magickingdomprincess
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2015
- Messages
- 1,520
My family of 5 recently had a split stay at BLT LV Studio/Poly Std View Studio and thought I’d share my thoughts on the two. We were at WDW 6/9-6/17, and my kids are ages 2 (actually 3 now), 5, and 17. We’d stayed at BLT before but this was our first time ever at the Poly. We stayed 4 nights at each resort.
BLT – We were on the 9th floor, I had requested high floor close to elevator. We were on the 9th floor and pretty close to the elevator, overlooking the pool. As always loved the close distance to MK, where we spent a lot of time. We used the monorail and walking path about equally. My little ones love seeing/riding on the monorail so it’s great being able to see it going by overhead even if we’re just going to the parking lot.
The pool was nice, they little ones really enjoyed the small kids slide and the zero entry into the pool. We saw a snake there one day, next to some plants by the big slide. Didn’t bother us a whole lot but it sure did scare the lady who saw it first!
There are tons of lizards around the grounds which was fun for the kids to spot.
We could watch the electrical water pageant from our balcony which I probably liked more than the kids
The storage there is nice with being able to unpack using the dressers. The kitchen storage is great, although probably a little more than we really need in a studio.
I’m not crazy about the bathroom sliding barn doors but I've gotten used to them.
No issues at all with cleanliness or items in disrepair.
The food at the Contempo Café was fine, nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary. The one time we ate there it did seem to take a while to order.
Poly- We were in Tokaleau on the 2nd floor. I think I forgot to make any room requests for this part of our stay, which I wasn’t too concerned about because it was all new to us and kind of just wanted to see what we got.
The kids LOVED the pool splash area
My 2 year old loved the small slide, and my 5 year old loved the enclosed slide that’s part of the same area. It was pretty easy to watch them both and the larger slide was nice because of the way it ends in shallow water he was able to go down without us having to catch him like we would have had to on the bigger slides.
The room was a little dark to me, but part of that could be not wanting to open the blinds all the way since we were only on the 2nd floor. At BLT I didn’t have an issue with privacy since we were so high up.
We got takeout from Captain Cook’s several nights and all really enjoyed the food and the variety that they had. I had the pulled pork nachos and the Polynesian salad, which I enjoyed both quite a bit. My DH and DS17 both had pho one night and thought it wasn’t bad, but it didn’t come with condiments that normally come with pho (hoisin, red chili sauce, mint leaves, cilantro). DH wasn’t crazy about the fried rice though, although he did enjoy the burger he had there.
The walk to the TTC was great, went to EP on our last day and it was very convenient.
I did kind of miss the storage drawers that BLT had, but having the extra pull down bed and extra bathroom was great! If we hadn’t been doing a split stay I probably would have unpacked more into the bathroom drawers, but since we stayed there second I think I got lazy about unpacking
Laundry – we did one load at each hotel, it was free to use the machines at BLT, and cost $3 a load for each the washer and dryer. I’d say it was easier/more convenient at BLT since it was in the same building (and it's FREE!)
We saw a snake here too! It was crossing the sidewalk and went into some bushes. Not nearly as many lizards though which I thought was strange considering all the greenery.
Also didn’t have any complaints about cleanliness here. We did have two light bulbs out, but we called and they replaced them with an hour or two. Also, one of the bathroom doors didn’t like to slide open all the way, and I meant to call just to let maintenance know so they could fix it at some point, but I forgot.
There was a four hour power outage in the building one day, which was a bit of an inconvenience because we took mid day breaks. However, we planned accordingly and by the time we got back to the room, it was back on and the food in the fridge was fine, and the room was cool.
One thing I did notice was it seemed like there were a lot of sharp corners/edges in the Poly room. Maybe I just have clumsy kids but several times they bumped into bed corners or handles. Just something to think about for those with young kids. Also, the kitchen area was VERY small, especially coming from BLT.
Overall I think both resorts are great and both have their advantages and disadvantages. Due to the points we’ll probably stay at BLT more than the Poly, although the extra bathroom and bed, along with the pool and food make it a tough choice. I did get a little bit turned around at times at the Poly, though I think I was the only one so it was probably just me.
Our home resort is actually BCV, which I love also but with the little ones it's hard to beat being right by MK.
