As some of you may recall, we changed our plans right before our trip, cancelling our air and deciding to drive to Vero instead of flying. We had to cancel our one night stay at OKW and have 41 points in "holding" but that is for another post 
We (dh, myself, ds -14, dd - 13 and dd - 4) left Chicago Thursday at 6 pm, drove till 2 am, got a room, continued on at 7 am until around 8 pm, and got a room in Ocala. Met my grandma for breakfast and continued on to Vero. We decided to take the scenic route and got off on A1A and just loved looking at the ocean during our last two hours down. The kids just about jumped out our their seats when the realized we had finally made it that far, lol.
I had requested a certain room which was recommend for a ocean view, upon checkin at 3 (yes, an hour early, but it was ready, yeah) we were told that one was booked but they had another with the same view. I was skeptical until we got to the room. Wow, it was incredible. If you don't know, with the dunes and foliage unless you have a room at the back of the resort on the third floor, you would not normally be able to see the ocean. I was so impressed. This was our first visit home, actually our first visit after purchasing DVC last December. We had a one bedroom unit and cannot wait to go back, lol.
We had dinner at Shutters the first night and were really impressed. My husband asked how the prime rib was that night, and the waitress just looked at him and smiled and said she would recomend a steak instead. How often do you really get an honest answer from a waitress? She brought him a menu from Sonya's and he had a wonderful meal, as did we all. We then unpacked and just discoved the resort.
The Christmas decorations were already up which surprised me, I thought they went up after Thanksgiving. There are several decorated trees in the lobby, one just huge one which was beautiful.
The first night we got the kids up at 4 am and went out to the boardwalk to watch the meteor shower which we will always remember.
We spend the next week just hanging at the pool and the kids got involved in many of the organized activities that they have, for example, kayaking, cell painting, craft classed, the unbirthday party, sack races, amongst many and they had a ball, as did we when there were parent / kid activities. They also loved the water slide and mini golf.
My husband and I went to the Green room several times and just loved it there. We brought the kids there on our last night for several games of checkers and appetizers.
I cannot say enough about the staff. Everyone was so friendly and went out of their way to be nice. I noticed a big difference in their attitudes when comparing them to other disney resorts, but then again, we have never stayed in a DVC resort. The only thing I bummed out on, was that no one ever said "welcome home", but if that is the only downer, so be it, lol.
We also went to the beach several times. The latest hurricane has done extensive damage to the boardwalk and the beach itself. The ramp on the boardwalk at the bottom, and at the bottom of the stairs were completly washed away. They had a temporary set of small stairs put up for people to actually get to the sand. The beach itself on the first several days was very small, but by the end of our trip, noticed that alot of sand had already been washed back to shore, and the sand was almost back to the original stair level. A CM explained that although the hurricane itself didn't hit Vero, they did get some residual effects. Many of the stairs leading to the beach up and down the coast as far as you can see and walk, were literally washed away. The water was very turbulent the first couple of days, but got calmer at the week went on. We did allow our older kids to go boogie boarding with life jackets and only in the eyesight of the lifeguard on the next beach down. And this was after a surfer told me that once he got pas the breakers, he had a diffucult time getting back to shore.
All in all, we had a wonderful trip. We brought many of the essential food items with us but still went to Publix twice. The first time for groceries to cook during the week. We only at out the one time, the rest of the time we ate in our room with my husband cooking all of the meals except Thanksgiving, and with that all I had to do was warm it up. Our second trip to Publix was to pickup our Thanksgiving meal which was wonderful. We had our dinner in our room by candlelight that night and with the centerpeice my youngest daughter and husband made together in a craft class. BTW, my husband NEVER cooks, but told me that this was also MY vacation, ya gotta love that, and since I was letting him sleep in, and took care of the kids during the early part of the day, he would take care of me by cooking.
The kids also just loved going to Flo and Ed's, the rental place and renting any of the games that they had. They also loved that they could rent movies any time they wanted. It made the early dark nights more fun, although we were all usually asleep by 10.
We loved this resort and had a great time. This is our kind of vacation, just kinda hanging out and doing very little in the off years we don't do WDW. But I could see that families that like to do more than this would get bored after several days there. From now on, when we do plan a trip to WDW, we are definately going to extend our trip to get back to Vero for a couple of days. Right now I am trying to figure out a way to get several of my family members to join us next year.
Just knowing that we have 40 more years at this resort is a dream come true.
