Hi Everybody
Got back Monday after a great first visit. I want to thank everyone for sharing all of their experiences and advice. It made our trip so much more enjoyable having a bit of knowledge and a flexible plan before we arrived. The place is huge and a bit overwhelming. I can't imagine anyone just showing up without doing some research.
BC resort:
We had booked a CL GV room. When we arrived we were told that none were available and they had upgraded us to a King suite on the 3rd floor. My only room request had been a full balcony and guess what...this room only had a small balcony (room 3647). I hemmed and hawed a bit with the CM and asked if there was a room with a full balcony. As the CM made a phone call my DH was madly giving me hand signals and strange facial expressions trying to communicate with me that I was crazy to turn down an upgrade like that!! In the end we kept the suite. It was very roomy with 2 TV's (I don't think we ever turned them on) 2 sofa's ,a walk in closet (great place to throw our junk)and a king bed. I have to say the room did feel a bit dark to me because the windows seemed small. The front window looked right out to the path on the lake and the side windows and mini balcony faced the sand volleyball area.It was a great location to watch people running in ponchos in the rain! Since the room was on a corner we didn't have any traffic outside our door, but we did get the noise from Fireworks, the nighttime movie on the beach and the friendships' horns. The location was great, we were just two small hallway from the elevators.
We had requested early morning mousekeeping and 8 of the 10 days that worked great for us. 2 of the days she was running late (4pm) so we just did without on those days. I think we got turn down service maybe 2 or 3 times. They seemed to come around 4:30 - 5:00p the exact time we were trying to get ready for dinner. We got a towel animal every day that we had mousekeeping.
CL was really nice. I have to say we probably didn't maximize our use of it, but it was so nice to have it available. We asked for bottled water everyday and they brought it to us with out any problem at all. Early one afternoon we asked for a glass of wine. We were brought 2 paper coffee cups full and an empty glass. She said she wasn't sure if we wanted to drink it there or take it "to go". We found the breakfast offerings (muffins, fruit, hard boiled egg) perfect for us. Usually my DH would run up and grab us something and we would eat in our room as we got ready to head out for the day. Would we do CL again?? I have to say "probably", the CM's were helpful and having the snacks and water available was great. Probably not worth the money but I bet we have a hard time booking another trip without it.
SAB: you are not going to believe it, but we didn't use the pool!!! Crazy, I know. We like to be in the shade and we just didn't find many chairs in the shade. I did look at the quiet pools, but they don't have shade either. Not a big deal to us, honestly. We were so busy exploring other areas (as first timers) we really didn't have much time to use it anyway. It looked great for families with kids.
The location was awesome. We easily walked to World Showcase and even walked to DHS. We took the boat back once from DHS but it got so hot inside that I had to jump out at the Swan/Dolphin stop. I can't imagine being in it during the summer.
Disney transport was great. We NEVER had any problems. We were planning to take a taxi to our dinner reservations at 'Ohana and Boma, but took the bus (and monorail) without any trouble. I will never feel the urge to rent a car at Disney again.
Restaurants: Loved the proximity of Table Service dining from BC
Cape May Café (dinner): honestly, we weren't wowed by this place. I made reservations for Sunday because they had fried shrimp....how do you fry shrimp that small?? They were tasty but about the size of a quarter.Probably won't return here on our next visit.
Boardwalk Bakery: Loved the lobster roll and the salted caramel ganache. I ate several!
Flying Fish and Yachtsman: Loved both of these restaurants.
Biergarten : our favorite buffet of the trip!
We found the counter service in the parks to be a bit lacking compared to the DLR, but TS at WDW is wonderful. I wish we would've had more time to try more restaurants.
Photopass: I had read a lot about this but really didn't pay much attention to it. However I now wish we had investigated it more and possibly purchased it. Since it was just the two of us we wanted to have pictures of us together. I had heard that the photographers will happily take pictures with your personal camera or phone. So, we started asking them. The first time they asked us if we had a photopass card. Since we didn't they started one for us. It became a game with us to find a photographer. They would take a picture with our cameras and phone, and then take photos with their equipment using our photopass. It was a GREAT service for us. I looked at the photos this afternoon on disneyphotopass dot com and many of them are just darling. We will definitely be ordering some.
