Carrieberry
<font color=9999CC>Has to post on the right thread
- Joined
- Nov 30, 1999
- Messages
- 2,071
Hi everyone! Well we got back late Saturday night after a truly magical trip! We stayed the first 5 nights at Beach Club Villas on rented points from someone right here on these boards (Thanks again nuthut!!) and then we stayed the last night at Animal Kingdom Lodge. I will start first with BCV.
The BCV were absolutely beautiful!! We rented points for 5 nights in a studio which ended up costing us less per night than the nightly rate (with code!) for our one night of savannah view at AKL! The room (studio) had a queen sized bed, a pull out sofa bed, an armoire with drawers a good sized bathroom and a wonderful little kitchenette complete with coffee maker, toaster, microwave and mini fridge. Plenty of cabinet space and an iron and ironing board in the closet. The shower head had the massager on it, and although I have read numorous complaints on the water pressure, we didn't even really notice it until we swtiched over to AKL and saw the difference. It wasn't that bad. There is a little back pathway that leads you quickly to the area right before international gateway entrance to Epcot and that was wonderful. We only took the boat once the entire week over to The Studios. We went to that park twice while at BCV and the first time we walked there and beat the boat, and then walked back at the end of the day and the other time we took the boat there and then walked back again, beating the boat by a long shot. That time it was pouring rain as well as park closing,and the line for the boat reached back all the way to the end of the pathway leading to the docks. We had a great time in our ponchos, and beat the first boatload back by a long time. We estimated we would have had to wait for about the third boat if we had stood there and waited. Anyway, it is a lovely walk and much faster if you keep an average pace going. We went to Beaches and Cream twice. My DH got root beer floats both times, but did help me polish off my Fudge Mud Slide Sundae! The second time we went I had the strawberry frozen yogurt and it was delicious too! We saw an alligator out in the canal running past the BCV pool twice, and some turtles as well. We never waited longer than 10 minutes for the buses we did take, and a couple of times, the DD bus skipped the Boardwalk stop. At first we thought that it was because our buses were full, but later we found out (through some people that got on the wrong bus!) that Boardwalk had it's own bus to/from DD after 3pm or something. All in all it was a lovely resort and my DH now says he never wants to stay anywhere else except maybe the villas over at WL. We would rent points from nuthut again in an instant and the CM's at the BCV were wonderful!! I just can't tell you all how much we enjoyed this resort!!
Let me say that we are not picky travelers. We pretty much let anything roll right off of our backs and keep going happily. Many of the complaints on these boards that I have read about both resorts I noticed only because they have been mentioned, not because I have noticed them myself on my own. Even the issues we had at AKL did not deter from our enjoyment of our trip in general and still they were repsonded to as "Whatever, no biggie" but I just want to mention them to everyone here anyway so you know exactly why we did not enjoy our stay at AKL as much as our stay at BCV. That being said:
We did not have an overly wonderful time at AKL. It wasn't a bad time, it just wasn't up to par with our stay at BCV. At check in, I got a very unfriendly CM to check us in. She asked if I was checking in and when I said yes, she barely let me get the word out before she replied "confirmation number, id, and credit card please" without even looking up from her computer. Now I made this reservation a year ago, and I have been paying a little bit on it every so often, but I could have sworn there was some sort of balance on it. Well, she checked me in, had me sign the paper for express check out and room charges (which by the way she did not even bother to ask me if I wanted in the first place, she just took my card and authorized it without telling me what she was doing, luckily I knew since this was not my first trip)and then told me my room would be ready by 3, not to feed the animals or drop anything into the habitat, and sent me on my way. Well I went and sat down, and then looked at all of my notes on the reservation, seeing that sure enough, I had a balance on this reservation. I promptly walked back up to counter and talked to someone else and then they looked up my reservation. Sure enough, she charged the balance to my credit card without even telling me that there was in fact a balance, how much it was, or asking me how I wanted to pay for it (which was cash by the way). I had to have them credit my card back and then pay in cash. This was a Visa check card also, so it could have really screwed up my account if I had not realized what probably happened. I also feel that she should have at least told me how much the balance was and given me the chance to tell her how I wanted to pay it. I only wanted to leave my card for the express check out option, not for any room balance amount. All ended well as they happily credited my card back and the credit and the charge went thorugh today at the same time, without screwing up anything in my account. I just felt that it was lucky this was not my first Disney trip, and I knew what had probably happened so I could take care of it right away. If I had been a first time vactioner there, and I was just checking in, it would have been more frustrating to have this have happened, not to mention that she did not even explain the room charging procedures or anything. I meant to go back and get the CM's name but never did.
