I'd like to share my housing experience, which in my case was kind of the opposite of Wend's. I started my program in Fall of '06. Myself and a co-worker from Cedar Point were doing the CP and met down there with the intent of getting into a 2-bdr apartment at Chatham. They told us we could live together but that we could only do so if it was a three-bedroom. We figured, what the hey, it's only 2 more people and signed up for it because neither of us wanted to live in Vista. While finishing up check-in we discovered the guy behind us in line was also in the apartment and he seemed pretty nice. We got to the apartment and met our two remaining roommates ("Wait, two?" You say. "That only makes five.")
By sheer coincidence one of our roommates happened to be paraplegic and thus had a handicap access bedroom/bathroom and had it to himself. Therefore we were in a three bedroom apartment with only 5 people. The other roommate was someone I knew was going to be trouble from the moment I met him. He came out of one of the bedrooms looking like he hadn't showered in a week and had just smoked a joint. Me and my co-worker quickly took the last completely open bedroom, even though I felt bad for leaving the guy we met in line to share a room with the creeper.
Turns out that the four of us, minus the creeper got along really well. Me and the guy we met in line became amazingly good friends when we realized how much we had in common. Creeper, on the other hand, only got worse. He worked Custodial at Downtown Disney and as such slept during the day and was up most of the night. On more than one occasion I (being one of the rare few CPs in attractions that actually had opening shifts) would have to get up in the middle of the night to go to the living room and ask him to turn down MY TV that was playing too loud and to be quiet. He also took other people's food from the fridge, domineered his roommate's computer to play World of Warcraft (having the nerve to ask him "What do you need it for?" when its owner needed to use it) and bring his equally creepy (yet strangely silent) girlfriend to the apartment.
I decided to extend, creeper's roommate (my friend) decided to extend, and creeper decided to extend while my former Cedar Point co-worker and our fifth roommate were both leaving. Obviously we were going to have to relocate. Me and creeper's roommate (here referred to as D-man) decided that neither of us could stand creeper and since we knew that the two of us got along we should just move into a one-bedroom. After a lovely stomach-virus riddled move-out day, I was in my new one-bedroom. It was great. Me and D-Man got along so well and it was nice having the apartment to just us. It was also nice being able to have it to myself and the occasional friends I brought over because D-Man would often go spend the night with his girlfriend who lived in a condo in Celebration.
To avoid rambling further, I'd say that Chatham is by and far better than Vista if you're like me and can't stand a lot of noise when you're trying to sleep. However, I wouldn't recommend going for a one-bedroom unless you know the person you're rooming with as, unlike with a larger apartment, if you don't get along with them you either have to share a bedroom with them or pay $50 to move elsewhere. You'll always have that chance of getting that bad roommate, but it's a lot more tolerable if you have a few others that you actually like.
