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

[tink713]

Alright I'm starting my first TR ever. I took over 500 pictures and took plenty of notes. So hopefully all goes well! I started a PTR about a month before my trip but didn't get many readers so hopefully this one gets off to a better start.

DH and I went to The World April 10-18th and stayed at BLT for the first time, and proceeded to fall in love with it! We bought into DVC at AKV a few years ago but now regret doing so and wish we had bought at BLT instead. Maybe we can add on soon, as soon as I can convince DH that is! We've been to WDW together 3 times prior to this trip and to DL once together. We bought DVC on our Honeymoon in 08 and made the mistake of financing through Disney bad idea. Hopefully we will have it paid off in a few years, the interest is so high!

OK, here's the cast...
DH Ryan (23) loves going to Disney World, I think its mostly because of the food though. Even though he loves going to WDW with me he could care less about the planning and the anticipation of the trip. His favorite characters are Jack from NBC, and Goofy.

And me Cassie (22)
The planner, the addict. I go a little overboard on the amount of money I spend on Disney, I'll admit it. Right now I'm in the process of convincing DH to move to Orlando so I can go work for Disney. My favorite characters are Mickey, Tink and Bambi.

And here is our yorkie Sebastian (the part of the cast who stayed with my parents this trip). He's on the right, my parents dog is on the left.

So we decided on April after we went in January one year and it was freezing! We wanted to go towards the beginning of the year, be warm and try to avoid the crowds. For the most part we did pretty good. We flew down with JetBlue, our favorite budget airline. Our original flight was scheduled for 4:00 on Saturday April 10th since I was supposed to work 9-12am that day. A few weeks before we left, my boss gave me the morning off so I tried and tried to get us an earlier flight out. Anything for those extra hours in Disney. Well, the change fees were $100 per person which I was not willing to pay. So we ended up doing a same day change. At midnight, the day of our flight I called up Jetblue and payed $40 per person to change our flight to 11:00 am instead, plus they gave us each one of the extra leg room seats. Looking back it probably wasn't the best $80 I've ever spent and probably wouldn't do it again but oh well!

Up next, our departure day, some MK and dinner in DTD.

 

[tinkgurl]

I'm in!

 

[tink713]

I'm in!

Thanks for joining! BTW I love your tag, "Life is what happens in between trips to WDW" I completely agree!

 

[tinkgurl]

Thanks for joining! BTW I love your tag, "Life is what happens in between trips to WDW" I completely agree!

Thanks!

 

[tink713]

So we didn't have much to do departure day as I had packed everything months in advance and dropped Sebastian off at my parents house the night prior.

The plan was to drive to the inlaws house and they would drive us to Logan Airport thus avoiding the crazy parking fees. Everything went smoothly, our flight was on time and we even landed in Orlando about 20 minutes before we were scheduled to.
Here's DH waiting in the airport.

When we landed we went down to ME and there was nobody waiting, we got right onto a bus and it left in about 5 minutes. What luck! Unfortunatly, this was not our luck the rest of the week with Disney buses.

Pretty soon we saw this sign...

and then this sign...

Then...yay BLT!!!

Check in took longer than expected but it was mostly my fault. I had bought gift cards prior to the trip to put on our Keys to the World card for charging. So our very friendly CM had to scan each one individually. Also when we checked in, we were given a $5 gift card so we added that to our room credits as well. We had booked a studio bay lake view since all the MK view rooms had been booked up 7 months ago. But, I had called and requested an even numbered room on a higher floor in hopes of getting a partial MK view. We were assigned our room number and headed off to find out if we had gotten what we hoped. More hotel pics...

Up next.. Will we get our room request??? And dinner in DTD.

 

[tinkgurl]

*sigh* I love driving under the Welcome gates!

BLT is just gorgeous!!

 

[cmp1111]

Great start! Thanks for sharing.

 

[yourMaire83]

I'm in. Can't wait for pictures of BLT and your adventures in WDW.

 

[jns]

I'm in too

 

[Princess97]

I'm in too!

 

[jwoodbury]

Count me in too

 

[katiebelle21]

Great start! I'm in--I can't wait to read what you thought of BLT!

 

[SimmerBaggins]

Hi, Cassie! We, too, bought at AKV, but really liked it. We toured BLT before it opened and I LOVED it, but couldn't convince DH to book it for our next trip in June. Can't wait to hear of your experiences!!

 

[tink713]

Thanks everyone for joining in!

So where I last left you we were headed up to our room to see what view we had gotten. I was pretty much skipping up to the room I was so happy to be in Disney! Here's our room number...

and our room...

I fell in love with this resort the second I stepped into our room. It was amazing! So clean and I loved the decor. Plus, we got the view we were hoping for! This was on one side,

and this on the other!

I was so excited! This view should be considered a MK view, it was perfect!
Here's some more pictures of our hotel.

I love all these pictures around the hotel. I wish I could buy them!

After we dropped our carry ons we were hungry so we decided to head down to the Contempo Cafe for a quick bite to eat. We ended up sharing a Smoked Turkey BLT. So good, and the view of the monorail passing by as you ate was pretty darn cool.

After lunch we decided to go over to MK hit a few rides before dinner and upgrade our 8 day base tickets to AP's! The walk from the Contemporary to MK was great. It took about 10 minutes and it was much quieter than taking a bus ride. This was one of my favorite things about staying at BLT. Soon we walked up to this-

and finally the castle!!!

We hoped in line at guest services and soon had our AP's.
The MK was packed that day! We didn't have an opportunity to do very much. We went to see Country Bears Jamboree for the first time. DH nearly fell asleep.

We also got to ride Pirates but ended up waiting in line for about 20-25 minutes. After that we decided to catch a bus to the first resort we could then from there hop on a bus to DTD. The first bus we caught was to WL so we got on and just as we were pulling into the WL bus stop a DTD bus was pulling out. Keep in mind, we left MK around 5:45, we waited almost 40 minutes for a DTD bus to come again. Plus there were little gnats swarming our heads the whole time. DH was ready to loose it. Finally a bus came but by the time we made all the stops to the other resorts we ended up about 20 minutes late for our 7:15 reservation. Thats an hour and a half from MK to DTD. Crazy! When we got to Raglan Road for our dinner reservations luckily we were sat within ten minutes. I love the band and Irish step dancer here.

After dinner we went right to the bus stop, hoping to catch the 10pm Wishes from our balcony. We ended up pulling up to BLT right as the fireworks started going off but we caught the last few minutes from our balcony.

I could watch this fireworks show every night. I it! It was a perfect way to end our first day in Disney.

Up next...Chef Mickeys, KTTK, and the much hyped Dessert Party!

 

[tinkgurl]

Holy cow, you had an amazing view!!

The room looks so neat. We're DVC members, so it was so cool to see it! Were you on the floor that's the same floor as the walkway to the main Contemporary building?

 

[tink713]

Holy cow, you had an amazing view!!

The room looks so neat. We're DVC members, so it was so cool to see it! Were you on the floor that's the same floor as the walkway to the main Contemporary building?

Yes the room and view were great! So far my favorite DVC resort (though we haven't even tried our home resort AKL yet). We weren't on the same floor as the walkway, we were on the 8th floor and the walkway was on the 5th but it was only a short walk to the elevator from our room.

 

[Twitterpated!]

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.

 

[__disneygirl]

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.

 

[tinkgurl]

We weren't on the same floor as the walkway, we were on the 8th floor and the walkway was on the 5th but it was only a short walk to the elevator from our room.

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

 

[jns]

we were lucky enough to stay in BLT last August too

Have to agree about been able to walk over to MK