peabody58
I'm just a drummer in a R&R Band!!
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2010
Arrival: Our 1st stay at the Poly Resort. 6 hr drive from Georgia with seamless 3 pm Magic Band check in. DVC Moorea Rm 2006. Room was very clean and the refurbishment looks/functions very well. Although we don’t need 2 bathrooms, having the space and drawers for storage was nice. The under the bed drawers are huge but harder to get into than a dresser. My only gripe about the studio is that they changed out the mini-fridge/freezer for a beverage cooler. We bring a lot of food items. Overall the beverage cooler was adequate for our 4 nt stay. I filled up our picnic cooler with ice (right down the hall, nice) and put all our ‘need to be colder items’ in it. Problem solved.
First night dinner at Kona Café was wonderful. With the appetizers and our entrees we had enough leftovers for a couple extra meals. So we cancelled our next day TS for the next day. In fact we quickly realized that as I’m dieting (down 26 lbs) and DW’s diabetes,, we didn’t need so many TS. Also cancelled our Epcot TS. So only 2 TS restaurants this trip. So we saved easily $300 and could justify < $50 on 4 ILLs. Win-win for us and a loss for Disney. No plans to purchase Genie+, just ILLs (Pandora and 7DMT).
Day 1: AK was perfect. We like to sleep in, so got there around 11:30 am. We popped for ILLs on Pandora as wait times were 95+ minutes. We were able to do just about everything else we wanted with little to no wait time. Kite Tails is a very nice show. We saw the Jungle Book kites, but did not go back to see the other themed kites (Lion king, etc.). The refreshed Fantasy of Flight bird show is soooo much better than the previous Up! Version. Pandora as always was the bomb. I took Bonine in the morning and I was able to fully enjoy every second of the ride with no vertigo. Easily got in our 10K steps. Back at the Poly in time to enjoy our leftovers in the room. Decided to try out the new Murphy bed by creating my Man-Cave! The sofa back cushions make for a firm incline resting position. DW didn’t mind at all as she was multitasking on her tablet and watching TV (Oak Island). Being married almost 40 years, we enjoy having separate beds from time to time, and I really slept well on the Murphy bed. Highly recommend it.
PSA Warning - the new drip coffee makers in the PVB (at least in ours) are not Auto-Shutoff. Fortunately we didn’t burn the resort down, but IMO, not a very good cost savings measure.
Day 2: Slept in late as is our pattern. Brunch in the room and at the MK by 12:30 am. Dinner at Jungle Skipper (not overly impressed for our bland taste’s in food). ILLs at 7DMT (again worth it). DW left early and I stayed for the new castle/fireworks show. Got to do all the rides plus more till 11 pm (extended resort guest hours)!
Day 3: Another late sleep in, in my Murphy Bed Man-Cave! DW complained of a very painful Achilles tendon from not being in shape for the 10K plus steps. Bell services was able to hook us up with an orphaned wheelchair. If you need a wheelchair, always ask bell services, and pick one that is does not have a pole on it. Those are only good up to the park, then you will need to rent on for $12.. DW is just helping me burn more calories. After a nice meal in the room, we made it to Epcot by 12 pm. Love the short walk from our PVB Moorea room to the TTC Epcot Monorail, especially when pushing a wheelchair. Best weather of the trip and decided to wear shorts. We got so much done with little to no wait times. Lunch in the Land. Diet hack - got the Kids Meal Salmon plate!! It filled me up at half the price. Dinner later was Fish & Chips with beer - OMG how we have missed this. Took DW back to the room, and I returned to enjoy the new HarmonioUS show (pretty good IMO). No G+ or ILLs needed at Epcot. We’ll have to do Ratatouille on another trip.
Check-our Day: Out by 9:30 am. Had a nice DVC Bungalow tour with our new guide Frank T. He replaced our former retired guide and recently sold us our add-on 100 BWV points. Spent the rest of day/night with my brother who lives in Polk City, and then back home to Georgia, our fur baby and what…. Snow!
Conclusion: Is WDW different than pre-Covid - yes. Is it worse that per-Covid - not in our opinion, just different. Yes costs are up (like everywhere but we have a lot of discretional control), masks are still required indoors (minor issue) and the Genie+/ILLs thing is new (but manageable). We were able to roll with the changes, optimize our experience and find the magic which is still there just for the looking. By changing our dining style, we saved a lot of $$ and were able to utilize ILLs for our must do rides. This worked our great for our vacationing style - sleep in, relax and go with the flow. Did not find any need or value in Genie+. We are desperately waiting for the APs to go back on sale so we can better economize on our May 22 - May 23 trips of our planned 24 nights total. Paying for day tickets was a financial eye opener. If the APs don’t come back soon, we still have some DVC AP Vouchers and NE+ Tics we can use, but would like to save those for 2024 and beyond. All in all we had a great time, weather was perfect with our sweatshirts, crowds were very manageable, and we enjoyed our stay at PVB. PVB will most likely be our one-and-done bucket list stay. The resort did not seem to excite us as much as our home resorts BLT/BWV. We both agreed that we like brighter/busier resorts. Plus for the higher point count, we could stay longer at BWV or SSR and still have as good a time. That the great thing about DVC, there is a resort for every taste and budget.
