Good morning! Just back at midnight from my 1st CR stay - at BLT!
Before I chat about that - what is the CR Monorail Add On set you are looking for? In the little Christmas Shop by the water in Epcot FW they had the original playset, and then smaller sets of extra track, and 2 different sets of little tiny characters - is this what you mean?
I'll try & keep this brief but I tend to get chatty!
We were 6 ladies sharing a 2BR BLT villa. Unfortunately one of the ladies had a family emergency & had to cancel the day before we left, so it was 5 of us. There was PLENTY of room in the 2BR BLT villa for 5 adults. We got to CR around noon & checked in, everyone was so nice! The room wouldn't be ready for awhile so we went to Epcot for the day. Got the text around 4pm that the room was ready, but we didn't head back until almost 11pm. When we got in the villa we were like kids in a candy store ooh-ing & aah-ing & taking pictures! We were celebrating one friend's birthday & she had special ordered a cake to be delivered, and it was waiting for us. YUM! We were in villa 8441, 14th floor, overlooking the pool & Bay Lake.
The villa was IMMACULATE, fresh & new. We had no issues with the rooms or the Mousekeeping. The room was sparkling clean every day when we returned from the parks, and 5 ladies can leave a mess! We had enough kitchenware for everyone, and Mousekeeping ran the dishwasher every day.
I shared the 2nd BR (2 queens) with another friend, and it was huge. The bathroom was very spacious also. Loved the patio & view of Bay Lake. The AC unit is in this room, which worked out great. I always need some kind of white noise when traveling with a group, and the noise from this blocked everything out. I never heard a thing from the rest of the villa or outside. I have to say it was the most comfortable bed onsite that I've slept in, in WDW - only the Swan/Dolphin has better beds in my opinion!
My only concern with the room was - like many have already said - the sliding pocket doors in the bathroom just aren't aequate. Not only do they not even come close to closing (1/2-inch gap between the door & the wall), they have no locks. There is zero PRIVACY when using the bathrooms. What were they thinking?
I loved the CR - 4th floor area - monorail, Chef Mickeys, Contempo Cafe, sgops, etc. It was nice to have everything centralized like that. We did have breakfast at Chef Mickeys - a first for me. It was nice but I don't need to do it again, for that price. The buffet food was adeqaute but not great. We had an 8:15 ADR & weren't seated til about 8:40, and I felt like that ate up a lot of park time for us on our last day. The shops had a wide variety of merchandise & the CMs there were so nice.
My only other concern was the whole monorial system. I had never stayed on a monorail resort & was just so exicted to do this. I felt like we spent more time waiting for monorails, riding in monorails & then transferring monorails then we did in the parks! The whole "transferring" seemed to eat up too much time for us. We all kept saying "who came up with this idea???" I wish there was quicker way to change from the Resort Monorail to the other one without having to exit the platform, go down the ramp, across the pavement, back up the ramp & onto the other platform. Or maybe we just weren't doing it right & were taking the long way! I'd much rather be at a resort with direct bus service, or in the Epcot Resort area with walking paths to 2 parks, or boat service. I know we could have walked to MK, however we had someone in our group awaiting knee surgery that just couldn't walk that far & not be worn out for the day. The monorail transferring was almost too much for her. Not Disney's fault at all, but the whole process just seemed to take too long vs. taking a bus. Just my opinion, I know most ADORE the monorail system!
One other note - does anyone else feel the area where CR connects to BLT is very unappealing? It looks to me like they just never finished it - it's just plain concrete & the concrete fire exit steps, and it's exposed to the weather (the whole sky walkway is). I was surprised that this looked as poorly as it did, in comparison to the rest of this gorgeous resort. That area had a funky smell every time we walked from CR to BLT as well. Again, just my opinion, but I think it could use some freshening up! Maybe it has something to do with fire or building codes, I don't know. The doors to BLT were always open, no need for your key. I thought I had read that it was key access only over to BLT.
Overall it was a GORGEOUS villa, and a great resort. I can see why so many love it, and I would stay here again!