Well- how to organize this report...
The cast is our little family of four, me, my wife and two sons ages 10 and 7...we drove from St Louis to Valdosta, GA on July 31 and arrived midday on 8/1 at the Beach Club Villas. We are DVC members but this was our first stay at BCV and our longest stay ever at WDW. Checking in was easy though the room was not ready until after 4pm. The self-parking is very near the Villas. The room was 529 a one bedroom. The living space of the room is slightly smaller than our usual Boardwalk Villas since they moved the connecting door to the front of the unit. The balcony had a woods view and we could see and hear Illuminations fireworks and music every night. I did not like the porch (not a balcony so much in this section of the hotel.) The porch is a deck surrounded from floor to ceiling by walls and totally separated from the master bedroom porch...there are only a few rooms with this set up in the BCV--all the others have totally connected or open balconies to some degree or other which makes them seem larger and "airy-er." These rooms are only located on the fifth floor and I think there might be only a half dozen with this -in my opinion- inferior set up. Otherwise the room was fine.
A special gift was then delivered to our room Earlier this year some of you may recall my ongoing discussions with DVC finance about the way they were charging and running the transportation around the Epcot resorts. This has led to some changes and to thank me the finance guys sent me a lovely olive colored satchel with leeatehr trim and stuffed with fruit, cheeses, crackers, snacks..etc I suspect that will raise everybodys dues a little bit now LOL!
We swam, we settled in, got groceries at the Winn-Dixie on Apopka Vineland Road. In advance of our trip I visited the Winn-Dixie Website and got a rewards/savings card ahead of time so we saved like $15 -$20 off our bill...I think you can register for the card on the spot too -I just did not want to waste precious vacation time doing it....One important thing I noted on this trip to the store was the wide range of gasoline prices...with 35 cents a gallon difference in price from the Hess on Disney property compared to the Exxon and Shell stations on Apopka Vineland--and that was the one on Disney property THAT WAS THE CHEAPER! Nowhere else in all of the WDW area did we see such high prices for gasoline as we saw on Apopka Vineland--I have no idea how they sell a drop of it with prices so much cheaper everywhere else...
We had dinner in the room and settled in for the night.
Monday 8/2-plan Epcot FW in the AM-lunch and Epcot in the PM with a 5:30 PS at Marrakesh-
Walked to the International Gateway entrance 15 to 20 minutes before opening...a crowd already assembling to get in...definitely seemed shorter to walk to the entrance than walk to the boat dock at the Yacht Club. BUT it would have been better to drive to the front of Epcot...by the time we were allowed into Epcot and walked all the way to Test Track there was already a huge line to get in --at least 20 to 25 minute wait on standby...we got Fastpasses to return after 9:55 -I think-then I walked onto the single rider line at Mission Space--the other chickens I mean members of my party did the Mission Space post ride stuff in the meantime...I loved the ride and would ride it again later 2 more times, enjoying it more each time...very little wooziness and I do not like spinning rides at all...just breathe and follow the directions and it is a blast---off!...the post show space race was a big hit and we won as the astronauts with help from our Mission Control colleagues--that killed the time before we rode Test Track...Still had to wait about 10 - 20minutes even with fastpass--who knows maybe the ride shut down...by this time it was close to 10:30 am and we had only done two attraction pavilions...got fastpasses for Mission Space for later and then we did the Land with no wait -my kids loved it and made our way over to WS for the 11 am opening and easily rode Norway and Mexico with no lines... we walked back to the BCV for lunch in the room...swam and relaxed until we returned about 4:30 to see the American Adventure before our dinner at Marrakesh--it was pretty good though expensive and the belly dancer was fun. We got a 20% discount as DVC members. Then I actually took the leftovers back to the room while my wife took the kids for Gelato in Italy. We met back up around Chinawith the help of our walkie-talkies. We did HISTA and Mission Space well the kids and I did while my wife chickened out---and for the bestnot her kind of thing the kids did not love it or hate it my 10 year old would enjoy it later in the trip when I did it for the 3rd time .I think we did Mission Control Space race at that point and then Spaceship Earthwhich had no line then I made a mistake I got greedy I knew there was a second Spectro that night at 11 pm my 7 year old kept asking when he could ride his favorite ride- Big Thunder Mountain (not scheduled until Wednesday) so we got on the Monorail and rode over to Magic Kingdom we saw the start of the 9 pm Spectro from the Railroad platform and then rode the railroad to Frontierland and rode Big Thunder with about a 20 minute wait in the standby line. my wife and kids decided they were tired and had enough and had no interest in Spectro anywaysee I was too greedytried to do too much the first day they all returned to the BCV via a LONG BUS RIDE..(long wait and long ride back)-I stayed to see Spectro. I sat on the curb on Mainstreet with maybe a 10 minute wait very uncrowded..really a delightful way to watch a parade .I too then took a bus back to the hotel..which got me back about midnight.
