Geomom
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 17, 2010
- Messages
- 4,843
Bay Lake Tower, 2/13-2/20/16
Preface:
We had booked a lake view, 2 bedroom lockoff right at 7 mths with our OKW contract. Within a week of booking, I emailed DVC my room requests for an even numbered room (hoping to be on the outer C and have more 'living' space) and a high floor.
Our group consisted of 2 families from Massachusetts. DH, myself, DD15 who turned 16 on 2/15!, DD11; our friends with a 15 yr old boy and 13 yr old girl. We took the 1 bedroom side and had their 13 yr. old sleep on the living room sleeper chair while our girls shared the living room sofabed. The rest of their family had the studio side, with the door between left ajar to share the communal space during the day and give their daughter access back to their room.
As the room can sleep 9, about a month before the trip, I added my Dad to the reservation as he was planning to come visit for 1 day, for DD's 16th birthday.
Early disappointment--the BLT pool (and everything around it) is closed for refurbishment while we're there. It's our first trip to BLT and we were hoping to enjoy all of it. Oh well!
Day 1: Saturday 2/13/16
While our winter had been much milder than last winter's record breaking snow/cold; the previous 2 weeks had brought 15 inches of snow down and the temperature was going to be -11 on Sat/Sun nights--very happy to get away! We had an uneventful Southwest flight from Manchester, NH to Orlando and an uneventful Magical Express trip...other than being the last of 4 stops. We made it to Bay Lake Tower by 2:15PM. No texts that our room was ready, but we checked in at the desk. No, room is not ready. I asked what time it 'might' be ready. 4-5PM is the normal checkin time. Okay...that's not 'too' long from now. Let's check out the Community Hall/walk around the resort...with all our carry on bags. (Yes, I know we could leave them with bell services...but I was being optimistic...mistakenly optimistic.) The kids had fun coloring some pages, watching Tomorrowland (again), and playing Minecraft (DD11), and I colored a couple of magnets to bring on our first Disney cruise this summer! No texts with a room number...so at 4:30PM we went to check on it. Housekeeping is working on our room now...okay...any estimate on when it'll be ready? The cast member goes to check, comes back, and says she needs to speak to the manager. About what? Well...housekeeping says it'll be another 1 1/2 hrs. They have bags and bags of trash up there and they've just taken the sheets off the beds. The manager is needed to give us compensation. We say it's fine as we are in general patient people and our friends aren't going to be at the resort until around 8PM. They offer to pay for our dinner. (I have no idea if they did yet...I haven't gotten the emailed copy of the room charges yet--I'll update if I find out!) I do ask what our room number is...they don't tell us, but do say we're on the 16th floor. I thought that only Grand Villas were on the top floor, so I'm rather doubtful it's really the 16th floor. The cast member asks if we're DVC members and says she's not sure if we have to come all the way down to the first floor to get to Top of the World. At this point we still have no idea what this all really means... Anyway...we finally do leave our carry on bags with bell services and head over to Contempo Café to grab some dinner and then wander around the resort. We count the number of floors at BLT and only come up with 15...where is the 16th floor? At 6:15PM we still haven't gotten a text that our room is ready--and we've now triple checked that our cell numbers are listed with them. So...back to the BLT lobby we go and check on 'when' our room will be ready. It's ready...never got a text. We're in rooms 8635/8637. We get in the South elevator and push the button for 16...but it doesn't stay lit. We go