The only thing I didn't like about AKL is the distance to MK, Epcot and HS.

I would stay at Polynesian over all, but only because of how much I love Trader Sam's.

AKL is my favorite, though.

We are looking at getting a Disney property through a dvc rental site. Has anyone used those? It seems like a great deal.

Just my personal opinion...

Grand Floridian is nice, but I don't care for the theme.

Give me Contemporary, Wilderness or Polynesian over that anyday

It is a good deal, but you won't get any of the DVC perks, like access to the cool lounges.

I will be travelling to Orlando in early February for work, thinking about bringing the family down for 2 days after. Is that enough time to do Disney with an almost 3 & almost 8 year old? I understand it won't be like staying for a week, but can you even make a worthwhile dent in 2 days?

My sister and my dad are DVC members and I have stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge and The Boardwalk.

AKL was cool because of the balcony and all the zoo animals (zebras, giraffes, etc.) you can watch. But if your room is towards the back of the hotel then you have to walk FOREVER to get to it as you make your way around the animal enclosure. This really sucks when you get back from the park after walking 10 miles during the day and now you have to walk in your hotel room. This hotel is also quite a ways away from the parks so they have long bus rides.

The Boardwalk was my favorite by far. You can walk to Epcot and Disney Studios. If you have a park hopper pass, then you can walk through Epcot over to the monorails. There is a nightclub and an ESPN Zone there for night time things to do. Plus there is a bunch of entertainment at night like you would have seen on the boardwalk 100 years ago. Magic shows, jugglers, dancing routines, etc. Snack carts and little restaurants are there too. There is a little sandwich shop that was really good.

In my opinion, it all depends on what you want to do & what parks you want to go to. You could easily spend 2 full days at Magic Kingdom. But, if all you did was spend those 2 days at Magic Kingdom, I'd say it was worthwhile - to me at least.

I agree.

I add to that agreement....especially for the ages of the kids he has. And honestly even 2 days might not be enough.

The Boardwalk is what we are interested in because of the walking to those parks. So on the dvc rental site it will cost us about 75 points for five nights, which we will buy for $18 per point. So that will be $1350 which is like half price of the Disney site. It seems like everything will still be easy like magic bands and things.

Poly is my favorite. But since they decided not to add any 1 or 2 bedrooms, it was kind of a deal breaker. We also bought Grand Floridian before Poly became available. For me - Bay Lake Tower, Poly, and VGF will also be premium and hardest to book due to being on the monorail.

I absolutely love Wilderness Lodge and have stayed there multiple times (not a huge fan of the Treehouses), but the boat to MK leaves a lot to be desired for me.

If you're referring to buying a DVC membership, there are tons of people who have used the resale sites to purchase.

If you're looking into renting points to stay at a DVC accomodation, then Davids (www.dvcrequest.com) is one of the best out there. I have rented my points through them before.

You lose out on a few basic amenities - but other than that - yes, it's just that much cheaper. For instance, you won't get your room cleaned everyday...

Trash and Towel Services For stays of seven or fewer nights, Trash and Towel Service is provided on day four. With this service, Housekeeping will

Empty the trash and put new liners in the wastebaskets
Provide fresh bathroom towels
Replace shampoo, facial soap and bath soap
Replenish facial tissues, paper towels, and toilet paper
Replenish coffee, sugar, and cream
Replenish diswashing liquid, dishwasher detergent, sponges, and laundry detergent as applicable

Full Cleaning Service
For stays of eight or more nights, Full Cleaning Service is provided on day four and Trash and Towel Service is provided on day eight. After that, the cycle begins again on day 12. With Full Cleaning Service, Housekeeping will provide everything included with the Trash and Towel Service, plus

Change the bed linens
Vacuum and dust
Clean the bathroom(s)
Clean the kitchen/ette and wash the dishes

You have to want to be in the trees to like the Tree house Villas. I have stayed in the a couple of times and they were nice but not great. You can get the same feel at a cabin in the Fort Wilderness Campground though.

And I agree....tthe boat from WL to MK needs to be replaced with something nicer.

I'm going to look into this when we finally take my youngest. I would have saved about 500 compared to the package deal I booked through a local travel agent, which was still a pretty good deal.

I've never used DVC point sites yet. Will you be able to get fresh towels every day with that 4 day cycle?

