Completed Trip Report 10/22 - 10/30 WDW

[bfrosty]

Greetings all,

We are back from our longest Disney trip in our history 9-Days/8-Nights.
Our trip started with 4-nights at OKW and 4-nights at BCV.

We tried a lot of new things which I'll get to in a minute, plus we or I carried a pedometer to check/track our daily mileage/steps. I will have the totals at the end of my trip report. Onto the good stuff.

10/22 1st Day/Night:
Arrived at 11pm, checked-in and went to our room 4125 on Old Turtle Creek Rd. Unpacked, Showered and went to sleep. The room was on the second floor, near the bustop, clean and tidy. The resort is showing it's age and you can tell that this was Disney's first DVC resort (after staying at 4 other newer DVC resorts that is).

10/23 2nd Day/Night:
The family retrieved breakfast from Olivia's, while I ironed out some details with the Coinceirge (add a ticket, add DDP and indicated it was my DD birthday) Yes, her birthday lasted about 4-5days at Disney with Sunday the 26th being her actual b-day. It was fun and all the CM's were very nice.
Visited Epcot for the day and went on the "Behind the Seeds" tour (1st time) with a 15% discount via DVC member. We only had 4 others in our tour, so it was very personal. The kids got Ladybugs to release towards the end. We had a blast and recommend this tour to all ages. Our DS was picked for a question at the talk to crush show. He asked, "Where do you go to the bathroom?" Yes, he is 9yrs old. Crush says "What's a bathroom?", continued on "Well, dude I go anywhere and everywhere". As he says that line, bubbles pour out of the back of his shell. Hillarious!!!
We stayed for fireworks and headed to the bus stop.
Total Miles: 8.11 | Total Steps: ~17,000

10/24 3rd Day/Night:
Hollywood Studios, all the great rides and crowds were average. We did manage to "WIN" a million dreams awards while visiting the "Animation world of Walt Disney" over by the Ariel ride and Playhouse disney. Everyone in the queue receive a snazzy lanyard that told us to meet at the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular at park close. We won an extra magic hour for us and about 1,500 others as we went to the pre-event gathering. They played music from the 80's by Sweat, Mulch and Shears band for about 15min, then sent us on our way. The park still seemed crowded and yes! everyone went to Toy Story Mania to ride it. We were tired and really didn't stay the entire extra hour. It was fun and it was nice to win something.
Total Miles: 4.07 | Total Steps: ~8,614

10/25 4th Day/Night:
Animal Kingdom, all the great rides and a first (Expedition Everest)...that was awesome, very fun and exciting. Our DD4 was able to ride "Dinosaur" for the first time. We left early on and the park was about average for crowd size. Sat. night we had reservations for the "LUAU" at the Polynesian. We arrived early for a photo OP and a few drinks before the dinner/show. Our seat were 3rd tier, far right stage, last row of tables. The food was Unbelievably awesome, plenty and the music/show was great. Our favorite was the fire dancer dude spinning his torches around. We had the 8pm show booking. We crashed back at the resort.
Total Miles: 5.927 | Total Steps: ~12,519

10/26 5th Day/Night:
Transfer to Beach Club Villas and spent the day at Hollywood Studios. Rode the rides and had reservations at SciFi Dine-In for 5pm. They were running late and the dinner was fantastic. I request a "tink" and "Hook" glow clip for the kids glasses because it was my DD4 b-day. At the end, the server picked up the tab on the glow cubes. I had every intention on paying for them, but he insisted!!!! A little disney magic for the day. We stayed till 12pm and took the boat back to BCV about 12:25pm that night....we were pooped!
Total Miles: 10.56 | Total Steps: ~22,311

10/27 6th Day/Night:
Magic Kingdom, finally. We rode the rides and my DD4 had a 3pm appt. at BBB in the castle. She and her mother spent 2hrs there while the boys rode some cool rides. The park was open till 11pm and we headed home after that.
Total Miles: 10.45 | Total Steps: ~22,073

10/28 7th Day/Night:
Epcot and MK for MNSSHP. Did the wine/food festival and ate lunch at the Biergarten in Germany, Yum! and did the Halloween party that night. We met up with some friends and got a great seat on Main for the parade. This is where it got ugly, some guy started yelling at my friend about where he was sitting and he shared some "Not So Friendly" words with him and actually threatened him if he left the park. Great!! Oh well, this dude cooled his jets and all was well. His mother was there and appologized several times. It was kinda a bizzare situation...oh well! A trick-r-treating we went and candy did we get!!! Woohoo. Stayed till 12:35 that night....pooped again!
Total Miles: 13.8 | Total Steps: ~29,188 (LONGEST DISTANCE AWARD)

