More random thoughts: there is still a line in the tub area for hanging clothes to dry. Don't know if that has been mentioned before. The closet is great! Found a place for everything easily. And I did use the ironing board & iron twice. It was great to just slide the board in & out & not mess with setting it up & taking it down.
The room always felt cool enough, no problems with the air conditioning at all. I did notice you can't set the thermostat below 68 tho. That was fine for us, but some people may think that is too warm.
Careful with the safe.... the one time my DH locked it, he obviously didn't punch in the code we had decided on. Except he insisted he did. We couldn't open it. After 3 tries, it times out for about 15 minutes. Still didn't work, down to CM desk to ask for assistance. A manager had to come with a master key to open it. And I made sure to lock it myself after that, lol! It really isn't easy to mess up: you put in 4 numbers which show up & you can see before you hit the lock button. Then the 4 numbers display again after that too. But I guess if you're just not paying attention to what you're doing.........
The safe was large enough to hold 2 tablets, iPod with headphones, couple of extra magic bands, small jewelry box & still have lots of extra space. Even when we added our wallets & phones when we went to the pool, there was still plenty of extra room.
I am wondering if some of the reasons behind the decor changes is bed bug prevention. As I sat on the vinyl chairs, I thought how easy it must be to just wipe stuff down & how much easier it will be to identify & treat the room if any bugs are found. Only the mattress to discard if needed, no box spring to worry about too. No carpet to hide bugs. Maybe I'm wrong, but just my thought.
We also got our Dasani water bottle replaced, a nice bonus for those of us who can't take the Florida tap water. The larger size toiletries are perfect. My DH uses the bar soap so the large shower gel was just the right size for me for the week.
We returned to our room about 3pm on Wednesday & the room hadn't been cleaned yet. That was not typical tho. We just put the do not disturb sign out & skipped housekeeping that day. There are 4 big towels in the bathroom plus 2 more by the sink area, 4 hand towels & about 6 washcloths, so we had plenty of towels to get us thru the day. I noticed they were much better about picking up the dirty plates from the hallway then they have been in the past. Looked like they might make sweeps twice a day at least which is much better than in years past.
We saw several management types around the lounge area, chatting & offering beverage refills etc. The food offerings in the club lounge have significantly improved, a welcome change!! I did post about the daily offerings in the club level thread. Basically breakfast they have added 2 cold meats & cheese plus more variety of bagels, breads & pastries. Afternoon has added some crudités to the snacks. And the evening offerings have improved & added new variety. For years it was some fried pastry type thing like quesilldas. Now they had an actual meat several times. Always 4 cold salads & 2 hot foods plus several cheeses, crudités & pb&j shooters withrolls. Everything was replaced as it ran low. I never saw empty serving plates. I was also happy to see the desserts improve too. Not much variety day to day, but many more items offered. Everyday had 3 types of cookies, 3 or 4 different mini cupcakes, a creme brûlée or panna cota mini cup, Rice Krispies treats, brownies, a bar type treat like vanilla chocolate Oreo moouse & a s'mores moouse that I found irresistible! Let me know if anyone wants more specifics on the food. We don't drink, so I have no info on the adult beverages, sorry!
We rarely heard any construction noise. Only an occasional banging, not loud enough to bother us tho. However, I don't think they were working in the wing our room was in. We saw a workers in the rooms & on the balconies over the back entrance area several days. Didn't hear any noise at a StormAlong Bay either. The boats to Disney Studios were fairly full most times we went there. We had pretty good luck with buses to MK. We seemed to have only a few minutes to wait as we got to the bus stop.
All the cast members we came across were friendly & helpful. There were some faces we recognized but lots of new people too.
Sorry I rambled on! All in all, another great trip but it's always nice to be home!
We stayed in standard room 4652, and it is above the port cochére. It was very loud early in the morning (like 5-6 a.m. early). I finally figured out that they were likely unloading luggage from airline cages, as it sounded like heavy objects rolling across metal rollers or something similar. So, if you are a light sleeper, I recommend you try to avoid any standard rooms over the entrance.