I've rented pts at the beach club once, only rental of DVC. did not have any issue with the part time mousekeeping concept, but admit it was only 2 of us. might have been different for the whole gang.

the wife and i have seriously bantered the resale idea around the last couple years but haven't pulled the trigger.

we love riverside, that's our favorite, with beach club a close 2nd for me. If we could directly book dvc at riverside, we'd be in. not a slam dunk to rent out our pts to get a stay at riverside for us...yet.

i had a thought that disney should let you book your pts at any resort, with the acceptance that we, the buyer, pay the same pts w/out a discount. not really getting "like" value, but i'd still do it. i dunno, maybe it's not as big a deal to rent them out to bankroll our own reservation somewhere else. any thoughts for the DVC members?

Is the same towels all 4 days. You can pay extra to get new ones, but the "trick" that many owners use.......just take them from the pool area!

Disney technically does let you use them at any resort, it's part of the "Disney Collection" - unfortunately, since it's not actually a DVC resort, it's like 30 points a night!

Agreed.

Except...the Contemporary had the worst elevator situation i have ever experienced in a hotel. They may have addressed that since we were there last, but it is definitely worth consideration if booking there.

HOLY SHIT THESE D23 ANNOUNCEMENTS

I know....some pretty good stuff short of the new animated film that is coming out in November, Coco. It doesn't look all that appealing to me.

I wanted a new pavilion and the Speedway to be gone. But, I'm pumped.

The Speedway will be gone before long I am betting.....

Did you see the stuff about the new Star Wars themed hotel?

Sounds very 'Westworld' like. But very cool idea!

The whole concept of dressing in Star Wars garb once you are in the hotel might turn some people off, but their ideas are pretty wild. Would be something that would be attractive to the kids I bet.

TAKE ALL MY MONEY. I'm so in.

Or adult children, like myself

We booked our room from the DVC rental store, dvcrentalstore.com. We got a Boardwalk studio villa for 5 nights for $1350 total, of which we only had to pay $825, with the rest being due later. That comes out to $270 per night. We are really happy with this deal. Through Disney's site it would have been about $430 per night. I really can't imagine paying the regular price with this option available.

One thing though is that there isn't the full list of resort options so some of the cheaper hotels are still lower priced on Disney's site. But for jusy a bit more than even the cheapest ones you can gey one of the best hotels. And if you are considering the higher price hotels then this DVC rental thing seem great. I guess you can't get a Disney Vacation Club propery just anywhere which is why not all are listed on the DVC sites?

I already created a My Disney Experience account and connected my reservation. It was no problem at all. I also was already able to customize our magic bands.

Just got back last night after spending the prior 4 days at Disney World. As usual this time of year it was less crowded Wednesday, Thursday and most of Friday. Because of that, this is my favorite time of the year to go.

There are a couple of things I will say were disappointments. First....the wait times at both Avatar rides are way too long, and honestly the water ride isn't worth the long wait in my opinion. Second...there are some of the things that need updates if nothing else to give them more of a current feel to them.

Another observation......Disney World this time of year seems to be the stroller capitol of the US. I can't tell you how many times I got bumped, had my heels run up on or almost got tripped by a stroller.

How does the free parking work for annual/seasonal pass holders? Do you show the pass? Do they scan your ticket?

Strollers and scooter convoys.

You show your pass or just hold out your magic band. I’m sure there’s a method to what happens next, but I’m not sure what it is. Sometimes they’ll scan your pass/band and tell you to have a magical day. Sometimes they will scan it and ask for your last name. One time they scanned it and made me show my ID. Then other times, such as yesterday at the magic kingdom, I held out my band and he didn’t do a thing, just said “you’re good”. It’s all over the place, but bottom line, just show them your pass/band and you’ll be good to go.

That’s anytime of the year. It’s even worse at Disneyland in Cali which is a smaller park and has less room for designated ‘stroller parking’

They know. They are closing several of those old 60's rides. Opening up a new Toy Story part of the park.

The new Star Wars "Galaxy Edge" rides and area of the park is coming in 2019. Disney is spending $1 BILLION in Disney World alone on the new addition. Pilot your own Millennial Falcon etc. $1 BILLION :eek:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/trave...117-story.html

Watch out for the local wildlife, have fun!

It is crazy how strollers have gone from a simple single-wide item to wheel barrel sized contraptions lately. I get the double seat strollers if you have twins or 2 small toddlers. But seeing the larger strollers with just a single child that almost have a side-car look to it amazes me.