We had a room on the second floor with the famous "service road" view. It wasn't too bad because some giraffes came to eat shortly after we checked in and they were very close. We had requested when making the reservation that we would like a king bed room, but we did not get it, no big deal really. The resort is absolutely beautiful. The lobby and the grounds were gorgeous. We did not find the room specifically all that dark, but the whole atmosphere of AKL was dark. We liked it ok for one night, but probably will not return, espescially with the kids. We found the resort to have almost a quiet relaxing feeling to it and just don't think our two boys will enjoy it as much as the open airy feeling of the BCV or the fun of one of the moderates. The Mara was totally packed every time we went there, and that night we went to have a drink in Victoria Falls Lounge and it was packed too. No room at the bar or any tables so we left feeling frustrated. We went to The Mara and got a snack and my DH was going to get a donut from the bakery case but he said they were rock hard (from that morning I guess) so we got a box of Entenmmans ones instead. We had never been to this resort and so we looked and looked trying to find the cups for the self serve soda and did not see them anywhere. When we went to the cashier, we asked where the cups were and she rolled here eyes and whipped one out from behind the counter where she was sitting without saying a word and just held it up in front of us like we were idiots.
The bus to DD and the one to MK took 20 minutes (one case ithe DD bus only took 16 minutes due to a speedier bus driver). The buses did come regularly and we did not have to wait longer than 10 minutes for any of them. When we checked out, the guy at the Valet service desk was also less than friendly and just sort of snorted when we handed him our luggage ticket and din;t say anything. A few minutes later our luggage came out with an extremely friendly CM who helped us load it into the town car and commented that Tiffany (the town car service we used) was great. He was in fact the only friendly CM we encountered at AKL. Kind of dissapointing.
Other than that we were very glad we gave this resort a chance because the animals being right outside of the rooms is a very neat feature and the themeing is spectacular. It just isn't our type of place, almost the exact opposite in atmosphere as BCV. We likened it to our stay at the Poly which we also did not care for very much, though a lot of people like it. These are the reasons why there are so many different resorts at WDW, because many people have differing tastes! Both were beautiful resorts but out of the two, we will only be returning to BC. Thanks for reading and let me know if you have any questions!!
The BCV were absolutely beautiful!! We rented points for 5 nights in a studio which ended up costing us less per night than the nightly rate (with code!) for our one night of savannah view at AKL! The room (studio) had a queen sized bed, a pull out sofa bed, an armoire with drawers a good sized bathroom and a wonderful little kitchenette complete with coffee maker, toaster, microwave and mini fridge. Plenty of cabinet space and an iron and ironing board in the closet. The shower head had the massager on it, and although I have read numorous complaints on the water pressure, we didn't even really notice it until we swtiched over to AKL and saw the difference. It wasn't that bad. There is a little back pathway that leads you quickly to the area right before international gateway entrance to Epcot and that was wonderful. We only took the boat once the entire week over to The Studios. We went to that park twice while at BCV and the first time we walked there and beat the boat, and then walked back at the end of the day and the other time we took the boat there and then walked back again, beating the boat by a long shot. That time it was pouring rain as well as park closing,and the line for the boat reached back all the way to the end of the pathway leading to the docks. We had a great time in our ponchos, and beat the first boatload back by a long time. We estimated we would have had to wait for about the third boat if we had stood there and waited. Anyway, it is a lovely walk and much faster if you keep an average pace going. We went to Beaches and Cream twice. My DH got root beer floats both times, but did help me polish off my Fudge Mud Slide Sundae! The second time we went I had the strawberry frozen yogurt and it was delicious too! We saw an alligator out in the canal running past the BCV pool twice, and some turtles as well. We never waited longer than 10 minutes for the buses we did take, and a couple of times, the DD bus skipped the Boardwalk stop. At first we thought that it was because our buses were full, but later we found out (through some people that got on the wrong bus!) that Boardwalk had it's own bus to/from DD after 3pm or something. All in all it was a lovely resort and my DH now says he never wants to stay anywhere else except maybe the villas over at WL. We would rent points from nuthut again in an instant and the CM's at the BCV were wonderful!! I just can't tell you all how much we enjoyed this resort!!
