March Break at the Yacht Club! - UPDATED 07/21

JanetMom

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jun 8, 2006
Welcome to my trip report! I’ll be using this report to tell you of the fantastic trip we had to WDW, sharing as many pictures as possible (fair warning – I’m not a photographer.)

To give you some background…

We are a Canadian family of three – Mom, Dad and Teenager. My husband and I both visited WDW once as children, and I had the good fortune to go to a conference at CSR in 2010. As a family, this is our fourth trip to WDW. You can read about my last two trips by following the trip report links in my
signature.

My husband and I love WL and my son loves CR, but for this trip we decided we wanted to be near Epcot so we chose the Yacht Club. We also chose to stay Club Level because we stayed CL for our last two trips and as they say, once you go CL you can’t go back.

I don’t have a good picture of myself from this trip (some bad ones may surface later in this report), so here is a picture taken at the airport waiting for our 2010 trip to begin. The excitement you see pretty much sums up how I feel about Disney.

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Our family history is that we go to WDW once every three years. In 2004 we decided to take the trip of a lifetime to WDW, planning to do Disney only once. We figured that financially we could manage a moderate resort and planned to stay at POR FQ. I called Disney and received my first glimpse at their fantastic customer service. The agent on the phone was quick to point out that we could actually afford to stay at WL and so we upgraded to a Deluxe. We loved WL and loved being a short boat ride away from the MK.

Three years later, in 2007, we decided maybe we should go to Disney one more time (that would be it, just once more). I had just landed a new job so we decided to celebrate by upgrading to CL, staying once again at WL.

Then three years later, in 2010, we got the Disney itch again and decided okay, just one more trip to WDW (really, truly, this would be our last trip to WDW). Due to the 40% room promotion that was available at CR but not WL, it worked out to be $1000 cheaper for us to stay at CR so we excitedly booked a CR CL room and had an amazing stay with a room overlooking the MK (check out the pictures in my 2010 TR). The theme for our 2010 trip was to eat our meals at as many different resorts as possible. When we arrived at the Boardwalk for one of our meals we loved the look and feel of the Epcot resorts. We took one step onto the boardwalk and all three of us looked at each other and said “next time, we are staying here!” :lovestruc

Fast forward to early 2011 and my husband looks at me one day and says “you know, we don’t have to wait three years, why don’t we go back in 2012.” That was good enough for me; I immediately jumped on to the DisBoards and began planning.

I change jobs more than some, so once again I was looking for a new job and we decided to wait until I had a signed job offer before we booked. At the beginning of April I landed a new job and the planning began in earnest. On April 9, 2011 I booked us airfare to arrive in Orlando on March 10, 2012.

Each year in March Canadian schools close for a week (or two) for March break. This is a busy time to go to WDW, but it is a good time to take a week away. Flights from Toronto to Orlando can be very expensive, so by booking our flights nearly a year in advance we save $500 over what we had paid to fly down in 2010.

April 2011, was too early to book a package for 2012, so I booked a CL room at the YC, knowing that worst case scenario we would have a full price room with beds to sleep in. And then, I waited…and scoured the DisBoards…and waited. Eventually the 2012 packages were released, but I didn’t book one right away. I decided to wait for a good promotion.

In August, I was beyond excited when I read on the DisBoards that free dining was about to be released. August 9 was a grueling morning when I sat on hold for nearly an hour waiting for an operator to book me free dining. I was crushed when I had to give up my planning control to my husband as I asked him to continue to sit on hold so I could go to work. He did a perfect job of booking us free dining at the YC CL. We are not fans of the free dining program but I was thrilled to get the savings on our vacation.

I still hoped to get a room discount, instead of free dining, so I continued to watch the discounts board and was again beyond excited in December when I read that a room only discount was being offered. We were going to be able to save 35% off our room which would work out to more than the free dining savings. Yay! It was a challenging phone call as the operator couldn’t grasp that I wanted a CL room at the YC with a Standard view. At first she wanted to give me a club level room but kept asking me at what hotel. Once she understood I wanted the Yacht Club she wanted to give me a Standard non-CL room. It took quite a few minutes for her to understand I wanted a CLUB level room at the Yacht CLUB. :)

By booking a room only discount, we paid for our tickets up front and one night’s hotel room and then nothing else was due until we were at WDW. We didn’t have to worry about the 45-day full payment deadline.

So there you have it, the background for our trip. After all that, I waited and counted down the days until March 10 arrived.

Next up, our travel, arrival, and the start of a great trip to WDW!
(I promise future updates will have much less text, and more pictures!)
 
YES!!!

Nice start to what is going to be a great trip report!!

Go baby GO!

~Marlton Mom
 


looking forward to reading more. Love YC!

YES!!!

Nice start to what is going to be a great trip report!!

Go baby GO!

~Marlton Mom

Super start!

Great start!! Anxiously awaiting more!! :)

I'm here!!! Can't wait to read all about your trip! popcorn::

Dee

Thanks everyone for the encouragement!

I think I have delayed the start of this trip report because I don't want the vacation memories to end. I'll have to be sure to come up with lots of content to drag it out as long as possible. :)
 


I am here for our journey! :cheer2: Great start...I laughed so hard at the "just one more trip to WDW". Sounds like so many of us.

We are booked a Epcot resort at Beach Club CL for the very first time. So excited to read all about your trip and learn.

Angel16
 
I read your first post and subscribed last night. Can't wait to follow along. This will be a good way to get even more excited (like that's necessary) for our upcoming YC trip!!
 
