Surprising insights from our trip

[heathpack]

We haven’t been to the WDW Resort for 15ish years (since we had moved to LA and Disneyland was local for us). Last week, we added 5 nights at WDW to a FL conference I was attending. Our first trip back- split stay BLT and BRV. We gained some interesting insights.

1. We are no longer park commandos. I planned for mornings and evenings in the parks, but we wound up doing one or the other. It was hot and humid (but not terrible), so evenings won out.

2. Disney has some great innovative rides but I’m not willing to stand in line for them for 60-90 min. I’m violently opposed to ILL but I think we will make judicious use of that feature in the future as we did on this trip.

3. Doing 1/3 or 1/2 days in the parks makes the resort choice more important to us. The theming of BLT didn’t do much for us, although we enjoyed the proximity to MK and the multiple transportation options to other parts of the world. We’d be fine with staying there again but it’s not our first choice. Location its important, but theming more so. We really enjoyed hanging at Wilderness Lodge.

4. We found that we really enjoyed some of the unique transportation options- the launch, the monorail. Often these took longer than driving ourselves or taking the bus but we enjoyed them more.

5. We were surprised that EPCOT and AK were both only 10 min drive time from WL. Of course there’s 10 min to walk to your car, and 10 min to tram from parking to gate. But it was pretty much 30 min villa door to front gate (this was always at non park opening times). Driving isn’t “magical” but it is effective from WL (we didn’t drive anywhere from BLT but suspect driving would take longer from there).

6. Amazingly, Disney “sells” the ability to plan in advance as a perk, which makes it seem necessary. However in the end, we changed almost everything we’d planned. We often went to parks on different days at different times of day than we had planned and we only used two of our advanced dining reservations. Which is not to argue against making ADRs- just an insight that the places we enjoy are easy to book and change last minute.

7. The Extended Evening Hours at Magic Kingdom are awesome- you really can ride everything with greatly reduced wait times over “normal”, and many rides are walk on. MK EEH will always be a priority for us. Epcot EEH on the other hand will likely only be a “must do” if we’re staying at an Epcot area resort.

8. We knew this already from living in LA: APs change your mindset quite a bit. You feel fine about just spending a few hours in a park, or taking a day off. You can always catch whatever you’re missing the next time. An expensive way to reset your brain but worth it for us.

Overall our lessons learned are: we personally should target stays at the more themed resorts (Poly, VGF, WL, BCV, BWV, AKL) over BLT, SSR, OKW. We didn’t visit Riveria so no opinion. I’m intrigued by the cabins at Fort Wilderness and would be interested in trying them, hubby not so much. Banking and borrowing and planning on using our DVC for every other or every third year as a “year of Disney” (complete with APs) is our current game plan. Subject to change of course, because I could foresee resort only stays in our future.

Ha we are just back and will be there again in 13 days on two back to back II exchanges.

 

[TolmiePeak]

Exactly. We enjoy Disneyworld but its biggest flaw is the sprawling nature of the complex. We can stay at an offsite hotel at Disneyland and walk to the front gate faster than it takes to walk from your car to the front gate in the Florida Parks.

 

[nomoretslt]

So did you do Moonlight Magic a bit and then go to the extra Magic hours at MK? I know the extra Magic hours at MK are really great. I agree that BLT lacks the theme that some want, but the location cannot be beat when you have little ones. Was really looking forward to our stay there, hopefully in a renovated room, but maybe in the near future. DH’s issues has me juggling things around. Next trip is all Boardwalk during Food & Wine (hopefully). DVC friends told me the food at MM was really good, as were the fireworks. I, too, refuse to pay extra for LL. We usually get to each park early enough to do the “good” rides. Guardians of the Galaxy is off our list forever. Glad you enjoyed the east coast Disney.

 

[heathpack]

So did you do Moonlight Magic a bit and then go to the extra Magic hours at MK? I know the extra Magic hours at MK are really great. I agree that BLT lacks the theme that some want, but the location cannot be beat when you have little ones. Was really looking forward to our stay there, hopefully in a renovated room, but maybe in the near future. DH’s issues has me juggling things around. Next trip is all Boardwalk during Food & Wine (hopefully). DVC friends told me the food at MM was really good, as were the fireworks. I, too, refuse to pay extra for LL. We usually get to each park early enough to do the “good” rides. Guardians of the Galaxy is off our list forever. Glad you enjoyed the east coast Disney.

Moonlight Magic started at 9 but you could check in at 5pm and use vouchers starting at 6:30. We checked in a little after 5pm, then rode Guardians, then used our vouchers between 6:30 and 8pm. There were some festival booths available, some QS and some carts. We left around 8pm to go to EMH at MK. So we checked in for MM, but didn’t stay for the actual event.

We had a renovated studio at BLT and found the room itself quite nice. We liked how it had a tiny little kitchen as a separate “room” and there was really nice storag3 throughout the unit. I slept on the Murphy bed just to know if it was comfortable (it was). Our room had a nice view overlooking the pool. But the pool area and grounds were very plain to us and the Contemporary lobby seemed shabby. We tried to grab a quick bite at the Sand Bar and the wait was excruciating. I dunno what it is- maybe just too much concrete for me.

