Buckets of Pixie Dust!

[Golden Rose]

We just had one those trips that always seem to happen to other people.

I want to say that before this trip, we've generally had pretty average luck to bad luck with views (unless we paid in cash or points for a specific view, such as boardwalk view.) We've also been given handicap accessible rooms a couple of times lately, too, which I really, really hate with a toddler who doesn't like showers, and a child with sensory issues who _really_ doesn't like showers. (I was practically in tears begging them not to give us another handicap accessible room last trip, but we got it anyway. But that's definitely another story.)

Anyway, our first two nights were actually at Universal at Portofino Bay, so I shouldn't really mention them in a DVC thread, but the rest of it is DVC, so bear with me! We got a perfect view of Islands of Adventure over one of the swimming pools, and could watch the fireworks at night.

We moved to Animal Kingdom Lodge, and we checked into our 2 bedroom savannah view room, and discovered that our room was already ready, and it was on Arusha Savannah near the elevators that go down to the pool. Best location we've ever had, and the most animals we've ever seen. We saw giraffes, zebras, ostriches, impalas, tommies, and wildebeests almost constantly. There were animals just below our room almost every time we went out. We stay at AKL fairly often, and we've never seen such a variety of animals so consistently.

A few days later we moved to VGF, for our first stay there. We checked in for our 2 bedroom lake view, and were given a Grand Villa. It was absolutely stunning. The photos don't do it justice. It was also WAY more space than we needed, but it meant that everyone basically got their own room, which was great. We absolutely loved watching the Wishes fireworks on our balcony at night. I'm not sure what we did to get the upgrade, and we were completely astonished and thrilled to get it. (We joked that it was because they were now tracking us so easily with the magic bands, and they were rewarding us for spending a huge amount of money the previous day on the two Star Wars character meals, plus a lot of souvenirs for the kids.)

Add to that perfectly working magic bands, several thoughtful castmembers, and great character interactions throughout the trip. It was a thoroughly magical vacation!

 

[vicki_c]

Sounds like a great trip! I'm so happy when people have a great time and pixie dust on top of it!

 

[sskem96]

So nice to see a positive report!

I will pass on 1 tip for future trips. DVC takes your room requests in the order they were requested, so if not having a HA room is very important to you, make that your 1st request. We were once given a HA 2 BR at Kidani. We were a party of 6. A HA room doesn't have the island in the kitchen, so there's only seating for 4 for meals at the table. Our food delivery had arrived earlier in the day, so they could see that we had food for fixing meals in the villa all week and not enough seating. We did finally manage to get a new room after 1 1/2 hours of trying to convince them that this room was not going to work for us, at 1am, but it was a terrible way to start off the trip, especially after arriving so late. Now our 1st request is always "not a HA room".

 

[cmwade77]

Additionally, call to make the request as soon as you make the reservation, sometimes they will let you add it then, sometimes not. But always do online reservations the second you can and make the request again, then call.

We have always gotten our requests by doing this.

That being said, at AKL, even the 1 bedrooms have two bathrooms and in the accessible room, only one of the showers is a roll in, the other is a tub. So, I am not sure why that would matter there.

At least that's what our friends had when they stayed there and needed an accessible room.

But glad you had a great trip.

 

[Duke&Tree]

Glad you had such a great time!!