I'm here too and I can't wait to read more!:cool1:

I'm in! I found your TR through the YC thread and am really looking forward to it! :)

I am here for our journey! :cheer2: Great start...I laughed so hard at the "just one more trip to WDW". Sounds like so many of us.

We are booked a Epcot resort at Beach Club CL for the very first time. So excited to read all about your trip and learn.

Angel16

I read your first post and subscribed last night. Can't wait to follow along. This will be a good way to get even more excited (like that's necessary) for our upcoming YC trip!!

Subscribing - our first trip to Bc this year

following from the YC/BC thread.:yay:

Welcome to my Trip Report!

To all those heading to the YC and BC this year - you have made an excellent choice!
 
I was so happy to get up on our travel day. (Of course!)

The days leading up to this trip were stressful and we were all ready for our getaway. In addition to general work stress and getting ready for our vacation we were also embarking on renovation stress. We live in a rented apartment in a big city. We rent because it is cheaper than owning in our neighbourhood. One of the joys of renting is that you don’t have to arrange or pay for renovations (the downfall is you don’t always get your way with renovations, but in this case we did.) In the weeks leading up to our trip, I asked the superintendent to renovate our bathroom while we were at Disney. I figured it was a win/win – we win as we avoid having to find an alternate bathroom, and the contractor wins by not having us underfoot. This was all a great idea, but it did add another layer of work to the pre-vacation to do list. Since the bathroom shares a wall with our bedroom closet, we had to empty out our bathroom and our bedroom closet before leaving for Disney. We also had to cover all of our electronics etc. to protect them from drywall dust.

Here is the before pic of our bathroom. I’ll save the rest of the renovation story for later in the trip report.

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So enough of our bathroom, you are here to read about travelling to Disney. Our morning began at a normal time, aiming to get out the door at 7:30 am (well normal for us, but the teenager suffered for having to get up earlier than usual. ;))

When 7:30 am arrived we happily went down to our lobby expecting to jump into our waiting limo and be off – but there was no limo waiting for us. Anytime we go to the airport we call the same company and they always have a car waiting at the time we request. This time they weren’t there. We weren’t worried though, we are early people with plenty of time to get to the airport. Well 7:30 am came and went and still no limo, so I called the company and they had our request but it was for March 11 not March 10 – eek!! We needed to get to the airport and we didn’t have any transportation. I tried not to panic and calmly asked if they had another driver available (keep in mind that this is one of the top three busiest travel days at the Toronto Pearson airport. I’m guessing there were many limo drivers taking people to the airport this morning.) We were pleasantly surprised when the company had another limo at our door in less than 10 minutes. (Whew, so relieved!) Off to the airport!

A brief moment of backtracking…. Earlier in this report I should have mentioned that one of our key travel milestones happened on March 7. We were flying with Air Canada who are in the midst of much labour chaos these days. We anxiously waited for March 7 to pass as that marked the passing of the 72-hours notice they are required to give to strike. Once March 7 passed we knew we would get to Florida, and if they went on strike while we were down there, oh well, we would just have to extend our vacation at the YC.

Back to March 10… Our flight was scheduled to board at 9:35 am, and at 9:30 am they told us we were delayed an hour. Ugh, so after already sitting at the gate for some time, we now had to sit a while longer. This was not easy for the tired teenager.

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Finally we were on the plane, and then we landed in Florida only 30 minutes late, rode the monorail teaser and made our way to this wonderful sign.

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We were the first in the ME line and on the bus within 5 minutes. Our driver was named Jacques and he was great. He had all sorts of stories along the way and when we were at this point…

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He told everyone to get their cameras ready and he slowed down as much as he could for everyone to take pictures. My picture taking skills needed some warming up, so I only managed to get the following but “Welcome to Walt” works for me. :)

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Our first stop was POR Riverside. Here is a really bad picture of their bus stop.

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Next up was the Boardwalk. Here is a slightly better picture of the Boardwalk porte-cochère (I rarely have occasion to use the word porte-cochère.)

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The next stop should have been the Beach Club, but lucky for us there were some busses blocking the entrance so we were soon passing this sign.

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We were the only people getting off at the Yacht Club so it was nice and quick. I was grinning from ear to ear when I saw Stuart come up to us with his clipboard in hand. I knew he was there just to greet us! I love that feeling of being personally greeted. Stuart was so nice to us and took us up to the CL desk for our check in.


Well that is enough prattling on for one day. Next up, I’ll show you pictures of our room.


P.S. I’ll try to keep the updates happening regularly but I’m also trying to maintain my blog as well, and writing both takes a bit of time. I’ll do my best to post every other day or so, but if work gets the better of me there may be longer breaks between posts.
 
Great start! I would have been freaking out when the limo wasn't there! :eek: Glad they were able to get another one there for you.


We always get a car service in Orlando. But I am thinking of using Magical Express one of these days, to tr it out. How long would you say it took to get from landing to the YC? And when did your luggage show up in your room? Thanks!
 
OMG Teenager woes!!! I'm right there with ya!!

I've been dealing with "Tired and Crabby" all rolled into one 13 year old. Right now the Wii is unplugged and it's sitting on the counter precariously perched near the circular hole that is cut out for a trash can that is sitting underneath.

Depending on the mood and attitude of the cranky teen it gets pushed closer or further away from the hole of doom. This weekend it was HANGING OVER the HOLE! Now it's back a little but dear son has measured and determined that it has 19 feet and change before it makes it back to it's spot and he can play it again. Easter vacation is in 4 days so I hope he makes it. If his mood and attitude don't improve that thing is TOAST!!!

Keep up the great trip report and fill us in on all the excruciating details of the renovation. We are nosey and have NO LIFE...... so spill it!

~MM
 

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