Why Didn't We Buy at BLT Instead? I <3 Monorail Resorts 4/27 Update

[Scott MC]

Great start and jealous of your view!
We have a Bay Lake View booked at BLT in August. Is your room request (higher floor w/even numbered room) the best request to make to be roughly where you were?

 

[Must C Mickey]

What a great view and looking fwd to hearing about the dessert party. Everything always looks so yummy at those things.

 

[tink713]

Subscribing! Welcome home, Cassie. You missed some beautiful Massachusetts weather, but something tells me you did not mind it!

Great start so far and excellent pictures! I got chills when I saw the Castle.

I know, I hear we missed snow in our area of Mass! Yuck! The weather was beautiful in WDW.

Loving this report! I am in love with Bay Lake Tower too and I haven't even stayed there. We were in WDW April 11-19, and I kept saying "Next time we are renting DVC points and staying at BLT." Being right in front of the MK action like that is just priceless!!

As far as your experiences with the busses... I tend to not complain about them being that it is free(ish). But I must say that I find the money for a rent a car to be EXTREMELY well worth it. When you think about the time you spend waiting for the bus to come, or being on it and stopping at all those other places... if you start to add up that time and think of the TIME you'd save VS the car price it's just crazy.

Yes you should definetly try BLT next time so worth it.

As far as renting a car, we've thought about it but will have to wait another few years as we are still under 25 years old and they charge $20-$25 extra per day to rent a car! So until then we will be dealing with the buses, and I haven't even told you guys about the worst bus experience yet.

Oh, gotcha! Just wondered..Fiance and I went onto the walkway and onto that floor.

Oh ok. That walkway was crazy, I don't know if its always like this but it was soooo windy in there. I would run through it just to get it over with lol.

we were lucky enough to stay in BLT last August too

Have to agree about been able to walk over to MK

Yes, I wish all the monorail resorts had a walkway to MK its a nice walk.

Great start and jealous of your view!
We have a Bay Lake View booked at BLT in August. Is your room request (higher floor w/even numbered room) the best request to make to be roughly where you were?

I found this tip about the higher floor, even numbered room here on the Dis. All the even numbered rooms face outwards so you are much more likely to get a view of the castle from the even numbered rooms.

What a great view and looking fwd to hearing about the dessert party. Everything always looks so yummy at those things.

The dessert party is a great way to kick off a vacation. I will be updating the TR soon!

 

[tinkgurl]

Yes it is windy! I wish I had a video of me on there. I was taking pics with my hood up and leaning to the side so I could focus on the camera.

 

[lildamo]

Joining in! Looks like a great start to the trip and BLT is gorgeous. Can't wait to read more!

 

[JanetMom]

So great to have a lake view and the MK view. We stayed at the CR in March and had a beautiful MK view, but would have also loved spending sometime looking out over the lake.

The buses always seem to be hit or miss, but I have never enjoyed the trek from a MK resort to DTD. It always feels like forever.

 

[emmysmommy]

I'm locked in to your review!!! I love your photos of BLT. I will be there in less than 4 months.

I can't wait to read more of your review.

 

[tink713]

Yes it is windy! I wish I had a video of me on there. I was taking pics with my hood up and leaning to the side so I could focus on the camera.

that would be a funny video to watch. DH kept calling it "the wind tunnel" the entire trip.

Joining in! Looks like a great start to the trip and BLT is gorgeous. Can't wait to read more!

Thanks for joining in!

So great to have a lake view and the MK view. We stayed at the CR in March and had a beautiful MK view, but would have also loved spending sometime looking out over the lake.

The buses always seem to be hit or miss, but I have never enjoyed the trek from a MK resort to DTD. It always feels like forever.

Yes the trip from BLT to DTD took forever but I guess I rather be close to MK than any other place!

I'm locked in to your review!!! I love your photos of BLT. I will be there in less than 4 months.

I can't wait to read more of your review.

How exciting, your trip is getting close. My next trip is 7 months away. I miss Disney already!

 

[tink713]

We woke up bright and early and very excited to be in Disney! We had a reservation for Chef Mickeys at 7:00, luckily all we had to do is walk right next door. Love breakfast here! Great food and love seeing the fab 5. Mickey gave me a big hug and a kiss, I've never had character interaction like that before. Usually they just come over and take a picture and leave. I felt like such a little kid giving Mickey a kiss on the cheeck. Here's some of our character pictures. Ok maybe not some but all. haha

Breakfast only took about an hour then we headed over to MK for our much awaited Keys to the Kingdom tour! I have been dying to do this tour ever since we first vistited Disney. This trip I was finally able to convince DH to try it, however he kept complaining that morning that it was going to be soo boring. blah blah blah. I just told him to wait and see. Our tour wasn't until 9:30 but before we checked in, very observant DH noticed that the expiration on the AP's we had bought the day before (on April 10th) was December 30, 2010. I have heard of this happening to other Disers so we went straight to Guest Relations. I tried explaining to the CM that our AP's should be good from the time we upgraded. She told me that since I bought our 8 day MYW tickets in December that the AP's were only good until then. Ummm no, I had never even used my tickets until April. She had to go ask a manager about it and she was then able to change the expiration date to April 10, 2011. I don't understand why so many CM's don't know the proper expiration date for the AP's. Oh well I guess.

