Steamboat Girlie
I WANT TO BE LOCKED IN THE DISNEY VAULT! "Huh-huh.
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2003
- Messages
- 1,353
Well we finally made it to our first trip to Boardwalk Villas. We thought we were going to have to cancel due to our kids having ear infections prior, but they got better and we were able to go as planned.
We flew on Southwest out of Manchester, NH on Sunday January 23rd. We live just north of Boston but much prefer to fly out of Manchester because the airport is so much quieter. The parking is also cheaper so we don’t have to bother anyone for rides.
We pulled up to the curb, and did curb side check in for our bags. There was literally no line. We off loaded all our bags, (already had boarding cards from doing online check in). I took the kids inside and DH went to park the car. We went and had a quick breakfast at Dunkin Donuts and then cleared security. Again, no line! I can not recommend Manchester Airport highly enough, and I’m not sure I will ever travel out of the chaos that is Logan unless absolutely necessary!
We were a bit nervous for this trip as my youngest son (age 4) was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes last February, and this was our first real trip traveling with insulin, a pump, and all the other supplies that go along with the disease. Security was wonderful, didn’t ask us to remove his pump, like we had worried about, and let us clear security with apple juice and all his other supplies no problem.
Our flight departed right as scheduled at 7:45 AM, and we arrived in Orlando about 20 minutes early, at about 10:55 AM. Wonderful!
We headed straight for the Magical Express, again no line, and immediately boarded the bus for Boardwalk. There were only about 7 other people on the bus, and I was surprised that we didn’t have to wait for the bus to fill up. Boardwalk was the first stop, and we were at the front desk before noon! We had done online check in 10 days prior. We were booked in a preferred view one bedroom, and our only request was that we be on a higher floor. They told us our room wasn’t ready yet, but they said that we were on the 3rd floor facing the Luna Park Pool. I thought the 3rd floor was OK. They said they would text us when the room was ready.
We headed down to grab a sandwich from the bakery, and as soon as we walked in the door of the bakery, the text came through saying that the room was ready! I think it was about 12:15 by now.
We were assigned room 3092 (I think), a one-bedroom, that was facing the back of the clown’s head. Not the greatest view, but the room was very clean, well maintained, and most importantly, ready early so I decided to take it. Also, the walk to the lobby was not bad at all. I had heard horror stories of long never ending hall ways. So I thought this was fairly convenient.
I won’t bore you with every nitty gritty detail of the rest of our trip, but I will give you a few of my thoughts and impressions of BWV. Location, location, location! We simply loved being able to walk to HS and Epcot. So much so that we ended up doing 3 Epcot days instead of 3 MK days, as we had originally planned.
I was underwhelmed with the bus from DTD. I think BW is the fifth stop. Getting there is fine. But the return is a pain. The opposite holds true for MK. You are the first stop getting back, but I think the 3rd or 4th on the pick up. We did do an early morning character breakfast at Crystal Palace one morning, and the bus brought us directly to MK, making no other stops. I don’t know if this is routine or not.
As far as the customer service at BW goes, I thought the CM were fine. We did have a glitch when trying to have our park passes (purchased at UT) put on our KTWC. The CM put the children’s 7 day park pass under my husband’s card, and vice versa for my oldest son. So the first day we tried to enter the MK, we had a problem getting in. As a result I had to go back to the concierge desk at BW to have her fix it. Trouble was she couldn’t. And we ended up having to have 2 cards anyway. One was the room key for my DS and DH and the other being the park pass. So all of this was for nothing. In the future, I’ll just stick with keeping park passes and keys separate. Not worth the time standing in line twice! I was not overwhelmed by the customer service, no real apology for the mix up.
I did feel that Mousekeeping was excellent. We were there for 8 nights, so we got the full cleaning on day 4. They even filled and ran the dishwasher for us as I had left a sink full of dirty dishes.
One of the things I don’t love about BWV is the room configuration. I think the bathroom is strangely designed. It really made me miss Kidani and the extra bathroom! But again, not a deal breaker. The location makes up for the lack of an extra bathroom.
I did feel that the room was noisy. This was late January, but the weather was mild so there were people using the pool at night. I can’t imagine how loud it would be in the summer. If I ever stayed again, I would ask for a quiet room. I also thought the lights from the pool area made the room really bright. Even with the drapes closed, light still streamed in. I thought it was dawn the first night, because of the light. But it was only 3 AM! It was lit up like Fenway Park. (I am sensitive to light and sound, so I think I’ll start traveling with earplugs, and one of those things that goes over your eyes for sleeping!)
My boys (age 4 and 7) loved the scary clown pool slide! As I mentioned, the weather was mild, and we were able to get in a lot of pool time. The kids loved the pool area so much; it was hard to pull them away to go to the parks some of the days!