We’d go back for various practical reasons but it wouldn’t be my top pick of resorts to laze around at.

 

[DanCali]

We haven’t been to the WDW Resort for 15ish years (since we had moved to LA and Disneyland was local for us). Last week, we added 5 nights at WDW to a FL conference I was attending. Our first trip back- split stay BLT and BRV. We gained some interesting insights.


3. Doing 1/3 or 1/2 days in the parks makes the resort choice more important to us. The theming of BLT didn’t do much for us, although we enjoyed the proximity to MK and the multiple transportation options to other parts of the world. We’d be fine with staying there again but it’s not our first choice. Location its important, but theming more so. We really enjoyed hanging at Wilderness Lodge.

Did you stay at a renovated room at BLT? We love BLT for the proximity to MK, but also because it's one of the few places where we book a 1BR over a studio (we usually stay at the studios that seep 5) and it's hard to beat the extra space and the 2 full bathrooms for a family of 4!

5. We were surprised that EPCOT and AK were both only 10 min drive time from WL. Of course there’s 10 min to walk to your car, and 10 min to tram from parking to gate. But it was pretty much 30 min villa door to front gate (this was always at non park opening times). Driving isn’t “magical” but it is effective from WL (we didn’t drive anywhere from BLT but suspect driving would take longer from there).

Driving from BLT is about the same as from WL. Excluding the access roads, It's just an extra ~0.5 north on the main road so maybe 1-2 extra minutes to drive to any other park (they are all to the south). We usually only drive to parks on the checkout day.

Overall our lessons learned are: we personally should target stays at the more themed resorts (Poly, VGF, WL, BCV, BWV, AKL) over BLT, SSR, OKW. We didn’t visit Riveria so no opinion. I’m intrigued by the cabins at Fort Wilderness and would be interested in trying them, hubby not so much.

We loved our stay at the cabins at FW and would definitely go back. We'd definitely go back specifically there after our APs expire (we plan to renew maybe in 8-10 months)

- The points charts are awesome - basically a 1BR for the price of a studio elsewhere.​

- Very nice to dine with the family either inside or outside.​

- You get your own (charcoal) grill if you like to grill.​

- Lots of places to fish (our son is into that) - for free.​

- We could spend days in that area without going to any park - very relaxing... aside from the occasional Disney bus you wouldn't even know you were at WDW.​

The biggest downside is that you kind of need to rent a golf cart to fully enjoy the place and they are $75/day ($100 for the 6-seaters).

Definitely glad to have some direct points to book there (we're 80% resale)!

 

[heathpack]

Did you stay at a renovated room at BLT? We love BLT for the proximity to MK, but also because it's one of the few places where we book a 1BR over a studio (we usually stay at the studios that seep 5) and it's hard to beat the extra space and the 2 full bathrooms for a family of 4!




Driving from BLT is about the same as from WL. Excluding the access roads, It's just an extra ~0.5 north on the main road so maybe 1-2 extra minutes to drive to any other park (they are all to the south). We usually only drive to parks on the checkout day.



We loved our stay at the cabins at FW and would definitely go back. We'd definitely go back specifically there after our APs expire (we plan to renew maybe in 8-10 months)

- The points charts are awesome - basically a 1BR for the price of a studio elsewhere.​

- Very nice to dine with the family either inside or outside.​

- You get your own (charcoal) grill if you like to grill.​

- Lots of places to fish (our son is into that) - for free.​

- We could spend days in that area without going to any park - very relaxing... aside from the occasional Disney bus you wouldn't even know you were at WDW.​

The biggest downside is that you kind of need to rent a golf cart to fully enjoy the place and they are $75/day ($100 for the 6-seaters).

Definitely glad to have some direct points to book there (we're 80% resale)!

Yes we had a renovated room and we thought it was nice. See my reply to @nomoretslt above.

We had a split stay: studio BLT + 1BR at Boulder Ridge. We’ve stayed in both room sizes before at VGC. Our opinion was that a 1BR was a “waste”. I think this was because at DL, we were never really hanging out in the room and only stayed 1-2 nights. When we were at BLT, we were thinking “we are studio people”. But a BRV we were really digging the extra space. I’m an early riser and not tiptoeing around on the dark while I drink my coffee is nice, as is a little counter space, proper dish, a washer/dryer etc.

The cabins: we went over for Hoop de Doo and had some time to kill, were looking around a little. I was becoming intrigued, husband seemed neutral and right then two parties of loud, kind of dofus-y people walked by, and I could sense him getting turned off. I think your idea about going to the fort without an AP sounds great. Just hang out and have a different Disney experience. However I know that’s going to be a low priority trip for him! He’d like the golf cart though!

I am wondering if Lakeshore Lodge is going to flood the place with people who don’t “fit,” or make it a more fun place to stay because of added amenities?