Tuesday 8/3-the plansleep inTyphoon Lagoon in the pm
Around 2pm we went to TL Very crowded as expected, cloudy but warm and plenty of room in the wave pool and the Lazy river both of which we enjoyed thoroughly. Then as it got later the lines thinned out-- we did slides with little waits, a brief drizzle thinned the crowds some more and we did the family raft ride over and over with no wait. my 10 year old and I did the Shark Pool---he was cold, got saltwater in his mouth and hated it I was cold and worried about himbut it was pretty cool otherwise and not just in temperature. We stayed until closing and had a great time we did get pretty scraped up by the bottom of the wave pool and that called for lots of band aids we had dinner in the unit and hung out at the resort.
Wednesday 8/4-Plan- MK in the AM, break, then MGM in the PM with 2nd Fantasmic at 10:30 our goal
Went pretty much according to plan drove to MK-took monorail and arrived a few minutes before the opening ceremony.. Space Mountain with Parent Swap (7 year old declined) Did Buzz Lightyear BTM Pirates Haunted Mansion - Mickeys Philharmagic a really great show, Splash Mountain. Then back to the car and the resort for swimming and relaxationat dinnertime we began at the Backlot express at MGM and ate dinner, did HISTK Playground while my wife shopped and we met up at Millionaire where I was # 1 on the board when time ran out Obsessed now and planning to get in the hot seat - we did Millionaire again but I only made the top 10 then Star Tours and Sounds Dangerously (eh, pretty stupid) and RockNRoller, then Little Mermaid last show of the night getting out a bit after 10pm then we strolled down stopping to get Caramel apples and strolled in to see the second Fantasmic with little wait and plenty of seats for a great ending to a very full day!
Thursday 8/5-the plan-DisneyQuest from 11:30 am til whenever 7:45 pm dinner at the Yachtsman Steakhouse at the Yacht Club.
Got to DisneyQuest at opening and found it more crowded than I expected so early on a day when MK had EMH waited about 10 to 15 minutes to do Pirates, then did Astroblasters, and then the most popular ride of the day CyberSpace Mountaindone over and over by my kids- we had lunch there (DVC discount at the restaurant) and we were there until about 7 pmdoing pretty much everything at least once Dinner at the Yachtsman was very expensive but REALLY REALLY GOOD! My 10year old was very impressed then they begged to do Cyberspace Mountain once moreso we went back to DisneyQuest once more before retiring for the night.
Friday 8/6-the plan-MK in the AM break to swim at the Poly- dinner offsite- return to MK for E ride night.
Did Tomorrowland stuff again-the race cars with no line, AstroOrbiter, Buzz, Splash, Aladdin and Tiki, and Pirates, ate at Columbia Harbor Jungle Cruise with no wait thanks to FPs and left..we took the boat to the Poly and swam there. I moved the car to the Poly lot while they swam we then went back to the BCV I remained obsessed with trying to get in the Millionaire hotseat and ran over and did a quick game of Millionaire from 4 to 5:30 but did not get in the Hot Seat then we all went to the NY Chinese buffet on Apopka for dinnerit was okaybefore arriving at the MK in the evening with plans to see Wishes and do Eride my family uninterested in Wishes noise level did Aladdin a couple of times with plans to regroup at BTM for E ride Here again I would say was the beginning of a disappointing night my expectations from so many other reports were of finding the park near emptyfeeling like the park was just open for me being able to ride rides again without getting back in line and without waits it just did not happen we did BTM 2 or 3 timesbut both times required waiting at least 5 minutes., we did Splash twice-the second time without a wait, but the first time had a bout a 5 minute wait again certainly easier than a regular day but not much better than using Fastpasses and good plans we then did HM with a little wait, did Peter Pan with a 5 to 10 minute wait, then Mickeys Phil with a 5 to 10 minute wait there was still a 5 to 10 minute wait for Space Mountain which we ALL did once then Buzz once and then had to get off run around to squeeze one final Buzz in as the Eride night ended .as I said certainly a lot done in 3 hours but not so much more than we accomplished by careful planning without E ride tickets and late hours after working our way out with a fairly large crowdnot empty at all at 1 am., we waited in a line for the crowded monorail and the long walk to our car, though eventually a tram would have come we got back to the hotel around 2 am. it was disappointing and not worth the time or effort
Saturday 8/7-slept in as plannednothing else on the agenda though I had hoped we could rent SeaRaycer boats at the Wilderness Lodge.