We then went to check in for the tour. We were given our name tags, backstage passes, and were also offered bottled water and coffee. We also ordered our lunch at CHH, we both ordered the lighthouse sandwiches. We learned alot on this tour! I thought that I would know most of the information presented but I actually did learn some new things. We rode Jungle Cruise, HM and POTC. We had our own private boat on Jungle Cruise and we were permitted to take pictures while on stage.

We saw quite a few hidden Mickeys, got to see the utilidoors, saw them testing the parade floats. Our tour guide Meghan was excellent! I think she was part of what made the tour so great. I won't go into too much detail about it as I don't want to ruin it for others but I definetly recommend it. We even saw the Goofy bench that used to be in front of Tony's, it was backstage partially covered with a blanket. Hopefully hes just getting a new coat of paint or something.

After our tour was over DH admitted that he loved the tour. Oh he just never listens to me. We had a couple hours until our dinner reservation at Kona so we decided to hit a few rides. First, we went on one of my favorites, Mickey's Philharmagic.

Then the TTA, oh and DH had to grab a cream cheese pretzel in between. Yummo!

We stopped to buy our first souvenirs of the trip. We bought a photoalbum, one of those neon colored beanbag Mickey's and a Flower and Garden Festival Vinylmation. I think thats about all we did and then we headed over to the Poly for dinner. Dinner at Kona was fantastic as always but we were incredibly stuffed and it was almost time for our Wishes Dessert Party. But wait we still had time for a few more rides. We went on Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, I love this attraction is so cute and funny.

Then we went on Buzz Lightyear where DH always beats me. Not this time though, the ride stopped right near Zurg in his spaceship. Knowing that this was worth 100,000 points I kept shooting at it and ended up with this score...

DH was a little jealous but I think thats the only time I will ever get a score that high.

Continued in next post...

 

[tink713]

Finally time for the dessert party! We waited in line for about 15 minutes before we were allowed in around 9:00. We were seated right in the front row, perfect seat!

There were plenty of desserts, and they were constantly refilled. The mango shooters were my favorite! Here's our plates full.

There really wasn't a good view of Spectromagic but we were expecting this. The view of Wishes however was fantastic. Tinkerbell flew right over our heads. DH and I ended up standing up against the rail even though we had good seats as we were afraid that someone would stand in front of us if we didn't. This party was great to do once however I don't think that I would do it again anytime soon. You just don't get enough to justify the cost. Plus we usually do the DxDp and these desserts on top of all that is an overload!

We had been thinking about going to the 11 o'clock Spectro but decided we were too tired by that point so after Wishes we just headed back to the hotel for the night.

Up next...our first day at Epcot and Margaritas!

 

[Nermel9]

Love your TR, can't wait to read more!

 

[SimmerBaggins]

Thanks for the pictures/description of the Wishes dessert party! I just heard about that the other day & wondered what it was like.

Your day sounded like it had plenty of magic the entire time.

 

[Twitterpated!]

WTG on Buzz Lightyear!

 

[tink713]

Love your TR, can't wait to read more!

Thank you!

Thanks for the pictures/description of the Wishes dessert party! I just heard about that the other day & wondered what it was like.

Your day sounded like it had plenty of magic the entire time.

Yes it was a great first full day to spend at WDW!

WTG on Buzz Lightyear!

Thanks! I'm glad some one is impressed lol. DH wasn't very happy about me beating him (even if I did kind of cheat).

 

[tink713]

Our first day at my favorite park Epcot! Before we headed to the park though we had an ADR for Kona Cafe for breakfast. Tonga Toast! Breakfast was great as always. Oh thats right the night before DH bought his first souvenir of the trip, one which he was very proud of...

Yup the monorail shirt, he thought this was just the funniest thing. After a week of riding the monorail its pretty hard to forget this saying though.

We took a few pictures of the Polynesian lobby before heading over to Epcot.

This resort is just so pretty that we decided to stay here on our next trip. We were booked at POFQ with a pin code but only a few days into our trip I called and upgraded our resort to the Poly. We love staying on the monorail now, I don't know if theres any turning back now. Here we are on the monorail after breakfast. We had a whole cab to ourselves.