Another major glitch was that my husband got food poisoning from Hollywood Brown Derby. We enjoyed a fantastic meal (or so we thought) but in the middle of the night he got acutely ill, vomiting and the whole nine yards! I did not eat what he had, so I did not get sick. But it was clearly food poisoning, given the time frame and the recovery time. He was so sick the next day that I had to bring the kids to Epcot by myself. This really made me appreciate being able to walk with the kids to Epcot. Upon returning home, I thought I should have complained to someone because he lost a whole day of our trip, including a day off his park pass (we did not have non expiry on our passes). Maybe they would have given him a day to use next time. But I was so busy with taking care of the kids, it didn’t occur to me to complain.
Some more general thoughts, about Disney, not so much about BW: It felt really crowded to me! I guess the last week in January ain’t what it used to be! We did MK on Monday, January 24th, and it was PACKED! Granted, this was one of the few days MSEP was playing, but it was like Christmas. Wall to wall people, with manners sorely lacking! I had heard about tour groups from a certain South American country on disboards, but never experienced it. Man, they were everywhere! I cannot for the life of me understand why they need to stay in groups and follow the leader with the flag! Doesn’t it make sense to break up into groups of 2 or 4?
The other parks seemed less crowded, but still not the low attendance of January’s of old. I think those days are gone forever.
On anther note, I felt that the restaurants were crowded, and the servers where harried. Trying to rush us in and rush us out. I was left a little flat with the quality of the food and the service. We did do the dining plan, only because we had enough reward dollars to pay for almost the entire thing. I don’t know that we will do the plan again. We felt very tethered to the dining reservations. Always feeling like we had to “run” to the next meal. And it lacked a certain spontaneity. I want to be able to eat when I feel like it, and not have to feel like I “have to eat”. Again, with the way Disney has designed it, you have to decide where and what you want to eat 180 days before hand! Also, with the online reservation, it seems like people are double booking, and then not showing up.
For example, one night we were supposed to go to Yachtsman’s Steakhouse. We realized that morning we didn’t feel like doing a formal sit down meal, so I called and cancelled. We thought that we might do in room dining or whatever we felt like doing at that night. So that night we were at MK, and we felt like having dinner at Kona Café. So I called Disney Dining to see if we could get a table. This was at 5:30ish. They said yes, we could get a table at 7:45! I couldn’t believe it. I figured, let’s just go over and see. So we jumped on the monorail, headed over to Kona. Went to the check in area, and same story! They said, oh we can give you a pager, and the table will be ready at 7:45 or so. I look in the restaurant and all I see are empty tables! So I take the pager, walk over to the gift shop, and no sooner does the buzzer ring. It is about 6:15! Something is seriously flawed with the system. Now I know this is Kona Café, and I would never walk up to say, Le Cellier or Ohana and expect to be seated! But I feel like you should be able to decide you want to eat somewhere, and be able to eat! It’s a meal not a marriage! It is also late January, not the Fourth of July! Again, low season is a thing of the past!
We did have a couple of noteworthy meals. One was Sanaa over at Kidani Village. We just love this place. Now we own at Kidani, so I had to get over there to get my fix. I was a little ‘homesick’ after all! We had the same server, Frankie, whom we had on 2 other occasions. He’s the best! And we just love the food and ambiance. Hopefully Sanaa will remain a hidden jewel! The other place was Kouzzina, at Boardwalk. Loved this place so much we went for dinner the first night and returned for breakfast on the last morning of the trip.
Other than these 2 restaurants, I felt that the food was just meh! Oh I almost forgot to mention the HORRIBLE service at Tutto Italia! The maitre d is the rudest man on the planet. He yelled in my face to come back to the desk “WHEN YOU HAVE YOUR ENTIRE PARTY”. No lie. I was mortified. I will never return there again! If I wanted to be treated so rudely, I would have made reservations in France (just kidding!).
Another thing I noticed was that the chefs were not very helpful with the nutritional content of the food. With my youngest son being diabetic, we have to count and calculate every carbohydrate he eats. Very difficult at Disney! I found this surprising, because my oldest son has a gluten and dairy allergy. Every restaurant we ate at the chef came to the table saying that they could make special meals to accommodate our oldest’s allergies. But when it came to knowing the carbohydrates/and or amount of food on the plate, no help at all. Other than offering a sugar free dessert, they were very little, if any help at all. Thank goodness for a foods scale and a smart phone! We were able to get by!
Well, so much for not boring you with every little detail of our trip!
But overall, we were very pleased with our stay at Boardwalk. You can't beat the location! The boys loved it, especially the clown slide! We will definitely return there in the future! To all the BW owners, we loved staying at your home!
