Thanks so much for the welcome, natebenma.
I can now say I'm officially a convert, and the Beach Club is tied for the top spot in my favorite Disney resorts (
that I've actually stayed at...a whopping 5 now, lol).
The Poly shares the honors as my inner child still adores that view of the castle from the Volcano pool, and it happens to house 2 of my favorite Disney restaurants.
Anyway, I thought I would share a few thoughts with you, the good and the not so good and the in-between:
After being presented with a room at the POR for our first night room only ressie that was exactly opposite in every way from our online requests, we were pleasantly surprised to find all of our requests were met at the BC. We had a 4th floor garden view room with a nice view of the courtyard, close to the lobby, the Marketplace, and the transportation. It was clean, and we didn't even mind the lack of a full balcony. We were that happy to be at the BC. We even got towel Mickeys and towel animals several days.
A side note...even though our Royal Room River View was at the far corner of nowhere (
i.e., Parterre Place, literally the far corner), it was actually lovely and the princess decor was a nice touch. We particularly enjoyed the light up headboards, lol, and it started our 10 day trip on the right note, drawing out the inner child in both of us.
Ok, back to the BC, seeing as this is the BC thread.
Stormalong Bay was awesome, and we found it quite relaxing. Our visits were mostly limited to the evenings, though, so that surely had something to do with it. And those pictures of the "quiet" section of the pool with the little waterfall and the steps to the hot tub? Well, that was our favorite spot to hang out at, and though we wandered each section, we kept returning there.
We really enjoyed walking to EPCOT along the water.
The buses were generally not a problem. We did wait for a bus to Magic Kingdom one day for almost 45 minutes, but that didn't seem to be the norm, and overall, we were pleased with all the transportation options at the BC.
Multiple people we met told us they'd experienced a lot of rain during their trips, but we only had a couple of showers, and neither lasted very long. The humidity got to us a couple of times, but being from the South and having experienced the World during the month of June, it truly wasn't that bad, imo.
Dining-wise, we had a few misses, and we had our share of last minute cancellations (
La Hacienda in the Florida humidity after a long day of touring parks seemed like a monumentally bad idea at the time). Overall, though, our experiences were good.
Ohana--this has always been a favorite of mine, and everything was so good again this time. Plus, we had a super nice, attentive server, and that always helps.
Liberty Tree Tavern--sure, it was just appetizers and dessert. But those cheese sticks and that Ooey Gooey Toffee Cake were more than worth it.
Yak and Yeti--my goodness, the Cream Cheese wonton dessert! Yummy.
Raglan Road--such a fun experience with the singing and the dancing. Oh, and the food was good, too.
Hoop de Doo Revue--great way to finish off a fantastic trip. The cornball humor and cornbread was just what we needed to prepare ourselves to return home.
Via Napoli--was good, but I guess I'm one of those people that prefer Americanized pizza. The Ugly But Good Sundae, though, more than made up for my regret of not having ordered pasta here. It was very creamy and flavorful (
I'm sensing a pattern here, lol).
Sci-Fi--really wish we had used the time spent here riding Star Tours or RnR again. It was just bleh. And the cheesy clips usually appeal to me, but this time I found myself checking my phone the whole meal and wondering what the wait time was for TSM.
Mama Melrose--I can say my 5 cheese macaroni was good, and maybe my steak would have been. Had the waitress not mistakenly thought I'd requested it rare instead of medium well. She did take it back to the kitchen for me and even brought me back a second helping of macaroni, but my steak was basically a charred piece of leather when it came back, and service here was super slow. We had a ressie just before 5 and literally had no time to do anything else after the meal beside sprint across the park to Fantasmic. I guess the silver lining could be that we had great seats for Fantasmic, but really. The fastpass+ seats looked just as good.
Oh, almost forgot...
Beaches and Cream--the sundaes here were monstrous(
ly good). I'm so glad I stuck to a side order of fries to go along with my Fudge Mud Slide. There's no way I would have been able to even eat the measly half I managed. These babies are definitely built for two, and while the sundaes at Ghiradelli were just as good, you're definitely getting more bang for your buck at B&C, at least portion-wise.
