Day 3 (part 2) - Saturday, November 13, 2004:
CAST OF CHARACTERS:
MOM - 57 year old somewhat disney nut.
ME - 34 year old DISNEY NUT who has had to wait one full year for her Disney fix.
Today's agenda:
1. accomplished - barely made it through KTTK tour but survived it.
2. Checking into room at Boardwalk
3. Epcot and dinner at Le Cellier - will eventually make it.
BOARDWALK:
We arrived at BW around 4:15ish and used a housephone to see if Studio was ready. It finally was ready. I had been waiting for this since I made the agreement with the DVC member to rent points for the stay back in July. I've been to BW before (haven't stayed) but toured property, entertainment and restaurants in the past.
We were assigned Studio #5065 on the fifth floor. I didn't want to tell my mom that she may have a long walk to get to the room at this point so I just hoped for the best. I knew from checking on the reservation that I wasn't getting a direct BW view but one of water/courtyard. We took the elevators up to floor 5, looked at the sign and began the walk of oh 20 feet. We were the very first room off to the left of the elevators. Woo hoo!
No long hallway walk. The room was very clean and in relatively good order (no dust on furniture, refrig. was clean, sinks clean, etc.). There were a few scrap marks on the walls that needed to be retouched but the furniture and carpets were in good shape. We walked through the studio room and opened the curtains to the balcony and look at that, our room is the first one on the fifth floor overlooking the main lobby, courtyard and yes even a boardwalk view of ESPN, flying Fish, etc. You can even sit on the bed and watch the higher fireworks from Illuminations at Epcot and you can see part of SSE and the Epcot sign. This really made my day. I began to have some energy again. I sat out on the balcony at least twice a day and absolutely enjoyed the view (kids running around, boats coming and going, entertainment on the Boardwalk everynight and watching those fireworks).
We called for Bell Services and they delivered all of our goodies to us within about 15 minutes. Mom and I sat on the floor and unpacked all of the food first, then clothes then makeup, etc. Mom and I agreed to switch beds every other night so that if we didn't like the sofabed we wouldn't have to suffer through it and at best we could go and buy a blowup mattress if necessary. Mom decided to take the first night on the sofabed so we decided to pull it out and make it up. It took the two of us to pull that bed out. Secret to the bed is you have to grab the handle and put your foot on end of the sofa and pull really hard. Once it is out, its there for good.
As we hadn't eaten in awhile mom needed something to eat so she toasted a piece of bread and made half of a ham sandwich to tide her over until dinner. We both took baths to refreshen up before heading over to Epcot for dinner. We briefly walked the resort. We took the elevator to the 1st floor and as you exit the elevator, Muscles and Bustles exercise room is directly across from the elevator. There is a hallway directly to the right when exiting the elevator and the first room down the hallway is the general laundry area (no change is needed to do laundry as cost already included in rental fee). Directly outside to the left of exiting the elevator is the Luna Pool Park area and Leaping Horse Libations (we couldn't be any closer to any of this if we tried). This was wonderful, we are only 5 stories up and 20 feet away from everything.
At this point we noticed the carpet in the general elevator areas. You really need to check out that carpet it is so cute. There are Mickey things everywhere in it. There are the usual Mickey ears but then there are the hats and shoes of many other characters in it (including Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Pluto). There are really cute small touches here that you need to look for.
The one drawback to Room #5065 is there are very small ants. Where there is food there will be ants. They came out of the sinks. Everyday we would smoosh about 10 to 20 that were generally crawling around the bathroom sink and the kitchen sink area. These areas were clean (no food, hair, mildew around these areas at all) but the ants were there. We didn't ask them to spray as there weren't hundreds at any time and the bug spray would affect both of our sinuses and probably would have set off migraines as well. I also knew better than to ask to move as the hotel was full due to the weekend and I like the location we were at.
Additionally, there is plenty of storage room as well. I didn't realize that there was a small welcome area when you walk in the studio. When we opened the closet we had a highchair in there, didn't need and a pack and play crib as well which wasn't needed. We moved these into that general front area and placed it with several food boxes that we unloaded so none of that was in the way during the trip. The closet also had an additional sheet set and pillow. We were also provided with about 4 sets of towels, each of the 4 trash cans had additional trashbags in them (we emptied out our own trash every morning - fewer ants this way) and had several soaps, two toilet papers, on additional roll of handtowels and dishwashing detergent there as well. We also had additional paperplates and bowls (about 12 each) with about 8 sets of plastic utensils. We brought plenty of things like this from home and would've left them behind if we would've known they had provided that many for us.
All in all we liked our room and its location. We would've enjoyed it more if it actually had two full beds instead of that sofabed.
P.S. - this room also has the fifth bed in it. The one that looks like a daybed/sofa for children. I'll tell you this, this bed isn't comfortable even when you sit on it. It has a very thick piece of foam (about 6 to 7 inches) but it is rock hard under you but and doesn't crunch when you sit on it (wasn't comfortable to sit on at all so I wonder how a child of 6 to 9 would like to sleep on it).
RECAP:
Boardwalk -
Ants in room -
Room #5065 and location -
Will continue with Epcot and LeCellier at a later time.