The weather held out for us to go the WL and rent boats another discount thanks to DVC and we really enjoyed this and visiting this beautiful resort--then after returning to our villa it started to pour and pour and pour..we had dinner in the room and then took a boat to the Boardwalk did some stuff at Community Hall then caught a little of the Boardwalk entertainment that had been forced into the lobby by the rainstorm we went back by boat to the BCV and retired.
Sunday 8/8-the plan- Animal Kingdom in the AMEpcot in the PM for illuminations.
We did Safari, Pangani,Primeval Whirl (the kids did it twice) Dinosaur, Kaliwe then did the jungle trek. There were no FPs given out this day to ITTBAB not crowded enough--- lunch, then FOLK with very little wait then ITTBAB-- then it pouredthis was the first and only day we had to use our ponchoswe leftwe had dinner in the room, then went to FutureWorld for Innoventions which was pretty crowded likely because of the ongoing rain, the shutting down of Test Track, etc then my 10 year old and I enjoyed Mission Space while my wife and son did Spaceship Earth incidentally there was very little line for MS at this hour ...we made our way over to see Illuminations shopping a bit along the way and with little wait or crowd..the smoke held in by the humid air from all the rain obscured the end of the show an easy exit back to the BCV on foot
Monday 8/9-the plan MGM in the AM break- Epcot in the Pm-
All went according to plan well pretty much.. I discovered as we waited to get in that I had only 3 not 4 passes these passes had gotten wet at Typhoon lagoon despite being in a water wallet..I had pressed them under a book and grabbed them before leaving for MGM this AMwithout counting them turns out one had clung to the book so I ran back to the car, hurried back to the hotel, found the pass and hurried back and ran back to the park My wife took the kids on Rock n Roller Coaster and got FPs for Tower of TerrorI arrived, got FP for TOT and met them as they got off RNRC. You gotta love staying at the BCV or BWVso close and with your own car so easy to move back and forth...we then did GMR, went to do the Backlot tourshut down until later so we never got back to it did Millionaire I GOT IN THE HOTSEAT but lost on an 8000 question by going with 89% of the audiencethe correct answer was chosen by 1% -my wife thinks they gave me a tough question to get rid of me because I told them I am a doctor..who knows?-obviously few would have gotten past that question. We got FPs for the next Indy then did TOT. We then did Indy before leaving. We ended up back at Epcot FW in the pm this time driving to the front entrance to shorten the walking distances for us a bit did Ellen, more Innoventions and got into the Living Seas for a bit before 7pm we had dinner at the Electric Umbrella and got a kick out of the talking trash can next to the Fixins Bar..a great Disney extra touch that you just findnot labeled or on a map or anything just great show .we did Test Track and Mexico a little shopping and left before Illuminations per my 7 yo request.
Tuesday 8/10-plan- Fantasia Golf and dessert at the California Grill to watch Wishes-just few days earlier I got the idea to see if there were any late PSs available to watch Wishes without the BOOM so my 7 year old would not freak out .sure enough they had several late seatings before 10
We slept inmy wife and son played a little tennis, we did a game of golf at the Fantasia Gardens which was pretty fun and again discounted as a DVC member we swam, we went to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner over by Universal, did some Downtown Disney shopping and then on to the Contemporary for a lavish dessert and watching of Wishes from the top of the hotel it was a special way to end the trip we left the next day
SUMMARY POINTS
We probably needed more shopping and downtime than I allowed for .the so called off days when we did non-park activities were not really a break DisneyQuest is a lot of standing and walking up and down stairs .Typhoon Lagoon is a pretty active day if you spend it in the wave pool much of the time and running up to do slides the rest of the time but with all that activity as long as the trip was the days flew by My 10 year old said it was still too short! Dont try to do too muchless is more
As far as E ride goesI found that it was much more crowded than I would have expected or hoped for and would not do it again if it remains like that .