Let me say that we are not picky travelers. We pretty much let anything roll right off of our backs and keep going happily. Many of the complaints on these boards that I have read about both resorts I noticed only because they have been mentioned, not because I have noticed them myself on my own. Even the issues we had at AKL did not deter from our enjoyment of our trip in general and still they were repsonded to as "Whatever, no biggie" but I just want to mention them to everyone here anyway so you know exactly why we did not enjoy our stay at AKL as much as our stay at BCV. That being said:
We did not have an overly wonderful time at AKL. It wasn't a bad time, it just wasn't up to par with our stay at BCV. At check in, I got a very unfriendly CM to check us in. She asked if I was checking in and when I said yes, she barely let me get the word out before she replied "confirmation number, id, and credit card please" without even looking up from her computer. Now I made this reservation a year ago, and I have been paying a little bit on it every so often, but I could have sworn there was some sort of balance on it. Well, she checked me in, had me sign the paper for express check out and room charges (which by the way she did not even bother to ask me if I wanted in the first place, she just took my card and authorized it without telling me what she was doing, luckily I knew since this was not my first trip)and then told me my room would be ready by 3, not to feed the animals or drop anything into the habitat, and sent me on my way. Well I went and sat down, and then looked at all of my notes on the reservation, seeing that sure enough, I had a balance on this reservation. I promptly walked back up to counter and talked to someone else and then they looked up my reservation. Sure enough, she charged the balance to my credit card without even telling me that there was in fact a balance, how much it was, or asking me how I wanted to pay for it (which was cash by the way). I had to have them credit my card back and then pay in cash. This was a Visa check card also, so it could have really screwed up my account if I had not realized what probably happened. I also feel that she should have at least told me how much the balance was and given me the chance to tell her how I wanted to pay it. I only wanted to leave my card for the express check out option, not for any room balance amount. All ended well as they happily credited my card back and the credit and the charge went thorugh today at the same time, without screwing up anything in my account. I just felt that it was lucky this was not my first Disney trip, and I knew what had probably happened so I could take care of it right away. If I had been a first time vactioner there, and I was just checking in, it would have been more frustrating to have this have happened, not to mention that she did not even explain the room charging procedures or anything. I meant to go back and get the CM's name but never did.
We had a room on the second floor with the famous "service road" view. It wasn't too bad because some giraffes came to eat shortly after we checked in and they were very close. We had requested when making the reservation that we would like a king bed room, but we did not get it, no big deal really. The resort is absolutely beautiful. The lobby and the grounds were gorgeous. We did not find the room specifically all that dark, but the whole atmosphere of AKL was dark. We liked it ok for one night, but probably will not return, espescially with the kids. We found the resort to have almost a quiet relaxing feeling to it and just don't think our two boys will enjoy it as much as the open airy feeling of the BCV or the fun of one of the moderates. The Mara was totally packed every time we went there, and that night we went to have a drink in Victoria Falls Lounge and it was packed too. No room at the bar or any tables so we left feeling frustrated. We went to The Mara and got a snack and my DH was going to get a donut from the bakery case but he said they were rock hard (from that morning I guess) so we got a box of Entenmmans ones instead. We had never been to this resort and so we looked and looked trying to find the cups for the self serve soda and did not see them anywhere. When we went to the cashier, we asked where the cups were and she rolled here eyes and whipped one out from behind the counter where she was sitting without saying a word and just held it up in front of us like we were idiots.
The bus to DD and the one to MK took 20 minutes (one case ithe DD bus only took 16 minutes due to a speedier bus driver). The buses did come regularly and we did not have to wait longer than 10 minutes for any of them. When we checked out, the guy at the Valet service desk was also less than friendly and just sort of snorted when we handed him our luggage ticket and din;t say anything. A few minutes later our luggage came out with an extremely friendly CM who helped us load it into the town car and commented that Tiffany (the town car service we used) was great. He was in fact the only friendly CM we encountered at AKL. Kind of dissapointing.
Other than that we were very glad we gave this resort a chance because the animals being right outside of the rooms is a very neat feature and the themeing is spectacular. It just isn't our type of place, almost the exact opposite in atmosphere as BCV. We likened it to our stay at the Poly which we also did not care for very much, though a lot of people like it. These are the reasons why there are so many different resorts at WDW, because many people have differing tastes! Both were beautiful resorts but out of the two, we will only be returning to BC. Thanks for reading and let me know if you have any questions!!