10 days was a perfect length of stay for us. We paced ourselves so we didn't come home exhausted although we both got blisters on our feet!! There are plenty of things we didn't see so I guess we will need to plan a return trip.
BTW for our return trip home we checked our luggage in at BC (I think it is called RAC...not sure) at 5:45 am on Monday and were picked up at 6:30am by DME for our 9:20a flight home. When we finally arrived home nearly 13 hours later (4:30p California time) all of our luggage was missing. I have no idea what happened, but since it was all of our luggage and not just one piece I think that it didn't get to the airport in time.Thankfully we got our luggage yesterday.
Thanks again everyone for your help. I hope your upcoming trips are as magical as ours.
Oh nooooo, I didn't realize it had Malibu in it.
This leaves me out, as I'm allergic to coconut.
The popcorn is delicious, but it doesn't stay fresh very long once it is opened.
I've had several Pina Coolavas over the past few years and they are absolutely delicious! They come in a close second to the Grey Goose Slushies from Epcot. In all fairness, I've never had a Sunken Treasure so I'm sure the Grey Goose Slushies will become favorite drink #2 and the Pina Coolava will become favorite drink #3.
I hope the resident laundryman-bartender Tom Collins will be mixing drinks in the laundry room at BC in July! Maybe he'll be back from his tryst with Stella Artois by then! Deepest condolences to Ninja Mom......
I'm SO glad MCAS is done for the year now! Once we get through the month-long sprint from Field Day to concerts to end of school this-n-that, I'll be one happy mama!
I would sell a major organ to have a year round school system here.
Now that cracked me up!!
Hi Everybody
Got back Monday after a great first visit. I want to thank everyone for sharing all of their experiences and advice. It made our trip so much more enjoyable having a bit of knowledge and a flexible plan before we arrived. The place is huge and a bit overwhelming. I can't imagine anyone just showing up without doing some research.
BC resort:
We had booked a CL GV room. When we arrived we were told that none were available and they had upgraded us to a King suite on the 3rd floor. My only room request had been a full balcony and guess what...this room only had a small balcony (room 3647). I hemmed and hawed a bit with the CM and asked if there was a room with a full balcony. As the CM made a phone call my DH was madly giving me hand signals and strange facial expressions trying to communicate with me that I was crazy to turn down an upgrade like that!! In the end we kept the suite. It was very roomy with 2 TV's (I don't think we ever turned them on) 2 sofa's ,a walk in closet (great place to throw our junk)and a king bed. I have to say the room did feel a bit dark to me because the windows seemed small. The front window looked right out to the path on the lake and the side windows and mini balcony faced the sand volleyball area.It was a great location to watch people running in ponchos in the rain! Since the room was on a corner we didn't have any traffic outside our door, but we did get the noise from Fireworks, the nighttime movie on the beach and the friendships' horns. The location was great, we were just two small hallway from the elevators.
We had requested early morning mousekeeping and 8 of the 10 days that worked great for us. 2 of the days she was running late (4pm) so we just did without on those days. I think we got turn down service maybe 2 or 3 times. They seemed to come around 4:30 - 5:00p the exact time we were trying to get ready for dinner. We got a towel animal every day that we had mousekeeping.
CL was really nice. I have to say we probably didn't maximize our use of it, but it was so nice to have it available. We asked for bottled water everyday and they brought it to us with out any problem at all. Early one afternoon we asked for a glass of wine. We were brought 2 paper coffee cups full and an empty glass. She said she wasn't sure if we wanted to drink it there or take it "to go". We found the breakfast offerings (muffins, fruit, hard boiled egg) perfect for us. Usually my DH would run up and grab us something and we would eat in our room as we got ready to head out for the day. Would we do CL again?? I have to say "probably", the CM's were helpful and having the snacks and water available was great. Probably not worth the money but I bet we have a hard time booking another trip without it.
