2011/2012 Beach & Yacht FAQ, Part IV- DO NOT POST- see new 2012 thread

[pixarmom]

We just returned from a wonderful week driving down the coast of California, and we enjoyed a bonus day in Newport Beach as a result of flight delays. So I'm just catching up and will probably miss something, but here goes . . .

BCV23, hope you're having a wonderful time!

MM, thanks for the photos - looking forward to hearing more about your trip! Love the BC merchandise.

Hey y'all

Trying to plan a last minute trip to Beach Club Easter weekend and the week after. I am expecting huge crowds.

can anyone give me info about Easter day? Just trying to decide whether to head to a park or sleep in and spend the day by the pool.

Thanks! Shannon

Shannon, I can't provide any info specific to Easter day, but we're arriving at WDW on Tuesday of that week. Long story, and I would not have selected this crazy busy time of year to go, but this is one of our WDW stops "on the way to the airport" from my parents' condo in SW Florida. So our plan is definitely to get to rope drop, spend a few hours in the park and likely bail after lunch. In the evening, we'll probably return to Epcot, but avoid MK and DHS. Especially during busier times, we like to have ADRs for both lunch and dinner to ensure that we'll won't be waiting in long lines with hungry kids!

I get to go at 4 AM on 3/6 to Port Canaveral as one of the CMs to form the welcome committee when the Fantasy comes home for the first time. I'm so excited. Even getting up at 2 AM, leaving at 2:45 AM to get to where we catch the bus as a group will be well worth it.

Teena, how exciting!!! Knowing how much you love Disney cruises (and that you're the one who initially inspired us to try Disney cruising!), we're so happy for you!

And one more announcement regarding the Disney FANTASY: Jeanne and Brian and Princess Lily are going to become an official family. They are getting married on the Fantasy on the cruise which sets sail from Port Canaveral on 6/15/13.

Teena, so happy to hear the great news! Hope you'll keep us posted regarding all the planning!

I usually carry the most minimal of purses, mostly to hold my sunglasses and camera, and the boys give me grief for that when they have to wait for me on the other side of the bag check line.

My husband and I have spent way too much time debating the refillable mug question, since we are staying CL.

I don't think we will get them since I can come up with enough opportunities to use them. When we are at the resort and returning to the resort we will just get drinks from the lounge.

When we are at SAB the cups would be handy, but I'm guessing my husband and I will be more likely to consume non-mug eligible drinks by the pool. In March we aren't likely to sit by the pool for hours on end, so if my son gets thirsty he will be happy to just leave the pool area and go back to the room and lounge.

So that means we would be buying the mugs largely to carry drinks around the park.

Here's a suggestion for traveling light in the parks and avoiding the dreaded bag checks.

First, I have to admit that I am a reformed pack mule. The boy scouts had nothin' on me. I was prepared!

Then I discovered the beauty of the drawstring bag

Say you have a mug that you want to bring to the parks but don't want to carry. The drawstring bag is perfect for this! When you enter the park, hold the folded bag in one hand, the mug in another hand and your camera, if it is a small point and shoot, in your other hand. Well, maybe someone else needs to give you a hand. Wear the sunglasses. Then, once you are in, the mug goes in the bag, the bag goes on your back and you also have a place to put small souvenirs that you pick up along the way.

JanetMom, just wanted to second Dee's suggestion. I have one of those pink madras Mickey backpacks that I carry at the park and we're now entirely stroller-free, but I'm still toting the refill mug. I bring storage-sized plastic ziplock bags (well, I bring lots of sizes of ziplock bags, but this relates to the mug), wash out the mug after my morning coffee, throw it in a ziplock and into my madras Mickey bag.

I buy a refill mug each and every trip, even when staying CL. It's much easier to carry around my coffee in a refill mug than in a little styrofoam cup, and then of course, I need my refill mug for the grey goose slushie. And it's extremely convenient to have the mug available at SAB with the self-serve station. Even when I get a sunken treasure at SAB, I still like to have the mug for lemonade and soda, etc.

Will I be disappointed with the Beach Club. I am booking for Aug 8th with my DD and Neice staying with me until they check in on Aug 15th with the Disney college program.
I am worried because I had my hopes so high with the Poly and was very disappointed when we stayed there.
Being in August we thought having the stormalong Bay would be nice.
Am I making the right choice?

jking6, I just wanted to share our experiences, since we've stayed at both Poly and BC many times. I grew up staying at Poly and then my family tried BC about a year after it first opened in the early 90's. We love both and we weren't one bit disappointed making the switch from Poly to BC. Since then, I've returned to both with my husband and our three boys for different trips and different reasons. BC is our favorite and for an August trip, would be a clear choice for us because of Stormalong Bay. In the summer heat, we really like to get to a park in the morning, but take a more extended swim break in the afternoon. We love the ability to walk to two parks (or boat) and all of the Epcot and Epcot area dining options. But let us know more about your touring plans, dining preferences, etc. and maybe we can help a little more!

