drusba
I went to Iowa once, and it was closed.
- Joined
- Aug 19, 1999
- Messages
- 15,006
Stayed at BWV January 1 to 8, Rm 2003-05 (2BR), boardwalk view, in the Crest of Waves area, five of us this time. Have stayed late December and early January many times:
1. Room Condition: Overall the rooms were in excellent condition except for one illuminating problem for which I can never figure out why. When we arrived in the room we checked to make sure things were there and working. There were seven, yes seven, lightbulbs burned out, three in the studio (one bulb over bathroom sink, one over bed, and the one in tall lamp) and four in the 1BR (one overhead near front door, one over sink in tub area, one bedroom lamp, and the table lamp in the living room). One call and all were shortly replaced. What I don't understand is what any prior residents had been doing other than living with the problem and saying nothing. We have arrived and found multiple lights out before. It takes only a call to have them replaced. I think the odds are severely against the fact that all of the lights went out after the prior residents left. Moreover, I do think housekeeping should check lights when doing cleaning.
2. View: Outstanding as is any boardwalk view, could see nightly fireworks in both Epcot and MK. Personal view is that there is nothing better than BWV boardwalk view.
3. Walk to room: at end of section of boardwalk rooms and thus somewhat lengthy walk. However, since I have stayed at AKV Kidani and been in one of its north wing end rooms I can say the walk from lobby to room at boardwalk is less than 1/5 the distance at Kidani.
4. Room noise: generally quiet but with second floor you get a little more noise at night than higher floors. Also, we had one event right outside our bedroom window one night at about 12:30 a.m. A female patron of the Dance Hall decided to take up sobbing residence just below our window. The heartwrenching story was somewhat difficult to follow through her continuous crying and screaming but in cryptic sentences we eventually learned that her fiancee or boyfriend (it was not clear which) had jilted her at the Dance Hall and just left her there. She was devasted and coudn't believe such an awful thing could happen. She was consoled by other ladies passing by and apparently also inebriated and coming from the Dance Hall, who studiously piped in such pronoucements as "the SOB," " the scumbag," "the ____head." He had not only left her but he had her room key, photo ID, and all her cash money. "He took all my money, the b___tard, what I am going to do?" More crying, more screaming, more condolences. I did not know it was possible for one person to cry and scream loudly for one straight hour. My wife, who was sharing this eavesdropping experience of this devastating story with me, had one enlightening remark, "You leave me and try to take the money and I'll sue." After about an hour it ended abruptly. The "scumbag' showed up. He had not actually left her. He had gotten sick and had been in the bathroom throwing up and then when he came out he couldn't find her and had been looking for her for quite some time.
5. Christmas Decorations: BWV had two trees in lobby, some shed-like areas for Christmas "rooms" with Christmas things in them, holly everywhere. Half came down early (meaning still dark) Jan 5, rest came down early Jan 6. That is typical schedule for decorations coming down, but parks had them until Jan 7, the last time anyone from our group went.
6. Crowds: huge almost all week. The afternoon of Tuesday, Jan 3, at Studios was the most crowded I have ever seen Studios get (and that includes having been there during Christmas week). Toy Story reached 2 1/2 hour standby lines and Great Movie Ride had a full crowd (many hundreds) meanandering outside waiting to get in. Muppets had a three show waiting line. The streets were full and somewhat difficult to walk down. Crowds started to lose their Christmas size flavor as the week progressed but not by much. As we have noticed over the years, this week after New Year's has become more and more like Christmas week for crowd size so if you go that time of year in the future don't expect easily manageable crowds.
7. Hotel CMs: went out of their way to introduce themselves and welcome you to the resort and answer any questions you have. Problem we had, and one we have had before, is that we ordered one full cleaning day rather than just the trash and towel day. It just seems that no one can understand that you want a full cleaning day. It took 20 minutes on the phone with housekeeping and eventually having to be connected to a manger to convince them that I really wanted a full cleaning day and not just to move my trash and towel day. Then, just in case, on the day scheduled, I called housekeeping in the morning to remind them of the full cleaning that day, and, unsurprisingly, they had no record of my asking for such a cleaning. So had another 10 minute talk to convince them that I was supposed to get full cleaning that day. It was done but why are employees completely untrained to deal with any of this.
