in the past.

I think that there was a stroller, a vacuum, a broom and dustpan and other useful items in the pantry.

Living space -

There was a key rack by the front door which was very convenient. We hung our car keys and lanyards with tickets/ID in them on the hooks and just picked them up every morning. The dining room table seats 4, which is typical for the townhouses due to layout. There were seats at the breakfast bar in the kitchen and with 6 of us we never had a problem finding somewhere to eat. Without moving the furniture there was space to set up 2 large play tents and a play area for the kids, but we would have had to take down one of the play tents to get out into the pool area. We never used the pool, so I know nothing about it. The interior stairs in all the town homes are very steep, but they have handrails.

Minor irritations

The dryer (or perhaps it was the washer) squeaked. That meant we needed to do laundry while the kids were either already asleep or completely awake. I prefer to do laundry right after bedtime but that kept them awake.


Things that surprised us (or at least me, who didn't pay a lot of attention to the listing)

Adequate supplies of soap, paper towels, toilet paper, kleenex and dishwasher detergent to last the entire stay. It was *very* clean, significantly cleaner than other condos or houses we have rented. The beds were very comfortable and the sheets fit on the bed - you didn't have to reposition the fitted sheet every morning or worry that it was going to pop off in the middle of the night. There were plenty of towels and linens of all sorts - I think this is the first trip we didn't bring our own or buy some at wal-mart.

Overall, we were very pleased. The booking agent was very easy to work with, the management company seemed to be doing a good job and we had no hassles at all. The lack of stress alone would bring us back as future guests.
 
Thanks for the review, glad you had a good stay. We've stayed in quite a few homes and never had any major problems but there's always a few irritations.
Probably if someone stayed in my home they would have things to complain about that we just overlook. Good report. :)
 
Thanks for your review. My family is actually leaving tomorrow morning for an 8 day stay at Fantasmic. Glad to hear it met your expectations!
 



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