CAST OF CHARACTERS:
MOM - 57 year old somewhat disney nut.
ME - 34 year old DISNEY NUT who has had to wait one full year for her Disney fix.
Today's agenda:
1. accomplished - barely made it through KTTK tour but survived it.
2. Checking into room at Boardwalk
3. Epcot and dinner at Le Cellier - will eventually make it.
BOARDWALK:
We arrived at BW around 4:15ish and used a housephone to see if Studio was ready. It finally was ready. I had been waiting for this since I made the agreement with the DVC member to rent points for the stay back in July. I've been to BW before (haven't stayed) but toured property, entertainment and restaurants in the past.
We were assigned Studio #5065 on the fifth floor. I didn't want to tell my mom that she may have a long walk to get to the room at this point so I just hoped for the best. I knew from checking on the reservation that I wasn't getting a direct BW view but one of water/courtyard. We took the elevators up to floor 5, looked at the sign and began the walk of oh 20 feet. We were the very first room off to the left of the elevators. Woo hoo!
No long hallway walk. The room was very clean and in relatively good order (no dust on furniture, refrig. was clean, sinks clean, etc.). There were a few scrap marks on the walls that needed to be retouched but the furniture and carpets were in good shape. We walked through the studio room and opened the curtains to the balcony and look at that, our room is the first one on the fifth floor overlooking the main lobby, courtyard and yes even a boardwalk view of ESPN, flying Fish, etc. You can even sit on the bed and watch the higher fireworks from Illuminations at Epcot and you can see part of SSE and the Epcot sign. This really made my day. I began to have some energy again. I sat out on the balcony at least twice a day and absolutely enjoyed the view (kids running around, boats coming and going, entertainment on the Boardwalk everynight and watching those fireworks).We called for Bell Services and they delivered all of our goodies to us within about 15 minutes. Mom and I sat on the floor and unpacked all of the food first, then clothes then makeup, etc. Mom and I agreed to switch beds every other night so that if we didn't like the sofabed we wouldn't have to suffer through it and at best we could go and buy a blowup mattress if necessary. Mom decided to take the first night on the sofabed so we decided to pull it out and make it up. It took the two of us to pull that bed out. Secret to the bed is you have to grab the handle and put your foot on end of the sofa and pull really hard. Once it is out, its there for good.
As we hadn't eaten in awhile mom needed something to eat so she toasted a piece of bread and made half of a ham sandwich to tide her over until dinner. We both took baths to refreshen up before heading over to Epcot for dinner. We briefly walked the resort. We took the elevator to the 1st floor and as you exit the elevator, Muscles and Bustles exercise room is directly across from the elevator. There is a hallway directly to the right when exiting the elevator and the first room down the hallway is the general laundry area (no change is needed to do laundry as cost already included in rental fee). Directly outside to the left of exiting the elevator is the Luna Pool Park area and Leaping Horse Libations (we couldn't be any closer to any of this if we tried). This was wonderful, we are only 5 stories up and 20 feet away from everything.
At this point we noticed the carpet in the general elevator areas. You really need to check out that carpet it is so cute. There are Mickey things everywhere in it. There are the usual Mickey ears but then there are the hats and shoes of many other characters in it (including Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Pluto). There are really cute small touches here that you need to look for.
The one drawback to Room #5065 is there are very small ants. Where there is food there will be ants. They came out of the sinks. Everyday we would smoosh about 10 to 20 that were generally crawling around the bathroom sink and the kitchen sink area. These areas were clean (no food, hair, mildew around these areas at all) but the ants were there. We didn't ask them to spray as there weren't hundreds at any time and the bug spray would affect both of our sinuses and probably would have set off migraines as well. I also knew better than to ask to move as the hotel was full due to the weekend and I like the location we were at.
Additionally, there is plenty of storage room as well. I didn't realize that there was a small welcome area when you walk in the studio. When we opened the closet we had a highchair in there, didn't need and a pack and play crib as well which wasn't needed. We moved these into that general front area and placed it with several food boxes that we unloaded so none of that was in the way during the trip. The closet also had an additional sheet set and pillow. We were also provided with about 4 sets of towels, each of the 4 trash cans had additional trashbags in them (we emptied out our own trash every morning - fewer ants this way) and had several soaps, two toilet papers, on additional roll of handtowels and dishwashing detergent there as well. We also had additional paperplates and bowls (about 12 each) with about 8 sets of plastic utensils. We brought plenty of things like this from home and would've left them behind if we would've known they had provided that many for us.
All in all we liked our room and its location. We would've enjoyed it more if it actually had two full beds instead of that sofabed.
P.S. - this room also has the fifth bed in it. The one that looks like a daybed/sofa for children. I'll tell you this, this bed isn't comfortable even when you sit on it. It has a very thick piece of foam (about 6 to 7 inches) but it is rock hard under you but and doesn't crunch when you sit on it (wasn't comfortable to sit on at all so I wonder how a child of 6 to 9 would like to sleep on it).
RECAP:
Boardwalk -
Ants in room -
Room #5065 and location -
Will continue with Epcot and LeCellier at a later time.