 

[donnaf516]

I have officially read all 234 pages of this thread. Wow, what a great bunch of people hanging around here! I was thinking about taking a Disboards break for a while before I found you guys. There are a lot of not so nice people on some of the other threads. Not sure why so many people have their panties in a bunch...IT'S DISNEY!! Some are so bad I wouldn't even bother commenting because they would jump all over whatever was said.

Anyway, thanks so much for all the work that goes into the thread. My family and I are SO excited to be staying at BC, it's been our dream to stay since we visited it a couple years ago.

 

[msdroz]

When I went in Sept I had some of those tall disposable coffee cups with lids and a beer fits right inside. No one ever questioned me.

Great thanks! Nothing like a cold bud light lime by the pool in 80 degree weather

 

[hill6]

Teena how wonderful that you get to welcome the Fantasy to her new home.

 

[bookgirl]

Great thanks! Nothing like a cold bud light lime by the pool in 80 degree weather

Haha I was drinking BLight w/lime as well. Although I now see I may need to clarify. I POURED the beer in and the 16 oz cup held the exact right amount for me. Not that the actual bottle fit in the cup. Plus those cups are slightly insulated so it didn't sweat like a can or bottle.

 

[BLTtinkerbell]

Dear MM, Hahaha! Best food porn ever!

 

[TeenaS]

Today I had to take a guest into the Marketplace and behold: A red child's tee shirt is there too and a woman's striped (white and light blue) top ... both with Beach Club on it.

 

[MissKaren]

Thank you all for providing me with such an informational board. I enjoy reading everyones thoughts. Question about the BCV's. We are arriving on April 14th to the BCV's 2 bedroom. Wondering what our chances were of getting a room with two queens in the second bedroom. I realize they are for DVC members first. Do they give them to non-VC members if they have ones available? Thank you in advance.

 

[JanetMom]

A minor question, but brought forward to my major set of experts.

As we are nearing the end of the countdown to our trip some of the more minor considerations are popping up. Today's minor question is brought to you by my husband. Here is the dinner time discussion in our house.

DH: Does Disney get AMC?

Me: I don't know

DH: But you kinow you can find out. I can't believe you haven't found out already.

So my fellow experts, will we get the AMC channel on our TV at the YC? My husband and son are loving the Walking Dead and would love to catch it next week while we are at Disney. (Not that we stand a chance of being in the room at that point. Don't they realize we are scheduled to be at MK on Sunday night. Sheesh )

 

[Marlton Mom]

A minor question, but brought forward to my major set of experts.

DH: Does Disney get AMC?

Me: I don't know

(Note: for those of you who are new to this BC/YC/BCV FAQ I am teasing Janet )

I personally am disappointed that you DON'T know! What's wrong with you woman! Apparently you've been slacking off AGAIN! If you don't snap out of it and get with the program we are going to demote you to one of the All Stars resorts.

Now I want you to get back in the Zone... FOCUS and let the answer come to you.... there, that's it, it's coming.... see it? Yes, you DO don't you....

Ok so the answer is no, there is NO AMC channel and the only walking dead your husband is gonna see were at One More Disney Day on Feb. 29th. Believe me I saw plenty of walking dead and it wasn't pretty. In fact at some point in the night I BECAME one of the walking dead. I heard that over in Adventureland they were throwing turkey legs at the zombies in an effort to get them to leave the living alone.

So no, no walking dead for him on this trip. Now if he wants to see "Walking Cranky", well then that's a different story. There are plenty of "Walking Cranky" people at Disney and most of them are married and have children!

So tell him he has to change his channel and try something different, Disney Style!

Really though... the TV stations have disappeared. It's all the Disney owned stations and a ton of sports stations. There were so many sports stations on the resort TV's that it occurred to me that that may be the only way some women get their husbands to come. Then I remembered that ESPN is probably owned by Disney.

Oh well.....

Any other questions??

(It amazes me the most obscure things we know about WDW, doesn't it)

NEXT QUESTION!

~Marton Mom

 

[MickeyT]

A minor question, but brought forward to my major set of experts.

