The Villas at Disney's Grand Californian Owners Group

[nunzia]

Well MS was CLOSED today! I called the resort and they sent an email to MS so that my points wouldn't go into a holding account. I'm thinking that a room at PPH is only 4 points more and it's only one night. The party was able to be rescheduled so we'll still have dinner the night before the performance. Dinner is at 8:45PM and we usually have to report around 8:00AM or so. Going back to Long Beach will just be too much, so I'll be up at 6AM to call MS and see what I can book.

Since you will be around on the 21st...I'll let you know when our band is playing...you should stop by and give us a listen! We'll be at the stage outside Monsters Inc. probably in the morning. We'll be playing all sorts of fun music and should put on a great show. We'd love to see you in the audience!

you have a band?

 

[sueandyong]

They are on opposite sides of the building one has a WoC view the other has a MK fireworks view. You can put in a request and based on if the other one is occupied when you check in and the other party has a request you will get the available unit, but it can't hurt to put in a request. If you both check in on the same day and the other party hasn't made a request, perhaps you will get the PP view one.

Thanks so much for the info. Sorry for the late reply. I called MS just now to request the villa that has the WOC view. Cross fingers hopefully we'll get that villa. Also sory to hear about your scheduling dilemma. Hopefully MS can pull through and rebook your stay. Good luck!

 

[sueandyong]

We stayed poolside in #4513 last May before WOC so I couldn't tell you about the park view (my in-laws seem to like the quiet better) but the place is awesome for our group of 10! Never felt crowded for anyone. The kids brought the xbox for down time plus love the use of the pool table. They love the early morning hours or going in for an hour before DL closes. We have yet to use the pool but might reserve a cabana for one of the afternoons for the next stay. We all brought food for breakfasts & lunches (nice to all sit together @ the large dining table) then had dinners in DTD every night! We usually go to WDW & stay in BCV but most of the family can't afford the flight to WDW or the tickets for the parks so sharing with them what we love to do locally was the next best thing! I actually thought "Why buy points for this if we are only 30 minutes away?" but I was wrong cuz it was the best long weekend we ever had! Last May was @ 11 month mark with 160 points plus borrowed. We just made a ressi for May 4th -8th @ the 7 month mark! I think getting the grand villa rooms are easier when you can go more in the off time rather than summer or holidays. I have become spoiled by the grand villas so in a few years when just the four of us visit Beach Club, the 2 bedroom will feel so much small but still enjoyable!

Wow! I didn't know there's a pool table in the room! This villa must be huge! Do you know of any pictures that can be viewed online for the villa? I found a website that shows a 1 br and a studio pix but not the 3br. Thanks again for all your info.

 

[sueandyong]

We stayed at the Park View Grand Villa. The view is awesome. Probably has the best WOC view of any of the villas. They were only testing when we were there. You really can only hear the noise from the park when the sliding doors are open.

Does this unit have a balcony? If so, how many ppl do you think can fit in the balcony to see WOC?

 

[Djsgoofy]

Each of the 3 bedrooms has a balcony plus one off of the dining room for a total of 4. The view from the living room is great - 2 story windows. I believe you can get the music through the TV. I don't think it would be a problem for a lot of people to get a good view.

 

[peloha86]

So excited! Booked a stay in a 3 BR Grand Villa! Just wondering if anyone has stayed there and if the view is decent. DW, DD, and close friends will be staying there in November. Also, WOC will be a first for us as well. Can't believe we were able to book this since there's only 2 units.

Haven't been posting on this thread for a while, and I just wanted to say to everyone You'll love it here

sueandyong:
I found a thread on mouseinfo.com ( I couldn't find the thread on the DIS that features the VGC in it's entirety..it's here somewhere!!! )

Here ya go:

http://www.mouseinfo.com/forums/dlr...llas-disneys-grand-californian-hotel-spa.html

We LOVE the villas! We try to go every 6 months, haven't stayed in a Grand Villa yet...

Have fun!

 

[franandaj]

you have a band?

I play in two actually. Our Concert Band, the Hollywood Wind Ensemble has been playing out at Disney for over 10 years. Part of the Community Arts Showcase, you give a 1/2 an hour concert and all the performers get free admission to the park for the day. We make a whole weekend out of it now. There is a member of our band who is in Club 33, so we invite out of town guests from our National Band Organization to join with our band. We rehearse Saturday morning, those who want to dine at the Club head to DL and play (in a non musical fashion) in the park for the day, then we have a late dinner (8:45PM reservation), close the park, and perform on Sunday, and again "play" in the park since we get free admission after the perfomance.