Those are the exciting changes I am really looking forward to....but I am talking more about the People Mover, Buzz Lightyear Ride and Mickey's Philharmagic in Magic Kingdom for now. They have done a great job updating MK and making it more fun...but those 3 and the race car rides need some updating.

I appreciate Disney's effort in refurbishing things and don't want to sound too critical. But you have to admit those are a bit dated.

huge new Toy Story land going in for the younger kids. Tons of money. Getting rid of the older kids stuff.

https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/bl...n-summer-2018/

Disney is moving forward now. Finally.

Magic Kingdom is getting the TRON Rollercoaster.....that's going to be a ton of updating there alone! Also - I am 235 days away from returning to the Grand Floridian! :dance:

yeah I read somewhere that Disney is going to spend $2.5 BILLION in the next 3 years on new rides and updates at Disney World. That's a ton of money for a friggin amusement park in a short time.

Get ready for $200 admission

ROFL
Disney ain't spending $2.5 BILLION to lose money.

But, parts of the park have aged and are out of date while ticket prices kept going up. They were pocketing the money instead of putting more into better and updated rides. They are just catching up because everyone is noticing the aged parts now.

Wellll thats kind of the consensus down here anyway. Also the Harry Potter success pushed them too.

IMO it’s mainly the front part of Epcot that has aged and became outdated

The other parks they have thrown a bunch of money at and updated or in the process of updating

Go to Daytona for the Rolex24 and the ProBowl, January 26/27. Go to DisneyWorld at night for the fireworks.

Not as impressed with the Grand Floridian as much as I am Wilderness Lodge....

Call me cheap but I can enjoy a stay at a couple of the All Star resorts and feel I got my money worth more than I can at the GF.

That is the fun part of living here in FL and having a season pass.....you can get your money's worth.

To me...Spaceship Earth is "meh" now since they changed the Narrator from Walter Cronkite to Dame Judith Dench. If they were going to change it why not have different narrators for each change in an era?

And get some more modern voices....just so long as it isn't Neil Degrasse Tyson.

I'll be curious to see if they raise the cost of the yearly passes.

From like 2009-2013, the Deluxe Yearly Pass was $225 per year with parking at Disneyland.

Now, it's $619 per year with no parking (parking is about $17 dollars).

One of the rumors of why they raised the prices is because they are trying to cut down on overcrowding. But it’s not working much. It seems there is no magic price point where people will stop going to Disney

It's 10x worse than before they raised the prices because they allow monthly payments with 0% interest.

Pretty much any day of the week up until 2013 or so, there would be, at most, a 10 minute wait for any ride.

Now, wait times are at least 30 minutes, if not hours. We were in California Adventure a few years back and wanted to go on the Car ride but at 8pm at night, the wait time was 4 hours or pretty much the time the park closed for the day.

What's worse (and I'm sure I mentioned it before), the absolute sheer number of dumb ****ing parents taking their toddlers to Disneyland. I'm talking kids under 2 years old, that can't walk and can only qualify for a few rides, while slogging them around in HUGE strollers and in many cases, double wides for twins.

Couple that with 85-90 heat in the summer and I'm out. Can't do it anymore.

At Disneyland, the only passes that allow free parking are the Disney Signature, which is $849 and the Signature Plus, which is $1,049.

As I mentioned earlier, the Deluxe Pass at $229 a year included parking but since around 2014 or so, the Deluxe Pass jumped to $600+ and does not include parking.

Last time I was there was November 2014. It was busy but not too awfully bad. Stayed at the Grand Californian and took advantage of the early morning entry and the fast passes of course

Your right, the ungodly amount of strollers truly tests ones patience

I have Deluxe Annual Passes for my wife and kids but not for me. My wife takes them at least one day a month.

Even though it’s only a 30 minute drive outside of rush hour traffic, they stay at the Marriott Residence Inn (which is new and awesome, BTW) that’s a block from the entrance.

I went on Mother’s Day weekend last year and it was a zoo.

Imagine how it will be once Star Wars land opens??

Well, at least that’s a 14 acre section all of its own, kind of like California Adventure, which is really awesome.

Yeah, providing you have kids. The Mrs and I prefer Universal and Bush Gardens over Disney

I love the Wilderness Lodge, especially at Christmas time. We own DVC and our property is the Grand Floridian. We love it as well, and have stayed club level there numerous times before buying. We were discussing today about switching our stay to Bay Lake Tower since it'll be our kiddos first trip!

I prefer both of those places as well. However, I do get drug to Disney more than I would like because my brother in-law works for Disney Studios in California and gets us free tickets when he travels back to Florida.

