We've been to many other Orlando MVCs (including Sabal Palms on our honeymoon) but this is our first visit to Grande Vista (we can't remember if we toured here way back in the day or not.) A few things:
--Taking advice from here, we declined to try and use mobile check-in and took our chances at the front desk.
--While standing in a small check-in line around 7pm on Friday, a concierge teammate had an ipad and was speaking to the person in front of us (at the front of the line.) She said, "Well, when you are finished, you'll then come to me at the desk for your parking pass." Getting to us, we gave our last name, and she checked her ipad and then a small print out clipped to it, and then told us, "Oh, I can go ahead and make your parking pass and bring it to you while you wait." LOL! Based on this week, and being similarly un-invited to a sales presentation in HHI last January, I suspect we've ended up on some kind of do-not-tour list.
--We had requested "high floor, water view", near a hot tub, and we're in Club Village, 5th floor, building 97 (Ponce de Leon.) 2 bedroom dedicated lock-off. We were pleasantly surprised when he checked us in, and he mentioned that they they had seen our request and hoped that we were pleased. We certainly were! And we mentioned that we knew that nothing was guaranteed. It’s a bit of schlep to the main pools, but we love that we have our own pool and hot tub right at the base of our own building.
—ETA: We have the older, rubbery wristbands, and while I saw the new style on display on the counter behind the front desk, our check-in guy never mentioned them, and just keyed the ones we had. They worked better here than at HHI last year (where they had forced us to swap and pay the “upgrade” fee,) but I did take the great idea about having a key card that lived in our car for the whole week. It did make entry much smoother!
--Having driven for 11 hours, we quickly unpacked the car and then headed to said hot tub for a little bit before coming back upstairs to make dinner. Whereupon we discovered that there were zero saute/skillet pans (just three soup/stock pots) and no cookie sheet (we had brought frozen garlic bread with us.) I've never encountered that at a Marriott! (Or any other timeshare, for that matter.) When one is tired and hungry and trying to make a quick meal, having to wait 30 minutes for some kitchenware basics to be sent up was a bit of a pain. (We ended up figuring out how to make dinner without those items.) Are saute pans no longer standard issue?
--They are replacing the roof on the building in the Golf Village close to the playground (87, I think.) We spotted the crane outside our window on Monday morning (see the "View from the Balcony" thread,) but didn't see what it was working on until we went to that hot tub this morning.
--A cool front moved in today, but the heavy rain was mostly overnight, and today was still sunny and in the upper-50s/low-60s. Aquafit still happened at 11 am. I managed to succeed in getting in the hot tub at every pool complex, and sticking at least my feet into all of the pools over the course of the week.
--Food and beverage prices are cray-cray! But we charged a few drinks to the room to make sure our nights got credited to our Bonvoy account.
--It was nice enough weather earlier int he week that we could eat breakfast out on the patio a few times, and I'm glad that the table off of the 1-bedroom side was big enough to allow us to do that. I do like the louvred door to the patio from the living room; it provided some nice light and was much easier to navigate when going back and forth with food, etc.
--The fitness activity staff was fantastic; the other staff seemed less memorable. Surfwatch, last January, had better staff and real wooden tokens to trade into for better stuff at the end of the week. Here, they just had generic "tickets" and and not much stuff to choose from. I get the II magazine geared to management and HOA board members, and there was a whole featured article in the last issue about this kind of "activity incentivation" and they actually highlight that some Marriott resorts have 22 members on the activity staff. No wonder MFs are through the roof!
--Although there was no mention of capacity limitations, when we went to make reservations for the free, onsite bourbon tasting the morning of, we were told that they were at capacity and we would be put on a wait list. We didn't make the cut.
Had I known that there was such limited capacity (maybe 12 people?) I would have reserved the day we arrived, LOL! We weren't the only ones that complained about this.
--Today, for the AquaFit class, the temps were in the upper 50s, but it was sunny (and very breezy.) The staff, after the class, actually went and grabbed fresh towels for the dozen or so of us who showed up, and then they proceeded to stand there and open them up at the top of the stairs out of the pool so we all could all be immediately, individually wrapped up. Talk about service!! (And, also, so much for "we track your pool towels" via the kiosks, LOL!)
We've really enjoyed our stay here, and I would definitely come back. The lock-off was great, as our college-aged DD is with us, and she had some privacy, her own nice shower, her own balcony, etc. The location was great for visiting Epic Universe. We went on Tuesday, and spent 13 hours in the park, and did all but just two of the rides--and one of those was by choice (too cool and overcast for a water ride, we decided.)
Checking out tomorrow. It's below freezing at home in NC tonight (but not snowing, like it was this time last year,) and it will be in the 30s here tomorrow--but not raining!--so that should make leaving a little easier, LOL!
Really appreciated the "day trips from Orlando" thread here on TUG, as well as the advice I picked up about room requests. Happy to answer any questions anyone might have.