We were at the Poly when the alligator incident happened, which was just so sad it was hard to stop thinking about. We saw/heard the helicopter searching and kept thinking about how we had discussed watching the fireworks from the beach. Just tragic.
Feel free to let me know any questions you might have!
BLT – We were on the 9th floor, I had requested high floor close to elevator. We were on the 9th floor and pretty close to the elevator, overlooking the pool. As always loved the close distance to MK, where we spent a lot of time. We used the monorail and walking path about equally. My little ones love seeing/riding on the monorail so it’s great being able to see it going by overhead even if we’re just going to the parking lot.
The pool was nice, they little ones really enjoyed the small kids slide and the zero entry into the pool. We saw a snake there one day, next to some plants by the big slide. Didn’t bother us a whole lot but it sure did scare the lady who saw it first!
There are tons of lizards around the grounds which was fun for the kids to spot.
We could watch the electrical water pageant from our balcony which I probably liked more than the kids
The storage there is nice with being able to unpack using the dressers. The kitchen storage is great, although probably a little more than we really need in a studio.
I’m not crazy about the bathroom sliding barn doors but I've gotten used to them.
No issues at all with cleanliness or items in disrepair.
The food at the Contempo Café was fine, nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary. The one time we ate there it did seem to take a while to order.
Poly- We were in Tokaleau on the 2nd floor. I think I forgot to make any room requests for this part of our stay, which I wasn’t too concerned about because it was all new to us and kind of just wanted to see what we got.
The kids LOVED the pool splash area
My 2 year old loved the small slide, and my 5 year old loved the enclosed slide that’s part of the same area. It was pretty easy to watch them both and the larger slide was nice because of the way it ends in shallow water he was able to go down without us having to catch him like we would have had to on the bigger slides. The room was a little dark to me, but part of that could be not wanting to open the blinds all the way since we were only on the 2nd floor. At BLT I didn’t have an issue with privacy since we were so high up.
We got takeout from Captain Cook’s several nights and all really enjoyed the food and the variety that they had. I had the pulled pork nachos and the Polynesian salad, which I enjoyed both quite a bit. My DH and DS17 both had pho one night and thought it wasn’t bad, but it didn’t come with condiments that normally come with pho (hoisin, red chili sauce, mint leaves, cilantro). DH wasn’t crazy about the fried rice though, although he did enjoy the burger he had there.
The walk to the TTC was great, went to EP on our last day and it was very convenient.
I did kind of miss the storage drawers that BLT had, but having the extra pull down bed and extra bathroom was great! If we hadn’t been doing a split stay I probably would have unpacked more into the bathroom drawers, but since we stayed there second I think I got lazy about unpacking
Laundry – we did one load at each hotel, it was free to use the machines at BLT, and cost $3 a load for each the washer and dryer. I’d say it was easier/more convenient at BLT since it was in the same building (and it's FREE!)
We saw a snake here too! It was crossing the sidewalk and went into some bushes. Not nearly as many lizards though which I thought was strange considering all the greenery.
Also didn’t have any complaints about cleanliness here. We did have two light bulbs out, but we called and they replaced them with an hour or two. Also, one of the bathroom doors didn’t like to slide open all the way, and I meant to call just to let maintenance know so they could fix it at some point, but I forgot.
There was a four hour power outage in the building one day, which was a bit of an inconvenience because we took mid day breaks. However, we planned accordingly and by the time we got back to the room, it was back on and the food in the fridge was fine, and the room was cool.
One thing I did notice was it seemed like there were a lot of sharp corners/edges in the Poly room. Maybe I just have clumsy kids but several times they bumped into bed corners or handles. Just something to think about for those with young kids. Also, the kitchen area was VERY small, especially coming from BLT.
Overall I think both resorts are great and both have their advantages and disadvantages. Due to the points we’ll probably stay at BLT more than the Poly, although the extra bathroom and bed, along with the pool and food make it a tough choice. I did get a little bit turned around at times at the Poly, though I think I was the only one so it was probably just me.
Our home resort is actually BCV, which I love also but with the little ones it's hard to beat being right by MK.We were at the Poly when the alligator incident happened, which was just so sad it was hard to stop thinking about. We saw/heard the helicopter searching and kept thinking about how we had discussed watching the fireworks from the beach. Just tragic.
Feel free to let me know any questions you might have!