Shop around for gasolinethe prices vary widely in the area by as much as 35 cents per gallonif it seems high keep looking ..In general the prices on Disney property were not inordinately high for gasoline.
Florida water just stinks .it does I dont know how or why they put up with it..We bought bottled to drink, but even running the shower brings that sulfur smell into the room and is really unpleasant water is water but sulfur is sulfur and Orlandos water has way too much of it .
The weather forecasting was useless just hope it works out for you as well as it did for us because the forecasts were virtually always wrong no matter how up to date they were I have never been anywhere where the forecast was so wrong so often for this length of time and we travel a lot.
The BCV were nice and the staff were all fine despite reports here otherwise but I think we will stay at the BWV from now on to save on points with SV rooms and a similar location.We definitely liked being in this location SAB is beautiful but its unique features get old pretty fast and the kids were just as happy with the quiet pool and the ability to poolhop Incidentally there was very little enforcement of the wristbands nor was it needed much even during this PEAK and very busy season throughout our 11 day stay again evidence that the ban on poolhopping may have had something to do with driving BCV sales and not just a necessity to control crowds at the pool from the BCV I do not like the loss of living room space by moving the connecting door to the not very useable but spacious entryway. I did not care for the balcony/porch set up we were assigned there either if you stay off the 5th floor or stick with pool views I think you can avoid such rooms
Having DVC is great- it allows/forces us to travel for a longer time, take our time allows breakfast easily in the room each day, a relaxing Jacuzzi, a few other meals in the room saved $$$ and time, the washer and dryer were quite handy the discounts were nice I realize this is too long and I probably left out important details I am happy to take any questions
Paul
The cast is our little family of four, me, my wife and two sons ages 10 and 7...we drove from St Louis to Valdosta, GA on July 31 and arrived midday on 8/1 at the Beach Club Villas. We are DVC members but this was our first stay at BCV and our longest stay ever at WDW. Checking in was easy though the room was not ready until after 4pm. The self-parking is very near the Villas. The room was 529 a one bedroom. The living space of the room is slightly smaller than our usual Boardwalk Villas since they moved the connecting door to the front of the unit. The balcony had a woods view and we could see and hear Illuminations fireworks and music every night. I did not like the porch (not a balcony so much in this section of the hotel.) The porch is a deck surrounded from floor to ceiling by walls and totally separated from the master bedroom porch...there are only a few rooms with this set up in the BCV--all the others have totally connected or open balconies to some degree or other which makes them seem larger and "airy-er." These rooms are only located on the fifth floor and I think there might be only a half dozen with this -in my opinion- inferior set up. Otherwise the room was fine.
A special gift was then delivered to our room Earlier this year some of you may recall my ongoing discussions with DVC finance about the way they were charging and running the transportation around the Epcot resorts. This has led to some changes and to thank me the finance guys sent me a lovely olive colored satchel with leeatehr trim and stuffed with fruit, cheeses, crackers, snacks..etc I suspect that will raise everybodys dues a little bit now LOL!
We swam, we settled in, got groceries at the Winn-Dixie on Apopka Vineland Road. In advance of our trip I visited the Winn-Dixie Website and got a rewards/savings card ahead of time so we saved like $15 -$20 off our bill...I think you can register for the card on the spot too -I just did not want to waste precious vacation time doing it....One important thing I noted on this trip to the store was the wide range of gasoline prices...with 35 cents a gallon difference in price from the Hess on Disney property compared to the Exxon and Shell stations on Apopka Vineland--and that was the one on Disney property THAT WAS THE CHEAPER! Nowhere else in all of the WDW area did we see such high prices for gasoline as we saw on Apopka Vineland--I have no idea how they sell a drop of it with prices so much cheaper everywhere else...
We had dinner in the room and settled in for the night.