--Taking advice from here, we declined to try and use mobile check-in and took our chances at the front desk.
--While standing in a small check-in line around 7pm on Friday, a concierge teammate had an ipad and was speaking to the person in front of us (at the front of the line.) She said, "Well, when you are finished, you'll then come to me at the desk for your parking pass." Getting to us, we gave our last name, and she checked her ipad and then a small print out clipped to it, and then told us, "Oh, I can go ahead and make your parking pass and bring it to you while you wait." LOL! Based on this week, and being similarly un-invited to a sales presentation in HHI last January, I suspect we've ended up on some kind of do-not-tour list.
--We had requested "high floor, water view", near a hot tub, and we're in Club Village, 5th floor, building 97 (Ponce de Leon.) 2 bedroom dedicated lock-off. We were pleasantly surprised when he checked us in, and he mentioned that they they had seen our request and hoped that we were pleased. We certainly were! And we mentioned that we knew that nothing was guaranteed. It’s a bit of schlep to the main pools, but we love that we have our own pool and hot tub right at the base of our own building.
—ETA: We have the older, rubbery wristbands, and while I saw the new style on display on the counter behind the front desk, our check-in guy never mentioned them, and just keyed the ones we had. They worked better here than at HHI last year (where they had forced us to swap and pay the “upgrade” fee,) but I did take the great idea about having a key card that lived in our car for the whole week. It did make entry much smoother!
--Having driven for 11 hours, we quickly unpacked the car and then headed to said hot tub for a little bit before coming back upstairs to make dinner. Whereupon we discovered that there were zero saute/skillet pans (just three soup/stock pots) and no cookie sheet (we had brought frozen garlic bread with us.) I've never encountered that at a Marriott! (Or any other timeshare, for that matter.) When one is tired and hungry and trying to make a quick meal, having to wait 30 minutes for some kitchenware basics to be sent up was a bit of a pain. (We ended up figuring out how to make dinner without those items.) Are saute pans no longer standard issue?
--They are replacing the roof on the building in the Golf Village close to the playground (87, I think.) We spotted the crane outside our window on Monday morning (see the "View from the Balcony" thread,) but didn't see what it was working on until we went to that hot tub this morning.
--A cool front moved in today, but the heavy rain was mostly overnight, and today was still sunny and in the upper-50s/low-60s. Aquafit still happened at 11 am. I managed to succeed in getting in the hot tub at every pool complex, and sticking at least my feet into all of the pools over the course of the week.
--Food and beverage prices are cray-cray! But we charged a few drinks to the room to make sure our nights got credited to our Bonvoy account.
--It was nice enough weather earlier int he week that we could eat breakfast out on the patio a few times, and I'm glad that the table off of the 1-bedroom side was big enough to allow us to do that. I do like the louvred door to the patio from the living room; it provided some nice light and was much easier to navigate when going back and forth with food, etc.
--The fitness activity staff was fantastic; the other staff seemed less memorable. Surfwatch, last January, had better staff and real wooden tokens to trade into for better stuff at the end of the week. Here, they just had generic "tickets" and and not much stuff to choose from. I get the II magazine geared to management and HOA board members, and there was a whole featured article in the last issue about this kind of "activity incentivation" and they actually highlight that some Marriott resorts have 22 members on the activity staff. No wonder MFs are through the roof!
--Although there was no mention of capacity limitations, when we went to make reservations for the free, onsite bourbon tasting the morning of, we were told that they were at capacity and we would be put on a wait list. We didn't make the cut.
Had I known that there was such limited capacity (maybe 12 people?) I would have reserved the day we arrived, LOL! We weren't the only ones that complained about this. --Today, for the AquaFit class, the temps were in the upper 50s, but it was sunny (and very breezy.) The staff, after the class, actually went and grabbed fresh towels for the dozen or so of us who showed up, and then they proceeded to stand there and open them up at the top of the stairs out of the pool so we all could all be immediately, individually wrapped up. Talk about service!!
(And, also, so much for "we track your pool towels" via the kiosks, LOL!)We've really enjoyed our stay here, and I would definitely come back. The lock-off was great, as our college-aged DD is with us, and she had some privacy, her own nice shower, her own balcony, etc. The location was great for visiting Epic Universe. We went on Tuesday, and spent 13 hours in the park, and did all but just two of the rides--and one of those was by choice (too cool and overcast for a water ride, we decided.)
Checking out tomorrow. It's below freezing at home in NC tonight (but not snowing, like it was this time last year,) and it will be in the 30s here tomorrow--but not raining!--so that should make leaving a little easier, LOL!
Really appreciated the "day trips from Orlando" thread here on TUG, as well as the advice I picked up about room requests. Happy to answer any questions anyone might have.
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Our first stop Sat morning was to the Winter Park Farmer’s Market for fresh produce. And we were disappointed that there was no Iron Chef activity here this week, lol! 