8. Pool/Weather: Tuesday was a cold day and Wednesday only somewhat better but other days hit low 70s. We did manage to hit the pool (and hot tub) on Friday. Just warm enough outside and pool was nicely heated. Daughter (25) had a deja vu experience as the woman who was running all the kids programs at the pool turned out to be someone she knew in high school.
9. Golf: for those who golf, you may be aware that all the courses are now (since September) under the management of the Arnold Palmer Golf Management Co. (not actually owned by Palmer, he is hired figurehead). The DVC discount still exists and none of the course employees I talked to believed it was going away. Though hard to imagine, the courses were actually in better condition than they usually were under Disney's control, particularly the Palm which was as close to having perfect fairways, traps and greens, as you can get. Note that Osprey is still part of Disney but how long is still not decided. However, the 18th hole (one of its best) is now gone because construction on where it was has started and you play one of the old Eagle Pines holes as the 18th.
10. Cirque: it had been a few years since we had been to Cirque. Still the best show in Southern Florida. A juggler has replaced the part of the show that had the acrobat who stack things on top of each other while he lifted himself up to the small chandelier. He is the best juggler I have ever seen. One thinks, "Oh, it is just going to be a juggler," and then this one comes out and floors you.
11. Biergarten: it had been many years since I went to Biergarten for dinner and had stopped doing so because the food had become very mediocre after it went from table service to buffet, even thougn I always liked the dinner show. I was convinced by son-in-law to try it again this time. It was 100% better with food variety and how it was prepared. Now recommend it for anyone.
12. Wifi: now for my real complaint, the new wifi system in the hotels. When it works it is fine although not powerful enough to download app updates to your iphone. The problem is that it goes through intermittent times every day -- particularly during latter part of afternoon and early evening -- when it does not work, which indicates the "suits" decided to go cheap and knowingly did not create enough capacity to meet all the expected demand that would occur. Moreover, you have to restablish the connection everytime after any period of non-use by clicking "I agree" to a long detailed agreement that comes up and it is hard to even click it on your iphone because it is so small, and very often that page won't come up automatically and thus you can have connection to the wireless system but no use of it, and to get the page to appear, you have restart your computer and basically start over going to the internet.
Neverhteless, overall a nice trip. The Osborne lights when "dancing" are still the best thing you can possibly see during Christmas.
1. Room Condition: Overall the rooms were in excellent condition except for one illuminating problem for which I can never figure out why. When we arrived in the room we checked to make sure things were there and working. There were seven, yes seven, lightbulbs burned out, three in the studio (one bulb over bathroom sink, one over bed, and the one in tall lamp) and four in the 1BR (one overhead near front door, one over sink in tub area, one bedroom lamp, and the table lamp in the living room). One call and all were shortly replaced. What I don't understand is what any prior residents had been doing other than living with the problem and saying nothing. We have arrived and found multiple lights out before. It takes only a call to have them replaced. I think the odds are severely against the fact that all of the lights went out after the prior residents left. Moreover, I do think housekeeping should check lights when doing cleaning.
2. View: Outstanding as is any boardwalk view, could see nightly fireworks in both Epcot and MK. Personal view is that there is nothing better than BWV boardwalk view.
3. Walk to room: at end of section of boardwalk rooms and thus somewhat lengthy walk. However, since I have stayed at AKV Kidani and been in one of its north wing end rooms I can say the walk from lobby to room at boardwalk is less than 1/5 the distance at Kidani.
4. Room noise: generally quiet but with second floor you get a little more noise at night than higher floors. Also, we had one event right outside our bedroom window one night at about 12:30 a.m. A female patron of the Dance Hall decided to take up sobbing residence just below our window. The heartwrenching story was somewhat difficult to follow through her continuous crying and screaming but in cryptic sentences we eventually learned that her fiancee or boyfriend (it was not clear which) had jilted her at the Dance Hall and just left her there. She was devasted and coudn't believe such an awful thing could happen. She was consoled by other ladies passing by and apparently also inebriated and coming from the Dance Hall, who studiously piped in such pronoucements as "the SOB," " the scumbag," "the ____head." He had not only left her but he had her room key, photo ID, and all her cash money. "He took all my money, the b___tard, what I am going to do?" More crying, more screaming, more condolences. I did not know it was possible for one person to cry and scream loudly for one straight hour. My wife, who was sharing this eavesdropping experience of this devastating story with me, had one enlightening remark, "You leave me and try to take the money and I'll sue." After about an hour it ended abruptly. The "scumbag' showed up. He had not actually left her. He had gotten sick and had been in the bathroom throwing up and then when he came out he couldn't find her and had been looking for her for quite some time.