Monday 8/2-plan Epcot FW in the AM-lunch and Epcot in the PM with a 5:30 PS at Marrakesh-
Walked to the International Gateway entrance 15 to 20 minutes before opening...a crowd already assembling to get in...definitely seemed shorter to walk to the entrance than walk to the boat dock at the Yacht Club. BUT it would have been better to drive to the front of Epcot...by the time we were allowed into Epcot and walked all the way to Test Track there was already a huge line to get in --at least 20 to 25 minute wait on standby...we got Fastpasses to return after 9:55 -I think-then I walked onto the single rider line at Mission Space--the other chickens I mean members of my party did the Mission Space post ride stuff in the meantime...I loved the ride and would ride it again later 2 more times, enjoying it more each time...very little wooziness and I do not like spinning rides at all...just breathe and follow the directions and it is a blast---off!...the post show space race was a big hit and we won as the astronauts with help from our Mission Control colleagues--that killed the time before we rode Test Track...Still had to wait about 10 - 20minutes even with fastpass--who knows maybe the ride shut down...by this time it was close to 10:30 am and we had only done two attraction pavilions...got fastpasses for Mission Space for later and then we did the Land with no wait -my kids loved it and made our way over to WS for the 11 am opening and easily rode Norway and Mexico with no lines... we walked back to the BCV for lunch in the room...swam and relaxed until we returned about 4:30 to see the American Adventure before our dinner at Marrakesh--it was pretty good though expensive and the belly dancer was fun. We got a 20% discount as DVC members. Then I actually took the leftovers back to the room while my wife took the kids for Gelato in Italy. We met back up around Chinawith the help of our walkie-talkies. We did HISTA and Mission Space well the kids and I did while my wife chickened out---and for the bestnot her kind of thing the kids did not love it or hate it my 10 year old would enjoy it later in the trip when I did it for the 3rd time .I think we did Mission Control Space race at that point and then Spaceship Earthwhich had no line then I made a mistake I got greedy I knew there was a second Spectro that night at 11 pm my 7 year old kept asking when he could ride his favorite ride- Big Thunder Mountain (not scheduled until Wednesday) so we got on the Monorail and rode over to Magic Kingdom we saw the start of the 9 pm Spectro from the Railroad platform and then rode the railroad to Frontierland and rode Big Thunder with about a 20 minute wait in the standby line. my wife and kids decided they were tired and had enough and had no interest in Spectro anywaysee I was too greedytried to do too much the first day they all returned to the BCV via a LONG BUS RIDE..(long wait and long ride back)-I stayed to see Spectro. I sat on the curb on Mainstreet with maybe a 10 minute wait very uncrowded..really a delightful way to watch a parade .I too then took a bus back to the hotel..which got me back about midnight.
Tuesday 8/3-the plansleep inTyphoon Lagoon in the pm
Around 2pm we went to TL Very crowded as expected, cloudy but warm and plenty of room in the wave pool and the Lazy river both of which we enjoyed thoroughly. Then as it got later the lines thinned out-- we did slides with little waits, a brief drizzle thinned the crowds some more and we did the family raft ride over and over with no wait. my 10 year old and I did the Shark Pool---he was cold, got saltwater in his mouth and hated it I was cold and worried about himbut it was pretty cool otherwise and not just in temperature. We stayed until closing and had a great time we did get pretty scraped up by the bottom of the wave pool and that called for lots of band aids we had dinner in the unit and hung out at the resort.
Wednesday 8/4-Plan- MK in the AM, break, then MGM in the PM with 2nd Fantasmic at 10:30 our goal
Went pretty much according to plan drove to MK-took monorail and arrived a few minutes before the opening ceremony.. Space Mountain with Parent Swap (7 year old declined) Did Buzz Lightyear BTM Pirates Haunted Mansion - Mickeys Philharmagic a really great show, Splash Mountain. Then back to the car and the resort for swimming and relaxationat dinnertime we began at the Backlot express at MGM and ate dinner, did HISTK Playground while my wife shopped and we met up at Millionaire where I was # 1 on the board when time ran out Obsessed now and planning to get in the hot seat - we did Millionaire again but I only made the top 10 then Star Tours and Sounds Dangerously (eh, pretty stupid) and RockNRoller, then Little Mermaid last show of the night getting out a bit after 10pm then we strolled down stopping to get Caramel apples and strolled in to see the second Fantasmic with little wait and plenty of seats for a great ending to a very full day!
