Our pack-it-all-in trip, June 4-12, 2011, Part 2, Day 4
Our pack-it-all-in trip, June 4-12, 2011, Part 2, Day 4
Day 4: Really Day 3 Plus, starting with arriving at Bay Lake Tower.
DH loved driving through the Walt Disney World gate. He said even though we had a great time at Universal, there's really nothing like Disney World. :mickey: For those who drive to a Magic Kingdom resort for the first time, navigation can be confusing. Once you get on World Drive it’s a straight shot to the Magic Kingdom area, but you have to drive through the MK gates to get to the resort, staying on the far right to merge onto the correct road. Another confusing part is that we saw signs for the Contemporary but none for Bay Lake. (Maybe someone can correct me if we just missed seeing them.) We had to sort of retrain our brains to look for the Contemporary.
We pulled in around 10 p.m. Parking was a breeze. DH went to the Contemporary lobby with the kids to pick up our check-in packet while I unloaded the car. We had previously done online check-in from home several days before we left with no special room requests. Once DH was done he came back to the car so we could carry everything up. The key cards are used to open the glass doors at Bay Lake. We needed them every time to enter the building from the ground floor or the pool; the doors were never just open. (BUT, see below for why this was funny.)
Our room was a Bay Lake view 1-bedroom on the sixth floor. Walking into the room was, at first, delightful. A lighted, modern-looking picture of Mickey greated us at the entrance. The kids loved the space of the room, especially because we hadn’t told them we’d be in a 1-bedroom. The colors were bright and friendly, orange-yellow and brown. Despite my misgivings about a “modern” décor, I did like it – it felt warm and cheerful. :thumbsup: We had a wonderful view of the BLT pool with the colorful, lighted “hidden” Mickey, and the balcony had TWO doors – one that opened out from the living area and the other a sliding door from the master bedroom. Having two bathrooms was fantastic, especially coming from a home with only one bathroom. DH and I had one bathroom and the kids had the other.
One further inspection, some problems became apparent. The room was not clean. :( Because we did physical check-in so late in the day, we did not expect a high floor or anything, but we did expect a clean room. There were clods of hair on the carpet near the entrance door, the dining table was covered with a greasy film and, get this, SHOE FOOTPRINTS, and both showers had a mildewy film on the walls. The master bathroom sink counter had not been wiped. The shade blind on the door to the balcony was broken, there was a burn stain on the kitchen granite counter next to the stove where someone obviously had previously placed a hot pot, and the light didn’t work in the master shower. One of the lampshades in the master bedroom was ripped. Before unpacking, we immediately called the front desk to see if we could get a different room while this one was vacated for cleaning and repair. We were told the resort was booked solid and we could not get another room, but they would send housekeeping up right away. By this time it was late, and after waiting about 15 minutes, we didn’t know how much longer it was going to be, so we called down to say we were going to bed and they could send housekeeping up the next day. I cleaned the room myself (but not the showers) before going to bed.
Actual Day 4:
Tuesday was our day off. After driving over the weekend and our Universal day on Monday, we needed a break - especially since we knew we’d be hitting the Disney parks for three days straight starting Wednesday. (Sister and her family did another day at Universal.) My husband went to the Contemporary front desk to give them a list of the problems with the room, but he told them what we wanted right away was the shower light fixed and housekeeping sent up to clean the showers. On his return, he took the kids down to the pool while took care of a few things. We had some no-expiration park hopper tickets that were left over from a previous trip, so I went to Magic Kingdom Guest Services to see what we had left and to buy new tickets.
Although the Magic Kingdom is walkable from BLT, I didn’t want to walk over by myself, plus I really wanted to take that first monorail ride. :cloud9: So I went to the Contemporary via the 5th floor pedestrian bridge that connects the two resorts. Now, here’s where that ground floor key-card entry to BLT becomes funny. Each time when we walked to and from the Contemporary, the doors to the buildings opened automatically. As in, big click, and the doors swung open. No key card required. So really we had free access between the Contemporary and BLT without a key card. Only once was the door closed to BLT and we had to use the key card – on our last day after we had already checked out! We had gone to the Contemporary gift shops and wanted to return through BLT so we could snap some photos from the bridge and be closer to our parked car. Luckily the card still worked.