up with some people and down with others and up and down and up and down as we keep trying to get 16 to stay lit. Oh look there's a place to stick your magic band, let's try that and then push 16. Yes, that finally worked! (And yes, we texted our friends about HOW to get to our floor!) I can't believe they never told us how to get to our room! We walk into our room and whew the smell of bleach is overwhelming! I can't say the room isn't clean! We open up the balcony slider to let some fresh air in. What a view! We're on the inside C, top floor, can see Bay Lake and everything below us...the closed pool, etc. DH tastes the water in the room. Yuck...unfortunately what we expected. The Magic Kingdom resorts have all had nasty tasting water for us. Epcot ones aren't as bad...other than the chlorine. We're going to need extra bottled water this week. We head out to the Fantasia Market to buy bottles of water, eggs, sausage, tater tots, bread, milk, creamer, etc. All our breakfast necessities to go with the pancake mix and REAL Vermont maple syrup that we brought from home. Our friends eventually arrive and we're setting up the beds. The sleeper chair has no pillow or blanket--we take one of our 5 pillows and put it there and I'll go ask for a blanket. Oh, and we also have NO spatula to turn our pancakes with in the morning...and NO dishwasher detergent...and NO sponge! I decide to go talk to someone in person and go to the concierge desk. He puts in the items he can, and has someone contact housekeeping about the dishwasher detergent. Our friends never had time to eat dinner, so we decide to go check out the Top of the World Lounge for the first time and watch Wishes from there. Oh...it was sooo nice. We just walked right from our room and down the hall to Top of the World Lounge around 9PM. There was a big seating area just as we came in the door--so we all fit there, our friends ordered food, we all got some type of drink and we hung out there until Wishes, when we went outside and watched it. The menu was more extensive than I thought it would be--I had seen a 'recent' menu from Touring Plans and thankfully, that is the current menu. Cheese board, chips and salsa/guacamole, pretzels/cheese dip, shrimp cocktail, pulled pork sliders, steak and cheese flatbread, margarita flatbread, 7 layer cake. (Over the week we tried all the items except the shrimp cocktail.) When we finally get back to our room, housekeeping has dropped off the blanket and a dish soap pack (2 more Palmolive, 1 dishwasher, 1 dishwasher cleaner, 1 towel, 1 sponge...which is when we realized we didn't originally have a sponge!)...NO spatula. We gave up. We'll make do with what we have. And that's the end of day one. We 'should' have just left our bags with bell services right away and gone over to Magic Kingdom for a few hours...now I know better.
Preface:
We had booked a lake view, 2 bedroom lockoff right at 7 mths with our OKW contract. Within a week of booking, I emailed DVC my room requests for an even numbered room (hoping to be on the outer C and have more 'living' space) and a high floor.
Our group consisted of 2 families from Massachusetts. DH, myself, DD15 who turned 16 on 2/15!, DD11; our friends with a 15 yr old boy and 13 yr old girl. We took the 1 bedroom side and had their 13 yr. old sleep on the living room sleeper chair while our girls shared the living room sofabed. The rest of their family had the studio side, with the door between left ajar to share the communal space during the day and give their daughter access back to their room.
As the room can sleep 9, about a month before the trip, I added my Dad to the reservation as he was planning to come visit for 1 day, for DD's 16th birthday.
Early disappointment--the BLT pool (and everything around it) is closed for refurbishment while we're there. It's our first trip to BLT and we were hoping to enjoy all of it. Oh well!