This is why having a room was so important because of the late night and early performance call. We ended up trading out our points for a room at the DLH, it was only 7 more points than the Villa at the GCH.

I also run a swing band made up of people from the same group. We just formed last February and I'm currently working on our audition tape for Disney so that we can play in the Spring. However this will just be a one day performance, no Club 33 dinner and overnight stay.

 

[hjgaus]

Haven't been posting on this thread for a while, and I just wanted to say to everyone You'll love it here

sueandyong:
I found a thread on mouseinfo.com ( I couldn't find the thread on the DIS that features the VGC in it's entirety..it's here somewhere!!! )

Here ya go:

http://www.mouseinfo.com/forums/dlr...llas-disneys-grand-californian-hotel-spa.html

We LOVE the villas! We try to go every 6 months, haven't stayed in a Grand Villa yet...

Have fun!

That's the room! I was going to suggest DVCNews.com but the pics are WAY better from this site! The TV in the mirror (master bedroom) is kinda cool! My niece kept wanting to take a bath from OUR bathroom just to watch TV while taking her bath! Plenty of space as I said before. Looking forward to MAY!!

 

[CrazyDuck]

Since you will be around on the 21st...I'll let you know when our band is playing...you should stop by and give us a listen! We'll be at the stage outside Monsters Inc. probably in the morning. We'll be playing all sorts of fun music and should put on a great show. We'd love to see you in the audience!

You wouldn't happen to be a big bear that wears a cowboy hat and plays a banjo would ya? I been lookin for those guys for a while now!

 

[Nonsuch]

Wow! I didn't know there's a pool table in the room! This villa must be huge! Do you know of any pictures that can be viewed online for the villa? I found a website that shows a 1 br and a studio pix but not the 3br. Thanks again for all your info.

Check out the "360 Viewer" on the DVC marketing site:
Disney Vacation Club

 

[AZ Navy Wife]

Hello Everyone!

My husband and I have a question that we hope one of you can answer for us. We've stayed in a studio by ourselves before, but this time, we'll have company staying with us. We will have a friend, her husband and their 2 kids (ages 5 and 2) staying with us this next trip. My question is this, will the kids have room cards made for them or just the adults? I am just curious about the private entrance to CA. Will they all have to show cards, or just the adults? We may take one of their kids with us one day, so we want to make sure our bases are covered. They want to carry as little as possible with them into the parks.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[sueandyong]

Check out the "360 Viewer" on the DVC marketing site:
Disney Vacation Club

All I can say is WOW! You guys on the DISBOARDS are awesome! I can get all my questions answered here. I was thinking about taking some pix to post on here once we got to VGC but there's already great pix and 360 degree viewer and stuff online. Thanks again to all for sharing such insightful information.

 

[nunzia]

I play in two actually. Our Concert Band, the Hollywood Wind Ensemble has been playing out at Disney for over 10 years. Part of the Community Arts Showcase, you give a 1/2 an hour concert and all the performers get free admission to the park for the day. We make a whole weekend out of it now. There is a member of our band who is in Club 33, so we invite out of town guests from our National Band Organization to join with our band. We rehearse Saturday morning, those who want to dine at the Club head to DL and play (in a non musical fashion) in the park for the day, then we have a late dinner (8:45PM reservation), close the park, and perform on Sunday, and again "play" in the park since we get free admission after the perfomance.

This is why having a room was so important because of the late night and early performance call. We ended up trading out our points for a room at the DLH, it was only 7 more points than the Villa at the GCH.

I also run a swing band made up of people from the same group. We just formed last February and I'm currently working on our audition tape for Disney so that we can play in the Spring. However this will just be a one day performance, no Club 33 dinner and overnight stay.

How very cool!! You learn some new Disney thing every day

 

[funatdisney]

Hello Everyone!

My husband and I have a question that we hope one of you can answer for us. We've stayed in a studio by ourselves before, but this time, we'll have company staying with us. We will have a friend, her husband and their 2 kids (ages 5 and 2) staying with us this next trip. My question is this, will the kids have room cards made for them or just the adults? I am just curious about the private entrance to CA. Will they all have to show cards, or just the adults? We may take one of their kids with us one day, so we want to make sure our bases are covered. They want to carry as little as possible with them into the parks.

Thanks in advance for your help!

