Decorating for Christmas..

[Maistre Gracey]

We will be decorating our room at VWL when we arrive on the 8th.
I have seen several balconies decorated in past years. Although my gut tells me it's against the rules, my gut also tells me Disney overlooks it.

Now, does anyone decorate their balcony with electric lights? If so, how do you plug them in? I don't believe there are any exterior outlets.

Any thoughts on decorating?? It will be our first time doing so.

MG

 

[Chuck S]

I don't know about VWL, but a lot of folks put lights on their OKW balconies. There is an outlet on the balconies at OKW.

 

[tomandrobin]

If I was there before christmas, I definately would! Wreath on the door, lights on the balcony!

 

[loribell]

We ran the extension cord through the door to plug in our balcony lights at VWL last year. It actually seemed like there were more rooms decorated at the lodge then there were at the Villa's though. Seemed strange to me.

Now DH is saying there was an outlet outside and we plugged them in out there. So to be safe take an extension cord. If we did plug them in inside we had no problem shutting the door.

 

[Granny]

I can tell you for sure there is no electric plug on the VWL balconies we've stayed in.

We decorated last year before we realized we weren't supposed to. I did ask a CM if I needed to pull the decorations down and he said to leave them up until someone asked me to take them down. He also said that we never had that conversation.

Follow your gut!

 

[bobbiwoz]

Granny, your balcony was so tastefully decorated!

MG, we begin our VWL stay on the 9th, and I will look for your decorated balcony...keep an eye open for the VWL tree #3 in our window!

Bobbi

PS. We're going to MVMCP on the 11th, anyone else?

 

[Maistre Gracey]

Thanx to all for the great replies!
Granny, I think I saw that shot of your balcony on the Groupies thread, and that actually motivated me to decorate... Nice job!

Bobbi, we'll be looking for the tree. I hope we can pull off decorating the balcony. We will miss you at the MVMCP. We are going on the 9th.

MG

 

[Granny]

Thanx to all for the great replies!
Granny, I think I saw that shot of your balcony on the Groupies thread, and that actually motivated me to decorate... Nice job!

Bobbi, we'll be looking for the tree. I hope we can pull off decorating the balcony. We will miss you at the MVMCP. We are going on the 9th.

MG

MG...thanks for the comment. And if you are concerned about lights outside, you can hang them on the insides of the windows as my daughters did.

They taped them with cello tape and yes we carefully removed every last bit of it from the windows. If I were going again I would get a bunch of those suction cup hooks to hang the inside lights.

 

[Muushka]

aww Granny, that looks so nice.

I have bought my low energy sucking LCD Christmas lights.
And I will pack an extension cord. Woohoo!

 

[bobbiwoz]

Suction cups for window lights are on my shopping list! Thanks for the idea, Granny!

Bobbi

 

[DisneyFreaks]

On our recent Halloween stay at OKW my DD hung lights on our balcony. She used those 3-M thingys that don't leave any marks or residue. We didn't know it wasn't allowed as we saw a few others doing it as well. Is this really against the rules? Oooops!

 

[Sammie]

Yes officially it is against fire code. Disney does seem to look the other way unless it gets to be tacky or over done or lights and cords are obviously a fire hazard, I mean no one wants to contribute to a fire situation.

They did have a few issues they had to deal with on an indiviudal basis. I mean truly they understand; but they also have spent thousands of dollars to decorate for Christmas tastefully and some of the decorations were getting very out of hand.

If you stay somewhere, where there isn't an outside outlet, I would not recommend leaving your door open while gone, or pinching the cord with the door, definitely a fire concern. So if you run the cord out from the room, you will have to deal with your door being slightly open.

 

[DisneyFreaks]

Yes officially it is against fire code. Disney does seem to look the other way unless it gets to be tacky or over done or lights and cords are obviously a fire hazard, I mean no one wants to contribute to a fire situation.

Thanks Sammie. I totally understand and agree. When we stayed at BWV we used battery operated lights. Not as bright but looked nice anyway. The outdoor outlet at OKW is the reason we used regular lights there. I think we'll just stick to the battery ones in the future.

 

[Fantasmic303]

This is our balcony at BWV last December. You can see our DVC tree through the window!! The lights were plugged in inside our room with an extension cord run to the balcony. We did have to leave the door open a little bit, so we only lit them when we were in the room. We also had battery operated ones that we strung around the door frame and turned on while we were in the room, but they're not shown in the picture - my sister ended up WEARING them at MVMCP!!

(Please let me know if this doesn't show up!)

 

[dianeschlicht]

We have decorated at OKW for the holidays in the past, but then OKW has outlets on the balcony. We have seen increasingly more decorated balconys as the week has gone on. If you think OKW decorates a lot of balconys, you should see what they do at the campground!!! We went over there for the Segway tour yesterday, and many of the campers had very elaborate displays!

 

[bobbiwoz]

We have decorated at OKW for the holidays in the past, but then OKW has outlets on the balcony. We have seen increasingly more decorated balconys as the week has gone on. If you think OKW decorates a lot of balconys, you should see what they do at the campground!!! We went over there for the Segway tour yesterday, and many of the campers had very elaborate displays!

We always take a bike ride to the campground this time of year. Those displays are not to be missed! I wish we could take the ride at night, but even in daylight you get the idea!

Bobbi