"BACK" from OKW - photos added on page 5

[RobDoc]

Day 7

After taking our 2+ mile walk again this morning (saw an osprey this time), we spent the rest of our time at Epcot (again).

We caught the tasting seminar offered by the Hall Winery (Napa, CA). They had a great Sauvignon Blanc followed by a Merlot, Cabernet Savignon and then an even better Cab. Prices for these wines retail from $20 - $75 and all were enjoyable.

We grabbed a quick bite at the Electric Umbrella and then headed back into the queue for the Francis Ford Coppolla tasting where we had 4 offerings from their Director's Cut line of wines. Coppolla has been in the wine business since 1978 - he purchased the Inglenook winery back in 1975 to escape the Hollywood environment and was talked into producing wines again on his property. The results have been most rewarding - as he has more recently purchased another winery and begun producing other other labels too. We enjoyed our samples of his Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon. We had enjoyed the Chardonnay at our pairing yesterday and today reinforced the taste.

After a brief intermission, we were able to get into another Chateau St. Michelle seminar where 5 wines were offered. As yesterday, all were Merlots, but they added one more so we had a 2004 Merlot, 2003 Indian Wells Merlot, 2004 Cnaoe Ridge Merlot, 2004 Ethos Merlot and again the 1997 Cold Creek Merlot. All are excellent wines and work well with a variety of foods.

We'll have a quiet evening and then head bacl to Epcot again tomorrow for another round of seminars.

The weather was hot today with a heavy afternoon rain, but we were inside and unaffected at the time. Forecast is for similar weather tomorrow with temps again near 90.

 

[JimC]

It was a heavy downpour from our home to 536 on our way to the Little Richard concert. But while on property, other than some lightening, it was a great summer (yes I mean summer) evening. Looking forward to a bit more seasonal weather soon.

 

[RobDoc]

Day 8 -

Another quiet day today. We took our usual morning walk to DD and then headed to MK for lunch at Columbia Harbour House. We had planned to ride HM again, but the crowds were huge - especially for a Friday in October.

Sooo ... we left MK, hopped on the express monorail and switched at TTC for the Epcot monorail. At Epcot we also encountered large crowds, so we just walked around WS, enjoyed a performance of VoL and then went to another Sam Adams seminar (same talk, same beer, but still fun).

After the seminar we walked the rest of the way around WS and headed back to OKW. It was another hot, sticky day today.

Forecast is for a little cooler tomorrow, but with 60% chance of showers.

Tomorrow (Sat.) is our last day. We have our usual dinner at CA Grille planned and I will get some more photos of the CR construction from the 14th floor (weather permitting). I never made it over to AK, so that will have to wait until our next visit.

OKW has been very busy the whole time we've been here. There were a lot of check-outs today, but this evening there were still lots of vehicles in the parking areas.

 

[DisDaydreamer]

Day 7

After taking our 2+ mile walk again this morning (saw an osprey this time

We have happily seen Osprey on many occasion to FLA. Really cool birds... we are bird lovers...

We are also wine lovers... and really like (at least me) chardonnay.. DW prefers Merlot and (why, I don't know) chablis (frankly, just another name for chardonnay).

Glad you are having a good time... Sorry your stay is coming to an end... Always hate the SAD day.

Have a good trip home....

 

[RobDoc]

Day 9 - Last day.

We did not get in our usual walk to DD since it was raining Sat. morning. So we spent the day getting organized for our early departure on Sunday. We went to the front desk and had boarding passes printed, got a print out of our bill (NOT a pretty sight) and made arrangements with the Bell staff to pick us up at 6:30am so we could get our DME bus in timely fashion.

Around 4pm we headed over to the MK for our dinner reservation at CA Grille. We walked from the bus stop to CR. I posted a number of photos of the CR construction in the this thread.

Dinner was wonderful and we had a window seat with a great view.

5:00am came all to early today. Our departure was uneventful - the Bell staff was right on time to pick us up (and our Owner's Locker). DME was a good ride - although they did have to strand a few guests at SSR since our bus did not have room for everyone waitiing there. Getting thru security was quick, we had about 90 minutes to wait until boarding and we even took off earlier than our scheduled time - and then arrived about 20 minutes early in Indy. When I go thome there was an email waiting from Owner's Locker letting us know that our "stuff" was safely back in storage until next time!

We're already planning for next time !

 

[bobbiwoz]

That was nice! Thanks for sharing. I enjoy the natural, otters, osprey...how about bald eagles? We've been lucky to see some in Florida, one at WDW, and someone on this board had a nice picture of one at SSR.

Ha! A DVC member only now planning the next time! Really, how many vacations have you begun to plan?

Bobbi

 

[AKV707]

Doc, Thanks for all of the great reports. DW and i will definitely go to some of the wine seminars at WoL thanks to your recommendation.

We will be heading to OKW soon. It is our fist DVC trip! Any OKW advice or things that we should know?

Thanks

 

[RobDoc]

Here are a few more photos from this trip. I took about 350 photos and have just uploaded them to my computer and have gotten thru a few of them. For a larger image, just click on the photo. Enjoy!

 

[tiggerrr]

So about 18,000,000 points a year (if its a 7 day ave) at over $150,000,000. That would be about 2000 additional rooms at a 25 point average.

70,000 at OKW doesn't seem like that many if they are selling 50,000 a day I guess.

I think the manager may have misspoke or have poor information. DVC can't possibly be selling 50,000 points per day. Jambo House at AKV only has 1.8 million points total (I've personally calculated this amount). The newly declared (last) building 18 at SSR has only .75 million points (I took this calc of another thread). At those point total, they would be able to sell all of AKV and the new building in SSR in 51 days. And they've been selling AKV for months.

50,000 points per week might be more realistic. If you assume sales are fairly evenly split between SSR and AKV, then the last building of SSR would take about 30 more weeks to sell out, which would be the end of next April. And if AKV was about 1/3 sold, it would take another 9 weeks beyond that for Jambo House to sell out, or around the end of next June.

 

[Coach81]

Thanks for the reports Doc! If you could post some of your OKW pics I sure would appreciate it. We can't wait until February!!!

 

[MomtoGKC]

Your trip sounds so nice and relaxing! I'd love to have a trip like that someday. Right now we are still in the go-go-go mode with three little kids!