As we are nearing the end of the countdown to our trip some of the more minor considerations are popping up. Today's minor question is brought to you by my husband. Here is the dinner time discussion in our house.

DH: Does Disney get AMC?

Me: I don't know

DH: But you kinow you can find out. I can't believe you haven't found out already.

So my fellow experts, will we get the AMC channel on our TV at the YC? My husband and son are loving the Walking Dead and would love to catch it next week while we are at Disney. (Not that we stand a chance of being in the room at that point. Don't they realize we are scheduled to be at MK on Sunday night. Sheesh )

I read where they were adding channels this year to the in room lineup. It was still pretty much still the standard Disney/Local/ESPN when we were there in January.

Ripped off from a blog: (copy and paste)

So what is available on your in-room TV?:
•Major networks: ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, PBS, CW
•A heavy dose of ESPN: ESPN, ESPN Classic, ESPN 2, ESPN News, ESPNU, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Wide World of Sports
•Basic news: CNN, CNN Headline, MSNBC, CNBC, ABC News Now
•Lifetime: Lifetime TV, Lifetime Movie Network
•Specialty networks: The Weather Channel, BET, TBN, iOn, The Golf Channel, local independents
•The comfort of home for international guests: Univision, Telefutura, DW (Deutsche Welle), TV Japan, CCTV (Central China Television)
•The wonderful world of Disney media: Disney Channel, Radio Disney (delivering audio), Toon Disney, Disney XD, ABC Family, SoapNet (soon ending)
•In-house channels: Must Dos at WDW, Walt Disney World Today (Park hours, Entertainment Schedules, etc), Disney Vacation Secrets Revealed (Disney Vacation Club sales propaganda), Your Disney Resort (info about your specific hotel), Your Next Disney Vacation (sales info for Disney Cruise Line, Adventures by Disney, other Disney parks), Company Clips (short segments of Disney TV shows and movies), Disney convention information, Duffy bedtime story
•Spanish and close-captioned versions of several of the above

Maybe someone that is there now could check for you?????

 

[cindydare]

MM--I have tears coming out of my eyes! You have truly outdone yourself!! I really needed that after the past couple of weeks at work!!

Now, time for the obligatory BC related question.....Does anyone know if there are any standard view CL rooms at BC that have a full balcony? Just contemplating if I should add any requests to our reservation.

Cindy

 

[JanetMom]

(Note: for those of you who are new to this BC/YC/BCV FAQ I am teasing Janet )

I personally am disappointed that you DON'T know! What's wrong with you woman! Apparently you've been slacking off AGAIN! If you don't snap out of it and get with the program we are going to demote you to one of the All Stars resorts.

(Note: for those of you who are new to this BC/YC/BCV FAQ I can take a dose or two of teasing (whew) )

If I am going to be demoted, can I request Pop Century? I hear the best greeter on site works at Pop.


Thank you to MM and Mickey T for humouring me and answering my question (with humour).

I will end by saying quietly on the outside (and screaming on the inside) - only 5 more sleeps!

 

[Mickey & Minnie Mom]

MM--I have tears coming out of my eyes! You have truly outdone yourself!! I really needed that after the past couple of weeks at work!!

Now, time for the obligatory BC related question.....Does anyone know if there are any standard view CL rooms at BC that have a full balcony? Just contemplating if I should add any requests to our reservation.

Cindy

I believe all the standard view CL rooms will have a full balcony.
The 5th floor is all CL and they have full balconies on that level.
Just the standard views will be more of rooftops, parking lots is all ... but 2 chairs to sit on to enjoy.

 

[pixarmom]

I have officially read all 234 pages of this thread. Wow, what a great bunch of people hanging around here!

Anyway, thanks so much for all the work that goes into the thread. My family and I are SO excited to be staying at BC, it's been our dream to stay since we visited it a couple years ago.

Welcome donna516! Hope you love BC as much as we do!

Now, time for the obligatory BC related question.....Does anyone know if there are any standard view CL rooms at BC that have a full balcony? Just contemplating if I should add any requests to our reservation.

Cindy

Cindy, according to Dee's notes, most of the SV CL rooms at BC have full balconies, but not all. Since a few of those rooms have standing balconies, you might want to add a request to your reservation.

 

[GetGlowing]

Wanted to post a little about our BC stay before I forget the details!

We visited WDW last week for the One More Disney Day festivities. We had a great time! We = DH and me, early 40s.

Our first night was spent in a BoardWalk view studio courtesy of a friend's DVC points. WE LOVED THAT ROOM! What a great view and lots of room. We'll probably stay there again.