Thus my comment earlier about the abnormal number of strollers and the every growing size of them.

I am more of a kid about WDW than my kids ever were.

My wife and I get more use with the passes and either of my kids.

We actually stayed there at the Wilderness Lodge the first Christmas it opened. A great family memory we all still remember. The fireplace....the tree....and the smell of the restaurant.

Great times....great times.

yeah, l just don't see myself ever again waiting in the hot 100 degree sun for 3-4 hours to ride a coaster for 1 minute. Ive ridden the fastest and best ones of the their day. Rather be on my pontoon boat puttering around in the gulf and drinking beer. Or at the beach, playing in the water drinking margaritas.

that $2.5 BILLION is only in Disney World. It's a good assumption they are spending that much or close to it in each or many of their parks. $10 billion spent, they are going to demand some increased revenue in return.

I told my kids we would probably go one last time after Star Wars Land opens. considering the increase we have seen in entrance prices there already, it may very well be the last time I go to Disney.

I think most people who go to Disney are week to week paycheck families. But, no matter how high they raise ticket prices, the park is always jam packed with long wait lines.

yeah, we're headed to Tampa in a couple of weeks and talked about maybe hitting WDW for 2 days and decided to wait until our youngest is older then hit it once for posterity. Been thinking about buying some tickets now though since they never expire.

ah, sumbitch, it looks like the ended the "no expiration" thing a while back.

I've been wanting to get my kids back soon. My daughter gets to go for a cheerleading thing in a couple months, but me & the boys are able to go. Not sure when we'll go, but I'd like to get it done before they get too old.

we did that right before my son went into middle school yet he was big enough to ride all the rides. I was just starting to make money, I had a lot of PTO but, some of the trip would go on credit cards. We decided that this time in our family and sons life will never come again and and we did the vacation.

We did 4 days at Disney. 4 days at Universal. 1 day at Sea World. 2 days at Daytona Beach. 7 days at the St. Pete beachs. 18 days. Way too long of a vacation. But, it really was a time that would never come again. He wanted to devote time and begin playing competitive football and baseball. I took jobs to further my career but didn't allow that much time off at once.

The time is now. Now never comes again. Kids outgrow hanging with the parents too fast and before you know it, the time has passed.

I don't know that I totally agree.....

I imterviewed and got far enough along that they showed me around the I.T. infrastructure. They showed me a lot of data. One thing I remember is that the average family that visits Disney World is 2 parents/2 kids making less than $50K. Thats not a lot in most parts of the country.

Decided I didn't want to drive to Orlando no matter the pay and didn't take the job. About a year later, they outsourced everyone to India.

Polynesian > all

Mostly because of Trader Sam's.

Man, just priced a trip for me and my youngest to see what the prices are now. Wow, its definitely getting to the point that you have to decide if its worth the expense now. Especially if you have already been there.

It's always been expensive, but the only thing that's really gone up have been Disney hotels. You're better off staying off-property.

I don't want to deal with having to rent a car and having to stop and pay for parking every day. Especially at their rates. When you add those two things into it its pretty much half a dozen of one or six of the other.

EDIT

Just doing a quick search I came up with this for two people age 10 and up.

7 day ticket parks only - $820
Condo on vrbo - $816
parking - $140
Car rental - $194

Total $1970 not including food and flight


booking through disney

$2070 and that includes one quick service meal per day, never having to drive, and not dealing with parking. Plus having access to Extra Magic Hours if we choose. Also not including extra food and flight.

Disney really does go out of their way to make sure staying on property is a viable option. The primary thing the condo gets me is a kitchen. But thats really only going to be for breakfast and we don't eat a big breakfast anyway.

Yet, almost every day its way too overcrowded with people. Supply and demand.

Even in 2008/2009 when the country was on the brink of a economic collapse, the park was still packed.

People want their Disney experience. Although, you might start seeing people only go once.

If you do go, check Alligiant Air flights from KC to St. Pete. You can get direct flights for $50. It's about an hour drive from Disney.

I have gone in the middle of August....the weeks before Thanksgiving and the first 2 weeks in December and it wasn't overcrowded. A lot of it depends on timing.

And it is just my opinion....I wouldn't ever fly Allegiant.

I've stay on & off property. Always enjoyed off property more simply because we always rented a house with a pool. After a long day at the parks, it was always so relaxing to have a quiet place to "get away", relax in a pool without a billion people running around you.