Oh, I almost forgot to add the best part of the trip. The MK introduced a new show between the parade and the fireworks, called "Let the Memories Begin". They project pictures taken during the day by photopass photographers, and then project them onto the castle. Well, our son's picture made it onto the castle! Amazing! What a magical memory!
We flew on Southwest out of Manchester, NH on Sunday January 23rd. We live just north of Boston but much prefer to fly out of Manchester because the airport is so much quieter. The parking is also cheaper so we don’t have to bother anyone for rides.
We pulled up to the curb, and did curb side check in for our bags. There was literally no line. We off loaded all our bags, (already had boarding cards from doing online check in). I took the kids inside and DH went to park the car. We went and had a quick breakfast at Dunkin Donuts and then cleared security. Again, no line! I can not recommend Manchester Airport highly enough, and I’m not sure I will ever travel out of the chaos that is Logan unless absolutely necessary!
We were a bit nervous for this trip as my youngest son (age 4) was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes last February, and this was our first real trip traveling with insulin, a pump, and all the other supplies that go along with the disease. Security was wonderful, didn’t ask us to remove his pump, like we had worried about, and let us clear security with apple juice and all his other supplies no problem.
Our flight departed right as scheduled at 7:45 AM, and we arrived in Orlando about 20 minutes early, at about 10:55 AM. Wonderful!
We headed straight for the Magical Express, again no line, and immediately boarded the bus for Boardwalk. There were only about 7 other people on the bus, and I was surprised that we didn’t have to wait for the bus to fill up. Boardwalk was the first stop, and we were at the front desk before noon! We had done online check in 10 days prior. We were booked in a preferred view one bedroom, and our only request was that we be on a higher floor. They told us our room wasn’t ready yet, but they said that we were on the 3rd floor facing the Luna Park Pool. I thought the 3rd floor was OK. They said they would text us when the room was ready.
We headed down to grab a sandwich from the bakery, and as soon as we walked in the door of the bakery, the text came through saying that the room was ready! I think it was about 12:15 by now.
We were assigned room 3092 (I think), a one-bedroom, that was facing the back of the clown’s head. Not the greatest view, but the room was very clean, well maintained, and most importantly, ready early so I decided to take it. Also, the walk to the lobby was not bad at all. I had heard horror stories of long never ending hall ways. So I thought this was fairly convenient.
I won’t bore you with every nitty gritty detail of the rest of our trip, but I will give you a few of my thoughts and impressions of BWV. Location, location, location! We simply loved being able to walk to HS and Epcot. So much so that we ended up doing 3 Epcot days instead of 3 MK days, as we had originally planned.
I was underwhelmed with the bus from DTD. I think BW is the fifth stop. Getting there is fine. But the return is a pain. The opposite holds true for MK. You are the first stop getting back, but I think the 3rd or 4th on the pick up. We did do an early morning character breakfast at Crystal Palace one morning, and the bus brought us directly to MK, making no other stops. I don’t know if this is routine or not.
As far as the customer service at BW goes, I thought the CM were fine. We did have a glitch when trying to have our park passes (purchased at UT) put on our KTWC. The CM put the children’s 7 day park pass under my husband’s card, and vice versa for my oldest son. So the first day we tried to enter the MK, we had a problem getting in. As a result I had to go back to the concierge desk at BW to have her fix it. Trouble was she couldn’t. And we ended up having to have 2 cards anyway. One was the room key for my DS and DH and the other being the park pass. So all of this was for nothing. In the future, I’ll just stick with keeping park passes and keys separate. Not worth the time standing in line twice! I was not overwhelmed by the customer service, no real apology for the mix up.
I did feel that Mousekeeping was excellent. We were there for 8 nights, so we got the full cleaning on day 4. They even filled and ran the dishwasher for us as I had left a sink full of dirty dishes.
One of the things I don’t love about BWV is the room configuration. I think the bathroom is strangely designed. It really made me miss Kidani and the extra bathroom! But again, not a deal breaker. The location makes up for the lack of an extra bathroom.
I did feel that the room was noisy. This was late January, but the weather was mild so there were people using the pool at night. I can’t imagine how loud it would be in the summer. If I ever stayed again, I would ask for a quiet room. I also thought the lights from the pool area made the room really bright. Even with the drapes closed, light still streamed in. I thought it was dawn the first night, because of the light. But it was only 3 AM! It was lit up like Fenway Park. (I am sensitive to light and sound, so I think I’ll start traveling with earplugs, and one of those things that goes over your eyes for sleeping!)
My boys (age 4 and 7) loved the scary clown pool slide! As I mentioned, the weather was mild, and we were able to get in a lot of pool time. The kids loved the pool area so much; it was hard to pull them away to go to the parks some of the days!