Day 1: Saturday 2/13/16
While our winter had been much milder than last winter's record breaking snow/cold; the previous 2 weeks had brought 15 inches of snow down and the temperature was going to be -11 on Sat/Sun nights--very happy to get away! We had an uneventful Southwest flight from Manchester, NH to Orlando and an uneventful Magical Express trip...other than being the last of 4 stops. We made it to Bay Lake Tower by 2:15PM. No texts that our room was ready, but we checked in at the desk. No, room is not ready. I asked what time it 'might' be ready. 4-5PM is the normal checkin time. Okay...that's not 'too' long from now. Let's check out the Community Hall/walk around the resort...with all our carry on bags. (Yes, I know we could leave them with bell services...but I was being optimistic...mistakenly optimistic.) The kids had fun coloring some pages, watching Tomorrowland (again), and playing Minecraft (DD11), and I colored a couple of magnets to bring on our first Disney cruise this summer! No texts with a room number...so at 4:30PM we went to check on it. Housekeeping is working on our room now...okay...any estimate on when it'll be ready? The cast member goes to check, comes back, and says she needs to speak to the manager. About what? Well...housekeeping says it'll be another 1 1/2 hrs. They have bags and bags of trash up there and they've just taken the sheets off the beds. The manager is needed to give us compensation. We say it's fine as we are in general patient people and our friends aren't going to be at the resort until around 8PM. They offer to pay for our dinner. (I have no idea if they did yet...I haven't gotten the emailed copy of the room charges yet--I'll update if I find out!) I do ask what our room number is...they don't tell us, but do say we're on the 16th floor. I thought that only Grand Villas were on the top floor, so I'm rather doubtful it's really the 16th floor. The cast member asks if we're DVC members and says she's not sure if we have to come all the way down to the first floor to get to Top of the World. At this point we still have no idea what this all really means... Anyway...we finally do leave our carry on bags with bell services and head over to Contempo Café to grab some dinner and then wander around the resort. We count the number of floors at BLT and only come up with 15...where is the 16th floor? At 6:15PM we still haven't gotten a text that our room is ready--and we've now triple checked that our cell numbers are listed with them. So...back to the BLT lobby we go and check on 'when' our room will be ready. It's ready...never got a text. We're in rooms 8635/8637. We get in the South elevator and push the button for 16...but it doesn't stay lit. We go up with some people and down with others and up and down and up and down as we keep trying to get 16 to stay lit. Oh look there's a place to stick your magic band, let's try that and then push 16. Yes, that finally worked! (And yes, we texted our friends about HOW to get to our floor!) I can't believe they never told us how to get to our room! We walk into our room and whew the smell of bleach is overwhelming! I can't say the room isn't clean! We open up the balcony slider to let some fresh air in. What a view! We're on the inside C, top floor, can see Bay Lake and everything below us...the closed pool, etc. DH tastes the water in the room. Yuck...unfortunately what we expected. The Magic Kingdom resorts have all had nasty tasting water for us. Epcot ones aren't as bad...other than the chlorine. We're going to need extra bottled water this week. We head out to the Fantasia Market to buy bottles of water, eggs, sausage, tater tots, bread, milk, creamer, etc. All our breakfast necessities to go with the pancake mix and REAL Vermont maple syrup that we brought from home. Our friends eventually arrive and we're setting up the beds. The sleeper chair has no pillow or blanket--we take one of our 5 pillows and put it there and I'll go ask for a blanket. Oh, and we also have NO spatula to turn our pancakes with in the morning...and NO dishwasher detergent...and NO sponge! I decide to go talk to someone in person and go to the concierge desk. He puts in the items he can, and has someone contact housekeeping about the dishwasher detergent. Our friends never had time to eat dinner, so we decide to go check out the Top of the World Lounge for the first time and watch Wishes from there. Oh...it was sooo nice. We just walked right from our room and down the hall to Top of the World Lounge around 9PM. There was a big seating area just as we came in the door--so we all fit there, our friends ordered food, we all got some type of drink and we hung out there until Wishes, when we went outside and watched it. The menu was more extensive than I thought it would be--I had seen a 'recent' menu from Touring Plans and thankfully, that is the current menu. Cheese board, chips and salsa/guacamole, pretzels/cheese dip, shrimp cocktail, pulled pork sliders, steak and cheese flatbread, margarita flatbread, 7 layer cake. (Over the week we tried all the items except the shrimp cocktail.) When we finally get back to our room, housekeeping has dropped off the blanket and a dish soap pack (2 more Palmolive, 1 dishwasher, 1 dishwasher cleaner, 1 towel, 1 sponge...which is when we realized we didn't originally have a sponge!)...NO spatula. We gave up. We'll make do with what we have. And that's the end of day one. We 'should' have just left our bags with bell services right away and gone over to Magic Kingdom for a few hours...now I know better.