Our other meals were honestly not very memorable.
Other thoughts...
La Nouba was amazing, even though our seats were not front and center. They were more like front and side, lol.
MNSSHP was super fun, and we loved, loved, loved HalloWishes! There were a lot of people there, but we still got to basically walk on every ride and closed the park down. The lines for characters didn't seem unmanageable, but we mostly skipped them for the candy trails and people watching in between riding HM over and over again and doing everything else with minimal waits.
Still love the Lion King show in Animal Kingdom, but nothing was different than the last several times I'd seen it.
Magic Bands worked pretty well. It was absurdly easy to spend money with them, lol, and my room bill reflected that. I was worried about losing them, though, and I have a nice little tan line on my wrist, lol. I wish they were a little more comfortable. It seemed no matter how I adjusted mine, it kept rubbing over the bones in my wrist or sliding up my arm. After a while, though, it just seemed to become an extension of my arm. I did catch myself trying to check the time on several occasions, though.
Fastpass+ worked out great for us for the most part, too.
It was nice, after 4 trips to Disney, to finally be able to see what all the fuss is about concerning Toy Story in HH. It was fairly simple to change experiences and times on the go with the different kiosks set up around the parks. I was surprised to see more of the big name rides were still available for fastpass+ same day.
Really, the only thing we didn't particularly like about the fastpass+ was having yet another part of our vacation so scheduled, but you know what? If we weren't feeling the schedule, it was easy to change and take the day as it went.
Lines generally weren't bad; both mornings we went to AK, we walked right on EE multiple times, and it wasn't even our first stop of the day.
Whenever we felt a park was getting a little crowded, we just hopped on a bus, boat, or monorail and went elsewhere.
We did have a couple issues with getting stuck on rides, and the CMs at Test Track really could have handled themselves better, I think, when we were literally frozen in place for over 45 minutes. I'm telling you, we did a full on sprint to make it to Via, lol.
Thankfully, we made it to the end of Splash before it completely stopped. I think we were stuck for nearly 40 minutes that time with Zippity Do Dah playing on nonstop loop before the CMs came to rescue us and pry us out of the boats to escort us out the back. At least we received anytime fastpasses and the CMs were nothing but courteous and apologetic. Still, we couldn't even look at Splash again after that little episode. Whenever that song would play on the bus or in the park, we would groan. The only positive was we didn't get stuck on Small World. The thought was enough to scare us away from chancing it.
Photopass+ had a few nice perks, but I don't think it is something I would splurge on again, unless I had a bunch of little ones with me and didn't want to carry my own camera at all. Most of the photographers seemed annoyed when you asked about Magic Shots, even though the CMs at the Photopass pick up spots encouraged you to ask about them.
All in all, we had a great trip, and I can't wait to go back to the Beach Club.
Unfortunately, it's not going to be next year as the bounceback option that worked best for the party that I'll be traveling with was AofA. I'm trying not to be disappointed, because yay! I'm going back to Disney!
But I can honestly say the BC spoiled me, and now, I can't imagine staying anywhere else unless it's the Poly. I'm hoping the Nemo suite is enough to change my mind. Maybe I can convince them to do a split day with Stormalong Bay as enticement.
LOL!
Thanks again for the welcome, and sorry for the novel-length post.
! I'm going to look into this!!! Was anything on your magic band? I thought I heard they were being scanned when photo pass pics were taken? I could be totally wrong!!!
to you.
). Because we've done deluxe dining in the past, DH wanted it this year 
but he doesn't know we are staying CL. There are 8 other people traveling with us, all staying at different resorts, and all are on the regular dining plan. ADR's are made. We are staying two days longer than the rest of the group, those nights are 2point dinners (which I'm willing to nix).
posts like yours. They are filled with great information and your opinions, good or bad, are always appreciated on this thread!