When we got to Epcot, the bag check line was huge! It took longer to get through this than the ticket turnstiles. The bag lines were like this all week, it has me reconsidering taking a bag at all next trip.

This was our first time seeing the Flower & Garden Festival. I loved all the topiaries.

First, we went to get fastpasses for Test Track. Then we headed over to Ellen's Energy Adventure. I had only been on this ride once when I was younger and didn't really remember it. I think I would only do it again if I needed to escape the heat for awhile. This is one of those rides where I feel like they could put in something soooo much better.

By the time this was over, our fastpass window was open so we decided to grab Mission Space fastpasses first, then head over to Test Track.

DH and I did alot of Hidden Mickey hunting this trip. We saw quite a few new ones this trip. Thinking back I should have taken pictures of all of them. Next trip Im going to try to get a picture of as many as I can. Heres one we found in Test Track.

Waiting in line...

We spotted a few more hidden Mickey's in the ride, the two in the corrosion chamber, the pencil in the office in the cold room, and the one right before you "hit" the wall on the floor.
We grabbed more fastpasses on our way out of Test Track. I wanted to get some pictures of the topiaries so we headed to The World Showcase.

These topiaries made the World Showcase so pretty, I wish they had them all year round.

Thats all I have time for right now, up next bleeding feet and our perfect spot for Illuminations.

 

[wyodisney]

Great trip report. I a enjoying reading it. We did the Wishes Dessert Party in December and really enjoyed it. I can't wait to read more.

 

[JanetMom]

Loving your TR. It helps me to relive our recent trip.

 

[tink713]

Soon we headed to lunch at Chefs de France and saw this guy out the window.

Unfortunatly, he didn't stick around long enough for us to see him upclose. Every trip Dh and I try to see the performers in all the different countries but everytime we either arrive too early that we don't feel like waiting around or too late and the performance is almost over with. Some day we will have to make a touring plan just to go see all the great performers. Does anyone have a list of when they usually perform? We did happen to catch the last few minutes of Matsuriza, the Japanese drums. Awesome I loved just watching this!

While I was watching them, DH ran over and grabbed us Kaki Goris, unfortunatly where we sat there was also some Kaki Gori remnants which made my leg and shorts sticky. Whipping out my hand sanitizer, I was able to unsticky my leg but not my shorts. Lesson of the day:look before you sit. Yuck! By this time, my flip flops had also started digging into my feet so bad that they were bleeding pretty bad. We made a quick trip over to first aid for some bandaids but I had sore feet the rest of the week. Lesson two: Listen to everyone when they tell you to break in your shoes before your trip.

We walked around the world for awhile afterwards just taking pictures of more topiaries and the countries.

We hit a few more rides including Mission Space, green side because DH gets motion sickness and honestly the orange side has made me feel slightly woozie before too. We stopped in the Mission Space gift shop and got some Astronaut Ice Cream. The kid in us just loves this stuff! Dehydrated ice cream what a delicacy!

Before we knew it, it was time for dinner at one of DH's favorite places Teppan Edo. So I think that the only reason he loves it here so much is that on our last trip (Jan 09) I had made an ADR here without telling him what to expect. He had never been to a hibachi restaurant back at home, nor did he realize that they even existed. Actually up until a couple weeks ago he thought that this was a Disney thing. Got to love him! But a few weeks prior to the trip we went to a Japanese Hibachi Steakhouse back at home which had awful food and awful service (our waiter counted the tip we left him right in front of us) and after that I think it was kind of ruined for him. Regardless he still likes Teppan Edo but I don't think its his favorite anymore.

Whenever I go to one of the Disney restaurants where we sit with other people I wonder if they are Disers too, I'm always too shy to ask though.

By the time we got out of dinner, we decided to stake out a spot for Illuminations. We decided to try out the balcony in Japan, when we first got there we were the only ones. A couple other families joined us but it was nice and uncrowded. What a great view too! We could see the globe perfectly and we weren't downwind either. (Last trip we made this mistake and ) It's a perfect spot IMO though, but shhh don't tell everyone. I tried to take pictures but my camera died, so sorry no Illumination pictures. After the show we hung around awhile hoping to avoid the crowd exiting and going toward the monorail which didn't work out so well but luckily we were staying at a monorail resort, as the other resort buses are awful after the fireworks.

Up next...Ughhh those Disney buses again, a missed ADR and AK

 

[JanetMom]

I love that the onions are a Mickey!

 

[Twitterpated!]

How was your lunch at Chefs de France? Did you get to see Remy?

ETA: Sorry! I just saw that you have separate dining reviews! I'll be subscribing there too!