This may not be a popular post but I was disappointed with the quality of BWV during our last stay.
We were there for a week in December '12. We own points at the BoardWalk and have stayed there a dozen times. Love the location, theme, etc.
But the room wasn't in the greatest condition. The issues weren't maintenance-type problems...it was sloppiness from the refurb. I've done a fair amount of work on our own home and hired out professionals to do other jobs. Many of the issues stuck out like a sore thumb..things like sloppy drywall patch jobs, sloppy tile fixes and sloppy paint jobs.
In the bathroom, you could clearly see that the walls used to be one color and had been painted another. I think the two colors were light green and light blue. Well, whoever painted didn't even bother to either remove the outlet and switch faceplates or to even tape around them. Instead you could clearly see a 1/2" paint gap around each faceplate where the old color shown through. A worker simply hand-painted the new color as close as they could to the plate with a brush, and left it at that.
The rooms have a lot of white paint in them and I'm sure it's quite a challenge to keep clean and new. In spots you could see how beaten and battered the underlying wood surfaces were, and it looked like there were 20 coats of white paint layered-on over the years.
That said, it is a hotel with high traffic and often uncaring guests. It's certainly not the worst room I've been in. But in comparison to other DVCs, it was one of the less impressive stays.
As time goes on, personally I see more and more difference between the older wave of resorts (like OKW, BWV and BCV) and the newer ones (BLT, VGC, AKV.) Decor aside, the newer properties invariably feel more modern and up-to-date. Even a BLT villa with its oft-criticized decor strikes me as being in better condition than BWV.
OKW received a "full refurb" even more recently than BWV, but many aspects still look dated. The bathrooms weren't touched, kitchen counters still have those huge ceramic tiles and the TV armoires look awkward given that they were designed for something much larger than a 21st century flat panel TV.
If you look at some of the refurbs performed at the
Disneyland Hotel, Contemporary or currently the Polynesian, the recent
DVC renovations pale in comparison.
Judging by this thread, there are others who think BWV looks just fine. And I'm not going to say those folks are wrong. We've walked into BWV rooms before that were so clean you could smell the bleach.
It all comes down to expectations. Even with a little lipstick on the proverbial pig, it's hard to walk into a OKW or BWV and think you're anywhere but a 20 year old hotel.