Staying at SSR again with some new questions

[angelkk]

We are not DVC owners, but stayed in SSR last year. We requested The Springs but ended up with The Paddocks which was also good. We were in Room 4810 - it is quiet, and there was a bus stop right outside our building. We had a rental car last year so we don't have much problems except it was quite a bit of walk to get refill our mugs.

We will stay in SSR again early next year. DH wants to request the Grandstand section, any comments? We may not rent a car this time due to the new addition to our family - 8 people (including kids & babies) - overloaded

We will be arriving WDW early on the date of check-in (since we are coming from the port). I assume DVC rooms will not be ready until 4pm - where can we hang around for the 6-8 hours? Kids should be exhausted since they have to wake up early from the cruise that morning.

Lastly, anyone ordered food delivery (pizza, pasta, whatever) to the villas during your stay? Any suggestions? Again we do not plan to eat out on the first night.

 

[spiceycat]

some rooms might be ready. ASK! even if it means you won't get your request.

DTD is next door - now if anyone in your party is a shop-aholic - then forget DTD.

get on a WDW bus to the MK. then get on the MK resorts monrail and visit the MK resorts.

then go ride the monrail to TTC - and change monrails to the Epcot one - and ride that.

 

[tjkraz]

We will be arriving WDW early on the date of check-in (since we are coming from the port). I assume DVC rooms will not be ready until 4pm - where can we hang around for the 6-8 hours? Kids should be exhausted since they have to wake up early from the cruise that morning.

I agree with Pat that you can ask to get into a room early, although you may have to decide whether you place greater value on your room requests or simply getting into ANY available room. As the old saying goes, beggars can't be choosers.

Act as if there's a very real possibility that you won't have a room until after 4pm and plan accordingly. Hopefully you will be pleasantly surprised and get into a room early.

But you simply MUST have a plan for how you will spend those 6-8 hours, whether it's in the theme parks, doing free stuff, Downtown Disney, hanging out at the pool, etc. If a room isn't ready upon arrival, they normally won't give you any sort of ETA--it all depends upon when rooms are released by housekeeping. The last thing you want to do is find yourselves standing at the front desk at 9am with no room, saying "OK, now what do we do?"

Personally I would treat it like any other day and plan to head to the parks. If you try to do other less interesting things, fatigue will set in that much quicker. Go to a park like the Magic Kingdom or MGM where you don't need to do a tremendous amount of walking to get from one attraction to another.

 

[corinnak]

Oh, darn that early cruise ship eviction. I understand why they do it, but it really is tough with the kids.

Community Hall might be a good bet, at least for a portion of the day. If you spent the morning at CH, watching a movie, playing video games, doing crafts or just relaxing on the couch, then had lunch at one of the resort restaurants, you might have enough energy to swim in the pool in the afternoon, or maybe a DTD movie. Or vice versa - swim in the morning or go to DTD while everyone is fresh and then hang out at Community Hall after lunch? There is also a very nice sitting area between check in and Artist's Palette, but I wouldn't want to spend 6 hours there with my kids, for what that is worth.

I agree, it's a good idea to have a plan for that day, whatever it might be. You might even want to have two plans. Plan A: In case everyone is exhausted from the early morning, Or Plan B: In case everyone is feeling pretty good. I agree that MGM might be a good option for a Plan B. Lots of shows and a relatively small park means less fatigue, in theory.

Grandstand looks like a a very nice section. I haven't stayed there, but I did walk over to the pool area one day. It seems like some of the buildings might be as far a walk from the Carriage House as the Paddock rooms are. It's always the first bus stop, which can be very nice. They are the newest rooms, which is also nice!

 

[BroganMc]

We routinely check in around 9am and are up by 6am packing. We change resorts from Marriott to Disney.

As a rule, we don't do a park on check-in day. If we did we'd be too exhausted to unpack. Better to just chill at the resort and get an early start the next day.

There's a lot to do at SSR. The main pool is a huge attraction for all ages. On Sundays they have pool parties from 1-4pm. Artist's Palette is always a good draw from breakfast and lunch. Community Hall has rooms for crafts, video games and a big screen TV. There's a pay arcade if you want to give them that. There are playgrounds at Congress Park and Paddocks pools. The Carriage House has some comfy sofas to spread out and relax a bit. I like just going for walks and finding a bench with a scenic view. (The one by the Paddocks bridge is a favorite if you're a sucker for waterviews.)

DTD is also a great time killer. Kids love playing at LegoLand. You have the AMC movies and DisneyQuest if you're looking to entertain older kids/teens. And Ghiradellis makes a great ice cream stop. Plus it's fun to just browse through the shops and see what's around.

Monorail and resort touring can be fun too, but I kinda think that's an older person's entertainment. Babies probably prefer someplace quiet to just crawl around. The pool will probably end up the most popular. And if you settle in there you can include a lunch break.

Of the three times I've done my resort hopping over the last year I like what we did the last time in October best. We checked-in with our bathing suits in a day bag. Stopped off at the rest rooms nearby and changed clothes. We left our perishables with Bell Services, the luggage in the car. Got ourselves a couple chairs and just stayed in the pool until the room was ready. We did one lunch break around noon-1pm. Room was ready by 2:30pm. After settling in, we just ferried over to DTD for some shopping and dinner at Raglan Road.

 

[MinnesotaChill]

We've also spent the day at the pool, but I must caution you that with small kids, it can get to be a long, tiring day. We were moving rooms at BW last year and literally checked out at 7am, thinking we'd get breakfast, and then just hang out and wait for an available room. We'd gotten in late the night before, so we were really tired. What was I thinking?

Our room was not ready until 5:30pm. It was a disaster. We'd checked all of our bags with bell services and I had only swim suits. Forgot the sunscreen in the main bags even. There was no way I was going anywhere else in a suit, nor was it feasible to get our bags out of bell services to go through them.

Apparently, without us knowing it, the CM who was in charge of us switching rooms had set aside a really nice 2 bedroom right off the elevator and they were the very last rooms cleaned that day or something. So, while I was thinking I was getting the first available room, I was actually waiting for a specific room. Make it very clear what you want when you try to get there early!

 

[corinnak]

Oh, good point, my fellow Minnesotan. That's a true cautionary tale for room-changers.

We transferred resorts last month, from POFQ to SSR. I had sent all the bags with Bell Services aside from the bags we needed for the parks, but somehow, I ended up with a bunch of stuff I didn't want to haul around all day - the check in folder and I don't even remember what else. I put them in one of the $1 lockers near the pool and away we went to Animal Kingdom. I don't think those lockers get used a whole lot - the one I used was the only one with its key out. Could come in handy for a pool day, too, I suppose.

 

[5 for WDW]

I just wanted to give you some thoughts on The Grandstand section.

We stayed in that section for 10 days with our three kids in September. 10,7 and 4.

We could not have been more pleased with the location. First and most important with young kids is that it is the first bus stop to be picked up and dropped off. I have no problem standing and neither does my DH to give someone else a seat. However, I do make sure my children are sitting. Staying in Grandstand assured that.

The walk to the main pool and building was short and easy. We even walked over to Congress Park and over to DTD one day. Would not want to do it everyday but, no one complained.

The themed pool in that section is great. My kids loved it. It does not have a slide but, has great water features and a pool bar for the adults.

Our one bedroom was immaculate. Well stocked and in a great location close to the bus stop.

We will definately be requesting that section for any future trips.

Have a great trip!!