10/29 8th Day Night:
Epcot, light crowds and great weather....a bunch of the normal stuff and a great lunch at LeCellier in Canada. Tried the "Segway" PT demo at Innoventions....a ton of fun...just don't think to hard about it....it's easier to do than you think. Actually, all you have to do is think about walking and the segway moves forward.
Total Miles: 9.2 | Total Steps: ~19,614

10/30 9th Day....last day!!!
Magic Kingdom, light crowds...maybe because it was a MNSSHP night?
Did the rides...5min wait times... My DD4 visited the princesses in the tent around toontown and the boys played for two hours....Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, Buzz Lightbeer, Indy race track cars, teacups!!! Blahhh
We headed back to the resort for a late lunch/early dinner and stopped by beaches and cream for a quick sundae. ME picked us up and got the to airport in plenty of time, flight delayed 40mins. Ugh!!! Arrived back home about 11:30pm last night...crashed about 1am.
Total Miles: I give up....probably about 4-5 Haha...

See ya real soon!!!

Resort Report: OKW....I didn't care for the resort too much after staying at HHI and VWL. I guess if you golfed a lot...it would be great for those people. The bustops were a turn off, the distance from the hospitality house, gift shops and restaurant we a bummer. We might have had a better experience if it wasn't raining most of our stay. That hindered us from exploring the grounds. We didn't swim or shop at this resort.
BCV!!!!! AWESOME!!!!! We loved the checkin, restaurant/QuickService area, gift shop and location of the rooms/pool and boardwalk. The 5min stroll to Epcot was very convienent and the boat launch to Hollywood Studios was the best. We walked everywhere, plus the weather was much better...no rain, mostly sunny 73 degrees.

Weather Report:
Cool and Rainy our first 3-days...record lows on our 6th and 7th nights...43 Degrees and breezy.....All in All....not bad weather....we prefer cool days over hot ones.....but a few hot ones would have been nice while staying at the Beach Club and StormAlong Bay pool.

This was not a relaxing vacation...but we all had fun, long days and nights....I would recommend HHI (last May) for a nice, relaxing vacation....that was a relaxing vacation!!!!


Well, I guess it's time to start planning for next year!!!

Thanks for reading and if I get time...I'll post a few of the best photos from this trip.

Over and Out!!!
BFrosty


Total Miles: 67.1 | Total Steps: 143,352

 

[OhMari]

Glad you had a great time. I sure hope that unseasonable is gone next week.

Where did you get on the boat to HS, by the Yacht Club, or did you walk over to the Boardwalk area.

 

[bfrosty]

Glad you had a great time. I sure hope that unseasonable is gone next week.

Where did you get on the boat to HS, by the Yacht Club, or did you walk over to the Boardwalk area.

Thanks...I'm sure it will...they predicted normal temperatures next week.

We caught the boat from the lighthouse...I think the pattern going is the following. Starts at Epcot, then boardwalk, then beach club, then Dolphin/Swan and finally Hollywood Studios. We all still call it MGM...much easier to say.

The boat ride is nice and about 15minutes....the crew said it's a little over a mile to walk it from Beach Club.

Enjoy! It should be great weather.
Bfrosty

 

[MEK]

Loved your abbreviated trip report. I think you covered all the highlights perfectly and the trip sounded great. I was interested to hear how much you preferred BCV over OKW. I am new to DVC and have not stayed at either. I really want to stay at BCV and hope I get to some day. But right now I am pretty low on points and might book OKW for next trip. I heard the 2BR villas are really big and I that's what I want next trip! I stayed at Vero Beach and those furnishings were starting to show their wear. I suspect OKW is similar.

 

[bfrosty]

Thanks for the comments.

Please don't think OKW is a rundown resort by my review.

The grounds are immaculate and the cast members are very friendly and extremely helpful. I'd like to show you my list of good things and no so good things based on my narrow opinion!

Things we liked:
Grounds were beautiful and immaculately kept.
The studio was the biggest we have stayed at so far. BCV and VWL are a bit smaller.
Although there were 5 bus stops throughout the complex, we averaged about 15-20 min rides to any park from OKW.
Olivia's was bright and friendly, the food was fantastic (breakfast).

Things we disliked:
It did seem like the furnishings were older, although every thing was clean.
We stayed in the middle of the complex, so walking to the pool was far and we felt that the Hospitality House was a far walk and not very convienent. The Hospitality house contains Olivia's Restaurant, Big Theme Pool, Gift Shop, Harbor, Checkin/Checkout.

OKW is very laid back, restful and peaceful....very close to Epcot!!!! and the buses do not stop at any other resort/place. Direct transport to theme parks.


The points seems to be the cheapest at OKW....I almost thought about getting the grand villa for a couple nights, since I had extra points. The 1 and 2 bedrooms are probably huge if you need the room.

I missed the kitchen, laundry and space of a 1bed over the studio.


Have a great trip and let me know if you have any other ?'s
BFrosty