Thursday 8/5-the plan-DisneyQuest from 11:30 am til whenever 7:45 pm dinner at the Yachtsman Steakhouse at the Yacht Club.
Got to DisneyQuest at opening and found it more crowded than I expected so early on a day when MK had EMH waited about 10 to 15 minutes to do Pirates, then did Astroblasters, and then the most popular ride of the day CyberSpace Mountaindone over and over by my kids- we had lunch there (DVC discount at the restaurant) and we were there until about 7 pmdoing pretty much everything at least once Dinner at the Yachtsman was very expensive but REALLY REALLY GOOD! My 10year old was very impressed then they begged to do Cyberspace Mountain once moreso we went back to DisneyQuest once more before retiring for the night.
Friday 8/6-the plan-MK in the AM break to swim at the Poly- dinner offsite- return to MK for E ride night.
Did Tomorrowland stuff again-the race cars with no line, AstroOrbiter, Buzz, Splash, Aladdin and Tiki, and Pirates, ate at Columbia Harbor Jungle Cruise with no wait thanks to FPs and left..we took the boat to the Poly and swam there. I moved the car to the Poly lot while they swam we then went back to the BCV I remained obsessed with trying to get in the Millionaire hotseat and ran over and did a quick game of Millionaire from 4 to 5:30 but did not get in the Hot Seat then we all went to the NY Chinese buffet on Apopka for dinnerit was okaybefore arriving at the MK in the evening with plans to see Wishes and do Eride my family uninterested in Wishes noise level did Aladdin a couple of times with plans to regroup at BTM for E ride Here again I would say was the beginning of a disappointing night my expectations from so many other reports were of finding the park near emptyfeeling like the park was just open for me being able to ride rides again without getting back in line and without waits it just did not happen we did BTM 2 or 3 timesbut both times required waiting at least 5 minutes., we did Splash twice-the second time without a wait, but the first time had a bout a 5 minute wait again certainly easier than a regular day but not much better than using Fastpasses and good plans we then did HM with a little wait, did Peter Pan with a 5 to 10 minute wait, then Mickeys Phil with a 5 to 10 minute wait there was still a 5 to 10 minute wait for Space Mountain which we ALL did once then Buzz once and then had to get off run around to squeeze one final Buzz in as the Eride night ended .as I said certainly a lot done in 3 hours but not so much more than we accomplished by careful planning without E ride tickets and late hours after working our way out with a fairly large crowdnot empty at all at 1 am., we waited in a line for the crowded monorail and the long walk to our car, though eventually a tram would have come we got back to the hotel around 2 am. it was disappointing and not worth the time or effort
Saturday 8/7-slept in as plannednothing else on the agenda though I had hoped we could rent SeaRaycer boats at the Wilderness Lodge.
The weather held out for us to go the WL and rent boats another discount thanks to DVC and we really enjoyed this and visiting this beautiful resort--then after returning to our villa it started to pour and pour and pour..we had dinner in the room and then took a boat to the Boardwalk did some stuff at Community Hall then caught a little of the Boardwalk entertainment that had been forced into the lobby by the rainstorm we went back by boat to the BCV and retired.
Sunday 8/8-the plan- Animal Kingdom in the AMEpcot in the PM for illuminations.