Another major glitch was that my husband got food poisoning from Hollywood Brown Derby. We enjoyed a fantastic meal (or so we thought) but in the middle of the night he got acutely ill, vomiting and the whole nine yards! I did not eat what he had, so I did not get sick. But it was clearly food poisoning, given the time frame and the recovery time. He was so sick the next day that I had to bring the kids to Epcot by myself. This really made me appreciate being able to walk with the kids to Epcot. Upon returning home, I thought I should have complained to someone because he lost a whole day of our trip, including a day off his park pass (we did not have non expiry on our passes). Maybe they would have given him a day to use next time. But I was so busy with taking care of the kids, it didn’t occur to me to complain.
Some more general thoughts, about Disney, not so much about BW: It felt really crowded to me! I guess the last week in January ain’t what it used to be! We did MK on Monday, January 24th, and it was PACKED! Granted, this was one of the few days MSEP was playing, but it was like Christmas. Wall to wall people, with manners sorely lacking! I had heard about tour groups from a certain South American country on disboards, but never experienced it. Man, they were everywhere! I cannot for the life of me understand why they need to stay in groups and follow the leader with the flag! Doesn’t it make sense to break up into groups of 2 or 4?
The other parks seemed less crowded, but still not the low attendance of January’s of old. I think those days are gone forever.
On anther note, I felt that the restaurants were crowded, and the servers where harried. Trying to rush us in and rush us out. I was left a little flat with the quality of the food and the service. We did do the dining plan, only because we had enough reward dollars to pay for almost the entire thing. I don’t know that we will do the plan again. We felt very tethered to the dining reservations. Always feeling like we had to “run” to the next meal. And it lacked a certain spontaneity. I want to be able to eat when I feel like it, and not have to feel like I “have to eat”. Again, with the way Disney has designed it, you have to decide where and what you want to eat 180 days before hand! Also, with the online reservation, it seems like people are double booking, and then not showing up.
For example, one night we were supposed to go to Yachtsman’s Steakhouse. We realized that morning we didn’t feel like doing a formal sit down meal, so I called and cancelled. We thought that we might do in room dining or whatever we felt like doing at that night. So that night we were at MK, and we felt like having dinner at Kona Café. So I called Disney Dining to see if we could get a table. This was at 5:30ish. They said yes, we could get a table at 7:45! I couldn’t believe it. I figured, let’s just go over and see. So we jumped on the monorail, headed over to Kona. Went to the check in area, and same story! They said, oh we can give you a pager, and the table will be ready at 7:45 or so. I look in the restaurant and all I see are empty tables! So I take the pager, walk over to the gift shop, and no sooner does the buzzer ring. It is about 6:15! Something is seriously flawed with the system. Now I know this is Kona Café, and I would never walk up to say, Le Cellier or Ohana and expect to be seated! But I feel like you should be able to decide you want to eat somewhere, and be able to eat! It’s a meal not a marriage! It is also late January, not the Fourth of July! Again, low season is a thing of the past!
We did have a couple of noteworthy meals. One was Sanaa over at Kidani Village. We just love this place. Now we own at Kidani, so I had to get over there to get my fix. I was a little ‘homesick’ after all! We had the same server, Frankie, whom we had on 2 other occasions. He’s the best! And we just love the food and ambiance. Hopefully Sanaa will remain a hidden jewel! The other place was Kouzzina, at Boardwalk. Loved this place so much we went for dinner the first night and returned for breakfast on the last morning of the trip.
Other than these 2 restaurants, I felt that the food was just meh! Oh I almost forgot to mention the HORRIBLE service at Tutto Italia! The maitre d is the rudest man on the planet. He yelled in my face to come back to the desk “WHEN YOU HAVE YOUR ENTIRE PARTY”. No lie. I was mortified. I will never return there again! If I wanted to be treated so rudely, I would have made reservations in France (just kidding!).
Another thing I noticed was that the chefs were not very helpful with the nutritional content of the food. With my youngest son being diabetic, we have to count and calculate every carbohydrate he eats. Very difficult at Disney! I found this surprising, because my oldest son has a gluten and dairy allergy. Every restaurant we ate at the chef came to the table saying that they could make special meals to accommodate our oldest’s allergies. But when it came to knowing the carbohydrates/and or amount of food on the plate, no help at all. Other than offering a sugar free dessert, they were very little, if any help at all. Thank goodness for a foods scale and a smart phone! We were able to get by!
Well, so much for not boring you with every little detail of our trip!
But overall, we were very pleased with our stay at Boardwalk. You can't beat the location! The boys loved it, especially the clown slide! We will definitely return there in the future! To all the BW owners, we loved staying at your home!
Oh, I almost forgot to add the best part of the trip. The MK introduced a new show between the parade and the fireworks, called "Let the Memories Begin". They project pictures taken during the day by photopass photographers, and then project them onto the castle. Well, our son's picture made it onto the castle! Amazing! What a magical memory!
