Just back from another wonderful trip to WDW...it was a combination pleasure/business trip...did DVC at OKW from 8/5-8/9, and Yacht Club on company business Sat-Mon (8/9-8/11)...
The most interesting thing (to me) about this trip was the very real difference between the DVC experience and the hotel experience. We've only been DVC members since June of '06, so it hasn't been that long since we were in a hotel room...but we've been to WDW a LOT in our two years as DVC members (9 times), so it felt like a longer time than it was since experiencing a Disney hotel rather than a DVC villa...
There are pluses and minuses to both, but on balance, I am sorry to say that I much preferred the Yacht Club experience...
At OKW, we had a clean, everything-working, lovely one-bedroom in building 26 (just behind the Peninsular Rd bus stop, and across the street/canal from Hospitality House). It was gorgeous and OKW villas are SO big! It's just spectacular. We had the washer/dryer (of course), which I used, and that was nice...we also "sort of" used the kitchen...mostly for making exotic coffee drinks (my kids' newest passion...the kids are 21 and 19), but also for leftovers...nothing we couldn't have done in a hotel room, but somehow having a real kitchen made it more doable...
At the Yacht Club we had a corner room which made the regular hotel room seem much bigger...it also afforded a bit of privacy among the 3 of us (the "hallway" from the door into the room itself made a "perfect" dressing room, so coming in from the pool and changing into dinner clothes, one person could use the bathroom, one the sleeping area of the room, and the third the hallway)...
Bottom line: we were treated considerably more "special-y" at the Yacht Club. Everyone at OKW was very nice (well, there was one CM at the concierge desk who set my teeth on edge...he apparently didn't like me...I stopped there twice (and got him both times) for info--once about catching a cab to the Polynesian and once to change ADRs...both times he was surly and made snippy, almost-nasty comments in response to my questions...e.g., first he said I talked too fast ("Speak more slowly; I'm not a computer here," he said to me, in a very nasty tone of voice), and then he told me I talked too slowly ("I'm waiting. What do you want?" he said after I told him I wanted to cancel two ADRs and make a third one and asked which he wanted to start with--also said with a snippy-nasty tone of voice)--that wasn't so pleasant, but not all that big a deal...
At the Yacht Club, I got that familiar wonderful "Disney Magic" feeling that nothing in the world was too much or too good for me, their valued guest...it was more attitude than action, more tone of voice than actual words. I just felt like the most important person in the world every time I encountered a Yacht Club CM. While the OKW CMs were (except for the one) perfectly friendly and nice, I didn't feel anything like "special" while I was there. Wish I could do a better job of explaining why...but I haven't quite figured it out yet.
I must admit, it made me think about DVC. It's true that having my points means I can book any time I can/want to and not have to worry about money to pay for the room, and that's wonderful. But I didn't realize how much I love/miss that "Disney Magic" feeling until I got it again at the Yacht Club...
Plus, there are deluxe hotel "details" that don't matter, but sure do add to the overall experience...things like USA Today outside your door...and shampoo and soap each day...don't need new soap everyday--but we did need the shampoo...it was nice to get it daily at the Yacht Club...I honestly don't need daily mousekeeping--but found I sure enjoyed it once I started getting it again....
Then, I made the mistake of trying in my head to count up the number of days I'd spent at Disney since joining DVC and trying to compare the cost of acquiring my points to the cost of what that number of days at the Yacht Club would have been...I'm nowhere close to breaking even (about half-way there), despite 9 trips in two years! Of course, me and math, even using paper & pencil, is an exercise in silliness...I make the most outrageous mistakes! So I really don't know if my mental arithmetic was close to accurate or not...but it left me w/a sad feeling to realize I just plain like the hotels better than the villas, and I don't seem to be saving any money (assuming I'd go as often if I were paying cash for the rooms rather than points)...
Anyway, we love OKW and loved our stay there...we also love SSR and BCV (our two homes)...I'm sure I won't sell my DVC...but I find I miss the hotel experience...I may plan a trip every year or two in an actual hotel room (I'm interested in trying the Poly and the Grand Floridian) just because it is a different, and entirely positive, experience...I don't know. It's a lot of money. (My company paid for the room at the Yacht Club, so am not dealing w/the "pain" of paying rack rates for two nights!)...
We had wonderful bus service our entire trip...our one and only long wait (more than 10 minutes) was a 30-minute wait at OKW for a bus to Blizzard Beach/Animal Kingdom (and yes, multiple "other park" buses came & went)...as noted, only one surly CM; everyone else was pleasant and nice at OKW, and at Yacht Club, they went out of their way to make us feel special. Restaurants were great (on the DP, we ate at Wolfgang Puck's Cafe, Boma's, Norway's Storybook Princess lunch, Le Cellier, and California Grill--we paid out of pocket at Bistro de Paris, and at the Prime Time for lunch, and had a bunch of counter services...). Wait times at rides were also terrific--the new Toy Story ride was fun and glad we got on it--we got a FP for it at 9:45 a.m. and rode it at 5:30 p.m. It had a wait time of 75-100 minutes, almost from the minute it opened, but everything else wasn't too bad--45 minutes or less, mid-day, and 20 minutes or less in the mornings and late evenings...
Don't mean this to be a "bad review" of OKW...we loved our time there! But the "extra special" was at the Yacht Club and I'm still struck by how much more I liked my two days there than I did my four days at OKW...