First night dinner at Kona Café was wonderful. With the appetizers and our entrees we had enough leftovers for a couple extra meals. So we cancelled our next day TS for the next day. In fact we quickly realized that as I’m dieting (down 26 lbs) and DW’s diabetes,, we didn’t need so many TS. Also cancelled our Epcot TS. So only 2 TS restaurants this trip. So we saved easily $300 and could justify < $50 on 4 ILLs. Win-win for us and a loss for Disney. No plans to purchase Genie+, just ILLs (Pandora and 7DMT).
Day 1: AK was perfect. We like to sleep in, so got there around 11:30 am. We popped for ILLs on Pandora as wait times were 95+ minutes. We were able to do just about everything else we wanted with little to no wait time. Kite Tails is a very nice show. We saw the Jungle Book kites, but did not go back to see the other themed kites (Lion king, etc.). The refreshed Fantasy of Flight bird show is soooo much better than the previous Up! Version. Pandora as always was the bomb. I took Bonine in the morning and I was able to fully enjoy every second of the ride with no vertigo. Easily got in our 10K steps. Back at the Poly in time to enjoy our leftovers in the room. Decided to try out the new Murphy bed by creating my Man-Cave! The sofa back cushions make for a firm incline resting position. DW didn’t mind at all as she was multitasking on her tablet and watching TV (Oak Island). Being married almost 40 years, we enjoy having separate beds from time to time, and I really slept well on the Murphy bed. Highly recommend it.
PSA Warning - the new drip coffee makers in the PVB (at least in ours) are not Auto-Shutoff. Fortunately we didn’t burn the resort down, but IMO, not a very good cost savings measure.
Day 2: Slept in late as is our pattern. Brunch in the room and at the MK by 12:30 am. Dinner at Jungle Skipper (not overly impressed for our bland taste’s in food). ILLs at 7DMT (again worth it). DW left early and I stayed for the new castle/fireworks show. Got to do all the rides plus more till 11 pm (extended resort guest hours)!
Day 3: Another late sleep in, in my Murphy Bed Man-Cave! DW complained of a very painful Achilles tendon from not being in shape for the 10K plus steps. Bell services was able to hook us up with an orphaned wheelchair. If you need a wheelchair, always ask bell services, and pick one that is does not have a pole on it. Those are only good up to the park, then you will need to rent on for $12.. DW is just helping me burn more calories. After a nice meal in the room, we made it to Epcot by 12 pm. Love the short walk from our PVB Moorea room to the TTC Epcot Monorail, especially when pushing a wheelchair. Best weather of the trip and decided to wear shorts. We got so much done with little to no wait times. Lunch in the Land. Diet hack - got the Kids Meal Salmon plate!! It filled me up at half the price. Dinner later was Fish & Chips with beer - OMG how we have missed this. Took DW back to the room, and I returned to enjoy the new HarmonioUS show (pretty good IMO). No G+ or ILLs needed at Epcot. We’ll have to do Ratatouille on another trip.
Check-our Day: Out by 9:30 am. Had a nice DVC Bungalow tour with our new guide Frank T. He replaced our former retired guide and recently sold us our add-on 100 BWV points. Spent the rest of day/night with my brother who lives in Polk City, and then back home to Georgia, our fur baby and what…. Snow!
Conclusion: Is WDW different than pre-Covid - yes. Is it worse that per-Covid - not in our opinion, just different. Yes costs are up (like everywhere but we have a lot of discretional control), masks are still required indoors (minor issue) and the Genie+/ILLs thing is new (but manageable). We were able to roll with the changes, optimize our experience and find the magic which is still there just for the looking. By changing our dining style, we saved a lot of $$ and were able to utilize ILLs for our must do rides. This worked our great for our vacationing style - sleep in, relax and go with the flow. Did not find any need or value in Genie+. We are desperately waiting for the APs to go back on sale so we can better economize on our May 22 - May 23 trips of our planned 24 nights total. Paying for day tickets was a financial eye opener. If the APs don’t come back soon, we still have some DVC AP Vouchers and NE+ Tics we can use, but would like to save those for 2024 and beyond. All in all we had a great time, weather was perfect with our sweatshirts, crowds were very manageable, and we enjoyed our stay at PVB. PVB will most likely be our one-and-done bucket list stay. The resort did not seem to excite us as much as our home resorts BLT/BWV. We both agreed that we like brighter/busier resorts. Plus for the higher point count, we could stay longer at BWV or SSR and still have as good a time. That the great thing about DVC, there is a resort for every taste and budget.