Anyway, I took the monorail over and rode through my ABSOLUTELY FOREVER FAVORITE resort, the Polynesian. :lei: If they ever build a Poly DVC, I will sell my first kidney to be able to stay there. Maybe my second kidney too. I couldn’t wait to get inside and have a look around again. But right now I was on a ticket mission.
Got to MK Guest Services, and it turned out we had one day left on each ticket (and SIX water park days – nice that we won’t have to buy water park days for a LONG time). So I bought new park hoppers for two days each for the five of us. Grand total: $1,133. Ouch. Wish I could have bought more days and saved money on the per-day price, but we didn’t have any extra money for a future trip. Got back on the monorail to meet the family at the pool. The nice thing about the monorail ride to the Contemporary is it’s the first stop.
After I got my swimsuit on, I went to the front door, opened it, and gasped with surprise at the maintenance man who was standing at the door (he hadn’t knocked yet). He was there to fix the shower light. I also showed him the blind and the shade. The light was fixed right then, but the blind and lampshade remained broken for the rest of the trip (which we expected because we did not demand an immediate repair). (P.S. I also found out only after we returned home, while watching someone else’s video, that we were supposed to have two stool chairs for the kitchen island but they were never in the room! Oh well.)
I went down to the pool where my DH and kids were. My two older kids are great swimmers, but my 6-year-old son is still learning. However, he thinks he can do anything, so the foam life vest came in really handy for him. He was comfortable swimming around in it and going down the slide by himself while we waited for him at the bottom.
A side note: Even though there were lifeguards at the pool, there were no attendants at the top of the slide. There was a stoplight at the top and when it turned from red to green, you could go down. However, it never turned green, so people at the top had to look over the side to make sure it was clear before going down. This was not really a problem as it was easy to see where the previous person was, but not having an attendant created an interesting situation for my 6-year-old. When I got to the pool, my DH told me what happened.
At one point, DS climbed the stairs to the slide and got in at the top, but the water stopped flowing. So he made a decision. DH saw the water go off and assumed DS would climb back down the stairs. But that’s not what he did - he walked down the slide. DH said it was pretty funny seeing him come around the slide turn upright on his own two feet as if this was a normal occurrence, but near the bottom, the water came on again, and he was washed onto his tushie and off the end of the slide into the pool. Luckily he thought it was funny too.
After the pool visit, DH did a grocery run while I took the kids out for a monorail spin. This time we got off at the Poly and the kids checked out the trading pins in the gift shop. The last time we had stayed here with the older kids, it was eight years before, but they didn’t remember. I pointed out the torches and made a mental note to somehow get here again. When we got back on the monorail, the kids were tired and didn’t want to make any more stops, so headed back to the room. DH made tacos for dinner, then we relaxed for awhile before driving over to the Boardwalk to see the street performers, who were, as always, very entertaining. My 12yo had a memory of getting candy with a picture of Goofy on it at the gift shop there, so we bought some Goofy toffee before walking over to the bridge to see the end of “Illuminations.” Then we high-tailed it back to BLT and to the Top of the World Lounge for the 10 p.m. “Wishes” fireworks. Phew!
From that angle, the fireworks are actually far back from the castle, but still fantastic. Most surprising is that you can actually see Tinker Bell coming down from the castle even that far away. We didn’t realize you probably can also see a bit of the new Magic, Memories and You show on the castle before the fireworks, so we missed it that night.
After going back to the room, I went out on the balcony and looked down. Near the fountain I saw a stocky little critter about the size and stature of a possum waddle over, put his front claws on the side of the fountain, and scurry into the plants on the side of the fountain. I had no idea what it was. DH and DS saw an armadillo later in the week on the MK path, so I assume that's what I saw. Went to bed after that for opening at the Magic Kingdom the next day.
(This was going to be Days 4 AND 5 but it was too long! :blush: ) So NEXT: Day 5, Magic Kingdom and Epcot.
