Extreme Split Stay - 5 Nights 5 Resorts 5 Studios

This evening we ventured over to Typhoon Lagoon to go to the free DVC Beach Party Bash. I was very excited about this because we hadn't been to a Disney waterpark since Tigger was 2 and he had hated every minute of it. We'd since completed a recent waterpark test run at Fallsview Waterpark and Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls, so we new this evening was going to be a hit with Tigger.

The reviews of this evening vary by party member. Grizzly and Tigger had an amazing time! They slid, and they went around the lazy river, and they played in the wave pool, and they slid some more. I remember the evening mostly as being cold. Freezing to be precise. Now the park was in no way cold, but if you are like me, and get cold easily, a waterpark at night, even in balmy Florida, is pretty much the exact opposite of where I would like to be. Without the sun beating down on me to keep me warm I was freezing after one trip down the family raft ride and one cruise around the lazy river. At least now I know for the future that paying for this type of event would be a complete waste of money for me. I sat for much of the evening curled up in two small towels people watching and pretending I was warmer than I actually was.

Grizzly and Tigger had no problems with the temperature and played and played until just about the end of the party. I was very glad to see they had a good time, and watched them at the bottom of most slides. Overall this was a great experience. The lines were all short, the snacks they offered were plentiful, and it was just a very relaxed and festive atmosphere. They really put on a good show with special lighting and decorations. I left feeling like a loved DVC member, which is I'm sure is exactly how they wanted me to feel. If you have the opportunity to catch any of these DVC events you definitely should.

We retired to our hotel super late that night. Well past midnight if I remember correctly. We set an alarm for 10:30am, so that we had just enough time to get up, pack our bags, and leave the room before 11:00. Tomorrow we were headed back to the Magic Kingdom and we had our first ever night at BLT. I was so excited!
 
Despite our late evening Tigger still managed to get up before our alarm. My daily photo of his outfit shows we were leaving the room at 10:39am. (As a side note, I started to be more obsessive about taking pictures of Tigger before leaving the room each day after I lost him at not one, but 2 large BMX races last summer. I'm lucky that I haven't yet lost him at Disney.) We ventured over to Magic Kingdom to enjoy some time in the heat. We parked in the BLT parking lot, and as we were walking over to Magic Kingdom my brother texted that he was on the monorail. Perfect timing! We met up right before the turnstiles.

Among other rides, we rode the Barnstormer together:
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Other than the Barnstormer we spent a good portion of our day either losing our stroller, or losing Grizzly who had gone to relocate the stroller. We seriously spent at least an hour of our day waiting around for Grizzly while he was either lost trying to find the stroller, or lost trying to find us after finding the stroller. This became very frustrating after the second or third time, and it was hot! Standing around doing nothing in the heat really takes its toll. Next time we need to be very clear about where we are meeting, so I don't need to type a long string of unanswered texts shouting "WHERE ARE YOU?!" over and over again.

Meanwhile, while Grizzly was moving a stroller around we got some cute selfies by the castle. My selfie aim has yet to improve, and I either was able to get half of me or half of the castle. I liked the half of me version better:
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We stopped for lunch at the Sleepy Hollow place and got the chicken sandwiches. I'm not sure what happened this visit, maybe someone new, but our chicken sandwiches got double chicken. We were not complaining! We happily ate our waffles while Tigger wiggled around and didn't manage for a single second to keep his hands to himself. One problem with having a super snuggly beast is that he likes to snuggle whoever is nearby. Here he is all over his poor Uncle.
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After a pretty short morning in the Magic Kingdom we headed over to BLT to check into our room, change, and swim. The room texting thing worked extremely well for the first few nights, but went buzzerk towards the end of the week. Apparently having 20+ magic bands on your account makes the system angry. We were super excited to see our Lake View Studio and experience this resort. In our pre-DVC days we were closest to purchasing BLT direct, so we were super curious as to what "could have been."