SAB: you are not going to believe it, but we didn't use the pool!!! Crazy, I know. We like to be in the shade and we just didn't find many chairs in the shade. I did look at the quiet pools, but they don't have shade either. Not a big deal to us, honestly. We were so busy exploring other areas (as first timers) we really didn't have much time to use it anyway. It looked great for families with kids.
The location was awesome. We easily walked to World Showcase and even walked to DHS. We took the boat back once from DHS but it got so hot inside that I had to jump out at the Swan/Dolphin stop. I can't imagine being in it during the summer.
Disney transport was great. We NEVER had any problems. We were planning to take a taxi to our dinner reservations at 'Ohana and Boma, but took the bus (and monorail) without any trouble. I will never feel the urge to rent a car at Disney again.
Restaurants: Loved the proximity of Table Service dining from BC
Cape May Café (dinner): honestly, we weren't wowed by this place. I made reservations for Sunday because they had fried shrimp....how do you fry shrimp that small?? They were tasty but about the size of a quarter.Probably won't return here on our next visit.
Boardwalk Bakery: Loved the lobster roll and the salted caramel ganache. I ate several!
Flying Fish and Yachtsman: Loved both of these restaurants.
Biergarten : our favorite buffet of the trip!
We found the counter service in the parks to be a bit lacking compared to the DLR, but TS at WDW is wonderful. I wish we would've had more time to try more restaurants.
Photopass: I had read a lot about this but really didn't pay much attention to it. However I now wish we had investigated it more and possibly purchased it. Since it was just the two of us we wanted to have pictures of us together. I had heard that the photographers will happily take pictures with your personal camera or phone. So, we started asking them. The first time they asked us if we had a photopass card. Since we didn't they started one for us. It became a game with us to find a photographer. They would take a picture with our cameras and phone, and then take photos with their equipment using our photopass. It was a GREAT service for us. I looked at the photos this afternoon on disneyphotopass dot com and many of them are just darling. We will definitely be ordering some.
10 days was a perfect length of stay for us. We paced ourselves so we didn't come home exhausted although we both got blisters on our feet!! There are plenty of things we didn't see so I guess we will need to plan a return trip.
BTW for our return trip home we checked our luggage in at BC (I think it is called RAC...not sure) at 5:45 am on Monday and were picked up at 6:30am by DME for our 9:20a flight home. When we finally arrived home nearly 13 hours later (4:30p California time) all of our luggage was missing. I have no idea what happened, but since it was all of our luggage and not just one piece I think that it didn't get to the airport in time.
Thanks again everyone for your help. I hope your upcoming trips are as magical as ours.
Thanks so much for your informative report!! Love it!
We have a whole section of the Community post on Page 2 about the Sunken Treasure. Although it has been officially "retired" from the Hurricane Hanna's menu, bartenders who know how to make it will do so upon request, and some of us are even resorting to bringing our own (laminated) copies of the recipe on vacation:
Sunken Treasure: The unofficial beverage of the Beach and Yacht Club FAQ forum:
Contents: Malibu Rum, Midori, orange juice, pineapple juice and Sprite with a splash of BOLS Blue Curacao.
Thanks, pixarmom, Feckless, WDW4us2006 and Ninja Mom for the photos!
Please note that the Sunken Treasure is no longer on the menu at Hurricane Hanna's, however if you get a bartender who knows how to make the drink, you may still be in luck!
Thanks to medicgirl177, who experiemented at great personal risk to decipher the secret formula:
Sunken Treasure- recipe by medicgirl177
1 1/2 shots Midori
1 shot Malibu Coconut Rum
1 shot orange juice
1 shot pineapple juice
Sprite or 7-Up to fizzy taste
1 shot Blue Curaçao
Over ice
Dress with Pineapple slice, cherry, or umbrella
Me too!!!