On Dec. 29 we entered Magic Kingdom at 6am. We checked out of BoardWalk around 5am and had Bell Services deliver our luggage to Beach Club. We had one small bag that required refrigeration and another piece of luggage that was very fragile, and I'm happy to report everything was stored and delivered properly! With the long walks from front desk to the rooms at these resorts, we enjoyed the use of Bell Services.

We left Magic Kingdom around 2pm to check in at Beach Club (and grab a little nap). We had a snafu at check-in. I'm not really sure how this happened, but the CM who checked us in wrote our room number -- 1507 -- on our key card folio and directed us to our room, which was, literally, three doors from Epcot. (I was so tired when we checked in I was cursing the distance from lobby to the room ... then later realized we couldn't have had a better location!) But when we arrived at the room, our keys wouldn't work. I really didn't know what to do, but I wasn't about to trudge back to the lobby. Thankfully the bellman was a minute behind us and let us into the room. He told us to call the front desk and they'd have someone bring us new keys.

Well I know that calling the front desk is really dialing a call center somewhere. But I did that and explained that our keys wouldn't work. The operator on the other end told me the keys didn't work because we weren't supposed to be in that room! She quoted a room number on 3rd floor that was supposed to be ours. I have no idea what happened with the room number because it wasn't a transposition of numbers or anything like that, it was a totally different number. After talking it over with her and being put on hold a couple times, she told me that everything was all good, we could stay put. I was very thankful because I just needed a nap!!

Great, so we started to unpack and I wanted to check out our patio since we were on the ground floor. I quickly realized that the latch on the sliding door didn't work at all. Well, that's not secure since we were in a ground floor room right on the Epcot pathway. About the time time we made this discovery, a CM delivered new working keys. I told her about the door latch and she made a call to maintenance. Still waiting to nap ... but Maintenance was there quickly and after a few bangs with a hammer, the latch was back in working order.

Yay! Nap time!

I have to say even though it was just a catnap, it was a very nice one! Beds and pillows are very comfy.

After napping I wanted to take a shower before returning to the Magic Kingdom to finish our epic day. It was then I noticed that the shower curtain rod was almost falling off the wall. I managed to situate the curtain so that the bathroom wouldn't flood.

I started to realize that maybe this room had been taken out of inventory for maintenance issues!

On our way to the Magic Kingdom, hubby stopped off at the front desk to report the shower curtain issue. They assured him it would be fixed promptly. Upon checkout three days later, it was still broken.

Anyway, that's the worst of our stay. The rest of it was much much better. After returning to the Beach Club at 7am following the 6am closing of Magic Kingdom. Our heads hit the pillow and we didn't move until 3pm! The room was so quiet and the beds so comfy. It was the best sleep I'd had in a while, but then we were really beat.

We spent the next two days in Epcot and Studios. The location was excellent for visiting both parks. We were right at the "secret exit" to Epcot, so we could enter and exit to the parks right from the room.

I enjoyed having the ground floor room rather than a balcony since the balconies are so small. We enjoyed evenings and mornings on our patio watching people come and go from Epcot.

Here are some photos, or you can see my Picasa album at
bit.ly /wBOd6C - (copy and paste without the space)

Our room:

Our view:

Enjoying our ground-floor patio:

Here's our room - last patio on the left. Room #1507.

A fisherman enjoys a foggy morning:

Quiet pool around the corner from our room:

We got a towel critter!

Since I had so many questions about the coffeemaker, here are some pictures:

The coffee maker uses circular single-cup coffee pods similar to a tea bag. We had two regular and two decaf in the room, with two bags of tea (one Earl Gray, one green tea). They were replenished daily.

We enjoyed our stay and would recommend Beach Club to others. Thanks for the info you all shared before our trip!

 

[blueeyesrnc]

Thanks MM for the great pics. I dub thee Queen of Food Porn!!! Thanks for keeping me laughing.

 

[blueeyesrnc]

Wow, GetGlowing, you have some really beautiful photos. Thanks for posting them.

 

[GetGlowing]

Thanks, blueeyesrnc, the fog really helps!

Peace

 

[TeenaS]

MM--I have tears coming out of my eyes! You have truly outdone yourself!! I really needed that after the past couple of weeks at work!!

Now, time for the obligatory BC related question.....Does anyone know if there are any standard view CL rooms at BC that have a full balcony? Just contemplating if I should add any requests to our reservation.

Cindy

Yes, most (but not all) of them (CL) are full balconies.