Turns out, what could have been for us would have been pure torture. My biggest turn off was how sterile it felt to me, like I was in a college dorm room, and not a Disney hotel. Grizzly felt the same way. I particularly hated walking down the hallway and hearing everyone's private conversations they were having in their rooms. I should not be able to hear a regular conversation of people while walking past their room, even normal voice levels seemed to carry several rooms away from the owner such that by the time I finished walking down a hall I knew who was awake, who's baby needed changing, and what people were planning for dinner. It was just awkward, to say the least. The dormitory feeling was so bad that Grizzly and I vowed to never go back despite it's super convenient location.

The room itself was fine. Grizzly and I got a kick out of the ridiculous amount of storage available. We found the storage in the kitchenette particularly amusing. They had a full pull out pantry thing, like you would use for cans and boxes of cereal, that went floor to ceiling. What on earth did they think people would be preparing in their studios that would take up that much food space? Do you fill this thing up? It seemed totally excessive to us, but then we don't eat too much processed food, our pantry at home is mostly full of coloring supplies. The studio offered plenty of drawers and shelves, and for people that like to unpack this appealled to us. We had room 8008, and that appealed to us as well. This was a lake view studio with a distinct theme park view. If you looked right you saw lake, if you looked left you saw park. The view was pretty amazing, and watching Wishes from our balcony was neat.
We went to try out the pool, and once again instead of feeling like we were in Disney felt more like we were swimming in a sea of concrete. I did enjoy the bar tender at the pool though. I didn't have my ID on my when I ordered a drink, and instead of making me fetch it he said very conspicuously "I know, I saw you earlier". Definitely appreciated that. Took some time this afternoon to do a quick load of laundry and missed our 1 bedrooms as I ran back and forth too and from the laundry room.

This evening we put Tigger to bed fairly early, and Grizzly drew the short straw to sit in the dark while I ran over to Magic Kingdom. I really wanted to get a picture with Mickey wearing a shirt my students had given me, but the line was really long, and instead I took a few pictures and just walked home. I think I was kind of tired too.
I love this picture I took of the castle. It's my lock screen on my phone, so I get to see my favorite place multiple times a day.
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I joined Grizzly in the dark (we were sooooooo done with studios by this point) and we watched Wishes from our balcony. Isn't there supposed to be music? We couldn't for the life of us figure out how to get the music in our rooms. How? How? I need to know! It was at this point in our vacation that the Electric Water Pagent started teasing me. I could hear it singing it's wonderful cheesy song, but it must have turned around right before it came into view because it never ventured far enough for me to see it. This would happen several more times over the next few days until I had almost given up hope of seeing the dragon.

Wishes from our room:
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In the end, we were very happy to have only a one night stay at BLT. I don't remember ever feeling such hatred for a resort beforee. We both were ready to leave, and were very happy for this trip so that instead of wasting a whole week there in the future we only had spent a day in dormroomville. I was also happy because we left BLT with no regrets of not having purchased it direct a few years ago.

The next day we were off to the Poly, we were super excited to try out the new place. So far so good on the hopping front, so far realizing we are definitely not studio people. I was totally expecting this trip to be the other way around, and to find that the hopping was super annoying and the studios were totally bearable. The texting your room number thing really made the hopping super easy along with having a car.
 


To hear the music in your room you have to turn the TV on to a certain channel. I love BLT but it's not for everyone. I think the studios are too small. We stayed in a 2 bedroom last time we were there and it was GREAT. We had a Standard View that was really a theme park view. AWESOME.
 


The Poly!!!

Well before we got to the Poly we spent a morning at Epcot, so you have to wait a few minutes while I recount my tales of Epcot. Hmm... We did typical Epcot things, Test Track, Soarin', and then we went to the Pixar Shorts. These were fun! The highlight of the morning was spending some time out by the jumping fountains. We had the place to ourselves. Not too many other parents were keen on letting their children get drenched at 10am, but we always go prepared. If there is a fountain in the park we have an extra shirt with us, if not an entire change of clothes. So we spent some time trying to get the perfect picture of Tigger getting soaked. I had fun trying out the slow-mo video and other features on my phone. Here's my favorite shot:

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And here is what everyone around him actually looked like. It's sort of like reality TV when they reveal the 4th wall. My brother and Grizzly were also trying for the perfect shot too:

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Our fourth night of this stay we were scheduled to stay in the Poly. I was super excited about this. Despite my excitement though the Poly did have one major drawback...you eventually have to leave which turns out to be very very depressing. Yes, I think I could have stayed here forever. I loved everything about it. Okay that's not quite true. I still really missed having my own space, so even the humungous size of the studios didn't make up for the fact that it was still a studio. So while I really really want to go back, I want to go back without my beastly child, or would next time get two rooms. If I ignore the fact that this resort is desperately lacking one and two bedrooms it was so lovely. I loved the pool area, i loved watching the fireworks on the beach. I loved sitting outside on our patio while our beastly slept. The whole resort is just so tropical and relaxed. I got the chance to travel to Hawaii this past summer, and when I landed at the airport on the Big Island all I could think of was that it looked just like the Poly! In fact everywhere I went in Hawaii reminded me of the Poly. Disney does a superb job of making their version of places better than the actual places.

We loved the Poly water slide and giant kids splash structure. At one point Grizzly saw Tigger splash a CM on purpose over by the play structure, and immediately grew angry and was about to kill him. I normally would have killed him too, but I had been observing the situation closely. I had to calm him down quickly, and assure him that it was okay. Sure enough a few moments later the CM returned the gesture splashing Tigger right back when he got too close as he was trying to sneak up. What awesome cast members! Normally the lifegards are dry, but all the ones in the kids play area were soaked from playing splashing games with the kids.

The two bathroom areas were great although a little excessive. The room with the tub and toilet was the size of a small bedroom, and it felt like there was lots of wasted space in there. If I were redesigning these rooms I maybe would have foregone the extravagantly large bathroom in exchange for a sleeping nook for the kids, like those little cave areas they have at Great Wolf, just a space for sleeping kids to sleep so awake adults don't have to sit quietly in the dark. I would trade this feature for a fancy bathroom or even kitchen space anyday. There certainly is room in these studios for a washer and dryer had they wanted to put one in, but instead you are treated to a bathroom large enough to make a snow angel in.

This evening we watched the fireworks from the beach, and while Tigger slept and Grizzly and I were on the patio I heard the water pageant. Slightly frantically I went running up the nearest staircase trying to eye the water pageant, but by the time I climbed the stairs and located the pageant I only saw the flag floats before all the lights shut off. Grrrrr.. Spurned again by the water pageant. All I wanted to see was the amazing dragon! The water pageant sang one more time that night, and the next time I sprinted down to the beach area. Third time was the charm and I finally got to see my singing green dragon.

We put Tigger on the pull-down day bed thing and it worked perfectly for him. We loved still having access to the sofa while our beastly was asleep, although this evening we chose mostly to sit outside.

I loved the Poly so much that I keep trying to get Grizzly to let me buy Poly points, but he will have none of it. Apparently he thinks we have enough points already. I would love to spend some anniversary trips here with him. We probably won't be back to the Poly anytime soon with Tigger unless we get two rooms which seems a little pricey since you don't get a kitchen or washer and dryer.

Up next, our last night at BWV. My brother and I finish up our Wilderness Explorer's Quest, and my final thoughts about our crazy trip and impromptu trip tag-along.
 
Alright, our last full day. Now normally I try to be a little bit witty when writing my trip reports, but there are a couple of environmental factors affecting my writing at the moment. Firstly, a certain beastly child woke me up at 5:30am this morning to open Christmas presents despite the previously negotiated 6:00am wake up time. Secondly, we are driving in a tiny car headed down to Philly to catch some cheap flights to Orlando. The car really is not the problem, it's the Pokemon episodes playing right in my ear. Really should have learned how to pair those wireless headphones BEFORE getting in the car for a five hour drive. It's challenging to be creative when you have a yellow monster yelling in your ear "Pikaaaa!" or "Pika Pika" or "PikaaaaCHUUUUUUUUU!" with various levels of feelings. I'd actually love to see that voice actor's script because all he says is various inflections of "Pikachu" over and over and over. Finally, the main reason why I'm not at my peak writing finesse is not because of a yellow creature screaming his name in my ear, but mostly because this trip happened over a year ago!!! Almost a year and a half ago!!!!! Jeez louise no wonder why I don't really remember much.