For what it's worth...
Dani
The most interesting thing (to me) about this trip was the very real difference between the DVC experience and the hotel experience. We've only been DVC members since June of '06, so it hasn't been that long since we were in a hotel room...but we've been to WDW a LOT in our two years as DVC members (9 times), so it felt like a longer time than it was since experiencing a Disney hotel rather than a DVC villa...
There are pluses and minuses to both, but on balance, I am sorry to say that I much preferred the Yacht Club experience...
At OKW, we had a clean, everything-working, lovely one-bedroom in building 26 (just behind the Peninsular Rd bus stop, and across the street/canal from Hospitality House). It was gorgeous and OKW villas are SO big! It's just spectacular. We had the washer/dryer (of course), which I used, and that was nice...we also "sort of" used the kitchen...mostly for making exotic coffee drinks (my kids' newest passion...the kids are 21 and 19), but also for leftovers...nothing we couldn't have done in a hotel room, but somehow having a real kitchen made it more doable...
At the Yacht Club we had a corner room which made the regular hotel room seem much bigger...it also afforded a bit of privacy among the 3 of us (the "hallway" from the door into the room itself made a "perfect" dressing room, so coming in from the pool and changing into dinner clothes, one person could use the bathroom, one the sleeping area of the room, and the third the hallway)...
Bottom line: we were treated considerably more "special-y" at the Yacht Club. Everyone at OKW was very nice (well, there was one CM at the concierge desk who set my teeth on edge...he apparently didn't like me...I stopped there twice (and got him both times) for info--once about catching a cab to the Polynesian and once to change ADRs...both times he was surly and made snippy, almost-nasty comments in response to my questions...e.g., first he said I talked too fast ("Speak more slowly; I'm not a computer here," he said to me, in a very nasty tone of voice), and then he told me I talked too slowly ("I'm waiting. What do you want?" he said after I told him I wanted to cancel two ADRs and make a third one and asked which he wanted to start with--also said with a snippy-nasty tone of voice)--that wasn't so pleasant, but not all that big a deal...
At the Yacht Club, I got that familiar wonderful "Disney Magic" feeling that nothing in the world was too much or too good for me, their valued guest...it was more attitude than action, more tone of voice than actual words. I just felt like the most important person in the world every time I encountered a Yacht Club CM. While the OKW CMs were (except for the one) perfectly friendly and nice, I didn't feel anything like "special" while I was there. Wish I could do a better job of explaining why...but I haven't quite figured it out yet.
I must admit, it made me think about DVC. It's true that having my points means I can book any time I can/want to and not have to worry about money to pay for the room, and that's wonderful. But I didn't realize how much I love/miss that "Disney Magic" feeling until I got it again at the Yacht Club...
Plus, there are deluxe hotel "details" that don't matter, but sure do add to the overall experience...things like USA Today outside your door...and shampoo and soap each day...don't need new soap everyday--but we did need the shampoo...it was nice to get it daily at the Yacht Club...I honestly don't need daily mousekeeping--but found I sure enjoyed it once I started getting it again....
Then, I made the mistake of trying in my head to count up the number of days I'd spent at Disney since joining DVC and trying to compare the cost of acquiring my points to the cost of what that number of days at the Yacht Club would have been...I'm nowhere close to breaking even (about half-way there), despite 9 trips in two years! Of course, me and math, even using paper & pencil, is an exercise in silliness...I make the most outrageous mistakes! So I really don't know if my mental arithmetic was close to accurate or not...but it left me w/a sad feeling to realize I just plain like the hotels better than the villas, and I don't seem to be saving any money (assuming I'd go as often if I were paying cash for the rooms rather than points)...
Anyway, we love OKW and loved our stay there...we also love SSR and BCV (our two homes)...I'm sure I won't sell my DVC...but I find I miss the hotel experience...I may plan a trip every year or two in an actual hotel room (I'm interested in trying the Poly and the Grand Floridian) just because it is a different, and entirely positive, experience...I don't know. It's a lot of money. (My company paid for the room at the Yacht Club, so am not dealing w/the "pain" of paying rack rates for two nights!)...
We had wonderful bus service our entire trip...our one and only long wait (more than 10 minutes) was a 30-minute wait at OKW for a bus to Blizzard Beach/Animal Kingdom (and yes, multiple "other park" buses came & went)...as noted, only one surly CM; everyone else was pleasant and nice at OKW, and at Yacht Club, they went out of their way to make us feel special. Restaurants were great (on the DP, we ate at Wolfgang Puck's Cafe, Boma's, Norway's Storybook Princess lunch, Le Cellier, and California Grill--we paid out of pocket at Bistro de Paris, and at the Prime Time for lunch, and had a bunch of counter services...). Wait times at rides were also terrific--the new Toy Story ride was fun and glad we got on it--we got a FP for it at 9:45 a.m. and rode it at 5:30 p.m. It had a wait time of 75-100 minutes, almost from the minute it opened, but everything else wasn't too bad--45 minutes or less, mid-day, and 20 minutes or less in the mornings and late evenings...
Don't mean this to be a "bad review" of OKW...we loved our time there! But the "extra special" was at the Yacht Club and I'm still struck by how much more I liked my two days there than I did my four days at OKW...
For what it's worth...
Dani