5. Christmas Decorations: BWV had two trees in lobby, some shed-like areas for Christmas "rooms" with Christmas things in them, holly everywhere. Half came down early (meaning still dark) Jan 5, rest came down early Jan 6. That is typical schedule for decorations coming down, but parks had them until Jan 7, the last time anyone from our group went.
6. Crowds: huge almost all week. The afternoon of Tuesday, Jan 3, at Studios was the most crowded I have ever seen Studios get (and that includes having been there during Christmas week). Toy Story reached 2 1/2 hour standby lines and Great Movie Ride had a full crowd (many hundreds) meanandering outside waiting to get in. Muppets had a three show waiting line. The streets were full and somewhat difficult to walk down. Crowds started to lose their Christmas size flavor as the week progressed but not by much. As we have noticed over the years, this week after New Year's has become more and more like Christmas week for crowd size so if you go that time of year in the future don't expect easily manageable crowds.
7. Hotel CMs: went out of their way to introduce themselves and welcome you to the resort and answer any questions you have. Problem we had, and one we have had before, is that we ordered one full cleaning day rather than just the trash and towel day. It just seems that no one can understand that you want a full cleaning day. It took 20 minutes on the phone with housekeeping and eventually having to be connected to a manger to convince them that I really wanted a full cleaning day and not just to move my trash and towel day. Then, just in case, on the day scheduled, I called housekeeping in the morning to remind them of the full cleaning that day, and, unsurprisingly, they had no record of my asking for such a cleaning. So had another 10 minute talk to convince them that I was supposed to get full cleaning that day. It was done but why are employees completely untrained to deal with any of this.
8. Pool/Weather: Tuesday was a cold day and Wednesday only somewhat better but other days hit low 70s. We did manage to hit the pool (and hot tub) on Friday. Just warm enough outside and pool was nicely heated. Daughter (25) had a deja vu experience as the woman who was running all the kids programs at the pool turned out to be someone she knew in high school.
9. Golf: for those who golf, you may be aware that all the courses are now (since September) under the management of the Arnold Palmer Golf Management Co. (not actually owned by Palmer, he is hired figurehead). The DVC discount still exists and none of the course employees I talked to believed it was going away. Though hard to imagine, the courses were actually in better condition than they usually were under Disney's control, particularly the Palm which was as close to having perfect fairways, traps and greens, as you can get. Note that Osprey is still part of Disney but how long is still not decided. However, the 18th hole (one of its best) is now gone because construction on where it was has started and you play one of the old Eagle Pines holes as the 18th.
10. Cirque: it had been a few years since we had been to Cirque. Still the best show in Southern Florida. A juggler has replaced the part of the show that had the acrobat who stack things on top of each other while he lifted himself up to the small chandelier. He is the best juggler I have ever seen. One thinks, "Oh, it is just going to be a juggler," and then this one comes out and floors you.
11. Biergarten: it had been many years since I went to Biergarten for dinner and had stopped doing so because the food had become very mediocre after it went from table service to buffet, even thougn I always liked the dinner show. I was convinced by son-in-law to try it again this time. It was 100% better with food variety and how it was prepared. Now recommend it for anyone.
12. Wifi: now for my real complaint, the new wifi system in the hotels. When it works it is fine although not powerful enough to download app updates to your iphone. The problem is that it goes through intermittent times every day -- particularly during latter part of afternoon and early evening -- when it does not work, which indicates the "suits" decided to go cheap and knowingly did not create enough capacity to meet all the expected demand that would occur. Moreover, you have to restablish the connection everytime after any period of non-use by clicking "I agree" to a long detailed agreement that comes up and it is hard to even click it on your iphone because it is so small, and very often that page won't come up automatically and thus you can have connection to the wireless system but no use of it, and to get the page to appear, you have restart your computer and basically start over going to the internet.
Neverhteless, overall a nice trip. The Osborne lights when "dancing" are still the best thing you can possibly see during Christmas.
Number four is hilarious 