Our last day found us kind of all over the place and headed over to BWV for our final stop of the trip. We spent the morning at Hollywood Studios. I know this because I took this picture:

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Looks like Uncle managed to join us as well. This afternoon when Grizzly took Tigger back to swim my brother and I headed back to Animal Kingdom to finish up our Wilderness Explorer quest. We had to see what happened if you complete every Wilderness Explorer badge. We were certain we were going to earn a real badge, or a high-five, or lots of congratulations, or something amazing. We completed our tasks and headed to the finish kiosk, which of course is the same as the starting kiosk, and proudly showed her our completed booklet. In exchange for our amazing explorer efforts we received.....drum roll please.....a sticker. Blah! We were so dissapointed! We told her they should have real badges, even if you had to buy them. The CM said they received lots of similar requests. After our major let down at the end of our quest we walked sadly back to the busses and made our way over to Epcot. We were having a final supper at Garden Grill.

Garden Grill was a great way to end our trip. My brother seemed to really enjoy himself as he hadn't been to a character meal in years. Tigger had a great time with the characters, and enjoyed how the restaurant was spinning. The food itself was just okay.

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The BWV studios were amazing. We got a newly reneovated room. The decor was light and beachy. The pulldown daybed thing was fantastic. We loved this room too.

Pulldown bed:
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Rest of the room:
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As a summary for our extreme split-stay studio trip, this is what I learned:

1. Studios are not for us. Nope nope nope. I need my own space. We hated that feeling of being trapped in the dark while our Tigger slept. Torture!

2. Resort hopping wasn't bad at all. We had everything down to a science, and while I still prefer to unpack and stay awhile, we managed to have a great trip even with all the hopping. A crazy resort hopping vacation at Disney was waaaaaaaay better than no vacation at all. We had a fantastic time checking out all the resorts, and if it was the only option I wouldn't hesitate to book another crazy resort hopping trip.

3. I liked having my brother join us for the trip. We had fun together, but didn't feel the need to spend every waking moment together. Would definitely travel with him again in the future, and after this trip we did a tree house villa trip together over last Christmas and had a blast there as well.

4. If you do an extreme resort hop, you should definitely also rent a car. It was so nice to have all our things right when we needed them. No waiting for bell services, no wondering when the bags would arrive.

5. Each studio had something great about it. Poly was my favorite, and AKV my least favorite, but I would have a hard time putting an order to OKW, BWV, and BLT. You really can't go wrong with any studio on property, you're going to find something to love. We've now stayed at all of them except Beach Club, and I can honestly say I could have a great vacation at any one of them.

6. Don't wait a year and a half to finish a trip report! So on this note, I'm off to start my next one. Good news is, I have a laptop with me this time, and even if I don't finish immediately, this coming semester I have no new classes, so I should have more time for writing.

Thanks for your patience. Happy New Year!
 
So glad you were able to finish your report! I was looking forward to your thoughts on the Poly as that's where we plan to stay next. I prefer a 1BR for the space, full kitchen, and w/d, but we'll be staying studios for awhile probably to be able to stay longer or go more frequently (until we can get some more points!). The kid sleeping thing isn't as much of a problem for us because we prefer to sit on the balcony and don't really watch TV on vacation, so if we want to sit inside we can piddle on our devices. We usually sit on the balcony though, we prefer to be outside.
 
So glad you were able to finish your report! I was looking forward to your thoughts on the Poly as that's where we plan to stay next. I prefer a 1BR for the space, full kitchen, and w/d, but we'll be staying studios for awhile probably to be able to stay longer or go more frequently (until we can get some more points!). The kid sleeping thing isn't as much of a problem for us because we prefer to sit on the balcony and don't really watch TV on vacation, so if we want to sit inside we can piddle on our devices. We usually sit on the balcony though, we prefer to be outside.

I think you will love the Poly! It was so wonderful. I almost think it's worth the crazy direct cost. Almost. We had a ground floor unit so sitting outside was nice because I could easily run all over the resort without going back inside and risk waking up Tigger.

This current trip without napping we are finding our studio stay much more enjoyable.
 

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