We did Safari, Pangani,Primeval Whirl (the kids did it twice) Dinosaur, Kaliwe then did the jungle trek. There were no FPs given out this day to ITTBAB not crowded enough--- lunch, then FOLK with very little wait then ITTBAB-- then it pouredthis was the first and only day we had to use our ponchoswe leftwe had dinner in the room, then went to FutureWorld for Innoventions which was pretty crowded likely because of the ongoing rain, the shutting down of Test Track, etc then my 10 year old and I enjoyed Mission Space while my wife and son did Spaceship Earth incidentally there was very little line for MS at this hour ...we made our way over to see Illuminations shopping a bit along the way and with little wait or crowd..the smoke held in by the humid air from all the rain obscured the end of the show an easy exit back to the BCV on foot
Monday 8/9-the plan MGM in the AM break- Epcot in the Pm-
All went according to plan well pretty much.. I discovered as we waited to get in that I had only 3 not 4 passes these passes had gotten wet at Typhoon lagoon despite being in a water wallet..I had pressed them under a book and grabbed them before leaving for MGM this AMwithout counting them turns out one had clung to the book so I ran back to the car, hurried back to the hotel, found the pass and hurried back and ran back to the park My wife took the kids on Rock n Roller Coaster and got FPs for Tower of TerrorI arrived, got FP for TOT and met them as they got off RNRC. You gotta love staying at the BCV or BWVso close and with your own car so easy to move back and forth...we then did GMR, went to do the Backlot tourshut down until later so we never got back to it did Millionaire I GOT IN THE HOTSEAT but lost on an 8000 question by going with 89% of the audiencethe correct answer was chosen by 1% -my wife thinks they gave me a tough question to get rid of me because I told them I am a doctor..who knows?-obviously few would have gotten past that question. We got FPs for the next Indy then did TOT. We then did Indy before leaving. We ended up back at Epcot FW in the pm this time driving to the front entrance to shorten the walking distances for us a bit did Ellen, more Innoventions and got into the Living Seas for a bit before 7pm we had dinner at the Electric Umbrella and got a kick out of the talking trash can next to the Fixins Bar..a great Disney extra touch that you just findnot labeled or on a map or anything just great show .we did Test Track and Mexico a little shopping and left before Illuminations per my 7 yo request.
Tuesday 8/10-plan- Fantasia Golf and dessert at the California Grill to watch Wishes-just few days earlier I got the idea to see if there were any late PSs available to watch Wishes without the BOOM so my 7 year old would not freak out .sure enough they had several late seatings before 10
We slept inmy wife and son played a little tennis, we did a game of golf at the Fantasia Gardens which was pretty fun and again discounted as a DVC member we swam, we went to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner over by Universal, did some Downtown Disney shopping and then on to the Contemporary for a lavish dessert and watching of Wishes from the top of the hotel it was a special way to end the trip we left the next day
SUMMARY POINTS
We probably needed more shopping and downtime than I allowed for .the so called off days when we did non-park activities were not really a break DisneyQuest is a lot of standing and walking up and down stairs .Typhoon Lagoon is a pretty active day if you spend it in the wave pool much of the time and running up to do slides the rest of the time but with all that activity as long as the trip was the days flew by My 10 year old said it was still too short! Dont try to do too muchless is more
As far as E ride goesI found that it was much more crowded than I would have expected or hoped for and would not do it again if it remains like that .
Shop around for gasolinethe prices vary widely in the area by as much as 35 cents per gallonif it seems high keep looking ..In general the prices on Disney property were not inordinately high for gasoline.
Florida water just stinks .it does I dont know how or why they put up with it..We bought bottled to drink, but even running the shower brings that sulfur smell into the room and is really unpleasant water is water but sulfur is sulfur and Orlandos water has way too much of it .
The weather forecasting was useless just hope it works out for you as well as it did for us because the forecasts were virtually always wrong no matter how up to date they were I have never been anywhere where the forecast was so wrong so often for this length of time and we travel a lot.
The BCV were nice and the staff were all fine despite reports here otherwise but I think we will stay at the BWV from now on to save on points with SV rooms and a similar location.We definitely liked being in this location SAB is beautiful but its unique features get old pretty fast and the kids were just as happy with the quiet pool and the ability to poolhop Incidentally there was very little enforcement of the wristbands nor was it needed much even during this PEAK and very busy season throughout our 11 day stay again evidence that the ban on poolhopping may have had something to do with driving BCV sales and not just a necessity to control crowds at the pool from the BCV I do not like the loss of living room space by moving the connecting door to the not very useable but spacious entryway. I did not care for the balcony/porch set up we were assigned there either if you stay off the 5th floor or stick with pool views I think you can avoid such rooms
Having DVC is great- it allows/forces us to travel for a longer time, take our time allows breakfast easily in the room each day, a relaxing Jacuzzi, a few other meals in the room saved $$$ and time, the washer and dryer were quite handy the discounts were nice I realize this is too long and I probably left out important details I am happy to take any questions
Paul
I enjoyed reading your detailed report. Thank you for posting!