Kelly
We (dh, myself, ds -14, dd - 13 and dd - 4) left Chicago Thursday at 6 pm, drove till 2 am, got a room, continued on at 7 am until around 8 pm, and got a room in Ocala. Met my grandma for breakfast and continued on to Vero. We decided to take the scenic route and got off on A1A and just loved looking at the ocean during our last two hours down. The kids just about jumped out our their seats when the realized we had finally made it that far, lol.
I had requested a certain room which was recommend for a ocean view, upon checkin at 3 (yes, an hour early, but it was ready, yeah) we were told that one was booked but they had another with the same view. I was skeptical until we got to the room. Wow, it was incredible. If you don't know, with the dunes and foliage unless you have a room at the back of the resort on the third floor, you would not normally be able to see the ocean. I was so impressed. This was our first visit home, actually our first visit after purchasing DVC last December. We had a one bedroom unit and cannot wait to go back, lol.
We had dinner at Shutters the first night and were really impressed. My husband asked how the prime rib was that night, and the waitress just looked at him and smiled and said she would recomend a steak instead. How often do you really get an honest answer from a waitress? She brought him a menu from Sonya's and he had a wonderful meal, as did we all. We then unpacked and just discoved the resort.
The Christmas decorations were already up which surprised me, I thought they went up after Thanksgiving. There are several decorated trees in the lobby, one just huge one which was beautiful.
The first night we got the kids up at 4 am and went out to the boardwalk to watch the meteor shower which we will always remember.
We spend the next week just hanging at the pool and the kids got involved in many of the organized activities that they have, for example, kayaking, cell painting, craft classed, the unbirthday party, sack races, amongst many and they had a ball, as did we when there were parent / kid activities. They also loved the water slide and mini golf.
My husband and I went to the Green room several times and just loved it there. We brought the kids there on our last night for several games of checkers and appetizers.
I cannot say enough about the staff. Everyone was so friendly and went out of their way to be nice. I noticed a big difference in their attitudes when comparing them to other disney resorts, but then again, we have never stayed in a DVC resort. The only thing I bummed out on, was that no one ever said "welcome home", but if that is the only downer, so be it, lol.
We also went to the beach several times. The latest hurricane has done extensive damage to the boardwalk and the beach itself. The ramp on the boardwalk at the bottom, and at the bottom of the stairs were completly washed away. They had a temporary set of small stairs put up for people to actually get to the sand. The beach itself on the first several days was very small, but by the end of our trip, noticed that alot of sand had already been washed back to shore, and the sand was almost back to the original stair level. A CM explained that although the hurricane itself didn't hit Vero, they did get some residual effects. Many of the stairs leading to the beach up and down the coast as far as you can see and walk, were literally washed away. The water was very turbulent the first couple of days, but got calmer at the week went on. We did allow our older kids to go boogie boarding with life jackets and only in the eyesight of the lifeguard on the next beach down. And this was after a surfer told me that once he got pas the breakers, he had a diffucult time getting back to shore.
All in all, we had a wonderful trip. We brought many of the essential food items with us but still went to Publix twice. The first time for groceries to cook during the week. We only at out the one time, the rest of the time we ate in our room with my husband cooking all of the meals except Thanksgiving, and with that all I had to do was warm it up. Our second trip to Publix was to pickup our Thanksgiving meal which was wonderful. We had our dinner in our room by candlelight that night and with the centerpeice my youngest daughter and husband made together in a craft class. BTW, my husband NEVER cooks, but told me that this was also MY vacation, ya gotta love that, and since I was letting him sleep in, and took care of the kids during the early part of the day, he would take care of me by cooking.
The kids also just loved going to Flo and Ed's, the rental place and renting any of the games that they had. They also loved that they could rent movies any time they wanted. It made the early dark nights more fun, although we were all usually asleep by 10.
We loved this resort and had a great time. This is our kind of vacation, just kinda hanging out and doing very little in the off years we don't do WDW. But I could see that families that like to do more than this would get bored after several days there. From now on, when we do plan a trip to WDW, we are definately going to extend our trip to get back to Vero for a couple of days. Right now I am trying to figure out a way to get several of my family members to join us next year.
Just knowing that we have 40 more years at this resort is a dream come true.
Kelly
But we live in a northeastern suburb of St. Paul and only have about 6-8 inches so far. I'm just glad that we didn't get the 27+ inches that Wilmar and other western Minnesota residents received so far. I've heard that the winds there were so bad that they had to pull the plows off the roads - that doesn't happen very often. I think the record for a single day snowfall in Minnesota is 29 inches, so they do have a pretty good chance of breaking it before this storm moves out. This year November is breaking lots of records.
Think we had a record number of days above 60 degrees (normal is around 40 something), and November was actually warmer than June. Hard for us Minnesota natives to believe.