The kids will not need to have room cards to get into the private entrance into DCA. As long as they with adults with room cards, they can get in. In addition, sometimes they check the room cards and sometimes they don't. I'd take mine anyway to be sure.

 

[The Rivers' Rats]

It has been quite some time since our last trip home to VGC. After using up our points for a magical WDW split stay at AKV and BWV back in June, we just made our first reservation for VGC in over a year and a half.

We are staying for a two night stay at the end of January prior to heading out to Long Beach for the two night cruise to no where on DCL and then we will be spending Labor Day Weekend in order to participate in the Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend.

I loved our stay in WDW, and there was plenty to see and do there, but we really missed VGC and the magical feeling of being in the Disneyland Park!

 

[ACDSNY]

We are staying for a two night stay at the end of January prior to heading out to Long Beach for the two night cruise to no where on DCL and then we will be spending Labor Day Weekend in order to participate in the Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend.

I loved our stay in WDW, and there was plenty to see and do there, but we really missed VGC and the magical feeling of being in the Disneyland Park!

We'll take good care of the Wonder before your cruise! We'll be getting off on the day you board and then spending 2 nights at the VGC.

 

[The Rivers' Rats]

We'll take good care of the Wonder before your cruise! We'll be getting off on the day you board and then spending 2 nights at the VGC.

Thanks, well do the same with your VGC villa that we will be occupying for the two nights prior to our cruise!

 

[bumbershoot]

My question is this, will the kids have room cards made for them or just the adults?

I haven't stayed at the villa side of the Grand yet, but last year when points could be used at the hotel side we stayed in a hotel room, and just like when we stayed at DLH on points and just like we stayed at the PPH with cash, our son got a room keycard just like we did. Even has his name on it. He's 6 now, was 5 for the Grand, and 4 turning 5 at the DLH, 3 and 5 for PPH.

The 2 year old is the wild card, LOL, because she won't have a ticket at all.

But our son has always been asked for his card; since he's handing over a ticket as well, it only makes sense that they check out the card too!

 

[BeccaG]

Hello Everyone!

My husband and I have a question that we hope one of you can answer for us. We've stayed in a studio by ourselves before, but this time, we'll have company staying with us. We will have a friend, her husband and their 2 kids (ages 5 and 2) staying with us this next trip. My question is this, will the kids have room cards made for them or just the adults? I am just curious about the private entrance to CA. Will they all have to show cards, or just the adults? We may take one of their kids with us one day, so we want to make sure our bases are covered. They want to carry as little as possible with them into the parks.

Thanks in advance for your help!

FWIW we have gotten key cards for infants but have only had to show the cards on occasion and only one per room, although I hear they are being more fastidious about that now.

 

[nick262]

Hello all,

I have a question for those that have stayed at the GCV over the past year. I am not looking to complain or get flamed, just wondering if these experiences have been had by others. We have been DVC members since 2002 and this is the first property we have had these issues with.

We have stayed 4 times in the GC villas over the past year and each time we have had some small issue with the rooms. The first couple of times we chaulked it up to growing pains of a new cleaning system but our last visit was this past weekend and was the worst of all. Please note that all CM's were more than friendly.

We arrived at about 2pm and was pleasantly surprised to hear that our room was ready. However, it really was not. Outside of the door on the floor there was a half gallon of milk and a 2 litre of soda ( both 1/2 full) and two dirty glasses. This did not bother us at the time as there were several mousekeeping staff in the hallways doing other rooms and we thought they would get to it later. Upon entering the room there were absolutely no ammenities in the master bath (shampoo, conditioner, soap etc.) and no bath towels, then upon fixing a snack for my daughter, found we were missing some kitchen items like a dish towel. There was no lamp on the desk and the remote control was missing the battery cover. When we left for the Halloween party at 6:30 all of the items on the floor were still there with no mousekeeping staff in sight. Upon our return at 11pm, the milk and soda were gone but the glasses were still there. There had been other room service trays out in the hall earlier and they were all gone. The glasses remained in the hallway until after 5pm the next day.

The missing items were delivered with calls to mousekeeping, with the exeption of the lamp and battery cover, but it delayed our entrance to the park. I would have much rather waited until the 4 pm check in, gone into the parks and come into a stocked room as we did not make it into the parks until 4pm anyway due to having to wait for the missing items to be delivered.

I was just wondering if this was just happening to us or if others had noticed the same things. We are not looking to be treated special or different, we just want the same experience that we have had at all of the other DVC resorts over the years.

Thanks,